JUST TO REMIND THAT WERE ALL JAVANESE AT HEART PRACTICES AND NARRATIVES OF JAVANESENESS IN JAVANESE SINGAPOREAN FAMILIES

Although there have been several passing remarks in books on Malayan history on the role of Singapore as the main entreport for Javanese migration to Malaya Roff 1967, there are no singl

CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION

Finding Javanese(ness) in Singapore

I want to start this thesis by presenting two snapshots of Singaporeans The first one is of a Singaporean of Javanese descent who started a project in his work place with the intention of fostering appreciation for Javanese culture Soon, he brought his project to the attention of the wider public He created

Javanese-an online community at Javanese-an internet-based social networking website Facebook He

named his online group Orang Jawa di Singapura.1 This online assemblage soon attracted the attention of other Singaporeans of Javanese descent In 2008, this group

merged with Javanese Singaporeans, another online community for Javanese

descendents of Singapore also hosted by Facebook The merger between these two

groups created the present day Javanese Singaporeans In their webpage, the creators

write the aims of their association, which is promoting the presence of Javanese in Singapore who have been on the island “since over a century ago”.2

1

Orang Jawa di Singapura literally means “Javanese people in Singapore”

They also aim to

make “younger generation Malays of Javanese descent to be more aware of their

[Javanese] roots” Related to these objectives, the site Javanese Singaporeans has

been quite active in promoting Javanese culture in Singapore The members of this group pursue this objective by sharing information related to Javaneseness, such as language, ritual, music, and philosophy, amongst themselves

2 All information on “Javanese Singaporean” is retrieved at 19 April 2010 from their webpage:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=10025599475

The second snapshot is about a Javanese dance and music troupe in Singapore

named Kesenian Tedja Timur, or simply Tedja Timur This troupe is active in promoting traditional Javanese dance and music, such as kuda kepang and gamelan

music.3 For commemorating their anniversary 60th anniversary, Tedja Timur chose to perform something special, a Javanese shadow puppet show titled “Ngawur”.4 Soon after they ended it, their extraordinary show invited comments from experts.5

This thesis is about the Javanese-Singaporeans and their narratives of Javaneseness in present day Singapore

Apparently, this group performed a Javanese wayang kulit with “a local taste” One

audience member who is knowledgeable about Javanese shadow puppets opined that this group did not know how to perform Javanese shadow puppetry in “the right way” He added that they just “played around” with this refined traditional art Yet, another audience member made more sympathetic comment He reckoned that this performance was not something about authentic Javaneseness but rather about producing “authentic Javaneseness that is uniquely Singaporean”

4 Ngawur is a Javanese word for “wrong” but it also means “nonsense”

5 Unfortunately, I did not have the chance to see the performance by myself But I managed to talk to some people who went to see the show that night

6 Here I use the term “Javanese-Singaporeans” to denote Singaporean of Javanese ancestries In his study, Miyazaki uses the similar term, “Javanese-Malay”, to refer to “Malaysian with legal status as Malay-Malaysian but have retained a strong consciousness of their Javanese origin.” See Miyazaki (2000: 76-7)

families no longer have? What kinds of narratives on these practices do they produce? How do their other identities in the present day influence their practices of Javaneseness? By answering these questions, I argue that Javanese-Singaporean families still maintain and/or negotiate their Javaneseness in present day Singapore However, their Javaneseness is not always similar to the one promoted by their predecessors nor their cousins from Java and yet, it is also not necessarily inauthentic

Although sharing a similar identity and traditions with their fellow Javanese in Java, the current generation of Javanese-Singaporeans were born and grew up in Singapore Thus, their daily life activities are more or less similar with their fellow Singaporeans (Abdul Aziz Johari 1960; Julina Khusaini 1988) Yet, this does not mean that the sense of being Javanese is no longer important to them On the contrary, the present generation of Javanese-Singaporeans are quite active in preserving their forefather's heritage as well as appreciating their ancestral culture But these practices are neither idyllic nor nostalgic in nature (c.f Chua 1994) They are not simply longing for their long lost ‘homeland’ or ‘motherland’ (c.f Safran 1991) On the contrary, they distance themselves from or even deny some aspect of their Javanese culture that they do not see as fit with their current status as members of Singaporean society The practices of appreciating Javanese heritage and culture among Javanese-Singaporeans can indeed be seen as a unique one, guided by the light of their past as well as their present condition

Background of the Study

When I arrived in Singapore for the first time, I thought that I had disconnected myself with my previous life in a small town between the two old capital cities of the two remaining Javanese kingdoms, Yogyakarta and Surakarta Before I left my hometown, I imagined Singapore to be a global-multicultural city, where various populaces lived side by side with each other Thus, I was expecting to meet people who came from many places in the world with diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds I, however, never had the slightest idea that I would meet people of Javanese descent who had lived for generations in Singapore I did know about the Javanese in Suriname from my school history books but I never read or learned about Javanese in Singapore

I first learned about Javanese in Singapore quite indirectly A friend, knowing that I came from Central Java, told me that a few of our fellow students are of Javanese descent I was quite surprised to learn this because I could not see any distinctive sign of Javaneseness among them Nevertheless, a non Javanese-Singaporean friend informed me that she knew a lot of Javanese around She added that many of her Malay friends confessed to her that they are Javanese Another friend, a Malay-Singaporean, also informed me of this He knew a lot of Javanese descendents among the Malay population in Singapore But when I asked him what their distinctive features were and how to identify them among Malay-Singaporeans,

he could not give me a straight answer “I just know that they’re Javanese,” he said Thus, I got the impression that Javanese-Singaporeans are a relatively invisible community in Singapore

Due to their invisibility, Javanese-Singaporeans are hardly distinguishable for someone who does not belong to the (Malay) Singaporean society There are at least

two reasons behind their virtual invisibility First, the number of Javanese people is

relatively small compared to the whole population of Singapore According to Census

2000, the number of Javanese is 80,339 people, or 2.45 per cent of the whole

population of Singapore (Leow 2001) Second, a scholar studying Javanese in

Malaysia has attributed the invisibility of Javanese migrant in their host society to

“the omnipresence of their “Malay” status” (Miyazaki 2000: 77) The Javanese, due to their same religion and similar custom, is perceived as closer or even belong as sub-ethnic of the Malay race in the colonial racial constellation which is still preserved in Singapore and Malaysia until today Thus, the Javanese do not have their own place in the official racial discourse in both nation-states

