I

believe in momentum. After reading an ethnographic book I discovered the author’s Twitter handle, on which I found a link to someone’s blogpost about a museum showcasing the literary work of the Chinese diaspora in Indonesia.

I had no idea such a place existed. And to think it’s been two-and-a-half years since my visit to Benteng Heritage Museum, which I thought of as the only museum related to Chinese Peranakan (diaspora) in Indonesia.

So with abundant curiosity and some trepidation, my pal Lailai and I trekked to Bumi Serpong Damai in South Tangerang earlier this week. We both love books and Lailai is a Chinese-Indonesian from nearby Tangerang, hence the mutual interest.

We found the museum in an unassuming ruko (shophouse), locked out. The travel agent next door said it was always closed, but offered to pass along our note. Almost leaving in disappointment, we stumbled onto a Chinese man who pointed us to a used bookshop across the street.

And there, we found Azmi “Daud” Abubakar. As the blogpost had said, he is indeed Acehnese. After exchanging pleasantries and roaming around the bookshop, we were lead back to the museum.

Honestly, it is not yet quite a museum, but more of a two-story shophouse filled with literature related to Chinese-Indonesians. Azmi’s labor of love was apparent in his expression as he told us how he, as an 1998 student activist from a nearby campus, came to the sad realization that the movement meant to challenge Soeharto’s New Order led to yet another bloody convulsion of persecution against Chinese-Indonesians. He started to become curious of the once forbidden materials related to Chinese influence in Indonesia, read a thing or two, bought this and that, and before long, the literature and the likeminded contacts, including foreign researchers, started to flow in his direction.

Momentum, I’m telling you.

Azmi, later assisted enthusiastically by his wife Rini, founded Museum Pustaka Peranakan Tionghoa about five years ago, now located in the shophouse he’d purchased. There, we found stacks of ledgers dating back to Dutch colonial times like Het Chineesche Zakenleven in Nederlandsch-Indie (1912) and Stichting & Vereeniging “Indo-Tionghoa” Semarang (1937), or a fragile picture of Chinese men in European clothing in a house adorned with Dutch and Kuomintang-era flags, marked only with a row of Chinese letters and the Latin word Palembang. History books indicate that in the early 20th century, members of Kong Koan (Raad van Chinezen), a board set up by Dutch government, and Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan, an association founded by the Chinese diaspora in Indonesia, held different political views, ranging from the philosophy of imperial China, the socialist democratic China of Dr Sun Yat-sen, or the ideas of a free Dutch East Indies.

It is misguided to accuse all Chinese diaspora in colonial times as willing Dutch allies. A framed yellowing sheet of Kedaulatan Rakjat, a newspaper from early the Independence years, hung on the museum window, broadcasts a report of a Chinatown bombarded by allies of the Dutch for having resisted playing along.

In Ca-bau-kan, the 1999 novel that marked the first time a Chinese word had been put out for public use after a 32-year ban, Remy Sylado also cheekily suggested the same thinking as he used the same Tan Peng Liang name for two characters who contributed very differently to the pre-1945 independence struggle.

You can’t also accuse all Chinese-Indonesians of being wild mushrooms inundating our motherland. An article in Tempo (Sept. 17 1977, Th. VII No.29), another gem found in the museum, chronicled how then regent Bahrum Damanik purposely invited Chinese-Indonesians to build businesses in the sleepy town of Tanjung Balai, North Sumatra. And suddenly in 2016, five viharas there were burned down after a Chinese-Indonesian complained of an overly loud adzan, mirroring what Ariel Heryanto wrote in Identitas dan Kenikmatan: Politik Budaya Layar Indonesia (Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen Culture) that the diabolical politics of the New Order welcomed the capital but not the individuals. Soeharto has passed away and Chinese-Indonesians can now freely celebrate Lunar New Year. However, it’s overconfident to think in reality that most Indonesian pribumi have accepted Chinese-Indonesians as equal Indonesians.

Azmi saw this through, hence the determination to dedicate the museum to mainstream Indonesians, offering a bridge between the ethnic groups. His ambition is also illustrated by the naming of the adjoining noodle stall “Mie Aceh Cheng Ho”, borrowing from the legendary 14th century Muslim Chinese admiral.

However, the couple needs serious help in organizing the manuscripts scattered about, for as much as they treasure the papers they cannot read Chinese, a crucial thing that has hindered them from making the most of the abundant information around them. So, here I am now extending a bridge to my readers who have academic knowledge of, or genuine interest in, the matter. Please kindly visit the museum and help out. Anyone is welcome, yet as Rini, who hails from Minang, said, it’s down to us, the pribumi, to set things straight for Chinese-Indonesians.

The man guards once-forbidden manuscripts. It’s time for the concerned masses to help make sense of that almost-forgotten history.

Lynda Ibrahim is a Jakarta-based writer with a penchant for purple, pussycats and pop culture.