Welcoming the King and Looking for Profit

The merchants from Gorontalo, came to seize the great business opportunity due to the big celebration.

KOMPAS/KRISTIAN OKA PRASETYADI

A motorcyclist crosses a Christmas cage installation set up in Tikala, Manado, North Sulawesi, Friday (9/12/2022).

News spread from the east about a port city, Manado, which would hold a big celebration. The colorful lights installed by residents illuminated the whole city, making the wet December nights after the rain more and more serene. Reportedly, all of the activities were to be held to welcome the birth of the king.

So, about a month before the birth, the merchants departed from Gorontalo, the peninsula area on the north side of Tomini Bay, to Manado, the port city in the east. They came to seize the great business opportunity due to the big celebration.

The traders carried hundreds, if not thousands, of kilograms of cookies and pastries along the winding Trans-Sulawesi Road for around 400 kilometers. Various types of cookies, ranging from snow white, macis sticks, date nuts to varnish nuts had been in great demand in Manado as Christians wanted to enliven the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ on 25 Dec., which this year fell on Sunday.

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Sellers and buyers flocked to Wenang, the trading area around Manado Harbor, where people departed for or came from the islands of Nusa Utara and Maluku Raya. Semi-permanent stalls were erected to display rows of jars and stacks of plastic bags filled with a variety of mouthwatering treats.

Rival Yusuf, 27, was one of the cookie peddlers who took part in the flow of "temporary transmigration" to Manado. He and his family arrived in the North Sulawesi capital to sell on the roadside in front of the Jumbo Supermarket in the first week of December.

In order to be able to go home with an empty pickup truck and fat wallets stuffed with rupiah, Rival would have to stay until all the cookies were sold out. He had rented a house in Kelurahan Banjer until the end of the year.

"Gorontalo residents will never go home if they don't bring a lot of doi [money], so people in the village will call them 'boss'. If you go home with only your name, it will be half dead," Rival said jokingly on Monday (19/12/2022), when Kompas met him at his kiosk.

Trillions of rupiah

The arrival of traders from Gorontalo was not surprising. There are many trading opportunities in Manado ahead of Christmas because the majority of the population are Christians. It is like the opportunity during Idul Fitri in Gorontalo, where most of the population is Muslim.

The representative office of Bank Indonesia for North Sulawesi even stated that it had prepared Rp 2.3 trillion in banknotes in December to meet the growing need for cash from the residents. The value is equivalent to a quarter of the total currency needs of the province throughout 2022, which reaches Rp 8.8 trillion.

KOMPAS/KRISTIAN OKA PRASETYADI

Erlin Laginta (40), a pastry seller from Gorontalo, opened a pastry stall in the Wenang area near Manado Harbor, North Sulawesi, Monday (19/12/2022). For the last five years, he has always spent December in Manado selling cookies..

This is also the reason why Erlin Laginta, 40, has always left for Manado every December for the last five years. This year, the owner of a home-based cake factory in Mongoliato Village, Telaga, Gorontalo regency, brought 32 dozen or 384 jars of pastries and 1,000 packets of peanut snacks by pickup truck.

“Here, I rent a room with my husband in the Kombos area. [The total capital] I think, reaches more than Rp 100 million. Luckily the installment for the [pickup truck] has been paid off and the driver is my husband himself, so there are no additional costs," said Erlin.

Referring to the experience during the last few years, Erlin's merchandise was always sold out at the peak of the Christmas celebration. As a Muslim trader, She said she had played a role so that Christians in Manado could celebrate Christmas in a more lively manner. Moreover, nowadays not everyone in Manado has the luxury of time to make their own cookies.

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This was acknowledged by Syane Tiwato, 57, a resident of Tanawangko, Minahasa, about 37 kilometers from Manado Port. As a restaurant owner, she acknowledged that she had no time to make cakes. Even so, she still had to provide snacks for her family and guests who would visit the house during Christmas and New Year.

The business activities in the market have indirectly helped build relations between religious believers. However, Erlin acknowledged that she had never thought about that.

“This is normal. I'm here to seize opportunities on holidays, but in the end, I can help people celebrate [Christmas]," she said.

I'm here to seize opportunities on holidays, but in the end, I can help people celebrate [Christmas].

Ship operators also played a part in helping people during Christmas. In mid-December 2022, for example, the KM Belt Nusantara 67 departed from Tenau Port, Kupang City, East Nusa Tenggara, carrying 100 passengers and 200 metric tons of goods.

"Because the demand ahead of Christmas and New Year is high, we have taken a policy to only transport basic necessities," said the skipper of KM Belt Nusantara 67, Petrus Parapaga.

The ship's journey ended in Saumlaki, Tanimbar Islands regency, Maluku, after a five-day voyage from Kupang carrying various goods, including Christmas gifts.

This article was translated by Hendarsyah Tarmizi.