Japanese in Indonesia: The Invasion Before the Occupation

TSUTSUMIBAYASHI Kazue had been trying various jobs from a temporary teacher to a prison warden. Later on, his acquaintance with Kakushun, a Taiwanese merchant who owned several overseas branches, inspired him to become a trader and open his own grocery store in Taipei in 1902.

Throughout his business journey, Tsutsumibayashi experienced emotional upheavals. He eventually returned to Japan, studied religions, and decided to embrace Protestant Christianity, based on which he felt a call to contribute to his nation, particularly by lifting the spirit of the youth. He then invited church youth who were interested in migrating to the South Seas, or Nanyo, which consists of Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Around 200 young men registered, but only 15 were selected.

Before leaving for the South Seas, Tsutsumibayashi and the 15 young men practiced peddling on their way from Tokyo to Osaka via Nagoya. In April 1909, they finally left the port of Yokohama for Semarang, Java, towards which they had to pass Siji (China), Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore. During this voyage, they also took the opportunity to sell various products. On 3 May 1909, they finally arrived in Semarang.

The Charm of Karayuki-san

Unlike Tsutsumibayashi who became a trader in the South Seas due to his religious beliefs, the other Japanese traders came there because of the charm of karayuki-san, Japanese prostitutes who were common since the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

According to Meta Sekar Puji Astuti, doctorate graduate of Keio University Japan, karayuki-san literally means people (women) who go to work in China (kara: China; yuki: towards or go towards a place), usually in the business of prostitution. However, karayuki-san not only “went to China” but also to Siberia, India, America, Africa and Southeast Asia, including the Dutch East Indies.

“It was karayuki-san who indirectly prompted the Japanese male traders to come to the Dutch East Indies. Initially, the male traders traveled around selling karayuki-san's necessities, particularly medicine, such as a refreshing one called jintan, and also accessories," said Meta who works as a lecturer in the Japanese Literature Department at Hasanuddin University, Makassar.

The connection between the arrival of the merchants and karayuki-san was also told by a former procurer, Okamura Iheiji who lived in the Dutch East Indies: “No matter how secluded the villages in the South Seas countries were, there would soon appear prostitutes (joshigun or karayuki-san) which would soon be followed by the establishment of grocery stores. The merchants from Japan would come, and after they were independent enough, they would set up their own shop and establish head offices. The procurers, who disliked being called pinpu (pimp), chose to run a Japanese shop," said Iheiji, as quoted by Yano Toru in Nanshin no Keifu.

Karayuki-san attracted Japanese male traders to come to the Dutch East Indies.

Since the Dutch East Indies government banned sex workers in accordance with the 1921 international convention against women and children trafficking which was also signed by Japan, there was a change in the orientation of the Japanese immigrants coming to the Dutch East Indies. Instead of coming because of the karayuki-san, they were enticed by the market potential. On the other hand, traders who had been doing business in the Dutch East Indies shifted their target to the more promising native people.

According to Gusti Asnan, history professor at Andalas University, Padang, in Penetrasi Lewat Laut: Kapal-kapal Jepang di Indonesia Sebelum 1942, the Japanese men who were peddlers or small merchants could exist in the country because the goods they sold were needed by the karayuki-san.

Subsequently, they went on selling factory-produced goods such as glassware and grocery items, which were of good quality but sold at affordable prices. The goods were either delivered directly by the sellers to the buyer's house, sold in traditional markets, or sold in eastern-style shops spread around the cities.

"Japanese shops are a phenomenon in the history of the existence of the Japanese in Indonesia in the early 20th century," wrote Gusti Asnan.

The Peddlers 

In the beginning, the Japanese merchants traveled around on foot to remote areas carrying baskets filled with various merchandise. They chose to peddle in order to avoid additional costs that might arise from renting a stall which would eventually increase the price of their merchandise. After collecting enough money from their small venture, they would usually open a shop known as toko Jepang (Japanese shop).

“It is called a Japanese shop because the employer was Japanese. That term was commonly used and it distinguished the Japanese shops from shops run by Chinese or other immigrants,” said Meta.

Tsutsumibayashi followed the same path. To raise capital, he peddled with the young men he invited from Japan. They lived a disciplined and humble life with only a kettle and a cup, while eating rice and vegetables only once a day.

