Chinese New Year significant in Pontianak

Chinese New Year significant in Pontianak

By Edi Petebang

PONTIANAK, West Kalimantan (JP): Recently the sound of
clinking cymbals accompanying the Lion Dance has become a part of
afternoon life here at a newly-renovated Chinese temple on Budi
Utomo Street. A number of Chinese elders are teaching youngsters
to perform the Dragon and the Lion Dances, cultural pieces
performed to highlight the Chinese Lunar New Year and Cap Go Meh,
a festival on the 15th day of Chinese lunar new year marking the
end of new year celebrations. Some temples have been freshly
decorated and re-painted. What is obvious to the eye is that
Chinese festivals are now openly celebrated.

The atmosphere of Chinese Lunar New Year welcomes us the
moment we enter local book and stationery shops, in the same
spirit as before Idul Fitri and Christmas Day. Chinese Lunar New
Year cards are prominent in such shops. "These cards are in quite
good demand. Mostly teenagers and youngsters buy them," said a
street vendor.

The cards, predominantly red in color, are available at
between Rp 800 and Rp 1,500 each. Some of them are imported from
Malaysia and Singapore. They have different culturally specific
motifs such as caricatures of Chinese gods, ritual symbols and
calligraphy.

Other accessories are used in the celebration of the Chinese
lunar new year number 2551, which falls on Feb. 5 this year.
Chinese paper lanterns, miniature citrus trees and red pineapples
and Chinese dolls are all traditional Chinese new year ornaments
and lend a merry atmosphere to the holiday.

Fireworks are also sold. To the Chinese community, it is
traditional to burn fireworks to welcome the New Year. According
to Chinese legend, the agricultural harvest of one village was
attacked by Nien, a sort of tiger which is now depicted as the
lion in the Lion Dance. The male villagers made a fearsome noise
to drive away the animal. This triumph of the villagers over evil
has since been commemorated as the Chinese Lunar New Year, an
occasion to express gratitude to God.

The fearsome noise is now symbolized by the fireworks,
firecrackers and a red paper talisman containing a magic formula
to drive away the evil Nien.

Chinese Indonesians constitute about .... percent of the
population here, but in Singkawang city, Sambas regency, the
ethnic Chinese residents make up 70 percent of the city's total
population of 85,116. They have prepared the celebration of the
new year with a number of activities such as a Festival of
Mandarin Songs and Lion and Dragon Dance shows.

The hustle and bustle in welcoming the Chinese Lunar New Year
is now a common sight. Ethnic Chinese residents are now free to
express their arts, culture and beliefs. Since the onset of the
reform, a number of Chinese shops selling items for Confucian
ancestral prayer services have emerged here. Unlike during the
New Order era, bookshops now freely sell accessories for Chinese
Lunar New Year celebrations. It is big business here -- in
Pontianak municipality the ethnic Chinese residents account for
32 percent of a total population of 383,157.

"We are free now," said a vendor.

The celebration of the Chinese Lunar New Year in 2000 is
particularly significant to the Indonesian Chinese community.
First, there is no ban on public new year celebrations. Second,
this year's Chinese lunar calendar ushers in the Year of the
Golden Dragon, the Chinese astrological symbol which appears once
every 60 years. According to XF Asali, a Chinese community figure
in West Kalimantan, the Year of the Golden Dragon is a much
anticipated year.

"This is an auspicious year for your luck, business, weddings
and child birth, a year marked with soil fertility and expected
to result in bumper harvests," he said.

Freedom

The ethnic Chinese community has regained their freedom to
profess their own religion and beliefs and to celebrate their
traditional festivals following a decree by President Abdurrahman
Wahid, Presidential Decree No. 6/2000 dated Jan. 17, 2000, which
annuls Presidential Instruction No. 14/1967. The annulled
presidential instruction restricted the ethnic Chinese community
from carrying out activities based on Chinese religion, beliefs
and tradition. During this period, at the occasion of the annual
Chinese Lunar New Year, the central government and regional
administrations restricted the Chinese community to celebrations
of the lunar new year only within the family and local temples.

Although the Chinese Lunar New Year this year is special, the
Chinese community in West Kalimantan has opted not to celebrate
it on a grand scale or in public places. Leaders of the Bakti
Suci Foundation and the Marga Bakti Association, both the largest
organizations of West Kalimantan's ethnic Chinese community in
charge of some 45 foundations, have called on their members to
celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year in a simple manner.

"We must place simplicity above everything because the
Indonesian people are now being troubled with riots and economic
crisis," said Halim Tredjo, chairman of the Bakti Suci
Foundation.

Parades of Lion and Dragon Dances will be held only within the
Chinese temples.

In West Kalimantan there are very rich Chinese as well as
quite a lot of poor ones. The history and the social, economic
and political conditions of ethnic Chinese in West Kalimantan are
different from those of ethnic Chinese in other regions,
particularly in Java. In Java many ethnic Chinese belong to the
upper middle class; in West Kalimantan on average they belong to
the lower middle class.

In Singkawang, most of the Chinese earn their living as manual
laborers, farmers, fishermen, housemaids, porters, small-scale
vendors, civil servants, members of the armed forces and
legislators. To survive, not a few of them earn a living as sex
workers. In Siantan Hulu and Siantan Tengah, in Pontianak
municipality, it is easy to find landless Chinese farmers growing
papayas, vegetables, corn and aloe.

So although the Chinese Lunar New Year this year is special,
most in Singkawang will not celebrate it publicly or grandly.