Stories from Deli

Soon! soon, from Maurik! come and see, there is a Chinese funeral coming … and hastily my friend’s lovable wife, with whom I am staying in Medan, hurries to the front yard. Her graceful slippers flap over the pebble path and, looking back, she calls in: “Please, hubby! leave your breakfast alone! – Soon! Willem, hurry up! You can explain everything better to Maurik than I can … the forerunners are already there. Keep calm mommy – I’m present – you don’t blame me dear friend! that I immediately eat my sandwich out of the hand, I have seen such a display so often that I no longer understand the solemnity of it. So, stay here now and you will see everything pass properly. Oh! van Maurik you hold that one little rascal for a moment, then I’ll take the others.

The two little boys, sons of the Klingeleeschen gardener, who played in the garden in their striped tjelana monjet (monkey pants = hansopjes) and walked towards us, frightened by the pagan violence of the approaching funeral music, we take between us. The children now stand quietly, with big eyes and open mouths, just as we watch the procession approach.

There you have the ‘crows’, as we would say in Holland, laughs Willem and points to two Chinese people dressed in white, sweating and blowing with indifferent faces together on long sticks, wearing one large, red cloth on which the names of the deceased are indicated with black characters.

– And that’s where the restoration comes for the spirits who hold a festival tonight at the cemetery. – You see those set tables – neat eh? Nice white tableware, neat dishes – quite a job for the coolies to keep things in balance.

Two or three elongated square tables, covered with fine damask and with large cakes, trays full of small cakes, pagodas made of confectionery, pigs made of cake and all kinds of fruit on them, are carried past. The porters do not walk at walking pace, but at a peculiar dribble trot, they balance the tables so neatly that all dishes remain properly in place.

“It looks really tasty to bite into like that,” says madam.

– Ask if we can have supper with the djiwas, that’s definitely a brand-new emotion. – Hey, dear wife, how nice that would be; zoo at night by moonlight in the Chinese cemetery in the middle of the graves. There is something fantastic about it, I think, such a thing that would make your mouth water. Neat service by skeletons with a funeral body over the arm, tables of coffins wood, chairs of fleshed tibias and ribs. Uniquely interesting! Great illumination through wandering lights and moonlight. Then a bit of an intense smell of corpses as a party aroma, and gnashing of teeth with clapping bones as table music. Determined emotionally in the n ‘power!

– Fie! Willem, how awful!

– Yes! and then champagne frappe from grinning jaws or skulls of dead Chinese and all around you are digging that open at the stroke of midnight and from which the ghosts appear with slow sliding steps to join them at the table. Then after dessert a ‘danse macabre’, accompanied by groans, sighs – and castanets of death knuckles!

– Ajakkes, stop it! what lugubrious nonsense.

– Yes, but beautiful symbolism – so pointing to the transience of human beings – no day, fresh! brand new.

– I would like to know who actually takes all that sweet food from the cemetery at night, because tomorrow morning you will only find the empty dishes – the ghosts will have eaten everything by then, Hum!

– Sjuut! there comes ‘die Stütze des Soupers!’ that’s another roast with honor!

– Babi! babi! shout the two little Klingeleesjes, when they see six strong, white-clad Chinese carrying a whole roast pig on a huge platter.

– That’s a good job – look at the fat dripping down, it definitely looks like a croquant roast, enak sekali! (very tasty).

– Come on, Wim, stop now; It is getting sick, such a lump of fat and that here in the warmth – now take a good look from Maurik and listen, there is the music coming – but I go inside, she starts playing again and I cannot stand that , it makes me too nervous – see you later, adieu!

Madame hastily flees the more than infernal violence of the music chapel carried on in a decorated kiosk. Deafening roar of copper cymbals and false gôngs accompanied screaming, screeching whistles, clanging tambourines and nasty hum of a bass-like instrument make any conversation impossible. So we limit ourselves to look.

Next to the bandstand, some relative is riding on a small horse, for he is all in white, his clothes are torn and his hairtail hangs on his back, in a sign of heavy grief.

Then a number of Chinese walk along with flowers, small paper pajongs, colorful banners or red paper banners with inscriptions and fringes of tinsel.

– Look! that tall guy wears a palm paasch! my friend shouts at me, almost inaudible from the continuous, hearing-impaired noise of the music. More Chinese with such ‘palm paaschen’ follow – then the coffin, carried by an extraordinarily large number of intrusive coolies, comes the torso naked. Sweat trickles from their foreheads, it runs in small streams down their brown backs, for the box – a wonderfully shaped, gigantic wooden colossus – is incredibly heavy. – The more distinguished, the richer the Chinese, the heavier his coffin!

The music, now further down, keeps on blowing, but fortunately we are less bothered by it. Behind the coffin follow the relatives, men and women, most on horseback, some in carriages. They wear white caps and have cracks and snags in their white or purple garments; the colored fans and pajongs stand out strangely, with which they shelter themselves from heat and sun.