Perhaps also because of their invisibility, Javanese are an understudied subject

in Southeast Asian Studies Compared with the study on other migrant groups in Southeast Asia, mainly Chinese and Indian, the study on Javanese migrant is relatively thin Only a few studies documented the history of their migration to Malaya (Roff 1967; Tunku Shamsul Bahrin 1965, 1967a, 1967b; Lockard 1971; Khazin Mohd Tamrin 1984) The lack is even more apparent for the study of Javanese

in Singapore Although there have been several passing remarks in books on Malayan history on the role of Singapore as the main entreport for Javanese migration to Malaya (Roff 1967), there are no single publication dedicated to discuss the presence

of Javanese community in Singapore

Currently, there are only a few unpublished academic exercises on Singaporeans (e.g Abdul Aziz Johari 1960; Julina Khusaini 1988; Chia 1994) These studies look at the sociological aspect of Javanese migrant’s lives in Singapore, such

Javanese-as their social structure, social organization, history of migration, and relations with other ethnic groups For example, Abdul Aziz Johari (1960) study dwells with the issue of Javanese “integration” into the Malay community The similar theme of Javanese migrant “integration” can be found in Julina Khusaini (1988) Yet, she goes deeper by looking at the ways the Javanese maintain their “ethnic boundary” in a multicultural society like Singapore Meanwhile, Chia (1994) research is more focused on the historical picture of Javanese migration to Singapore

Migration Studies and Narratives Approach

The foci of the available studies on Javanese-Singaporeans mentioned above – especially Abdul Aziz Johari (1960) and Julina Khusaini (1988) – are more or less in line with the one of the mainstream theoretical outlook on migration studies, namely the assimilation perspective Assimilation is one of the oldest as well as the most long lasting theoretical outlook on migration studies (Heisler 2000) This perspective basically sees that the process of human migration will end after the migrant settle in their new place of residence The settlement process will be followed by assimilation process which incorporates the migrant into the host society culture Thus, this perspective perceives assimilation as the eventual result of human migration

Regardless, human migration and its outcome are never as simple as the assimilation theorists would like to believe The persistence of ethnic identity and the

celebration of ties to the old homeland among the members of migrant communities are some of the phenomena that show the complexities of human migration (Lewellen 2002) The desire to reconnect with the place of origins, which is commonly found among the migrant’s descendants, only points out the flaw of assimilation theorists Instead of becoming fully integrated into the host culture, many migrant communities have built their own social imaginations which often challenge that of the host (Appadurai 1996) Thanks to the advances in communication and transportation technologies, many migrants around the world today are becoming more connected with their faraway homeland culture while at the same time remain associated with their host society (Sun 2002; Georgiou 2006) Therefore, in the increasingly globalized world, the migrants find themselves more often than not living between two (or even more) worlds and this makes them constantly in the situation of cultural hybridity (Werbner 1997) and hyphenated identities (Caglar 1997) All of these conditions build an inherent complexity that is always present in migrant’s lives

Perhaps, nobody but migrants themselves, really understand the complexities

of their own lives Because these complexities are often overlooked by macro sociological studies on migrant communities, some migration studies scholars have resorted to narrative approach in order to capture the complexities of migrants’ lives (e.g DeRoche 1996; Chamberlain 1997, 1998; Brettell 2003; Olwig 2007; Besson and Olwig 2005) Scholars argue that the conventional approach to migration could only offer large-scale pictures of migration and thus do not provide the means to capture the subjective side of migrants’ everyday life (Brettel and Hollifield 2000) Studying migrant narratives, on the other hand, provides the necessary means for scholars to

look deeper into their everyday lives as well as their subjective stories which are often left undocumented by conventional historiography (Thomson 1999)

Early scholarships on migration looked at migrant narratives with the aim to enrich the studies relying more on conventional sources such as written documents

As has been pointed out by some scholars, their role is limited to gather “empirical data” and “unrecorded and undocumented raw experience” on migrant’s lives (Chamberlain and Leydesdorff 2004: 228) Thus, narratives studies are mostly employed only when there are no available records and documents on the history of migrant communities However, the potencies of narratives studies are not limited for collecting empirical data on migrant communities Narrative approach is also adept for capturing the subjective feeling experienced by the migrant It lets us to get

“glimpses into the lived interior of migration processes” (Benmayor and Skotnes 1994: 14) Scholars nowadays start to see the importance of migrant’s subjective experience, beside objective historical records, for gaining a better insight into migrants’ lives A look into the migrants’ subjectivities may permit us to know better

on the issue of migrant’s culture and identity (Chamberlain and Leydesdorff 2004)

In her study on the Barbadian migrant, Chamberlain (1997) shows how the narrative approach on migration studies may uncover a subjective motive for migration that is often overlooked by the macro approaches She argues that for a Barbadian, becoming a migrant is not necessarily motivated by pure economic reasons; it may also be motivated by historical reason or tradition pertaining to Barbadian migrant families since long time ago (Ibid) In one of the Barbadian migrant narratives that she collected, we can find a statement which says that their

family “love to travel” (Chamberlain 1997: 8) These ‘love to travel’ is commonly found in these Barbadian family narratives This narrative has been living in the family for several generations and therefore defines the unique culture and identity of Barbadian migrant

In applying personal narrative approach to study migration, we may also uncover the tension that often underlies migrants’ lives Scholars studying migrants’ narratives have looked at changes and alteration in what they have termed as the

“migrant mentalities” (Chamberlain and Leydesdorff 2004: 228) Both scholars argue that change in migrant mentalities can be observed from migrants’ narratives which reveal “the tensions … between the old and the new” often surrounding their migration process (Ibid: 233) Migrants, unlike their fellow who do not migrate, experience life in two (or more) different places This experience, most of the times, creates tension between ‘the old and the new’: old place and new place; old home and new home; old tradition and new host culture

A similar tension between the past and the present can also be observed, albeit subtly, from the memoir of a fourth generation of Javanese migrant in Singapore, Hidayah Amin (2010) In her book, she recounts the history of her family, started with her great grandfather – a Javanese from Surakarta who moved to Singapore to set up his family business, and later became a successful businessman and a prominent figure in Malay community In her book, it is obvious that she never denounced her Javanese root and heritage Indeed, her childhood memoir contains many stories of her family practices of Javaneseness related to language, ritual and beliefs Nevertheless, Hidayah today is not just a Javanese descent but also, just like her great

grandfather, a prominent figure among the Malay population She also seems to identify herself more with her Malayness rather Javaneseness as evidenced from the subtitle of her book, “Memories of a Malay Childhood”

