MAKING MUSEUMS LIKE MALLS

Dwi Cahyono

Earning through yearning                                       

If it’s true that American industrialist Henry Ford once said ‘history is bunk’ he would have heard the applause of many Indonesians.

Though not Dwi Cahyono. His hands would have been folded, his features grim.  Although he hasn’t built any cars, the Australian-educated Malang entrepreneur has made a pile of money in his East Java hometown.

He’s also spending it – on history.  His project has so far drained around Rp 1.5 billion (US $130,000) in set-up expenses.  Then there’s the running costs including the wages of ten people.  Click COMPUTE: That’s close to Rp 30 million (US $2,600) a month.

All this is feeding a cash-hungry beast that Dwi knows (and if he didn’t others keep enthusiastically reminding him) will continue to gnaw through his wallet.

“But the funny thing is this,” he said.  “The more I spend it seems the more I earn from my other businesses.  And then there’s the satisfaction that comes from doing something worthwhile to make a difference.”

What difference?  Well, to date more than 15,000 schoolchildren have been transported into the past after stepping into Dwi’s Museum Malang Tempo Doeloe (old days), which opened last year.  .

Unlike most dim-lit DON’T TOUCH museums, particularly those run by governments, Dwi’s enterprise is a bright hands-on affair.  Visitors can caress the stone chip tools of pre-historic times and make terracotta figures like those from the Majapahit Era, half a millennium ago.

The imaginative ponder this: The dirt under their fingernails was once trodden by princes.

How do you spin a potter’s wheel without using electricity? Our ancestors didn’t have smart phones but they weren’t stupid.

Students don the clothes of Javanese nobility, take happy-snaps, paint masks and act out puppet shows.  Later they can look in awe at a life-size model of first President Soekarno at the 1947 KNIP (Central National Committee of Indonesia) Congress in Malang and generally have a jolly time.

Fun in a museum? That’s an oxymoron.

“For most kids these places are boring, dull, even scary, nothing like shopping malls,” Dwi said. “They think old is bad, new is good.

“Museums in Indonesia are usually just storage places, warehouses. The color is always the same – gray. I want to change the situation.”

So he has. His version, bright as a detergent commercial, is in a converted 1928 house with high ceilings and original tiled floors of such beauty it should be a crime to tread the ceramic. The displays are as inviting as any fashion boutique.

For Rp 15,000 (US$1.30), and less for students, it’s a walk-through experience starting with the arrival of humankind’s ancestors in the archipelago. The remains of Java Man found last century on a bank of the Bengawan Solo River could be more than 500,000 years old.

The trail then leads into the development of civilizations and the arrival of traders and invaders.

Finally the rise of kingdoms, Dutch colonialism, the Japanese occupation, the Revolution and into the modern era.  This is no kill-time experience waiting for a train at the nearby station: set two hours aside to properly enjoy.

Building a museum has long been Dwi’s dream.  As a student in Sydney he saw how the city first founded in 1788 was crazy about preserving its past – and not inside glass cases.

Whole streets of stone and timber buildings, particularly around The Rocks where the British first settled, have been preserved.  Many have been converted into offices, shops and restaurants attracting tourists and earning their keep.

Back home he opened the Inggil (Javanese for ‘high’) restaurant with a history theme and filled it with all the curious and quaint artefacts that came his way, most relating to Java – and that includes the cuisine.

 He says this has been a success and is now an essential stop for European tour groups. A few years ago he initiated the Malang Tempo Doeloe festival staged in Jalan Ijen, the grand boulevard of Dutch houses.  Visitors, and they come in thousands, are expected to dress in the clothes of yesteryear.  That means pith helmets and baggy khaki pants for tuan, and cloche hats and pleats for nyonya.

Next year’s event should be spectacular as it marks the centenary of the Dutch establishment of the city – though written history goes back to 760 AD

Dwi has also organised groups of up to a thousand volunteers to clean and paint old buildings threatened with demolition. His campaign against the giant billboards that scar the cityscape is still underway.

Although he’s visited museums in China, Vietnam and elsewhere to glean ideas, it’s those in Singapore that Dwi finds most attractive, like the Asian Civilisations Museum, the Malay Heritage Center and the Peranakan Museum, - a celebration of Straits Chinese-Malay culture.

Singaporeans clearly envy Indonesia’s rich and ancient past; although the tiny red-dot city’s story only really began in 1819, it squeezes every passing year for drops of memory.

