Seeing red over locals' Chinese New Year behavior

Seeing red over locals' Chinese New Year behavior

Natalia Soebagjo, Center for Chinese Studies, Jakarta

Everyone saw red on Chinese New Year's Day. Walk into any
shopping mall and you could see the place festooned with red
lanterns, red mock firecrackers, red paper decorations and red
banners with gold characters wishing you prosperity. You could
not get away from the color red. Likewise on television. The
color red jumped at you from almost all the channels.

Presenters and celebrities wore mandarin collars, and funny,
little round hats. One presenter even wore a Chinese bridal
costume with what looked like a chopstick jutting out from her
hair bun. In short, anything Chinese suddenly became a novelty.
Chinoiserie is now officially "in".

I too was seeing red in the real sense of the idiom, angry and
annoyed, because this sudden awareness of the existence of the
ethnic Chinese living among us only underscores the insensitivity
and ignorance of the majority of Indonesians. It is as if we are
able to recognize the ethnic Chinese Indonesians, their
traditions and their way of life only because it is so decreed by
the government, which finally declared Chinese New Year a public
holiday.

Have we been totally blind to the fact that our nation's
history has always been closely linked to China and the ethnic
Chinese, or, as in Onghokham's words, that the Chinese are "an
integral part of the Indonesian nation as any other group"?
Apparently so.

Thousands of years ago, and, some even say, as early as 1000
BC, migrants from China had already arrived on our shores. Even
our great kingdom of Sriwijaya became known to historians and the
world through Chinese accounts. For centuries since we have
traded with the Chinese, while some settled here and intermarried
with the natives, blending different lifestyles together.

To this day we can still see traces of Chinese influence in
our own "Indonesian" culture, local customs and even language.
Ethnic Chinese have also made their contributions and left their
mark in our political and economic histories.

Admittedly, this evolutionary assimilation process was long in
the making but was resilient enough to weather the political
turbulence throughout our history. Unfortunately, this gradual
evolution was disrupted by Soeharto's policy of forced
assimilation.

His policy dulled our sensitivities and forced us into denial
for some 30 years. Ethnic Chinese Indonesians had to deny their
cultural and historical roots, whilst the rest of us had to deny
that they also helped build this nation.

Now we have swung to the other extreme and are left with
confusion. The May 1998 tragedy shocked the ethnic Chinese into
an awareness of their ethnicity but since then, and particularly
with the fall of Soeharto, there have been stronger demands for
the recognition of their rights.

For many, it was a traumatic way of rediscovering one's
identity. The recent acknowledgement of Chinese New Year as a
public holiday, however, is a much more pleasant way to remind
the ethnic Chinese of their heritage.

Is it a public holiday based on religious or cultural grounds?
If it is based on religious grounds the government is indirectly
acknowledging that Confucianism is an official religion. If so,
why are so many ethnic Chinese couples who profess Confucianism
as their faith still unacceptable and have such difficulty in
getting married?

If the acknowledgement is for cultural reasons -- as the
Chinese worldwide consider the coming of spring a time of
celebration and renewal -- what is there to stop other ethnic
groups from demanding their own public holiday? But such
questions are brushed off as minor details that should not get in
the way of the greater intention of recognizing our pluralism.

The irony is that there are many ethnic Chinese who are also
confused by this state of affairs. With the pribumi's sudden
curiosity of all things Chinese, our fellow Indonesians who
appear to be of ethnic Chinese ancestry are being asked all sorts
of questions about Chinese New Year and how they celebrate it,
when all the while many have never observed it in the
traditionally prescribed manner.

Many do not even know what they are supposed to do as the new
year approaches; they do not quite understand the significance of
reunion dinners with their families on Chinese New Year's eve and
the symbolic meaning of special New Year cuisine. Many no longer
carry out the customs of New Year's day, such as a prohibition on
the use of coarse language and that all debts must be paid off.

Few of the younger generation pay their respects to their
elders without prompting and elders do not practice the giving of
red packets to the young and unmarried. How many know that the
seventh day of the Chinese New Year is considered the birthday of
all people and is celebrated by the tossing of raw fish salad or
that the New Year celebrations last for 15 days?

What we have now is the commercialism of Chinese New Year,
which unfortunately has manifested itself everywhere. However,
this excess is understandable given the suppression of past
decades.

It is as if the Chinese cultural revival is coming out in full
vengeance, with Mandarin films, serials and pop groups constantly
on television, Mandarin newspapers and books freely sold in
bookshops, Mandarin language courses openly offered and even a
radio station that airs in Mandarin.

Once the partying is over, however, we should examine deeper
the more important issue of resolving the discrimination still
faced by ethnic Chinese Indonesians today.

Many discriminatory policies still need to be revoked, and, if
already revoked, need to be resolutely enforced. It is so
embarrassing that even prominent individuals who have contributed
to our nation's achievements and prestige still have difficulty
obtaining their citizenship documents (SBKRI) as in the recent
case of Hendrawan and Ivana Lie in the past.

Such cases only serve to show that the ethnic Chinese are
often perceived as cash cows and easy prey for extortion by the
bureaucracy. Some even wonder how long this current wave of
tolerance will last and fear that it might create a backlash if
there is a sudden change in the regime or political mood.

Our nationhood is so fragile that every effort should be made
to move forward, away from just recognition and tolerance
toward full acceptance. Acceptance also means genuine respect
for our differences, not condescension.

We should refrain from stereotyping and from making a mockery
of the differences, whether in private or in public. Chinese New
Year is not simply a matter of seeing red all around but a time
for renewed hope and working together for a better future. A
future which should include everyone and build upon the long
accumulated wealth of knowledge and experience of all in our
colorful ethnic patchwork that we call Indonesia.