The Significance of the Study

Against the above mentioned, this study on Javanese-Singaporeans has several

contributions First, this study will contribute to the thin academic discourse on

Javanese migrant and migration, especially the ones in Singapore As has been mentioned before, there are only a handful of literatures on Javanese migrants and their descendants in Singapore Yet, these academic exercises do not offer us with a clear picture of the life of Javanese-Singaporeans Thus, this thesis will not just add more information on this relatively understudied topic, it will offer a new way to look

at the life of Javanese-Singaporeans by using the personal narrative approach

Second, the implementation of a narrative approach in this study will add

contribution to the developing field of migration studies in general Personal narrative approach offers a fresh way to study the life of migrants and their descendants by presenting migration stories from the point of view of the migrants themselves As has been argued by Mary Chamberlain and Selma Leydessdorf (2004: 228), this approach enables scholars to “examine migrant behavior and attitudes, subjectivities and

identities, in other words they can explore migrant mentalities and their shift over

time”

Third, this study will, for the first time, analyze the personal narratives of

Javanese-Singaporeans No other academic exercises on Javanese-Singaporeans have ever taken this approach Personally, this narrative study has opened up my horizon to complex lives of Javanese-Singaporeans as well as to their feelings, dreams and imaginations to me Thus, I humbly hope that this study will contribute in opening up

a new terrain of narrative studies, not just on Javanese-Singaporeans but also on other ethnic minority groups in Singapore

Methodology, Fieldwork, and Limitation of the Study

I conducted almost five months of fieldwork for my research from September

2009 until January 2010 in Singapore In the first two months of my fieldwork (September – October 2009), I conducted research on the history of Javanese migration to Singapore This was done by looking at the available historical records and academic literatures, visiting public museums, and reading local newspapers and oral history transcriptions In the last three months (November 2009 – January 2010),

my fieldwork activities consisted mainly of in-depth interviews on Singaporeans, which I carried out in many different places in Singapore Besides in-depth interviews, my fieldwork activities also consisted of several observations on the

Javanese-performance of Javanese Kuda Kepang troupe in Geylang Serai

In this thesis, I defined Javanese-Singaporean as Singapore citizen who have

or claim to have Javanese ancestry As long as falling into these categories, I

disregarded my informants’ ethnicity/race in their Identity Card.7 Yet, even with this relatively relaxed definition of Javanese-Singaporeans, I still found difficulty in identifying them As has been mentioned above, it is difficult to recognize Javanese-Singaporeans because of their cultural proximities and physical resemblances with the Malay Thus, in order to identify my informants, I used snowball sampling method Initially, I selected my informants from the contact that I have developed From here,

I asked my informants to suggest other suitable candidates for interview With this method, I was able to interview 11 Javanese-Singaporeans from six different families, consisted of 9 females and 2 males, with age ranged from 24 to 78 years old In term

of generation, my informants fall into the category of second, third, and fourth generations of Javanese-Singaporeans.8

I am aware that my position as male, Javanese, Indonesian researcher brought out different responses from my informants than researcher with dissimilar background I rarely started with telling my informants of my background other than introducing myself as Master student at National University of Singapore Nevertheless, they always asked my personal background, such as if I came from Indonesia (because they recognized my accent) and if I am a Javanese Some of my

All of the in-depth interviews were conducted

in the language which my informants felt most comfortable with, such as English, Malay, Bahasa Indonesia, and Javanese

7 Some of my informants have “Malay” as ethnicity/race in their Identity Card Other than this, they have “Javanese” and “Eurasian” This is because the ethnicity/race of a newly born Singaporean commonly follows her/his father Many of Javanese migrants and their descendants in Singapore have intermarried with people with different ethnic/race group

8

Here, I defined the first generation as the migrant, regardless of their naturalization status Second generation will be the children of the first generation; the third will be the children of the second generation, and so on

informants even perceived me as “asli Jawa” (the original Javanese).9

Meanwhile, my status as Javanese might have given me some disadvantages during my fieldwork For example, upon knowing that I am Javanese, one of my informants seemed to look down upon the practice of Javaneseness among Javanese-Singaporeans She disclosed not much information that I requested by saying that I

know much better about Javanese culture because I am “asli” Perhaps, the very same

reason had made some informants to suspect my motive for conducting this research

On some occasions, some potential informants subtly declined to be interviewed by eluding my request

Yet, my status

as Javanese from Java gave me advantage as well as disadvantage in conducting interviews The advantage is the warm response that I got from some of my informants, when they learned that I came from Java Probably they perceived me as their distance relative or friend This is clear at least on one occasion when one of my informants found out that I came from the same city with his grandfather, he called

me “tangga dhewe” (my own neighbor)

Yet, status as Javanese did not always lead to suspicion Many times, it invited curiosity amongst my informants Since it is my personal conviction that interview does not have to be conducted in one-way communication, I always tried my best to satisfy their curiosities by answering their questions on my background Their curiosities, sometimes, granted me with surprising questions which often caught me unguarded For example, one of my informants abruptly asked me if I am a Hindu, once she learned that I came from Java Others asked me unexpected questions, such

9 This often happened after they learned that I am Javanese from Java and I spoke Javanese Most of my informants asked me if I could speak Javanese after they knew that I came from Java

as asking the recipe for making fried tempe in Javanese style (which is rather different

from Malay one) When this happened, the interview, sometimes, took longer than expected since we exchanged any kind of information regarding anything related to Java and Javanese culture

Whenever possible, I always asked my informants to tell me their stories, about themselves and their family Sometimes, I did not fully succeed in inducing

them to do this There are several reasons behind this First, some of my informants

were quite shy and not open enough This is because most of the interviews were conducted at the first day I met them The use of snowball sampling method and the relatively short period of fieldwork do not provide me with ample time to build my

relationship with my informants prior to the interviews Second, quite the opposite of

the first point, some of my informants showered me with excessive information On one occasion, one informant told me stories about her job and working place Another occasion, another informant gave me abundant life-related advices Neither of this information related directly to my questions nor my research in general Yet, as it was

my intention to get as many stories as I could, I did not try to stop, and thus discourage, them from doing this The consequence of these difficulties to my thesis

is clear: I could not present a fully-unabridged narrative of my informants The narratives that I present in this thesis, despite extracted from the interviews, were the result of some (re)organization or putting together of scattered information in order to make them coherent for readers

