Childhood In The Thirties 7

Childhood In The Thirties 7

Epilogue

With the Japan invasion, the country house was left unguarded, plundered and destroyed. Years, after the war was over, I, my wife and three little children, visited the place. We sat the whole day beneath the row of Manggiston trees on the side of the Cikaniki river, in the front garden of the vanished country house. The children enjoyed playing in the river. The Dutchman, van Motman, the first landlord had lived here with his family, my mother as a girl had lived here, we, my granddad’s grandchildren had played here and now my little children. There still was the old Nam-nam tree and the little ditch that was now running through the wild overgrown ruins.

Far away I saw the so well-known iron bridge, the same rice fields, the brook with the Atap palms along the roadside and a sado – not the deleman - was riding along a bend towards the bridge. That was the village horse cart who had an elegant bow from behind where you sat back to back with the driver (dos a dos, French) half dreaming carried leisurely, slowly from village to village.

But to day, there are almost no boulders in the river, its water is muddied, waste hanging, floating. The rustic charm along the road to Sadeng Jambu is no more. It’s barren, cramped with shops and houses, noisy, dusty, traffic jams. Anywhere, grand, old Waringin, Karet, Kanari, Rain, … trees which Nature needed more than a century to create them to such circumference, height and magnificence were cut down within one or two days with no regret, remorse or sorrow for such a tremendous, irreparable loss. Wild waterfowls along the Ancol road were sold very cheap to be slaughtered. Lotus and Water Lilies growing wild in the lakes were and are weeded out.

What are rivers without boulders, sand? Lakes without water plants, what are mountains without forests, animals, cities without flowers, birds, trees? Beautiful butterflies that were clipped its wings off, wriggling, naked butterfly-bodies.

We certainly are better educated, earn more money, live in a bigger house of brick, have electricity, tap water, gas, cars, motor cycles, toll roads, high ways, giant buildings, skyscrapers, trains, aero planes, better medical service, telephone, radio, TV, computer, internet, … but not wiser. It’s flooding, threatening to drown our beautiful country and culture.

At that time the roads were small but there was never a traffic jam. The stars were visible but today I hardly can see a star in Jakarta. We woke hearing the cocks crow, the birds twitter, now the noise of motor cycles and cars. Many well known birds as the Jalak, Kutilang, Glatik, Manyar aren’t seen anymore in Jakarta and in the neighborhood except at the bird market. You almost don’t see hawks circling or a Gabus with it’s brood swimming in a ditch. Rice fields, streamlets have no more fish. Many kinds of weeds, fresh water plants I see no more.

But the authorities, our world leaders who should be most concerned, responsible with this don’t think it alarming. Why can’t we have progress without the huge increase of our world population? Why ruin our paradise?

Stressed, vexed, we could house a world population of a trillion by building, just imagine: space cities, floating sea cities, deep sea cities and underground cities or escape to other planets. But what’s the sense of it if we could solve it by keeping the numbers of population down, low. Except this is impossible. Forbid people to have children, within a century the numbers of our population will drop, decline and the human race will be extinct. But we don’t have to. We can persuade, recommend couples to have just one child, to live happily, peacefully with all the living on our dear earth.

Childhood In The Thirties 6

Childhood In The Thirties 6

On the evening before Chinese New Year the Wayang Golek (puppet show) was performed in the front gallery of the country house. No need for announcement as everybody knew it by the preparations of the simple open air stage, that was a big long banana trunk horizontally placed where the puppets (wayang) were stuck on it. Who didn’t know, knew, heard it as the gamelan started playing, as church bells tolling.

It was heard, carried far away to distant villages in the quiet, stillness of the night across woods and rice fields without loudspeakers – fortunately they’re not yet invented – and so sounds natural, enchanting, mellow.

The village people just sat on the ground or on a very low wooden stool or stood. You could eat roasted groundnuts, or almost burnt rice cake and drink warm bandrek a gingerly drink or sekoteng. Oil lamps of vendors like candles decorated the environment. You could fall asleep or leave earlier. Children even babies that were taken along by mothers were welcome. No one would take offence.

We, his grandchildren were sitting on the steps just before the Dalang (puppeteer). I often urged him to have the puppets fight as I couldn’t follow him. But it were the people who enjoyed, watched the show, not the guests or my uncles and aunts, while the show was performed especially for them.

