--- title: Sense of Place: Jakarta description: Behind Jakarta's crisp neoclassical National Museum is the cluttered neighborhood of Kebon Jahé Kober, named for ginger farms that once occupied the area, and for... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6938172/sense-of-place-jakarta/ author: Tim Kindseth article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2009-12-02T05:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-22T07:27:58.989Z og:title: Sense of Place: Jakarta og:description: Behind Jakarta's crisp neoclassical National Museum is the cluttered neighborhood of Kebon Jahé Kober, named for ginger farms that once occupied the area, and for... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6938172/sense-of-place-jakarta/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9f22a21ae5c46001/698a4f53096a9416146afd04/360_jakarta_1214.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 360 og:image:height: 203 og:image:alt: 360_jakarta_1214.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sense of Place: Jakarta twitter:description: Behind Jakarta's crisp neoclassical National Museum is the cluttered neighborhood of Kebon Jahé Kober, named for ginger farms that once occupied the area, and for... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9f22a21ae5c46001/698a4f53096a9416146afd04/360_jakarta_1214.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Sense of Place: Jakarta > Sponsored content. 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Its journalism is reported and edited by a professional newsroom led by Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs, with named correspondents on politics, climate, health, technology and culture. It reaches 1 million US print subscribers and 1.15 million globally, plus more than 1.1 million newsletter readers. #### How do I subscribe to TIME magazine? Subscriptions are at time.com/subscribe-agent. Choose digital only at $20 a year, or print and digital from $29 a year or $49 for two years. TIME also publishes seven free email newsletters at time.com/newsletters, which do not require a subscription. #### Can I cancel a TIME subscription? Yes. TIME states that subscriptions can be cancelled at any time. #### Does TIME have free newsletters? Yes. TIME publishes seven free email newsletters reaching more than 1.1 million readers, covering daily news, Washington politics, health, AI, climate and energy, culture, and the newsroom itself. They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=7264ac51-e4d8-47e9-b3b3-75ac9db1703b&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=7264ac51-e4d8-47e9-b3b3-75ac9db1703b&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) by [Tim Kindseth](https://time.com/author/tim-kindseth/) Dec 2, 2009 5:00 AM UTC  Dawn breaks over Jakarta's Merdeka Square — the center of Pram's brooding anthology Dawn breaks over Jakarta's Merdeka Square — the center of Pram's brooding anthology by [Tim Kindseth](https://time.com/author/tim-kindseth/) Dec 2, 2009 5:00 AM UTC Behind Jakarta’s crisp neoclassical National Museum is the cluttered neighborhood of Kebon Jahé Kober, named for ginger farms that once occupied the area, and for a colonial cemetery some blocks away. There, in a wrinkle of ashen alleyways, the 24-year-old Pramoedya Ananta Toer — Indonesia’s most prominent writer, who died in 2006 before getting the Nobel he deserved — lived with his new wife and her family after being released from prison in December 1949, just weeks before Dutch authorities recognized Indonesia’s independence. After 2½ years in jail (for being caught with anti-Dutch paraphernalia), you’d think anything would be a welcome change. But Pram, as he’s popularly known, found the place foul and unlivable. The gutters were full of human ordure and the air was stale from the smell of “cheap death,” he recalled in the story “My Kampung,” from his early collection _Tales from Djakarta_. Its mordant stories revolve around what is now Jakarta’s central Merdeka (Freedom) Square, and the streets close by. Visitors today to the Indonesian capital might find Pram’s take extreme. True, men and boys still relieve themselves in Kebon Jahé Kober’s sewers. But the small neighborhood, in the middle of Jakarta’s bustle, is an oasis of quiet lanes with socks drying on bamboo poles and friendly _bakso_ (meatball) vendors sucking on spicy, crackling _kretek_. They’ll smilingly guide you to the still standing, ramshackle house of its most famous onetime resident, at No. 8, Gang (Lane) III — although Pram didn’t really do much to deserve local affection. Not only did he quickly tire of his first