My Biography
    by Roderick C. Wahr

Introduction The First Years The Early Years The Middle Years
Recent Events

Introduction

The story of my life off and on the web. Ofcourse the story is still in progress.....

My father is of Swiss (his father being one of the early civil engineers operating in South East Asia) and also of Indonesian descent (his mother being a Minahassa - Nothern Sulawesi - citizen of the Tambajong lineage). Being born in Hong Kong (where his father then resided) on January 1st 1910, he was a British Subject. At the age of 7 they returned to Indonesia where he completed his education at Dutch schools in the Minahasa, Cirebon (W- Java) and Batavia (former Jakarta),. At 18 he joined the K.P.M. (Royal Packet and Navigation Company - the largest shipping fleet in South East Asia) as a junior clerk. Where he proceeded to become the Head Agent for East Indonesia, being the only locally engaged person to achieve that in 1956.

My mother was of full Indonesian descent. Being of the Warokka lineage (from Amoerang and Kawangkoan) of the Minahasa, where her father, Willem Henry Warokka, was one of the 7 only tribal heads (hukum tua); she was a respected person in that area. She was educated in Jogyakarta (Java) at the university for law. Her formal education was completed at Dutch speaking schools.

I am the 2nd child of my parents. Their first child, a daughter named Isabella, was born in 1939 in Sumbawa Besar (on a little island, Sumbawa, in the Indonesian Archipelago) but passed away at the age of 10 months, causing them great grieve. Since my parents felt guilty for not having christened the child, my father built the first Catholic Church in Sumbawa in the same year. In 1987 I visited the place and found the church was torn down in 1986. After their experience my parents tried to adopt a local child as my mother did not expect to be able to conceive children anymore. However, the child (5 years old) kept running away, back to its natural parents, so the idea was further abandoned. To her excitement my mom found herself pregnant again in 1941 announcing my coming to this world.

I was born under the Chinese Astrological Sign The Snake and the Western Astrological Sign of Capricorn. To be precise, I was born on January 5th 1942; 3 months later Japan invaded Indonesia.

The First Years - WWII

1942

January - March

• January 5th - I saw the first light of this world.  --  March - Japan had invaded Indonesia, and also landed in Sumbawa. My father (a British Subject at the time) who worked as an Agent for Holland's largest Shipping Fleet in Asia, fled to the hills of Sumbawa, however he was caught and made Prisoner Of War.
  He was taken to Tanah Toraja, Central Sulawesi, where he remained as POW for the rest of the war. In the POW camp he befriended the artist W.G. Hofker, who is now famous for his Balinese paintings.
  As my father became a POW, my mother fled with me to the island Lombok where she hid with me in the kampong in Ampenan. She raised me by herself during the war, making a living as a teacher.

1943 - 1945

Ampenan.

• Village life in Ampenan was very simple. The little shacks and stoney streets provided for much of a playground for children. I participated in all the things the village children endeavoured in. My mom always took me with her wherever she went.
• Teaching is a sacred profession in Japanese eyes. My mother taught at primitive elementary schools and enjoyed not being hassled for any other jobs. She raised me as good as she could under the circumstances.
• I was only taught the Indonesian language to hide the fact that I also was of Western descent. My red hair betrayed me a little, but eventually I was regarded as some kind of mascotte by Japanese soldiers. I was often found singing Japanese marching songs while following the colons of soldiers marching the village streets.

The Early Years

1946 - 1953

Reunion - Travels - Elementary School

• At the end of WWII my mother tried to find my father. After a while she heard from the captain of one of K.P.M.'s ships that my father was alive and well in Pare Pare, central Sulawesi. She hitched a boat from Lombok to Pare Pare where we were once again reunioned with my father, who miraculously survived the war and then was placed in charge, by the Australian liberators, of redistribution of confiscated goods by the Japanese invaders. In Pare Pare my mother also met up with a long time room mate of hers (from boarding school in Gorontalo - Minahassa) who meanwhile had married, Tutie Habibie. Tutie, her husband and children had lost most of their possessions during the Japanese invasion, so my mom persuaded my father to help them with all their housing inventory. (When later, beginning 1970's, her son Rudy became Indonesia's minister of Research and Technology, we were invited in The Hague, Holland, for the ceremonies).
  In my eyes my father was a strange white person mainly speaking a foreign language with my mother, Dutch. It took a while for me to accept that person as my father, but eventually I did.
• In 1947 my sister, Lily, was born in Pare Pare and at the ripe age of 5 years my mother taught me how to read, providing me with lots of books, starting my insatiable craving for new experiences. My father held the position of Agent once again for the K.P.M. in that little harbour town.

