CHINESE TEMPLES, TOMBS, AND CEMETERIES

Chinese temples in Jakarta date from around 1650. Most are rectangular, multiroofed buildings set within a walled compound. Temples   contain   a   main   altar   and   image,   and   side   annexes   for   subsidiary deities. Wall panels inscribed in Chinese characters preserve the name   of   the   temple   god,   and   the   date   and   names   of   donors.   Some temples   were   open   to   the   entire   Chinese   community;   others   served members of a clan, migrants from a common locality in China, or occupational groups such as rice merchants and sailors. Temples honored Buddhist or Taoist deities; those dedicated to local spirits were built near places holy to the Javanese. Mosques for Chinese congregations were the focus of neighborhoods of Chinese Muslims, who were termed Peranakan.

In China the filial son erected a stone memorial to his father. He maintained the tombs of past generations, and made regular offerings. When Chinese men died outside China their sons carried on the tradition of public memorial. Old Chinese cemeteries in Indonesian cities record preservation of Chinese habits overseas and the prosperity some migrants attained. They also show that the skills of stonemason and inscriber of Chinese characters traveled beyond China.

Chinese communities no longer continue this tradition in contemporary   Indonesia.   Urban   land   is   too   expensive   to   purchase   for   burial grounds, while public displays of attachment to traditions of China are not acceptable to many Indonesians. Cremation, which often replaces burial, is also another sign of the long journey of assimilation by Chinese, for it is the burial form of Southeast Asian Buddhism.

Many holy grave sites in Java are attributed to Muslim men of Chinese origin, such as Pangeran Hadiri. According to local tradition, he was a captain shipwrecked off the north Java coast who married Ratu (Queen) Kalinyamat and founded the port city of Japara.

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KINGS AND CHINESE IN INDONESIAN HISTORIES

The oldest identifiable permanent Chinese settlement in Indonesia was situated in Pasai in northeast Sumatra and dates from the late eleventh century. The success of Chinese in archipelago states is often explained by poverty in China, and by the willingness of Chinese to work hard in difficult conditions. Chinese success must also be understood by reference to their origins. In addition to manual laborers, Chinese emigrants included skilled artisans who were products of China’s long traditions of manufacturing and processing. There were also farmers with specialised skills in raising export crops and men with mathematical skills and commercial experience. Most important for their value to archipelago   rulers,   Chinese   working   in   Indonesian   communities   had   a   wide knowledge of market conditions in many regions. They were mobile men with specific skills that could be applied in the regions to China’s south where climate, topography, and natural resources were most similar.

Until the twentieth century, Chinese migrant workers in Indonesia were men. Those whose business kept them in a port for a few months rented women. Those who settled married women in the ports, leading to communities labeled Chinese that were made up of immigrant men, local women, their children, Indonesian in-laws, and the constant addition of new arrivals from China. Such communities had links to China and Indonesian societies of the archipelago. They emerged as a new social category that remains distinctive among Indonesia’s many ethnic groups.

This history produced among indigenous members of the archipelago’s widely scattered societies a common set of attitudes towards residents   of   Chinese   descent.   Locals   saw   Chinese   as   successful   outsiders, arousing degrees of jealousy. Their access to cash in the era before banks meant that Chinese were moneylenders and made it difficult for a local entrepreneur to compete. Chinese were needed by Indonesians, courted and hated. To them, the foreignness made Chinese businesses seem secretive. The habit of employing members of the extended family meant that Chinese businesses were closed, rather than a source of employment and expansion of skills among locals. Because Chinese were part of an inter national network they appeared conspiratorial.

Their foreignness made the Chinese completely dependent on political elites from kings down to village heads. Their connections gave them opportunities to grow wealthy. By serving as record-keepers, harbormasters, brokers, tax collectors, and other agents of authority, the Chinese enhanced the power and wealth of ruling elites at the expense of the taxpaying population. Used by kings to extract wealth from the population, the Chinese, rather than the rulers, were seen as oppressors of the native majority.

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THE ZHENG HE VOYAGES: IMPERIAL CHINA AT SEA

In the first decades of the fifteenth century, the Chinese court experimented with a royal trade conducted by its agents in foreign ports, instead of having foreign traders sail to China. The Yung Le Emperor (r. 1402–1424) financed six fleets over the years 1405 to 1422. The first three sailed to ports on the central coast of Vietnam, east as far as modern-day Surabaya (northeast Java), then west to Palembang, through the Melaka Straits, stopping at Melaka and at Pasai on the Sumatran side, then to Sri Lanka and Calicut on India’s southwest coast. The fourth and sixth expeditions followed the same route, but after Calicut they continued across the Arabian Sea, and entered the Straits of Hormuz, while the sixth reached the entrance to the Red Sea at Aden. The last great voyage was authorized by the Xuande (Hsuan Te) Emperor (r. 1426–1435) and set out in 1431.

These fleets imposed on the dispersed trading settlements in the Indonesian archipelago by their size, the numbers of ships, people aboard, and the quantities of merchandise they carried. Each expedition was like a floating country. There were water tankers and supply ships that carried food and building materials for repairs at sea, transport ships for cavalry horses, warships, patrol boats, and large, nine-masted junks. The largest ships, which carried China’s merchandise, had four decks. The lowest was filled with stones and soil as ballast, a second deck served as living quarters and space for kitchens. Silk, cotton, tea, iron, salt, hemp, wine, and ceramics were stowed in another deck, and on the top deck were cannon and    fighting   platforms.   Individual   ships   communicated  with   each

other by flags, signal bells, drummers, gongs, lanterns, and carrier pigeon. Two hundred ships and twenty-seven thousand sailors, soldiers, officials,  envoys,   merchants,    artisans,  and  artists  on  each   expedition strained the abilities of Indonesian ports (populated by a few thousand) to receive them.

The expeditions have become known as the Zheng He (Cheng Ho) voyages, after their commander, a highly placed court official who died during the return voyage of the seventh fleet in 1433. Zheng He and his lieutenants lived on as mythologized cult figures in legends told in Java, Bali, Kalimantan, and Sumatra. Temples dedicated to their honor continued to attract worshippers into the twentieth century in Jakarta and Semarang. The historical Zheng He was a Muslim from Yunnan. He belonged to that group of China’s border peoples who had become a part of the world Islamic community and who drew their knowledge from international Arab networks that crisscrossed Eurasia by land and sea. ZhengHe’s Islamic connections were not remembered in Indonesian folk histo       ries, but his expeditions left businessmen in the archipelago—Indonesian, Indian, Arab—with the conviction that there existed a huge market in China for their goods.

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THE NANYANG: CHINA OFFSHORE

Migrations of Chinese by sea into regions to China’s south created the Nanyang, a vast area which the Chinese thought of as a zone for Chinese offshore settlement and production, a fringe to China. The Yuan (Mongol) dynasty that controlled all China from 1271 to 1368 inherited the earlier Southern Song’s orientation to the Nanyang. It sent emissaries to ports in Sumatra and Java, and outfitted oceangoing junks that held crews of 150 to 300 men. These ships were designed to sustain long voyages.

Mongol fleets carried diplomatic staff and armies to fringe territories to announce the new dynasty and establish its claims to homage and dues. Mongol soldiers from one fleet, landing in Java in 1293, became entangled in a power struggle between the kingdoms of Kediri and Singhasari. For Singhasari’s Prince Wijaya, these agents of a foreign superpower presented the chance to gain allies and win the war against Kediri. In Javanese tradition, Mongol raiding in east Java’s coastal villages led to the founding of the kingdom of Majapahit.

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