Revisiting the Narrative of 'Flowers of Japan'

The Surabaya City Government has reopened Kya-Kya as a night culinary tourism area on Jalan Kembang Jepun (Flowers of Japan Street)in Surabaya, East Java. The reopening was also part of an effort to revitalize the Kembang Jepun area, which is rich in cultural heritage buildings. It is quite unfortunate that this area with exotic old buildings is left deserted at night despite its historical value and high economic value if managed properly. A good example of this is Malaysia’s Penang Island government, who has successfully transformed their old town area into a UNESCO heritage site that is popular worldwide and becomes a magnet for tourists.

The revitalization of Jalan Kembang Jepun requires the right narrative as to why this street is important to be Surabaya's heritage area. So far, the developing narrative is that the name Kembang Jepun is associated with Japanese prostitutes karayuki-san who are said to have worked in nightspots in this area. For this reason, a theory developed that the name Kembang Jepun was given to the area because of the fame of the "Japanese flowers".

This narrative was fostered by several literary works that used Kembang Jepun as a setting for the lives of these Japanese prostitutes, such as Bumi Manusia (The Earth of Mankind) and Anak Semua Bangsa (Child of All Nations) by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and by Remy Silado in Kembang Jepun and Lan Fang in Perempuan Kembang Jepun (Kembang Jepun Woman).

Akira Nagazumi in Indonesia in the Study of Japanese Scholars writes that since the early years of the Meiji Era, many Japanese people had migrated to the Dutch East Indies. They came to try their luck with various professions, including as prostitutes and pimps.

The Meiji period lasted from 1868 to 1912, but it is unclear when the prostitutes arrived and settled here. Sri Pangastoeti in "From Kyuushuu to Ran'in: Karayuki-san and Japanese Prostitution in Indonesia (1885-1920)", a thesis in the history department of Gadjah Mada University in 2007, examines the presence of Japanese prostitutes in the Dutch East Indies from 1885 to 1920 based on existing archives. Apparently, it wasn't until around 1885 that the Japanese prostitutes started to settle down.

Sri Pangastoeti refers to an account by Muraoka Iheiji, a "supplier" of Japanese prostitutes to Asia, who wrote that in 1894 he brought about 7 or 8 women to Banjarmasin to work in a hair-cutting salon that was also a brothel as a side business, then five months later brought some of them to Surabaya to be waitresses in the coffee shop he had built there.

She also noted that until 1889 there were no official Japanese brothels in Surabaya, and there were only 3 Japanese who opened brothels under the guise of coffee shops and salons, namely Uchida Nanigashi who employed 3 karayuki-san, Nampo Nanigashi who employed 4 karayuki-san, and Ito Nanigashi who employed 4 karayuki-san. Thus, until 1889, the activities of karayuki-san in Surabaya was not as massive as what appears in the previous literary works, which seem to describe Kembang Jepun as Surabaya's red-light district.

Meanwhile, the official map of Surabaya made in 1866 lists Handelstraat as a street name which remained in the 1905 map. However, in the 1930 map of Surabaya, the street was already written as Handelstraat Kembang Jepun. In the following 1934 map, the name is written simply as Jalan Kembang Jepun, as well as in the 1935 map which remains until now.

The name Handelstraat (Street of Commerce) is indeed fitting for this street. Besides being known as the Chinatown area, both sides of the street are lined with shops, banks, and offices. All travelers who pass through this area would be amazed by the bustle of trade from Jalan Panggung that is filled with Malay, Arab, Indian and Chinese traders, and then in Handelstraat which is crowded with the Chinese traders and European businessmen. These are the distinctive characteristics of Handelstraat or Jalan Kembang Jepun.

Interestingly, the 1866 map of Surabaya made by T.W.A. Roessner clearly displays the name Kembang Djepoen, which is found as part of the Chineesche Kamp area to the south of Handelstraat, now Slompretan and Bongkaran, which is bordered by Jalan Gula. This means that in 1866 the name Kembang Djepoen already existed there, even though the Meiji Era only began two years later, while the arrival of the Japanese prostitutes was estimated to be around 1885.

