Cempaka Culture and Tourism: Indonesian 'Lucky' Cake Bakers Busy Ahead of Chinese New Year

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …”

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Indonesian 'Lucky' Cake Bakers Busy Ahead of Chinese New Year

Jakarta Globe, Lenita Sulthani, February 09, 2010

Basket cakes ready for delivery. (JG Photo/Safir Makki)

For most people, Chinese New Year and the Muslim feast of Eid al Fitr have little in common except that they’re both determined by the phases of the moon.

But for Indonesian cook Umar Sanjaya, both celebrations are the busiest time of the year, when his signature “basket” cakes, made of sweetened, sticky, glutinous rice, are in high demand.

From their home west of the capital Jakarta, Sanjaya, 44, and his mother Lauw, 84, have been making the cakes for the past 50 years, using the same traditional technique and recipe.

With the Chinese Year of the Tiger set to start on Sunday, Sanjaya’s business is booming, with about 200 people working around the clock to fill orders from Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese, who traditionally use the cakes as offerings to the Kitchen God.

“We only produce basket cakes twice a year, every Eid al Fitr and Chinese New Year,” said Sanjaya, who makes more than 2,000 cakes a day in the lead-up to the Chinese lunar new year.

Business at the bakery took off in 2000, when then-president Abdurrahman Wahid scrapped a decree that banned ethnic Chinese from celebrating their new year in public.

Sanjaya only makes the round cakes to order, and receives orders from customers up to three months in advance.

The cakes, called nin gao or year cake in Chinese, are steamed in banana leaves, producing a sticky texture.

Teddy, a customer who has been buying basket cakes from the home bakery for the past 10 years, said the cakes were valued as good luck symbols and that Sanjaya’s simply tasted better.

“His cake is better than others, the others use machine to grind the sticky rice, here, they are pounded manually. That is why we can still eat the cake even after two months,” she said.

Making up only 3 percent of the population, but with a heavy influence over the economy, the ethnic Chinese have historically been resented by many in Indonesia, home to the world’s largest population of Muslims.

Reuters

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