Please, Call Me Pheng Hwa

By Veven Sp Wardhana

Time has slowly turned me into a chameleon. Sometimes I call myself Pheng Hwa, while at other times I go by Effendy Wardhana, the name printed on my ID card. My folks said every citizen should respect the name printed on their ID card, because it is the only name acknowledged by the state.

My family lives in a small town and there are only a few other Indonesians of Chinese origin there. At home I was called Pheng Hwa or Ping An. Anyway, that is not important because everywhere else, such as police stations or government offices, I had to introduce myself as Effendy Wardhana.

As time went by, this name not only became familiar to the civil servants and police officers I sometimes dealt with, but also to my high school friends and people I knew in Yogyakarta, where I went to university, and in Jakarta where I also have many friends. Eventually, I felt irritated if someone called me Pheng Hwa, or worse Singkek, which means an indigenous Chinese man and is a term people here use as a form of disparagement.

Later on, when I became too busy with my studies and then my work to keep in touch with my family, I began to lose my pride as an Indonesian of Chinese origin. But it is different with my wife, who comes from Manado, the provincial capital of North Sulawesi. Most people from there look Chinese and are often mistaken as such.

One day my wife urged me quit my job in Jakarta and look for a scholarship to study broadcasting in Paris. She had been there once before, after she completed her studies.

In Paris, one day, while having lunch in an Indonesian restaurant with my wife, I was approached by an elderly Indonesian man.

"Hello, Ping An, how long have you been here?" he asked. The meeting itself was not a surprise, but after that encounter all my Paris friends called me by that name.

Gus, the elderly gentleman, told me that in France a person with my features was more respected than other Asians. He was right. On the Metro, I was always being asked by French people where I came from. Most of them asked the same question: "Vous etes Vietnamien?" 1)

I told Gus over the telephone the French seemed to like Vietnamese more than other expatriates. They also knew more about Asians than other Europeans, many of whom tended to mistake any Southeast Asian for a Filipino. I wonder how, in this age of globalization, these people can think Bali is far from Indonesia.

Gus said there was still a lot I had to learn about the French.

"Yes," I told Gus. "When I was shopping at Tang Frere, I found every Chinese could speak French fluently."

One day I asked some of them: "Ni shi zhong Huoren, wei shen me bu hui shuo Huayu?" 2) Nobody answered, they just shrugged their shoulders and stared at me.

"Mais vous etes Chinoise, n'est pas? Pourqoi vous ne parlez- pas Chinois?" 3) I asked.

"Eh, donc," 4) they said.

"Eh, donc? Na shi wei shen me ne?" 5) I retorted.

They asked me where I came from and what kind of birth certificate I possessed.

I was astonished by the question, but my wife said the Chinese living in Chinatown hid the fact that the size of their community was decreasing through death. The secrecy was meant to manipulate the residence certificates of the dead, to be used by new migrants from China.

Although Pheng Hwa is my real name, I recently introduced myself as Effendi to a relative of my wife. When the relative hosted a party for the birth of his first son, a lot of neighbors were invited. They included French, Algerians, Italians and Moroccans.

"Effendi, are you a Muslim? Do you come from Malaya?" an Italian and a French man asked me almost simultaneously.

"I'm from Indonesia. Malaya, since its independence, has become Malaysia, my country's immediate neighbor."

An Algerian started talking about the Iranian revolution, while a Moroccan presented me with a bottle of pickles he had just made.

In France I feel at peace with my dual identity, Pheng Hwa and Effendi Wardhana. I feel born again. It was with this feeling that I eventually went home. My wife had gone home six months earlier.

I arrived at Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta early in the morning. As I approached the immigration counter, I felt awkward. The immigration officer stared hostilely into my eyes.

As I waited for my luggage, I tried to call home using a public phone but nobody answered. Even after several tries.

Outside, I looked around hoping to see my wife or some of my family waiting to welcome me, but no one was there. I tried to call home again but to no avail. And there was not a single taxi anywhere. I saw many people sleeping on the ground, wherever there was empty space. They seemed to have been there for hours.

I asked some of the people around me if they were able to get through to their families. They had the same experience as me. "The lines were busy."

Confused, I asked an airport worker what year it was. He seemed surprised by the question. Maybe he thought I was suffering from jet lag.

"It is May 15, sir," he said.

"But what year?"

I asked the same question of a man standing nearby. Instead of answering my question, the man frowned. Maybe he guessed why I asked such a strange question. ***

Glossary:

1. French, meaning, "Are you Vietnamese?"

2. Chinese for "Aren't you from China? Why don't you speak Chinese?

3. "But you are Chinese, aren't you. So why don't you speak Chinese?"

4. Chinese for "So, what?"

5. "I don't know, why?"

-- Translated by TIS

(Derabat, selected Kompas short stories, l999)