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.