During all of my interviews, I, whenever feasible, always tried to use a tape recorder so as to best capture my informants’ narratives Most of my informants were

willing to be recorded and only a few of them declined to be so Consequently, for those who declined to be taped, I wrote down their accounts on my field notes to the best of my ability and memory During the writing of this thesis, I have tried my best

to write down and present, as correctly as possible, my informants’ narratives I also put my informants’ identities under pseudonyms with the intention of protecting their privacies, unless they stated that it was their wish to be mentioned under their real names

I do not have the slightest intention to make any generalization from my research finding nor to draw a generic explanation on Javanese migrants I understand the subjective nature of the migrants’ narratives that I present in my thesis Therefore,

in agreement with what Battisti and Portelli (1994: 37-8) said on their narrative approach, my thesis “do not attempt to generalize from a broader sample but focus on the meanings and implications of a few significant narratives.” Thus, what I want to highlight from my thesis is indeed the subjective meaning from each individual stories about self and family that my informants have so willingly shared with me

Chapters Organization

This thesis is divided into six chapters This introduction serves as Chapter 1

of this thesis Here, I have outlined the background of my study on Singaporeans I have also discussed the previous literatures on this topic and review it against the recent development on the larger field of migration studies In the final section of this chapter, I have given the outline of my research methodology, my brief report on fieldwork, and on the limitation of my study

Chapter 2 will revolve around the question of who are the Singaporeans I start this chapter by exploring the historical narratives of Javanese migration to Singapore, then part of the British Malaya, since the early nineteenth century up to the mid twentieth century Next, my discussion moves to position of Javanese people in the newly formed Republic of Singapore Here, I also discuss several public policies of the new government which affected the live of Javanese-Singaporeans

Javanese-In Chapter 3, I introduce the family narratives of six Javanese-Singaporean families that I studied Here, I give broad sociological picture of Javanese-Singaporean families by examining family histories from the six families My discussion on the family histories of the six families focuses on several important dimensions of their family histories, such as their places of origin, migration, livelihood, settlement, and marriage The background information that I present in this chapter also serves as context for the narratives of Javaneseness discussed in the following chapter

Chapter 4 presents the narratives about practices of Javaneseness from the members of six Javanese-Singaporean families.Through their narratives,I show how these Javanese-Singaporean families continue to carry out their practices of Javaneseness in Singapore today In examining their narratives, I focus my discussion

on several significant practicesof Javaneseness which I found in the studied families These practices are visiting Java, speaking Javanese, and carrying out a Javanese wedding

In Chapter 5, I demonstrate the intricacy of the constructions of Javaneseness

in Singapore today around the themes of Malayness and Islam Specifically, I show how Javanese-Singaporean families modify, alter, and shift their practice of Javaneseness under the influence of Malayness and Islam In this chapter, I focus my

discussion on two important issues First,the complex relation between Javaneseness

and Malayness among the Javanese-Singaporean families studied Second, the

practice of Javaneseness in the wake of rising religiosity among the Muslim of

Singapore, with the case of kuda kepang dance

Chapter 6 serves as the summary and conclusion of this thesis

CHAPTER 2:

THE HISTORY OF JAVANESE IN SINGAPORE

This chapter presents the historical narratives of Javanese people in Singapore

In particular, I demonstrate how the Javanese migrants came to Singapore and gradually became an integral part of their host society In gathering my data for this chapter, I mainly draw information from the available historical sources as well as oral history records

This chapter aims to provide socio-historical context on the presence of Javanese in Singapore It basically explores, albeit in general examination, the history

of Javanese-Singaporeans The discussion on the history of Javanese in Singapore focuses on several important aspects, such as their origin, their reasons for leaving their homeland, their migration, as well as their settlement, and their community in Singapore Such background information will be indispensable in better understanding the narratives of present day Javanese-Singaporeans in the following chapter

Since this thesis focuses on present day Javanese-Singaporeans – whom mostly descended from Javanese migrants who moved to Singapore since the foundation of the first British’s settlement in Singapore up until the enactment of tighter immigration rules in 1960s – my historical discussion focus, therefore, is limited to this time period

The Javanese Migrants

Javanese migrants in Singapore traced their ancestries back to Java Island Their grandparent migrated to Singapore from this major island of Indonesia, formerly known as the Netherland East Indies Although all of them came from the same island, Javanese migrants in Singapore did not come from the same region or part of Java

The Javanese mainly inhabits the central and eastern part of the island of Java, roughly around present day Indonesian provinces of Central Java, Yogyakarta, and East Java These three regions were once under the control of the Javanese Kingdom

of Mataram and thus it is commonly associated as the homeland of Javanese people But despite being a single kingdom in the past, the Javanese is by no means a homogenous ethnic group

Javanese culture differs according to the regional variety in their homeland (Koentjaraningrat 1990: 21) For example, the Yogyakarta and Surakarta region is known as the centre of the Javanese court culture, while northern coast of central and

east Java are the domain of pasisir, or coastal culture Meanwhile, the western most

part of central Java is in the realm of Banyumas culture Therefore, different regions have different characteristics, such as their own language dialect and beliefs

The Javanese speaks Javanese language, with some local variations Around the court cities of Yogyakarta and Surakarta, the Javanese language has speech levels

which reflected their paternalistic and hierarchical social system The pasisir Javanese

speaks the similar language with those from the interior part of Java, albeit with “the speech level is less involuted” (ibid: 20) Meanwhile, the Javanese from Banyumas

area speaks a distinctive Banyumas dialect Despite this variety, only the dialect which comes from Yogyakarta-Surakarta area is often considered as the ‘standard’ Javanese

Javanese belief system, in general, is a mix of Islam with Hindu-Buddhist influences although the average Javanese would only regard Islam as their religion Javanese Islam, however, is the only one of its kind because of its pre-Islamic

influences Javanese Islam has two manifestations: agami jawi, a syncretism of Islam with a complex of Hindu-Buddhist beliefs; and agami Islam jawi, which leaning

toward formal Islamic teachings though not entirely lost its Hindu-Buddhist components (ibid: 317) The syncretistic religion mostly dominates the interior region

of Java while puritan Islam on its coastal areas (c.f Geertz 1976)

