Chinese Indonesians are descended from various Chinese ethnic groups, primarily the Han Chinese, but they are of mixed Chinese and local ancestry, having lived in Indonesia since the thirteenth century. Many came as sojourners, intending to return home. Some stayed as economic migrants and created a growing population, of which workers were contracted from southern China during the Dutch colonial period. A distinction was made between peranakan and totok among Chinese Indonesians. Peranakan developed a hybrid of Chinese and local culture; totok retained a Chinese identity. The Dutch colonizers employed systems of ethnic classification according to place of origin, religion, and culture. After independence (1945), the Chinese community was divided into those who accepted or rejected Indonesian citizenship. Under Suharto’s New Order (1966–1998), Chinese descendants were classified as Indonesian citizens of foreign descent. Whatever, Chinese Indonesians retain their identity through Chinatowns and temples (klentengs). A question arises about how to identify the peranakan and the totok within the limited space of the Java-Chinese diaspora. Lefebvre’s spatial triad (Spatial Practice/Representations of Space/Representational Space) and Saussure’s semiotics (signifier-signified) are approached. This paper discusses visual languages in the similarity-difference between peranakan and totok communities in cultural spatiality to assist the naming issues of Chinese Indonesians.