Chinese Officers in Cirebon

The city of Cirebon was not as large as Batavia (Jakarta) or Semarang, but its location on the northern shore of Java made it an important harbour city from which the inland regions of the southern part of West Java could be serviced. As a harbour town, Cirebon became the regional centre of trade and commerce, and many Chinese immigrants settled there. As were other cities, Cirebon fell under the governance of the VOC and later of the Netherlands Indies administration A Chinese officer was appointed to deal with Chinese community issues in the region. With the exception of the well-known Major (Majoor der Chinezen) Tan Tjin Kie, whose funeral is described in his son\u27s book, little is known about the other Chinese officers in Cirebon. Most publications concentrate on the Chinese officers in Batavia or Semarang or in other large cities. Numerous Chinese officers were appointed in Cirebon and in the surrounding regions. Many of them were members of four or five big families. This article describes their lives, families, and descendants, their businesses, and their whereabouts

Theatre Works' Desdemona: Fusing technology and tradition

“Interculturalism” needs to be expanded and redefined to include the responses of spectators as well as the work of artists. In what ways does Theatre Works' Desdemona, as seen at the 2000 Adelaide Festival, represent a “new wave of Asian production”? Or are such works disturbing evidence of the increasing erosion of the local

Weighted Bergman kernel functions associated to meromorphic functions

We present a technique for computing explicit, concrete formulas for the weighted Bergman kernel on a planar domain with weight the modulus squared of a meromorphic function in the case that the meromorphic function has a finite number of zeros on the domain and a concrete formula for the unweighted kernel is known. We apply this theory to the study of the Lu Qi-keng Problem.Comment: 11 page

Universalization or localization? Issues of knowledge legitimation in comaprative education

The endeavor to unite the universal and the accidental in both, the physical and the social world into one theoretical framework – the idea of such a unity can be found already in the Chinese concept of Tao – dates back in the modern culture to the Enlightenment. Such a unified knowledge came to be understood as a potential tool of forecasting and controlling societal progress. All through the positivistic 19th century, comparativists followed Marc-Antoine Jullien de Paris, who thought educational comparison should become an exact science whose outcomes could be used anywhere and transplanted to any place. It was Michael Sadler who as the first comparative educationalist strictly refused the idea of cultural and institutional borrowing. Under his influence comparative education focused on the variations unique to the single countries and to the factors underlying these variations. Even the later emerging functionalist method remained in the tradition of a „one-dimensional logic“, which, as Marcuse alleged, was inseparably connected with the rationale of domination of nature and society. It is only the postmodern sight, which – without giving up the humanistic ideas of modernity which originated in Western modernization – opens possibilities to enter a cross cultural dialogue and to accept multiple theoretical realities. (DIPF/Orig.)Der Beitrag bietet einen breiten Überblick über grundlegende Tendenzen in der historischen Entwicklung von Vergleichender Erziehungswissenschaft. Dabei unterliegt der Darstellung implizit und explizit durchgängig das Bewußtsein, daß vergleichende Wissenschaft im weitesten Sinne weder ein Monopol der jüngsten Epoche noch etwa eines einzigen Kulturraums darstellt. Mit seiner analytischen, aber auch normativen Interpretation von gegenwärtigen Tendenzen postmodernen Denkens sieht er die Möglichkeit eines transkulturellen Dialogs über die Weiterentwicklung und Erweiterung der etablierten (westlichen) Vergleichenden (Erziehungs-)Wissenschaft. (DIPF/Orig.

Dr Oen Boen Ing Patriot Doctor, Social Activist, and Doctor of the Poor

This article examines the efforts and achievements of Oen Boen Ing, a Tionghoa doctor, to improve the quality of health of the poorer inhabitants of Surakarta. Dr Oen played an important role in five different periods: Dutch colonialism, the Japanese occupation, the Indonesian revolution, Soekarno's regime, and Suharto's New Order. Known for being a benevolent doctor, activist, and patriot of the revolution during his life-time, Dr Oen also gave medical assistance to the needy, which famously earned him the accolade of “doctor of the poor”. During the Indonesian revolution, Dr Oen assisted the Student Soldiers (Tentara Pelajar) and afterwards was appointed the member of Supreme Advisory Council (Dewan Pertimbangan Agung/DPA) by Soekarno in 1949. As a benevolent doctor and activist, Dr Oen is remembered for founding the Panti Kosala Hospital which was renamed to perpetuate his name on 30 October 1983, exactly a year after his passing. When he died, thousands of peoples gathered to pay their final respects to the doctor. He was honoured with a ceremony conducted in the Mangkunegaran Palace. Dr Oen's name will be eternally respected, especially in Surakarta