After doing a bit of blogwalking today, I just realized that Chinese all over the world are celebrating mooncake festival today! Being raised in a country where its government used to suppress everything related to Chinese culture (and the fact that I don’t even have a Chinese name), I barely remember anything about Mooncake festival. The only memory I have is just the mooncake, which then I realized that mooncake is different from kue kranjang (Nian Gao (年糕) or Tii Kwee (甜棵) in Hokkien, says Wikipedia). So yeah… apparently I never celebrate this kue bulan festival… no memory whatsoever.. My bad, apparently after reading Kue Bulan in Wikipedia, I realized that I’ve been eating this lovely delicate for years~ but I know ‘em as thiong chiu pia!!!!1
Why is that? Probably because there is no autumn in Indonesia (we only have two season: hot and hotter), or maybe because I’m just being so isolated from chinese culture. But anyways, it is kinda interesting to see how Chinese Indonesian put themselves on the Indonesian society for the next 10-20 years. I think I’m one of the last generation that never have Chinese language taught freely in the class. Nowdays, they even start teaching mandarin in the kindergarten! Heck, I still remember that my first English lesson was when I’m already on the 4th grade :(
So looking at this new generation, I wonder if they are going to speak mandarin fluently as their mother tongue, or local language will still be the first choice. Back in Semarang, I know that almost all my Chinese friends speak Javanese fluently (when I say fluently, that means using it as social language), I even know some friends that speak Javanese better than Indonesian, or at least having difficulties speaking Indonesian without putting one or two Javanese words :p But that should not be surprising, considering that we have to take Javanese language class for at least 9 years, from grade 1 elementary to end of junior high (some senior high school also require Javanese, thank God I did not have to take it for another three years). Now, do you think this new found freedom will change that? Will Indonesian Chinese back to their root, and find themselves in a similar position to Malaysian Chinese? Or are they going to assimilate with the local culture, and change to a totally new culture (American born Chinese?)
