Monday, March 17, 2014

LEARNING ABOUT PUPPET AT PUPPET MUSEUM IN JAKARTA

Jakarta is the capital of Indonesia and has a lot of things to see. If you are museum enthusiastic, Jakarta got dozens of museum to see. One of the museum in Jakarta was a Wayang or Puppet Museum. This museum is located in the Old City area of western Jakarta.
Puppet Museum Building
The Puppet museum building was once an old church building which was built by the VOC, the Dutch East India Company, in 1640. At that time, the church building was named "De Oude Kerk Hollandsche" and was used as a place of worship until 1732. 

After being completely destroyed by an earthquake, the building was later repaired and restored several times. This building also switched functions several times serving as a storage shed (1912), Monument (1936), Museum of Old Batavia (1937), Old Jakarta Museum (1957), Museum Jakarta (1960), and Wayang Museum in 1975.
an information computer

the hall at first floor
The first time I entered this museum, I was blown away with how neat and clean it is. There is a small hallway leading into the inside of the museum. On the right and left walls there are glass displays containing some of the characterizations of the puppet shows from the Mahabharata and Ramayana story. In each display there are some explanations in Indonesian and English.

Inside this museum there is a small garden with 9 inscriptions showing the name of the Dutch officers who were buried in the courtyard of this building while it was still functioning as a church, including the most famous one, Jan Pieterzoon Coen. By the way, the Dutch Officials' graves must have been moved to their home country, because i did not see any headstones in here.
Dutch inscription wall 
Jan Pieterzoen Coen Inscription
On the second floor, there are more puppets than on the 1st floor. Some of the puppets on display are the main characters of Mahabharata and Ramayana stories like Krishna, Rama, Ravana, Arjuna and all of his brothers. There's also a room where puppets from other countries are displayed.

Moving to another room, there's a set of traditional musical instruments that usually accompany the puppet show. The instrument is called Gamelan. After this room you will see a hallway with a mask display. Most of the masks are from Java and Bali.
Mask display


Souvenir shop
At the end of the hallway section, near the exit, there is a small souvenir shop. There are a few items for sale ranging from key chains of various sizes, t-shirts, to the puppets. The price also varies from IDR 5.000 to hundreds of thousands rupiah, depending on the type of items you want to purchase. (EKW)

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