Dear Friends,

The year started badly for us, because of the tsunami, which had claimed so many lives and had created such a havoc in Aceh and in Nias, just a few days before. Many people donated generously, but the damage to human soul has yet to be repaired,

My activities started in January, when I travelled to Taiwan to be part of the entourage for my nephew Jonas’ wedding or rather engagement, because Taiwan people like to have the the traditional engagement celebrated in style. We agreed and travelled to Taipeh and had a lot of fun. A week later the wedding was celebrated in Bali  at the Ritz-Carlton.

Beginning February saw me in  Kuala Lumpur for a presentation on the Peranakans in Indonesia at the Peranakan of Malaysia festival. The festival was brightened with  a performance of the Baba group, that was very amusing and enjoyable.

I met Patricia Lim  from Johore Bahru there and told her  that I was going to make a trip to Central Java to see the Cap-gomeh ( fifteenth day and first full moon  of  the lunar New Year) celebrations and she  agreed to join me.    After the festival I travelled to Melaka with my dear friend Tan Chee Beng from Hongkong, who knows everything about the Peranakans or rather the Babas as they prefer to call themselves. The Babas of Melaka  was the topic of Chee Beng”s  Doctoral thesis. Over there we met Josephine, who showed us the beautifully restored Cheng Hoon Teng temple, of which she is now the Chairperson.The sundaymorning was spent in the mansion of Tan Sri tan Cheng Lok a prominent political figure in his time.

So about 12 days after Chinese New Year which fell on the 9th iof February, Patricia came and off we went to Cirebon, Pekalongan, Semarang, Lasem, Tuban and Surabaya. In Pekalongan we were lucky enough to see a procession of the dragon and lion dances just leaving the temple and making its round through the streets of the the city. It was spectacular! Compared to this one the celebrations in Semarang were dull and uneventful. So we continued our trip to Demak and Kudus, places with impressive mosques, where the 9 walis (religious teachers first spread the Moslemm faith. The environs of Kudus was attractive because of the special style Kudus houses with terra cotta decorations of animals  on the roofs. In fact we were so fascinated that we realized only later, that we didn’t make any pictures of the houses. But in Lasem we were able to visit a few old traditional Chinese houses although most of the people did not let us in because of fear, that we would rob them.

We then went on to Tuban in the rain beating heavy traffic on the narrow road, but the hotels were good and comfortable.After visititng the two temples in Tuban we proceeded to Surabaya, where the evening was spend with Dede Oetomo in the Sampoerna Café, adjacent to the Sampoerna museum, where we could learn about its founder and the making of kretek (clove) cigarettes. Patricia and I then flew back to Jakarta, because she had to leave again the next day.

During the journey I had made many pictures, to illustrate my article: Old recipes, new meals, the localization of Chinese food in Indonesia. This article was written at the request of a Japanese magazine, who wanted to publish a special issue on Chinese food around the world. Later on, a request came to extend the article and to present it at the 9th symposium of Chinese Dietary Culture in Tainan to be held in November 2005. What an opportunity to visit Taiwan  and to be with the people of the Foundation of Chinese Dietary Culture again! For the article I had to make many pictures and when an invitation came to join the celebration of Shen Nung’s brithday I accepted and drove to Pekalongan. Shen Nung is the main God in the temple of Pekalongan, he is known as one of the three emperorors who had their share in the founding of the civilization of China. He himself had discovered the medicinal value of some plants and is thus known as the God of medecine.

The article on food was finished and also one for the Conference on the Maritime Asia and the Chinese Overseas. For this last one I had to travel to Singapore, where I had the opportunity to visit the photo exhibition entitled: Chinese, more or less. For this exhibition, two pictures of my collection were chosen, amongst them one of my father as a young student, which I proudly show here.
The conference was huge, with many concurrent sessions, so we could not attend all of them. However it was nice to meet old friends and make  new ones. On the  last day I joined a tour to the National library, where we could admire the beautiful building and the well-organized library, at the same time paying a visit to the interesting exhibition on Zheng He, the admiral who paid several visits to south East Asia, India and Arab 600 years ago.

Don’t think that I only travel for symposium and deities, I have also travelled to Yogyakarta to celebrate Ardiyanto’s birthday in September. Sari, who travelled with me is a gourmet, so we went to Indramayu for the swike or froglegs cooked in soypaste sauce, so delicious as we have never tasted before. Indramayu also has a tradition of batik as cottage industry so we bought up quite a few interesting pieces.Ardiyanto’s birthday was grand, as usual and we had an enjoyable evening. The next day was spent with Amir’s friends in Solo and Temanggung and Parakan to admire their beautiful collections of paintings and the we headed home after, again an enjoyable lunch of crab cooked in soypaste.

Back home it was time to prepare the presentation for the symposium and a new task: a keynote speech on the influence of the Chinese on the the cultures in the Archipelago.

The symposium was very informative on the Chinese cuisine around the world, including Japan and Korea, Europe and the United States. Most enjoyable was also the round table discussion on the snacks in Tainan. We had enjoyed the snacks during the coffee and tea breaks and now we could hear about the history of some of the companies. The Post symposium tour was fun, we were shown some interesting historical buildings and places of worship and after lunch we went on a boat to the river delta to see oyster breeding places and stopped at a place where we could see the migrating birds.

I came back in time for my daughter Sylvia’s visit. It was a short and stormy visit but it was fun. After Sylvia had left, I welcomed Claudine Salmon from Paris, who came this time for a visit to Makassar and some places on Java. On Java we wanted to see the birds nests’ houses as many such building were build along the North coast. However at the last moment we decided not to visit the houses, in view of the avian flu and to switch our focus to tombstones instead.

So a few days after her visit to Makassar, and having attended Amir’s first experience as an auctionneer for his newly established Sidharta Auctionneers, Claudine and I set out on the tombstone trail in my old car with Toni the driver. After about two hours driving, I suddenly got an idea. We should stop at Losarang, where my late husband’s family used to have their bird’s nest house. I never knew, that this little idea could yield so much information about bird’s nests! A former neighbor was very eager to tell us all about building a house, maintaining it and luring the birds to make nests. He was even willing to  show the house he just built and where already some bird’s nests could be seen. How lucky we were and so we were ready to eat some froglegs in Indramayu and go on to Tegal, where we visited  the temple and secured an invitation to come for the festivities during the 15th of the first lunar month next year. Before we left, one man told us also about an old Chinese mansion  once occupied by a sugar king, who had some prominent members in his family, amongst them a tennis player, the first man from Indonesia to play in the Wimbledon.

The story sounded very interesting and after we had visited Salatiga and Semarang and gathered enough info in a short time we decided to go to Sukaraja, where we were given a contact address. But although the contact person tried hard to help us and was very eager to show us the house, she couldn’t make it more attractive. Abandoned by the heirs, the house is now in a dilapidated state. Luckily for the few, who can claim the house their own, swallows have settled there and will soon bring millions of rupiahs for them.
After this experience we decided to go more southwards and visit the bird’s nests cliffs in Karang Bolong on the Indian Ocean. We landed on a small place where some people had opened small shops hoping for tourists and weekenders. But the cliffs were about a mile away only reachable by boats. An imitation cliff was made to show people how the gatherers would try to reach the cliff. We enjoyed the quietness there and the delicious coconut juice and then headed home again, to the urban society where loudness and  activity rules. The folowing days were full of activities days indeed and then Claudine went back to Paris, promising to come back next year for more activities.

But I can’t wait one year to be on the road again, I want to go again soon, anybody wants to join me?
With greetings for the season and a