A slice of local history in Malang

Dewi Anggraeni, Contributor, Malang

While it would be interesting to see a demographic study of the types of people various hotels are seeking to attract as guests, it would be equally enlightening to see how unusual and idiosyncratic hotels come to have their unique characteristics.

If you happen to visit Malang in East Java, are prepared to linger a little, and are curious about the cultural history of Java, then try staying at Tugu Park Hotel. It has a surprise waiting each time you turn a corner, and it has an ambience like no other hotel.

You feel as if the owner, Anhar Setyadibrata, has recreated a slice of life in the 20th century, which you are free to sample, segment by segment.

Everything you come across, touch, or smell, does not evoke the modern world of the 21st century, though modern technology certainly plays an important part in the hotel, albeit discreetly.

Anhar Setyadibrata, founder and owner of the hotel, admits to being "a man of the past". His passion is retrieving and salvaging what people today have discarded, He will then store the items until he can rebuild a coherent segment of life, like building a jigsaw puzzle.

One such recreation is Waroeng Shanghai, a cafe-bar in the hotel.

Entering the cafe-bar is like stepping onto a stage by mistake. You do not know exactly what drama is being played out, but it has the feel of the lives of the early 20th century Chinese-Javanese. On the walls are old color and black-and-white photographs of Chinese women in cheongsam, of babah and nyonya as couples or en famille, of Dutch colonial Chinese kapiteins, all competing for space with ancient grandfather clocks and signs in Chinese characters.

The decor and the furniture are realistically eclectic, just as a waroeng of that era would not have acquired a distinguished set of furniture from a particular merchant. And, faithful to that period, the interior is semi-dark and cluttered, so much so that the tell-tale, rather modern television set blended in quietly, almost eluding unwanted critical attention.

The place is indeed a recreated rendition -- Anhar's version - of the original Waroeng Shanghai, a lively cafe-bar, frequented by traders and sailors, in Sunda Kelapa, the harbor north of Batavia, the then Dutch East Indies' Jakarta.

The cafe-bar was owned by an ethnic Chinese entrepreneur named Chan Mo Sang, who was also well-known for his expertise in making quality furniture. He was a regular supplier of Dutch households and businesses. One of his signature pieces was his barber's chairs, and of course, Anhar made sure he found a couple to help recreate the atmosphere in his own Waroeng Shanghai.

Chan Mo Sang the owner of Waroeng Shanghai in Sunda Kelapa may have learned carpentry and cabinet-making from his father, Chan Mo Sang senior, an immigrant from Shanghai who at the beginning of the 20th century, had established himself as a building contractor in Java.

The fact that he married a local Betawi woman, named Siti Djaenab who had excellent cooking skills, as well as tea and coffee-making, must have triggered their combined entrepreneurial spirit. Siti Djaenab learned Shanghai cuisine from her mother-in- law and mastered it in no time. And voila, they had all the wherewithal to start a cafe-bar. Not just any cafe-bar, but Waroeng Shanghai, which was to be a landmark for locals and visitors to the commercially burgeoning harbor. It was always well-patronized, and every night people were dancing till the wee hours in the morning, eating supper and drinking tea and coffee in between the numbers.

The couple, Chan Mo Sang and Siti Djaenab reportedly believed in a hands-on approach in their cafe-bar. Every night, they would come and chat with their clients, assuring them that they would always be served good food and drinks, and wishing them eternal happiness. This winning approach brought them success for many years.

Having assiduously rebuilt the current Waroeng Shanghai piece by piece, Anhar hopes that its patrons can now relive the feeling and the ambience of its name-sake of the past century, while imagining themselves eating the food and drinking tea and coffee lovingly made by Siti Djaenab herself. One thing which may be very difficult to do is transplant the bawdiness of Sunda Kelapa harbor into such a clean-living city as Malang. And it may not be easy for Anhar and his wife to employ a modern version of Chan Mo Sang and Siti Djaenab's winning approach, as they have a lot more than Waroeng Shanghai to attend to.

In fact, the idiosyncrasy of Tugu Park Hotel does not stop at Waroeng Shanghai either. If you are curious, it is worth paying a visit, even if you do not intend to stay there as a guest.