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Chinese New Year in Tambak Bayan: A kampung of struggle and hope
The Surabaya neighborhood’s Chinese-Indonesian inhabitants are celebrating ten years of continued struggle with an arts-focused Lunar New Year.
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Lim Kiem Hau, also known as Gepeng, is a third-generation resident of Tambak Bayan. (JP/Ivan Darski)
T
hree days before Chinese New Year ten years ago, residents of the East Java kampung of Tambak Bayan were busy with their preparations for the holiday: sautéing spices, steaming dumplings and preparing snacks. But suddenly things took a turn. In broad daylight, with most residents busy in the kitchen, trucks filled with state officers burst into the neighborhood.
The officers carried long poles with knives attached to their ends. Several were in full combat gear gripping rifles. Some of the residents ran home and locked their doors, while others chose to try to prevent the officers from coming further into the neighborhood.
"Tear it down! Put it all down! This is an order!" snapped one of the officers while cutting down banners put up by the residents around the neighborhood. The banners protested the efforts of a nearby hotel to drive residents out of neighborhood, at the northern end of Surabaya, East Java. The residents used old clothes and homemade banners to display provocative messages such as “CAUTION: perverted hotel area”, “The land belonging to the residents does not belong to the hotel!” and “Get rid of the corrupt mole”. These protests did not sit well with the hotel’s management, who, according to residents, asked local thugs and officers to get rid of the nuisance.
The residents were frightened by what was a joint operation by the military and the Public Order Agency (Satpol PP). They were told to take down all of the banners, which they did under duress, but later that night, after all the officers had left, the residents began putting them back up.
The old kampung of Tambak Bayan has been dubbed a “Chinatown” because it is almost exclusively inhabited by poor Chinese-Indonesians. They have struggled to hold on to their homes for more than a decade. Their will to fight has never subsided.
"We were born here. It is natural that we defend this place until our last breath," said Lim Kiem Hau, 40, who is familiarly known as Gepeng.
