ABSTRACT
This chapter focussed on the birth and evolution of a youth organisation in Surabaya, Young Buddhist Association of Indonesia. The group specialised in the organisation of large, multi-day events in a trendy shopping venue of Surabaya in correspondence with the yearly Waisak celebration. The chapter follows the multiple strands involved in these events and in the activities of the organisation and its organisers at large. It pauses then on an online event organised during the Covid-19 pandemic, in which an interview with former Jakarta govern, Ahok, was featured, flashing out religious engagement as a personal and nationalist pursuit. The chapter closes with an ethnographic vignette from the 2019 Waisak, which condenses the peculiar version of Buddhism that emerges in the youth organisations' efforts, one that digests ethnic revivals, transnational religious alignments and broader socioeconomic trends.
