Tionghoa Descendents Library Museum: A Strategy of Preserving Tionghoa History in Indonesia

Abstract

Tionghoa, or Chinese descendent people have been living in Indonesia since hundreds of years ago. Their existence has been becoming a part of Indonesian society. Undeniable, their presence gives impact to the development of Indonesian as a nation with multicultural ethnic as the acculturation occurred. Lots of Tionghoa people have been participated and contributed in the development of Indonesian in many aspects since long time ago, such as economy, politics, education, literatures etc. However, the literatures concerning their history are quite rare documented and collected. Tionghoa Descendent Library Museum located in Banten province; try to preserve the history of Tionghoa descendents in Indonesia through collecting documents, literatures and artifacts. This study is aimed to describe challenges and problems occurred in collecting documents or materials related to Tionghoa descendants in Indonesia and its strategies. This study is using qualitative approach. The data are collected through interviews with the owners as well as the collector and founder of the library and some information available on websites. It is found that it is hard to find documents, literatures or artifacts of Tionghoa descendants in Indonesia due to politics and government policies or regulations concerning Tionghoa in Indonesia, especially during the new order by Soeharto’s regime. However, the strategies used by the founder to face this are by optimizing the network of antique book seller, obtaining the collections from the main holders or owners, maintaining good relationship with researchers, academicians, people or community that concern with Tionghoa history in Indonesia, providing map of significant collections, and promote library through online and social media.