In the eyes of a child

Out of the blue I was remembering the 1998 anti Chinese riot in Indonesian , mostly and the most scary was in Jakarta. Where my family live and where I was born and grew up.
This topic will always be a heart breaking one for any Indonesian Chinese. It's been more than 10 years but the scar of the tragedy is still there.

With God's help , I was not in Jakarta when that happened . If I were there I think my parents would be so terrified and horrified to think about my safety as they killed and raped the Chinese young women. God knows what else they did to those poor women.

I don't know what brought me to write about this out of the blue, I know this is a very sensitive issue still until today. The race , the religion differences will always be a sensitive case , I hope one day that can be change. We are the same in the eyes of our Creator and I believe there is no religion that teach their people to act like devil's slave.

I came up to Googled up the Indonesian Riot 1998. And found the videos and photos and reports of the tragedy, I saw the place near my parent's home, near my school , the place where I always went to as a kid and teenager being burned down. That still bring me chilled to my bones until this second. And the feeling of those people , witnessing and experiencing it , are beyond words can describe. Please do not try to Google about it if you are not ready to see what had happened , The video and story ( narrated in Mandarin) show a very cruel and violent thing. And it is all real.

Thanks God , my family and relatives are all ok. But we lost a few of our belongings, My cousin lost the first store his father ever build with tears and sweat , many has lost their cars. But for us it is still a blessing as we don't lost any lives of our loved one. I can tell a lot more stories about what had my family went through, but I choose not to post about that.And also I don't want to post any photos about that.


My dad told me , He never been so terrified in his all life before, he was there during the Japanese invasion in Jakarta, during the Dutch Colony, but that was the country's war , But during the riot of 1998, he said he was so terrified as he knew that WE are the TARGET, WE are the VICTIM and there was no where to run. For us Indonesia is our country , but the political situation that time made the Ethnic Chinese as the victim .

I think this is why I am more forgivable and more accepting flaws in the government in any countries. No one is perfect and it is not easy to run a country, BUT...
if the country is still in a good place , good hand , and has PEACE and FREEDOM to all of it's citizens , I think I CAN LIVE with THAT.


I also very aware of NOT to raise my children to differentiate race , religion or ethnic in their daily life in a negative ways. I am more into letting them know that we are part of the world's citizens , every body is unique and we should respect them. And not too limit to be friends with certain ethic and avoid friends from other ethnic and religion.


It make me remembered that a couple weeks back , when we walked home, I saw a white man in the car waved his hand to Indy , and Indy wave back and said bye teacher!!!!

I was surprise of course, and asked : is that guy one of your teacher?
He is a Caucasian, since when you have a Caucasian man as your teacher?
She asked me : What is Caucasian mean?
I said : Mat saleh, bule, orang putih, white man....you know?

Then I wonder if she realized that her dad is Caucasian as well.
So I said: " hm you see mama and papa? can you tell that papa is white ? and mama is Chinese/Asian?"
Her answer to my surprise was " your skin is also white!!! just like papa! my skin is also white, and Maya skin is also white"

**** and I think she is right!!!*****

For her , that makes no different. So I asked again :
Is your friend , Siti ( not the real name ) is Malay?
She said : hmm I don't know...maybe...but she is not fasting . Because most Malay must fast and celebrate Hari raya.
I explained that maybe her friend is still too young to fast.

Then I asked again : do you know what Indian people celebrating?
She said : deepavali!
And I asked " can you tell if someone is Indian?"
She frowned and said " NO...unless..when they wear the traditional dress, Sari, and when they put the diamond in their forehead, then I can tell that they are Indian"

She know some of her friends and teacher are Muslim, because they celebrate Hari Raya and fasting, but for her, we are all the same. She still can't tell the people race by their look. However I am glad that the school teach the students about the differences , they tell about Chinese celebrating Chinese new year and moon cake festival for example and Indian celebrating Deepavali, and Malay celebrating Hari Raya,then for Christian they celebrating Christmas and Easter.
So that are important to teach children about that, to let them appreciate others too

Last week when we went out with a Chinese Muslim friend ( you know who you are, if you are reading this), Indy made a comment :
Wah Chinese can celebrate Hari Raya also ?
( btw Indy knows that that Aunty is Chinese because she speaks Mandarin to her son)
So I told her, yes, Chinese can be Muslim and Celebrate Hari Raya and fasting as well.

Later on I explained to her that some of my cousins are Muslim as well.

So it made me think that what us as an adult see and feel, in the eyes of a child that all really doesn't matter.

And I think it is beautiful to see life in the eyes of a child...

We are all the same no matter what...