GEDUNG CANDRANAYA: TERJEBAK DI RUANG NOSTALGIA

 

Judul postingan gue kali ini emang RAISA bangeeeeeet. Tapi ini masih ada hubungannya kok ama gedung tua yang bakal gue bahas kali ini. Buat kalian yang nggak tahu, gedung Candranaya adalah satu dari sedikit bangunan tua berarsitektur Cina yang masih berdiri di Jakarta. Uniknya, gedung ini terperangkap di antara bangunan2 pencakar langit, bak sebuah nostalgia yang terjebak dalam kemajuan zaman. Postingan ini pas banget, terutama karena suasana Imlek yang masih terasa di bulan Maret ini. Dan arsitektur gedungnya pun ... wooooow, too cool to be true. Gue jadi kayak ngerasa ada di daratan Cina gitu.

Gue jadi nggak habis pikir, bisa2nya gedung bersejarah ini lolos dari pengetahuan gue. Padahal selama setahunan di Jakarta, gue udah ngunjungin hampir semua gedung tua dan museum yang ada di kota ini (terkecuali masjid2 tua yang ada di Pekojan *pengen banget ke sana* ama Museum Joeang 45). Tapi melihat lokasinya, emang nggak heran bagaimana bangunan tua ini bisa lolos dari pengamatan gue. Gue sendiri sebenarnya mungkin udah berkali-kali lewat di depan tempat ini, namun karena letaknya yang terperangkap gedung2 modern, pantas aja gue nggak menyadari keberadaan bangunan ini.

Menemukan gedung Candranaya sebenarnya sangat mudah, cuman kalian harus jeli. Kalian tinggal naek busway jurusan Kota, kemudian turun di halte Olimo. Dari situ, tinggal jalan ke arah Hotel Novotel. Nah, gedung Candranaya ini terletak di DALAM pekarangan hotel ini. Bahkan kanan kiri dan belakangnya dikelilingi gedung pencakar langit. Jadi keinget rumahnya Dido di video klipnya “Thank You”.

Sebelum ngeliat langsung, gue berpikir rumah ini pasti nggak terawat kayak rumah2 tua yang ada di Pecinan Glodok. Namun ternyata gue salah. Kondisinya masih sangat bagus, pasti karena rumah ini dinaungi oleh pihak swasta. Cuman ada satu yang sangat gue sayangkan. Ini adalah pic gedung ini pada masa kejayaannya. Sayangnya, cuman gedung bagian depan saja yang tersisa, sedangkan rumah berlantai dua yang ada di belakangnya sudah dihancurkan.

Ini adalah bagian depan gedung tersebut. Masih terasa banget suasana Imlek-nya.

  

Ini adalah gedung di sebelah kanannya. Pintu-pintunya masih kental dengan lukisan dan ornamen khas Cina.

  

  

 

Ini gue yakin dulunya adalah “patio” alias taman yang berada di bagian dalam gedung. Indah banget.

  

  

  

Bagian kiri gedung hampir sama dengan bagian kanannya, cuman di sebuah ruangan tampak display2 kaligrafi Cina, kayak museum gitu. Nggak cuman indah, arti filosofis kaligrafi ini juga sangat bijak dan mengena.

Gue suka banget ama yang ini, “Tidak mudah, namun saya bisa.”

Sepulang dari kunjungan gue ini, gue merasa dilema antara senang dan sedih. Di satu sisi gue senang soalnya gedung bersejarah ini masih terawat hingga kini. Namun di sisi lain gue merasa sedih, sebab gedung ini tak ayal cuman dijadiin “objek” oleh gedung2 yang ada di sekitarnya. Alangkah baiknya kalo gedung ini dijadikan ruang terbuka untuk umum atau bahkan dijadikan museum, tentu semua orang akan bisa menikmati keindahannya dan mempelajari sejarah di baliknya.

THE CHARM OF THE HAUNTED MANSION: MUSEUM FATAHILLAH JAKARTA (I’M PRETTY SURE JP COEN IS STILL HAUNTING THIS PLACE)

 

Hi guys. You know, I can’t live without writing something. That’s why I have this blog. Now I wanna write about my new job (just started to work here 3 months ago) which is in a school. No, I don’t work as a teacher here but much as an ordinary staff. You know, go there, do that, and so on. But I like my job since I like to get around children. Funny, because usually I don’t like children. Like, whenever a relatives came and brought their funny kids to me, I just yelled, “Keep that THING away from me!” Yeah, I used to hate kids. But kids in here are different, they are very polite and well behave #not you, secondary students#. And they all speak English since it’s an international school.

