Japanese migration to Indonesia

Japanese people in Indonesia

Total population
11,263 (October 2009)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Jakarta, Bali
Languages
Japanese, various languages of Indonesia
Related ethnic groups
Japanese people
Footnotes
The population figure quoted includes Japanese nationals only.

Large-scale Japanese migration to Indonesia dates back to the late 19th century, though there was limited trade contact between Indonesia and Japan as early as the 17th century.^[2] There is a large population of Japanese expatriates in Indonesia, estimated at 11,263 people as of October 2009^[update].^[1] At the same time, there are also identifiable populations of descendants of early migrants, who may be referred to as Nikkei Indonesians or Indonesian Nikkei.^[3][4]

Migration history

One of Indonesia's early residents of Japanese descent was Saartje Specx, the daughter of Dutch colonial governor Jacques Specx, who ruled Batavia (present-day Jakarta) from 1629 to 1632.^[2] 1898 colonial government statistics showed 614 Japanese in the Dutch East Indies (166 men, 448 women).^[5] As the Japanese population grew, a Japanese consulate was established in Batavia in 1909, but for the first several years its population statistics were rather haphazard.^[6] Their reports showed 782 registered Japanese migrants in Batavia in 1909 (with estimates that there were another 400 unregistered), and 278 (57 men, 221 women) in Medan in 1910.^[7] Beginning in the late 1920s, Okinawan fishermen began to settle in north Sulawesi. There was a Japanese primary school at Manado, which by 1939 had 18 students.^[8] In total, 6,349 Japanese people lived in Indonesia by 1938.^[9] After the end of the 1942-1945 Japanese occupation of Indonesia, roughly 3,000 Imperial Japanese Army soldiers chose to remain in Indonesia and fight alongside local people against the Dutch colonists in the Indonesian National Revolution; roughly one-third were killed (among whom many are buried in the Kalibata Heroes Cemetery), while another one-third chose to remain in Indonesia after the fighting ended.^[10][11]

In the 1970s, Japanese manufacturers, especially in the electronics sector, began to set up factories in Indonesia; this sparked the migration of a new wave of Japanese expatriates, mainly managers and technical staff connected to large Japanese corporations.^[12] In the late 1990s, there was also migration in the opposite direction; many of the Nikkei Indonesians from Sulawesi began migrating to Japan to work in the seafood processing industry.^[13] As of 2004^[update], there were estimated to be about 1,200 of them living in the town of Ōarai, Ibaraki.^[14] Furthermore, there was a large outflow of Japanese expatriates in 1998, due to the May riots and the associated political chaos.^[15] However, a decade later, the Japanese still made up Jakarta's second-largest expatriate community, after the Koreans.^[12]

Business and employment

The Japanese communities in the Dutch East Indies, like those in the rest of colonial Southeast Asia, remained prostitution-based as late as World War I.^[16] The remnant of this prostution business can be trace in Surabaya's Jalan Kembang Jepun, "the Street of the Japanese Flowers", located in the city's old Chinatown.^[17] Prostitution was outlawed in the Dutch East Indies in 1912, but many Japanese women appear to have continued working in the trade clandestinely.^[7] However, by the 1930s, the economic focus of the Japanese community had shifted largely towards agriculture, marine industries, and retailing of imported Japanese products.^[9] More recent Japanese expatriates are typically investors connected with electronics manufacturing.^[12]

Social integration

Early Japanese migrants to the Dutch East Indies were classified as "foreign orientals" by the Dutch government.^[5] This status meant they were subject to restrictions on their freedom of movement, place of residence, and employment. However, in 1898, they were reclassified as "honorary Europeans", giving them formal legal equality with the colonisers and removing those restrictions.^[16] Yet despite this formal equality, local peoples' image of the Japanese people in their midst was still not very positive.^[5] During the World War II occupation of Indonesia, many Japanese officers took local women as concubines.^[2] Children born from such relationships, growing up in the post-war period often found themselves the target bullying due to their ancestry, as well as suffering official discrimination under government policies which gave preference to pribumi in the hiring of civil servants.^[18]

