The story of Boxer Moen - 'Javakampioen' (1907-?)
Another photo album with many photos taken in Java during the Dutch East Indies colonial era in my collection is the album of Louis Frederic Guillaume Dinger, who lived in Surabaya.[1]
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| Louis Dinger in 1937 |
The album contains pictures of places like Tosari, Surabaya harbour and many more but also some newspapers and photos of different kind of sports in Indonesia. One of the pages has two photos of a boxer, a young man named Moen / Moenandar. We see him photographed in the years 1926 and 1933. The note above the page says that he is born in December 1907. I was a little bit intrigued about Moen and decided to do some research on him and dedicated this blog to him. During my research I found out that L.F.G. (Louis) Dinger, the owner of the album was his manager!
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| Moen in 1926 |
I started my online research on www.delpher.nl to see what kind of information was to find in the newspapers, in combination with the words of ‘bokser’ (Dutch for boxer) and it seems Moen was pretty famous that time, born and lived in Surabaya but nothing was to find about his family.[2]
1925
The review of this boxing match tells us that Moen is a more lightweight boxer than Beekman and that he did a pretty good job: his defense was sublime, he is swift and he knows how to dodge! But despites of this, Beekmans won the match.
1926-1927
25 February: He will give a boxing demonstration together with Pierre Lazar in Casino Moulin Rouge in Surabaya, free entrance. In the coming years Lazar will be his opponent in many more matches.
In September he will fight against Amarinto in Solo. A week later his boxing manager Louis Dinger will reveal a scandal to the reporter of the magazine ‘Sport in beeld’. It all happened during a match in Kediri. He claims that his boxers Lazar and Moen advised him to be aware of their opponent Young Santos. The two boxers said to feel that the Amarinto’s gloves felt way to heavy. Moen told him 'Mijnheer, als Santos je slaat, lijkt het wel of je met een stuk hout geslagen wordt' ('Sir, if Santos hits you, it feels like he hit with a piece of wood'). Dinger asked the boxing judge if Santos could remove his gloves and indeed, they revealed that there was a piece of wood in the palm of his hand and his gloves where filled with heavy weighted paper.
In Malang on 21 November Moen will be fighting, in the announcement the reporter write that Moen (a young lightweight boxer of 57 kilogram) is pretty popular: 'He has a lot of talent, has already mastered good technique and despites his wight he punch hard! Due to his always modest and fair behaviour and his moderate demands, he has managed to make himself very popular in a short time and is a well-liked figure in the ring. Moen always made the best of his matches. Recently he won a match in Solo against Amaranto from Manilla, who actually belongs to a higher weight class. His best performance, however, was his match against Young Santos, about a year ago'. See we the review in a later newspaper than we feel really sorry for Moen, he was not on his best because he was suffering from malaria.
Taken the following reviews in the newspapers from Java we see that Moen was dealing with more health problems than malaria. His manager even makes his statement in ‘De Indische Courant’ on 26 march 1927 that indeed the rumours are true: Moen has been sick and suffered from ‘mijnwormziekte’ (ankylostomiasis), nevertheless he is back and ready to fight any match!
1929
Another interesting part of Moens life that I discovered is an article about the organizing of a congress of the Perserikatan Nasional Indonesia (the well-known first Indonesian political party) which is to be hold in Batavia (now: Jakarta) during Pentecost. The Surabaya branch of the P.N.I. will send two members: the engineer Anwari and mister Santoso. In this article Moen is mentioned as a fanatic member who spread propaganda for the ‘partai’ among the native navy soldiers in Surabaya. Other newspapers don’t reveal any information, actually it is a strange article because only Moen’s name is mentioned, while you think there must be more members making propaganda, right?
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| Gedong Nasional Indonesia in Surabaya, right we see the Bank Nasional Indonesia. drawing of Ger Adolfs in 1932 |
1930
On Sunday 29 March 1930 he will boxing with Liong in Sidoardjo. Insiders, so write the reporter, are assuming he will never beat Liong: Moen is working as a mechanic by the B.P.M. and due of his long shifts he wasn’t able to train such good as Liong. Well, Liong won this match, so the insiders where correct in their prediction.[3]
A month later on Sunday, 20 April he was boxing against the Malang soldier Noach during the ‘pasar malem’ in Bondowoso. In this review the reporter described the match in a lively story with Moen as the big winner, being swift, defending and dodging and ended with the words ‘Zelden zagen we hier in Indië zoo’n hard bevochten strijd’ (‘rarely we did see hard-fought match in Indië’). Immediately after this match Moen got challenged by a an soldier from the audience named Poeniran. The promotor of the boxing matched didn’t accept the challenged, he claimed that Moen was way more better trained than the soldier but at least he would give it a try. Next evening Moen and Poeniran would give a ‘demonstration’ (what is not a real fight) for the audience. With hands on his back Moen dodged every punch of Noach, and the audience started laughing, in the end the soldier realised he was indeed not a good competitor so they closed ‘the show’ with a friendly hug!
In 1931 I didn’t see any notes of Moen, which is really a pity….
