Faithfully Painting Batik of Diversity

Preserving Cirebon Peranakan batik for decades, Gouw Hong Giok (77) has been involved in cultivating love and tolerance in each of her canting – a pen-like tool used to apply liquid hot wax in the batik making process.

KOMPAS/ABDULLAH FIKRI ASHRI

Gouw Hong Giok

Preserving Cirebon Peranakan or ethnic Chinese batik for decades, Gouw Hong Giok (77) has been involved in cultivating love and tolerance in each of her canting – a pen-like tool used to apply liquid hot wax in the batik-making process. Not surprisingly, small traders, businesspeople, religious leaders, sultans and top officials know her. However, she remains humble and works for others in silence.

Gouw Hong Giok aka Indrawati is elderly but the woman often referred to as Bu Giok is still active. Her wrinkled hands are still adept at making batik. She still walks to the corners of the alley to meet residents in distress.

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Last Friday (13/11/2020), Giok accompanied a number of representatives of the Religious Affairs Ministry from day to night to see diversity in Cirebon, West Java. For her, diversity thrives in Cirebon. Her house in the Chinatown complex, for example, is in front of the Kanoman Palace, one of the centers for the spread of Islam.

When we met her on Saturday (14/11), she told a story about a kid selling a cake. "Reportedly, there were abnormalities in his intestines. I plan to go there later, in the Chinese New Year 2021, I will advise residents to help others who are sick. Not only sharing staple food packages," she said.

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This former Cirebon Chinese-Indonesian Association management member has indeed often served as a bridge for the poor and the wealthy. She frequently calls social service officials and the mayor of Cirebon if she finds a sick citizen who has not been treated.

KOMPAS/ABDULLAH FIKRI ASHRI

Gouw Hong Giok

Her closeness to officials dates back to when she opened an aerobic studio in the 1960s. She often leads aerobics in various institutions and sugar factories. The members of the studio are mostly wives of officials. For every aerobics group, their routine agenda is social activity.

Giok helps people without ethnic and religious divides. She initiated cataract surgery at the KHAS Kempek Islamic Boarding School. Initially, the movement was accused as an effort to spread certain beliefs. However, after talking to the boarding school management, she found support. Dozens of residents also participated.

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Uniquely, from the kyai – Javanese Islamic cleric – at Kempek, Giok received data on people of Chinese descent who pulled rickshaws, coolies, and did odd jobs. Together with a number of Chinese communities, she also held social activities centered in Jamblang.

She has also built good relations with other old Islamic boarding schools in Cirebon, such as the Pondok Buntet and Babakan Ciwaringin Islamic boarding schools. "I am often invited when there is a haul. In fact, I was once the committee for the kyai\'s child’s wedding at the Baelerante Islamic Boarding School,” she said.

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However, Giok firmly refuses to help out if it is for personal gain. Some of her friends had teased her because she was struggling on a lonely road. "I was said to be only putting on a show, pretending to be social, meddling in other people’s business. I laughed, said, we (I) are really faking to be social," she said.

Without divide

Her social spirit did not just come out of nowhere. When in elementary school, she was willing to set aside her allowance in order to help her friend paid school fees. Later, her best friend became the wife of the mayor of Cirebon in the 1980s.

She learned to share from her parents, Gouw Tjin Lian and Thio Lin Nio. They are known to be great at mixing batik colors. "If the batik craftsmen like receipts, my parents said [their customers] don\'t have to pay. Just use the money to buy medicine for their child,” she said.

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Giok is the fourth generation of Cirebon Peranakan batik entrepreneurs. The written batik is a combination of local and Chinese motifs. For example, the barongsai or lion dance motif combined with the cloud-resembling megamendung motif, typical of Cirebon. The background of Peranakan batik is generally bright in color, like red.

KOMPAS/ABDULLAH FIKRI ASHRI

Gouw Hong Giok

On September 5, 1934, Sultan Sepuh of Cirebon gave a letter to her parents containing permission to make batik with the palace motif. The documents are displayed in her living room, lined with photos of visiting officials, such as former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The Palace relatives asked her to make hand-written batik several times.

"Only we are still preserving the Peranakan Batik of Cirebon," she said. The riots in Trusmi during the Japanese occupation forced the Chinese descendants to move to Cirebon City, including their families. However, until now, Trusmi remains the center for batik in Cirebon.

Giok\'s younger sister, Gouw Hong Kiuw or Jeni, first continued their parents’ business, Lina\'s Batik. Giok, who was forced to quit college because her father passed away, helped develop their family\'s business and opened Kanoman Batik shop. Her daughter, Moniq Adriani (42), now manages the shop.

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Essentially, Giok is not only preserving the family’s batik business, but also the value of sharing and tolerance. The grandmother of one grandchild often helps her craftsman school. "Now, their children have become teachers and midwives," she said.

In fact, when her batik shop was struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Giok is still trying to provide as much assistance as possible to her 15 craftsmen who only make batik at her house if there is an order.

We are old. We will be leaving soon, so we need help from young people to maintain tolerance.

Giok is determined to maintain Peranakan batik with the value of helping and respecting diversity until the end of her life. One of her dreams is to build a Peranakan batik museum in Cirebon. She wants batik from her family that is more than a century old not to be locked up in a crate forever.

Until now, Giok also routinely makes apem or steamed rice cake in Safar month – the second month of the lunar-based Islamic calendar – and distributes it to old mosques, as her predecessors in Trusmi did. In addition, she is also active in bringing church youth to the Palace and mentoring interfaith youth.

"We are old. We will be leaving soon, so we need help from young people to maintain tolerance,” she said.

Gouw Hong Giok (Indrawati)

City, DOB: Cirebon, November 16, 1943

Husband: Suryo Sukolino (deceased)

Children: 3 people

Education:

- Garuda High School (Now state senior high school/SMAN 2 Cirebon)

- Indonesian Literature, University of Indonesia (Not Completed)

Activity: Owner of Kanoman Batik