The Chinese-Indonesian Community documents collection from Java

The University of Washington Libraries collaborated with Anthropology Ph.D. student, Evi Sutrisno, who was conducting her dissertation field research on Chinese Indonesian Confucianism, to digitize the rare and fragile Sino-Malay literature owned by two temple libraries in Java. The first project was conducted in Boen Bio (Wen Miao) - a Confucian temple of Surabaya, East Java - in 2010-2011. The temple was founded in 1907 and had a collection of religious books and magazines in Chinese and Malay languages in its abandoned library. The second project was conducted in the Hok An Kiong temple, Muntilan, Central Java in 2014-2016. The temple was founded in 1898 and had became the religious, social and learning space for the Chinese in the area. As in the case of Boen Bio, the Hok An Kiong also has an abandoned library, where popular Sino-Malay novels and magazines were collected.

Between 1967 and1998 Confucian practices and Chinese identity were severely repressed under the Indonesian New Order regime, so these materials were hidden away in the corners of dark and humid storage rooms to avoid state confiscation. Due to climate conditions, biological pests, and lack of appropriate storage facilities, the collection was in great danger and in urgent need of preservation.

These projects are parts of a larger effort to identify materials in all known collections belonging to temples and private collections in four cities: Jakarta/Tangerang, Bandung, Solo, and Pontianak, where the Confucian communities during the period of 1900s to 1940s were vibrant. The first project consists of about 5,000 pages scanned from the collections of the Boen Bio temple and three other private collections in Surabaya. The second digitizes about 12,500 pages from the collection of the Hok An Kiong temple in Muntilan. Each project has been done in collaboration with other scholars and the temple communities who are interested in preserving the precious documents and history of the Chinese-Indonesians. For the second project, Evi Sutrisno would like to thank Sutrisno Murtiyoso of Tarumanegara University, Jakarta, Endy Saputro of State College for Islamic Studies, Surakarta and Elizabeth Chandra of Keio University, Tokyo for their supports and collaborations. Thanks also to Laurie Sears for her decision to provide funding.

For further description of the project and the importance of the materials preserved, see: Evi Sutrisno. Forgotten Confucian Periodicals in Indonesia, CORMOSEA Bulletin, no 34 (Summer 2016): 8-14.