Guinness Book of Record: The Longest Centipede Procession (蜈蚣座）

To celebrate 福德堂/HokTekTong/Himpunan-Tjinta-Teman/HTT's 150 years anniversary, a series of events were held to celebrate it. One of the most anticipated one was The Centipede Procession or Sepasan or 蜈蚣座.

The achievement was awarded by Guinness Book of World Record and MURI (Indonesian Record) as the Longest Centipede Procession in the world, they broke the previously held world record by 金门 KinMen County, Taiwan, by having 223 kids on boards, total length of the construction is 250m, number of people participated in carrying the centipede was 1500 people, taking a route of 3.9km (basically circling Padang's Chinatown).

The procession was carried completely on human strength, without wheel and engines; all by 100% human strength. Of course, HTT has 5000++ members, they sure can carry a bit this. Noting that, HTT member carried coffins almost on regular basis.

Although there were a bit of light shower in the middle of the procession, it ran quite smooth and elegantly. It's a success! Very proud to see the young kids to behave very well, it's a big thing, since the kids were 2-5 years old and they were dressed in complicated costumes too. Even some foreign kids participated in this procession, ignoring the language and cultural barriers.

Apparently the procession has always been carried out years and years ago. The term Sepasan (Centipede in Minang language/Padang local dialect) was a translation of 蜈蚣. Looking at the similarity of the wooden construction with KinMen County, there's a big probability that both originated from the same source: somewhere in FuJian, Mainland China. 

FuJian Chinese Immigrants started to come to Padang-Indonesia sometime in Qing Dynasty (Canton Chinese came a bit later), a conclusion roughly taken by reading some of inscription left in HTT. In the same time, I guess, some of them went to somewhere closer to FuJian: Taiwan. It's amazing that this particular tradition is well preserved until today.
The only difference from KinMen version is the Head part. Padang's Centipede has evolved into a Dragon (always been as far as my memory goes); while KinMen's Centipede is still looks like a Centipede.
Used to wonder why this dragon called as Sepasan? Now the mystery is answered.

You can watch a report on our local TV station here (in Chinese)

Here are some pictures of the glorious procession

The original name of HTT-福德堂 was 建德堂. Looking from the name, you'd probably able to draw a family-line to some South East Asian areas. The early immigrants didn't aim for one particular places, they spread to a different places, carrying their unique cultures that deeply infused until the very day. The brother-organisations can be found in cities of Malaysia and Myanmar. Some more are yet to be discovered, the world is all connected after all.