Kretek: The Culture & Heritage of Indonesia’s Clove Cigarettes by Mark Hanusz
They say that smells are our oldest memories. This would mean that the scent of cloves reaches back into that blissful period of early childhood gathered around my Grandmother Johnson’s baked ham dinners when that indescribable aroma of cloves would hover in the air.
But my first experience with the heady kretek was as a high school kid in the 1950s, way before I had even heard of a place called Indonesia. We’d take the MTA from Wellesley into Boston and buy clove cigarettes from the tobacconist on Harvard Square, coughing and spitting as we tried to look cool puffing on these weird smokes.
Anybody who has ever walked upon the hot tarmac of an Indonesian airport or clambered down the gangplank onto an Indonesian dock can never forget that first exotic whiff of a clove cigarette. After a long absence, the same spicy fragrance detected in foreign lands evokes powerful memories of the far-off islands.
My addiction to kretek over the years has gotten me kicked out of bars in Amsterdam (curiously, the ex-mother country does not tolerate kretek in public places) and has burned holes in a dozen pairs of pants. Once in Australia a group of us at a late night party were so desperate for a puff of cloves that we grounded up kitchen spices and inserted the powder into roll-your-owns.
Kretek cigarettes, love them or hate them, are quintessentially Indonesian. Clove cigarettes were originally sold through pharmacies as a cure for asthma. Though cloves were rarely used in Indonesian cooking, over the cig’s 100 year history the demand for kretek has spawned several world-class corporations. It is estimated that the kretek industry employs an estimated 260,000 workers - critical to the national economy.
Producing and selling cloves are the traditional livelihoods of virtually thousands of small traders, the savior of many a household and the source of financing for the education of hundreds of thousands of school children. Clove cigarettes are the conduit by which countless young warung girls meet future husbands.
Now there is a wonderful book - an end-all, be-all survey and picture essay of the famed cigarette. Kretek: The Culture & Heritage of Indonesia’s Clove Cigarettes explains its social and historical significance, describes the manufacturing process, examines the ingredients and takes a close look at the inner workings of the companies — both traditional and modern - that produce and market clove cigarettes.
The visuals are the most impressive aspect of this beautifully produced book — black and white vintage and contemporary photographs (many full page bleeds) of accoutrements, clove plantations, manufacturing equipment, factory workers and sales staffs; close-up dramatic portraits of Indonesians enjoying a smoke; reproductions of collages, dioramas, packaging and advertisements; color prints of old watercolor renderings and posters.
The volume is a pictorial chronicle of the whole cross-section of Indonesian, and particularly Javanese, society as it progresses through the 20th century — from colonial times to the present. The author/ publisher, Mark Hanusz, has done a brilliant job of picture editing. The picture credits read like a roll call of some of the world’s top tropical research institutes and photo galleries.
Collectively, the book’s illustrations are in fact one of the most peculiar assemblages of period and cultural artifacts you will ever encounter. Like a museum catalog, its pages encompass the aromatic cigarette’s entire history, traditions and mystique. Also like a museum catalog, the print quality is outstanding which makes it an object valued by collectors of Indonesiana.
In a Foreword penned by the country’s foremost man of letters, Preamoedya Ananta Toer reminisces about his boyhood memories associated with kretek — trading labels and selling corn-husked spiffs in the market to put himself through school.
This singularly engrossing book is at the same time a formidable work of scholarship and a recondite tale of tobacco, spices and diligent entrepreneurship. The concept, the quality of the writing and the fascinating illustrative material qualify Kretek as a publishing triumph.
Kretek: The Culture & Heritage of Indonesia’s Clove Cigarettes by Mark Hanusz, Equinox Publishing (www.equinoxpublishing.com), Jakarta 2000, ISBN 9-7995898-0-0.
Available for Rp475,000 at Periplus Bookshops in the Bali Galeria in Kuta, Warung Made in Seminyak, Ngurah Rai Airport, in Gramedia bookstores and in the Matahari in Kuta Square.
For comments, please write : pakbill2003@yahoo.com