• In 1948 my father was lent by the K.P.M. to the Indonesian Government to start Indonesia's first National shipping company. The company was started on a shoestring budget in Makassar (now Ujung Pandang) in South Sulawesi. It's name was M.K.S.S. (Maskapai Kapal Selebes Selatan). The K.P.M. in it's way tried to sooth the upcoming nationalists movements developing all over the country. However, the M.K.S.S. became too much of a success, since it took away all cargoes of Sulawesi from the K.P.M. and grew from zero ships to 3 ships paid for in one year, working on full profit. This necessitated in my father being called back after that year by the K.P.M., for fear of too much competition.
• After that venture, in 1949, my father earned a full year of foreign leave from the K.P.M. (also to avoid nasty questions from the Indonesian Government about the reasons for withdrawing my father); we went to Holland - because my father worked for the (Dutch) K.P.M.
  In Holland my twin brothers, Leo and Richard, were born in Amsterdam. It was a strange country, cold and full of pale-skinned people. In winter snow fell from the sky and you had to wear lots of thick clothes. You had to wear shoes! And people ate cheese. And you had bread for breakfast. All these are strange impressions for someone from a natural tropical country. I remember well that I did not like the big city of Amsterdam. Young people would look at me strangely and call me names, they would also yell: "go back to your jungle, you china man". While on leave we moved to a little village, Nunspeet, in the country. The people there were much more friendly. We were special and I was taken everywhere by the schoolkids. They even joined me up with a local soccer club, where in the first match I managed to strike a goal against my own team, 'cause someone forgot to teach me the rules. I liked Nunspeet.
• When we went back to Indonesia my father was stationed in Kupang on the island of Timor, where my father was redirected to as Agent. Kupang was a lovely rural harbour. The traces of war were still all around; broken down tanks and cannons in the fields and jungle provided an exciting playground for children like me. It was here that my parents engaged our long time servants, Annus for houshold chores, Riwu for gardening and odd work and Lina as our babysitter-nursemaid and watchdog over children. Life went back to normal, I went back to school (Indonesian speaking), took my share in the normal streetgang fights shooting at each other with catapults and behaved like all the other Indonesian kids, like getting dirty, falling off trees, shooting animals in the jungle and on the rocks by the seaside with bow and arrow or catapult, trapping birds with ingeniously wrought traps. I felt closer to the Indonesion street kid than to those pale colonial kids who were always being good and watching out not to get dirty. I was always happily up to some mischief. Once I set the woods on fire behind our house, causing great commotion within our neighbourhood and lots of scuttling to and fro with buckets of water by everyone around. I just wanted to fry some eggs that I had stolen from my mothers chicken coop. Unfortunately no one had told me that in the dry season you shouldn't experiment with an open fire in the woods. At least I was at the center of everyone's attention, costing me the traditional punishment of a fair whipping with a, kept specially for that purpose, rotan cane by my father. I can still hear its swashing through the air before it hits. My mother would always balance things out by hugging me later on, careful not to touch my sensitive backside, and saying I shouldn't do such things anymore.
  I also did a fair bit of diving and fishing in the sea, since my father built a house on top of the rocks, right by the sea in the bay of Tenau, a little emergency harbour. In those days the value of mother of pearl was not so highly rated, so I did a lot of collecting for my mother who liked to build artistic contraptions out of them to decorate our house. Going out fishing at night in a little perahu (fishing boat) was a normal thing. In the early morning I would help fishermen empty their nets and select their fish, for which in reward I would get to pick some nice pieces myself. My mother was not always happy with my pickings. She was not too fond of preparing sea snakes and 1 meter long sharks. And Riwu, our garden help taught me how to eat roasted giant grasshoppers and barbequed pigeons that I shot in the woods.
• In 1952 my youngest brother, Eddy, was born, completing our team of 5 children. Actually, Eddy was a little 'accident'. My mother had taken precautions not to get pregnant again after Leo and Richard, however, fate decided otherwise. At first they wanted to name him Fan Tan, after a gambling game that my father was playing and winning at the "Pasar Malam" (night fair) while my mother was in the process of giving birth. Anyway, Eddy got his name because in my fathers line of the family, the last child was always an 'Eddy'. So there!
• At that time my father was due for another transfer, and we moved to the harbour town of Singaradja, Northern Bali. We stayed there precisely 6 months. I liked Bali. To cross from North to South, Den Pasar (90 km), it took one day. We'd have to go through dirt roads in the mountains, see the monkeys coming down from the trees to catch some food from the travelers. The wood carvings and other arts of Bali were of fascinating intricacy and beautifully crafted, unlike today where time is money and art is quick copy.
  In Bali I discovered shrimp fishing. Behind our house there were some tall bamboo woods, and in those woods there was a crystal clear brook about 5 meters wide and up to 2 meters deep with stones at the bottom. There were places where the brook ran shallow and you could see transparent shrimps resting on the stones at about 60 - 90 centimeters deep. We would make horsehair lassoes on the top of a 'sapu lidi' , the middle of a coconut twig. Very, very carefully we would lasso the eye of a resting shrimp at the bottom of the brook, careful not to disturb the water. A quick tug, and we had another addition for our evening meal. A wonderful experience, along with many others in Bali.
• Ending 1952 our idylic surroundings changed by my father's transfer to Makassar again. Here my father became a major Agent with the K.P.M. Makassar was the capital for shipping in East Indonesia and my father was being groomed to become the head Agent for that area, covering from Sulawesi, Bali until New Guinea (now Irian Jaya). Those days were rural days. Nationalism in Indonesia was strongly on the rise and anti Dutch powers emerged. In Makassar it was strongly felt. For that very reason my father was chosen to head the Makassar harbour. Until then the full blooded Dutch Agents found it hard to survive, with all the strikes and threats to their lives taking place. My father and mother's background provided some protection based on close relationships with the military from Manado, the Minahassa, and we were reasonably left alone. Except for one close shave, where we, the children, were threatened to be kidnapped. My father sent my mother and the other children to the Minahassa, Nothern Sulawesi, and I was put on one of the K.P.M.'s ships to Australia, to get us out of the way. After a few months the situation cooled down and we were allowed to return. My father had managed to keep everything under control, making the K.P.M. happy and officially promoting him to the first non-Dutch expatriate Head Agent for East Indonesia.
• This event in 1954 also earned him another 1 year foreign leave, where we again chose for Holland. I had meanwhile passed elementary school 1 year prematurely; I was lazy but was lucky to have disciplined parents who taught me the need to study, rotan cane behind the door. Also I was lucky to be gifted with sufficient natural intelligence to pass exams without really trying.