There is nothing dignified, nothing poignant or sad in such a Chinese funeral, which is more reminiscent of a circus publicity parade than of what it is: the laying down of a dead man!

Moreover, the complaining women are laughing, who are struggling after the ‘permilie’. They walk, led and supported by others, stooped, with their heads tucked into an ordinary gonje bag, ceaselessly screaming Oooooie! – Owa-ooo! or Oewa-ooo! but my friend claims that he clearly hears “old howie.”

A throng of pedestrians, carts, dos-à-dos, and other small vehicles close the train, which continues slowly towards the cemetery, through the pretty Avenue Deli, one of Medan’s most beautifully vegetated and picturesque roads.

Medan, the main town of Deli, immediately makes a most pleasant impression. You can see from everything that you are in a still young city, in a prosperous place, full of powerfully cheerful life. Medan could well be called ‘ the City of Tobacco ‘, because in fact it owes its origin to tobacco and its ever-increasing bloom.

Less than thirty years ago, Medan was a small, insignificant, so-called fortified kampong and it was only when the surrounding tobacco plantations expanded more and more that the kampong, due to its favorable location on the Deli River and the Bobura, was suddenly designated a beautiful, spacious , a city with an almost Western character, where nowadays the large establishments and offices of the Delimaatschappij are located.

A railway connects Medan with its port of Belawan, which is avoided by the Europeans because of the swampy soil.

The city is the seat of the Resident of Sumatra’s East Coast and the Sultan. It is constantly expanding, and in everything it bears a splendid testimony to the progressive spirit of the inhabitants, composed for the most part of tobacco planters, traders and officials.

The young, energetic enterprising men of different nationalities, who came from Europe with new ideas, new labor and sufficient capital, and, taking part in the unusually fertile soil, began planting tobacco everywhere, found a veritable gold mine in the great wooded plains of Deli. , which continues to reward the Company’s shareholders for their entrepreneurial spirit through substantial dividends. Unbelievably hard work had to be done, the wastelands burned down and made suitable for construction, but climate and soil cooperated, so that the in a period of almost thirty years, Deli succeeded in making one of the richest regions of Sumatra.

One can see from the neat, well-built and lavishly furnished houses that in Medan one does not need to be on the penny, that one understands there that money is round and has to roll, and that comfort and luxury are very well combined with tireless work. and hard work.

The Deli society can safely be called the founder of Medan, from her all life, all strength and prosperity emanated. However, she understood in her own interest that of her workmen, and set up a hospital and an immigrant asylum, where the Chinese coolies, who commit themselves to her by contract, find good nursing care in case of illness or accident, even a permanent home, when they become completely unfit for work.

“Tobacco,” said a planter who has lived at Deli for years, is a very prudish young lady who must be treated with every possible égards, she must be cherished without ceasing, and she requires careful treatment in every respect. Like a young maiden, she must not be left unattended for a moment, and that is why the planter’s job is not that easy.

In the meantime, I must say that the planters generally understand – and understand very sensibly – that such unceasing supervision, such continuous devotion to ‘that prudish young lady’ also requires a counterbalance, at least one does not want to become putty, dry stubble or prudish. They now find that counterbalance in their social life together. Not only is there a lot of work going on in Medan, but also a lot of fun.

The conversation is pleasant, cosmopolitan; one does not like the spirit of spirit or the separation of the estates – one treats one another as good friends, who together have one goal: to conceive life as fresh and pleasant, as light-hearted as possible, and thus to find compensation for the lack of fatherland or family. – ‘Erst das Geschäft – aber dann das Vergnügen’ is the slogan of the residents and the White Society can speak of ‘das Vergnügen’, because that’s where the most straight faces unfold and people don’t even talk about tobacco – at least not when the ladies be there.

Anything entertaining from Singapore or elsewhere is brought to Medan in the Soos as soon as possible to cheer up the evening hours of the members.

I attended, among other things, a few performances by the Willardtroep, an English operetta company, which gave some performances at the expense of the Society, which were very favorably enjoyed and paid better than they deserved, but fortunately in Medan it does not come to a few dollars. more or less, and the artists, who are lucky enough to be received there, always return satisfied and with a well-filled pouch, declaring in unison: ‘Medan people are the nicest people of the world.’

That in the White Society the bell of obedience is always upset, it will not surprise anyone, nor that the assistants of the plantations, unmarried young people, who can only come across from time to time, are sometimes mistaken about day and night. – I can assure you, an assistant told me on a fun evening, – that it is not all to sit for months and months, dead-alone, as a European, among some hundred ugly brown coolies, and to work hard, for you have to tease those guys continuously, otherwise they’ll spoil you. If you didn’t have to swear heartily between the two, you’d forget to speak – those lonely evenings are getting so long, aren’t you! – And that’s why when we get here we make up for our damage – then we are as if released – come! let’s have another whiskey-soda and light a roko – he looked at the cigar and laughed: – you wouldn’t say such a small thing stirs so many people before it’s born! – Did you want to go? It’s still so early – come and sit down a bit more – we are not going home yet – are we gentlemen? And – ‘we’re not going yet home, far from it! ‘ all the others sang in unison – that’s our motto! We also understand that we are morally obliged to honor the name of our Soos ‘Sociability’!

