The Narrative of Indonesian Cultural Heritage: Peranakan Houses in Pecinan Lasem, Indonesia

Abstract

A narrative involves the process of telling all experiences related to culture and can form a new understanding of the object of research, so that a narrative affects the way people perceive historical buildings. The article focuses on narrating the historical building in Chinatown Peranakan houses in Chinatown, Lasem, intending to provide an overview of cultural acculturation, as well as the problems that occur in the Peranakan houses. This qualitative study is based on researcher’s experiences and exploratiory literature. Interview has been made and visual documentation has been taken during repeatedly observation start form December 2017 until December 2019. The discussion findings show that the Peranakan houses in Lasem have richness in cultural influence, such as Chinese, Javanese, and European, but unfortunately need serious attention from the owner, the surrounding community as well as the government. The houses are experienced being abandoned, destroyed, used on but suffer from over-decoration and are unfortunate in the event of exploitation. Thus the implementation of preservation and conservation properly should be carried out to avoid the shortage or even loss the identity.