Chinese-Indonesian Eri Widoera, 24, decided to study Mandarin as he saw more Chinese companies entering Indonesia.
“If you can speak Mandarin, Indonesian and English, certainly your competitiveness in the market [will be much higher],” he said.
He also felt the need to reconnect with his Chinese roots, even though he describes himself as a proud third-generation Indonesian.
In recent years, more Chinese-Indonesians have decided to learn Mandarin and send their children to Chinese-medium schools.
It is a change from the era of dictator Suharto, whose policies to encourage assimilation meant Chinese-owned media outlets were banned and expressions of Chinese culture and language were illegal
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Dec 23, 2019