Finding a Better Life in Singapore

The Javanese migrated to Singapore for various different reasons One of the prominent reasons is the condition and problems at their homeland Java is only the fifth largest island in Indonesian archipelago, yet it is by far the most populous one Java population rapidly grew during the nineteenth and early twentieth century (Pelzer 1946) In 1795, Java’s population was only 3.5 million but by 1895, it was more than 25 million In 1930, Java’s population was more than 40 million with density as high as 316.1 per square kilometers (Widjojo Nitisastro 1970: 75) Thus, Java became one of the regions in the world with the highest population density (Holland 1936: 309)

This huge population created many social problems for Java inhabitants because the population increase created pressure on cultivable land This, in turn, resulted in the creation of “dwarf holdings” which created “growth in the number of landless agricultural laborers, widespread indebtedness, growth of tenancy, decline in rural incomes, widespread poverty and malnutrition, and in many districts serious seasonal food shortages” (Pelzer 1946: 134) Thus, it was not surprising to find that economic factors, such as the lack of employment opportunities and low income, and its contingencies, such as poverty and famine, became the main driving force of Javanese emigration

On the other hand, the abundant economic opportunities in the thriving port of Singapore encouraged Javanese migration Some of the available opportunities for Javanese migrants were clothes and spices trading, metal and leather crafting, peddling food, gardening, and other kind of laboring jobs (Li 1989: 94) Some traveler also mentioned Javanese migrants who became servants, sailors, and gardener in Singapore (Wallace 1986: 32; Bird 1990: 115; Lockhart 1936: 156) The opening of plantation estates around Singapore provided even wider opportunities for Javanese migrants since they required many laborers to run Indeed, some scholars believed that rubber plantations in Malaya were one of the most important factors that attracted large Javanese migration to Singapore (e.g Marriott 1991: 353)

Yet, economy was not the only reason for Javanese migration to Singapore Sometimes, the impetus for migration came from major social or historical events For many Javanese in Singapore, the Second World War was a major factor which affecting their migration During 1942 – 1945, the Japanese brought and displaced

thousands of Javanese forced laborers in Singapore (see below) War apparently also drove some Javanese to leave their homeland because they feared their personal or family safety Other times, the Javanese migrated to Singapore because of personal reasons One of the examples was marrying Singaporean (see Chapter 3)

The Traders, the Laborers, and the Slaves

The Javanese has been migrating to Singapore since a few years after the founding of the settlement by the British One of the earliest accounts which indicated the presence of Javanese migrants in Singapore dated back in 1822 (Marriot 1991: 345) The same account also mentioned that the Javanese population numbered 38 persons in 1825 (ibid: 341) However, beside some statistical data, there was not enough information on how the Javanese migrated to Singapore in these early years

Based on the means of migration, Javanese migration to Singapore may be roughly divided into three categories: the free migration; the indentured migration; and the forced migration (Abdul Aziz Johari 1960) Free migration basically happens when the migrants decide to move to their destination country out of their own free will Indentured migration happens when the migrants enter into an agreement which compels them leave for the destination country Forced migration happens when the migrants are forced to move into the destination country

Unlike the other two type of migration, Javanese free migration may have started since the early days of Singapore However, historical records show that Javanese free migration became the dominant mode of migration in two time periods: prior to the introduction of indentured labor system in the early twentieth century and the post-war years of Singapore

Free Migration

In early nineteenth century, the main mode of Javanese migration to Singapore was trough trade A scholar reported that the earliest Javanese migrants in Singapore were mainly merchants and traders (Saw 1970: 24) These Javanese traders were attracted to come for business in Singapore because of its thriving commerce and free port Meanwhile, another scholar notes that some Javanese craftsmen and merchants founded a trading centre in the Kampong Java area around 1850 (Li 1989: 94) These people produced metal and leather works as well as dealt with trading of clothes, spices and religious text (ibid)

Another way for Javanese migration to Singapore was through the help of the

middlemen, such as the syaikh haji or pilgrim brokers in Singapore (Span 1994) It

was reported that some middlemen were involved in helping Javanese migrants, mostly male bachelor, who came to find jobs in Singapore (Li 1989: 94) These bachelors would usually stay in these middlemen’s residences until they could secure themselves jobs Sometimes, the middlemen were their own comrades and relatives

A report mentioned that some Javanese migrated by using their networks of family members and friends: they came to Singapore by following their family members or friends who had successfully made a living in this city (Saw and Cheng 1971: 58)

Pilgrimage is another means for Javanese to migrate to Singapore Since the opening of Suez Canal in 1869 up until the 1930s, Singapore was a transportation hub for Muslim pilgrim from the archipelago (Vredenbregt 1962: 126) The pilgrims travelled to Singapore first and then board the steamships to Hejaz from there In Singapore, the pilgrim temporarily stayed in Kampong Khaji, near the present day Kampong Glam Some would stay longer and work in Singapore with the intention of earning more money for their trip (Roff 1967: 39) After they conducted their pilgrimage, some of these Javanese pilgrims decided to abandon their trip back to their homeland and instead stayed in Singapore and Malaya because they found these two places to be more prosperous than their homeland (Khazin Mohd Tamrin 1984: 50)

In immediate post-war years, there was large-scale Javanese free migration from Malaysia to Singapore Since the beginning of twentieth century, the Malaya peninsula was already a home to thousands of Javanese migrants and their families whom worked for rubber plantation estates Immediately after the war ended, many

“Malaysians” were reported to move to Singapore, presumably with the intention of making a better living (Chua 1964: 45) Although there was no record on the ethnic composition of these Malaysian migrants, Li (1989: 95) argued that “a very large proportion of these post-war migrants were young men or whole families of Javanese descent.” These people were former Javanese settlers who failed in claiming land for themselves and thus, they migrated, mostly from Johore, to Singapore in order to find

a better living in this city (ibid)