Older information about the name Kembang Djepoen comes from the famous British explorer Alfred Russel Wallace. In his famous book, The Malay Archipelago, he wrote that after 20 days of sailing from Singapore on the ship Kembang Djepoon (Rose of Japan); a ship owned by a Chinese merchant, manned by a Javanese crew and skippered by an English captain; the ship anchored in Buleleng, Bali on June 13, 1856. The use of the name Kembang Djepoen as the name of a ship owned by a Chinese merchant gives a strong indication that Kembang Djepoen or Kembang Jepun was already widely known in 1856, not as a nightlife district with its Japanese prostitutes (as they had not yet migrated to Surabaya in that year), but as a very lively trading, banking and service area at that time.

The oldest evidence that I found is from an urban and neighborhood design of Surabaya made in August 1821. The NV Moorberge plan lists the name Kembang Jepon for the Chinatown area east of the Red Bridge (Roode Brug) on Kali Mas. So, instead of being associated with Japanese prostitutes, the name Kembang Jepun already existed in 1821.

Why did the name Kembang Jepun already exist long before the Japanese prostitutes arrived in Surabaya? Siauw Giok Tjhan in his memoir Lima Jaman (Five Eras) wrote with pride that he came from the Kapasan area. Like the typical toponymy of the names of regions in Indonesia which were inspired by endemic plants or their peculiarities, the area was named Kapasan because Kapasan or Randu trees used to grow there.

This Kapasan area is located close to Kembang Jepun. Therefore, using the same logic, I suspected that the name Kembang Jepun was also taken from the name of a plant that used to grow a lot in that area. The plant is called Kembang Jepun or Nerium Oleander, a plant from North Africa that not only is beautiful and pretty, but also deadly because its sap contains poison that is still widely used by people to commit suicide.

So if the origin of the name Kembang Jepun is as simple as that without any sensational stories linking it to those "flowers from Japan", does that mean there really is no karayuki-san in Kembang Jepun?

When researching Dutch-language newspapers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I didn't find any articles associating Kembang Jepun with Japanese prostitutes. Instead, they reported on the bustling business activities in the area during the day and the street's culinary activities in the evening. This could be because the issue of prostitution was still taboo at the time, or the practice existed but wasn't overt or dominant in the Kembang Jepun area.

The March 1, 1899 edition of the Soerabaijasch Handelsblad newspaper wrote an article entitled "De Chineezen te Soerabaja". In one of its sections, it reported, "Anyone walking in Petjinan Koelon (Chineesche Voorstraat), Pasar Bong, Bongkaran (Heerenstraat), Panggoeng (Smokkelsteeg), Kembang Djepoen, Singoyoedhan and Tjantian will see how lively the business and entertainment activities of the Chinese are there with many offices and shops, both small and large, selling any kind of goods at low prices so that they are busy serving buyers even into the night."

John Ingleson in his 2013 book, Perkotaan, Masalah Sosial dan Perburuhan di Jawa Masa Kolonial (Urban, Social and Labor Problems in Colonial Java) openly writes that Surabaya as a big city and port city certainly also struggles with the issue of prostitution, but he doesn't include the name Kembang Jepun as one of the prostitution areas in Surabaya. The names of the areas he mentions are Banyu Urip, Tandes, Kremil, Bandaran, Sawahan and Nyamplungan. 

John Ingleson only mentions that there were brothels in the city center owned by Chinese and Japanese, citing Batavia dermatologist R.D.G.Ph. Simon's 1939 report on prostitution in the Dutch East Indies. However, he didn't mention Kembang Jepun in it. Similarly, Terence H. Hull, Endang Sulistyaningsih, and Gavin W. Jones also don't mention Kembang Jepun in their book, Pelacuran in Indonesia: Sejarah dan Perkembangannya (Prostitution in Indonesia: Its History and Development) (1997).

