Chinese Descendants at Lelea, Indramayu

It is almost nobody know anything about the existence of Chinese Communty at Desa Tugu Village, Kecamatan Lelea District, Kabupaten Indramayu Regency, West Java, Indonesia. Yet they where hereditary from generations live around the Y junction of Tugu, its village Town.

Along this time up to now they live in peace and save. There’s never happened any friction against the inlanders. Even they just look like inlanders themselves because they live there for such a long time.

Physically their attitude and behavior are commonly hard to distinguish between those Chinese descendants and local people. It’s not easy to differ who is Chinese descendant and who is Tugu origin. About all it is also because they have passed the long period of acculturation approximately along a century ago.

“If you track the history back, as my father had told me, our Chinese descendants were from Singkawang and Pontianak both in Borneo. The first descendant who emigrated to Tugu was in eighteenth century,” Sunjaya  (54) said.

Many children of their descendants were married to the local original people of Tugu. There is a Chinese husband and an origin wife, or on the contrary there is a Chinese wife and a local husband. In the social community the mixture of Chinese and local people was also very solid. So it is very hard to recognize among Chinese and original residents.

“It is hesitated if you said we are original Chinese descendants, because there was mixture marriage since a very long decade. For I myself; my father is originally come from China, even he put Chinese name and convert Confucius. But my mother is a local inlanders and came from Kuningan,  a neighbor district of Indramayu,” said Sunjaya, one of Chinese descendants figure and is a head of Chinese Catholic Community at Tugu Village.

Celebrating Imlek a Chinese New Year, in this district can not be able to use for comparing between Chinese descendant and original people. One thing you can distinguish is only from Sundays Service in a small Catholic Church there. However, Sundays Service is also can not make any different at all. This is only offered by Catholic Chinese descendants.

Eventually many Chinese descendants are converting of Islam originally. One of them is Lin Sui Tjhim (63) who after converting to Islam had changed his name into Abu Bakar Effendi.  Lin or Abu Bakar now has a mandate to be a head of District Society at Rt01/Rw02 Tugu and at this village too there is no more division between Chinese descendant and origin local people of Lelea.

“We are already one hundred percent mixed together. Even there is a church at Tugu Village it is never disturbed by Moslem people. In a social manner and cultural view, we are one united. Tough there is a difference about religion; it is never rise a problem. All together move in peace, calm and harmony,” said Lin or Abu Bakar. He told me that he was a Chinese descendant of “Ke” tribe and the ancestor of the tribe was immigrated to Bangka-Belitung Islands in Sumatera.

Sunjaya and Abu Bakar explained, as long as they live at Tugu Village, there is never happened any friction at all against the origin local people. Even when there was a Jakarta Chaotic in 1998, at the time of Soeharto collapsed, all of Tugu people still live in balance.

“I was inspected by the police in the dark night in 1998. The police asked me about the situation at Tugu. At that time, I myself was wondered to them because there was nothing happen at Tugu. But it was normal for any police to inspect any acculturation residence place for anticipation,” Sunjaya said.

Abu Bakar added, there is difficult to separate between Tugu Chinese descendants and original local people, because after mixing all together in one society, there is only a great Chinese family member in local people, and also a big original family member in Chinese descendant families.

“All has happened through mixed marriage since more than a century ago,” he added more.

In economy view there is also seemed no distance. There are many Chinese descendants of rich family. There is also lot of local people of a wealthy family. Even, there is some Chinese landlord descendant who became a real practical farmer on a green field.

“Rich and poor are about substance and struggle for life. One who has lucky and tough, likes to work hard, and patience, he surely will be rich. One who’s lazy will get a bad luck,” Abu Bakar said.

Village secretary of Tugu, Sutarto, explained; social intercourse of Tugu is exactly an ideal sample of pluralism. There is nobody talk any more about the social difference of culture and religion.

“Even if there is a ritual of traditional custom such as Ngunjung ceremony and Sedekah Bumi (Earth Charity) they all together take a part. For Ngunjung (Visiting Charity) itself, all villagers gather food and beverage and stand-by for a visiting ceremony at District Township,” he said.

The public Right and social obligation also applied to any body in equality. For example, talking about rice welfare program, all poor people, without separation between Chinese descendant and original people, all get the rice welfare. The obligation is support for developing their village, it is also without specialty for both Chinese or local people.

“There is neither Chinese nor Chinese affair, if you want to know who the original people is of Tugu Village the answer will be that all people who live in Tugu. Perhaps the back ground can be separated but today there is no more difference,” Sutanto said.

For a civil right, such as administration service and public affair, District Officers do the same and equal to any people of Tugu. Both Chinese descendant and local people serve in the same manner for registering Identity Card, Birth Certificate, and so forth.

“One which makes difference is only their attitude and behavior; if there is a bad character of a Chinese descendant, he will be ignored by others. It will be the same treatment to a bad manner of original people, he will also be ignored and remotes. (Translated by Denny Rachmat from Agung Nugroho/”PR”/2 march 2010)