Passing the Time in Jakarta – Part C, The Museums of the Old City

After a day off, just reading and enjoying a pure vanilla ice blended drink from the Coffee Bean, I decided to go and have another look around the Old City. It's a nice area and there always seems to be something going on there. There are three museums in the central square. I have been to the one in the old city hall, but there is also a puppet museum and a ceramic museum. First up was a visit to the puppet museum. I believe the word for puppet in Indonesian is wayang. Hence the name of the museum, the Wayang Museum. The previous weekend there had been a wayang something performance tent in the central square. The 'something' had meant shadow, but I forget the word, so 'something' will have to do. This museum was also formerly someone's house from the colonial times. Inside there were many puppets, most of them were from Indonesia, but there were some from other areas of the world as well.

There were many different styles as well. There were big ones that probably required some kind of place for the puppet workers to hide.

There were small ones

There was even one that was one of the characters in one of the performances I saw in Bali when I last visited Indonesia. (This is Hanoman, some kind of monkey god.)

There were shadow puppets, but I really don't know why they were decorated and coloured so well. If the idea is to have the play be done as shadows on the white screen with the audience on the other side, why do they puppets themselves need to be coloured? I must be missing something, but I don't know what it is. I guess I should watch a performance to know for sure.

You see?

There were lots of revolution puppets. I guess the whole theme of beating back invaders of various sorts was a strong theme for a while and the best way to rally the masses, who might not have been overly literate, was to put on revolutionary plays. But this is just a guess.

There were costume puppets. (Although this would seem to be contrary to the whole idea of a puppet.)

And there were the instruments that went with some of the puppets to create the performances. I also say instrument sets like these when I was in Bali attending some of the cultural performances.

Then there were the puppets from other countries. There was England's Punch and Judy.

Some horse from the United States.

There were puppets from India...

...and China.

At the end of the museum, there was the museum shop, with this nice man who showed me how some puppets are made. It looks like painstaking work. He lamented that it is now a dying art as young people are more interested in Playstation than in learning to make puppets. He also snorted in derision at other places in Indonesia that sell puppets, and even advertise they are hand-made. He visited some who have a mock shop that tourists witness. Meanwhile in the back there are machines working away, doing the real puppet-making. I thought they were interesting enough that even without the soft sell approach, I would have bought. There was a small shadow puppet, apparently hand-made by his father from buffalo hide, among the last that will ever be produced by him as his eyesight is growing poor and he can no longer see well enough to continue making them, yada, yada, yada. It was only about 5 dollars. And that way if it gets confiscated for being a product of an animal before I can try to send it home, it's not a big loss.

After the puppet museum, I headed across the square to have a look through the Ceramic Museum. I wasn't really looking forward to it. I just had nothing better to do really, and it was there, so I went

Unfortunately there were no photos allowed in the museum, so I had to make do with taking one after some Indonesian visitors broke that rule. I can't be tossed that way if they don't get tossed. I'm bad.

I did find that the Ceramic Museum was just as much about paintings as it was about ceramics. There were three or four small galleries showing ceramics from various periods and countries, but there were long galleries everywhere else that showed paintings. They were all right.

Then it was back to Jalan Jaksa and my accommodation. There was a weekend festival for Jalan Jaksa that night and the Sunday as well. It was interesting, but crowded. I guess the governor of the area was out for the festivities as well. There were also the token white people to serve as the festival prince and princess.

One other interesting part of the festival was the outdoor movie theater made by stringing a sheet across the street and projecting some movie or other against it. It was a nice festival, as far as it went.