Interestingly, Sri Pangastoeti writes that there are sources that specify that in 1894-1895 there were already houses inhabited by karayuki-san, which were located around the port of Tanjung Perak. Not all karayuki-san were ill-treated, as some received relatively good treatment due to their role as mistresses of the Dutch or Chinese. Moreover, when the Dutch East Indies government in 1899 issued a population regulation stating that the Japanese were equal to Europeans in the first tier, the karayuki-san practically moved up the social ladder. According to a 1913 report, the karayuki-san also ended up discriminating against their customers, especially those who wanted to keep them as mistresses. They prioritized Europeans first, then Chinese and lastly native or pribumi men. Along with the construction of Japan's image as a developed country on par with the white nation, the Japanese government stopped the practice of karayuki-san in 1920 because it was considered a disgrace which had tarnished the name of the Japanese nation.

It was only Olivier Johannes Raap who wrote explicitly about the association of the name Kembang Jepun with Japanese prostitutes, in his book Kota di Djawa Tempo Doeloe (2015). With a reference to the book Soerabaja: Beeld van een stad (1994) compiled by A.C. Broeshart, J.R. van Diessen, R.G. Gill, and J.P. Zeydner, he writes that the term Kembang Jepun refers to the geishas there, because in the early 20th century many Japanese prostitutes worked around the area. He also writes that in the east of Kembang Jepun there is an area named Cantian, a geographical name associated with the beautiful appearance of sex workers. He refers to the book Oud Soerabaia (1931) by G.H. von Faber that in 1864 an ordinance was passed banning prostitution there.

Von Faber in his two books, both Oud Soerabaia (1913) and Nieuw Soerabaia (1913) didn't actually mention Kembang Jepun as a prostitution area. Von Faber's writing is one of the references for John Ingleson's writing that Kampung Bandaran, which is located near the harbor and outside the Prins Hendrik fort, was a prostitution area. They were then moved to Cantian Lor, Cantian Kidul, Sambongan, Kampung Blakang, Pengampon, Jagalan, Gili, Klimbongan, and Pabean. However, it's worth noting this was in 1864 and had nothing to do with the Japanese prostitutes who arrived more than 20 years later. So the name Cantian had already existed and was not related to the prostitutes who were relocated there in 1864. Unfortunately, the writings of Broeshart and others that Olivier references to associate Kembang Jepun with Japanese prostitutes do not provide a clear source for this claim.

I tried to track down whether there was any collective memory from elders in Surabaya about Kembang Jepun's association with Japanese prostitutes. Coincidentally, I have an elderly neighbor who was a former Peranakan Indian trader born in Bangil in 1941. He moved to Surabaya as a teenager to run a gold shop on Jalan Panggung near Kembang Jepun. He said that he had never known from his parents or heard from senior Chinese traders on Jalan Panggung that Kembang Jepun used to be a nightspot with Japanese prostitutes as its prima donnas. I was the first person who mentioned it to him.

It is still possible that, as in other areas of Surabaya, there could have been nightspots in Kembang Jepun and its surroundings. But until further data and evidence is found, the common narrative that associated the name Kembang Jepun to the presence of Japanese prostitutes needs to be revised. The reasons are not coming from a moral standpoint or mere hypocrisy. Rather than creating a sensational narrative that isn't based on solid historical facts, it's better to build a narrative that Kembang Jepun area was a bustling center of trade, banking, and services in the past and is still flourishing today.

In closing, I found only one newspaper advertisement associating Kembang Jepun with Japan: an advertisement in the June 14, 1882 edition of Soerabaijasch Handelsblad. The ad mentioned that So Bing Tien's shop in Kembang Jepun sold Japanese dolls and Japanese fans. That's all.

The author is an independent researcher and writer of history books, working as a physics engineer and professional in the oil and gas industry.