Every time someone in Taiwan asks where I am from and I tell them that I am Indonesian, I am met with confusion, followed by an awkward pause and responses such as: “But your skin tone is whiter than most of them” or “Are you really Indonesian? Why do you look so different?”
I laugh and answer: “Because I am a Chinese Indonesian.”
However, that prompts another question: “Why can’t you speak Chinese?”
I just laugh it off.
I have gotten used to the questions. Many Taiwanese assume that being Chinese means you can speak Mandarin fluently. Some ask: “But why can Chinese Singaporeans or Malaysians speak Chinese?”
Some will try Mandarin on me, and when I do not understand, the looks on their face change. It is like I have let them down without meaning to.
What they do not see is the truth that I, too, wish I could speak Chinese fluently.
However, that I am not able to speak Mandarin is not a personal failure. It is part of Indonesia’s history, a part of the Chinese diaspora story many people do not know.
In Indonesia, being openly Chinese was not always safe. My grandparents were not allowed to speak Chinese, use Chinese names, or celebrate Lunar New Year openly during the era of former Indonesian president Suharto. Chinese Indonesians were forced to assimilate.
Even today, I have no family name because my father’s is a Chinese name, so to avoid discrimination, he decided not to pass it down.
My parents did not speak Mandarin, because their parents were not allowed to. That is why I did not really grow up with it.
Now, I am trying to learn a language that should have been mine, but was taken away before I was even born.
Many Chinese Indonesians, especially in Java, grew up like I did — speaking only Bahasa Indonesia. We lived like everyone else, except that we were constantly reminded we were different. When the economy crashes, we are blamed and reminded that we are still outsiders. In 1998, anti-Chinese riots swept through Indonesia. I was not born yet, but I grew up hearing stories about it. My family in Surabaya stayed up all night, ready to run if their home was attacked.
The trauma is still there. Even now, my heart races when I hear news about protests at home. That fear, although invisible, was passed down.
In Taiwan, I am seen as an outsider, too, because I cannot speak Mandarin. I have never felt fully accepted. It is like living in between.
There are also stereotypes here as well. Many Taiwanese often associate Indonesians with darker skin and migrant workers. I have had people question whether I am really Indonesian, simply because I do not fit that image.
What people do not understand is that my identity is not just about language or how I look. Being a Chinese Indonesian is about the generations of history my family carries — the struggles, the silences and the pain of hiding who we are.
Growing up, I always felt caught between two worlds. In Indonesia, we had to suppress our Chinese identity to stay safe. In Taiwan I am told I am not “Chinese enough.”
I exist in between.
I have learned that my identity is more than just the language I could not learn, or the stereotypes people put on me. Being Chinese Indonesian means carrying my family’s strength and their untold stories. It means shaping who I am, even when I do not fit into anyone’s expectations.
I might not speak Mandarin the way people expect. I might not look the way they imagine, but this is my history. This is who I am. And that, in its own way, is enough.
Jennifer Sidney is a student in the Department of International Affairs at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages.
A failure by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respond to Israel’s brilliant 12-day (June 12-23) bombing and special operations war against Iran, topped by US President Donald Trump’s ordering the June 21 bombing of Iranian deep underground nuclear weapons fuel processing sites, has been noted by some as demonstrating a profound lack of resolve, even “impotence,” by China. However, this would be a dangerous underestimation of CCP ambitions and its broader and more profound military response to the Trump Administration — a challenge that includes an acceleration of its strategies to assist nuclear proxy states, and developing a wide array
Eating at a breakfast shop the other day, I turned to an old man sitting at the table next to mine. “Hey, did you hear that the Legislative Yuan passed a bill to give everyone NT$10,000 [US$340]?” I said, pointing to a newspaper headline. The old man cursed, then said: “Yeah, the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] canceled the NT$100 billion subsidy for Taiwan Power Co and announced they would give everyone NT$10,000 instead. “Nice. Now they are saying that if electricity prices go up, we can just use that cash to pay for it,” he said. “I have no time for drivel like
Twenty-four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers are facing recall votes on Saturday, prompting nearly all KMT officials and lawmakers to rally their supporters over the past weekend, urging them to vote “no” in a bid to retain their seats and preserve the KMT’s majority in the Legislative Yuan. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which had largely kept its distance from the civic recall campaigns, earlier this month instructed its officials and staff to support the recall groups in a final push to protect the nation. The justification for the recalls has increasingly been framed as a “resistance” movement against China and
Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), former chairman of Broadcasting Corp of China and leader of the “blue fighters,” recently announced that he had canned his trip to east Africa, and he would stay in Taiwan for the recall vote on Saturday. He added that he hoped “his friends in the blue camp would follow his lead.” His statement is quite interesting for a few reasons. Jaw had been criticized following media reports that he would be traveling in east Africa during the recall vote. While he decided to stay in Taiwan after drawing a lot of flak, his hesitation says it all: If
RSS