1932
In the same newspaper of 26 June ‘Bokser Moen’ gives a statement what (in his own opinion) truly happened, it was a setup match! He was asked by Pierre Lazar to give a demonstration that day with Mc Tich, so he accepted because Lazar was un employed and he would bring his own gloves. But when he arrived, he realised it was a real game, a game where he didn’t got an chance to train for. During the fight Mc Tich boxed with the laces out his gloves and hit him hard under his eye and at that point Moen tried to be smart and just to give up this fight. Moen ended his statement: ‘Laat Mc Tich gelukkig zijn met zijn overwinning. Dit heb ik echter van dit boksavontuur weer geleerd, dat boksen hier in Indië bij unfaire promotors een gevaarlijk experiment blijft’.[4]
On 4 august there was a big match during the annual fair in Semarang. A large advertisement was used to promote the upcoming boxing match and some days before a reporter announced that Moen had to fight in the main match with Kuiper, the navy champion. Both boxers were praised for their qualities, and it has been told that the hard punches of Moen feared all his opponents…And these punches become real for Kuipers, in 9 rounds Moen tried to beat him and finally Kuipers got knocked out. The reporter left no stone unturned and attributed his loss to his advanced age, in other words it's the time to leave the boxing ring…
Later the board of the ‘pasar malam’ fair stated that Moen had an accident with his motorbike when he drove back to his homeplace Surabaya and suffered injuries to his head, hands and knees. Nevertheless, he will be boxing with Young Santos on the the coming 11 August. Later we see that Moen will win this match…
The reporter of ‘De Indische Courant’ in Surabaya of 16 September tells us a bit more about the boxers in Java, and he is totally not sharing the opinion that Kuipers is too old, on the contrary he is a pretty good boxer! And, so the reporter goes on, every man in the audience around the ring say this and that about boxer, they always know it better, but how many matches did they ever fought? The reporter then tells us everything about the boxers and about Moen’s career he seems to know much: 'As a schoolboy of just 16 years old he started with boxing against a lot of well-known and popular boxers like Young Santos, Wim Voll, Alberts, Liong, Amaranto and Mohammed-Amin. Some people who didn’t seen him boxing for a while would maybe think he is still a ‘katjong’ but they have to take a closer look, says the reporter because he is already boxing for 7 years and he is not that little boy anymore. Despite his work, which not give him much opportunity to focus on his training, he is still giving good matches'.
So, if we give a short calculation and if it’s true that he is born in December 1907 than indeed he is still young: 25 years.
On Saturday night 7 October during Surabaya’s annual fair there’s was -off course- a boxing match. Here Moen didn’t fight because on Wednesday he lost from a boxer named Spetter. The reporter writes us that manager dinger was not amused about his lost, it was the fault of the organisation, Spetter was way more heavier then Moen…actually the reporter blamed manager Dinger for not foreseeing this.
1933
And during the pasar malam in Kediri he will be fighting on 20 Juli again against Lazar ‘Kampioen van oost-Java’. Moen here is betitled as ‘Indisch kampioen’.
And during the pasar malam in Semarang on Wednesday 8 Augustus again boxing with Amaranto. A fancy advertisement in the ‘Algemeen Handelsblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië’ will trigger a lot of people. And here also we see that the natives pay the least, but have to make do with a standing place.
Then he got some more matches: 28 Augustus against Van der Goes in Surabaya, but he lost, the reporter didn’t say any good in Moen’s behalf: 'he must be overtrained or he is on his way out!'
In the same city on 7 September, he was fighting again his opponent Lazar, their match remained undecided, here the reporter didn’t mention anything about a bad shape!
On 12 November another boxing match was to hold in Surabaya’s Sampoerna theatre against Van der Goes. According to the reporter it was not really an excited match to see and Moen was not in a good shape with a bad endurance due his previous health problem. In points Van der Goes and the boxer Sarwie came out as winners.
1934/1935
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| Moen in 1933 |
A month later on 21 October once again he boxed with Kok in Jember’s ‘aloon-aloon’. Kok won this match by points and in this article we read that both rivals where in ‘running condition’ without any lack of ‘fighting spirit’. During the annual fair in Surabaya on 17 March a boxing competition was organised. And the old opponents Kok and Moen would have their fight once more. This time would be one of the best moves of Moen, already in round one he punched Kok so hard, that he felt and had to give it up.
Sadly, after this I never found anymore reviews in the newspapers about Moen. I am wondered what happened? Maybe anybody know the answer? It seems that until now his photo in this this album is the only remaining one. So, I just want to end my blog with a dedication:
Mas Moen (1907-?), SAYA SANGAT MENGHORMATI ANDA!
Notes:
[1] Born in Nieuwe Amstel (near Amsterdam), 4 october 1891, son of Willem Nicolaas Dinger and Johanna Elisabeth Tancrelle. The Dinger family was pretty known in the DEI.
[2] The newspapers from Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) are indeed wonderful and the best sources for this subject, however since 2021 no newspapers from DEI are updated at www.delpher.nl. I am aware that in the years of 1920-1930's a magazine was named ‘Sport in Beeld Actueel Wereldnieuws’. This magazine is not digitalized and most of them are kept at the Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia. I hope to visit the PNRI in the future.
[3] B.P.M.: Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij.
[4] 'I hope MC Tich will be happy with his victory. I learned now that boxing in Indië can be an dangerous experiment if you let yourself with unfair people'.
Pasar malam = In Bahasa Indonesia it means a night market, but the Dutch used it for a fair.
The illustration of the meeting at Gedong Nasional Indonesia is from the book "Nieuw Soerabaia : de geschiedenis van Indië's voornaamste koopstad in de eerste kwarteeuw sedert hare instelling, 1906-1931", Faber, G.H. von, 1935; https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=MMKB31:026163000:00001
Blog by Giorgio Zanoli
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