One of many difficulties facing Indonesian museums is the lack of local curators. Dwi has yet to find a tertiary institution teaching museum management.  Another issue is persuading citizens not to call in the rombeng (second-hand goods traders) when they clean out grandma’s cupboards.

If the collection that includes Japanese uniforms and equipment is an indicator he’s been mighty persuasive, though who knows how much has been tossed out by folk who think like Mr Ford?

“We learn from history,” Dwi said. “We need to remember and understand what our parents and grandparents did to develop our cities and culture, our religions, art and language.

 “Unfortunately the government doesn’t understand the importance of culture, though there’s one good sign.  The new DPR (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat – Legislative Assembly building) has followed the style set by Dutch architect Thomas Karsten, who designed Malang Town Hall in the 1930s.

“Malang is rich in history, we are so blessed. It was the heart of the kingdom of Majapahit that controlled much of lower Southeast Asia.  This is ours – our traditions.

“Of course making money is necessary – but what we do with it is also important.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 30 September 2013)

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HIDING BEHIND THE FLAG

 Words for the blood, not the brain                                     

‘Nationalism is an infantile thing – it’s the measles of mankind’.

If Nobel prizewinner Albert Einstein’s quip is right, then it’s time to extend vaccination programs in Indonesia and Australia before the epidemic hits.

For there are troubling signs that rational thought is being infected by the virus of base political rhetoric.

Consider the comments of new Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce.  The Queensland politician feels uncomfortable with Indonesians buying 10,000 square kilometers of Northern Australia (an area twice the size of Lombok), to raise cattle for consumption in the Republic.

Like all populists the minister knows that his views play well with the xenophobic.  These suspicious folk were revealed last month (Aug) through an Australian government-commissioned survey. This showed almost half the respondents believe Indonesia is a threat.

Mr Joyce doesn’t disparage directly, preferring the fuzzy phrase ‘national interest.’  But the message is clear: Who’d want sinister foreigners with their funny habits, strange language and curious religion sitting on our land? Goodness, they might even make it more productive.

Nonetheless Mr Joyce’s mutterings have copped some stick, as Australians say.  A maturing electorate?  Maybe - or because his boss, Prime Minister Tony Abbott is trying to be nice to the people next door and show his Asian credentials.

Despite Mr Joyce’s concerns a sale will probably go through after scrutiny by the Foreign Investment Review Board. The Chinese, British, Americans and many other nationals, including presidential hopeful Aburizal Bakrie, have owned leases over big pastoral stations (ranches). Discrimination against Indonesia is unlikely, even though the reverse operates.

On this side of the Arafura Sea there’s no way Australians can buy even a grain of the Archipelago.  Apart from leasing a condo the best we can do is enjoy property held in the name of an Indonesian spouse or business partner.  The risks are obvious.

Mr Joyce is a member of the conservative National Party (in coalition with the Liberal Party majority), but even some supporters, particularly those with properties for sale, reckon he’s singing yesteryear’s song.

Not so in Indonesia. What Perth academic Professor Krishna Sen calls ‘nationalistic fervour’ remains top of the pops.

Writing on The Conversation website she made the embarrassing (for Australians) observation that the present Indonesian Cabinet is smart, well-educated and understands more about Australia than its counterpart does of Indonesia.

Three key members of the Indonesian Government, including vice president Boediono, studied at Australian universities. Six have PhDs.

So all the more surprise that such a sophisticated ministry seems determined to bang the nationalistic drum with its policies, knowing that the risks of rousing the masses are real and damaging.

According to the London-based economic think-tank Global Trade Alert, Indonesia has implemented 198 protectionist measures that ‘are harmful, or almost certainly harmful to Indonesia.’ Another 88 are in the queue.

Further proof that foreigners aren’t wanted came with the release this month (Sept) of figures showing a six per cent drop in work permits. For Australians the figure is even greater - about a third, down to just over 2,300 in the past year.

Employers here and elsewhere usually want the best person for the job.  Are qualifications and experience of less value than birthplace? Does citizenship trump merit?  In the current climate the answers are ‘yes’.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal Jakarta-based management consultants John Kurtz and James Van Zorge commented on ‘the curse of nationalism’, adding: ‘Policy changes in the mining, retail, horticultural and oil and gas sectors have led foreign investors to reassess the risk of doing business here.’

Foreign companies take profits out of the country so are easy to demonize: ‘You are poor because they are greedy’. Investors also take risks and create jobs. That’s usually overlooked

Elections are great opportunities for politicians to offer slogans rather than plans. Mr Abbott’s one-liner ‘stop the boats’ resonated with an electorate deeply worried about Middle Eastern and Sri Lankan asylum seekers being ferried to Australian shores by Indonesian fishermen.

