Lunar New Year celebrated in Peranakan Chinese Way

Ida Indawati Khouw, Contributor, The Jakarta Post

It was a silent midnight. The orchestral chirps of crickets, cicadas and frogs were suddenly broken by the deafening sounds of a drum, cymbals and a small gong from a tiny Tjo Su Bio temple located close to a Chinese graveyard.

Welcome to Kampung Sewan Kebon, a Chinese village in Tangerang, just west of Jakarta, where the community still tightly embraces its ancestral way of life.

The residents were performing their traditional music to welcome in Imlek, or Chinese New Year (which, this year, fell on Feb. 12). Soon dozens of people congregated at the temple to prepare for a ritual. They had spent the evening at the temple verandah waiting for midnight.

Women, some of them in their baby-doll pajamas or daster nightgowns, mixed with men waiting for their turn to pray and welcome Imlek, which traditionally coincides with the Spring season in mainland China.

They began by burning incense and praying to Thian, the Supreme God. A Thian shrine has been built in the front yard of the temple.

Then they prayed in praise of Sin Beng (Saint) Tjo Su Kong, the main saint of the temple, and of other saints immortalized by six shrines.

The music played continuously while people took it in turn to pray for safety in the coming year.

But the drum changed to a vigorous beat that sounded like drumming up a war. The atmosphere turned suspenseful, keeping the audience guessing what might happen next. A few minutes later the drummer, Hok Lay, was possessed by a spirit.

Abruptly, Hok Lay stopped beating the drum and jumped to the front of the Tjo Su Kong shrine and performed Kung Fu-like movements for a few minutes before he spun with dizziness.

"(The spirit of) kong co (ancestor) was coming," said Naga Sugiarta, who is believed to have a sixth sense, after calming the drummer down.

"Kong co responded to our prayer, but I don't know which kong co possessed Hok Lay. There is no way to identify the spirit," said Naga. There are many kong co in the Chinese belief.

Hok Lay could not recall what had happened. "I just felt that a certain power has helped me beat the drum, I was totally unaware of what was going on," said the heavily sweating drummer.

Earlier, a spirit had also possessed college student Ricky who beat the drum during a prayer session at 8 p.m.

Coming from the surrounding area as well as from faraway kampongs, the Chinese had flocked there since about 8 p.m. at the Tjo Su Bio temple, the time to initiate the new year ritual.

Typical Chinese physical features, such as almond-shaped eyes and light-colored skin, could hardly be seen among the crowd. Most of them seemed to have dark skin and round eyes.

It is difficult to physically differentiate them from indigenous residents. Their kampong is easily recognized. Houses are decorated with Chinese paraphernalia, which adorn the entrance, and also shrines inside the houses. They address their families using Hokkian kinship terms.

Indeed, they belong to the Peranakan Chinese, the offspring of mixed marriages between the Chinese and indigenous Indonesians, most of whom were farmers.

"We are called Bi Ke, short for mama bibi papa singke (indigenous Indonesian mother and very Chinese father)," said Yap Tjun Hien, referring to the Chinese of (mostly) Hokkian sub- ethnic origin.

Beside those in West Kalimantan, Sewan Kebon and some other suburbs of Tangerang, are areas where Chinese farmers are found, according to Japanese researcher Hiroko Yamamoto.

"It is related to the ownership of land by Chinese landlords in the past," says Yamamoto, who did research on the community.

In Indonesia, local Chinese are known as businesspeople.

Yamamoto said that, unlike before, Chinese-Indonesians were no longer dominant in the areas, except at Mekarsari and Sewan districts, where the Chinese community was still about 60 percent of the total population.

But as a community, they still preserved better their traditions than Chinese from other places in Jakarta.

"People still come here (the temple) during traditional celebrations even though they are no longer Taoist, Confucian or Buddhist," said Tjan Lian Hong, a religious teacher at the Tjo Su Bio temple.

That night Tjo Su Bio was packed with people who spent the whole night greeting the new year. When the clock struck 12 midnight they wished each other, "Sin cun kiong hie", the Hokkian words for "Happy spring".