There was nothing stilted, it doesn’t matter if you came too late, since you never would come too late. Who doesn’t know Harjuna, the invincible warrior, the handsome women charmer, Gatot Kaca who knows beforehand that he would be sacrificed and bravely went to face his destiny, Semiaji the Pandawa king who refused to enter heaven because he had to abandon his dog. Of Karna who kneeled before his foster father, a poor old driver, on the occasion of his coronation in royal attire.

Of Bishma who sacrificed, vowing not to claim the throne as crown prince and never marry to ascertain to have no descendents, granting the demands of his father’s second wife, should his father wish to marry her. On the occasion of his downfall, he bravely disclosed his secret how to conquer him to his foes and told them the woman he wouldn’t fight. Only she could overcome him if they ever wish to overcome him. As he fell, dying as on a couch of arrows stuck in his body of this woman, he asked for water. He rejected all the water offered him. He just wanted to drink water as only a hero could provide it. Harjuna shot an arrow in the earth and water spurted and he drank.

Carried away, I hardly can stop telling, moreover so the Dalang: Of Nala and Damayanti so rich in imagination, fancy and every hero, Dorna, Bima, Suyudana, more than a hundred, each has his fascinating tale or story.

And it was interwoven with appearances on the stage of our folk’s jesters, Cepot, Gareng, Petruk and Semar, their wise father, so fresh as a refreshing breeze. They talked to the audience and the audience talked to them and cheered. Captivating aria’s of pesindens as lovely as the Lorelei were sung as intermissions especially appreciated by the male audience.

In the hands of the Dalang, the wayangs come to life, you don’t see him though he is so obvious, only the wayang. They seem so real, living. You saw them dancing, limping, or walking proudly, defiantly, kneeling and making the sembah (with hands in prayer and kneeling), you heard men, women talking, laughing, crying, thundering, hoarse, high, with all the defects like stuttering, hiss, nasal, or unable to say “rrrr”, you could surmise that one was toothless, another had a hare lip, … You could almost feel a deadly blow of a hero striking his foe as stressed by the gong and his kecrek (a device that sounds “crek” when tread on it) that the earth seems trembling, shaking, collapsing.

They never cheered, saw the Dalang, he didn’t exist except the wayangs and that was the greatest honor.

It isn’t a wonder that the people could stand the show for the whole night.
But despite so much charm, beauty, wisdom, … which I didn’t understand, couldn’t appreciate, I sought my delight in my bed.

Childhood In The Thirties 5

Childhood In The Thirties 5

We heard busy sounds of eggs beaten up, of chopping meat, the tinkle, clatter of plates, pans, spoons and an animated women chatter in the wide open kitchen, preparation for Chinese New Year. There were always women who were latah, that is involuntarily imitating when frightened and talk, utter foolish, funny, nonsense. When you suddenly shout to them: “a snake!”, frightened, they also say: “eh, snake, a snake, snake in your underpants,” seriously, something like that in the Sunda language to great hilarity of the others.

There certainly was a lot of cookies in stopper glass jars and delicious dishes. But the Chinese are very poor bakers. They didn’t bake cakes with whipped cream or fruit cakes, or puffs, pastries. They have no chocolate pudding or ice cream. More over, little children as we are who were most eager on ice cream if ever they make ice cream, real, true vanilla ice cream out of vanilla sticks, there’s no second. It was stirred and frozen on salted ice blocks in a wooden bucket. We got least and last while the grown ups who didn’t appreciate it as much as we did got first and most.

They only bake the delicious spekkoek, a many layered cake, Tong Tjoe Pia or the Moon Cake. Kue Chang of sticky rice is not baked but steamed and we drank swallow’s nest syrup, very costly. Imagine it is dried swallow spittle. But you shouldn’t confide it to others.

On the evenings before New Year we got fire works to chase evil spirits away. He had a cupboard full of them. Once he got a big chest with “bombs” as big as my fist fastened in a row together perhaps as long as 4 meters. We all went outside to see, hear, experience the spectacular New Year bombing event hanging on a tree.

But the grandest event was the festive dish, the poor little pig that was killed, slaughtered. But when it was over, the pig cleaned and with an iron spit on coal fire was roasted in a pit, slowly turned and turned, wetted with coconut water and buttered with pure butter cream, - fortunately margarine wasn’t yet invented - and slowly became crispy brown, we forgot the miseries, suffering, screams of the poor little creature.

And it was served whole upon whole, long banana leaves on the floor and again we came together around the festive event but this time not only to view but also to taste and eat it. We got no plates or spoons and forks and chairs or tables. A man in charge of the pig was cutting and every one got a piece, a slice of it. Especially the crispy skin was its specialty. I got the tail, the nicest part so they say to trick me into believing it, but perhaps it was as is the most delicious chicken hind.

