Indonesian-Chinese writer Marga T on guilt of having been born a girl: 'it gave me cancer'

With a career spanning more than half a century, Indonesian-Chinese writer Marga T is one of the country's most prolific authors.

Born in Jakarta to ethnic Chinese parents in 1943, she showed an early gift for writing, with her first two novels, the romance titles Karmila and Badai Pasti Berlalu (The Storm Will Surely Pass), being instant hits.

Among the 69 books she's published, her work has touched on science fiction, tales of mystery, children's stories, and dark chapters of history. The third volume of her Sekuntum Nozomi (A Bud of Hope) series tells the story of Chinese women being raped during Indonesia's 1998 riots.

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But perhaps the most personal of all is her latest work, If Only, a poignant memoir "about the compulsory duty to have a son, and the tragic consequences for the family when no son was born", she tells This Week in Asia in a rare interview.

In 1952, Marga's mother died after giving birth to a sixth daughter. Marga was only nine then. Being the eldest, she bore the guilt of having been born a girl, as her father had expected to have a son so he could carry on the family's surname.

"I was accused of having caused her death," she says.

A few months after the funeral, Marga's cousin slapped her with a sandal, dragged her by the hair, slammed her to the floor, beat her with a rattan stick and kicked her.

"I was bashed viciously by a cousin without knowing why. My father didn't come to my defence; didn't even ask what happened," she says.

Marga believes her cancer diagnosis in 1992 was "most likely a reaction" to her childhood trauma.

"(The doctor) said unsolved childhood traumas between the age of nine and 13 would suppress the growth hormone, resulting in short stature. That's me. It would also jeopardise the immune system and cause cancer. That's me, too."

Working on If Only was an act of catharsis, Marga said in the book, her first published in English.

It was written "in memory of my mother, not to shame my family, but to cleanse my soul, mind and body from the bad childhood memories and their effects". The names of family members mentioned in the book were changed for privacy, she said.

Marga's fame is notable given her rise took place under the rule of former dictator Suharto, who oppressed the ethnic Chinese community during his three-decade rule.

Among other regulations, he banned Chinese cultural displays and imposed laws that pushed ethnic Chinese citizens to adopt Indonesian-sounding names.

When he stepped down in 1998 following massive nationwide protests, the country then transitioned into a democracy and Lunar New Year became one of Indonesia's national holidays.

Marga says she was "not so much" affected as a writer during the eras of Sukarno's Old Order and Suharto's New Order, as her work rarely touched on politics. "Books of teenage romance were considered harmless and didn't get the attention of the authorities."

While Marga is a part of a sizeable community of Indonesian-Chinese writers - many others preceded her before the archipelagic nation's independence in 1945 - few have been well-known.

"There have been many writers of Chinese ethnicity in the past, but they are rarely discussed," says Soe Tjen Marching, an Indonesian-Chinese author from the second-largest city of Surabaya.

"Many of these Chinese immigrants could not write in (their original language) well. They then learned the Malay language and began to write some stories," says Soe Tjen, who is also a lecturer in the language, culture and linguistics department at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

Nurni W. Wuryandari, of the Program of Chinese Studies at the literature department of Universitas Indonesia, wrote in a 2015 paper that "Chinese-Indonesian authors and poets have produced works since the 1870s".

"Their works were written in Malay as the lingua franca in the archipelago, which absorbed various elements of other languages such as Dutch, English and Mandarin," she wrote in the paper. "Later on, after Indonesia gained its independence, elements from the standard Indonesian language were also incorporated into the works of these authors."

Marga has been perceived by some to have distanced herself from her heritage because of her decision to publish under the name Marga T, which had kept her Chinese identity hidden from readers until some people dug up her surname.

"The insinuation that T came from Tjoa really hurt me, as if they know my life better than myself," she told This Week in Asia.

"When I started writing, the name Marga T just popped into my mind from nowhere," Marga said. "T is not an abbreviation."

Still, her work continues to resonate among many people in post-authoritarian Indonesia. Badai Pasti Berlalu was adapted into a new soap opera last year, and Karmila is currently being developed as another soap opera. Past adaptations of both titles have been aired several times over the past few decades.

Hetih Rusli, director of IP licensing and digital publishing at PT Rekata Studio, a subsidiary of Indonesian media conglomerate Kompas Gramedia Group, says Marga T "paved the way for future female writers of Chinese descent" in Indonesia and has shown that "women have a voice that can be conveyed in written works".

"Her female readers could be inspired (by the characters): 'If a character of Marga T's novel can be a doctor, I can also be one'," says Hetih, who is working on the Indonesian translation of If Only.

Charlotte Setijadi, an anthropologist researching ethnic Chinese communities in Indonesia and an assistant professor of humanities at Singapore Management University, says: "For an ethnic Chinese woman in the New Order era to gain prominence and popularity for writing stories that were relatable for Indonesian readers, regardless of their ethnicity, was an important form of representation for Chinese-Indonesians at the time."

Asked how she wants to leave her mark, Marga says the ethnic Chinese are "no different" from other Indonesians in their activities and aspirations, and all citizens "should be able to find a way to live in harmony next to each other".

"We should try harder to accommodate and help one another to make Indonesia a prosperous and great country," she said.

Meanwhile, Marga is working on a second memoir. As she noted towards the end of If Only: "This memoir is a mission. I had been tortured physically and mentally during my growing years, and this grievous experience has been with me ever since.

"There is only one way for me to get rid of it. By pouring down the trauma onto papers, I was hoping to purge myself of it once and for all, and to share the experience with you in case you ever have to face such a thing."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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