Gong Xi Fat Choi! Happy chinese new year 2560! I know this post is 5 days too late, but I’m really busy at work. I currently enrolling regular a class after office hour, it is really tiring my mind even to write anything.
As you probably know, chinese new year is considered one of the most important holiday in chinese calendar. Chinese living in Indonesian is lucky, this practice actually was considered forbidden during Soeharto’s presidency, and I just realized it was part of systematic cultural genocide to chinese descent in Indonesia (the other was prohibition of speaking chinese language in all form).
Ijust very recently aware that the practice forbidden, celebrating chinese new year is our annual tradition never crossed in my mind that it was actually against law.
Anyway, put that aside, I used to think Chinese New year is an annual event where we visit our families and relatives and robbing them for angpao (the money-filled red envolope), it was wrong of course! Can’t be helped since I was just little kid and it was nice to get extra money outside your monthly allowance. 
Compared to other chinese families, I’m not too chinese, I’m not really celebrating like our counterpart from totok or mainland chinese due to mixed culture (chinese, dutch, javanese, and oh, we love celebrating party like manadonesse people).
We don’t go to temples or offering sacrifices to the dead (some from christian mock this practice because it against bible, they said), because we don’t really feel it’s our custom. Most of my families are either christian or catholics, only few are buddhist or could speak mandarin.
I guess that what makes chinese Indonesian are unique, their detachment from chinese culture and language makes them inclusive community, but they are still practicing the custom partially.
Still, ethnicity and religion still matter, most of the chinese still reluctant to let their children marry someone from other ethnicity, and their religion should be same as well, because our government forbids interfaith marriage, which is unfortunate, and religion is like matter of death and life in Indonesia. I could complain it like forever, but nothing will change, so I will make sure my future wife is atheist/agnostic.
Now the interesting part, SBY democrat party, PDIP, and countless other political party now using this occassion to gain sympathy from chinese voters. PDIP for example, putting chinese new year greeting (????) in their political ads everywhere. Will it affect this year’s election? Let’s wait and see.
I hope you all shall have a great year in this Year of Ox. Gong xi fat choi once again! :
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