How that’s going to be achieved is another matter. The plans revealed so far, including Indonesian ‘transit ports’ for refugees, seem set to inflame emotions.

National flags are useful symbols but can also mask purpose. All the indicators are that next year’s presidential election will be a policy-free affair driven by personalities draping themselves in red and white.

The dog whistling has already started. Terms like ‘territorial integrity’ and ‘sovereign rights’ stir the blood but dull the brain.

In 2010 President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono addressed the Australian Parliament.  He said the first challenge facing the two nations was to ‘bring a change in each other’s mindset’.

He continued: ‘The most persistent problem is the presence of age-old stereotypes – misleading, simplistic mental caricatures that depict the other side in a bad light.’

It will be sad and damaging if next year’s candidates follow Mr Joyce’s misleading and simplistic view that the nation will be better off without outsiders, their money, expertise - and friendship. 

(First published in The Jakarta Post 28 September 2013)

CULTURAL ICONS - OR JUST GRUESOME?

Sacred space or hyperkitsch?     

                                         

The remnants of Thailand’s ancient capital Ayutthaya attract millions of foreigners every year, keen to tread the splendid and much restored UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Before it was plundered and ripped apart by the Burmese in April 1767 following a two-year war and siege, Ayutthaya was one of the world’s largest cities.

Today tourists are bussed from the new capital Bangkok to wander the crumbling red-brick ruins and sagging stupa, until infected by the NATO syndrome: (Not Another Tourist Object).

 This is the curse that comes from visiting worthy cultural sites in oppressive heat, hounded by touts flogging trinkets, and where sunscreen cream is as essential as sensible shoes.

But far from the main site and elephant rides, rarely noted in tour guides is another wat (temple) so curious, so overwhelmingly fascinating that any visit dispels discomfort and revives enthusiasm. 

Though don’t expect speedy enlightenment unless you’re a Buddhist scholar. The philosophies underpinning the Tha Ka Rong Temple are complex with a local twist and a regional twirl.

You won’t find many foreigners at what translates as the Monastery of the Landing of the Crying Crow – we spotted only one among several hundred Thais thronging the compound.  The crows, ravens from the descriptions, are also absent, though plaster caricatures remain.

The lack of a Thai passport doesn’t mean non-Buddhists are unwelcome; they’re just politely accepted, offered smiles but otherwise left alone.  There are no entrance fees and hustlers are absent, though there are plenty of opportunities to lighten over-weight wallets. All are off-the-wall.

The tone is set at the entrance of what used to be two riverside monasteries that merged last century after spending the previous four hundred years apart. The shock starts with a statue of a white Brahman cow, flanked by a row of grinning saffron-clad plastic babes hugging black begging bowls, leading to a gold-colored Buddha.

The locals say that so many glasses have been left behind by careless novice monks that the Abbott put them on the mannequins. This makes quite a spectacle.

Reckon these dummies are just too kitsch for comfort? Then maybe you’ll be more inspired or frightened enough to open your purse at the entrance where you’ll encounter a skeleton offering a wai as you drop money in his box.

This experience is a mite disconcerting as the traditional Thai greeting is normally performed with grace.  It’s true old bony used the latest toothpaste, and dark glasses help to soften the stare, but the mechanics are clunky and his (her?) movements jerky.

Consequently logical Westerners expect the skull to snap off from the vertebrae with each shuddering bow, and the finger bones to flick apart as the palms snap together. That they don’t is a tribute to Thai technology or divine control.

There are several jolly skeletal ones around the complex; some have a voice that presumably says sawasdee. The larynx is obviously absent so the greeting gets garbled.  Or maybe that’s how skulls talk; at least they don’t get tongue tied.

Scary?  Not to the locals who encourage their children to feed the fleshless one with baht and watch him rattle: ‘This is what happens to naughty kids who don’t finish their curried fish cake.’

More macabre are the wax figures of monks past and present, so superbly made that even now I wonder whether they aren’t the real person preserved by secret embalming herbs.

If so the potion should be used at Bangkok’s Siriraj Hospital Museum where the mummified bodies of executed murderers stand in baking trays to collect the dripping body fluids, a gruesome warning to visitors not to become serial killers.  The Thais do gruesome tourism well.

