In 1925, among the many kinds of wayang (shadow puppet) in Indonesia, there was the emergence of an exceptional type of wayang kulit (puppet made of cow skin) created by Gan Dhwan Sing, a genius Chinese-Javanese artist from Yogyakarta, Central Java.

He was praised for his brilliance in bringing together two different cultures, Chinese and Javanese, and created a new form of wayang kulit called a Chinese-Javanese wayang.

Gan Dhwang Sing was born in 1885 in Jatinom village, Klaten, Central Java. He came from a Chinese-Javanese family.

From a young age, he had developed a fascination for storytelling and painting.

His grandfather used to teach him the Chinese language and told him legends and folk stories.

He was also a very keen fan of wayang performance in his village.

In 1900, he moved to Yogyakarta and learned the art of Javanese puppetry and music.

He also studied the Javanese language.

The concept of Chinese-Javanese wayang is based on Javanese pakeliran and Chinese legends.

The characteristic of Chinese legends and folk stories is that the flow is complicated and goes round in circles as though the story never ends.

These two different aspects are skillfully combined in a form of wayang kulit performance following the pattern of Mataraman style pendalangan (Yogyakarta style narration).

He invented the so-called adapted Javanese characters to enable him to spell and pronounce Chinese names in the performance.

He became the penatah (wayang craftsman) of his own wayang.

Moreover, he managed the overall performance by himself including acting as the dalang (narrator) and wrote the background music for the performance.

The difference between these types of wayang with the traditional wayang kulit purwa (Solo/Yogyakarta style) is that the former does not include the traditional Javanese entertainer/comedian group or punakawan consisting of Semar, Gareng, Petruk and Bagong which usually appears in the transition episode between the first and the last acts, while the latter does consist of the punakawan act.

The performance is divided into three acts symbolizing the human life cycle, namely, childhood and teenage, adulthood and old age.

Gan Dhwang Sing's passion and aspiration to art and literature live on and have inspired a new generation of Chinese Indonesians in celebrating the diversity and fusion of both cultures.

They are involved in the development and promotion of various aspects of Chinese-Indonesian art and literature, such as Kwee Tek Hoay, Ong Pik Hwa, Teguh Karya (film), Ko Ping Ho (comics) and Didi Nini Thowok (dance performance).

(China Daily 08/30/2005 page1)