The Friendly Face of the Dragon
From Chinese New Year until the day of the Lantern Festival, many of Jakarta's malls featured the barongsai lion dance. The barongsai has become a part of pop culture in Indonesia, especially among the young. The following is a profile of a barongsai group in Jakarta.
February 26, 2002
Red barongsai danced their way through Jakarta's malls. The magical, half-lion and half-dragon-serpent were seen frequenting shopping malls, today's modern temples rather than Chinese temples of worship. On Chinese New Year, a pair of lions danced through the district of Glodok (Chinatown) starting from the Dharma Jaya Toa Sebio, Jakarta's oldest Buddhist temple and making their way to the courtyard of the Dharma Bhakti Kim Tek Ie temple. Meanw
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