'Pacinko' riders burning up the streets in downtown Jakarta

JAKARTA (JP): On lazy Saturday nights when many streets are deserted and quiet save for the motley sounds of street vendors, the city's downtown is galvanized by the roar of motorbike racing.

Pacinko, short for Pasukan Cina Kota, roughly translated as the "Downtown Chinese Troops", rings intimately in the ears of motorsport fans and automotive enthusiasts. Coming together as a loose grouping in the 1970s, this gang of Chinese-Indonesians reached the peak of its glory in the 1980s, and has continued on through the 1990s.

Street racing is still quite popular today. But only a few of the people hurtling recklessly at high speed and without helmets can claim to be real Pacinko members.

Nobody knows exactly when and why the gang came to be called Pacinko. Some say the name was merely a pun on a popular gambling game of the 1970s. It just so happened that teenagers living in Kota, the Chinatown in downtown Jakarta, called their gang Pacinko.

Pacinko is just like any gang in any Chinatown in every major city in this part of the world. And maybe they are not so different from the gangs of teenage Chinese-Americans which command respect among friends and foes alike.

Pacinko members were famous for their skills in speeding along on their motorcycles on crowded streets, in particular down Hayam Wuruk and Gajah Mada and around the Mangga Besar area. A few years back, the police found it difficult to arrest all the Pacinko members.

Hans Surya, a motorcycle mechanic who has worked on and modified engines of Pacinko members' motorcycles, said the riders usually sped along Jl. Hayam Wuruk and Jl. Gajah Mada, and along to the Air Mancur traffic circle near the National Monument (Monas).

Many of them later raced at Ancol racing circuit. Names like Nanang Gunawan, Cecep Bolang, Cemeng and Hanky Tibo, he said, inspired awe when they were hell-riding.

Others followed suit. Hans said riders in the late 1980s and early 1990s were better than their predecessors, as their motorcycles were of higher quality.

A famed rider between 1989 and 1993 was An-An. Although still a senior high school student, he had quite a few followers.

Now running a shop selling spare parts and motorcycle accessories, An-An said many Chinese-Indonesian teenagers living around Mangga Besar and Hayam Wuruk, and even those in Gunung Sahari up to Jembatan Dua, would consider themselves part of Pacinko.

Pacinko itself was made up of several gangs such as Gamshi (Gabungan Anak Muda Frustrashi, or the Gang of Frustrated Youngsters), Mgzt (Mangga Besar Anak Iblizt, the Devil's Sons of Mangga Besar) and Green Eagle. Each gang had its own meeting place downtown.

The Pacinko gangs, numbering between 200 and 250 people, would sometimes continue from the downtown to Jl. Thamrin or Taman Lawang in Menteng, Central Jakarta. On holidays, they often rode to Puncak and even Bandung.

Pacinko gangs would also hit the streets on Wednesday nights, when the lottery numbers were announced, according to a former Pacinko member. At that time betting on the last two numbers on the first prize in the national lottery was rife, and people would crowd Kota awaiting the announcement.

Pacinko members would be in action from 10 p,m., when movie theaters closed, to the wee hours the next morning.

Some residents of other Jakarta areas, themselves not Pacinko members, said the gang only had the guts to ride in the Kota area and would never have the courage to try Central or South Jakarta.

"To speed, one must be really familiar with the streets," An- An said. "We happened to live in the Kota area, so, understandably, we did our street riding in the streets in our area. This was where our advantage lay. If we visited Gunung Sahari or Jembatan Dua, the riding champions in those areas would be those living there."

Street riders of any gang share a common experience of falling off their motorcycles while street riding. Former riders show a roadmap of scars on their bodies detailing their accidents.

Membership

No special requirements would be needed to become a member of one of the Pacinko gangs other than being a Chinese descent and owning a motorbike.

An-An added that to join Gamshi, for example, one only had to turn up every time there was a gathering.

Those without a motorbike could also join if they got on well with the gang members.

To Pacinko, dealing with the authorities, particularly the police, was part of the territory. Pacinko members were most often accused of riding recklessly, riding without helmets, riding motorbikes at night without lights, hitting pedestrians crossing the road, running into both moving and parked cars or not providing their motorbikes with the necessary equipment as required by the law.

They were also often involved in brawls. Causes of the brawls might be girls or trifling matters.

"They were just youngsters in search of their self-identity... Besides, members of Pacinko gangs were usually teenagers who got frustrated with their lives..." An-An said.

The heyday of the Pacinko is over. The younger generation seems to prefer riding in the relatively spacious locales of Kemayoran and Kebon Nanas. Once in a while, they still speed down Jl. Gajah Mada and Jl. Hayam Wuruk. As long as there is a Chinatown, there will always be the Pacinko.

The above is an excerpted article from the Tiara lifestyle biweekly. It is from the magazine's next cover story, available at newsstands on Tuesday, on the lifestyle of Chinese- Indonesians. It is printed here courtesy of Tiara.