A common assumption about collecting oral histories is that despite their variations,
a good listener can discern a shared (if contested) narrative frame, a cultural
schema that underlies how people make sense of their unique histories.
What emerged here, however, was an unhomogenized body of accounts built
around the minimal scaffolds of sanctioned formulas. People's recollections
moved between concrete detail and pat statement, rich commentary, terse response and awkward silences. Their memories could neither call on familiar
plots nor be contained in packaged narratives. Many people undermined their
own neat encapsulations as soon as they were offered. Ibu Kilah, a former cook,
made the sweeping statement that under the Dutch "all Javanese were servants,"
only to describe in the next breath a highly stratified Javanese society where
elite Javanese were more exploitative of their servants than Dutch employers.
People seemed unused to talking about, and perhaps even recollecting, these
experiences. In contrast to the elaborated, oft-repeated stories of the Japanese
occupation, these accounts seemed uncrafted, rough-hewn and apparently unrehearsed