Correspondence Memory: Kring… Kring Pos

Memori Korespondensi: Kring… Kring Pos

The front facade of PT Pos Indonesia’s Head Office Jessika Nadya.

GThe flower generation and gen-X Can still remember the postman on his bicycle, visiting people’s homes, delivering letters or money orders. So great is his service, that the song “I am a very diligent postman. I deliver letters on a bicycle. I deliver to all houses. I don’t choose rich and poor. Kring kring pos…”, whose melody is similar to the song “My Ancestors Were Sailors” by Ibu Sud. Gradually, the wind-powered carriage was replaced with a motorcycle, which over time was also swallowed up by the times and even auctioned off. In this 21st century, all memories of postcards, postage stamps, telegraphs, giro accounts, as well as the history of mail delivery since the days of the Dutch East Indies can be recalled through a visit to the Indonesian Postal Museum in Bandung.

The Pos Indonesia Museum is located in the same building as the Head Office of PT Pos Indonesia (Persero) on Jalan Cilaki Bandung, a complex that also hosts the West Java Provincial government headquarters known as Gedung Sate.

In March 2021, editors of Indonesiana magazine visited the Pos Indonesia Museum to see the current situation. We had previously searched for preliminary information via Google. When typing “museum pos Indonesia”, the suggested search term that appeared at the top was “museum pos Indonesia haunted”. It’s amusing, but also understandable. Maybe people are curious about the location where the old collections are stored in the basement (the lights must be turned on even during the day). In addition, it is also located in an old building, which includes objects of cultural heritage. Most minds would immediately think: haunted…

Old History in Old Building

Visiting the Indonesian Postal Museum means reaping two things at once: the history of the post in Indonesia, which is much older than the age of the Republic of Indonesia, and the history of the old building that is used as the headquarter of PT Pos Indonesia. We can get to know Abdurahim Djodjodipoera and R Dijar, officials of the PTT Bureau during the Dutch East Indies who received awards for their national spirit and services. In addition to discussing history and archaeology, we can also explore the beauty of the building’s architecture. It’s a complete package.

Architecture as we know it is a combination of works of art, science, and technology in creating space as a place for human activity. Colonial architecture, more specifically, is a grafted architecture from its mother country, Europe, to its colonies. The Dutch colonial architecture is Dutch architecture that was developed in Indonesia when Indonesia was controlled by the Dutch around the beginning of the 17th century until 1942, as written by Djoko Soekiman in Indies Culture from the VOC Age to the Revolution (2011). The most prominent feature is the symmetrical facade and floor plan of the building as well as the entrance gate with two doors.

Data from the Bandung City government states that there are at least 1,700 cultural heritage buildings in Bandung, one of which is the headquarter of PT Pos Indonesia, which is located in the

One of the collections of the Indonesian Postal Museum - Jessika Nadya

Gedung Sate complex, a building with six ornaments piled up in the shape of guava. Gedung Sate itself is only a small part or about 5% of the Dutch East Indies “Civil Government Office Center Complex” which occupies an area of 27,000 square meters in North Bandung (Harastoeti DH in 100 Cultural Heritage Buildings in Bandung, 2011).

These buildings are evidence of the ongoing process and stages of development and growth of the city of Bandung. The Dutch colonial government through “The International Congresses of Modern Architecture” (CIAM) in 1931 appointed Bandung as a prototype of a colonial city

in the world, as quoted by Rizky Pratama in Cultural Heritage Building on ABC Street Area in Bandung (2019).

Similar to Gedung Sate, the PT Pos Indonesia building was also designed by architect Ir J. Berger. It took up to 2,000 workers to build it, and among them, about 150 workers came from Confucian or Cantonese China who were skilled carpenters and stone carvers in their country. The Dutch architect, Dr.Hendrik Petrus Berlage, said that the design of the Central Indies Civil Administration Office complex in Bandung was a gargantuan work.

The postal museum has existed since the Dutch East Indies era in 1933 under the name Pos Telegraph and Telephone (PTT). During World War II until the Japanese era in Indonesia in 1942, the museum was neglected and continued to be neglected until the end of 1979. It was only in the early 1980s that the museum was revitalised. On 27 September 1983, to coincide with the 38th Postel Service Day, the Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications Achmad Tahir changed its name to the Postal and Giro Museum, which later changed again in 1995 to the Indonesian Postal Museum.

Postal Information Kiosk - Jessika Nadya. Indonesian Postal Museum visitor Jessika Nadya

From Stamps to Manuscripts

One of the museum’s collections that are still known today is stamps. The number has reached 131,000,000 pieces from Indonesia and 178 countries since 1933. In addition, there are 200 collections of various pieces of equipment, such as package scales and stamp printing tools, securities papers, mail carriers, and even manuscripts. Other collections include books, visualisations, and dioramas of posting activities, colonial-era clothing, a statue of a Pos Indonesia figure, Mas Suharto, a postal officer who was kidnapped by the Dutch.

We entered the museum accompanied by Pak Cucu, the building guard. The museum is closed on Sundays, and the guides are off, but we were allowed in. We started down the stairs and had our first sight: a photo of Governor General Gustaaf Willem Baron van Imhoff, Founder of the Batavia Post Office (founded on 26 August 1746), which was also the first post office created by the Dutch East Indies. Going down the stairs again, we found several old pieces of equipment

such as a stamp transaction machine with 50, 100, 500, and 1,000 rupiah notes and a manual package scale.

If we turned left, we could see the nostalgic paddle bikes and mail delivery motorbikes. Some of the stamp collections are displayed on wooden boards that are protected by glass so that they can be seen directly. However, some collections can only be seen with the help of officers, because the collections are attached to vertically attached boards resembling a wooden cupboard measuring 1.5 x 1 x 2.5 metres.

One rare collection is the world’s first postage stamp drawn by Queen Victoria. The stamp, named The Penny Black, was issued by the British government in 1840. However, the idea of using postage stamps as a replacement for mailing costs had been conceived long before that, namely on December 3, 1795, by Sir Rowland Hill, a senior officer in the British Tax Service. Collections that are also very valuable are several manuscripts in the form of letters from the kings of the archipelago to British officials which are framed in glass and displayed on the walls of the museum. One of them was a letter from the last king of the Riau-Johor kingdom, Sultan Mahmud Syah, to Raffles in 1811, which stated that a warship would be sent fully armed to assist the British troops. The letter is written in Malay using Jawi letters on English paper. From Lingga, Engku Sayid Muhammad Zain al-Kudsi, advisor to Sultan Mahmud Syah, also sent a letter to Raffles in 1811. At that time, the Riau, Lingga and Pahang regions were under the control of the Kingdom of Johor, which was ruled not only by the sultan from Malay but also the prince from Bugis, who was even more influential. The London Treaty of 1824 stated that the Malay peninsula and Singapore were separated from Sumatra and Riau Islands, which divided Riau and Johor into two. Reproductions of the golden letters of these kings, including those from Aceh, Riau, Lingga, Palembang, Banten, Yogyakarta, Banjarmasin, Ambon, and Ternate, as well as ancient texts from Batak, Malay, Sunda, Java, Madura, Bali, Bugis, and Makassar were exhibited in 1991. The manuscript exhibition was a collaboration between the British Library London, the National Library of Indonesia, and Pos Indonesia.

Such was our visit to the museum. The past seems to be real again, filling the memory of our present. History tells the story through its collections. Not merely romanticizing but making it a foothold for improvement and goodness in the future. Let’s go to the museum! (Susi Ivvaty and Jessika Nadya, Editors of Indonesiana Magazine).

Package scales Jessika Nadya