New Indonesian-Chinese ‘kya-kya’ market a cultural and tourism hub for Surabaya
- The port city has often had a Chinatown market but discrimination against Chinese people over the centuries has meant a ‘kya-kya’ was not a given
- Now a new weekend night market has opened, with local government backing and halal Chinese food to appeal to the Muslim-majority population
Silvia Gunawan’s 13km journey from her home in the western suburbs of Surabaya to the Indonesian port city’s northern area was marred by heavy traffic and took an hour, but she was not fazed.
The Chinatown night market, an initiative to promote the area’s Chinese heritage, was relaunching to great fanfare on September 10, and the 39-year-old did not want to miss it.
Known locally as “kya-kya”, it had been closed since 2005. After a mammoth launch back in 2003, the then privately-run night market opened to foodies every day of the week before closing down, seemingly due to dwindling sales.
In the daytime, though, the street is – and has been for hundreds of years – full of bustling shops, a thriving thoroughfare in a Chinatown dating back to Dutch colonial times.
“It was quite a long drive, but I was curious to see kya-kya again,” said Gunawan, whose mother and teenage daughter had also tagged along to enjoy the revamped weekend-only market, which is, this time around, backed by the local government.
The term kya-kya is Hokkien in origin, meaning “walkabout”, to denote a sprawling night market where alfresco stalls sell culinary delights and other trinkets associated with Chinese culture.