759 Japanese living in Indonesia have the right of permanent residency; these consist primarily of Japanese women married to Indonesian men.^[19] Some met their husbands in the context of study abroad, either when the husband-to-be was studying in Japan, or when both were studying in an Anglophone country such as the United States or Australia.^[20] Others came to Indonesia, especially Bali, as tourists, and met their husbands there. Japan is one of the largest sources of tourists in Bali, and many Japanese women married to Indonesian men are settled there; one scholar who studied the phenomenon in 1994 estimated roughly four hundred resided there at the time.^[21][22] A large number of the tourists consist of young urban women; they see Bali not as an exotic destination, but rather a nostalgic one, evoking the past landscape of Japan and a return to their "real selves" which they feel are being stifed by life in Japanese cities. Among these, a few come first as tourists, especially to Kuta and Ubud, and then after repeat visits, marry a local man.^[23] In some cases, these visits take the form of "romance tourism" or "female sex tourism", with women entering into relationships with male sex workers, known colloquially as "Kuta Cowboys".^[24][25][26] They use Indonesian and Japanese, or less commonly English when communicating with their husbands, children, and grandchildren, but Indonesian far more commonly than other languages when communicating with other relatives.^[27]

In Jakarta, Grand Wijaya Center and Blok M have clusters of businesses catering to Japanese expatriates, including restaurants, supermarkets selling imported food products, and the like; Blok M in particular is noted for its concentration of izakaya.^[28]

Media

The Daily Jakarta Shimbun is Indonesia's only Japanese language newspaper. It was founded in 1998 by Yasuo Kusano, who was formerly the Mainichi Shimbun bureau chief in Jakarta from 1981 to 1986; he returned to Indonesia after the fall of Suharto, and, finding that many publications banned during the Suharto era were being revived, decided to found a newspaper to provide accurate, in-depth information about Indonesia's new democratisation to Japanese readers. Since then, its circulation has grown from 50 copies to more than 4,000.^[15]

Portrayals in Indonesian popular culture centred on Japanese characters include Remy Sylado's 1990s novel Kembang Jepun. Set during World War II, it tells a story of a geisha and her Indonesian husband who participates in Supriyadi's anti-Japanese uprising. It was reprinted as a full-length book by Gramedia Pustaka Utama in 2003.^[29][30] Another work with a similar theme is Lang Fang's 2007 novel Perempuan Kembang Jepun, from the same publisher, about a 1940s geisha who becomes the second wife of a Surabaya businessman.^[31][32]

Notable people

• Noboru Otobe, a Japanese soldier who stayed in Indonesia to support the independence movement^[33]

