May 1998

Welcome.

In this website, I will talk about the 1998 riots that happened in Indonesia based on the research I have done.

However, this website focuses mainly on the topic of how the 1998 riots involve and affect the Chinese minorities both emotionally and economically in Jakarta.

 

I chose this topic as I noticed that the Chinese were treated differently back then compared to today. This topic also relates to my life as people around me, especially my parents were the ones who got affected directly by the riots.

As a person who also has Chinese ethnicity, I feel that it is important to explore further about the causes, the impacts and the outcomes of the ordeal so that the anti Chinese riots would not be repeated in the future.

 

My research consists of primary sources such as interviews and photos, as well as secondary sources such as information from journals and articles.  The information from the websites’ articles helped me to know some background knowledge about the event; while the interviews help me to understand the impacts it gave to the Chinese people living in Jakarta at that time. The interviews are important, because it helps me in understanding the situation from the perspectives of the victims (Chinese minorities) with a lot of details. From the interviews, I am able to see how chaotic the riots were, while the pictures that I got from the websites helped to visualize the riots and its aftermath.