The large Javanese migration above marked the end of the boon period of Javanese migration to Singapore The post-war immigration policy in Singapore was stricter to new immigration The Immigration Ordinance of 1953 limited new immigration to those who possessed the required skills and qualifications (Saw and Cheng 1971: 59) This ordinance was amended in 1959 to make immigration policy even tighter The amended regulation put more restriction on new migration to Singapore by imposing minimum monthly salary (ibid) The Immigration Ordinance

of 1953 was still effective when Singapore separated from Malaysia in 1965

Javanese migration to Singapore from 1960s onward was rather small According to the census, there were only 4,694 people of Indonesian born who moved

to Singapore between 1961 and 1970 (Arumainathan 1973) Almost half of these migrants were women There was no information on the number of Javanese among these Indonesian migrants Regardless, this information gave an indication that the majority of free migration that happened in this time period was through marriage

Indentured Migration

Javanese indentured migration started, de facto, with the opening of plantations estates throughout Malaya in the 1870s However, the Javanese indentured labor system officially started in 1900s and lasted until 1930s This time period also witnessed large scale Javanese migration to Singapore and Malaya Most of these people were indentured laborers working in Malayan rubber plantations The opening

up of rubber plantation in Malaya was regarded by some scholars, such as Marriott

(1991: 353), as one of the most important factor behind large migration of Javanese to Singapore

One of the initial accounts on Javanese laborers on Malayan plantation was reported by Earl in 1861 (Tunku Shamsul Bahrin 1965: 53) He wrote that Javanese worked in tapioca plantation in Province Wellesley Meanwhile, travel writers, such

as Bird (1990: 358), mentioned that some Javanese were working as coolie for clearing the jungle for sugar plantation in Perak in 1883 Meanwhile, the earliest statistics on Javanese laborers recorded their presence in Malaya as early as 1886 (Jackson 1961: 127) Nevertheless, the number of Javanese laborers in Malaya at this time remained very small

It was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that the plantation owners in Malaya started to bring in more Javanese laborers Prompted by the lack of local labor force and the insecurity of labor supplies from India, the attempt to import Javanese laborers for plantation had started as early as 1902 (Parmer 1960) Nevertheless, Javanese laborers only started to flood Malaya only after the

introduction of indentured labor system trough the Netherlands Indian Labourers Protection Enactment 1909 (Saw and Cheng 1971: 58) This law regulated and

guaranteed the rights of Javanese indentured labor in Malaya This legislation, however, lasted only for a couple of decades because the British abolished the indentured labor system in 1932 (Parmer 1960: 110-11)

Despite its brief time, the indentured labor system had brought thousands of Javanese indentured laborers to Malaya After its closure, many former Javanese indentured laborers decided to settle down in Malaya They did this because of the

relatively better living condition in Malaya than their homeland However, not all of these laborers wanted to work back in the plantations Some of these Javanese chose

to become settlers and open up smallholding around their former plantation (Tunku Shamsul Bahrin 1967b: 236) Others decided to leave the plantations and moved to Singapore to find new, and perhaps even better, jobs (Roff 1967: 38) These former plantations laborers joined their Javanese kinsman who already lived in Singapore

Forced Migration

The Javanese forced migration to Singapore happened mainly during the Second World War or between 1942 and 1945 During this time period, the Japanese army recruited and shipped Javanese people to work as slave laborers in Singapore and Malaya Some of these slave laborers were women who were forced to become comfort women for the Japanese army

In order to support their war effort, the Japanese military mobilized hundreds

of thousands of Southeast Asian Due to its large population, Java became one of the main centers for labor mobilization (Kurasawa 1988) During their rule for three and a half years, the Japanese sent thousands of Javanese to work as slave laborers in Southeast Asia Malaya received the largest number, with 31,000 Javanese slave laborers (Raben 2005: 209) Within Malaya, Singapore alone hosted the largest number of them According to some estimation, the Japanese army brought in around 10.000 Javanese slave laborers to Singapore (Turnbull 2009: 219) This high figure came from the fact that Singapore was a hub for transportation in Malaya as well as Southeast Asia

The majority of Javanese slave laborers in Singapore and Malaya were men Most of these men worked in cultivating rice, tending rubber, or constructing military facilities for the Japanese army (Kratoska 2005) Besides men, the Japanese army also enlisted Javanese women A lot of Javanese women were promised to work as nurses for the Japanese military However, many of them, if not most of them, ended up becoming “comfort women” or sex laborers for the Japanese soldiers in Singapore (Lee 1984)

After the war ended, the British and the Dutch authorities conducted efforts to repatriate the Javanese slave laborers Singapore was designated as a hub for their repatriation from different parts of Southeast Asia However, only a few of the surviving Javanese forced laborers could be repatriated From the total of 70,000 in Southeast Asia, only around 10,000 survivors were sent back to Java (Lockard 1971: 43) There were no records as to what happened to the rest of them However, some of the former Javanese forced laborers in Singapore chose to settle down in this city (Abdul Aziz Johari 1960: 27; Chia 1994: 26-7) and increased the number of Javanese population in Singapore in the post-war years (Li 1989: 95)

From Kampong to HDB

Due to the early British settlement policy, every ethnic group in Singapore lived within their own ethnic enclaves The early Javanese migrants in Singapore also built their own living quarter One of the main Javanese settlements was Kampong Jawa Javanese settlements started to grow and diversify in the immediate post-war years of Singapore However, the establishment of Housing Development Board

(HDB) in the early years of Republic Singapore had practically ended the days of Javanese settlements in Singapore

The period from early nineteenth century to the first half of twentieth century represented the growth period for Javanese community in Singapore During this time period, Javanese settlement in Singapore also steadily grew A record which indicated the earliest Javanese settlement in Singapore dated back to near the beginning of Singapore Marriott (1991: 345) report showed that a Javanese representative was appointed as member of “a Committee … for appropriating and marking out the quarters or departments of the several classes of the population” of Singapore in October 1822 The same report also showed that there were 38 Javanese living in the island in 1825 (ibid: 341) Yet, this report did not mention the location of this quarter

Most of Javanese migrants in the nineteenth century would live among their own kind in an ethnic enclave, known locally as kampong Raffles’ early settlement policy divided Singapore into various living quarters for each ethnic group (Turnbull 2009: 39) The primary Javanese settlement in Singapore was Kampong Java, or Jawa, which was established in 1836 on the west of Rochore River (Lockard 1971: 44), behind the old race course (Savage and Yeoh 2003: 211).10

10

Part of Kampong Java still exists today but as a road and a park name in Singapore