I remember someone saying: “it’s only a pity that we should build our joy, delight, health, happiness at the expense of other creatures. I would gladly forgo feasting eating the goat, the lamb or cow that would be sacrificed or pay its price if I’ve got the money, the courage, if it could save him. I never have seen, known, realized it before, except it was just a piece of meat, beef, chicken slaughtered in a professional slaughter house. However that’s not that I would show off myself as a paragon of virtue.”

Childhood In The Thirties 4

Childhood In The Thirties 4

With Chinese New Year we, sons, daughters, sons-, daughters-in-law, grand children and other family relatives, almost a hundred came in Jamboe together and every one, member was proud and felt it as an honor, an unforced duty.

My granddad was very strong and we all had great respect for him. He was the strongest, toughest, was land lord, owner of an estate, rubber plantation and business. His sons and sons in-law were mere “poor, miserable” employee’s, clerks. In his fifties he could still lift up a weight of about 20 Kg with one hand and he could have me and my younger brother both on his palms up in the air as in a circus. His sons, sons in-law couldn’t outdo him. I never saw him visit a doctor.

Mother told us that when he was young he was head of coolies. He was very strong and severe. He would beat them doing their work badly. He did not go to school but succeeded to read and write, moreover to calculate. He said to me that even a cent is valuable, if you lack just half a cent you wouldn’t be a millionaire. After having eaten his meal his plate was clean and he challenged his grandchildren, that if they ever could find a grain of rice on his plate he’ll give you sepicis, for every grain of rice left, that is 10 cents of a Dutch guilder. He sometimes teases me, little child, to arrange the coins in groups of ten each. I don’t know whether he is a millionaire, maybe ton-aire and that’s a lot, for he could buy himself a car, an estate, a fortune from a Dutch landlord. He was once cheated a lot of money he would never forget. He had to sign a contract before the notary as having received the money, before he had received it as he trusted the promise of the purchaser to pay him afterwards.

Perhaps, my mother grew up when the estate, the garden were still beautiful, there was a stately landlord’s carriage. At that time her mother probably still lived. She didn’t go to school but there was a governess to teach his daughters and sons so they could speak Dutch.

He had a safe, a double barreled gun. Now don’t think that I’m praising, idolizing him because he was my granddad but certainly, he – he never showed his affections -, and all my aunts liked us, me and my younger brother as we were cute cherubs living in a pavilion of his house and we loved them too. But now am I a scarecrow, ha, ha, ha and they’re almost all, gone.

Childhood In The Thirties 3

Childhood In The Thirties 3

There was a nest of bees almost as big as a sack of rice, hanging in a tree near the house. That would make a nice dish of baby bees said my aunts and mother.

Don’t you be prejudiced as it really was delicious after having eaten it. Isn’t there a delicious dish of frogs, of shrimps in a restaurant? What if it were scorpions instead? When there was an invasion of laron, crickets, jati pupae, village people at that time ate them and say it’s very delicious, but I didn’t dare to eat them as I imagined eating laron or crickets and I remembered the “Fear factor” show on TV, of those who compete eating live insects(!).To survive in critical conditions as being lost in the mountains or forests one ate lizards or any other creature uncooked. During war time, snails, mice, rats, cats, dogs, were hunted and eaten.

So my granddad (he was a rich and respected landlord) one day ordered one of his subordinates to pluck the bee-nest from the tree in the evening. All lights were turned off. There only was one torch fastened to a long bamboo pole. We, all the family, the village children and their parents, servants of his household were standing, sitting, watching excitedly in the dark. We just heard their shouts, orders, comments, as the pole torch was raised nearing the nest. Bees came out angrily and charged the fire and fell. Then after some time as there were no more flying bees left, a hero was chosen, persuaded to climb the tree in the dark. He got an empty bag with him, and accompanied by encouraging shouts, blessings and prayers of the onlookers he climbed the tree. “Hurrah” we cried as he succeeded to cover the nest with the sack, tied it and cut the nest from the tree and it was lowered down with a rope.

I don’t remember how the bag was opened for it must be very dangerous if there were still potential bees in it. There was no honey in the intricate, cleverly build structure of the combs. Some of the combs were still closed with a thin cover and in it were white larvae. It was taken out and collected on a large plate. And with delight my aunts, my mother worked relaxed together, sitting on the tapang in soft light till late in the evening and I fancied the happiness of a family sitting, cozy around the fireplace in winter.

