Being bothered by trifles, I haven’t written for a while.

In the eve of the Year of the Dragon, I went to a “Spring Festival Gala Evening” held by a Chinese family in Jakarta. All that I saw and heard filled my mind with a myriad of thoughts and ideas. I felt so touched to see Mr. Qiu Changren, the host, shed tears of emotion that I had the impulse to write down the story to share with all readers.

As for the Qiu Family, Mr. Qiu Changren’s parents left their ancestral home in Meizhou and travelled all the way to Indonesia to seek a livelihood as early as 1930s, lived a wandering life, suffered untold hardship and had to toil and moil before getting settled in Lampung on the island of Sumatra. They had brought up ten children. After nearly nine decades, the family is flourishing and has gained a foothold in Indonesia. More than 100 family members in total, who fall into four generations, including the oldest brother aged 85 and the youngest granddaughter born only seven months before, live in different parts of Indonesia.

Instructed and influenced by their parents’ words and deeds on traditional Chinese culture, all the ten children of the Qiu Family have enjoyed high-flying careers after growing up. Qiu Changren, the fifth child, is now a far-famed entrepreneur in Indonesia and can be said to be the most successful.

Because of historical reasons of public knowledge, the Suharto regime launched exclusion of Chinese on a massive scale in 1965. Chinese culture was banned, Chinese schools were shut down and Chinese-Indonesians weren’t allowed to speak Chinese in public. At the worst time, even moon cakes with Chinese characters on their packing sold in the Chinatown were confiscated by military polices and subject to fines. Such horrible days had lasted 32 years. It was not until Suharto resigned as President of Indonesia in 1998 that bans on Chinese were lifted over time. However, as a pernicious consequence of the exclusion of Chinese, education in Chinese had suffered a grave setback. As a result, two generations of Chinese-Indonesians were illiterate in Chinese, and the majority of Chinese-Indonesians aged below 60 didn’t know how to speak, let alone how to read and write.

Despite many local overseas Chinese societies’ painstaking efforts to establish schools teaching in Indonesian, English and Chinese over the years, there is a long way to go before all offspring of Chinese-Indonesian command Chinese in a fluent manner as they did before. The generation of Qiu Changren feel frustrated at the phenomenon. What they are concerned most is that younger generations seem to forget where their cultural root lies. To make it worse, many descendants are unfamiliar with fine traditional Chinese culture as they believe in Christianity or Catholicism.

To help carry on and promote Chinese culture abroad, since assuming the role of general chair of Indonesian Dragon and Lion Dance Sports Federation three years ago, Qiu Changren is busy running about every year, instructs and sponsors games between provincial branches, and engages Chinese coaches in a bid to popularize the sport and better carry forward Chinese dragon and lion dance. In order to make descendants never forget where they are from and grow up under the nurture of ancestral culture, he has made extraordinarily painstaking efforts and devoted a lot of time and energy.

He arranges two activities every year before the Spring Festival draws near. On the 29th day of the twelfth month of the lunar year, he summons his siblings and their descendants to his home to offer sacrifices to their parents and ancestors according to Hakka custom. On Chinese New Year’s Eve, he invites all family members to a restaurant decorated with lanterns and festoons to have a traditional Chinese reunion diner. The two arrangements have persisted for more than two decades and remain unchanged.

Despite his great efforts, Qiu Changren cannot breathe a sign of relief. In every event, either him or one of his older brothers stands on the podium to advise in earnest words younger generations to learn Chinese. By contrast, children follow their seniors to taste Yee Sang (a raw fish salad), have New Year cakes made of glutinous rice flour, eat their fill and go back home in satisfaction with red envelopes. No one knows if such events are helpful or not.

As the Spring Festival for the Year of the Dragon approached, Mr. Qiu started to arrange for festivities. He wanted his residential community and whole family to celebrate the Chinese New Year in a solemn manner.

Taking the helm of Indonesian dragon and lion dance sports, Qiu Changren told the author that the dragon and lion dance troupe of Guangzhao Guild Hall, subordinate to Indonesian Dragon and Lion Dance Sports Federation, would make 40 lion dance performances in the Spring Festival not only in Chinese communities but also in shopping malls in the capital, to make the whole city immersed in a strong festive atmosphere.

In addition, he has been personally involved in the plan for his family’s New Year party.

Qiu Changren booked in advance the multi-purpose hall in AYANA Midplaza Jakarta, and hired professionals to design and fix up the Year of the Dragon-themed decorations to create a festive atmosphere for the Chinese New Year.

The other day, while a journalist from Jakarta Branch of China News Service came for an interview, Qiu Changren, his wife and the family of his youngest daughter were seen pasting Spring Festival couplets and hang lanterns in his villa.

