Child of All Nations by Pramoedya Ananta Toer Page A

about it.
    “Just read your newspaper.”
    Now and then I caught a glimpse of the figures on the sheets of paper. Figures and totals with six digits. I made a quick guess: the value of the whole business. She didn’t take much longer to finish her work; then she told me: “Tomorrow I’m going to withdraw Annelies’s money from the bank, Minke. I want to know how you feel: Do you feel I’m violating your rights by doing that?”
    “Mama! What are you saying? I don’t have any such rights!”
    “No, Minke. No matter what, you are my own son, the same age as Robert. And you know that this business is going to be taken over by somebody that the law says has a greater right to it. I want to start another business. I need Annelies’s money. Her savings from the last six years aren’t all that much. She saved all of it—less than three thousand. I can invest that money in your name.”
    “No, Mama, thank you very much. But no.”
    I began to read. But what was this? From the very first line, there was no similarity to the interview that had taken place. It read like this:
    At eleven o’clock last Monday morning there appeared at the editorial office of this paper a member of the Chinese Young Generation. This person wanted to sell us information about his movement. He gave his name as Khouw Ah Soe, his place of birth as Tientsin, and said he was a graduate of an English-language High School in Shanghai, and was aged about twenty years. His entry into the Indies was no doubt illegal! And we would not be wrong in assuming that he arrived as a member of a large group with orders from their organization’s headquarters in Japan.
    As we all know, there have been many disturbances in the Indies since the arrival of members of this Young Generation. They openly seek the rapid abolition of the pigtail. The violation of this time-honored custom of China must be resisted.
    From the very moment they arrived, they have been opposed by the Chinese sinkeh and Mixed-Blood subjects of the Indies. These former love and respect their ancestors, and feel that to lose one’s pigtail is to lose one’s Chineseness. They condemn the idea and any effort to abolish the pigtail.
    Khouw Ah Soe came to Surabaya about two months ago. He doesn’t speak Malay, but speaks good English, Mandarin, and Hokkien, and there are reports he has mastered two other southern dialects as well. Within a week of his arrival in Surabaya it appears he was able to influence several people. Together with these he organized a public meeting in the Kong Koan building. There he explained his lie, that the thau-cang was a symbol of humiliation that had its origins during a period of Mongol domination. And that it was a sign of the Chinese people’s slavery under the northerners. The pigtail is no symbol of honor for the Chinese, he said.
    The Kong Koan building burst into an uproar. The fury of the crowd couldn’t be restrained. The whole debate was conducted in Hokkien. They all demanded: Cut his pigtail so he will be cursed by his ancestors!
    According to our reporter, Khouw Ah Soe alone remained
calm. He was not unnerved by the threats. He shifted his pigtail from his back across to his chest. Smiling he spoke: “Don’t worry! I myself have already begun.”
    He lifted up his hair, and the pigtail was false. His hair was cut short; he was almost bald.
    The crowd charged the speaker and the meeting’s organizers. Fighting broke out and there were many cries and shouts. Various martial arts left many people sprawled on the floor, some with broken bones. Khouw Ah Soe himself, with his false thau-cang, was taken to the hospital where he was to undergo treatment for fifteen days.
    He has escaped from the hospital and it looks like he has run out of both energy and money. The Chinese community of Surabaya has rejected him. He has not received any support, especially not funds. His attempt to sell us information is a sign of his failure. He is in very, very difficult