In that Society all kinds of things are done, played, billiards, music made, danced, even comedy played, and that especially the latter is done well, on a real stage with real decorations, I prove by the following quote from the Deli Crt. from March 31, 1897.

After an era of rest, longer than we are used to, the association ‘Gezelligheid in Deli’ had another program ready and on Monday 29 of this the faithful could go to the club to enjoy what was long lacked again.

This evening was very important for the history of the association, because the new decorations, recently by the well-known decorative painter Joh. C. Made Monday in Amsterdam, were inaugurated. The chairman of the association, Mr. JW Schut, rightly expressed the wish that this first performance with a completely new décor, after an era of enforced tranquility, might be the harbinger of new life and that to the association of all support and sympathy was not denied, which wish would certainly come close to fulfillment.

Our little theater in ‘de Witte’ really looked like a Sunday. The simple, but neatly finished front cloth gives, after it has been collected, the opportunity to rest the eye on a tasteful scene. The ensemble of the living room and drawing room as well as that of the garden is excellent, and the whole proves that something good can be done in Holland for money and good words. Thanks to the many and good care of the president of the association, all the curtains were stretched and arranged; He could be seen working on this for months in advance, and we all know best what that means in the present heat.

The program was very rich in variety: it started and ended with a piece and was supplemented with some concert nommers.

The front piece: ‘Back from boarding school’ was miraculously brought off well, especially so that it is considered that this insignificant comedy must be saved entirely by the players.

Before the intermission, some concert nominees were nominated. For the first time after his leave we had the pleasure to hear Mr. Krever again in the audience.

Both the solos for violin ‘Vorspiel und Sicillana aus der Cavalleria Rusticana’ and ‘Gavotte Parisienne’ as well as the trio for alto, violin and piano ‘Der Fischer’, in association with Mrs. GO and Mr VK elicited thunderous applause from the attentive audience.

The part after the break was a nice French scene, a real success. In a piece like this, which is written for professionals of the trade, we could once again hear Mrs. MS and of Mr. JO.

Very thoughtfully, bouquets were offered to the ladies who taught so much to the success of this evening.

And now the ball began, which was so animated that the walls of our club could hardly accommodate the many couples. On such an occasion the desirability of a larger clubhouse is felt (which, by the way, in a country like Deli – surely will not have to remain a pious wish) .

Usually in every Indian city that develops and expands, like the mice to the bacon, the Chinese come and settle as toko keepers and traders. This is also the case in Medan – a large Chinese neighborhood with numerous toko’s, warongs and dormitories, a few opium kits, pawnshops and playgrounds is proof of this. The proximity of the Straits Settlements and Singapore, that trading city par excellence, does much to promote trade in every respect and within one. Within a short period of time, Medan’s trading power will not be inferior to that of other cities.

The Chinese temple, a large and rich building, indicates that the Sons of the Celestial Empire have more money there than elsewhere. They too already earn a lot through and from the tobacco, and I believe their only complaint is that not them, but the Europeans are founders and shareholders of the Deli Company. I once heard a Chinese say, pointing to a tobacco field: – Itoe tida tembakoe – ada mâs! (that’s not tobacco, but gold!) and he put on a face as if he thought: – what a pity that such a field belongs to a blanda!

A tobacco field – I saw many – is beautiful! Usually a Dutchman imagines it as the more or less enlarged type of the tobacco lands around Rhenen or Amersfoort, where the plants, three or four feet high, stand side by side on small dikes like front-making soldiers, their usually spindly, gray-headed green leaves stretching lazily towards each other. A Delian tobacco country is completely different. Beautiful, bluish-green and light-green, broad, large leaves on trunks of more than a man’s height, stand in single or double canals in the bright sun, wonderfully beautiful, alternating in all shades by the shrill lighting, rustling and gently waving as a sigh streaks across the fields.

These fields, separated from one another by the “plant road,” are constantly sprayed with great care, and cleaned of weeds, caterpillars, and other vermin. A multitude of coolies of all races find work as a result, and it is curious that those different races also do different jobs. This is how, for example, the mining work, burning, cutting and grubbing up der bosschen, the construction of roads and drainage, usually carried out by Javanese and Malays, the Bengalese serve for the most part as keepers and police officers, Klingelese tend the cattle and drive the oxcarts that deliver the transports, the Boyans (islanders of Bawean), build houses and shacks, and the so-called tame Battakkers from the nearby kampongs are mainly used to build barns.

Indrukken van een ‘Tòtòk'(1897)–Justus van Maurik. Indische typen en schetsen

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