V of inauguration of guest

guest lecture delivered ^by

Professor Kees van Dijk

on the occasion of the inauguration of the Malaysian Resource Centre at the KlTL V Library

Leiden, 19 March 1998

It would be fitting on an occasion such as this, when a Malaysian Resource Centre is being opened at an institute that for almost a century and a half has been engaged in the study of Indonesia, to select a topic that could be said to be typically Malay, forming part of the common heritage of Malaysia and Indonesia, or to highlight an aspect of the relations between the Netherlands and Malaysia. I will not do this. Instead I have selected a subject which is usually associated with Holland: the bike; that is to say the vehicle which sometimes is called the safety bicycle, the bike which came into use around 1900 and of which the shape has remained more or less the same up to the present day.

A bicycle is a humble way to move oneself from one place to another, freeing people from the confines of railways, trams, and buses, and is of course much cheaper to buy and to maintain than a motor car. It seems a fairly innocent, modest vehicle. But this is a misconception. When we tum to the closing years of the nineteenth century and the early decades of this century, we have to admit that the bicycle played an important role in the emancipation of a variety of groups: of women; of the lower middle-classes; and of what everybody in those days without hesitation still called 'the natives' .

When the bike began its advance other means of modem transportation were already available. Railways, for instance, had made their appearance in Java since 1860, and in Malaya they had arrived about 1885, originally to serve estate and mining interests, while just after the tum of the century electric trams began to replace those propelled by steam or horse-power in the cities of South-East Asia: in Bangkok, Singapore, and Batavia.

Motor cars had also already been imported in significant numbers, and here it is appropriate to mentioned that in the early years of this century, the Sultan of J ohor had earned himself quite a reputation not only as a 'daring big-game shot', but also as a lover of fast, powerful cars.^l Despite such high-powered examples, it was the bicycle that laid the foundation for a number of fundamental changes. There were few things used by mankind, a civil servant of the American Census Office wrote around 1900, which had

1 Write 1908: 580, 891-2.

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brought about such a revolution as the bicycle.² He was right.

Initially this could not be foreseen. Riding a bike or biking was just a diversion, a hobby for the rich and famous in Europe and the United States. People, for instance, went to the Bois de Boulogne or Hyde Park, or whatever other place it was fashionable to be seen riding a bike. It was only after bicycles had become less expensive, which happened in the 1890s, that they became the vehicle par excellence of the growing number of factory workers and office clerks in Europe3; the rich of course immediately lost interest and went in search of new fields to conquer. Now it was people of limited means, but with a little money to spare, who enthusiastically embraced the bicycle. Not least because it provided them with the opportunity to expand their leisure activities, and to make longer or shorter journeys into the countryside.⁴

In only a few years the bike had become a common form of transportation, but still imbued with a special connotation. The bicycle was a modem form of transport, and, in the 1890s when people went to a photographer's studio to have their picture taken, bikes were among the attributes displayed in the studio as a symbol of this modernity. ⁵ This happened in Europe, and as we can see on a photo taken in Medan in 1895, also in Asia. Cycling, new as it was, was literally, as a Dutch expression goes, a matter of vallen en opstaan, a matter of falling off and getting on the bike again. In those days one did not learn how to 'ride a bike as a child, but as a grown up, sometimes even at quite an advanced age. There were schools where one could learn how to ride a bike, where one of the major skills mastered seems to have been how to stop before colliding with a tree or running into a wall.⁶

Inexperienced drivers presented quite a spectacle. For instance, during the Russo- Japanese war of 1905, when a Dutch warship called in at one of the ports in Sumatra, its

