Birth Date
Janssen Ewaldo | Indonesia | 2025 | Documentary Film | 15:27​
Trailer

Synopsis

Bong Lim Fi, a Chinese-Indonesian teenager, and his sisters wanted to surprise their mom on her birthday, so they started preparing a cake and come up with a scenario. However, they realized that they had the wrong idea of her birth date: is it on the Lunar calendar or the Gregorian calendar?

Director

Janssen Ewaldo

The rising popularity of western vlog videos and the other various contents, makes me also make those kind of videos since I was in third grade of Junior High School. I used to think, maybe if I use English to share my moments as a content creator, it will seem trendy and cool. Me as a Chinese-Indonesian (to be specific, being the fourth generation of Chinese descent in Indonesia), most of my peers who are on the same generation as me don’t speak Mandarin and most of them don’t celebrate Lunar Birthday anymore. I remember my mom’s birth date that is stated on her identity card. I just realized those are her Lunar birth date not Gregorian birth date when I went to my grandpa’s house and heard explanations from him. Looking back to mom’s birthday surprise videos that I took 4 years ago, I realize I’m still lack of knowledge of my own culture, my ancestors culture as a Chinese-Indonesian.