There’s no slime or antiseptic odor around Tha Ka Rong which is famous for the cleanliness of its toilets having won an award in 2006. So the exhibits must be just that, though the fans waft the monks’ hair, one certainly shivered and I’m sure the venerable fellow holding a cigar dropped ash.

The unshod crowds wander through a series of carpeted rooms well furnished, though not always wisely.  Apart from the figures the walls are covered with photos of famous visitors, flashing lights and even a section devoted to ASEAN. 

Here nationalistic Indonesians can drop their rupiah in a bowl under the red-and-white. From the Philippines?  No worries this temple’s egalitarian, with a slot for everyone.

If there is an air of reverence it’s well disguised.  The casually-dressed devout pause to pray at the shrines they favor then move on to throw coins in revolving buckets for luck or peer into glass spheres to glimpse the future.  If all this seems too placid there are rows of bells to be rung as prayers.

Even the ubosot, the most holy room is open to visitors of any or no faith who can sit on the high-backed chairs.  The walls and floor are made of ancient teak planks that escaped the Burmese assault, even though the temple was occupied by the army during the 18 th century fighting.

When worldly needs overtake spiritual concerns there’s a long jetty where women cook meals to order on narrow boats, balancing steaming cauldrons as the decks bob and sway.  In the water a flotilla of plump catfish thrash the water competing for multi-colored food pellets.

Their cousins may be sizzling on the floating barbecues at the other side of the boardwalk, but this is a piscine paradise.  These fish are protected in the temple complex that includes a section of the Chao Phraya River.

On weekends thousands make the 90 minute drive from Bangkok for a day out at Tha Ka Rong, many to hear a popular preacher.  Despite the huge numbers the temple and its surrounds are well maintained.

Most religions are serious affairs of the soul, where grim-faced clerics wag fingers. Tha Ka Rong shows that faith can be fun.

(First published in The Jakarta Post 27 September 2013)

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KAKO MOZES - OUT OF THE SHADOW

The Peaceful Painter   

                                 

The difficulties faced by children with famous parents are so universal there should be a special word to describe the situation.

Like ‘offspringomitis’ (an inflammation of problems encountered when Dad or Mom is in the public eye).  It fits, but doesn’t have the right ring. Maybe schitzoneed – the condition of wanting, yet not wanting.

When the kid is young the benefits flow, particularly if the parent is financially successful and generous to his or her family. Later the name can become burdensome.

Koko Mozes knows the symptoms well.  As the eldest son of renowned East Javanese painter Mozes Misdy he was always the little-noticed lad giving his father a hand stretching canvases, packing cases, squeezing tubes and generally keeping just out of frame.

Sometimes he ventured an opinion.  Sometimes it was heard.

It was good apprenticeship because the boy was artistically talented.  He wanted to learn and Dad was happy to teach, but the danger was obvious; whatever the youngster did it would always be compared with the art of the elder.

So for five years Koko worked as a photographer doing portraits, weddings and other commercial work.  “I didn’t find this satisfying because photos are just a flat memory, not something that incites a reaction,” he said.

“So I turned back to art. I’ve learned so much from my father.  We both work in oils. Now I have to make my own name.”

Having recently secured a commission to produce 300 original paintings to hang in restaurants and hotels in China, (the buyer saw his work in Surabaya) Koko is already achieving his goal, though he still helps his father prepare for exhibitions.  The next is scheduled for Jakarta later this year, where Mozes senior is now working. .

But quantity doesn’t always equal quality, as his mother Fatimah reminded him. “He still needs maturity,” she said – and he agreed as a dutiful son should when his Mom sits in at an interview, pointing out that her husband has an international reputation, having exhibited in Australia, Thailand and Malaysia.

“Little by little,” Koko conceded, for some of his work is still dominated by Dad’s powerful brushwork.

Mozes’ small pictures start from US $800 (Rp 10 million). Now most buyers are Chinese, an indicator of where disposable incomes are currently centered along with (according to Koko) Indonesian indifference to art.

Much of Dad’s work isn’t just large, it’s wide-screen cinematic.  Pairs of canvases, each up to four meters long are part of his speciality, designed to dominate a hall.  It’s the sort of art loved by big business to hang in foyers and boardrooms, to make a statement about the company that has little to do with the product.

A picture of packets of paper clips or sacks of cement hardly enchants, but a panorama of beached boats or flowers can be restful and, according to Fatimah, assist in the negotiations.  It’s all about mood, though money is the motivator.

