Java, Facts and Fancies

by Augusta de Wit

A kitchen.

However, though so abstemious in the matter of solid food, they are excessively fond of sweetmeats. I have often watched a party of grown men and women, seated on the low bench in front of a warong, and eating kwee-kwee[F] with perfectly childish relish, or bending over a stall, gravely comparing the respective charms of white, pink, and yellow cakes; hesitating, consulting the confectioner, and at last solving the difficulty by eating a little of everything. Whatever ready money they may chance to have, is spent either on personal adornment or on sweetmeats; and on festive occasions, they will pawn their furniture rather than deny them selves the enjoyment of more cakes, jellies, fruit and syrups than they can partake of without making themselves sick and sorry.

A native restaurant in its simplest and most compendious shape.

Nor do they show more discretion in the matter of the dieting of their children. Though left, in almost all other respects, to chance and the guidance of its own instincts, a native child is not trusted to eat alone. The mother's idea seems to be that, if left to itself, her child would never eat at all, and that it is her plain duty to correct this mistake in nature's plan. Wherefore, having prepared a mess of rice and banana, she lays the little thing flat on its back, upon her knees, takes some of the food between the tips of her fingers, kneading it into a little lump, and pushes this into the baby's mouth, cramming it down the throat with her thumb, when the baby, willy nilly, must swallow it. Thus she goes on, the baby alternately screaming and choking, until she judges it has had enough—is full to the brim, so to speak, and incapable of holding another grain of rice. Then she will set it on its feet again, dry the tears off its round cheeks, and rock it to sleep against her breast, closefolded in the long "slendang."

A similar principle obtains in education. To watch the native schoolmaster drilling the Koran into his pupils, is to be reminded of the rice-balls and the maternal thumb. I witnessed the scene, the other day, at a little school—if a framework of four bamboo-posts and an "atap" roof deserves that name—in a native "kampong" at Meester Cornelis.[G] I had come upon this school quite accidentally, in the course of a ramble along the river-side. As I was making my way through a plantation of slim young trees, all festooned with dangling lianas, I had been conscious for some minutes of a droning and buzzing sound, somewhere near me, and fancied it to be the humming of bees, hovering over the lantana-blossoms that covered the steep bank of the river with flames of red and orange, and filled the air with their pungent scent. But, suddenly, I caught the word "Allah:" and, the next moment, I was standing in an open space in the midst of some ten or twelve bamboo huts. One of these, evidently, was a school; and the droning noise I had heard proceeded from an old spectacled schoolmaster, who was reading aloud—or, rather, chanting—from a book held in his hand. A little boy stood in front of him, listening very attentively, and, every time the old schoolmaster had completed a phrase, the child repeated it in exactly the same sing-song, closing his eyes the while, and rocking his little body to and fro. After he had finished, another came up; there were some twelve or thirteen seated on a sort of bench, awaiting their turn; and all of them went through the same course of listening and repeating, the master, now and then, correcting the intonation of some phrase. It was the Koran which they were thus reciting in the Arabic language. In all probability, the master did not understand a single word of Arabic; assuredly none of the boys did. But what of that? They know it by heart, from its very first word to its very last. They learn to mis-pronounce the Confession of the Unity of God; and they are taught to consider themselves Mohammedans. That is enough.

Native restaurant.

After the early morning meal, the Javanese begin the business of the day. In towns, where they are debarred their natural occupation, agriculture, and where, moreover, the Chinese artisans and shopkeepers have almost entirely ousted them from trade and commerce, the majority of the natives, men and women, are employed as domestic servants in the houses of European residents. Hence, but little is seen of them during the greater part of the day. Towards four o'clock, they reappear, and again repair to the kali or the canal for a plunge into the tepid water. Cigarettes are lit, sirih-leaves cut up and neatly rolled into a quid and some friendly conversation is indulged in. In fine weather games are played.

The behaviour of Javanese at play is one of the things which strike most strongly upon the Northerner's observation. There is nothing here of that vociferous enthusiasm which characterises our young barbarians at play—no shouts of exultation or defiance, no applause, no derision, no cries, no quarrelling or noisy contest. From beginning to end of the game, a sedate silence prevails. This is not, as might be imagined, due to apathy and indifference—the Javanese are keen sportsmen, and often stake comparatively important sums on the issue of a game—but the effect of an etiquette which condemns demonstrativeness as vulgar. Outward placidity must be maintained, whatever the stress of the emotions, and whether circumstances be important or trivial. Hence the apparent calm of Javanese at play, even when engaged in games that most excite their naturally fierce passions of ambition and envy. The winner does not seem elated, the loser is not spiteful. They are in the full sense of the word "beaux joueurs."