Mooryati Soedibyo, from court to cosmetics

Mooryati Soedibyo, from court to cosmetics

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): Mooryati Soedibyo, 72, left the palace of the
ancient rulers of Surakarta behind her only to be crowned queen
of the sprawling kingdom of Mustika Ratu, the blue chip cosmetics
company she founded three decades ago.

Born in the Surakarta court under the rule of Pakubuwono X,
her maternal grandfather, Mooryati's entire childhood was spent
in the lap of his royal highness where she learned all the
customs of court life, including classical dance, cuisine and the
concept of correct clothing.

However, as Mooryati grew up, she was determined not to let
her feudal past paralyze her. Instead, she used all the lessons
learned in the traditional surroundings of her childhood to
enhance her adult life.

As a child, she recalled disappearing into the royal kitchen
to watch the army of servants prepare herbal concoctions called
jamu to keep the women of the palace healthy and beautiful. She
made friends with the herbalists and asked questions about the
recipes.

It was her curiosity as a child that helped her to set up a
multimillion dollar cosmetics business later in life, although
she says the initial intention was not really to do business. She
was 45 years old and her four children were grown up. She had
already used a lot of the jamu recipes on herself and her family.
Plastic surgery was not popular at that time and looking at her
glowing complexion, as soft as a newly born baby's bottom, all
her friends wanted the same concoctions for themselves too. She
found that the most in demand was an energy drink made from
turmeric, tamarind and palm sugar.

This was also the period when everyone was becoming a
apprehensive of popping allopathic pills and the slogan "Back to
Nature" was fast becoming an alternative to both health and
beauty. As the orders increased, so did Mooryati's adrenalin.
Soon, she moved her activities from the kitchen to the garage,
much to the horror of her husband who found his car parked
outdoors one day.

But Mooryati was already high on the Rp 25,000 profit she had
made and she refused to be intimidated by anyone. She hired five
people to help her as she shopped for more herbs and bottles.
Around 1978, a large number of women had started to work outside
the home. Drinks in a bottle were no longer convenient for them.
As soon as the next profit installment poured in, Mooryati bought
a small machine from Taiwan and parked it in the garage to enable
her to turn the same concoction into powder and put it into
capsules, for the convenience of the newly emerging battalion of
working women.

Her products now included an energy drink, shampoo made from
rice straw and hair oil from coconut. She had 50 helpers.
Business was booming and she was feeling on top of the world.
That is until her husband appeared on the scene once again
threatening her to immediately choose between the jamu factory in
his garage, or him.

Mooryati chose the husband, of course. She checked her bank
book and realized she had enough money to buy land far away from
the home so that the family could return back to their much
shattered privacy. Today, Mooryati has over 3,000 employees and
has diversified into producing hundreds of units of jamu in the
form of drinks, powder, pills and capsules and hundreds of units
more of cosmetics covering hair, body and facial care, and
makeup.

Her products attracted further attention after she succeeded
in getting the late Ibu Tien Soeharto, wife of former president
Soeharto and a cousin of Mooryati, to inaugurate her gleaming new
factory.

She runs two spas and has created over 50 products just for
treatments at the spa. Recently, she signed a memorandum of
understanding to supply skills as well as products to spas soon
to be opened in India, Egypt and London. At home, countless
Indonesian women have been trained by her in beauty care and are
now economically independent, practicing beauty care either from
the home or at salons.

Her future plans include a book on the meaning of clothes worn
in the palace by women of different age groups according to their
status and hierarchy. She wants to train more women in the
ceremonies performed on different occasions like weddings and the
birth of children and also to pass onto posterity other aspects
of Javanese culture like the language, poetry and songs that may
soon be lost to modern Indonesians. Much as she would like to see
traditions preserved she also hates the thought of being crushed
under the weight of one's past.

"What I learnt in the court as a child is very precious to me
but I still wanted to get out of the palace and be part of the
larger world. To be able to breathe freely, to travel and to earn
money," said Mooryati, who described her life in the court like
life in any court anywhere in the world at that time. "Life was
very strict. All the girls were educated in a special way and
totally segregated from the menfolk.

"I always had an escort wherever I went, even to school. We
had to seek permission for everything we wanted to do. The gates
to the palace were closed at a certain hour and there was no
question of receiving private letters without them being first
read by the court censors. Today, I can smile about these customs
but life was too ceremonial for my liking. I often found myself
feeling very sad," Mooryati said at a recent interview held at
her plush penthouse office in the high rise Mustika Ratu building
on Jl. Gatot Soebroto, Jakarta.

Marriage

The toughest moment in her life, perhaps, was her stubborn
resistance to a marriage to a prince who already had four
mistresses. For seven years she was engaged to this prince before
she triumphantly returned the ring back to him, relieved at the
thought that at last she was free from having to share her love
for a husband who had so many other women in his life.

At the age of 28 years, Mooryati had fallen instantly in love
with Soedibyo, who came not from a feudal family but one of
educated professionals. "He was introduced to me by my cousin at
the airport. He was a Christian and was educated abroad. He was
not decadent in any way and was extremely supportive of
everything I did."

There was a time when other members of Mooryati's family did
not understand what she was doing with her life. Some thought
that she was just too greedy to be doing business. "Is she not
satisfied with what her husband gives her?" was one question that
made the rounds for many years. After all, in the Javanese court
culture, it is not considered very respectable to be involved in
making money, as wealth, people and power are all supposed to
flow on their own toward royalty.

But Mooryati had already tasted the sweet fruit borne out of
one's own sweat and toil. She was happy to have made it on her
own. She enjoyed the freedom of being able to make her own
decisions, to be so much in control of her life.

"By that I don't mean I neglected or stopped loving my husband
or children. Because I was happy with myself, I took greater care
of my family," said Mooryati, mother of three daughters. She
talked fondly to her daughters about her life as a princess but
has brought them up completely different. She encouraged her
children to speak their minds, but politely so, said the soft-
spoken Mooryati who is said to seldom raise her voice to get
things done.

The daughters have chosen their own profession and were
educated abroad just like their only brother, Djoko Parmiadji.

What she does emphasize always to her children however, is
that freedom goes hand in hand with responsibility. And this
lesson taught by the mother helps children all their lives to
face various trials forced upon them by life. For example, Djoko,
a civil engineer, had to fight to clear himself of corruption
charges leveled against him when he was employed by Citra Marga,
a toll road construction company owned by former president
Soeharto's eldest child, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana. Along with
several other people, Djoko was accused of being involved in
swindling funds allocated for the construction of the Tanjung
Priok-Jembatan Tiga-Pluit toll road and the southern section of
the Pondok Pinang-Jagorawi toll road.

For Mooryati, her motto in life has been responsibility
combined with hard work. She feels that more women will make it
to powerful positions if they remain united and help those less
well off than themselves.

"It is not a conspiracy by men alone. It is as much our own
competitiveness and extreme distrust of each other that is also
responsible for the backwardness of the majority of women around
the world," concluded Mooryati before saying goodbye to The
Jakarta Post and hello to the next guest in line.