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Chinese New Year means empathy, sensitivity
Chinese New Year celebrations become meaningful when the Chinese-Indonesian ethnic group can present and place itself together with other national elements to be part of the solution.
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New Year celebrations: Chinese New Year ornaments featuring rabbits are being sold across the Glodok Chinatown Market area. (JP/Yohana Belinda) (JP/Yohana Belinda)
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hinese-Indonesians will join ethnic Chinese across the world in celebrating the Lunar New Year with the rabbit zodiac sign in the water element. In Chinese mythology, the rabbit zodiac sign is assigned a variety of characteristics, including fertility, sensitivity, calm, peace and serenity, but at the same time the tendency to be moody.
The water element is a symbol of the main energy in life. Where there is water, there is life. It is hoped that by combining the rabbit zodiac sign and the element of water, the various problems of life can be unraveled and resolved, resulting in an atmosphere of harmony, calm and peace, and abundant blessings.
In the context of diverse social and national life, Chinese New Year celebrations become meaningful when the Chinese-Indonesian ethnic group can present and place itself together with other national elements to be part of the solution to ease the burdens and problems of life that are currently plaguing the nation.
The late Wimar Witoelar, in his book Sweet Nothing (2014), said that tragedy in Indonesia is that the situation of ordinary people is getting worse while the middle- and upper-income-bracket levels are becoming more insensitive. When someone is classified as middle or upper class, their relationship with ordinary people's culture is frequently released. It was a culture gap that gave birth to culture shock.
It is a shared concern that the Chinese New Year will come amid various trials of national life that come one after another and seem to never subside. Even though COVID-19 curbs have been lifted, the pandemic is not over yet.
There are latent disasters in the form of earthquakes, floods and landslides, as well as strong winds, all occurring at the same time. The devastating earthquake in Cianjur, West Java, followed by subsequent temblors in several other areas toward the end of 2022, claimed hundreds of lives and displaced thousands of others, which is still our shared grief.
Elsewhere in East Java, the emergency-response status of Mount Semeru's eruption has again inflicted a traumatic effect on residents who remain in shelters. On New Year's Eve, Central Java was surrounded by floods. Many houses and public facilities were submerged, and access to transportation was paralyzed.
