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Welcome
to Surabaya
 Surabaya
is cosmopolitan, but without the jarring pseudo-Western glitter
of Jakarta. Give or take an air-conditioned shopping complex or
two, Surabaya's atmosphere is more purely Indonesian, with a special
cast Indonesian flavor. For as Surabaya grew as an export point
for Javanese products, it also became the hub of the maritime trading
network for the eastern archipelago as a whole. Much of its population
is from nearby Madura, but there are also large numbers of Banjar
from Kalimantan, Bugis and Minahasans from Sulawesi and Ambonese
from the Moluccas.
Surabaya's colonial boom was in a sense, a renaissance, for the
port has a long history. In 1620, it was a fortified trading city
over 30 kilometers in circumference, a state in its own right with
lordship over Gresik and Sidayu. However, five years later Mataram
took it by siege, thus ending Surabaya's luster for more than two
centuries. According to tradition, the conquered king's son took
on the life of an ascetic at the holy grave of Surabaya's founder
- yet another wali, Sunan Ngampel, who was a pupil of Malik Ibrahim
of Gresik. His grave can be seen in Kampong Ngampel, the birth place
of the city, now lost in the old commercial district between the
forks of the Kali Mas
A
little to the south, where J1. Rajawali crosses the west branch
of the river, is the famous Red Bridge, once the heart of Dutch
Surabaya. In 1920, rush hour was, 11 an indescribable press of four-
and twowheeled carriages, carts loaded with merchandise, travelling
sailors, native and Chinese merchants, coolies..." Today's
roaring motorized battle leaves one at an even greater loss for
words, but the neighborhood is now evocatively dowdy, with run-down
Dutch warehouses and prewar offices.
When
the Red Bridge neighborhood was in its prime, it was the geographic
center of the city, halfway between the docks in the north and the
gracious suburban administrative precinct served by Gubeng Station
in the south. The dock complex at Tanjung Perak remains much as
it was, except for its new airconditioned passenger terminal. Coolies
still unload sacks of copra, pepper and cloves from boats from such
places as Tarakan, Tolitoli and Temate. Scrubbing, hammering sailors
struggle to keep ageing warships seaworthy; as in Dutch times, this
is Indonesia's main naval base. But in the south, urban growth has
swamped the old civic boulevard, JI. Pernuda / J1. Gub Suryo, now
a commercial thoroughfare lined with banks and hotels. Nevertheless,
Grahadi, the residence of the Dutch governor, still stands here
on immaculate lawns, an island of tranquillity preserved by the
presence of today's Governor of East Java. On a plinth opposite
the residence stands the corpulent figure of Joko Dolog, a 13th-century
statue from the Malang area which has long been Surabaya's trademark.
Around the comer on JI. Tunjungan is a building which recalls both
the heyday and the end of colonialism in Indonesia. Hotel Majapahit
Mandarin Oriental, which opened in 1910 as Hotel Oranje, was Surabaya's
finest. Countless settlers, ship owners and cruise ship passengers
were served rijsttafel in its palatial dining room and sipped Bols
on its polished terraces. The unsightly air-conditioning units bolted
to the more expensive rooms are a concession to modernity, but otherwise,
this pavilion-style hotel retains its old-world grace. In 1942 the
invading Japanese renamed it Hotel Yamato and after their defeat
an attempt to make it Oranje again precipitated an incident which
helped spark off the biggest.
The
blurred, monochrome photographs of this event have not lost their
power to move; they show Indonesian youths scaling the building's
squat tower to tear off the blue strip from the Dutch tricolor on
the flagpole, leaving the merah putih, the red and white flag of
the republic.
At this time, there were only a few Dutchmen in the city; order
was officially in the hands of 6000 British troops, who were mostly
Indian. When these seemed about to be massacred by more than 100,000
Indonesian fighters bent on various combinations of revolution and
jihad, the British flew in Sukarno and Hatta to arrange a ceasefire.
However, there was more fighting, and on November 10, 1945, a day
now commemorated as Hari Pahlawan (Heros' Day), the British began
a bloody, punitive sweep through Surabaya, supported by naval and
air bombardments. Many of the defenders fought in the ancient state
of selfless frenzy which has entered the English language as "amok;"
the fighting lasted three weeks. Though the Republicans lost thousands
of men, the Battle of Surabaya was a turning point in the revolution,
convincing the outside world that the republican leaders were not
simply a group of isolated collaborators who would soon be denounced
by their own people. Those who fought and died on the Indonesian
side are commemorated by the Tugu Pahlawan (Heroes' Monument), and
the whole city is often honored with the epithet Kota Pahlawan (City
of Heroes). An army museum containing relics of the revolution,
the Museum Angkatan 45, is located in the far south of town.
East Java is the original home of much of the island's classical
cultural heritage. The first great works of old Javanese literature
were composed here, including the Arjunawiwaha, the Bharatayuddha
and the Ramayana, all classic Old Javanese versions of ancient Sanskritmyths.
Episodes from East Java's history supply the raw material for the
Panji and Damar Wulan romances, which provide lighter alternatives
to the Indian epics of wayang repertoire. Panji is a perfect knight
whose pursuit of his true love, the equally flawless Dewi Anggreni,
gives him ample scope to demonstrate his courage and honor. Damar
Wulan, a more demotic hero, is a stable boy who manages to marry
a princess of Majapahit.
The East Javanese have their own genres as well as their own scripts.
The Panji cycle is often played by the wayang gedog - essentially
a form of wayang kulit, but with a slightly different style of puppet
and accompaniment from a seven-tone pelog gamelan rather than the
customary five-tone slendro type. Sunan Giri himself is said to
have introduced this wayang form. Ludruk is a special Surabayan
form of drama in which the settings are contemporary urban households
and the human actors speak the local arek dialect.
The
whole range of the region's performing arts can be sampled in Surabaya,
although for dance, the most prestigious venue is the Candra Wilwatikta
Open Air Theatre near Pandaan, 45 kilometers south of the city.
Traditional arts form a living part of folk culture in Surabaya
in a way that is being lost in Jakarta. The decrepit red light districts
of Jarak and Bangunrejo, for instance, are still the haunt of ronggeng,
dancinggirls-cum-prostitutes who dance by the roadside just as they
centuries years ago.
Surabaya
is also a good place to watch reog, one of Java's oldest and strangest
entertainments. Reog is the local name for the ancient trance dance
which occurs in different forms and under different names from Banten
to Bali. In West and Central Java, the main performer rides a flat
hobby horse of woven bamboo and is literally whipped into his trance
state while weird clowns look on, a surreal scene which sets the
imagination roving. In East Java and Bali, grotesque monster masks
are worn. The Reog Ponorogo (after Ponorogo, a small town south
of Madiun) performed in Surabaya combines both types in a spectacle
of orchestrated madness.
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