Travel to Jakarta, Indonesia, and attend a stunning wedding of Southeast Asian Chinese

We arrived in Jakarta at 10pm. The design of Jakarta Airport is very good. Although it was late at night, my first good impression of Indonesia came from this airport with national colors and humanistic care. But I also witnessed the deep corruption of Indonesian civil servants, which is unforgettable. At the airport, I met the uncle who picked us up. In order to welcome guests from all over the world, the uncle looked tired. We were the first flight of the night flight. After picking us up, there were guests coming from Taiwan at 3am. However, no matter how hard it was, he was full of energy again when he thought that we were gathered together to share this joy.


Jakarta Airport, very modern

The first meal we had in Jakarta was at a Chinese restaurant called May Star. The reason why I was so impressed by it was that a few days later I went to another chain of this restaurant, in a high-end commercial center, and the owner was another uncle. After enjoying the food here, I really understand why this restaurant is so popular with local Chinese. The first dish is raw lobster slices, served in a boat-shaped container, with crushed ice emitting a little smoke, and the tentacles are still trembling... Dipped in a special sauce, it is tough and tender, although fresh but not strong or heavy, good reviews! Secondly, I want to introduce my favorite avocado juice, with chocolate sauce, the taste is so good~ It is recommended by Uncle Xiong. I like this thick juice at the first bite, and the tropical atmosphere hits my face. Here I have to say that many friends think that Southeast Asian cuisine is represented by Thailand and Vietnam. In fact, Indonesian cuisine is not inferior to Southeast Asian cuisine, and even far exceeds it in terms of dishes and taste.


Indonesian lobsters are particularly colorful and have a staggering variety of species.


Banana shrimp, a species unique to Indonesia, is about the size of a ping-pong ball.


My favorite coconut jelly. After eating the coconut milk jelly, you can scrape the coconut meat from the coconut shell.

After lunch, my uncle took us to visit the surrounding commercial center. The freshness increased sharply. There were lively live performances, and young children performed very enthusiastically. You can smell the atmosphere of modern Jakarta. Walking along the commercial center landscape belt, accompanied by a waterscape, carp swimming happily, and people crowded around. I really felt that such wonderful commercial greening can only be done in the tropics. As a tourist, when you go to any place, the first thing you pay attention to is people and buildings. Jakarta's buildings are as polarized as people. The dazzling high-rise buildings in the CBD in the city center are all forests of the powerful, while refugees and slums can be seen everywhere in the city center. In this city, I saw anxiety and dizzy vitality.




After lunch, my uncle took us to visit the surrounding commercial center. The freshness increased sharply. There were lively live performances, and young children performed very enthusiastically. You can smell the atmosphere of modern Jakarta. Walking along the commercial center landscape belt, accompanied by a waterscape, carp swimming happily, and people crowded around. I really felt that such wonderful commercial greening can only be done in the tropics. As a tourist, when you go to any place, the first thing you pay attention to is people and buildings. Jakarta's buildings are as polarized as people. The dazzling high-rise buildings in the CBD in the city center are all forests of the powerful, while refugees and slums can be seen everywhere in the city center. In this city, I saw anxiety and dizzy vitality.


We each bought 1 jin, and the amount of 1 jin per person is tacitly allowed by the customs.


Blood bird's nest, one of the high-end varieties of Indonesian bird's nest

That night, there was a grand wedding. It was the first time I saw the grand wedding of the Nanyang Chinese. The Chinese community in Indonesia is mostly rich and luxurious. The class differentiation here is very obvious. You can see that many Chinese families have several nannies, who are basically local Indonesians. Teenage girls are looking after children and serving as servants. If you are born in this environment, this is an innate identity that you are powerless to change, but more often, you have never thought about changing.

The wedding banquet was very grand. Many Indonesian Chinese came from southern Fujian, Taiwan, Hong Kong... Here you can feel the very strong traditional culture and customs of southern China. This kind of reunion enthusiasm and the feeling of recognizing relatives and returning to the roots are particularly evident in major black and white weddings. My uncle invited relatives and friends from their clans who have a close relationship with the family overseas, in the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and he was also responsible for settling them one by one. This workload is really amazing! What surprised me even more was that with so many guests coming, the host not only had to entertain them with good food and drinks, but also took care of their accommodation and even travel. The hospitality was so embarrassing. But when we gave them wedding red envelopes, they all refused. My uncle said that Chinese Indonesians generally don't accept red envelopes when they get married. If you want to express your feelings, just a few hundred RMB is enough. The main purpose is to get together and share happiness. This makes us, the exploited class who are used to the extravagant marriage culture in the mainland, very uneasy and guilty.

The wedding was held in a super large banquet hall. Guests of various languages, skin colors and industries came one after another. It was even an Asia-Pacific summit. Our group of 5 people seemed particularly out of place, because Indonesians attend weddings very grandly, and their clothes and hairstyles are all carefully prepared. Regardless of gender, age or young, they are all serious about walking on the red carpet, and success or failure depends on this one move! It really opened my eyes as a country bumpkin from China... I came back to my senses and looked at my parents. My dad was wearing a dazzling Adidas polo shirt, and my mother was even more like a cute housewife... I felt a sense of sadness as if I switched from CNN to Mango TV.

The wedding process was a combination of Chinese and Western styles. After the bride and groom walked the red carpet, cut the cake, and exchanged rings, the most humane part began: the newlyweds and their parents stood on the throne in the center of the stage, and the guests could consciously line up to go on stage to shake hands with the host and bless him, one circle after another... an endless stream... more than 1,400 people!!! This reminded me of my college graduation ceremony... so festive! On the other side, various performances began in the middle of the banquet hall, and it was like traveling back to the prosperous and luxurious Shanghai night described by Eileen Chang... but the surprise was that as soon as Jason Mras's I'm yours ended, a song called Sweet Honey came on (Sweet Honey is an Indonesian song, dear friends), and then various Hong Kong and Taiwan pop songs that we heard in the 1980s... until No Body made its debut... Hahaha, it was really the most mixed and amazing performance I have seen this year, but I didn't hate it at all. I loved this festive feeling.




6 local media in Jakarta and various photographers


No body no body ~but U!


There are so many delicious foods that I can’t eat them all


A group photo of college classmates, what a beautiful picture, just like when we were young...


Even Muslims have amazing choices

On the second day of the wedding, we had a formal Chinese banquet for the guests and relatives. It was held in a local hotel called SUN CITY. It was very similar to a wedding in the mainland. Everyone ate and drank around the round table. The fun thing was that they could even order songs while eating in the private room. What I thought was particularly reasonable was that the local banquet had a simple and clear number of dishes. The first dish was a mountain of sashimi. This sashimi was really good, with fat and fat... the taste was excellent!! The other 6 dishes were served separately, one for each person, small and exquisite. When you finished eating, the four-star service waiter next to you rushed over to replace the next one for you. If you didn't finish eating, they would wait by your side like the sun god and smile. These 7 dishes were really filling, but there was no waste at all. BTW, every time my uncle and I went out to eat, I found that the locals had a deep-rooted concept of energy conservation and environmental protection. No matter how big the boss was or how decent the banquet was, what was not finished was definitely a waste. The host would pack it up and give it back to the driver or servant.



This looks like steamed egg and shrimp, but it has a special sauce inside.


It should be sea fish, the meat is very tough