2 Lessing 1996: 289

3 Briggs 1990: 420.

4 See Dahles 1997: 166-8.

5 Pols 1994: 35.

6 Ganghofer 1995: 177.

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sailors provided an unusual kind of entertainment. Almost the whole city went to the hills along the beach to watch the sailors ride their bicycles. The spectacle in itself was not the diversion, but the fact that the sailors had not yet mastered this new kind of sport, and constantly fell off their bikes. This aptly fits in with an earlier observation from Great Britain. Bicycles went fast, especially downhill, it was observed, and while it was possible to avoid a mad dog because he ran in a straight line, a collision with 'a madman on a velocipede' posed a much greater danger, because he did not.⁷ I like to read such stories because they remind me of my own youth. I had a mother who rode a bike, but did not know how to use the brakes. When she went downhill the only thing she could do was to shout 'out of the way, out of the way'. At that time, still having full confidence in her, I, sitting in my special child's seat, did not feel afraid at all.

A rather different problem was formed by the police officers in Batavia in the second decade of this century, and again it was the amazing speed of the bicycle that lay at the root of the trouble. I am sure Your Excellency, that it will never happen to you, but others in this room may use the story as an argument to talk themselves out of a fme, when they are stopped for riding a bicycle after dark without a light. They can argue that law enforcers at times also tend to play fast and loose with the rules. The authorities in Batavia in those years were convinced that with a light on their bicycles officers would not be able to catch thieves. The result was that, as a citizen of Batavia complained in 1918, cycling

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police officers were 'the meanest thing' he could think of at night. The dark figures, riding at a fair speed, occasionally caused him a hellish fright in the dark avenues of the city. ⁸

By that time the army had also discovered the bicycle as a convenient and efficient means of transportation. Aceh at the beginning of this century had its 'railway bicycle brigade', consisting of martial-looking men. Other weapons were to follow. Cycling soldiers and officers, and I do not know whether the two officers photographed in Semarang in 1915 are a very good example of this, had, it was argued in 1917 by the Head of the Medical Service, to be very fit, in view of the special physical efforts demanded of

7 Briggs 1990: 419.

8 De Locomotief17-5-1918.

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them. ⁹

Women joined in the cycling craze as well at an early stage. The 'ordinary bicycle', high-wheeler, the contraption with one huge wheel in front and a very small one at the back, with the saddle I would describe as high in the sky, had been impossible for them to mount. A few did, but at least in Europe and maybe also in the United States, they had to disguise themselves as men, and in a few moments it will become clear why I use the word disguise. 10 The safety bicycle was much easier to ride and when women took to cycling this would have far-reaching consequences for women's mode of both motion and wear. For one thing it is impossible to ride a bike sitting side-saddle as was expected of ladies when they rode a horse; but for reasons of decency, I will not delve too deeply in the discussions such a new way of sitting on a bicycle - and later also on a horse - by women entailed.

This would only make me blush. Advertisements recommending a so-called safety saddle, with a groove in the middle, suffice as a hint about what all the fuss was about. Though sensitive parts of the body of men and women are mentioned, I can assure you that the saddle was explicitly designed for female cyclists.

In dealing with the changes brought about by the bicycle one should also remember that up to few years before the tum of the century it was still socially obligatory for women to wear skirts. In France this was even a legal requirement. To combat travesty a police ordinance still not revoked to this day had been proclaimed in 1800, which forbade Parisian women to wear trousers instead of skirts, had they not received an official dispensation provided by the authorities. ¹¹ Such dispensations were rarely given, and, I believe, George Sand and one Mrs Foucault, who in her days had gained international fame as 'the woman with the beard' were among the few women who benefited from it.¹² Of course, I have not tried it out myself, but it takes no great stretch of the imagination to realize that riding a bike, with the skirts and underskirts fashionable in those days, must

9 De Locomotief 4-12-1917.

10 Rother 1996: 89.

11 Perrot 1994: 20.

12 De Locomotief8-5-1899.

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Three ladies as eye-catchers for an advertisement of Columbia bicycles.