And the rupiahs have certainly been running.  Twelve years ago Mozes senior opened a lavish three-storey gallery hung with his awards, in Banyuwangi.  This is the little town on the far east coast, better known as a ferry port for travellers heading in or out of Java, not a location to linger.

“When the gallery opened there were about 220 artists working and living here,” Koko said. “It was the high point and we had a thriving cultural community. Now there are only 20 left.  They’ve scattered around Indonesia but most have gone to Bali.”

For that’s where the tourists head – 1.8 million in the past year – and not all are after the beaches and booze. Art is also a major attraction, with trends as fickle as food fads.  A few years ago it was cats, then birds and fish. Demure maidens in batik seem perennial.

It’s a market Koko doesn’t want to enter.  “I’ll stay in Banyuwangi and develop my own style, and make buyers happy,” he said. 

“I want to be known as a peaceful painter, focusing on the environment, helping people understand what we’ve done – and what we are doing – to nature.”

For this he’s well placed.  The region is heavily timbered, and not all of it plantations.  There are two national parks - Baluran to the north and Alas Purwo on the peninsula of Blambangan.  This is the name used when the Majapahit kingdom ruled more than 500 years ago.

The Kawah Ijen volcano with its spectacular smoking sulphur-lake caldera is nearby.  It’s a favored spot for adventurous Europeans, but there’s no integration of the experience with local art and culture. This annoys Koko who argues that the local government should follow Yogyakarta’s example and promote Banyuwangi culture.  

Although the area is drier than Central Java and in places looks more arid Australian than lush Indonesian, Koko prefers darker, less tropical greens that give his work a slight feel of mystery.  His father favors pastels.

“I try to use my imagination rather than focus on a particular location,” he said.  “I’m particularly concerned about damage to the environment. I like to think how the land looked before we started felling trees and building towns, before global warming.

“When I do put a man-made structure, like a cottage, into the landscape, it’s usually rotting and crumbling as nature recovers the space.”

By contrast his father often includes figures in his landscapes, usually relaxing after work, along with portraits of women, clothed and nude.

“My Indonesian hero is the late expressionist Affandi, and overseas, Van Gogh,” he said. “Even though I don’t want to live in the shadow of my father, it’s a good shadow to have.

“At the same time I don’t want people to look at my paintings and say –‘Ah, that’s Pak Mozes’.  I hope they’ll say: ‘Look, a Pak Koko painting’.

“My father will be 72 this year yet he’s still seeking perfection. That’s also my aim, and I’m only 40.”

(First published in The Jakarta Post, 23 September 2013)

        

THE MYSTERY OF PRINCE PANJI'S CAP

Cap this, Prince Panji     

                                                                  

The old slogan ‘if you want to get ahead, get a hat’ still holds good in Indonesia. In East Java’s recent gubernatorial election campaign it’s no accident of advertising that the winners wore peci, the rimless black cap.

Although widely considered an Islamic headdress it’s also associated with nationalism.  Early photos of first president Soekarno show him sporting the blangkon. The Javanese turban is now seldom seen outside weddings and Yogyakarta where it’s worn by men in the kraton, their rank determined by the batik pattern.

When the young revolutionary abandoned the blangkon, with its hints of feudalism, for the more democratic peci, it became the sign of resistance.  Now the hat supposedly asserts the wearer is genuinely Javanese, a Muslim and a Republican.

But there’s another hat that’s even more indigenous, for the peci was probably an import, and  related to the Turkish fez.

Though some reckon it’s a beret, the Panji cap looks more like a pedal-pusher’s helmet, perching on the hair rather than the fish-bowl crash hats used by motorcyclists. It was identified more than a hundred years ago by Dutch archaeologists squinting at temple reliefs in East Java.

They originally believed the carvings were an extension of those found on the Central Java sites of Buddhist Borobudur and Hindu Prambanan.

Later it become clear that the art and culture of East Java stands apart from its Indian origins and western neighbor.

German art historian Dr Lydia Kieven has now taken what she calls a ‘new look’ at the religious function of temples during the Majapahit kingdom, the so called Golden Era, roughly 1300 to 1500 AD.

Although now better described as a cultural archaeologist, truth is she’s a sleuth, and should be the hero in a TV series where the gumshoe spots the overlooked clue that reveals the full story.

For the many temples of East Java are not well preserved. Weather, time, vandals and official indifference have eroded many reliefs leaving the gaps to be provisionally filled by the imaginative and inquisitive.

