River clean-up reveals ruins of Indonesia's Sugar Mansion, rise and fall of its Chinese tycoons

It was in 2021 when Indonesian restaurateur Bram Luska first laid eyes on a heap of ruins jutting out of a river running through Semarang's Chinatown. A river clean-up had revealed the structure for the first time in decades.

"I became curious as to what the story might have been (behind the ruins) so I spent a whole year researching their history," the 36-year-old history buff said.

Local sources yielded a name for Luska: Gedong Gulo or the Sugar Mansion, a once sprawling family estate in the western part of Chinatown built in 1815 by sugar baron Tan Tiang Tjhing.

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Semarang, a port city and industrial hub during Dutch rule in Indonesia, had produced a number of sugar barons. The most famous was Oei Tiong Ham (1866-1924), the richest person in the Far East at the start of the 20th century.

"But the Tans were Semarang's earlier sugar kings," Luska said. "The Tan who built the mansion was Tan Tiang Tjhing. He was the son of Tan Bing, who in turn had been born in 1742 and emigrated from China."

The senior Tan started out as a small goods trader, before opening sugar cane mills with his son to meet a growing demand for sugar in Central Java.

"At this time, sugar was a prized commodity mainly consumed by the upper and middle-classes, and so the Tans struck gold," Luska said.

When Tan Bing died 1810, his son took over the family business and was soon thrust into his first major challenge.

In 1811, British forces in India invaded Java as part of Britain's offensive in the Napoleonic Wars. Although Java was under Dutch rule, the capitulation of the Netherlands to French forces made the Indies a titular French dependency. The British interregnum lasted until 1816.

By this time, Tan Tiang Tjhing was already a member of the Chinese elite in Semarang, having been appointed a lieutenant by the previous Dutch administration. But adapting to a new colonial administration and beyond was to truly test Tan's mettle.

"From records I found at the Wie Hwie Kiong temple - built by Tiang Tjhing - and also the Tay Kak Sie temple in Semarang, we know that he was made a lieutenant in 1809," Luska said. "His success in forging cordial relations with the British soon led to him being made Semarang's first Chinese Major in 1814."

Prominent Chinese were given military ranks by the colonial government of the day: kapitein (captain), luitenant (lieutenant) and majoor (major).

In the following year, Major Tan started construction of his vast riverside palatial abode, soon to be known as the Sugar Mansion.

During his 18-year tenure as Majoor der Chinezen, Tan faced yet another crisis when Javanese freedom fighters under Prince Diponegoro took up arms against the Dutch between 1825 and 1830. Ethnic Chinese were among thousands killed in the rebellion, including women and children.

In 1815, there were 94,441 ethnic Chinese, or just over 2 per cent of Java's 4.6 million population then. Some 38,606 of them, or just over two-fifths, lived in Central and East Java, mainly in the big cities of Semarang and Surabaya.

"Records kept at the local Chinese society or Kong Koan detail some of the measures initiated by Tiang Tjhing as Major of Semarang, to safeguard the Chinese community here, such as setting up security gates around Chinatown manned by guards skilled in martial arts," Luska said.

Historian Peter Carey, author of Destiny: The Life of Prince Diponegoro of Yogyakarta, 1785-1855, said the Dutch had levied toll gates across the island as a source of revenue.

"It was lucrative for the Dutch, generating 2 million Indies guilders a year on Java (equivalent to US$50 million today) but very oppressive for the local population," Carey explained.

The toll gates were leased to the highest bidders to run, usually the Chinese, who came to be seen by the Javanese as Dutch lackeys, Carey added.

Following Tan Tiang Tjhing's death in 1833, his son Tan Hong Yan took up the mantle as the next Chinese Major and lord of the Sugar Mansion.

Hong Yan's daughter Tan Djiang Nio later married Bee Biau Tjoan, son of the Major of Kebon Dalem, Bee Ing Tjoe. The marriage helped bring the two families closer, and they would later come to monopolise the opium trade in Java for the next few decades.

"Hong Yan was also responsible for the first Chinese medical centre, built in 1830, followed by a hospital in 1847 in response to the increasing number of Chinese in the city," Luska said.

At the peak of the Tans' wealth and influence, the mansion and its picturesque Chinese gardens were known locally as Se Wan or the Western Gardens.

Tan Hong Yan died in 1851 and was succeeded by his son Tan Tjong Hoay, who would preside over a period of decline for the clan. In 1872, he suffered extreme losses in business, which in the end forced him to sell the Sugar Mansion and resign as Chinese Major.

The mansion's ownership passed on to Sie Sien Kie, who was Tan Tjong Hoay's son-in-law. The moment marked the start of Gedong Gulo's decline. The Sie family's fortunes eventually took a downward turn, causing the estate to be divided and sold in parts.

The main building was put to other uses. In the 1970s, it became a martial arts dojo for Sie Hwan Bie, a disciple of the legendary Semarang kung fu master, Khong A Djong. When racial riots broke out across Central Java in November 1980, the mansion served as a temporary safe house for Indonesian-Chinese fleeing their homes.

The building's condition deteriorated and the Sies sold it in the 1980s.

Gautama Setiadji, 72, a direct descendant of Sie Sien Kie, said the family's decision to sell the mansion saddened him. Setiadji was one of the last Sies to grow up in the Sugar Mansion and said his family had tried to put the building to public use for as long as they could.

Now, shophouses populate the space where the once-imposing mansion stood.

"I did manage to save the stone lion or shishi statues which once stood at one of the entrances and other bits as mementos," Setiadji said, pointing to the pair which now guard the gate to his house.

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

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