Ban on Chinese letters leaves language void

Ban on Chinese letters leaves language void

By Hyginus Hardoyo

JAKARTA (JP): University of Indonesia senior lecturer
Gondomono believes there is an apt adage to describe the result
of the New Order government's systematic ban on the use of
Chinese characters.

"The evil done to others comes back to the perpetrator," he
said during a recent symposium on the Role of Language and
Culture in Improving Indonesia-China Relations.

He said the government now found itself without any qualified
experts on Chinese language and culture, skills it desperately
needed in diplomatic relations with Beijing.

"Because of the absence of Indonesians mastering the Han
(Mandarin) language, official meetings between Indonesia and
China frequently use interpreters from China who are fluent in
Bahasa Indonesia," he said during the symposium at Hotel Santika
in Central Jakarta.

Gondomono acknowledged there were Indonesian interpreters for
tourism and travel purposes between several destinations in China
and Taiwan, but said their service was far from enough.

"We are badly in need of people who are fluent in the Han
language for any necessity and field -- the economy, politics,
culture, tourism, education, etc."

The other speakers at the symposium were Hermina Sutami, also
of the University of Indonesia, and Huang Chenfang and Liang Liji
of Peking University.

The symposium was held in conjunction with the launching of
Kamus Lengkap Indonesia-Tionghoa (A Comprehensive Dictionary of
Indonesian-Chinese) published by PT Elex Media Komputindo of the
Gramedia Group.

The launching coincided with the celebration of the 10th
anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between
Indonesia and China.

The ties were frozen in 1967, two years after an abortive
communist coup in which Indonesia charged China with involvement.
Beijing denied the accusation.

In the aftermath of the coup, Indonesia closed Chinese schools
and banned the public exposure of Chinese arts and culture,
including use of Chinese languages.

The only university officially allowed to provide study of the
Han language was the University of Indonesia. Privately run Darma
Persada University was permitted in 1986 to teach the language,
Gondomono said.

Gondomono disclosed the inadequacy of the language study
classes. Han was taught by local lecturers for only between five
hours and 10 hours per week over three years to four years. No
native speakers were involved.

"Moreover, most books and other publications available at the
library were already out of date."

The distribution of all Chinese-character publications, such
as books, magazines and newspapers, was not permitted, except the
government-controlled newspaper Harian Indonesia. Today there are
several Chinese newspapers available in the city.

Gondomono said some of the restrictions were so petty they
would be laughable but for the seriousness of the discrimination.

English-language magazines like Time, the Asian edition of
Newsweek (Asian edition), Far Eastern Economic Review and
AsiaWeek were withheld from distribution if they contained
advertisements with Han language characters.

The officials in charge of censoring the publications could
not read the language and resorted to summarily blacking out the
text. In fact, the advertisements were usually for medicines or
beverages, and had nothing to do with communism.

Despite the authorities' zeal, Gondomono said they sometimes
missed use of the language right before their eyes. He said in
one case a Japanese restaurant was allowed to open in Jakarta
even though it used Kanji characters on its door and name plate.
Kanji means Han or Hanzi in Japanese pronunciation.

Proficiency in the Han language will not only help in the
corridors of power, the speaker said, but also in the halls of
science and medicine.

"How can we ignore the culture of a neighbor which has a
population of over one billion? Like it or not, we have to
acknowledge that we can learn much from the Tiongkok (Chinese)
culture, which includes philosophy, history, literature,
pharmacy, fine arts, martial arts and many other things," he
said.

Liang Liji, who is director of Indonesia-Malaysia studies at
Peking University, said language functioned as a cultural means
apart from its role in communication. Mastering a language also
allows one to understand a culture; cultural exchange has to be
done through language.

"The culture of a nation will not steadily grow without the
ability to grasp beneficial and valued elements from the other
culture."

He said not a single culture of a nation was 100 percent pure
or without the influence of beneficial elements from other
cultures, including their languages.

"Chinese culture is known as one of the oldest cultures in the
world and has a tradition rooted over thousands of years.
However, is the Chinese culture pure? Of course not," said Liang,
who was born in 1927 in Bandung, West Java.

"We as two big developing nations have many common interests
which force us to expand cooperation fields for the sake of
faster achievements, for both the two nations themselves and the
Asia-Pacific region as a whole."

Hembing Wijayakusuma, an expert on Chinese acupuncture and
herbal medicine who attended the symposium, said the Chinese
language was the "warehouse" of sciences.

He believed that much could be learned from the Chinese
approach to treating both common and unusual ailments.

"We Indonesians usually eat peanuts and throw away their
shells. The Chinese are different. They eat the peanuts, and
later boil the shells and drink the water to reduce cholesterol."

Dictionary

Prepared by a joint team of experts from the University of
Indonesia and Peking University over six years, this 1,256-page
dictionary contains 40,497 entries and 26,932 subentries, which
are equipped with phrases, idioms and proverbs.

The publication of the dictionary was the realization of a
memorandum of understanding signed in 1992 by Peking University
president Wu Shuqing and the then rector of the University of
Indonesia, Sujudi, on the importance of cooperation for the
formulation of bilingual dictionary programs between the two
universities.

Gramedia Group president Jakob Utama believes the Chinese
language has a great role in the world.

"English is used by about 1.5 billion people worldwide.
Chinese is no less important, as in China alone the language is
used by 1.2 billion people," said Jakob, adding that this number
did not include Chinese living outside of mainland China,
including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and other nations.