Abstrack:
During post-Soeharto era, Tionghoa people tried to rebuild their primordial identity, so called ?Tradition?. Meanwhile, on the other hand, they gained legitimacy from the government by embracing the state official religion, namely Buddhism. Therefore, since New Order Era, many Klentengs (Tionghoa Shrines) are considered as Vihara. This study discusses the boundary between Tradition and Buddhism by looking at the symbolic features in them. Then, it finds the category of Viharas in Makassar. Cap go Meh, as the cultural interaction space, is a very helpful sample in observation for looking at the symbolic features. However, on Cap go Meh 2014, Tionghoa begin to present their ethnic identity as Tionghoa, and not their religious identity as Buddhist. Therefore, Cap go Meh is an interesting phenomenon to discuss; it is a space of representing identity, as an event beyond religious label, and as an independent event from state politics. It is a progress of Tionghoa culture in Indonesia post-Soeharto. On the other side, it is also an astonishing result of how religious studies can be an entrance into another dimension of historical and political genealogy.
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