M

y compliments to your reporter: Andreas D. Arditya for his in-depth reporting on “New Year bustle in Jakarta’s Chinatown” in Feb. 3.

Indeed, if it was not for former president Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, the Chinese would have become “Cino dudu, Jowo dudu” (not Chinese, nor Javanese) because they would have all become rootless and left without an identity.

In citing Imlek as uttered by Akwet but also by most people in Indonesia for the Chinese New Year, I must emphasize that this is a misnomer.

Imlek means “lunar calendar”. Again the Tahun Baru Imlek is incorrect in the sense that the lunar calendar is in fact the Islamic calendar which is based on the cycle of the moon and a lunar calendar year consists of 354 - 355 days making it 11 days shorter than the Gregorian calendar.

So the traditional Chinese New Year is the first day of the calendar used by the Han people and now called New Spring.

It is known in China as the Spring Festival. A festival for the populace of an agrarian society, celebrated since before the time of Confucius by China and the countries of the Confucian Cultural Circle, namely Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

After the dissolution of the Han cultural circle, these countries resorted to the Gregorian calendar with Jan. 1 for the New Year.

In Singapore and Malaysia, the New Year is celebrated as the Chinese New Year.

If the word Imlek is safe to perpetuate, leave the mistake uncorrected as it is and let the Chinese observe this festival which from time immemorial has been the most significant event of the year.

In the olden days, the common New Year greeting of our forefathers was simply “Sin Tjhoen Kiong Hie” or “Happy New Spring” but later people were contaminated by the materialistic thoughts prevalent in Hong Kong, wishing everyone Gong Xi Fa Cai or Kong Hee Fat Choi (Cantonese for congratulations on making money or getting rich).

Times have changed. The Koreans were the advocates of filial piety to parents as taught by Confucius but not anymore. They have been carried away by the whirlwind of Gangnam Style.