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Catholic students learn about tolerance during Cap Go Meh celebration
Twenty five students from Maria Goretty junior high school in Semarang, Central Java, visited the Chinese Tay Kak Sie temple, one of the oldest in the city, during the Cap Go Meh celebration on Saturday.
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Students from Maria Goretty junior high school in Semarang, Central Java, visited the Chinese Tay Kak Sie temple during the Cap Go Meh celebration on Saturday. (JP/Suherdjoko)
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wenty five students from Maria Goretty junior high school in Semarang, Central Java, visited the Chinese Tay Kak Sie temple, one of the oldest in the city, during the Cap Go Meh celebration on Saturday.
Cap Go Meh is a Chinese celebration observed 15 days after Chinese New Year, locally known as Imlek.
“We take them here to see how followers of other faiths celebrate their religious festivals and also how they worship. This is meant to teach them about tolerance from an early age,” Tutut Purwaningsih, one of the teachers, said.
The students said it was their first visit to the Chinese temple, which was built in the 18th century and has now become a place of worship for the followers of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism.
“This was my first visit here. I wrote down all the names of the Gods,” Octavianus Benny, one of the students, said.
Hariyanto, the secretary of the foundation that manages the temple, was asked by the students why the temple has so many Gods.
“This is a form of respect to our ancestors. In our religion, we are obligated to respect our ancestors […] some of the Gods were once good people who spent their whole lives helping people. We call them Gods. This is our culture,” he said. (ary)
