Category: General
-
For the dead
Indigenous people, such as Malays, Mandailing and Minangkabau live on the outskirts of the city. The separation of these ethnic groups was in line with the racial politics of the Sutch, which divided the people of the Dutch East Indies into three groups, namely Europeans, Foreign Easterners (Indians, Chinese, Arabs) and indigenous or inlanders.The deads…
-
A night in Medan
There is a street in Medan called Shawan Street (Kesawan). The shops on both sides of the street are mostly run by foreigners, including Standard Chartered Bank, a department store, a dance hall, and a cloth shop opened by an Indian……., the only shop run by Chinese at that time was “Chinese Business “Book Printing…
-
Kesawan in 1930s
The Winkelstraat of Kesawan starts with the office of Varekamp & Co., publishers of the Sumatra Post and next to Varekamp the house of Tjong A Fie. In the shopping street there were all kind of shops like Gerzon’s, clothing store. Tip Top The fashion house De Zon opened on 16 October 1939 is the…
-
Coolies: ‘A Sad History of Suffering and Injustice’
Coolies: ‘A Sad History of Suffering and Injustice’, W. Dharmowijono. Van koelies, klontongs en kapiteins : het beeld van de Chinezen in Indisch-Nederlands literair proza 1880-1950 Preface A „coolie‟ is explained in the Dictionary der Nederlandsche Taal as a colored worker, used in the East and West Indies for all kinds of services, especially for…
-
Ong Lie and Sherry
The tobacco harvest was in. The last bundles, after being dried in the drying barns on the plant ways, were taken to the fermentation shed, where the entire crop of millions of tobacco leaves, after undergoing the fermentation process, was to be sorted by color and length of the leaves. The field coolies, who had planted, cared…
-
Doctor Care
The central hospital at Tebing Tinggi was blazing in the morning sun, which at that early hour was already spreading heat as on a hot Dutch summer day. The extensive lawns surrounding the building complex were completely withered by the prolonged drought, and the crotons in the beds let their leathery, variegated leaves hang limply. The trees…
-
Boss of Boss
The tuans had once again had one of their own fads, but this time it was not the planters who caused quite a stir, but the tuan kareta-api, the Deli Spoor men. These had started by draining a swamp at the Poeloe Brayan kampong and made a major road through it. Not only was it a useful…
-
The Return
His leave was coming to an end. He had fully exploited the six months of vacation granted him after eight years of service in Deli, and had tasted all the pleasures that Europe could offer a single man who dared to live as he pleased. After those eight years of loneliness and tough work ‘in the tobacco’,…
-
Deforestation
The Dutch were responsible for large-scale deforestation in Sumatra. East coast of Sumatra was all virgin forests and were cut down for tobacco and rubber plantations for export to Europe.
Stories from Deli 