Following the Cap Figure isn’t a grab-me-and-read title (why not Pursuing Panji?) but this isn’t an E-novel for a long journey.  It’s a serious study that grew out of Dr Kieven’s doctorate at Sydney University.

Without trying to dilute the book’s importance in any way or deter readers, there are some irritants.

PhD thesis writers understandably want a readership beyond supervisors and examiners.  Years of intense study deserve more than leaving just another shelved reference for the next generation of students, so why not publish for a broader market?

Fine– though only if the research is totally rewritten to suit that different public  – the eclectic inquirer.

Dr Kieven may not be an Indiana Jones action hero, but she’s a robust explorer who’s collected some fine stories in stone, and that’s meant climbing mountains and probing caves.

 Who wouldn’t want to know more about ‘monkey and ungrateful man’ and ‘the bull and the crocodile’?  Or Dr Kieven’s key question – why does the cap figure appear so often, and only on the Majapahit temples?

The points raised are too fascinating to be lumbered by eight-point footnotes, slabs of tables best left in the library, polysyllabic prose and in-text references.

The best example of what could have been done is the magnificent Worshipping Siva and Buddha – the temple art of East Java by Ann Kinney published in 2003.  This coffee table book with big color pictures and an easy-read text includes a chapter by Dr Kieven.

Unfortunately the photos in Following the Cap Figure are mainly monochrome and small, often too tiny to see the feature being discussed.

Who was Panji and why did he wear his cute cap with front and back peaks? It must have been fashion and status because like the blangkon and peci it offers no protection from sun or rain. Earlier carvings show it worn by commoners, then higher ranks.

For Dr Kieven the capped chaps are intermediaries who ‘prepare and guide the pilgrim to an encounter with the sacred’.

The mythical Prince Panji was the all East Java lad-about-forest who lost and then found his lover Princess Candrakirana, deliciously translated as Moonbeam.  Their quest for true love provides the setting for scores of stories, many erotic,  that surely delighted the Majapahit folk thriving on the Brantas River’s fertile floodplains.

These producers and traders were so cashed up that they could indulge in art, so confident they could unleash their creativity and set new directions.

Dr Kieven sees the gadabout as a Javanese cultural hero, but Panji was also a fertility symbol and the cap was linked to Tantri stories.

She defines the concept of Tantrism as ‘macrocosm and microcosm as one … the central goal is the union of the individual soul with the cosmic soul.’ Are the cap figures leading the relief reader in this direction?

Anyone fascinated by Javanese history can field test their theories against Dr Kieven’s ideas and research, and here the book’s small size is an advantage.  Apart from the later sites on Mount Penanggungan most East Java temples are accessible, often found squashed alongside kampong.

Only poorly policed regulations stand between history and another housing development or toll road.

To suggest that more is yet to be learned about the Majapahit era is not to belittle the author’s extensive work, only to say the field  has only been partially tilled, not ploughed.

Shouldn’t locals be doing this research?  It’s a question that niggles all outsiders working in the archipelago. Elsewhere Dr Kieven has written of how she’s settled these concerns:

“Later on I realized that the presentation of my expertise as a foreigner did in fact contribute and strengthen the knowledge, the pride and the respect of the Javanese people concerning their rich cultural heritage.”

Now to find the best way to spread that knowledge.

Following the Cap Figure                                                                                                                  by Lydia Kieven                                                                                                                             Published by Brill, 2013        

(First published in The Sunday Post 22 September 2013)                                                                                                                                           

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BORN IN INDONESIA - STILL A BELANDA

Sige Dina Voges

Two halves make whole   

                                                  

Good morning and welcome to Malang.  My name is Sige Dina Voges.  I’ve been a tour guide here in East Java, North Sumatra, Bali and Lombok for more than 36 years.

You’re right, my first name is Japanese, my second Indonesian and my surname Dutch, though I’m an Indonesian citizen.  You’d like to hear my story? Many people ask.

I was born in 1942, the year the Japanese invaded Java. My mother, Charlote Schneider, was a German citizen although born in Medan. She was living in Batu on the slopes of Mount Welirang.  In those days it was a hilltown retreat for the colonials.

My Dutch father wasn’t present when I arrived. He’d been arrested by the Japanese, then transported to a camp in Bandung.

Although my mother was European she was protected because Germany and Japan were allies.  Although pregnant she and her friend Peggy, who also had a husband in the camp, went by train to West Java to try and see their men. That was very brave.

My father burrowed under the wire to see her. He knew she was expecting. A day later the men were transported to Thailand.  They were sent to work on the railway between Bangkok and Burma. 

