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Some Indonesian Chinese stuck in poverty

Indonesia`s ethnic Chinese minority is well known for business acumen and fabulously rich tycoons, but a less visible underclass is stuck in grinding poverty, as in this ramshackle collection of hamlets.

Indonesia: Indonesia's ethnic Chinese minority is well known for business acumen and fabulously rich tycoons, but a less visible underclass is stuck in grinding poverty, as in this ramshackle collection of hamlets.With a high proportion of Indonesian Chinese, Kebon Mangga is only about 5 km from Jakarta's international airport.


But it seems a world away. On the approach to the village, locals wash clothes in filthy looking brown canal water while children swim and play upstream.

''The government doesn't really support the Chinese community,'' said Yo Nan Hwa, a 48-year-old Indonesian Chinese mother from the village in the district of Tangerang.

Asked if anyone in Kebon Mangga had become rich, Yo chuckled and said: ''If you want to be rich here you have to be into black magic.''

Standing outside her simple home which has an incense stick above the door, she wears a T-shirt with a logo reading: ''Life isn't easy.'' Inside, there are a few faded photos of her ancestors on walls made of matted bamboo.

Yo's 21-year-old son, who works in a shoe factory, said things were getting harder and saw little future in the village, where some Indonesian Chinese have been for seven generations.

Ethnic Chinese represent only three per cent of Indonesia's 220 million people, but the more affluent members of the community have had a strong influence over big areas of the economy, sometimes causing resentment.

Many of Indonesia's top business groups are Chinese-owned, led by tycoons such as Sukanto Tanoto, who according to Forbes is Indonesia's richest man with a worth of USD 2.8 billion, and Anthony Salim, head of the world's biggest noodle maker. But in Kebon Mangga that cuts little ice.

Chinese brides

''Now is more difficult. Everything is expensive'', said, Lie Yani, sitting barefoot as she scales a pile of silver-coloured fish lying on the ground, a process that attracts many flies.

The 46-year-old mother of five, who sells fried food such as tofu for a living, said she would celebrate the lunar new year in mid-February with relatives and eat sticky rice cakes.

Poverty is widespread in Indonesia, with nearly half the nation living on less than 2 dollars a day, according to the World Bank.

A jump in fuel prices after a cut in government subsidies and higher rice prices have also hit the poor hard in recent years.

Oei Elly, a 38-year-old mother of five who complained of being sick, said she had to rely on sons and help from a local Chinese temple that provides rice to the poor to make ends meet.

With a weary look, she points at the roof of her home made of coconut leaves, which she said leaks when it rains, turning the earth floor into a quagmire. Some Chinese Indonesian women in the area opt to marry men from countries such as Taiwan in the hope of escaping their dreary lives and helping out their families.

Bureau Report