| Ah, Indonesia |
| Episode 06 Jakarta in 1942 |
| Casually I found a book about "Outlook
of Indonesia" published on February
8, 1942 in Japanese language. Author
was
Mr. Kazuyo Takahashi. Publisher was
Publishing
Division of Aikoku Newspaper. This
book introduces
the outlook of Indonesia at the time.
Its
cover page is as shown below. |
| Translation of articles in this book into
English is shown in black letters and
comments of the owner of this home page are
shown in blue. |
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| Batavia, now we call Jakarta, has an old
name as "Jagatara"in Japanese which
has been well known among Europeans. Chinese
people calls "Karaba". Its old
name has been familiar with Japanese people
through "Jagatara imo (potato)"and
also "Letter from Jagatara" since
16th century. Batavia locates on the northern coast of Java Island and is rich with trees. Then the city is called as Woody City or Park City. The city spreads to 9 and 4 miles at north-south and East-west directions respectively. Altitude of the city is less than 10 meters above sea level. Ciliwung River flown from mountainous are of Buitenzorg (Bogor city at present) in 60 kilometers passes through Batavia. Batavia forms water front city with many canals in the city. The Ciliwung ends at the old port of Batavia (Sunda Kelapa). Batavia is the largest city in East Indies of Dutch colonial and center of politic, education and capital of East Indies. Batavia is the largest commercial center of the Dutch colonial. Batavia is consisted of the commercial area of Old Batavia and New Batavia, Central Batavia for residential area and the area of Meester Conelis (Jatinegara at present). Kornings Plein (Lapangan Merdeka at present) of one square kilometer locates at the center of city and a Waterloo Place (National Mosque at present) of a half square kilometer. These open spaces divide Old Batavia and Central Batavia. A satellite city of Batavia is Tanjung Priok of the seaport of Batavia. |
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| Map in 1942 was not available in the book. The download old map in 1935 from website is shown below. | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Population of Batavia by census in 1930 is
as tabulated below. |
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| History of Batavia |
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| These are introduction of Batavia City in 1942 | |
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Mr. Prawoto, who was born in 1921 in Jakarta
told me that this photo was taken at
the
rail crossing at south of Juanda station
toward west direction. Jalan Veteran can be seen straight. There was a river behind a shop at the right corner. A building at the left corner was a famous hotel and the place was reborn as a shopping mall. (2006-5-13 by Mr. Prawoto) |
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Near Pasar Senen. |
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Kali Besar Japan club and Japanese School located at Chaulan Wei. S6 09'56", E106 48'55" Where is Chauran Wei? →Jl. KH Hasyim Ashyhai This building was called as Lindeteves. Now you can find shopping center named Lindeteves near Glodok (2006-5-13 by Mr. Prawoto) |
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Bitung Kwitil (Old castle of Bavia) Mr. Prawoto first told that he has never heard such name. After he gassed a few minutes, he realized that Bitung Kwitil must be "Pintu Kecil" (Small gate). It is sure that there is a name of area of Pintu Kecil. Further there is a place called "Pintu Besar" (Large gate) at the adjacent area. Area inside of Pintu Kecil was a Chinese Residential area and now it changed into Indonesian Wall Street, locating about 300 meters from Jakarta Kota Station toward west direction. (2006-5-13 by Mr. Prawoto) |
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"Tailhermina" Park Mr. Prawonto need a few hours to find the place, since the name was wrong and it should be "Willen Hermina". Hand writing draft of this book might be unclear and the type setter misread old character of Japanese language. The National Mosque has been built in this park. (2006-5-13 by Mr. Prawoto) |
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You must know this building. As you know, this is a south entrance of Jakarta Kota Station. Now you can get ride of City Express Bus "Jakarta Transport" which connects Kota Station and Block M terminal with about half an hour with tariff of abut 40 US cents. See photos on another page of my website |
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Batavia Factrite Corporation buildings You can find this building in front of Jakarta Kota Station. The buildings at left and right sides are used by Bank Mandiri and Bank Indonesia respectively (2006-5-13 by Mr. Prawoto) |
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These are the articles in the book which
is interesting. There is the Penang Gate in Caster Plane. This gate is one of gates of the old Batavia castle near Pasar Ikan. Now castle walls were removed and the gate stands itself.A four meter long canon of bronze with spherical block at its end as shown on a photo shown at right side of this article. A sentence is seen on the gun barrel in Latin which means that "I am reborn from myself". Natives and Chinese call the canon as a holly gun, since they have a superstition that women will be impregnate once they hold the gun and many people visit this gun. There is a legend that this gun is a male one and another female gun is now in Bantam and they divorce now. An Indian like guy require a fee at the place. He hides the "important" part of the gun with steel plate, until pilgrims give his money. Paper flowers are seen in the photo which are piled up on the gun. This gun is now exhibited in a museum in Jakarta. (2006-5-13 by Mr. Prawoto) |
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A part of Fish Market in Batavia They use a building with tower at the center of this photo as the control office for ships. This is a part of old Batavia castle wall which is one meter thick with gun eyes and watch tower on the wall. |
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As you know well this old building. This
is a national museum at Jl. Merdeka
Barat. New annex has been built at the right side of the building. |
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Mandi and washing clothes in a river at center
of Batavia City. This river may be a river between Jl. Hayam Wuruk and Jl Gajahmada in Kota. Om Doyok witnessed a few man bathed with the river water which smelled bad and polluted in 1970th. Water quality has improved after rehabilitation of retaining wall along the river now and no bather has been seen. Now we seldom find local people who bathe in creeks in country side as well. They say that local people have had own well to take water for bathing due to increasing incomes. |
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Scene of Washing Clothes by Laundry We cannot imagine that there are old villages in city area from our common sense. Imagine that storage ponds for sewage water exist in planned residential areas in a new city. Washers are men but not women, since the volume is too large for woman to Finnish washing the quantity in a day. Washed clothes are dried on the bamboo stands. Everything are quite large.But the water they use at up and downstream this place is dirty. No need to worry about quality of municipal water. Japanese and European use clean water supplied by the governmental water service. We are anxious about epidemics through the river water, but it has not occurred, since the local government periodically dries up this river for sanitation of river bed. We do not accept that the water can be clean by belief of Islam . Even though they are brave enough to jump in such dirty water with help of the belief, it should be understood that they are immune against epidemics as same as Chinese against bedbugs. |
You can find old photos of Tempo Doeloe tahoen 1954 "Djalan Hajam Woeroek & Djembatan Harmonie" on Google Earth. Check cordinate at 6° 10' 5.02" S 106° 49' 13.94" E You can also find them at <http://www.panoramio.com//photo/14468517> |
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2006-10-01created
2010-09-23 revised
2011-05-11 revised
2014-04-03 再編集