JP/Indra Harsaputra

Each year before the Chinese New Year, Sukar Mudjiono, a Potehi puppeteer from Surabaya, splits his time between the countless shows  he has been asked to perform around East Java and media interviews.

“Five years ago I had planned to give up being a Potehi puppeteer, as I wanted to run my own business,” he told The Jakarta Post after performing at Hong Tiek Hian Temple on Jl. Dukuh in Surabaya.

In Mandarin, the word potehi comes from the words poo (fabric), tay (pocket) and hie (doll). When  combined as potehi, the words mean doll made from cloth.

Potehi puppet art grew during the Jin dynasty between the third and fifth centuries AD. Chinese legend has it that potehi were first made by five prisoners who were granted pardon from a king after they performed a Potehi puppet show in a jail cell, a few days before they were due to be executed.

Potehi puppetry came to Indonesia between the 16th and 19th centuries, with the arrival of Admiral Cheng Ho on the North coast of Java, who was also followed by a contingent of totokers (Chinese traders, military officers and other male migrants from China) eager to trade in Indonesia.

Potehi was played for the first time at the Tay Kak Sie Temple in Semarang in 1772 during the inauguration of the Dewi Kwan Im statue.

The totokers not only traded and married local Indonesians, but also gave birth to a new culture, a mix between Chinese and Indonesian, with icons such as the thiti puppets. These dolls, originating from ancient Chinese folklore, were used as the main characters in stories – told in Javanese – like Thing Jing Nga Ha Ping She (Rabenipun King, Thing Jing).

There are unfortunately very few thiti puppeteers left nowadays.

Previously Gan Thwan Sing, a thiti puppeteer and writer of ancient Chinese stories in Javanese, trained four thiti puppeteers, Kho Thian Sing, Raden Mas Pardon, Megarsemu and Pawiro Buang. But none of his students were able to pass down their knowledge once he died. Moreover, his wife burnt all his manuscripts, as they were so hard to understand.

The political climate during the second half of the 20th century was not conducive to the preservation of the art form either.

From 1967, when the New Order government issued various laws prohibiting activities associated with China – educational, cultural or artistic, potehi puppets and thiti shadow puppets of China-Java were no longer on the list of recognized puppets in Indonesia.

However, 40 years ago, Mudjiono – who came from a Muslim family and lived in a house 500 meters away from Hong Tiek Hian Temple – started learning Potehi from a se hu (a puppeteer from China) named Gan Co Co.

Although Gan Co Co could not speak Indonesian or Javanese, he was open to all cultures and often inserted the rhythms of campursari (Indonesian modern folk music) songs into his performances.

“One day he asked me to buy him a cigarette at the back of the temple. After that, I took interest in Potehi performances,” he said.

From then on,  Mudjiono studied potehi puppets and taught himself how to play the instruments used in the performance, such as the toa lo (big drum), the siauw loo (small drum), the hian na (fiddle), the bien siauw (flute) and the chen song (three-stringed guitar).

At 14, while he was still in junior high school, Mudjiono started working as a puppeteer. At the time though, he gave just a few performances and only used the puppets to celebrate the Tridarma ritual, giving thanks to the gods.

“To stage a Potehi puppet performance outside Surabaya was very difficult. I had to ask permission from the Education Ministry, through to the police,” he said.

However Mudjiono did not lose hope. He continued to perform Potehi while carrying out the ritual burning of four kim choa (red papers inscribed with Chinese letters) as a requirement following each performance.
Other rituals he performed before the plays included biting the neck of a black chicken to reject evil spirits.

The money he made performing allowed Mudjiono to continue his education until high school.

In 2000, when the former president, the late Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, finally removed the New Order bans on Chinese cultural performances in Indonesia, Mudjiono started afresh. The Potehi puppet performances were no longer staged just for rituals, but could also be presented to the public for any occasion.

“Although Chinese art can finally be performed in public, people haven’t quite stopped discriminating against it,” he said.

Why did Mudjiono want to put a stop to his career as a puppeteer? Well, there is a saying in Mandarin, “wenhua gou jian de jiduan, jingji fazhan zhong de geju”, which means “culture builds the stage, but the economy determines the opera”.

Mudjiono wanted to earn more money by starting a private business, but fate dictated otherwise. The small stall he started running with his wife Munipah didn’t do very well. So one day, he went back to the temple to watch one of his student’s Potehi performance.

It was then he saw a small boy in the arms of his mother who was possessed by the spirit after seeing the potehi puppets.

“I remembered Gan Co Co’s advice: pull hairs from one of the potehi dolls, boil them in water and then drink the potion if you are possessed by a spirit,” he said.

The fateful event prompted Mudjiono to return to the world of puppets and establish a Potehi group called Lima Merpati (Five Pigeons), consisting of one ji jiu (assistant puppeteer) and three au tay (musicians). He also taught other people how to become puppeteers.

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