Peranakan pride: Indonesia’s ‘tan but Chinese’ Benteng people revive their fading heritage

TANGERANG, Java - The rain has eased along the Cisadane River. Steam rises from wet pavements as motorcycles and cars resume their hum. On the riverbank, Ms Elsa Novia Sena, a 28-year-old tour guide, gathers a group of mostly local visitors.

“There used to be a Dutch fort here,” she says. “The VOC fort, built in the 1670s.”

She is referring to the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or the Dutch East India Company, the trading giant that laid the foundations of colonial rule across much of Indonesia.

The fort is gone, yet residents of Tangerang, on Jakarta’s western outskirts, still call themselves Orang Benteng, or “people of the fort”.

Among them are the Benteng Chinese – Cina Benteng in Indonesian, or Ciben – descendants of Chinese traders who settled along the river centuries ago and married local Sundanese women.

Over the generations, their languages, customs and food merged, creating a unique hybrid culture that survives to this day. Some trace their ancestry to the 15th-century voyages of Ming Dynasty admiral Zheng He, whose sailors are believed to have settled along Java’s north coast.

While there are no official figures on the size of the current Benteng Chinese community, local research and community studies indicate that they form a significant indigenous Chinese-Indonesian sub-group concentrated in Tangerang and its surrounding areas.

Outside Tangerang, their story remains little known. Today, young Cibens are reclaiming their Peranakan pride via walking tours, heritage projects and fashion.

Walking the past

Ms Elsa, whose parents are Benteng Chinese, has been running her Benteng Walking Tour for two years. It takes visitors through Pasar Lama – Tangerang’s Old Market district, designated by the local authorities as a cultural heritage site in 2018 – as well as to a soya sauce factory, old shophouses and Boen Tek Bio Temple.

The temple, founded in 1684, is Tangerang’s oldest Chinese place of worship. Its red pillars and spiralling incense coils are among the few physical reminders of the community’s long settlement.

A small museum along the route appears unremarkable from the outside. Inside, there is a hidden trove of cultural heritage, including a large dragon figurine, guardian lions and hanging lanterns.

The tour also passes an old house adorned with Chinese paintings atop its pillars and windows, now crumbling – a quiet testament to a fading history.

Ms Elsa, a content creator, came up with the idea for the tour while producing Instagram and TikTok videos on Benteng Chinese history – she realised that much of the local story was fading.

“I thought it could become a tourism idea,” she told The Straits Times.

While there were tours from Jakarta, they were irregular and not led by Tangerang residents. After four months of studying sources, mapping routes and speaking with locals, Ms Elsa launched her own.

Her tours blend history with everyday detail. At a soya sauce factory, she explains the origins of kecap manis, Indonesia’s sweet soya sauce. Traditional Chinese soya sauce was salty, she says, but Tangerang’s many sugar cane plantations gave rise to the sweet blend now used by household brands such as SH, Istana and Bango.

How her family history traces back to China is unclear. Although she was not given a Chinese name, she knows her clan name – Na, or Lan in Chinese. Her maternal grandmother spoke Sundanese. She herself speaks Indonesian.

“Some even jokingly call themselves ‘hitachi’ – short for hitam tapi Cina, meaning ‘tan but Chinese’,” she tells the tour group. The mostly Indonesian Chinese tour group laughs in unison.

Other participants in the group, including women in Muslim headscarves, reflect the tours’ wider appeal. One of them, Ms Melati, a teacher, says: “There is so much that we forget, and so many people do not know. When I learn something new, I can share it with my students.”

The 40-year-old from Bogor, West Java, who goes by one name, adds: “I like Chinese architecture. The buildings are old, but they have been cared for over generations. The interiors are beautiful. That pride in maintaining culture – passing it down from ancestors to children – is impressive.”

Ms Elsa grew up noticing differences between her family and other Chinese Indonesians – those from other regions spoke Hokkien or other dialects, but her family did not.

“It can feel like an identity crisis,” she said, adding that some Chinese community members treat Cibens as outsiders.

“Some ‘totok’ Chinese – who are Indonesian Chinese whose parents are both of full Chinese descent and who retain stronger linguistic and cultural ties – say we have lost our Chinese identity because we do not speak the language and our skin is darker. On the other hand, indigenous Indonesians still see us as too Chinese.”

The feeling of cultural loss intensified during the 32-year rule of former president Suharto from 1967 to 1998, when public expressions of Chinese culture were restricted. Chinese-language education was curtailed, and many traditions were practised quietly at home.

While some younger Chinese Indonesians today look to China for reference points, Ms Elsa said, the Benteng Chinese identity has long been shaped locally – by West Java’s language, food and social norms – as much as by distant ancestry.

“I will continue to find ways to introduce people to my heritage,” said Ms Elsa, who still produces heritage videos as part of the project.

Identity in cloth

While Ms Elsa traces the past through places and memory, 26-year-old cultural promoter Merry Andayani reinterprets it through fabric and form.

Ms Merry, a member of the Cide Kode Benteng Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving and promoting Benteng Chinese culture, said: “Since childhood, I was never truly given the space to understand what it meant to be Benteng Chinese. In some spaces, my identity was questioned. In others, it was simplified. These experiences once made me feel that identity had to be constantly explained, even defended.”

She created MAGIC, short for Make A Good Impression, Closer: A Tale Woven In Fashion – a project that uses clothing as a conversation starter. “This encouraged me to speak about Benteng Chinese not as an object of nostalgia, but as a living identity. Not all stories need to be told through words. Some are stronger when expressed visually,” she told ST.

MAGIC garments are produced in collaboration with young people from diverse backgrounds, and are presented through fashion shows that bring the community’s stories to the public.

Some designs combine a kebaya encim – a traditional Peranakan blouse – with a fitted mermaid skirt and selendang, or shawl. The kebaya represents heritage and daily life, the contemporary silhouette signals movement, and the shawl bridges past and present.

One motif is Sembahyang Samkai, the opening prayer ritual in the Cio Tao tradition, a Benteng Chinese belief system that blends ancestor worship and folk practices, symbolising the relationship between humans, ancestors and God. By translating ritual elements into visual motifs, Ms Merry aims to highlight Benteng Chinese culture without stripping it of meaning.

“I want to show that tradition does not have to remain confined to ritual spaces. It can be worn and seen,” she said.

For Ms Merry, culture is strongest when practised every day. Chinese New Year in many Benteng Chinese homes, for instance, is modest rather than lavish, she said. Celebrations unfold in kitchens busy from morning, in elderly hands preparing dishes and in quiet family reunions.

Before Chinese New Year, homes are thoroughly cleaned, and incense ash at family altars is carefully sifted – a symbolic act of clearing the past year’s burdens and renewing ties with ancestors.

“These quiet narratives form the foundation of our identity,” she said. “It may not always be loud, but it is strong in meaning.”