Glodok

Tonight I was bold and mustered up the courage, with a new friend, to venture outside my bubble and explore Glodok - or Chinatown. The trip there involved some traffic (per usual) and the driver stopping to ask for directions several times, but after turning down some impossibly narrow streets we arrived in front of Jin de Yuan temple.

It was a bustling place! People selling fruit, flowers, and candy to bring to the temple as offerings for prayer. Men transporting the largest candles I've ever seen (7 feet tall!!) into the temple by the minute. Children playing. Children begging. Fireworks going off in the streets. Families lined up in one section of the yard in front of the temple waiting for when the donations collected at the temple would be donated to the people who had come to wait.

I took a lot of great pictures tonight. But this one spoke to me the most as a representation of my visit. It isn't flashy or gaudy like many of the others I snapped. But it represents the oppression the Chinese Indonesians have faced here in the past. And to me represents the possibilities in store for this Chinese New Year.