The Middle Years

1954 - 1959

Holland - High School.

• The story continues. In 1954 my father was due for another year's leave in Holland, so all of us took the cruise with the Dutch luxury passenger ship the "Willem Ruys". The trip took approximately 6 weeks, going through the Suez Canal. During the trip there were games on deck and dancing in the evening for the elders, and us kids had a whale of a time at the swimming pool.
  When we arrived in Rotterdam the environmental change, once again, was impressive in my mind. Everything was organized and tidy and so clean; not to mention the crisp coldness in the air during autumn. No, I still did not like Holland much then. As a kid I had to be nice and well behaved, constantly dressed and follow rules. It seemed like the whole world was watching me, that Asian kid with few manners, strange habits and Indo Dutch accent.
  This time we stayed in Hilversum, in an old stately house, "Huize Pelabuan", with white pillars, along the Vaartweg. The old lady of the house lived on the first floor, along with another family who temporarily lived there. The family there had a nice daughter of my own age, Ilske den Ekster. She was very Dutch, but we took a liking to each other for the duration of our 1 year stay there. My parents really enjoyed their holidays. They took cruise trips by boat along the river Rhine up into the heart of Germany. They had a wonderful time while we, the kids - and our nurse maid Lina who came along with us from Indonesia, ventured into the playgrounds of Hilversum.
  When my parents came back from their trips into Europe they investigated the possibilities of leaving me behind in Holland to go to school. It was decided that I would go to "Duo Decimo", a respectable private school in Hilversum, also on the Vaartweg.
• My high school days in Holland

1959 - 1963

Traveling again.

• In this period of time I traveled again.
• Nigeria, United Kingdom, became singer/popstar

1964 - 1969

Back in Holland - First Jobs

• Got back to Holland
• Started composing own music
• Songwriter/Performer, started work at Philips Telecommunications

1970 - 1986

Computers and Building a career

• Fanatically embraced computer technology
• From operator, to programmer, to designer, to consultant
• Started first software house, others followed

Recent Events

1987 - 1988

Back to the Roots

• Got the itch for traveling again
• Indonesia, back to the roots
• Adventures in the Emerald Belt

1989 - 1990

Back in Holland

• After first lessons about going native again, back to Holland
• Adventures in consultancy in Holland
• Advisor for University Town Council

1991 - today

Return to the Archipelago

• Back again for another lesson in native surroundings
• Doing business in Indonesia
• Experiencing and getting used to local business culture