Qiu Changren said to the journalist from China News Service: this year is the Year of the Dragon, a symbol of bustling activity in Chinese culture, and also marks the first Spring Festival following the UN resolution that the Chinese New Year is recognized as part of the UN holiday calendar. The Chinese New Year is celebrated worldwide. Celebrations by the Qiu Family in the New Year’s Eve will be exceptionally grand. In addition to the reunion diner, a rich mixture of programs have been arranged.

He stressed that he would take advantage of the opportunity to check the progress of Chinese learning by the family’s descendants. Offspring have been required to speak Chinese, sing Chinese songs and make talent shows in Chinese. He said jokingly, “these who know little about Chinese cannot get red envelopes.”

I helped Mr. Qiu draft a speech for the family gala evening. He said, “I need to set an example for children to learn Chinese well.”

He called me all of a sudden in the evening and said, “I want to add in the speech a few words that reflect my innermost thoughts and feelings. For these years, I have been personally involved in the arrangement of family sacrifice activities in the Spring Festival and the reunion diner in the New Year’s Eve. Now my siblings’ children and mine have grown up. I am in my seventies, a declining age. If we want such a get-together to continue, I ardently hope the younger generation would take on responsibilities to plan for and preside over the next event.”

Speaking of this, he looked somewhat heavyhearted and said, “Mr. Ding, as you saw in the reunion party last year, only a handful of my family’s dozens of descendants could speak Chinese. I am wondering if any change has taken place this year and if they would like to take my advice. How much I want these kids to understand the good intentions of their older generation!”

I said the following words to comfort Mr. Qiu: these children are all filial and will have a good command of Chinese someday, given that Chinese is getting increasingly influential on the international arena.

Mr. Qiu said, “let’s see what will happen in the evening of the day after tomorrow.”

On February 9, the Qiu Family Spring reunion evening was unveiled and every one was in a jubilant mood. The reunion diner was followed by children’s performances in Chinese. According to prior arrangements, a few family members were chosen as judges and sat around a long table in front of the stage to grade children’s performances.

Despite being disabled, Mr. Qiu Guanren, the third oldest brother, he showed up in a wheelchair. He headed the judges as he is the most proficient in Chinese among all family members.

Qiu Changren stood in the distance with a cup of wine in his hand, and looked at the stage, being both nervous and hopeful.

The first child performer was about thirteen to fourteen years old, a grandson of Qiu Jiangren, his second older brother. He strode onto the stage, held the microphone and started to perform. Audiences quieted down. He recited a beautiful essay on family affection in clear and melodious Chinese Mandarin.

I promptly used my mobile phone to record the recitation:

People usually say, “Family affection is everywhere in the life journey of each one of us, no matter it turns into spindrift, melody, words of reminder, laughter, meaningful glances or footprints. However, the most treasured family affection is absolutely not limited to unselfish caring, but places emphasis on education so that the light of wisdom will be passed on from generation to generation……”

With clear articulation and a mellow and full tune, his Chinese was very fluent and emotional. As a matter of fact, the child’s mother is a laywoman in Chinese, and he learned Chinese when he watched Chinese TV programs with his grandfather.

His performance was warmly applauded.

Subsequently, grandchildren of Qiu Changren and his siblings took turns to make their appearance on the stage. The oldest is in their twenties and the youngest is aged only six to seven. Every child performer conveyed the best new year wishes to their seniors in Chinese in the form of story telling or recitation, singing a Chinese song or performing a Chinese dance.

The outstanding performance by his descendants has greatly exceeded Qiu Changren’s expectations.

He couldn’t help shedding tears of emotion. Seeing me come over, he hastened to put down the wine glass and wipe away his tears with table napkin before holding again his wine glass and watching with rapt attention. I found that tears seemed to flicker in his eyes.

He murmured to me that it was out of his expectation that children could come up with such wonderful performances since they received the notice only less than a week ago. It is evident that they study hard Chinese all the time instead of making a frantic last-minute effort for performances in the imminent reunion party. It seems that Chinese education among the young generation of Chinese-Indonesians has a promising future.

The party had a perfect ending. Qiu Changren and his relatives flocked to the courtyard, and lit up fireworks in their hands to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year to their heart’s content. Given that fireworks are also from China, I wonder that what has happened in the “Spring Festival Gala Evening” of the Qiu Family epitomizes overseas Chinese’s efforts to inherit and carry forward Chinese culture.

Sincerely hope that brilliant rays in their hands will someday join to make a starry sky and light up the future of boundless Chinese civilization.