Finding Love in The City: Romance of The Poor Chinese Men in Urban Centers of Java 1930s-1940s

Studies in regards to urban landscapes usually revolve around architecture, spaces, and access. In this research, I look at the affective aspect of urban experience by focusing on romance. I turned to Star Magazine’s newspaper consultation rubrics from the 1930s to seek how urban centers were understood and experienced by those who lived in them, as well as how they navigated the space to pursue romantic relationships. Through the rubric, I found that there were tensions between modernity, financial hardship, and Confucian marriages. As the lower-middle class Chinese men struggled in their finances due to the transfers of jobs to the natives post-Ethical Policy, they could not afford model Confucian marriages and had to look for alternative forms of relationships, such as accessing prostitution so prevalent within the urban centers, as well as living with a nyai. Another alternative was offered through consultation rubrics, that is to look for humble, lower-class Chinese women from the villages to maintain the model Confucian marriages. Their stories showed how through the changing of urban landscapes, romantic experiences, as well as gender, race, and class were reconfigured. 

Keywords: Romance, Peranakan Chinese, Affect, Modernization, History of Emotion