wife and move out, but in “My Kampung,” he skewers his neighbors as dim-witted and superstitious. An ailing print setter, for one, concludes that his baby’s death from tetanus has sated the Archangel Gabriel; therefore, he thinks, I must be safe from death’s swift messenger. Two weeks later the print setter croaks, his pancreas corroded from lead poisoning. Dark, but hardly atypical of _Tales from Djakarta_, in which the characters suffer awful and lonely fates, ranging from sexual abuse to execution. [(See TIME’s Global Adviser for more getaways.)](https://www.time.com/time/travel/tipsadvice/globaladviser) “Ketjapi,” published in 1956 and the last of the 13 stories, is about a Sundanese debt collector who moves to Jakarta after his marriage fails, his only consolation the melancholic tones of the story’s namesake instrument, his future “tattered and full of holes.” It’s an equally apt description of Indonesia, which had recently emerged a sovereign but brittle country after centuries of Dutch rule, Japanese occupation and four years of revolution. Reflected in each of Pram’s protagonists from the fringe — illiterate wash maids, scabietic houseboys, night watchmen, guttersweeps — are the growing pains of a tentative new nation. In “Stranded Fish,” homeless, starving former freedom fighter Idulfitri wanders by lusty foreign-movie posters with “naked thighs” on Merdeka Square near the Presidential Palace and wonders, “Why aren’t there any pictures showing how hunger twists and turns in my guts?” The rest of the story is a picture precisely of that, as Idulfitri engages in Godot-like banter with a fellow revolutionary turned rake while they scrounge for a meal. Eventually they sell a monitor-lizard-skin wallet to a hawker on South Gambir Street (now Jalan Medan Merdeka Selatan, home to banks and the U.S. embassy) for satay money. Before that, they doze in a corner of the square popular with “shadows of the night” like Aminah, a prostitute from the lurid tale “News from Kebajoran.” She dies in a fit of delirium on a cold concrete bench nearby. How ironic, then, that a statue of Raden Kartini, the women’s-rights advocate whose biographer Pram would later become, now stands in the square. The prostitutes have since moved elsewhere, and as it was for the Dutch, who knew it as Koningsplein (King’s Square), the area today is a place of easy leisure, of bucolic clumps of crape myrtle and mahogany trees, whose center is the Monumen Nasional — founding father Sukarno’s heroic white obelisk. From its observatory deck, you’ll see the Kali Besar, Jakarta’ big canal dug during the city’s prosperous days as a tropical spice-trading port, running north. South is Menteng, the early 20th century planned garden neighborhood where local elite, like the late Suharto’s clan, reside. For them Jakarta again is a town of joy, booming with steel, glass and shining retail spaces. But _Tales of Djakarta_, in which the poor bathe in the canal’s toxic “yellowish water” and Japanese officers fill Menteng’s villas with comfort women, obstructs those pretty views. Though not void of hope, Jakarta for Pram was a town of tough and busy griefs. The _bakso_ sellers in and around Merdeka Square might still agree. [Write to the Travel Avenger with all your gripes.](https://www.time.com/time/travel/avenger/form) [See 50 essential travel tips.](https://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1912492%5F1912514,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6938172/sense-of-place-jakarta/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6938172/sense-of-place-jakarta/"},"headline":"Sense of Place: Jakarta","datePublished":"2009-12-02T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-22T07:27:58.989Z","description":"Behind Jakarta's crisp neoclassical National Museum is the cluttered neighborhood of Kebon Jahé Kober, named for ginger farms that once occupied the area, and for...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6938172/sense-of-place-jakarta/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9f22a21ae5c46001/698a4f53096a9416146afd04/360_jakarta_1214.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tim Kindseth","url":"https://time.com/author/tim-kindseth/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9f22a21ae5c46001/698a4f53096a9416146afd04/360_jakarta_1214.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"360_jakarta_1214.jpg","caption":"Dawn breaks over Jakarta's Merdeka Square — the center of Pram's brooding anthology","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6938172/sense-of-place-jakarta/","name":"Sense of Place: Jakarta"}}]}] ```