It seems to me that the sensible section is the one that is open to admit that it forms a special people, a people that will continue to exist and a people that has a right to be considered the equal of any other. Too often, alas, those of predominantly Dutch blood try to out-Hollandise the Dutch, making themselves loathed by their fellow Indische Jongens whom they affect to despise, and either being laughed at or just used by the full-blooded Dutchmen. The third section is quite numerous and used to get them all a bad name, for sometimes in the big towns numbers of them used to form gangs of robbers, as in the old Kemayuran area in Batavia, where they practised the deadly form of Malaysian boxing, known as Penchak, whereby they could attack and kill a man in a few seconds. In the Penchak method of fighting, a lithe little man can spring from a crouching position on the ground and dislocate the neck of his opponent with the lightning blow of a foot, and the Indische Jongens in the old days would undertake to kill a man for a few dollars paid them by his enemy. Still, it is difficult for the Dutch, who helped beget them, to blame these bitter and rebellious people for the violent way they attempted to exist in order to get their own back on society.

But it is among the Indische Jongens proper that I had most of my friends. Physically a good looking, healthy and scrupulously clean people, their women have the reputation of being among the most exquisitely beautiful in the world. Mentally their obvious fault is one they can eradicate, a fault common and understandable in all Eurasians – a form of inferiority complex. Nearly all of them know it, and show it; but they talk about it openly and call themselves fools for it – which almost certainly means that they will eventually persuade themselves out of it.

Their intelligence is better and acuter than that of the average Dutch soldier – of that I am certain. And they don’t laugh at the elephantine and ponderous jokes of the Hollander with his ‘bierbuik’ – their sense of humour coincides more exactly with the English. They are musical, artistic, and sensitive; and once you get to know them, a very pleasant people.

One may ignore the Hollandised type, for though they are pathetic, they are very satisfied with themselves. But how are the Dutch going to treat the main problem, or are they going to try and ignore it? And are the Indische Jongens going to demand anything sensible and constructive? It is an interesting situation for the spectator.