Welcoming the New Year In a Time-Honored Way

Jakarta Globe, Lisa Siregar

Fireworks explode next to Jakarta landmark Welcome Statue

A year ago, I spent New Year’s Eve on an apartment balcony, watching the fireworks across the city with a good friend of mine. The view was amazing — especially when we caught the silhouette of a couple making love on the balcony of their apartment in the tower across from ours.

We reviewed our year, recalled some of 2008’s finest moments and enjoyed our monthly dose of MSG by way of a huge bag of potato chips. We agreed it was a nice way to start the new year.

This year, however, I was at a loss when it came to deciding how to celebrate. The nation was mourning the passing of two prominent figures: former President Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, who passed away on Wednesday, and former Finance Minister Frans Seda, who passed away less than 24 hours later.

This was gloomy news to end the decade on as both men were known for their hard work in support of pluralism.

So my friend Salim and I were not really sure about how to celebrate on Thursday night. We felt it would be inconsiderate to party hard, and we just weren’t in the mood for dressing up and hitting the town.

We ended up with no plans beyond Salim’s intention to cook dinner and maybe stroll downtown before midnight — something I had never done before.

I arrived at Salim’s place hours early and watched him light red candles on the balcony of his apartment. Salim is Chinese and believes that the color red brings good luck. He also told me not to do the dishes after dinner, because according to the tradition for Lunar New Year, it would wash the prosperity away. This despite me reminding him that it was the Roman New Year we were celebrating.

“You know, Gus Dur would be proud to see us. We can’t celebrate New Year any more pluralistically than this,” I said.

Although the city government had announced that it was moving the annual New Year’s celebration from Monas, Central Jakarta, to Ancol, North Jakarta, at 8 p.m., a local news portal announced that people had started to flock to Central Jakarta. So, after cooking a mouth-watering dinner, we decided to head to the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle on Jalan Sudirman and Jalan Thamrin.

I have seen pictures of New Year’s celebrations at the traffic circle many times, but it was far more intense and exciting to be there in person, together with thousands of others who had braved the traffic to join the public celebration.

Children were running around playing, and adults were busy taking photos with their mobile phones. In the air hung a mixture of cigarette smoke, firecracker smoke and the fumes from vehicle emissions. Every few minutes we stopped to take photos and watch the fireworks being fired into the air by revelers.

After staying at the traffic circle for about 15 minutes to survey the scene, we headed for Merdeka Square, and by midnight we had arrived at Monas, where everything was in confusion because the official countdown had moved to Ancol.

There were at least three rounds of people wishing each other “Happy New Year!” according to their own time pieces, and we joined in enthusiastically each time, until we realized that there was a huge analog clock on one of the nearby buildings, giving the “official” time.

By the end of the evening I was exhausted but happy because I was with a friend and with my countrymen, sharing a memorable experience. And despite breaking my favorite pair of sandals on the long walk to Monas, spending New Year’s Eve this way was an eye-opener that was worth the trouble.

Salim said it was “a gentle reminder for us that there are people out there who probably cannot go to the comfortable spaces we go to every day.”

Thank you, my friend, for the experience and the wisdom and new cultural values I learned. The steak was good, too.