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Surakarta gearing up for Chinese New Year festivities
Surakarta residents will be treated to a number of traditional Chinese performances, displayed alongside Javanese culture, in a variety of events to celebrate Chinese New Year 2565 â or Imlek as the celebration is more popularly called â which will fall on Jan
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urakarta residents will be treated to a number of traditional Chinese performances, displayed alongside Javanese culture, in a variety of events to celebrate Chinese New Year 2565 ' or Imlek as the celebration is more popularly called ' which will fall on Jan. 31 this year.
This year, celebrations will be merrier than ever as the Solo Imlek Festival is being held for the first time.
Six associations from communities of Chinese-Indonesian descent in Surakarta (which is widely known as Solo), have been preparing for the festival, which will be held from Jan. 23 to 29.
The six associations are the Surakarta People's Union (PMS), Fu Qing, Surakarta Hakka Association (Perhakkas), Makin Solo, Hoo Hap and the Ganton Solo People's Union (Perwagas).
At least five different agendas have been prepared by the celebration's organizing committee. Some 1,200 participants will be on the streets to remove nails from trees. The environmentally friendly activity will be followed by the Solo Imlek Festival's Grebeg Sudiro ethnic ritual, the Cap Go Meh celebration featuring a parade of Lion and Dragon dances (Barongsai and Liong) and also the joint Imlek celebration that will be held at the city's Pendapi Gedhe hall.
'Imlek is celebrated in Solo annually. With the Imlek festival, hopefully the Imlek tradition in the city will be recognized nationally,' chairman of the celebration's organizing committee, Tanu Kismanto, said recently.
It is expected that the festival, which will be held in front of the Vastenburg Fortress, will become a medium to introduce ethnic Chinese traditions to the public, as existing cultural acculturation is set to become one of the festival's focuses.
Some 80 booths, both business and social in nature, to be situated near the center of the city's Imlek celebration at the Gladag at Jl. Mayor Sunaryo and Jl. Sudirman area, are expected to bolster the program.
'Many people gather at Gladag during Imlek,' Tanu said.
Since the beginning of this year, thousands of decorative lanterns have decorated Pasar Gede market and the Jl. Sudirman corridor.
No less than 2,000 decorative fixtures have been prepared by the organizing committee for the celebration, including lanterns and neon boxes depicting the 12 shio (animal signs of the Chinese horoscope), to be installed along Jl. Sudirman.
Local Chinese cultural observer Aryanto Wong said that the Imlek celebrations in Surakarta had been well organized. Some of the programs, such as Grebeg Sudiro, believed to be the proof of acculturation between local and Chinese cultures, had even been included in the city's calendar of events.
Grebeg Sudiro first emerged in 2008 during the first Imlek celebration in the city.
It is a combination of the local tradition called grebeg and Chinese tradition, and features two gunungan (giant cone-shaped offerings) made from special Chinese kue keranjang (glutinous rice cakes) being paraded around the city, accompanied by a Chinese barongsai lion dance and East Javanese reog ponorogo dance.
'This has given the Imlek celebration in Solo a specific character,' Aryanto said.
Before 1998, during the Soeharto era, Chinese-Indonesians in Surakarta were banned from public Imlek celebrations.
In 2000, Abdurrahman 'Gus Dur' Wahid overturned the ban, followed by a decree issued by Megawati Soekarnoputri in 2002 making Imlek a national holiday.
