If you can freely listen to your favorite songs, consider yourself lucky. Such an opportunity would have been considered a privilege by Chinese-Indonesians living in Jakarta during the New Order Era, when they had to tiptoe around to listen to their favorite Mandarin songs.

Local radio station Cakrawala — now 98.3 FM Mandarin Station — was the first to take the daring step of airing Mandarin songs while antichinese sentiment was on the rise.

Established in 1971 in Jakarta’s Chinatown of Glodok, West Jakarta, the station would often slip famous Taiwanese diva Teresa Teng’s songs and other Mandarin songs in between Indonesian songs.

Another trick pulled by the station was airing Mandarin songs translated into Indonesian.

It was only after Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid took over the presidency in 2004 that antichinese laws were revoked and the station could openly air top-charting Mandarin songs under its new name, Mandarin Station.

“Once Gus Dur became president, the tap was turned on. Mandarin songs were finally allowed to be aired and we saw an increase in the number of listeners,” Mandarin Station spokeswoman Leonita told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Embracing the Chinese-Indonesian community, the radio announcers — who are also of Chinese descent — use a mix Mandarin and Indonesian on air.

The stations’ playlist mainly comprises Mandarin songs, with a set of old songs ready to take its older group of listeners down memory lane every morning.

Newer Mandarin pop songs are also aired for the rest of the day to cater to younger listeners.

“It is a daring choice to run a community radio station. Many people would say it is too segmented but the reason why we’ve been able to survive this long is because the community itself has a very strong bond,” Leonita said.

Though she claimed the radio station had no competitors at the moment, Leonita conceded that the rapid development of technology had pushed the station to make several adjustments.

The shift meant the station needed to engage with younger listeners aged 20 to 30 years old by creating programs suitable for the age group. The radio station slates an hour every Thursday for an inspiring success stories program where established names in various fields are invited to share their success stories among other programs.

“I host the Sheng Huo ABC program where I talk about lifestyle, like giving out tips on work and relationships, as well as recommendations on hangout spots,” announcer Alexandria Dori Nataly said.

Engagement with listeners is also done through social media and off-air events as part of efforts to follow the technological trends of millennials, known for their social media habits.

“Even though we have been around since the 1970s, we do not want to be considered as an old school radio station,” she said.

The radio station, for example, recently wrapped an online audition for its upcoming singing competition, The Voice of Mandarin Station, to be held from Feb. 14 to 17 in West Jakarta.

Though it will be the fourth time that such a competition will be held to celebrate Chinese New Year, which falls on Feb. 5 this year, the auditions this time around were different: Auditionees, aged between 15 and 50 years old, were required to send an audio or video recording of their singing via WhatsApp.

Singer Louis Junriari, 22, who had sent in his audition tape, was expecting to join the competition for the third time around. He said the competition’s judges, who followed the Mandarin music industry closely, had become his reason for taking part in the competition again.(ars)

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