THE CHARM OF THE HAUNTED MANSION: MUSEUM FATAHILLAH JAKARTA (I’M PRETTY SURE JP COEN IS STILL HAUNTING THIS PLACE)

 

Hi guys. You know, I can’t live without writing something. That’s why I have this blog. Now I wanna write about my new job (just started to work here 3 months ago) which is in a school. No, I don’t work as a teacher here but much as an ordinary staff. You know, go there, do that, and so on. But I like my job since I like to get around children. Funny, because usually I don’t like children. Like, whenever a relatives came and brought their funny kids to me, I just yelled, “Keep that THING away from me!” Yeah, I used to hate kids. But kids in here are different, they are very polite and well behave #not you, secondary students#. And they all speak English since it’s an international school.

Anyway, one day I had this opportunity (or task if I could say) to accompanied secondary students (in Indonesia: SMP) in their field trip (in Indonesia: study tour, yeah I know it’s not Indonesian but that’s how people in here called it). Where did they go? To Kota Tua Jakarta. When I first heard that, my first thought was, “EWWWW, THAT PLACE AGAIN??? Don’t they have anywhere else to go?” Because if you follow my blog, you can read my rage (in Bahasa) about Museum Fatahillah in one of my post entitled “Memoir of My Shitty Journey: Kota Tua Jakarta”. Jeez, I hate that place. But it was a call of duty, so I went there anyway. Surprisingly, I found so many interesting things that was worth for being posted in here. And the kids also make this trip so much fun too.

We started our journey by passing Pondok Indah road at Friday morning, which I’m sure most of you already know that it’s a pretty much a NIGHTMARE. Yes, a crazy traffic jam from school to Kota Tua. In the beginning, our trip went smoothly since we used the busway lane (which was AGAINST THE LAW by the way and not a good thing to be taught to the student). But this is Jakarta guys, sooner or later you will get caught on a traffic jam. The teacher who was sit next to me (a Singaporean btw) was quite surprised by the condition of the road, “OMG, look at the jam! So crowded and the cars are not moving.” I was kinda embarrassed, you know, to show the real condition of Indonesia to the Singaporean teacher. A traffic jam in an ordinary road, a traffic jam in a FREEWAY, random vendors selling random things inside a tunnel (a freaking tunnel for Christ sake), vandalization (writings on the wall) inside the same freaking tunnel, and bla bla bla. Even she asked me when she saw the writings on the wall inside the tunnel, “Is it a gang member who made that?”. And that I read it,

“SMKN tiiiiit *censored*”.

I answered, “Nope, that’s actually a school name.”

Great ha?

Anyway, we finally arrived in Kota Tua in one piece and we got to the first stop, Fine Arts and Ceramic Museum (which is used to be a court building at Dutch colonization era). There’s nothing interesting enough about that place, except that when we came, there was a film shooting over there. A student asked me, “Who’s the artist?”. I answered, “I don’t know, Dewi Persik perhaps?” *Dewi Persik making movies about history, no way in hell* Oh yes, and there’s a very well maintained antique stairs that was very beautiful inside. I like it very well.

Second stop was the Wayang Museum. Nothing interesting in there either, except for one creepy doll that really freaked me out (I forgot the doll’s name though). I hope they didn’t keep jalangkung inside. The museum was also dark and gloomy. What made me sad, this place was used to be a church, but they made a huge renovation inside, made it unrecognizable as a church and pretty much *destroy* the historic value of the place. But the people who work here were really nice. Ah, and the kids also learned how to make a puppet inside.

  

Third stop was the finish line, Fatahillah Museum which the Dutch used as the governor’s office when they occupied Batavia. A student asked me what was stored inside the museum. I answered honestly (since I have been there before), “Just random crap. Nothing important.” *just don’t tell other teacher I said that* When we entered the museum, the first things that the kids saw was two mannequins being executed (and it’s very convincing). Yeah, a great way to teach children about history, by showing people being HANGED in front of museum’s door. I’m pretty sure that a lot of people died in this building.

We then went upstairs and saw some of the collection of paintings, old chairs, dusty cabinet, and so on. Our guide was a nice lady who could speak English very well (forgot the name, but she reminds me of a colleague of mine who works in HRD office). She’s very nice to kids and even though she didn’t mention anything about JP Coen’s ghost, it can be easily concluded that this place was totally creepy and perhaps haunted. This place didn’t have any safety standard either. In second floor we stepped onto old wooden floor with lots of cracks. I could even saw people passing below me through that crack! Jeez, how about giving this place a bit of reinforcements, hello people who work here?

The second floor was quite creepy, especially the “mysterious closed red door”. Yes, from the name I’m giving, you’ll know that the door is closed and it is red. The weird thing is why was it closed? Do they keep something in there so it won’t come out (a zombie perhaps, Lady Gaga, who knows)? Even I could see things moving when I peeked from the keyhole (reminds me of one of my urban legend, “The Keyhole”). But then I realized that the door was connected with another room that was opened for the public. So things I saw moving was actually other visitors who were in the other room. Ah, lame.

Just kidding …

Wonder why they keep all of those spooky stuff all the time. Even the baby bed in this place was creepy.

I swear to God they use this in Insidious movie

The funny thing was when I looked out from the second floor window, I saw Hermes statue (which the replica is in the Harmoni brigde) standing outside in the backyard. A student asked me, “What do you see Sir?” and then I answered, “Hermes statue. And he’s naked by the way.” (at that time I could see his butts, not a pleasant sight). And people just rushing to the window to see it.

Ewwwwww!!!

Then we back to the first floor to see the prison room. The kids were very excited about that, even though some minutes ago they kept complaining, “When we go home Sir?”, “I’m thirsty.” and things like that. The dungeon was small, dark, and smelly. But that wouldn’t stop the kids to explored. They screamed when they entered the dungeon *someone made a prank I guess*. And a kid also bragged that he saw skeleton inside. When I looked inside, no skeleton or ghost, just weird metallic balls all over the place. I thought, what was that? Some sort of minimalist decoration *inside a prison cell?* But then when we looked around the canon nearby, the guide told us that the balls were actually canon bullets.

I definitely won’t come in there

Oh yeah, and the Hermes statue...when we saw it the kids were kinda disappointed because it covered by a leaf.

But they’re still having themselves posed in front of the statue with a “naked model” style which I considered very hilarious. What suspicious about is where did these kids know about that “naked model” style? And the most suspicious of all is how do I know about that “naked model” style? *ups*

Finally we got home at evening. It’s only a day but it’s a hard job keeping these kids NOT MISSING. But they’re all in one piece when we got back to school, praise Lord. Thanks also to the driver that kept us safe through that horrible jam. Ah, and I hope we will have another field trip like this *because I don’t have to work LOLz*

NB: Thing I learned from the trip: There is a sentence like “I want to poo so bad.”