Anyway, one day I had this opportunity (or task if I could say) to accompanied secondary students (in Indonesia: SMP) in their field trip (in Indonesia: study tour, yeah I know it’s not Indonesian but that’s how people in here called it). Where did they go? To Kota Tua Jakarta. When I first heard that, my first thought was, “EWWWW, THAT PLACE AGAIN??? Don’t they have anywhere else to go?” Because if you follow my blog, you can read my rage (in Bahasa) about Museum Fatahillah in one of my post entitled “Memoir of My Shitty Journey: Kota Tua Jakarta”. Jeez, I hate that place. But it was a call of duty, so I went there anyway. Surprisingly, I found so many interesting things that was worth for being posted in here. And the kids also make this trip so much fun too.

We started our journey by passing Pondok Indah road at Friday morning, which I’m sure most of you already know that it’s a pretty much a NIGHTMARE. Yes, a crazy traffic jam from school to Kota Tua. In the beginning, our trip went smoothly since we used the busway lane (which was AGAINST THE LAW by the way and not a good thing to be taught to the student). But this is Jakarta guys, sooner or later you will get caught on a traffic jam. The teacher who was sit next to me (a Singaporean btw) was quite surprised by the condition of the road, “OMG, look at the jam! So crowded and the cars are not moving.” I was kinda embarrassed, you know, to show the real condition of Indonesia to the Singaporean teacher. A traffic jam in an ordinary road, a traffic jam in a FREEWAY, random vendors selling random things inside a tunnel (a freaking tunnel for Christ sake), vandalization (writings on the wall) inside the same freaking tunnel, and bla bla bla. Even she asked me when she saw the writings on the wall inside the tunnel, “Is it a gang member who made that?”. And that I read it,

“SMKN tiiiiit *censored*”.

I answered, “Nope, that’s actually a school name.”

Great ha?

Anyway, we finally arrived in Kota Tua in one piece and we got to the first stop, Fine Arts and Ceramic Museum (which is used to be a court building at Dutch colonization era). There’s nothing interesting enough about that place, except that when we came, there was a film shooting over there. A student asked me, “Who’s the artist?”. I answered, “I don’t know, Dewi Persik perhaps?” *Dewi Persik making movies about history, no way in hell* Oh yes, and there’s a very well maintained antique stairs that was very beautiful inside. I like it very well.

Second stop was the Wayang Museum. Nothing interesting in there either, except for one creepy doll that really freaked me out (I forgot the doll’s name though). I hope they didn’t keep jalangkung inside. The museum was also dark and gloomy. What made me sad, this place was used to be a church, but they made a huge renovation inside, made it unrecognizable as a church and pretty much *destroy* the historic value of the place. But the people who work here were really nice. Ah, and the kids also learned how to make a puppet inside.

  

Third stop was the finish line, Fatahillah Museum which the Dutch used as the governor’s office when they occupied Batavia. A student asked me what was stored inside the museum. I answered honestly (since I have been there before), “Just random crap. Nothing important.” *just don’t tell other teacher I said that* When we entered the museum, the first things that the kids saw was two mannequins being executed (and it’s very convincing). Yeah, a great way to teach children about history, by showing people being HANGED in front of museum’s door. I’m pretty sure that a lot of people died in this building.

We then went upstairs and saw some of the collection of paintings, old chairs, dusty cabinet, and so on. Our guide was a nice lady who could speak English very well (forgot the name, but she reminds me of a colleague of mine who works in HRD office). She’s very nice to kids and even though she didn’t mention anything about JP Coen’s ghost, it can be easily concluded that this place was totally creepy and perhaps haunted. This place didn’t have any safety standard either. In second floor we stepped onto old wooden floor with lots of cracks. I could even saw people passing below me through that crack! Jeez, how about giving this place a bit of reinforcements, hello people who work here?

The second floor was quite creepy, especially the “mysterious closed red door”. Yes, from the name I’m giving, you’ll know that the door is closed and it is red. The weird thing is why was it closed? Do they keep something in there so it won’t come out (a zombie perhaps, Lady Gaga, who knows)? Even I could see things moving when I peeked from the keyhole (reminds me of one of my urban legend, “The Keyhole”). But then I realized that the door was connected with another room that was opened for the public. So things I saw moving was actually other visitors who were in the other room. Ah, lame.

