Chinese New Year's Hope, Bandung City's Economic Vibrance is Agile and Vigilant Like a Rabbit

The smell of incense wafts from the temple and temple. People milling about came dressed in red, greeted each other and shared Chinese New Year snacks, such as oranges, basket cakes, and noodles.
 
Preparations for evening prayers have also been made, such as at Kong Miao Temple and Tao Sinar Mulia Temple. In his solemn preparations for worship, the Mayor of Bandung, Yana Mulyana, was also present to ensure the safety of Confucian worshippers.

"I was present at the Chinese New Year celebration to give confidence to residents to be able to worship comfortably and safely. Hopefully we will all always be healthy, hopefully after this pandemic the future can be better," explained Yana.

As a city that has five tolerant villages, this proves that Bandung is a city that is tolerant of religious people in the city of Bandung.

"We are very open to anyone who wants to collaborate to jointly build the city of Bandung from what is already good now to be even better," he said

The clergy of the Kong Miao Temple, Jiao Sheng (Js), Sukotjo Sastronegoro Bambang conveyed the same thing after giving an explanation to the visitors to the temple.

"The condition of the New Year that we will celebrate in a few hours. Its nature is like a rabbit, which is agile, but must always be vigilant. This also illustrates that economic movements will be better, but everyone must still be careful," explained Bambang.

He also explained that worship for Confucian people is held every 1st and 15th of the Chinese New Year calendar. Worship is carried out from morning to evening, including prayers and religious reflections called Jiang Dao or lectures.

"It is carried out on Sunday at 10.00 WIB, usually for about two hours or more. Later that night we will have a prayer for the Chinese New Year starting at 22.56 WIB and ending at 00.56 WIB," he explained.

He predicts that the congregation of Kong Miao Temple will reach more than 100 people. All of them will attend and worship, raising hopes and best prayers in the coming new year.

"We hope the economy will run smoothly, revived. Everyone will be healthy in this new year. We can carry out all our plans," he hoped.

Not only Confucians who came to the temple tonight, a community called the Inter-Religious Working Network (Jakatarub) was also present.

Jakatarub coordinator, Arfi Pandu Dinata said, since 2000, Jakatarub has been intensively promoting tolerance and peace education in the city of Bandung.

"We were initiated by young people and religious leaders. This Chinese New Year tour is one of our programs. But during the previous pandemic, we didn't do direct tours, only online," said Arfi.

Jakatarub routinely goes around celebrating big days or important celebrations of various religions in the city of Bandung.

"Besides the month of Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr and Christmas, we also have interfaith meditation. Then visits to friends who believe in it for joint discussions," he said.

He also hopes that the younger generation in the city of Bandung can promote peace, promote tolerance and educate the people around them.

"We need to open ourselves up, have dialogue with people who are different from us. So, reduce suspicion, let's establish cross-faith communication together. We can both live out the diversity of the things we do every day," he said. (din)**

Head of the Bandung City Communication and Informatics Agency

Yayan A. Brilyana