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Up close, personal with Benteng Chinese community

On-scene witness: The Jakarta Post photojournalist PJ Leo (center) poses with PT Panasonic president commissioner Rachmat Gobel (left) and PT Astra Graphia director Mangara Pangaribuan during the launch of the Guardians of Tradition photobook at the Headliners Photo Exhibition at Lotte Shopping Avenue in Jakarta on Friday

Dylan Amirio (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, April 28, 2018

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Up close, personal with Benteng Chinese community

O

n-scene witness: The Jakarta Post photojournalist PJ Leo (center) poses with PT Panasonic president commissioner Rachmat Gobel (left) and PT Astra Graphia director Mangara Pangaribuan during the launch of the Guardians of Tradition photobook at the Headliners Photo Exhibition at Lotte Shopping Avenue in Jakarta on Friday. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)

In celebrating The Jakarta Post’s 35th anniversary, the paper is showcasing the work of its senior photographer Pujianto Johan Leo, who has documented the underrated but culturally significant Benteng Chinese community, which is in danger of fading away.

Leo has been with the Post since 1991 and has been the witness to countless events and incidents throughout the 27 years he has worked there. Natural disasters, the comings and goings of significant people as well as cultural events have all been recorded through his lenses.

Photo book Guardians of Tradition, is a 130-page compilation of Leo’s photographs of the Benteng Chinese community of Tangerang, Banten, their rituals, their everyday lives and their struggles to preserve what remains.   

“I always try to look for something that’s different from other photojournalists. For imlek for example, I found in Tanjung Burung in Teluk Naga, an old lady in her 80s who was still manually stirring dodol [glutinous rice cake]. She only served 20 to 50 households ahead of imlek,” Leo said of his photo-hunting activity during the Chinese New Year.

The Benteng Chinese people are a native community of Chinese-Indonesians in Tangerang whose name derives from their settlement around an old Dutch colonial fort on the Cisadane River that was built back in the days of the East India Company. The fort, named Benteng Makassar after the Makassar soldiers who guarded the fort for the Dutch, fell into ruin after 1812 but the area around it has acted as a significant cultural center for Chinese-Indonesians to this day.

Pockets of Benteng Chinese communities currently exist throughout Tangerang such as in Pasar Lama, Karawaci, Pabuaran, Sewan, Curug, Legok and Panongan.

The photo book itself comprehensively details the old and contemporary life of the community, with images of rituals such as the Peh Cun festival and rarely documented events, like a traditional Benteng Chinese wedding ritual, carefully organized to provide a visually descriptive recollection.

The chosen photographs aim to show the often melancholic struggle of the local community to preserve its ancestral customs and art forms, such as the vocal traditions of their sinden (singers) and the Gambang Kromong gamelan orchestra. Many of these art forms are in danger of ultimately dying out as the community’s younger generation generally shows little interest in upholding them.

The 85 pictures in the photo book, Leo said, were only a handful of all the images that he had taken of the Benteng Chinese community since 2009.

Senior photographer for Kompas daily Arbain Rambey helped him sort out which images spoke the loudest about the community. Aside from Rambey, figures such as freelance writer Indah Ariani and the Post’s Margaret Agusta were also involved in the editing and writing processes.

The photo book launch and book-signing of Guardians of Tradition on Friday was a part of the Headliners Photo Exhibition held at the Lotte Avenue shopping mall in Kuningan, South Jakarta.

The event, which runs until April 29, also includes a number of discussions, including on sports photography on Saturday and on street photography using mobile phones on Sunday.

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