Poor Chinese, natives live in harmony in Jembatan Lima

Poor Chinese, natives live in harmony in Jembatan Lima

By Mehru Hasnain

JAKARTA (JP): Hidden behind the glass and concrete skyscrapers
of Jakarta's chic main streets, acres of slums sprawl. Here life
is muddier, but a little less mean. Here the poor live, with
ethnic Chinese living shoulder to shoulder with native
Indonesians, their private lives separated by a thin wall often
made only of cardboard.

Local residents are unlikely to spend their days in cutthroat
competition. In fact they are totally dependent upon each other
for their very survival.

"If my native Indonesian customers stopped buying from me I
would starve," confesses Ho A Chin from behind the counter of her
tiny kiosk in the Jembatan Lima area, perhaps the oldest Chinese
settlement in Jakarta.

"I have lived here for as long I can remember. I did not ask
to live in Indonesia. My ancestors came here many centuries ago.
I am not afraid of my pribumi (native) neighbors but of the
strangers that suddenly appear to threaten and rob us," says Ho A
Chin, who earns less than US$1 a day selling coffee beans and
other items like shampoo in sachets and cigarettes. And whenever
the lives and modest livelihoods of the poor are threatened, both
ethnic Chinese and native Indonesians protect each other
chivalrously.

Young Felicia, a first year psychology student at Atma Jaya
University, will be eternally grateful to her Indonesian
neighbors who sheltered her during the irrational days of last
May and again when ethnic Chinese lives and property were
attacked in November.

"I wanted to know if our neighbors hated us too and whether
they wanted to burn our homes and kill us just because we are
Chinese," says Felicia. But they assured Felicia that they also
did not know who the looters were.

Along with her parents, Felicia lived with her neighbors in a
home not much bigger than a train compartment for several days
and wonders if it would be fair to hate all Javanese just because
some, like Soeharto, have bled the country dry.

Dr. George J. Aditjondro from Australia's University of
Newcastle never grows tired of repeating that Indonesia's Chinese
minority community controls nowhere near 70 percent of the
country's economy. The wealth of the country is in the hands of a
few business families where the distinction between Chinese and
non-Chinese has blurred into a web of overlapping shareholdings
and directorships.

According to research done by the Indonesian Business Data
Center, a wide gap exists among Chinese themselves and there is
little spiritual relationship or bonding between the rich and
poor.

Beni Sindhunata, chief research officer at the center,
includes Chinese among the country's 79.4 million poor with an
average monthly income of less than Rp 41,000 in rural areas and
Rp 52,000 in cities. Beni feels that the majority of the eight
million ethnic Chinese are hated for the malfeasance of a handful
of well-connected members of their community.

"Of course, we know who Liem Sioe Liong is and who Bob Hassan
is. They may be Chinese, but so what? They are not friends of
ours. We know them only through newspapers and television," says
Felicia, adding that it is wrong to say that all Chinese-
Indonesians are corrupt businesspeople and are rich.

Her father is a clerk who earns about Rp 650,000 a month. Her
mother gives private lessons to make ends meet. Her parents pay a
Rp 1.5 million biannual tuition fee so that Felicia can get the
best education possible.

Ever since the currency depreciated, Felicia's family has been
using less electricity, using the telephone only when necessary.
Even in better economic times, they could only dream of indulging
in the luxuries associated with the small minority of rich ethnic
Chinese, like holidays abroad.

Felicia's mother, Catharina, does let her hair down once in a
while. She has her hair trimmed and a cream bath at a modest
beauty salon in the Pademangan area of North Jakarta. The Jakarta
Post caught up with her at the beauty salon while Felicia, her
only child, talked about what it is like to be a lower middle-
class Chinese in the country today.

"We are an ethnic Chinese family but we are not rich. None of
my friends are rich. But I don't consider myself poor either for
I know people who are poorer than me. I speak only Indonesian at
home. No Mandarin. My parents do not sit at the dining table
telling me romantic tales about China. I don't even know when my
ancestors came to Indonesia. All I know is that I feel
Indonesian. I want to help my country in its moment of crisis.
But is anyone listening to me?" asks the 18 year old in
desperation. She has no clue as to what the future holds for her.

She supports the student movement only from the back benches.
"I have my differences with those students, who, I feel, are too
radical and too impatient," Felicia says.

The next customer was a pretty, young woman. "I am Javanese
and it has never ever occurred to me to boycott Chinese-owned
shops in my neighborhood," she said as clipped hair got into her
mouth and made it difficult for her to talk.

"I get very scared when I hear rumors that my life and
business may be harmed. I wonder to myself, by whom and why. And
when I get no answer I get even more scared," said Vita, the
salon owner. Vita had to close shop for nearly a week during
anti-Chinese riots.

She is a single woman and earns about Rp 1 million a month,
half of which goes into paying the salon's bills. This is despite
the fact that her salon is not connected to a water supply. She
has to fill a large plastic drum with water each day to wash her
customers' hair.

Just across from Vita's salon on the other side of Kalimati
River is the home of Neny, Wie and their two infants. Even before
the economic meltdown, Neny always started her day at the crack
of dawn. After all, she has a lot to do. She feeds her three-
month-old baby before her three-year-old daughter wakes up. Then
she helps her husband prepare hundreds of onde-onde cakes which
he sells in the neighborhood, bringing home about Rp 30,000 at
the end of the day, when he is lucky.

Life is one long path of sweat and toil for the cherubic faced
housewife, whose three by three-square-meter shelter in a slushy
street serves as her bedroom-cum-kitchen. A corner of the room is
curtained off for a bathroom. But she is happy and while talking
bursts into big smiles that do not fail to light up her eyes. "I
am happy because I love my husband," Neny beams. And she loves
him even though he is ethnic Chinese.

"When I look at my husband I don't keep thinking that he is
Chinese. We've known each since school. I always wanted to marry
him," says the Sundanese housewife. As we talk, neighbors join
Neny and Wie on the only bed in the room.

"We would like to have enough money to be able to educate our
children in the hope that they won't remain as poor as we are,"
Wie adds, offering plastic stools to their guests.

When asked how many mixed marriages between ethnic Chinese and
native Indonesians take place in their neighborhood, both Neny
and Wie say, "Many."

If Wie resents anything in life, it is poverty. After all, it
has dogged his family for generations. Six generations ago his
ancestors arrived in Indonesia, probably to escape poverty in
China. His parents were happy growing vegetables in Pontianak,
until they were forced to flee Kalimantan after anti-Chinese
sentiments flared up in 1967. But the peasant family remained ill
at ease in the concrete jungle of the commercial city of Jakarta.

Here no one seemed to have any use for their extensive
knowledge of seeds and crops. As their wisdom wasted away, they
watched thousands of acres of land being plowed, but only to see
it sowed with iron and cement. They saw the yield of the land:
skyscrapers and grand highways.

Furthermore, they found themselves incapable of picking up the
cunning involved in commerce. Soon life passed them by, leaving
them almost penniless for over 20 years now.

Bong Sun Chin is a septuagenarian, albeit a handsome one.

When asked why he did not strike it as rich as Bob Hasan for
example, Bong's eyes crease up into a smile as he answers,
"Obviously it is not enough just to be Chinese. Bob Hasan was
fortunate to have a patron. I have no patron and never had any
capital." He also only had little education.

All his three children have dropped out of school, just like
he did in his youth. They remain peddlers to this day and spend a
great deal of their good years fighting poverty. A far cry from
all the tall tales told of every Chinese being a tycoon.