[De Locomotief, 5 April 1900]

have been a difficult job. Leisure activities, of which cycling was one, 'gradually relieved women of their textile monument', we can read in a book on fashion. 13 One step was to get rid of all those layers. And, to allow for a skirt, almost immediately, a difference between a male and a female bike came into being. Bicycles were, as the modern jargon goes, gendered. 14 More revolutionary, and also more shocking was that cycling women began to wear knickerbockers, which originally were boy's attire. 15 The revolutionary garment was the well-known bloomer or zouave trousers, designed as early as 1849 by Amelia Jenks Bloomer; an American lady who drew her inspiration from dress worn in the Ottoman Empire. Unfortunately for her, her design only got on as cycling attire a year after her death in 1894. 16 As with many radical changes in fashion a public outcry was the result of the increasing number of women donning the bloomers. Some critics found it simply an ugly sight, even going as far as to state that the movements made by cycling women who wore trousers made such women resemble flying insects. ¹⁷ Others wanted to go further, demanding that any substitution of skirts by trousers should be tabooed. 18 It was strenuously argued by both camps that women should continue to behave in a feminine

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way. They should only cycle at leisure and not cycle uphill. They should not permit themselves to sweat or get red in the face. That was unbecoming.19 Consequently, at the horse-races in Pati in October 1899 'fme ladies on elegant bicycles' held a competition in slow cycling. 20

The fact that women of those days persisted in their efforts is an indication that in

13 Perrot 1994: 191.

14 Garvey 1996: 108.

15 Briggs 1990: 281.

16 Gernsheim 1981: 80.

17 De Leeuw 1993: 283.

18 Briggs 1990: 281.

19 De Leeuw 1993: 273.

20 De Locomotie/ 19-10-1899.

their eyes a bicycle was much more than a symbol of modernity. It was also a vehicle of emancipation, giving them much more freedom to move in every sense of the word. The same held true for Indonesians and I suppose this is also applicable to Malaysians. I am a little bit hesitant on this point. The first reason for this is that fmding information about bicycles in Indonesia and Malaysia in the first decades of this century is not easy. They hardly rate a mention in' scholarly literature or in other books. Browsing through books about Malaya from that time, for instance, provides a wealth of information abGut driving cars, and as early as 1908 Malaya is represented as a heaven for motorists I for the roads are excellent, there is no speed limit, and there are no import duties on cars.I21 Railways, journeys on horseback and even on elephants, are mentioned, as are rickshaws and ox- carts, but little if nothing is disclosed about bikes.

A second source of difficulty is that there are social and historical differences between both countries, which may account for a different social role of the bike. A simple explanation for this is that the presence of the British in Malaya was of much shorter duration, and in some respects also of a different nature, than that of the Dutch in the Indonesian Archipelago. Around 1900, the British had ruled for only a few decades, and did so in an indirect way. The Dutch had been in some parts of Indonesia for centuries.

This created significant differences in the legal system, and also in the composition of colonial society. In Java, in 1900, some acts which dated from the seventeenth century and had never been revoked, were still in force. The age-old presence of the Dutch also meant that the group of Indo-Europeans, not least because of changing attitudes which had emerged in the course of the nineteenth century towards interracial marriage, was much larger.

There were destitute white people in Malaysia, and probably also a middle-class, but such groups were small in number. In Malaysia, as we are informed in a book published in 1908, almost all Europeans could afford a horse. 22 In the Netherlands Indies the situation was very different. Destitute Europeans, that is in reality destitute Indo- Europeans, formed a large group, as did Europeans of modest means. Defmitely not every

21 Wright 1908: 562.

22 Wright 1908: 198.

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'SEM A R A N ·C - .

THE FIRST NETHERLANDS INDIES BICYCLE FACTORY INSULINDE, SEMARANG.

At the races in Semarang of 16 April 1900, the winners were:

DE GRAAF, first prize for Amateurs, on an INSULINDE RACER

VISELI, first prize in the race for servicemen, on an INSULINDE RACER

LOlJEE, the first round of the second series of the Grand Prix, on an

INSULINDE RACER, but disqualified for raising his hands in triumph on reaching the finish.