See also

• Filipinos in Indonesia
• Koreans in Indonesia
• Indonesians in Japan

References

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} MOFA 2009
2. ^ ^{a b c} Harsanto, Damar (2008-04-13), "Shining Japan: From mercenaries and sex workers to entrepreneurs", The Jakarta Post, archived from the original on 2008-04-13, http://web.archive.org/web/20080413223548/http://old.thejakartapost.com/community/japan1.asp, retrieved 2010-04-23 
3. ^ Meguro 2005, p. 49
4. ^ Shin 2004, p. 83; the term "Indonesian Nikkei" is also used therein to refer to Japanese expatriates who have settled permanently in Japan
5. ^ ^{a b c} Shiraishi & Shiraishi 1993, p. 8
6. ^ Murayama 1993, p. 89
7. ^ ^{a b} Murayama 1993, p. 90
8. ^ Meguro 2005, p. 65
9. ^ ^{a b} Fukihara 2007, p. 27
10. ^ Hatakeyama & Hosaka 2004, pp. 676–677
11. ^ "秋篠宮ご夫妻、英雄墓地に献花　ジャカルタ", Sankei Shimbun, 2008-01-19, http://sankei.jp.msn.com/culture/imperial/080119/imp0801191209001-n1.htm, retrieved 2010-04-21 
12. ^ ^{a b c} "Changing Faces", The Jakarta Post, 2008-03-28, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/03/28/changing-faces.html, retrieved 2010-04-23 
13. ^ Meguro 2005, p. 50
14. ^ Meguro 2005, p. 62
15. ^ ^{a b} Hara, Chisato (2009-11-30), "'Jakarta Shimbun' a bridge to Indonesia", The Jakarta Post, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/11/30/jakarta-shimbun039-a-bridge-indonesia.html, retrieved 2010-04-23 
16. ^ ^{a b} Shiraishi & Shiraishi 1993, p. 9
17. ^ Prihandono, Omar (2004-07-18), "Surabaya: All together now at Kya-Kya Kembang Jepun", The Jakarta Post, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2004/07/18/surabaya-all-together-now-kyakya-kembang-jepun.html, retrieved 2011-04-19 
18. ^ Fukihara 2007, p. 28
19. ^ Shin 2004, p. 83
20. ^ Shin 2004, p. 84
21. ^ Suzuki 1997, p. 341
22. ^ Yamashita 2003, pp. 87, 97
23. ^ Yamashita 2003, p. 94
24. ^ Toyota 2006, pp. 171–172, 178
25. ^ "New Documentary Capture’s Kuta Cowboys’ Gigolo Lifestyles", The Jakarta Globe, 2010-04-26, http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/new-documentary-captures-kuta-cowboys-gigolo-lifestyles/371509, retrieved 2010-04-26 
26. ^ "'Kuta Cowboys' strutting their stuff for lovelorn visitors", The Jakarta Post, 2002-05-05, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2002/05/05/039kuta-cowboys039-strutting-their-stuff-lovelorn-visitors.html, retrieved 2010-04-26 
27. ^ Shin 2004, p. 87
28. ^ Hara, Chisato (2008-04-23), "Exploring 'izakaya' in Blok M", The Jakarta Post, http://web.archive.org/web/20080423060317/old.thejakartapost.com/community/japan3.asp, retrieved 2010-04-23 
29. ^ Nugroho, Sidik (2009-06-29), "Wartawan dan Geisha Tertawan Cinta", Media Nusantara Citra OkeZone, http://news.okezone.com/read/2009/06/29/285/233827/wartawan-dan-geisha-tertawan-cinta, retrieved 2011-04-20 
30. ^ Sylado 2003
31. ^ Sulistiawan, Iwan (2007-02-20), "Lang Fang: Another figure in Indonesia's literature", The Jakarta Post, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2007/02/20/lang-fang-another-figure-indonesia039s-literature.html, retrieved 2011-04-20 
32. ^ Fang 2006
33. ^ Chō 2005

