ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how young post-Suharto Chinese view their ethnic identity and belonging in relation to their ability to speak Chinese. It also discusses the tensions between competing ideologies on ethnicity, nationalism and culture as embodied in the daily negotiations of which languages to speak and when. The chapter presents the case of Mandarin language learning and use among young Chinese Indonesians in the post-Suharto era. It discusses many Chinese Indonesians from peranakan backgrounds who had always felt wholly Indonesian and considers the recent move to speak Mandarin and reorient towards China to be unrepresentative of the peranakan sociocultural heritage. In the last fifteen years, the demand for Mandarin, particularly among Chinese Indonesian students, has led to language courses being offered in many private and public schools, often as part of the National Plus curriculum, according to which classes are delivered in a combination of Indonesian, English and Mandarin.
