However, on a trip to Semarang toward the end of Ramadan last year, I came to a point where I got a little bored. Not because the city lacked interesting places to visit; Sam Poo Kong’s bright red façade surely is visually appealing, but having been there twice already made me wonder whether a third visit would be necessary. The same thoughts also applied to the Great Mosque of Central Java, where I went the year before, and the ancient Hindu temples of Gedong Songo to the south of the city which I’ve also visited twice.
I’m not the most religious person, but since fasting has become an annual ritual in my family (and it’s an easy way to lose weight) I joined my parents in their fast which meant I couldn’t eat or drink anything from dawn till dusk. My mother’s cooking, on the other hand, has always been among the highlights of any visit to Semarang, and even James who my parents now consider as their own son agreed in a post he wrote a few years ago. So I was left with even more limited number of options to kill time: playing with the house cats, re-watching some movies in my collection (I ended up introducing James to the Harry Potter series), and … suddenly I remembered a place my mother suggested to me some time in the past.
Laid out as a miniature version of Central Java, and corresponding to the exact location of each city and regency on the map, the whole complex is filled with pavilions in the shape of traditional houses. The Surakarta pavilion exudes a royal ambiance as it was modeled after the palace in Solo. Meanwhile, the Jepara pavilion is unsurprisingly adorned with fine wood carvings the regency is famous for. A statue of sate/satay vendor sits in front of the Blora pavilion, a nod to purportedly its biggest ‘export’ to many places across Indonesia, while near the Rembang pavilion the statue of Kartini – who fought for women’s rights in Indonesia – stands proudly under the bright sun. Some pavilions, that of Pemalang for instance, unfortunately seemed not well taken care of with its paint peeling off and its signboard partially damaged. However, it still fared better than the Temanggung pavilion which was completely destroyed by fire five years ago and remains in ruins to this day.
Another excursion we ended up doing was a revisit to Kota Lama, Semarang’s old town district built when the city was an important trading port during the Dutch colonial period. However, years of neglect had left its many structures derelict and crumbling, and this condition was exacerbated by the area’s susceptibility to coastal floods which periodically inundated parts of the old town. Fortunately, the rise of the internet – and later social media – has brought Kota Lama to the attention of the general public, not only those residing in Semarang, but also all over Indonesia.
Gradually more and more structures within the old town limit have been renovated, and businesses are starting to trickle in. The government’s decision in 2015 to officially submit an application to UNESCO to include Semarang’s Kota Lama in the organization’s prestigious World Heritage Sites list further boosted the area’s popularity. Change was evident on my latest visit: what was once an abandoned German-owned general store has been turned into a trendy bar and bistro attracting old and young visitors, including my own mother who had gone with a few relatives two years ago; small-scale cafés also popped up at the back streets of the old town, bringing life to what used to be a humdrum of grey buildings.
Semarang’s ambition for Kota Lama is rather high: making it a UNESCO World Heritage Site by 2020. It is, of course, up to the judging panel whether they agree with the Indonesian city’s conviction or not. It is obviously not in the interest of Semarang to see its only submission ending up in the tentative list – a growing catalog of sites submitted by Indonesia which have yet to gain the coveted World Heritage Site title. Currently there are only eight such sites in the country with its latest addition seven years ago.
