The Jakarta Post, Saturday, 28 January 2006
“Why did you decide to go to Taiwan to study Chinese?” Suwendry Paidiso, or Beben to his friends, paused to consider his answer.
He could not put his finger on it. The fact was, there was no reason.
Both his Indonesian-born parents live in Taipei, and his older sister is married to a man from the island. And although his heart is in Jakarta — where he spent his formative years, and where his girlfriend lives — it was simply easier for the young man from Palembang, South Sumatra, to follow in the footsteps of his family.
Living near Fujien province, mainland China, where his father’s family is from, Beben nevertheless has no interest in rooting out his family tree.
“There may be people there who are related to me, but I don’t know them; I don’t see the point of going there,” the 24-year-old Chinese-Indonesian told The Jakarta Post recently.
As for the Chinese language, Beben said it was no different from English, German or any other foreign language he studied in school.
“Bahasa Indonesia is my native language, Chinese is nothing but another foreign language to me. But, who knows, my learning Chinese could be beneficial in business later on,” he said.
Chinese cultural expert Eddy Prabowo Witanto said Beben’s view of his ancestral land and culture was a common one among the younger generation of Chinese-Indonesians.
“The older generation wants their children to explore what they consider to be their cultural identity, which is why they send their children to study Chinese on mainland China, in Taiwan and other places.”
“But the younger generation see it as just another chore; one that was imposed upon them, and not of their own doing,” said the lecturer at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
This generation gap widened when president Soeharto used laws, regulations, presidential decrees and other instruments to force Chinese assimilation from the late 1960s to his resignation in 1998.
“Slowly but surely the restrictions ate away at the Chinese culture, and in some areas, especially on Java, the assimilation was total,” Eddy said.
But what about other parts of Indonesia? Why has Chinese culture in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, for example, persevered?
The answer, Eddy says, lies in the nature of immigration from mainland China — mainly from the southern parts of China such as Fujien, Hainan and Guangdong provinces.
On Java, immigration began in the 1400s, spurred by trading activities. The immigrants settled mainly on the northern coast of Java, and over time, and through intermarriage, influenced local cultures. They became known as the peranakan.
On the other hand, Chinese immigration in other parts of Indonesia — such as in Bangka-Belitung, Riau and West Kalimantan — began in the early 1700s when the Dutch opened up vast areas of land for plantations and mining.
“The Dutch transported whole villages to work in these plantations and mines, and so the people stuck together and rarely mixed with the locals,” Eddy said.
The absence of a dominant culture in those areas explains how these more recent Chinese immigrants, or totok, retained their culture, he said.
The cultural identity of the totok was stronger than the iron fist of Soeharto. While Chinese-Indonesians on Java adapted to local cultures, the totok resisted, he said.
When the decades of restrictions on language and culture ended, the Chinese-Indonesian community has struggled to forge a single cultural identity.
“Unlike the peranakan culture in Singapore or Malaysia, where there’s never been a gap, Chinese-Indonesians don’t know which elements of Chinese culture to adopt,” Eddy said.
“So what happened was an introduction to an alien culture, which many Chinese-Indonesians had never experienced. For the younger generation, this revival had no meaning,” Eddy said.
“Can you imagine a girl wearing a qibao (Shanghai-style dress), looking like a real Chinese girl but not understanding any Chinese, who speaks with a thick arek Suroboyo (Surabayan) accent? It’s laughable, and saddening,” he said.
