Kelenteng dan Sejarah Perkembangan Etnis Tionghoa di Tanjungpinang

Abstract

Tanjungpinang in the Riau Islands is an area that has been inhabited by Chinese people for a long time. In the mid-18th century, the Chinese were deliberately brought in by the Johor Kingdom of Riau as workers in the gambier plantation. The existence of the Chinese in Tanjungpinang can be seen from archaeological remains in the form of hundreds of years old temple buildings. This paper focuses on discussing the history of Chinese ethnic development and the architecture of the temple buildings in the 18th and 19th centuries. The four temples that are the object of this study are Fu De Zheng Shen Temple, Tian Hou Sheng Mu Temple, Yuen Tien Shang Temple, and Tao Sa Kong Temple. The results of the study of these four temple buildings prove that in the range of the 18th to 19th centuries the Chinese community had settled in the Senggarang area, Tanjungpinang. Historically, the Chinese community worked in various professions, ranging from farmers, traders and craft makers. The temple, which is a means of worship, was also built in an architectural style commonly found in temple buildings in Indonesia. Not only that, the buildings and ornaments of the temple also hold values related to the beliefs of the Chinese community in general.