Java Girl: A Romance of the Dutch East Indies Paperback – Illustrated, 1 January 2020

Having greatly enjoyed other volumes of colonial literature brought back to life by DatAsia Editor Kent Davis, I couldn't resist having a look at Java Girl, his first foray south of Indochina, to the Dutch East Indies. The mysterious island of Java was my home for several years, and remains one of my favorite places anywhere. The Dutch were long gone by the time I got there. Java Girl gave me an enlightening look at how they lived in this land of "beauty and wonder," and a deeper insight into Dutch colonialism.The Dutch version of colonialism is not like that of the French, to spread their culture, or like the Spanish, to convert the heathen. For the Dutch it was all business. They created the VOC, the Dutch East India Company, the first example of a giant public corporation, one that was exceptionally effective at making great profits from trading in exotic lands. The Dutch controlled vast Indonesia for three centuries, while the tiny Netherlands became the wealthiest nation on earth.Java Girl gives a good sense of how the Dutch did this. They lived among the Javanese, but well apart from them; they stayed focused on business. Originally, that was the spice trade, but over time - like the efficient traders they were - they introduced new crops that the world market desired: sugar, coffee, and tea. To run their vast business enterprise, native peasants were used for the hard work under the sun, but a steady inflow of "decent Dutch chaps" was required as administrators and to manage the plantations. The natives really couldn't be trusted to do that. Our hero, Rene, found his place in a sugar factory. His task was "weighing the sugar cane as it was brought in by natives in oxcarts ands trucks." It paid him "better than anything he could have obtained at home." Not a job to be entrusted to a native, obviously.Javanese culture is one of the oldest, richest, most refined on earth. It's evident that the Dutch colonists never noticed. To be fair, there were Dutch intellectuals attracted to Javanese culture who produced literature and art, and pursued historic, social and scientific research in the East Indies. But the colonists were expats, workers focused on the work that brought them there. Beyond work, life could be "frightfully lonely." "Decent white women" were a rarity. Interesting though, about three-quarters of Java's "European" population were native Eurasians, known as Indo Europeans, "but there could be no true companionship between whites and mixed blood." Which, of course, resulted in what one would expect, the institution of the Njai: "... it has become the custom for the white man to take into his home a native girl, a njai, as they say here.""No man can take care of a house and about fourteen servants, and expect to attend to business too. Again, the colonist can not handle the native servants - it takes a Javanese to do that. The njai assumes full control of your affairs, does the marketing for you, looks after your every comfort, and in fact takes the place of a wife."The njai benefits from this, of course: "She can dress well... is treated with respect in native circles...." This is the issue that Java Girl is built around, not so much romance as a practical, business situation, the way Dutch colonialism was structured. Our hero, Rene, early on says he has not the "slightest idea of paying attention to the native women." He has a girl waiting back home. Let's just say his good intentions don't last very long. For how his particular situation evolves - and to see if love does indeed conquer all - the reader will need to start reading Java GirlThis new DatASIA edition of Java Girl is a very handsome volume, enriched with nearly 300 vintage photos of places in Java that figure in the story. Among them, photos of Java's beautiful women as they were when the book was written. For those with interests in the history of Asia, and its development, Java Girl is a realistic introduction to the Dutch way of colonialism. Colonialism had great effects on the way the countries of Asia evolved in "modern" times, with much of the outcome depending on which country was the Colonizer. It's a factor that sometimes slips by, but one well worth taking into account. I held back one star as the book did not touch on Javanese culture as I hoped – giving it four stars as a readable first hand account of Dutch Colonialism.

This edition of "Java Girl" is not only the 1931 novel, but a book about the novel as well. So the reader can be entertained by reading the story, then along the way, and at the end, learn more background information about what Indonesia (the Dutch East Indies) was like circa 1900. The clearly reproduced period photography is worth 'a thousand words' and the appendices contain intriguing information about the author (s), and, among other things, "Malay Poisons and Charm Cures," should the reader need it.