However, Javanese were also reported to live in Kampong Glam, the Malay ethnic group quarter in Singapore (Roff 1967) According to Abdul Aziz Johari (1960: 28), Kampong Jawa continued to serve as the main Javanese settlement in Singapore until around the middle of twentieth century

Kampong Jawa was the centre of Javanese economic and cultural activities in Singapore A report mentioned that in Kampong Java, there were many eating houses, coffee shops, as well as flower shops operated by Javanese women (Roff 1967: 179) Another report mentioned that it was the location for Javanese activities in trading as well as metal and leather crafting (Li 1989: 94) Javanese migrants also brought their own arts and entertainments to Singapore (Chia 1994: 22) Some of these were

musical instruments, such as the gamelan, wayang kulit (shadow puppets) and wayang wong (drama) performances, and also their traditional amusement dance, such as the kuda kepang Javanese migrants usually would perform their arts and entertainment

around their settlements

In the immediate post-war Singapore, Javanese settlements in Singapore started to grow due to the increasing number of Javanese population A study recorded the emergence of new kampongs, such as Kampong Pachitan, near Bedok area; as well as some dispersed Javanese settlements along the Bukit Timah Road, such as Kampong Tempe and Kampong Chantek (Abdul Aziz Johari 1960: 29).11

Years toward Singapore independence witnessed another change in Javanese settlements in Singapore The establishment of Housing Development Board (HDB)

Some residents of these kampongs still related to the inhabitants of Kampong Jawa For instance, the residents of Kampong Pachitan were initially living in Kampong Jawa before they moved and opened up their own kampong (ibid)

11

The name “Pachitan” suggested that the founder or the first inhabitants of this kampong were

Javanese from Pacitan area in East Java Meanwhile, tempe is a popular Javanese food which was

brought to Singapore by Javanese migrants More on Kampong Tempe, see:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=198758194973 , accessed at 8 October 2010

in 1960 marked the beginning of major population resettlement program in Singapore The HDB was founded with the intention of providing public housing, clearing slum, and resettling the population (Turnbull 2009: 284) However, HDB goal behind this resettlement project was not limited to provide adequate housing for the population, but also to create a “multiethnic living through public housing” and this was part of

“the state’s policy of nation-building based on multiracialism … implemented through the Housing Development Board” (Lai 1995: 18)

The establishment of HDB had significant impact on the existing Javanese settlements in Singapore Before the 1960s, most Javanese, like other ethnic groups in Singapore, was living in an ethnic enclave inhabited by their own kinsmen This picture, however, rapidly changed after the establishment of HDB The HDB relocated Singapore population into high-rise building, locally know as HDB The HDB also imposed a quota system for each ethnic group on every HDB block as a means to enforce their policy of “multiethnic living” After they were relocated to HDB buildings, the Javanese could no longer live exclusively among other Javanese Instead, they had to live together with different ethnic groups Thus, the establishment

of HDB practically ended the days of Javanese settlements in Singapore

An Inclusive Community

The Javanese are not an exclusive migrant group in Singapore Indeed, Javanese migrants has showed a high degree of flexibility and adaptability to local situations throughout their history in Singapore Their inclusiveness and adaptability can be seen from the presence of Javanese organization in Singapore, the

cosmopolitan nature of Javanese kampongs, their association with their Malay neighbor and their pragmatic adoption of Malay identity

Unlike the Chinese and the Arab, the Javanese do not have any clan or familial organizations which championed their clan members’ causes Compared to other ethnic groups, Javanese in Singapore are not very active in organizing themselves There is only one registered Javanese association in Singapore: Persekutuan Jawa Al Masakin (lit the Poor Javanese Association) or PJM PJM was established in 1901 with the primary aim to help its members’ families by giving death alms when their members departed Nonetheless, PJM membership was inclusive Although it was initially founded to serve Javanese community’s interests, PJM accepted memberships from every Muslim Singaporean (Chia 1994: 21)

Javanese kampongs were also not exclusively Javanese Chia (1994: 28) noted the nature of Javanese Kampongs which grew to be more cosmopolitan since 1940s Although they were initially built and populated by Javanese migrants, Javanese kampongs were also inhabited by other ethnic groups, such as Malay and even Chinese The Javanese themselves were also becoming more cosmopolite in their outlook Some Javanese started to speak more Malay and limited to speak Javanese only to their kinsmen and relatives (ibid 29-30) In addition, some Javanese also

started to wear Malay baju kurung when they attended their neighbor’s special

occasion, such as wedding (ibid: 30)

When the government of Singapore resettled the kampongs dwellers to HDB building (see previous section), the Javanese showed another instance of their inclusiveness and adaptability As they were bracketed together with the local ethnic

Malay under the “Malay” race, the Javanese often found themselves living in HDB flats with the Malays rather than with their fellow kinfolks Instead of isolating them, this condition resulted in the Javanese’s growing interaction and association with the Malays Riaz Hassan (1977: 179), in his study on low-income families in HDB, mentioned a Java-born Javanese couple who invited their Malay neighbors into their

slametan (traditional Javanese ceremony)

Another example of Javanese inclusiveness and adaptability can be found from their adoption of ‘Malay’ as their official ethnic identity As mandated by constitution, education system in Singapore gave special treatment to Malay population, such as relieving education fee for Malay-Singaporean (Sharom Ahmat 1971) This policy, however, stirred concern and fear among the migrant groups from archipelago because there was no clear characterization of who belong to this

“Malay” category in the Constitution (Athsani Karni and Ridzwan Dzafir 1971: 15) Yet, the Javanese, again, proved their inclusiveness and adaptability to the local situation Some Javanese parents voluntarily adopted Malay as their official racial identity in order to gain benefit from subsidized education (Julina Khusaini 1988: 49-50)

Conclusion

The Javanese started to move to Singapore since a few years after the foundation of British settlement on the island They mainly migrated because of the poor living condition in their homeland They chose Singapore because this city provided them with many economic opportunities, especially after the opening of

plantations in Malaya Nevertheless, some Javanese, particularly during the Second World War, moved to Singapore because they were forced to do so Many of them could not return to Java and thus they had to settle down in Singapore

In Singapore, the Javanese mainly lived in ethnic enclaves such as Kampong Jawa Prior to the Second World War, Kampong Jawa was the centre of Javanese activities in Singapore Many economic activities, such as trading, crafting, food peddling and gardening, were conducted here Moreover, kampong Jawa was also the point of departure for Javanese migrants as well as point of embarkation for Javanese pilgrims Lastly, kampong Jawa was also the center for Javanese cultural activities Many Javanese arts and entertainment was staged in this place