DOUWES DEKKER, the Championship round and Grand Prix de Semarang, on an INSULINDE RACER

until the moment he flew off the road, got bruised, and the bicycle was damaged from the violent fall.

[De Locomotief, 17 April 1900]

European in the Netherlands Indies could afford a horse, but there was a group which could still afford a bicycle. This may explain why in the literature about Malaya we can read about horse racing and other highly favoured British sports, such as cricket, golf, football, tennis and even billiards; but rarely about cycle races. We know that besides breeding horses, the Arab Alkaff family in Singapore, owned a bicycle and motor-cycle racing track, but these are probably of a rather late date.²³ In the Netherlands Indies, in Java at least, horse races were also the social event of the season for the ruling classes, but at the end of the nineteenth century an alternative for the less well-to-do appeared. Cycle races were organized at least as early as 1900, complete with special contests over a distance of one kilometre for beginners. 24 Within a few years cycle racing was a sport with a large following, and there was even a cycle champion of Java.

With Europeans cycling, other population groups also took up the sport. At the close of the nineteenth century Chinese notables in the cities took to cycling, as did Indonesians. This had immediate legal consequences. In 1898, in order to ensure that Indonesians did not suffer from sore feet, the Resident of Surabaya generously gave natives under his jurisdiction special permission to wear shoes when cycling. It was a development that proved unstoppable. Within a few years the first native bicycle clubs made their appearance, while by the outbreak of World War I, Indonesian youngsters had discovered the bicycle as a speedy vehicle to show off their bravado, just as nowadays they ride their motor-cycles in their quest for attention.²⁵ Modernity, whether in the form of bicycles, shoes, motorcars or railways, had firmly been established as part and parcel of society.

What you may ask is the relationship between all this and the Malaysian Resource Centre? Let me hasten to explain to you that such a relationship exists. For one thing I hope that the resource centre can assist me in my search for the bicycle in Malaysia. For another I can disclose that the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology is the proud owner of an office bike ..

23 Freitag 1997: 13.

24 Bintang Soerabaia 19-1-1900.

25 Bintang Soerabaia 3-1-1899, De Locomotief25-2-1904, De Expres 7-7-1914.

12

Briggs, Asa 1990

DaWes, H, 1997

Freitag, U,

References

Victorian things. London etc: Penguin Group.

'N ederlanders op vakantie: reizen voor het genoegen in historisch perspectief', in: H. de Jonge (ed) Ons soort mensen; levensstijlen in Nederland, pp. 159-184. Nijmegen: Sun.

1997 'The Arab merchants in Singapore: attempt at a collective biography'.

(Paper presented to the KITL V workshop , Arabs in South-East Asia', Leiden, December 8-12, 1997)

Ganghofer, L.

1995 'Die Fahrschule', in: Lessing, Ichfahr' so gerne Rad, pp. 177-82.

Garvey, E. G.

1996 The Adman in the Parlor: Magazines and the gendering of consumer culture, 1880s to 1910s. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gernsheim, A.

1981 Victorian and Edwardian Fashion: a photographic survey. New York:

Dover Publications.

Leeuw, K. de

1993 Kleding in Nederland 1813-1920: van een tradition eel bepaald kleedpatroon naar een begin van modern kleedgedrag. 2e dr. Hilversum: Verloren

Lessing, H.E.

1996 Ichfahr' so gerne Rad ... Geschichten von der Lust, aUf dem eisemen Rosse dahinzujagen. Munchen: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag.

, Perrot, P.

1994 Pols, R.

1994 Rother, A.

1996

Fashioning the Bourgeoisie: a history of clothing in the nineteenth century.

Princeton. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Dating old photographs. Birmingham: The Federation of Family History Societies.

'Wie wir in Berlin anfmgen', in Lessing, Ich fahr' so gerne Rad, pp.88 - 107.