From Pontianak to Guangdong, a brother and sister discover their Chinese roots
Anna and Petrus crown their dream of meeting their relatives. Millions of Chinese left Shantou for Southeast Asia in the early 1900s. The Chinese are one of Indonesia’s most important ethnic groups. Under Suharto's regime, Chinese products and traditions were banned.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) – After 20 years planning the trip, Anna and her older brother Petrus were overwhelmed by the joy of meeting in person some distant cousins in Jieyang, an industrial suburb of Shantou, Guangdong province, China.
The thrill felt by these two Indonesians from Pontianak (West Kalimantan) was even greater when they reached Huliai (100 kilometres from Jieyang), where they met an old woman, daughter of their forebear, who left in the early 20th century to find fortune in Pontianak.
The brother and sister are ethnic Chinese. Anna is a homemaker and lives in Johor Bahru (Malaysia) with her two daughters and husband, a Malaysian Chinese. Petrus lives in Pontianak, where he runs a small shop. Both lead a simple life.
To crown the dream of discovering their Chinese roots, they asked some Jakarta friends for some financial help. AsiaNews went along with them on their trip, which began last week at Kuala Lumpur Airport, where Petrus joined Anna after flying in from Indonesia.
About 20 years ago, a mutual friend in Pontianak visited Jieyang for the same reason: meet family members in his ancestral land. On that occasion, the friend told his Chinese relatives that other Sino-Indonesians from Shantou lived in his city.
His stories and pictures sparked the same desire to travel in Anna and Petrus. Despite financial difficulties and communication problems with China, the two siblings were able to get to Guangdong.
The two spent five days of “family reunion” in Shantou during which they were able to visit some of the historic places where their ancestors had lived before moving to Indonesia.
Shantou is where millions of Chinese left for Southeast Asia starting in the early 1900s. Ships full of migrants sailed to Singapore and other countries in the region, including Indonesia. When Mao came to power, emigration turned into flight.
"Our grandparents were on one of those boats,” Anna said. “They decided to leave their land for economic and political reasons, as the cultural revolution got underway. They did not even know where they would land at the end of a 40-day trip into the South China Sea. Some of their fellow travellers died during the crossing. But in Pontianak they managed to rebuild a life. "
The Chinese are one of the most important ethnic groups that make up Indonesia’s multicultural society. However, family reunions are rare in China. This is due to a number of reasons, including the high cost of travel.
In addition to financial reasons, family ties and relations are absent, lost during the years of President Suharto's authoritarian regime, when all Chinese products and traditions were banned in Indonesia.
Even today, Indonesians of Chinese origin are often victims of prejudices and incidents of intolerance both for their successful economic status and as a religious minority (many are Christians) in the most populous Islamic country in the world.
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