Chinese in Lasem: the struggle for identity and living space

Abstract

Chinese have lived in Lasem since ancient times to this day. Uniquely, Lasem is a region that rarely experiences horizontal conflicts, although Lasem’s entity is quite diverse. This is due to the Chinese people in Lasem being able to assimilate with the natives. From marriage, business relations, and religious ties the reason for the Chinese in Lasem is to live peacefully. This study aims to uncover the lives of Chinese people in Lasem from the social and cultural aspects, the focus of this paper is the Chinese in the struggle for identity and living space in Lasem. This is a qualitative study with phenomenological design. This study involved 10 Chinese families as informants and the cultural environment of lasem as observed objects. The findings of this study show that the Chinese people in Lasem are able to live in harmony because they have merged with indigenous communities. The Chinese at Lasem in their daily lives are able to communicate and interact well with indigenous people. Activities such as producing batik, sew, trading, religious associations are the reasons Lasem entities are able to live in harmony. The findings of this study also show that the struggle for Chinese identity and living space at Lasem takes place on the basis of ideology and social praxis, political aspects are not considered by the community to be interconnected.