After earning enough capital, Tsutsumibayashi opened a shop named Nanyo Shokai (the South Seas Shop) which was based in Semarang. In 1912, he was able to open branches in nine locations such as in Batavia, Bandung, Cilacap, Purworejo, and Blitar. Between 1916 and 1918, he opened a warehouse to stockpile goods from Tokyo, opened a branch for his agricultural import-export business, and bought 3,000 hectares of land. His company's assets at that time reached 15 million yen with 38 Japanese shops integrated under Nanyo Shokai.

"We can say that Nanyo was an example of successful Japanese enterprises in Java," said Meta. The majority of goods sold by Nanyo Shokai were ceramics, medicines, fabrics, and textile products.

It is called a Japanese shop because the employer was Japanese.

Another store network, Toko Kaneko (Kaneko Shop) owned by Kaneko Kenji, spread to almost all small towns in Central Java with extensive branches in Makassar and Manado in Sulawesi. Kenko Kenji's father-in-law, Sawabe Masao owned Fuji Yoko, the largest Japanese shop in Yogyakarta, and a store branch in Surakarta that was popular among the aristocrats. Other Japanese shop owners include Otomo Shintaro (owner of Otomo Shop in Tegal), Tamaki Choichi (owner of Daruma Shop in Jakarta), Kida Eiji (owner of Kida Shop in Bandung), and Nakagawa Anjiro (owner of Okazaki Shop in Malang).

According to Nawiyanto, history professor at the University of Jember in Matahari Terbit dan Tirai Bambu: Persaingan Dagang Jepang-Cina, it is very likely that there was an increase in the Japanese population in the Dutch East Indies due to the growth of Japanese shops in Java. In 1914, there were 74 Japanese store owners and 144 Japanese working as shopkeepers, in addition to 56 others who were peddlers. In 1933, the number of Japanese store owners increased to 543 in Java, most of whom resided in Central and East Java.

"The 1935 colonial report reveals that Japanese shops continued to mushroom all over the island," wrote Nawiyanto.

Meta explained that until the early 1940s, the Japanese store chains developed quite rapidly, prompting the founding of the Association of Japanese People (Nihonjinkai) in 1913 in Batavia. That same year recorded 296 members of the association, mostly the Japanese store owners or managers.

Winning the Competition

Unlike the consumers in Java who were greatly helped by the cheap price of the Japanese goods during the crisis, the Chinese traders considered the Japanese shops as a major threat. Prior to the world economic crisis in 1929, the Chinese played a major role in trade business. After the great depression, however, they had to share the cake with the Japanese whom they deemed as a more dangerous competitor than the European and native traders.

Meta argued that the Japanese traders were winning the competition because their products were of good quality yet cheap, their shops were cleaner, and the service was more polite.

In several meetings of the Dutch East Indies Volksraad (People's Council), Mohammad Hoesni Thamrin said the Japanese shops were favored because for 20 years, the Japanese shop owners strived to better their shops by researching people's needs and making innovative marketing breakthroughs such as providing credit options for buyers, which actually had been their strategy ever since they were still a peddler.

"Hoesni Thamrin talked about the Japanese shop and their community to compare the arrogance of the Dutch with the amiable Japanese," said Meta. "He also argued that Japan was one of those foreign countries whose struggle should be emulated."

Bob Hering in the biography of Mohammad Hoesni Thamrin said that since the onset of the global economic depression, Thamrin and thousands of his fellow countrymen had tried to protect their economic life by maintaining relationships with the Japanese suppliers and traders to obtain cheaper textiles, daily equipment, and other imported goods.

“The goods sold in the Japanese shops, contrary to the Eastern custom, are sold at fixed prices, but a more important fact that is also not without a political backlash is… that the natives who couldn’t find a place in modern commerce have now been given opportunity by the Japanese,” Bob said.

One of Thamrin's fellow countrymen who were involved in the trade business with Japan was Mohammad Hatta, who would later become Indonesia's statesman and vice president. In 1933, Hatta went to Japan for business purposes on behalf of his uncle, Mak Etek Ayub Rais, the proxy for the Djohar/Djohor firm who was also known as a successful trader of Japanese goods in the Dutch East Indies.

Hatta himself was impressed with Japan. In Oetoesan Indonesia newspaper on 1 March 1933, he wrote: "Indonesia will follow Japan's example and build its own industry in order to achieve political and economic independence."

Clearly, Hatta and Thamrin were not the only ones that had sympathy for the Japanese, as several other nationalist movement figures also maintained their close relations with the "Old Brothers", both in economics and politics.

The Chinese traders deemed the Japanese as a more dangerous competitor than the European and native traders.

