6 - Malay/Indonesian Translations of Chinese Literature: Past and Present

Summary

Introduction

The Chinese have been in the Malay world, namely Indonesia and Malaya/Malaysia for centuries. Nevertheless, the translation of Chinese works into the local languages, particularly the Malay language, only took place in the late 1880s. The existence of such translations is related to three important developments:

• 1. There was a rise of Chinese nationalism, or at least cultural nationalism, among the Chinese in the Malay region;

• 2. There was an emergence of Western-educated Chinese writers and journalists who undertook the translation of Chinese works;

• 3. With the development of the printing press, often known as print capitalism, the Chinese began to get involved in such a business.

Prior to the 1880s, the above developments were absent in the Malay world, and as a result, no Chinese works were translated into the Malay language.

In fact, towards the end of the nineteenth century, printing presses and newspapers in Malay/Indonesian had begun to emerge, but none was in the Chinese language. The Peranakan and Baba who were no longer fluent in Chinese but equally inadequate in their command of the Western languages needed to read newspapers, magazines and books in the language that they understood. They were also interested in reading more about Chinese culture, and some enterprising Chinese started translating Chinese stories into Malay. In Java, for instance, these Chinese stories were initially published by Dutch printing houses such as H.M. van Dorp and W. Bruining & Co., but one year later the Peranakan Chinese themselves set up their own printing houses (e.g. Ijap Goan Ho) and published these stories by themselves. In the Straits Settlements of British Malaya, the publishers were Chinese (e.g. Kim Sek Chye Press, Poh Wah Hean Press) from the beginning.

It is imperative to note that the demand for Malay translations of Chinese works did not come from the Malay community but the Chinese themselves, as many Chinese in the Malay world had lost their command of the Chinese language. They were Peranakan Chinese who were well versed in Malay, which was the lingua franca of different ethnic groups in the Malay Archipelago. Among the Peranakan Chinese in colonial Indonesia and British Malaya, Malay, not Chinese, was the medium of communication.