Just kidding …

Wonder why they keep all of those spooky stuff all the time. Even the baby bed in this place was creepy.

I swear to God they use this in Insidious movie

The funny thing was when I looked out from the second floor window, I saw Hermes statue (which the replica is in the Harmoni brigde) standing outside in the backyard. A student asked me, “What do you see Sir?” and then I answered, “Hermes statue. And he’s naked by the way.” (at that time I could see his butts, not a pleasant sight). And people just rushing to the window to see it.

Ewwwwww!!!

Then we back to the first floor to see the prison room. The kids were very excited about that, even though some minutes ago they kept complaining, “When we go home Sir?”, “I’m thirsty.” and things like that. The dungeon was small, dark, and smelly. But that wouldn’t stop the kids to explored. They screamed when they entered the dungeon *someone made a prank I guess*. And a kid also bragged that he saw skeleton inside. When I looked inside, no skeleton or ghost, just weird metallic balls all over the place. I thought, what was that? Some sort of minimalist decoration *inside a prison cell?* But then when we looked around the canon nearby, the guide told us that the balls were actually canon bullets.

I definitely won’t come in there

Oh yeah, and the Hermes statue...when we saw it the kids were kinda disappointed because it covered by a leaf.

But they’re still having themselves posed in front of the statue with a “naked model” style which I considered very hilarious. What suspicious about is where did these kids know about that “naked model” style? And the most suspicious of all is how do I know about that “naked model” style? *ups*

Finally we got home at evening. It’s only a day but it’s a hard job keeping these kids NOT MISSING. But they’re all in one piece when we got back to school, praise Lord. Thanks also to the driver that kept us safe through that horrible jam. Ah, and I hope we will have another field trip like this *because I don’t have to work LOLz*

NB: Thing I learned from the trip: There is a sentence like “I want to poo so bad.”

EREVELD MENTENG PULO: THE PALACE OF PEACE

 

At May 2013, I had a pleasant experience by visiting Ereveld in Menteng Pulo, Jakarta. Ereveld is a Dutch cemetery located in the middle of Casablanca apartments in Menteng. Different with Kerkhoff which is a public cemetery (you can see it in Museum Taman Prasasti, near Monas), Ereveld is specially dedicated to World War II’s victims. About 70% of people who were buried here are civilians, and another 30% of them are soldiers. They came from four countries: Netherland, US, Australia, and Britain. But there were also Indonesian-origin soldiers buried here, once member of KNIL. Most of them died during the Japanese occupation in Indonesia during WW II. Most people, even Jakartans, are not aware of this magnificent place.

Ereveld in Menteng Pulo is not the only ereveld in Indonesia. There are 7 of them throughout Jakarta (Menteng Pulo and Ancol), Semarang (Candi and Kalibanteng), Bandung (Pandu and Leuwigajah), and Surabaya (Kembang Kuning). Once there were 22 erevelds, scattered all across Indonesia, from Palembang, Balikpapan, Tarakan, Makassar, Manado, and Banjarmasin, where Dutch soldiers fought against Japan or captured as captives. But as the willing of President Soekarno at that time, all buried corpses of Dutch soldiers outside Java had to be moved to the 7 remaining cemeteries in Java.

We can enter Ereveld freely since it is opened for public. But if we want to take pictures, first we have to ask for permission from a Dutch foundation called OGS (Oorlogsgravenstichting) who maintains all of the Dutch military graveyard in the world.

Me and two of my friends were granted permission to visit Ereveld. When we got there, we were warmly welcomed by Mr. Elisa, the coordinator of Ereveld Menteng Pulo (whom was a very friendly and nice person). He explained about the history of Ereveld, which was very interesting for us. He also showed us around the cemetery.

One thing I noted was the tomb of General H. S. Spoor, the last general of KNIL. I was a bit surprised when I saw his grave. First I thought a tomb of a general must be colossal and great like a mausoleum. But the tomb actually has no difference with the other soldiers, only a simple white cross with the same size with the others. Even he was buried in the middle of the tombs of his fellow soldiers, exactly like what he wished for when he died. I also saw a flower bouquet in his grave. Mr. Elisa explained that the flower was from one of his soldier who’s still alive and visited his grave. I am pretty sure that General Spoor, despite worked for Dutch colonial to resist our independence, was a man with great personality.

