Today thousands of Jakartans tune in to local radio stations to have the simple pleasure of listening to their favorite Mandarin songs that was not the case a decade ago.
During the Soeharto era, the public display of Chinese culture was not allowed.
After the reform movement in May 1998, however, the successive administrations changed few policies that affected the lives of millions of Chinese-Indonesians.
In 2000, the then president Abdurrahman Wahid overturned a 1967presidential instruction on Chinese religion, beliefs and traditions, which effectively banned Chinese literature and culture in Indonesia, including the prohibition of displaying Chinese characters.
The annulment by former president Gus Dur was then supported by his successor, president Megawati Soekarnoputri, who issued a decree in 2002 declaring Chinese Lunar New Year a national holiday.
"Over the past few years, there has been growing interest in learning Mandarin, not only among Chinese-Indonesians, but also non-Chinese Indonesians," Budi Tanuwibowo, the Chinese-Indonesian Association's secretary-general, was quoted as saying in Thursday's The Jakarta Post newspaper.
He said there were also more Chinese dictionaries and books available in stores nowadays.
"In the past three years, we've had more university students majoring in Chinese literature visiting our station. They say they listen to our programs to practice their Mandarin," said Haryono, the head of general affairs at Cakrawala radio station.
Established in 1971, Cakrawala is now the only Mandarin radio station that broadcasts to Greater Jakarta. Haryono said the radio, which had around 70,000 listeners, began using Mandarin in 2000, right after former president Gus Dur's presidential decree.
Haryono said there had not been any changes in its listener profile since the station switched to using Mandarin.
"Most of our listeners are families -- from children to grandparents."
"Many of them are not necessarily fluent in Mandarin. We found that out when they came to the office to get some souvenirs. Some of them make song requests in Indonesian, even though the program is in Mandarin."
"They tune in to our station because they like Mandarin songs and music. So our focus is entertainment; we try not to burden them with heavy or complicated issues," Haryono said.
Budi said the population of people with Chinese heritage in Indonesia had become the largest compared to those in other countries outside China.
"I am sure there are more than 7 million people of Chinese descent here. I don't know the exact figures, but statistics say Chinese-Indonesians comprise up to 3 percent of the country's total population."
Source: Xinhua
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