According to Nawiyanto, Japanese shops could sell products at competitive prices because of the lower labor costs in Japan. In the 1930s, the production costs in Japan steadily decreased with an increase in productivity as a result of the rationalization measures taken between 1927 and 1931 such as the devaluation of the yen and the lowering of freight costs.

The Japanese traders also established their own business network that dealt with imports and distributions, including the organization of shipping, freight, bank financing, and wholesale, as well as the organization of retail traders. This extensive network was so impressive that a Japanese-Dutch East Indies trade negotiator, J. van Gelderen said, "the Japanese network stretched from Yokohama to the pribumi (native) villages."

Nawiyanto said the Japanese often advertised their products as the world's cheapest, while at the same time persistently trying to capture their customers’ hearts. Their sales agents actively tried to find out what the customers wanted. After they had a sample of the product from the shop owner, the sales agents would come to the buyers and convince them that their factory in Japan could produce the same item at a much lower price. It was no wonder that in Western countries the Japanese were widely known as "master plagiarists".

Fearing competition from the Japanese, the Chinese traders decided to boycott. "They boycotted Japanese products in China, and also later in the Dutch East Indies," said Meta.

Nawiyanto also highlighted that the increase in the scale and intensity of the boycott of Japanese products happened because of the heightened political tension between Japan and China in the 1930s, particularly as a protest against the Japanese expansion in Manchuria.

However, Nawiyanto saw the boycott only as "the manifestation of economic nationalism when the Chinese business was disrupted by the Japanese who undermined their position in the world of business. The boycott of the Japanese products was not new; some of the Chinese traders had done it before, like in 1915. Such action was quite common among the Chinese diaspora including those living in Indonesia before the 1929 depression.

In the 1930s, there was a call to close every small and wholesale shop related to Japan and to use Chinese products instead. This movement was even supported by the Chinese-owned newspaper in the Dutch East Indies which actively spread the boycott campaign.

Aside from the fierce opposition, the hatred towards the Japanese shops was discernible from several acts of terror. In Yogyakarta, a Japanese shop was vandalized and attacked with human waste.

"But the unpleasant incident didn't entirely hinder some Chinese traders in Java to maintain their business relation with Japan because of the promising profits," Nawiyanto wrote.

Return to Japan

Soon enough, the Japanese government announced the outbreak of the Pacific War and informed the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies about the inevitable war against the Netherlands. In 1941, through their embassy and general consulate, the Japanese government persuaded the Japanese living in the south regions to return to Japan.

Gradually, the Japanese went back home by the ships that made regular voyages to the Dutch East Indies. The first ship called Kitano Maru brought women and children back to Japan, while the last ship, Fuji Maru, was anchored in Batavia on 22 November 1941 and continued its journey to Semarang, Surabaya, Banjarmasin, and Makassar. The ship finally left Indonesia from Gorontalo harbor on 2 December 1941 carrying around 5,000 passengers on board. The ship arrived at the Nagasaki harbor on Kyushu Island on 10 December 1941.

"The Japanese shops were basically either abandoned or bought by the Chinese traders, while some other shops were claimed by the Japanese military government," said Meta. "But, a lot of sources state that the shops were mostly abandoned."

On 8 December 1941, the news of the war between the Netherlands and Japan was announced over the radio. On 9 January 1942, the Dutch captured around 2,093 Japanese–mostly men–who were still in the Dutch East Indies and exiled them to Australia. A document about the Japanese espionage activities, Ten Years Japanese Toil in The Netherlands East Indies, mentioned that those who were exiled to Australia were political criminals and some of them worked as spies for the Navy.

On 8 March, the Dutch capitulated and the Japanese came into power. regained their power in March 1942. "We can say that the history of Japanese shops was wiped from the Dutch East Indies and was replaced by the history of the Japanese occupation in the Dutch East Indies," Meta said.

Although the majority of the shop owners and shopkeepers of the Japanese shops had returned to Japan, around 707 of them came back to Indonesia. Meta described that their return as an employee for the Japanese military government proved the assumption back then that all of those shop owners and shopkeepers were actually the accomplice of or the spies for Japan in Indonesia.

Tsutsumibayashi himself had returned long before the war due to his health condition. On his way home, he died of lung cancer on the small island Ogasawara near Tokyo in 1935. His business network, Nanyo Shokai, was taken over by his employees, who were among those who had to return to Japan before war broke out between Japan and the Netherlands.