Perhaps the most startling part of Ereveld is the church, known as “Simultan Church”. The church is extremely beautiful with a great influence of Greek-Byzantine style of architecture.

Mr. Elisa kindly showed us around the church. He took us to a garden with reflecting pool beside the church. Undoubtedly one of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen.

Next, he showed us “Columbarium” which was a corridor to store the cremated ashes of the late soldiers who died in Japanese’s concentration camp.

While walking in this corridors, Mr. Elisa told us an interesting story about how the Dutch government are becoming more transparent about their history of colonialism in Indonesia. Before, I heard that the Dutch youngsters were not aware that their ancestors used to enslaved our people in Indonesia until they were in college. But now they start to teach about it in schools. I think it is a very good progress.

Inside the church, we saw a huge wooden cross that was built to commemorate the soldiers who died during “romusha” in Burma, where they were force-labored to built railway track.

Mr. Elisa said that a ceremony always takes place in here every August 15, the day that mark the end of World War II when the Japanese surrendered to the Alliance. The story made me realized that the Dutch was also being the victim of World War II.

I were also interested with the symbols carved in the church’s windows. Those symbols are phoenix (symbolizing perpetuity), tree (symbolizing life), butterfly surrounded by snake (symbolizing eternity), and hourglass (symbolizing time).

   

Interestingly, I found that the architecture style of this church also contain some of Islamic decoration, such as geometric patterns and this Moroccan lamps, made it more eclectic.

We were very fortunate because Mr. Elisa allowed us to climbed up the church’s belfry.

This is the view from the tower.

We found four symbols from four main religions of war victims that were buried in here, which were cross (Christian), moon and star (Islam), star of David (Jews), and Yin-Yang (Buddhism).

   

I could not agree more that this place is very beautiful. But in my opinion, these towering apartment buildings really ruined the scenic and sacredness of this place.

Behind the church was the sector dedicated to “7 December Division”, perhaps similar with “Angkatan Darat” in TNI.

We also took a look of Alliance’s cemetery, some of them were the burial for Ghurkha soldiers from India.

Interestingly, Mr. Elisa also told us that General Mallaby was also buried here. I were surprised since I thought Mallaby was buried somewhere in Surabaya because his death triggered great battle at November 10th which is now commemorated as “Hari Pahlawan” or “Heroes Day”. But unfortunately, we couldn’t locate his grave. This is the view of Alliance soldier’s cemetery which is signed with a big cross.

Different with other tombs which are made of white wooden cross, the tombs in this part are made of marble with inscription on it. Some of the scriptures reflect sadness. Like this one is the tomb of an unknown soldier.

 

We also took a look of this statue that described the suffering of innocent children at war.

Back to the Dutch section, the cross of male and female tombs are different. The left is female grave (with flower ornaments in the end of each spike) and the right is male grave (usual cross).

  

The greenery gazebo in the middle is called “Rosarium” and usually used by pilgrims to take a rest.

This is the Moslem tombs, specially made in different direction with the Christian tombs (towards Mecca) to honor their sacred belief.

This is the section of Navy, marked with a pyramidal monument.

And then the sector of Air Force soldiers, clearly shown by a monument with airship’s propeller whose lost one of its blade. It symbolized the lost of colleagues.

Our visit ended in the entrance gate with doorbell and a Dutch inscription.

 

Well, thanks to Mr. Elisa who explained all about the history of this magnificent place. Thanks also to Indra who suggested me to visit Ereveld and came far away from Madura. And also to Fakhruddin who had accompanied us. And my deepest gratitude goes to Mr. Steenmeijer, the director of OGS Indonesia who granted me the permission to publish this article and even kindly made some correction for it.

If you want to visit Ereveld, don’t be afraid. Just send a request letter to OGS office by email (you can download example of the letter in here). The email address is:

ogsind@cbn.net.id

But according to my experience, the permission will be limited only to take a picture for private document. If you want to publish it (in a blog for example, like me) you have to ask another permission. You are not allowed to take any photographs for commercial used and take a close up picture of the name of the deceased. This place is not a tourism destination regardless its beauty, so don’t take inappropriate picture in here. It is still a graveyard that should be respected. Just learn about its history and enjoy its perpetual beauty if you have a chance to go there.

From this experience, I could learn to see history in a different perspective (from Dutch’s point of view). I think that what really matters is not who was right or who was wrong, nor who was the hero or who was the villain, but to realize that war, wherever it happens, always takes lives from both sides.