You can’t imagine what a delight it was to sit and work or play on a tapang, or to sit on the floor, on the steps, to walk barefoot, in shorts without a shirt, to cook by burning wood or coal, have your meal in the garden and eat with your fingers on a banana leaf and it still is when you’re not in a hurry, lazy or ashamed.

Childhood In The Thirties 2

Childhood In The Thirties 2

We played with Acang and Entong, just as old as we are, my brother and I. Kenil, Kitik and Pengki are sisters. Then we have Iyem, a girlfriend of my two aunts (stepsisters of my mother) who were still girls and were love sick with In your eyes is written, Where the orchids blow, Forget me not. While I sang or hummed “Holly, woolly, doodle all the day”.

Iran, an older brother of Acang was teenager didn’t play with us. He goes with my granddad in his Fiat and hurries out of the car to have a big stone or a piece of wood behind a wheel when the car tends to slide backward on a slope.

We enjoyed wandering to somewhere or nowhere. Walked barefoot along alleyways, paths, rice field dykes, the river, to hunt, prey, spy after nothing or something, after the pala, nam-nam, rambutan (means hairy) fruits, a bird’s nest, crickets, dragonflies, shrimps, sweet water crabs, the squirrel, …

Was our picnic provision that we bought ourselves for a cent (usually we hadn’t got a cent), krupuk, (crackers), cheap biscuit, a cluster of pisang jarum, needle or Lilliputian bananas, always nicer than what we had at home of the best quality.

And stepping in a brook or a dip in the river was better than a douche in the bathroom. See a chicken hen with her chicks, a circling hawk, a water spider, cutting a whistle out of a rice stalk, cut a wind mill, … and before you realize, it was magrib, dusk.

And suddenly you became homesick and long after home seeing a burning light far away, the sun set. Birds, returned and found their nests or a place in some tree, chickens nervously walked to and fro, sought their chicken-house, buffaloes, goats their stables.

Hundreds of fluttering little bats appear. They didn’t go for the fruit trees yet, but feasted on the laron (winged termites) that left their nest at dusk, as their breakfast. Then large bats passed by, one after another, slowly flying. Where from? To which paradise of fruit trees?

In the evening fires were lit, nabun, burning garden waste of dry fallen leaves and branches to keep mosquitoes away. How fascinating to see the glowing cinders as glittering stars in the ashes and the fire as the sun at sunset .I vaguely scented the rice field water, I heard frogs “quack” in it, crickets chirp, ga-angs sing “aaanngg”, …

In the main house, the spirit lamps were lit by Nasib a faithful old servant. We collected certain kind of long dry fruits which would slowly burn as to keep the mosquitoes away. How warm, how live that fire was, how beautiful the rising smoke. We played or half dreamed, as happy as the birds without toys or games.

No radio, TV, tape recorder, loudspeaker, videos disturbed the evening. No bright city lights irritated the light of the moon and stars. (And every time today, when it was our turn to have no light to save on electricity, am I not vexed as I remember the happy evenings in the country house in Sadeng Jamboe.)

In my large bed, where we slept together, I heard the soft yearning chirping of a cricket in my tin box courting its mate or chirp triumphantly after a fight. I look at the wonderful, marvelous “breathing” soft light of the firefly in a match box in half dark of my bed. I count the tekehs of a gecko and hope to be granted a wish. I heard the tong-tong (a big hollowed log sounding “tong-tong“ when knocked on it) and the tower clock (bell) that’s struck every hour. I heard the soft buzz of the gas lamp outside and the sound of the rushing Cikaniki river far away and so I fell asleep. That were golden days in childhood.

Remember! This was not just yesterday, but what I still remember almost 75 years ago.

That Makes It So Special

That Makes It So Special

“That’s so kind, why I am so welcome, why she missed me as I didn’t visit her for some time, me, a regular visitor of her footstall in Tonjong village, an old scarecrow on a bike in a sport shirt and shorts. I spend just Rp. 5.000.-, (half a dollar) you know?” said opa Johan to his wife. “ That’s for a hearty morning breakfast of tasty nasi uduk still warm, (coconut milk cooked rice) an egg and vegetables. That’s wonderful, that makes it so special. She would never become rich out of me.” he continued.

“Do you remember when our son told us about his visit with his family to a restaurant to eat a special dish recently? It was charged about one million Rp each and they were three. Just think, that’s 600 times my meal. While I enjoyed, ate mine leisurely at the lake side nearby the village. But I’ve not forgotten you as I certainly shared this with you in my mind. Ha, ha, ha. Why don’t you kiss me, you little ungrateful creature?”

September 2008