Chinese in East Timor: former Portuguese colony a model of integration by immigrants from China
- Chinese migration to the predominantly Catholic territory began in 16th century, and they were better accepted there than in neighbouring Dutch East Indies
- About 4,000 Chinese migrants live in the country today, running 300 to 400 businesses
Fong Kui Kong, the head of the only Chinese temple in East Timor’s capital, Dili, welcomes visitors who come seeking blessings for their children’s health or the new business they want to start up. Known as Cina Maromak, the temple is a beacon both for East Timorese of Chinese descent and citizens with no ties to China.
Fong uses “fortune sticks”, similar to those used in Hong Kong’s Taoist temples, to forecast the future. The ritual of using numbered sticks, known as qiu qian in Chinese, to ask the gods for guidance is a Chinese tradition. He walks to the temple’s main altar carrying a cylinder of numbered fortune sticks and prays to the gods.
Set before a table of offerings, including dishes of fruit and biscuits, the altar bristles with burning candles. While shaking the cylinder, he asks fortune seekers to burn incense sticks, pray, and add oil to the lamps to keep the candles burning.
When a stick pops out of the cylinder, Fong matches it to a numbered note, then translates the Indonesian and Chinese messages from the gods into Tetum, one of East Timor’s two national languages.
The red-and-white-painted temple, with a green tiled pagoda-style roof, is close to the National University of East Timor in downtown Dili. Built in 1928, it has been under Fong’s care since the 1980s.
East Timor, a tiny, predominantly Catholic nation with a population of about 1.2 million in the middle of the Indonesian archipelago, has attracted Chinese immigrants for centuries.