Cap Go Meh Festival: The joyful, vibrant and fun in Jakarta's Chinatown

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15 days after Lunar New Year, The Chinese Community in Indonesia celebrating the festival of Cap Go Meh. If this festival name is unfamiliar to you, maybe you've heard about the famous Lantern Festival, well, more or less, it's the same event. It celebrates the climax of Lunar New Year holiday. It celebrates family reunions and society. It features ancient spiritual traditions.

I ask some people about this festival name. Some of them answered that in Hokkien dialect, ‘Cap Go’ means ‘fifteenth’ and ‘Meh’ means ‘night’ so the Cap Go Meh name literally means "the 15th night", the night when the full moon will be at its brightest.

This Cap Go Meh celebration has a long history Indonesia, it has also been part of an annual event awaited by the non-Chinese community as it always offered great atmosphere to the cities.

We went to this festival in Glodok, Jakarta's most famous Chinatown area. It was a wonderful experience. The festival was so vibrant and colorful. There were some Barongsai (lion dance) performance, lantern parade, and of course, a lot of delicious foods!

One of the performance that captivated me the most was 'Tatung'. In this performance, there would be some people who were possessed by the spirits of ancestors, apparently making them resistant to pain. The Tatung performers usually demonstrate their ability by piercing their bodies with sharp objects.

This short video is our attempt to capture this super fun festival. I upload this video exclusively for Dtube. I hope you enjoy it. :)

P.S
Currently I'm pivoting spektakel.id into a new product, where you will find many comprehensive data & information about Indonesian art & culture through various format (video, info-graphic, articles, charts, etc). Wish me luck!

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