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Play depicts plight of Chinese-Indonesians
A scene from the play Chinese Girl, which was performed at the Tay Kak Sie Temple in Semarang’s China Town, Central Java, on May 24
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A scene from the play Chinese Girl, which was performed at the Tay Kak Sie Temple in Semarang’s China Town, Central Java, on May 24. (JP/Suherdjoko)
More than 500 people gathered at Tak Kak Sie Temple in Semarang's China Town on May 24, to watch a play titled Chinese Girl.
The play was based on the novel of the same title, which was written by Sindhunata -- a Catholic priest and cultural activist of Chinese origin -- and published in 2007.
The performance took place on the deck of the replica of the Cheng Ho vessel, which was docked directly in front of Tay Kak Sie Temple on the Semarang River.
The audience, made up mostly of Indonesians of Chinese origin, came to watch the play that coincided with the 100th anniversary of National Awakening Day.
"This performance is interesting to people of all social backgrounds, as the theme is essential to this nation, namely how to develop a multi-cultural society," said Harjanto Halim, chairman of the play's organizing committee.
The performance was preceded by a discussion on the novel a day earlier. The speakers in the discussion talked not only about the novel itself, but about the problems facing Chinese-Indonesians in the country.
The late Pramoedya Ananta Toer once said that Indonesians of Chinese origin were not migrants from overseas, and that they had been in this country since the times of the ancestors of indigenous Indonesians. Political propaganda, however, turned Chinese-Indonesians into "familiar aliens".
Widianarko, a speaker in the discussion who is of Chinese origin, put forward the scapegoat theory when talking about the massacre of Chinese-Indonesians during the 1960s.
Meanwhile, candidate doctorate of Universiteit van Amsterdam Widjajanti Dharmowijono said that during the Dutch colonial administration, the Dutch were actually afraid of the Chinese.
"The economically stronger 'Yellow Danger' (China) could take over the power from the Dutch. In the decade towards 1900, Dutch novels depicted the Chinese as people with great avarice for money, who would unhesitatingly torture the Javanese and confiscate their property whenever these Javanese were in debt to the Chinese," Widjajanti noted.
The members of the troupe staging the play, from Kethoprak Ringkes Tjap Tjonthong of Yogyakarta, skillfully performed and created a fresh atmosphere -- peppered here and there with jokes and social and political criticisms, including the criticism of the plan for the election of a Central Java governor.
But in actual fact, the message they aimed to get across was serious: The plight of Chinese-Indonesians from one century to another as victims of anti-Chinese sentiment in Indonesia.
Chinese Girl tells the story of Giok Tien (played be Soiman Pancawati), the wife of Senapati Gurdo Paksi (played by Marwoto Kawer) of the Medang Kamulang kingdom, a country ruled with an iron fist.
Giok Tien and her two sisters, Giok Hong and Giok Hwa, become the victims of an anti-Chinese riot in Medang Kamulan. The iron administration of Prabu Amurco Sabdo (played by Den Baguse Ngarso Susilo) sees the kingdom dubbed "Pedang Kemulan", or a kingdom enveloped by the spirit of the sword. Its people are oppressed.
Pedang Kemulan could be seen as symbolic of the state Indonesia during Soeharto's regime.
In the play, hatred toward the ethnic Chinese ends in the annihilation of Giok Tien's family. However, the conflict depicted in the play is far simpler than what is found in the novel itself.
The name Giok Tien is only intended to make it easier for the reader to identify the figure as being from ethnic Chinese descent.
Giok Tien's story in this novel seems to also depict the plight of the Chinese-Indonesians when in 1740 the Dutch massacred some 10,000 people from this ethnic group in Batavia.
A second massacre took place when the troops of Adipati Cakraningrat IV of Madura murdered the ethnic Chinese living on the coastal areas of Central and East Java, from Tuban to Surabaya, when the Chinese and their allies, the Javanese, fought against the Dutch.
In the early days of national awakening, the Dutch administration played off Arabian traders against Chinese merchants in Solo.
Then, following what is know referred to as the G30S alleged coup by the PKI, the New Order regime under Soeharto curtailed the civil rights of ethnic Chinese in the country.
In 1981, anti-Chinese riots broke out in a number of cities in Indonesia: Again, the ethnic Chinese became victims to looting and arson.
During the Reform Movement, mobs ran amok in Jakarta and Surakarta, burning Chinese-owned properties to the ground and gang-raping Chinese women.
The message Sindhunata wishes to get across is that Chinese Girl is not just about one character, but symbolizes the plight of the Chinese ethnic group in Indonesia.
The play Chinese Girl, while wonderfully performed, was not able to deliver Sindhunata's message in detail -- a better understanding could be gained from reading the author's novel.