Sources

• 長洋弘 [Chō Yōkō] (2005), 『二つの祖国に生きる—インドネシア残留日本兵乙戸昇物語』 [Living with two motherlands: The tale of Noboru Otobe, a Japanese soldier who stayed in Indonesia], 草の根出版会, ISBN 9784876482252 
• Fukihara Yutaka/吹原豊 (2007), "エスニックコミュニティの成立と発展一大洗町における定住インドネシア人共同体の事例一/Birth and Development of an Ethnic Community: In the Case of Indonesian Migrant Community in Oarai", 『地域文化研究』 5: 21–36, http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/aacs/pdf/article/5_2.pdf 
• 畠山清行 [Hatakeyama Seikō]; 保阪正康 [Hosaka Masayasu] (2004), 『陸軍中野学校終戦秘史』 [The secret post-war history of the Nakano Infantry School], 新潮社 [Shinchōsha], ISBN 9784101155227 
• 松尾慎 [Matsuo Shin] (2004), "インドネシア日系人の言語選択の実態とその要因/Situation and reasons of Nikkei Indonesians' language choice", 『大阪大学言語文化学』 13 (1): 83–99, http://web.thu.edu.tw/shin/www/ronbun/nikkei.htm.pdf 
• 目黒潮 [Meguro Ushio] (2005), "茨城県大洗町における日系インドネシア人の集住化と就労構造/Establishment of the Nikkei Indonesian Community and their employment system in Oarai Town, Ibaraki", Intercultural Communication Studies (17): 49–78, http://www.kuis.ac.jp/icci/publications/kiyo/pdfs/17/17_02.pdf, retrieved 2007-08-11 
• "インドネシア共和国基礎データ", 『各国・地域情勢』, Japan: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, May 2009, http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/area/indonesia/data.html, retrieved 2009-10-19 
• Shiraishi, Saya; Shiraishi, Takashi, eds. (1993), The Japanese in colonial Southeast Asia, Southeast Asian Publications, 3, Cornell University, ISBN 9780877274025 . Chapters cited:
  • Shiraishi, Saya; Shiraishi, Takashi (1993), "The Japanese in Colonial Southeast Asia: An Overview", pp. 1–20 
  • Murayama, Yoshitada (1993), "The Pattern of Economic Penetration of the Dutch East Indies", pp. 87–110 
• Suzuki Kazuyo/鈴木一代 (1997), "日系インドネシア人の文化・言語習得 −居住地決定との関連性について/Culture, language study, and residence decisions of Nikkei Indonesians", Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the Japanese Association of Educational Psychology (39): 341–355, http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110001884843/ 
• Toyota, Mika (2006), "Consuming Images: Female Japanese Tourists in Bali, Indonesia", in Meethan, Kevin; Anderson, Alison; Miles, Steven, Tourism consumption and representation: narratives of place and self, CAB International, pp. 158–177, ISBN 9780851996783 
• Yamashita, Shinji (2003), "Japanese and Balinese Tourism: Brides Heading for the Isle of the Gods", Bali and beyond: explorations in the anthropology of tourism, Berghahn Books, pp. 87–101, ISBN 9781571812575 

Further reading

• 栃窪宏男 [Tochikubo Hiroo] (1983), 『二つの祖国を生きた・日系インドネシア人』 [Living with two motherlands: Nikkei Indonesians], サイマル出版会 [Saimaru Shuppansha], ISBN 9784377206098 
• Sylado, Remy (2003), Kembang Jepun, Gramedia Pustaka Utama, ISBN 9789792201376, OCLC 66408790 
• Fang, Lan (2006), Perempuan Kembang Jepun, Gramedia Pustaka Utama, ISBN 9789792224047, OCLC 79853543 
• Astuti, Meta Sekar Puji (2008), Apakah mereka mata-mata? Orang-orang Jepang di Indonesia, 1868- 1942 [Were they spies? Japanese people in Indonesia, 1868-1942], Yogyakarta: Ombak, ISBN 9789793472836, OCLC 222248003 
• 内野好郎 [Uchino Yoshirō] (2008), "インドネシアにおける日本人団体 [Japanese Organisations in Indonesia]", in 小林英夫 [Kobayashi Hideo]; 柴田善雅 [Shibata Yoshimasa]; 吉田千之輔 [Yoshida Sennosuke], 『戦後アジアにおける日本人団体ー引揚げから企業進出まで』 [Japanese Organisations in Postwar Asia: From Evacuation to Corporate Entry], ゆまに書房 [Yumani Shobo], ISBN 9784843327494 
• Adachi, Masanori (2010), "Cross-Cultural Marriage in the Global Age: Young Japanese Women in Indonesia", in Adachi, Nobuko, Japanese and Nikkei at Home and Abroad: Negotiating Identities in a Global World, Cambria Press, pp. 237–262, ISBN 9781604976861 

External links

• The Daily Jakarta Shimbun, a Jakarta-based Japanese-language newspaper
• The Jakarta Japan Club, an association of Japanese residents