In the post-war years, Javanese community in Singapore experienced a significant change in their way of life Javanese settlements in Singapore began to grow in numbers and dispersed around the island Not only that, their settlements started to become more cosmopolitan in nature The use of Javanese language among the Javanese was also become more limited and some Javanese changed their dress

code and wore Malay baju kurung for attending social occasions These facts

indicated the inclusiveness and adaptability of Javanese community in Singapore

The Javanese community had further proven their inclusiveness and adaptability in the wake of Republic of Singapore’s independence The government public housing resettlement program ended many of their former social and cultural practices which were centered on their kampongs Yet, in their new living environment, the Javanese aligned themselves toward the more dominant Malay community In addition, some Javanese adopted Malay as their official racial identity

to gain access to education subsidies from the government which was reserved only to the Malays

CHAPTER 3

INTRODUCING THE JAVANESE-SINGAPOREAN FAMILIES

This chapter gives a broad sociological picture of Javanese-Singaporean families through an examination of their family histories In presenting the family histories of the six families, I demonstrate how the historical experiences of the families were shaped not just by the families’ origin in Java and their history of migration but also by social and political forces in Singaporean society Although the focus of this chapter is on the family history of the six families, my discussion will relate their histories to the larger history of Javanese community in Singapore by drawing from available secondary sources

The aim of this chapter is to provide background information on the six Javanese-Singaporean families studied in this thesis as well as to provide context for the narratives of Javaneseness discussed in the next chapter The discussion focuses

on several important dimensions, such as the six families’ places of origin, migration, livelihood, settlement, and marriage I focus on these dimensions because they are significant to an understanding of how Javanese migrant families are situated within Singaporean society as well as the narratives of Javaneseness which are produced in this context

In order to easily differentiate them, I identify the six Javanese-Singaporean families studied with an alphabet from A to F Family A has been living in Singapore for five generations The first-generation of this family moved to Singapore in the

early twentieth century My main respondents from this family are Aminah and her daughter, Latifah Similarly, the first-generation of Family B moved to Singapore in the early twentieth century This family has been in Singapore for at least four generations I collected data on Family B from four informants: Yayah; her daughter, Nita; her grandson, Reza; and Reza’s wife, Izzah

Unlike Families A and B, Family C moved to Singapore a few years before the Second World War started in Singapore Thus, this family has been living in Singapore for three generations My main informant from this family is Safina Family D also migrated to Singapore around the same time with Family C But unlike them, Family D has been in Singapore for four generations I collected data on this family from my informant, Aini Family E moved to Singapore not long after Families C and D, exactly during the Second World War This family has been in Singapore for three generations One of the family members, Johan, provided me with information for this research

Among the six families studied, only Family F migrated to Singapore several years after the Second World War ended Despite their later time of migration, this family has been living in Singapore for three generations For this research, I interviewed two family members: Lily; and her daughter, Nadia

Table 1 The Six Javanese-Singaporean Families Studied

Family A Aminah 70’s 3rd generation

Latifah 39 4th generation Aminah’s

daughter Family B Yayah 78 2nd generation

Nita 40’s 3rd generation Yayah’s daughter

Reza 26 4th generation Yayah’s grandson

Izzah 26 4th generation Reza’s wife

Family C Safina 24 3rd generation

Family D Aini 42 3rd generation

Family E Johan 30’s 3rd generation

Family F Lily 56 2nd generation

Nadia 26 3rd generation Lily’s daughter

Origin

In this section, I discuss the place of origin of the six Javanese-Singaporean families and the social characteristics of their ancestors who came from these places

However, my findings suggest that these different attributes no longer applies to the current generation of Javanese-Singaporeans who became my informants

The Javanese ancestors of the six Javanese Singaporean families that I studied came exclusively from the central region of Java.12

Two of the families studied, Families C and E came from two different villages but around the same city of Yogyakarta My informant from Family C, Safina, did not know the exact location of her ancestral village since she has never been there before She just knew that the village where her grandfather came from is around Yogyakarta Meanwhile, Family E’s village is located in the south of Yogyakarta My informant from this family, Johan, mentioned that his family still has

a legacy left in their ancestral village: a mosque named after his great-grandfather

The grandfather of Aminah from Family A originated from a village called Purwodadi, near a small town of Purworejo Purworejo is located about 40 km from Yogyakarta, one of the major cities in Central Java Around 100 km west of Purworejo, there is a small city of Purwokerto Family

B traced their ancestry back to a village near this city However, my informant from this family, Yayah, reckoned no one in her family knows the whereabouts of their ancestral village since her parents never told them the location

12

Although the Javanese in Indonesia commonly inhabited the central and eastern part of Java, none of the six Javanese-Singaporean families or their relatives had ever traced their ancestry to the eastern part of Java However, this does not mean that the Javanese from east Java did not migrate to Singapore Quite on the contrary, historical records show that there were population movements from east Java to Singapore One of the best examples is the Boyanese people in Singapore who traced their ancestry back to Bawean Island, a few kilometers offshore from Surabaya (Vredenbregt 1990) Moreover, there is an indication that many Javanese people from east Java lived in Singapore This can

be seen from the presence of Kampong Pacitan, near the present day Kembangan area The name

Pacitan suggested that this kampong was named after its founder: Javanese migrants from Pacitan, a

small city in east Java (c.f Hadijah Rahmat 2005: 72)

The rest, Families D and F came from two cities in the north coast of Central Java Aini from Family D reckoned that her grandparents came from a village near the small city of Kendal However, she did not know the name or the location of the village since she has not visited her ancestral village yet Among the six Javanese-Singaporean families studied, only Family F did not originate from a village Lily’s grandfather, who worked as chief prosecutor in the Dutch colonial government, came from Semarang, the capital city of Central Java province

Figure 1 Map of Central Java Province and Yogyakarta Special Region

As we can see from the figure above, four Javanese-Singaporean families, Families A, B, C, and E, originated from the interior part of central Java while the rest, Families D and F came from the northern coast of central Java According to Koentjaraningrat (1990), these two regions have their own variety of Javanese culture which is manifest in the local dialect and beliefs For example, the north coast people,