
[the 9 brothers of Thung]
Maybe you've ever wondered why I always put 'Ratu' before my name in my friendster or facebook profile? Here's some explanation I can give, since it's related to my family history. I don't really know about the details but to make it short, let's say that my grandpa (father of my dad) was the 10th descendant of a royal Bantenese, Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa. That was where the title of 'Tubagus' for boys and 'Ratu' for girls came from. And that made me the 12th descendant of the great local hero.
At the hero's 6th or 7th descendant was this famous Thung from Bogor for Thung in Chinese means 'water' and it came from the name of Tirtayasa which also means 'water' in Sanskrit. This Thung guy went to Bogor for he had been one of the refugees from Batavia in early 1900s. Lots of native Bantenese married Chinese descendants at the time and that made me one of those 'peranakan' who kind of lost their identities because we're all neither native Bantenese (they don't consider us as their kind for we're not Moslems) nor we're Chinese. Plus, for the Tunggonos ('Tunggono' came from the name of 'Thung' and all of the family's names are bound to what means 'water' such as Tirtagangga, Tirtayasa, Tirtadjaja, Thung, Tunggono, and many more), we're not English, too (which came from my Irish-English grandma Bridget Harding from London around 70-80 years ago.)
Btw, I went to Bogor with my family yesterday, to attend the reunion of big family of Thung. We went to an old house, built in 1904, in Jl. Surya Kencana (was Handelstraat.) There I met lots, around 150-200 ppl, family I've never known. There were a lot more who didn't come so it must be a lot. Of course, my ancestor, Thung Bouw Lim, was the first son of 13 siblings from Thung Brothers, whom were the Kioe Seng Tong community.
At the hero's 6th or 7th descendant was this famous Thung from Bogor for Thung in Chinese means 'water' and it came from the name of Tirtayasa which also means 'water' in Sanskrit. This Thung guy went to Bogor for he had been one of the refugees from Batavia in early 1900s. Lots of native Bantenese married Chinese descendants at the time and that made me one of those 'peranakan' who kind of lost their identities because we're all neither native Bantenese (they don't consider us as their kind for we're not Moslems) nor we're Chinese. Plus, for the Tunggonos ('Tunggono' came from the name of 'Thung' and all of the family's names are bound to what means 'water' such as Tirtagangga, Tirtayasa, Tirtadjaja, Thung, Tunggono, and many more), we're not English, too (which came from my Irish-English grandma Bridget Harding from London around 70-80 years ago.)
Btw, I went to Bogor with my family yesterday, to attend the reunion of big family of Thung. We went to an old house, built in 1904, in Jl. Surya Kencana (was Handelstraat.) There I met lots, around 150-200 ppl, family I've never known. There were a lot more who didn't come so it must be a lot. Of course, my ancestor, Thung Bouw Lim, was the first son of 13 siblings from Thung Brothers, whom were the Kioe Seng Tong community.
I am the 5th descendant of the great Thung. And the reunion was the first big one after so many years and hopefully this could be the first one for we're gonna make it annual every 29 September for it was the birthdate of our ancestor, father of the Thung Brothers.
We left the family reunion by 1 p.m. after lunch and stopped by to buy Ngo Hiang (famous food from Bogor), taro (=talas) and other stuff from Bogor, finally left Bogor by 2 p.m. and dropped Clemy by before dropped me home. Then I went to 6.30 p.m. mass at Church Blok B with Aunt Magda's family and dropped my Oma Greta (mum's mother) home after dinner.

















[