About a quarter of the 60,000 Allied prisoners of war died on the jungle track before the war ended.  Half the indentured labor – many of them Indonesians – also perished. It was known as the Death Railroad.

My mother thought my father had gone forever.  She became friendly with a Japanese officer who protected her. His name was Honda.  He left her his samurai sword and decorations when he was deported at the end of the war. That’s why I have a Japanese name, but my father was Karel Voges.

When the war ended my mother heard that her husband had died on the railway, so she married an Indonesian man from Manado. But my father had survived; it was his brother who had passed away. In the chaos it seems their names had been mixed.

When the truth became known my parents divorced. He went back to Holland, married and migrated to Australia.  I wasn’t told he existed.

After the Japanese left the guerrilla war against the Dutch began and ran for four years.  It ended when Queen Beatrix surrendered sovereignty on 27 December 1949.  That was my birthday – I was seven years old.

Those were harsh times for Europeans in Indonesia but I don’t remember any cruelty or unkindness towards me. I could speak Indonesian and Javanese, so mixed well with the other children at school even though I’m a blond blue-eyed European.

I really can’t recall any bad things happening to us, though some Europeans, including women and children, were killed by revolutionaries when the Japanese camps were opened. We kept a low profile.

My mother had no other children. She worked with Indonesian women and was well liked. She wanted to help people.  My stepfather, John Pejoh, was Indonesian.  I don’t know exactly but that must have made a difference particularly when President Soekarno told the Dutch to ‘go to hell’ and started nationalising foreign businesses.

My step father got sick and died suddenly when he was just 39.  Only then did my mother reveal that my real father was Dutch and probably alive.  But I wasn’t interested. 

I fell in love with a Manado man. I married when I was 17 and had five children. Two of my sons died but the other three are living in Jakarta and Bali.

One day I was working as a tour guide when a woman in the party queried my name. She put me in touch with a couple in Bangkok, also Voges.  Through them and the International Red Cross I was able to find my father.  He was an architect working on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

We met in Singapore between flights. I must have been in my 40s.  When my father held me for the first time something special happened. I discovered the real me. Although I had never seen him before, I immediately knew him.

I stayed with my Dad several times before he died aged 88.  My mother also died at the same age. They never met again after Bandung. My father had children, so I have another family in Australia.

My father was not an arrogant colonialist. Like many men who have been through terrible times he never spoke about his experiences in Thailand. When I divorced I took his name.

Surprisingly I still have some European habits.  I’m precise about appointments and hate jam karet (rubber time). I wear Western clothes, but eat Indonesian food, particularly Manado cuisine.

I also dream in Dutch, though I’ve been fluent in several local languages since I was a child.

I’m neither ashamed nor proud of the Dutch treatment of my country.  What’s done is done. Move on. I’m not interested in politics. I’m a Catholic, though not that serious. I believe in God. Who else can I turn to when I have to talk after all the things that have happened to me?

Like my mother I’m a woman who likes people.  I can adjust. I’m humble.  I’ve visited Holland several times.

Unfortunately Indonesia is not a truly multicultural country like Australia where even the foreign born and ethnically different can be accepted. 

Javanese are friendly, caring and communicative, not like the Dutch. Indonesians know we need each other.  Yet most see me as a Belanda (technically a Hollander, generally anyone with white skin), and rich. I’m Indonesian, alone and poor. I have no social security. 

I’m a product of the war. I’m half and half. I don’t want to retire in Holland, though I’d get health care there and I’m not well. I prefer to live with Indonesians and keep working.

This is my country. Yet I’m still considered an outsider.  That’s sad. When I die, throw my ashes in the ocean.

First published in The Jakarta Post 16 September 2013

BATU'S DALANG DOCTOR

Achmad Djoko Santoso

Prescription for calm            

                                   

How’s a body supposed to settle after a tough day slicing cadavers? For one anatomist playing the gender (a type of metallophone) helps release the mind from the gross physical encounters.

Fair enough. People whose job puts them in touch with the dead are entitled to a little eccentricity. But how about recovering after stressful sessions treating patients with poorly articulated symptoms?

Singing a revolutionary song from the war against the Dutch, of course. This tells the story of local sympathisers hiding and feeding guerrilla fighters in the forest.

Then there’s the unwinding following the delivery of heavy duty lectures before the sharp minds of a demanding new generation of university students. A session at the kelir, the white screen where the puppets perform is prescribed.

