The Jakarta Globe, Titania Veda, January 23, 2009
Deep in the bustling heart of Glodok, West Jakarta, lies Jalan Kemenangan III. The busy street overflows with vendors selling textiles, cellular phones, flowers and food, all vying for space and attention. Pedestrians, motorcyclists, pedicabs and carts weave in and out along the narrow brick lane. A popular Hong Kong song from the 1960s plays from a row of compact shops, and a barongsai , or lion dance, takes place in front of a store.
Splashes of scarlet are seen in items on sale throughout the small street, from Chinese-style pajamas for toddlers to ang pao envelopes to hold money given on Chinese holidays. Lamps and paper dragons hang from trees above a wet market where merchants sell a variety of fruits.
This street is also home to Jin De Yuan, the city’s oldest Chinese temple, also called a kelenteng . The temple was built in 1650 by a Chinese lieutenant by the name of Guo Xun-Gan to honor Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy.
Under a small pavilion in a square outside the temple is a large golden hio lo , a place where joss sticks are burned, filled to the brim with ashes. It is the first port of call for those who come to pray and represents Giok Hong Siong Te, the God of Heaven. Clutching a bouquet of lit incense sticks, supplicants bow several times in prayer before placing them into the urn.
Beside a fenced garden, calico and tabby cats laze. A man reads a Mandarin newspaper, while beside him, a gray-haired woman sits quietly with red plastic bags on her lap. Although she cannot recall her age, Lim Lee Qui Fung states with certainty that she has been a regular at Jin De Yuan for the past 40 years.
“I can pray for five hours here. No one disturbs me,” Lim says.
The caretakers and temple staff greet Lim as they pass by. Every few minutes, she takes a sheet of kim chua, a gold ritual banknote, out of one of her plastic bags, walks to a smoldering gray stone urn at the corner of the square, and drops the note in. The golden paper turns to ash and smoke as it burns, lifting her prayers up to the skies. “I pray for my family, my grandchildren, my community and country,” Lim says.
Greeting visitors at the temple entrance stands a statue of the jolly-faced Chai Sen, the God of Prosperity. He wears a colorful robe, his hands raised to the sky as if giving thanks for the profusion of oranges, pears and apples offered on the ornately carved table beside him. Sunlight streaming in from the courtyard behind pierces a gunmetal gray fog wafting from the smouldering incense. The glowing incense spreads a sharp musky smell and also stings the eyes.
Clad in a soiled blue T-shirt with his glasses perched on his red baseball cap, a Tionghoa, or Chinese-Indonesian, named Yayan sits amid a mountain of magenta-colored incense. By his side are a pile of red candles and kim chua banknotes.
Yayan says that the bundles of incense, candles and gold paper form a Chinese New Year packet that he sells for Rp 17,000 ($1.51) to visitors.
The interior of the temple is a hive of activity. In steady streams, men and women enter, buy packets of offerings and make the rounds of the 24 hio lo.
Behind each of the hio lo stations, statues of gods stand or sit in their glass-covered abodes. These include the mahogany-skinned Tat Mo Coo Su, a patriarch of Zen Buddhism from India also known as Bodhidharma; the wise looking Cham Kui Coo Su, a shepherd from the 8th Song Dynasty, sitting in his golden robe; and Pe Hou Ciang Kun, the white tiger god.
To the uninitiated, the prayer rituals seem to have no order, but a more thorough scrutiny shows a pattern, which Suherman, the caretaker, explains.
“First, they light a candle,” he says, his speech seasoned with Mandarin terms. “Second, they light the hio, which is then placed in the hio lo. After they finish praying, they pour oil. Then they burn the kim paper.”
Though he has been the temple’s caretaker for only three years, Suherman spent his childhood playing and praying at Jin De Yuan. He decided to become a caretaker because it was his “heart’s calling.”
“We have a large community who come to the temple, especially youths,” he says, his hands moving animatedly. “But they only know ‘cung cung cep,’ which is gesturing with the hio and then placing it into the hio lo.”
“And they do not know what they are praying for or even the gods they are praying to. So I felt compelled to explain it to them.”
Suherman has also created a Web site to impart knowledge of the temple, its history and its gods for those interested in learning more.
Most of those who frequent the temple come from the surrounding Glodok area. But for Chinese New Year, Suherman expects people from throughout the regions surrounding Jakarta, Lampung and Cirebon.
Speaking with rapid-fire speed, Suherman describes how the number of young people coming to the temple increased during the administration of former President Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid (1999–2001).
“Gus Dur as president allowed the display of Tionghoa customs and even allowed for the celebration of Imlek [an Indonesian term for Chinese New Year], something we were not allowed to do during the Suharto administration [1965–1998],” Suherman says. “Even the writing of Chinese characters was deemed illegal because Suharto said it was political.
“Due to Suharto, an entire generation of Tionghoa cannot speak Mandarin. It was a great tragedy,” Suherman says, shaking his head.
Yayan, who sells the New Year packets, is from Tangerang, West Java, but does not speak Mandarin. He has worked at the temple since 2004 as a permanent staff member. Along with 18 others, he helps with the cleaning and maintenance of Jin De Yuan.
For Chinese New Year, the temple is cleaned and given a fresh coat of paint. Preparations began at the start of the 12th month of the Imlek calendar, or Cap Ji Gwe, which fell at the end of December 2008.
Inside the temple, standing by a table caked with melted wax from prayer candles, is toddler Ivan Ibrahim. The 20-month-old is with his parents, a young couple in their late 20s. Sofian, the boy’s father, has been coming to Jin De Yuan since he himself was a young boy living just down the street. Sofian’s parents taught him to pray at the temple and now he is teaching his son.
“We are teaching Ivan how to pray to the Goddess Guan Yin,” says Erlina, the child’s mother. The family visits Jin De Yuan weekly, even though they now live in Sunter, North Jakarta.
“He knows how to pai-pai now,” Erlina says, referring to the correct way to pay respect to the deities. Cradled by his mother, the toddler smiles and follows her clasped hands as she prays before a hio lo.
“This place is the best temple to go to because a lot of prayers are answered here,” Erlina says. “And we have had this belief since we were little.”
A tiny woman with sad eyes and extremely pale skin washing her hands nearby tells how her prayers made at the temple have been answered. Thung Geok Siu, in her 70s, says her children have all converted to Catholicism but she remains steadfast in her own faith. “I began coming here because the people of the temple helped me,” the Sulawesi native says. “They blessed my family.
“One time my husband hurt his leg. I came here to pai-pai and his leg was healed. If I feel troubled, this is where I go.” Thung’s husband has since passed away but she has continued to come to Jin De Yuan for 30 years. “I have suffered terribly in my life and coming here has helped. Because of God and this temple, I am all right,” Thung says, her eyes welling with tears.
Suherman agrees that the temple is special, saying that readings here of the ciam si, bamboo slips used to tell one’s fortune, are precise. “That is why people keep coming here,” he says.
As the day progresses, the number of supplicants increases, and the smoke rising from the burning hio and votive candles thickens. Outside in the square, a slight elderly man is paying respects to the four corners of the earth. With his hands clasped together in constant vertical movement, he seems deep in trance. No one disturbs him as they pass, entering or leaving Jin De Yuan.
Jin De Yuan temple can be found online at www.jindeyuan.org
Photo: People visit the temple from throughout Jakarta and surrounding areas to pray at Chinese New Year. (Titania Veda, JG)
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