Dr Achmad Djoko Santoso is a polymath who humbles those who can only tap keyboards.  He’s equally at ease peering through microscopes at human tissue in Brawijaya University’s medical school laboratory, as he is on the stage with a gamelan orchestra where he takes many parts, including singing in Javanese.

“Every sound in the gamelan has a meaning, a philosophy,” he said at his home in the East Java hilltown of Batu.

“I don’t mean that this applies solely in Java – it’s universal.  When we listen to the gamelan we begin to feel content. When I play I feel peaceful.

“Rice is for the body, but music is for the heart, the soul. We relax and the problems of the day start to fade. I tell this to my students as a prologue to lectures

“Music can heal. Sometimes I recommend it to my patients. (He also runs an early-morning and evening general practice from his home surgery).  Occasionally they’re surprised because they expect a prescription for pills, though most know my treatments. I often sing to children as I examine their complaints.”

Like Prince Charles he plays music to his flowers and has a lush garden to prove either the effectiveness of the therapy or the fertility of the volcanic soils. Unfortunately his aged apple trees look terminally sick.

Dr Djoko used to be known as ‘Five Ds’.  Apart from being a lecturer (dosen), a doctor and a puppet master (dalang) he was also a politician - a member of the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah (Regional Assembly) and a Dewan Pimpinan Cabang, the local Golkar party leader.

Now 63, he concentrates on music and medicine and sees the two as intertwined.

“A doctor can get close to the community,” he said. “I became interested in anatomy because it’s the basis of all medicine.

”My speciality is micro-anatomy. This helps towards an understanding of the wider world.  It relates to my music because a dalang is supposed to be knowledgeable. When I see blood I remember the red of the gamelan.”

Dr Djoko grew up in the small settlement of Jemekan near the East Java city of Kediri where his parents were farmers. Before television and the Internet the people made their own entertainment centered around the night-time shows of wayang kulit (shadow puppets).

His dalang grandfather lived next door so the young boy was raised in an environment of pure Javanese song and sound, undiluted by outside influences.

He was the eighth of nine children, and the first person from his village to enter university.  Now 15 members of his extended family have received a tertiary education, with several becoming doctors.

At the end of his long garage is a set of gamelan instruments and a wide, white screen. Here the magic unfolds. The puppets dance and proclaim, attack and retreat. The street noise disappears. The flat characters become rounded; like humans they are flawed and heroic, steadfast or wicked. 

Performances with Dr Djoko’s friends are usually held on kliwon, the last day of the Javanese week.  At Brawijaya University he’s helped form three gamelan groups though the campus doesn’t have a music department. They play at formal events.

The preparation includes donning a songkok, the Javanese batik headdress, then a black jacket and sarong.  Finally he thrusts a sheathed and heavily gilded kris (dagger) in the waistband.  Then all is ready.

Of the many wayang characters in the epic Ramayana, Dr Djoko relates best to Hanuman, the white monkey king.  He leads the army that helps Prince Rama rescue his bride Sita from the ten-headed demon, King Rawana.

“I identify with Hanuman because he is always hungry for knowledge,” Dr Djoko said. “Although he’s an animal he behaves better than humans.”

He’s also involved with ludruk, the indigenous knockabout street theater, often peppered with political satire and men dressed as women.

“I love my nation and my people, but I have to struggle for my culture,” Dr Djoko said. Although he insisted on being interviewed in Indonesian he soon lapsed into English picked up through studies abroad, including Australia.

He also relaxed with the Western pop song ‘I can’t stop loving you’.  Though no Ray Charles, his voice is a soft and pleasing baritone.

This was followed by an English commentary as puppets representing Australia and Indonesia flicked across the screen then clashed.  You already know the result, but the doctor is more teasing imp than nationalistic ogre. He now believes that the best way for the gamelan to survive is to synthesise with modern music.

“OK, I’m Javanese, you’re londo (a foreigner), yet we’re the same” he said. “Maybe I’m multicultural.”

Which is logical, for a dalang can’t be locked in a cage of ideology. Some dictionaries define the word as mastermind.  He has to be versatile, a sage of many parts, philosopher, story-teller and improviser. Leadership skills and credibility are critical.

Confuse the wayang characters and there goes the reputation, for there’s bound to be an iconoclast in the audience.

“The wayang is a synthesis of Indonesian and Hindu culture,” said Dr Djoko as he pegged the puppets back in their places. “It brings harmony and peace.  Isn’t that what the world wants?”

(First published in The Jakarta Post 9 September 2013)

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