Ex-Migrant Laborers from Sulawesi Tell Us the Stories Behind Their Tattoos

In Nunukan, Jalal was left by his family. Unsure what to do, he walked aimlessly to a market where he met an old man who was willing to take him in as a son. For a few months, he lived together with his new father and did what he could to help him out. “My foster father had his own child," Jalal tells me. A year later, his father told Jalal to find his foster brother. So he did.

Jalal's foster brother was working in Sabah, Malaysia. But before Jalal left on the journey, his friends told him he wouldn't be able to enter Malaysia without a tattoo for some reason. "So I got myself a tattoo," he says.

The image on Jalal's left arm looks more like a scribble now. I stare at it for a while but still can't figure out what it was supposed to be. It’s a bird, he finally says. An unfinished one. “When I was getting tattooed, it hurt so bad," he says. "I couldn’t stand it and told the artist to stop. So here’s what I got."

Jalal now lives in Sosso', a village in Polewali Mandar, West Sulawesi. To get to Sosso’, you have to cross two rivers, walk along a small footpath surrounded by coconut trees and langsat. The village is home to dozens of people who, like Jalal, left Sulawesi to migrate elsewhere for years before they eventually came back. It's not difficult to set them apart from other Sulawesi locals in the area because they have similar tattoos that they drew on one another to remind them of their journey as migrant laborers across Indonesia.

Syarifuddin had just finished the 3rd grade when he left Sulawesi to work as a migrant labor. “I left the house carrying my school report," he tells me. "I went to Kalimantan and helped people cooking or getting water at camps. I heard migrants get a lot of money. You get money just from sleeping. So when someone asked me to come along, I said yes."

In Kalimantan, Syarifuddin found a job carrying timber from the forest and dump them in a river where other men in boats picked them up at the downstream. “Because I was young, I got scolded a lot," he says. "I got hit too. I cried a few times,” he said. As he got older, he learned how to fight back. The beating stopped then.

Most of them have grandchildren now. They show off their tattoos playfully, but they look slightly embarrassed of them when their children and grandchildren walk by. Each of their tattoos has its own story, but I notice that a lot of them has the same tattoo. It's the one that says "ASBUDI"— an acronym for anak Sulawesi buang diri or "Sulawesi migrants" in English.

“It’s like a sign," Sulaiman says. "If someone has that tattoo, that means we’re brothers."

In 1986, 18-year-old Sulaiman followed his brother's steps and migrated to Papua. After a long trip to Sorong—now West papua—he became a woodworker. He stayed there for a year before heading to Seram Island in Maluku. A year later he moved back to Papua, to a city of Marauke and then to Asmat.

Merauke in 1987 opened Sulaiman's eyes to the life of Sulawesi migrants. “Some of the migrants have already settled in," he recalls. "They built houses there, but had to order stones from Makassar or Surabaya. There was none there."

In 1989, a friend gave him his tattoos—one of ASBUDI and another of a long-haired female figure. That same year, the timber business just wasn’t cutting it anymore. Sulaiman got himself a new job as a shark hunter. But on his first day on the job, he was arrested by the Papua New Guinea Coast Guard. Sulaiman was imprisoned for a month. After he got out, he got another tattoo to remind him of that dark period of his life forever: “Daru, 17-3-89 PNG."

Sulaiman returned to his hometown in Sulawesi in 1992. He bought a house and started breeding and raising horses. "I've had my difficult times and adventures," he tells me. "Now, I’m just a farmer. My kids are in college and I have grandchildren. I’m just enjoying life."

He has a tattoo of badik—a traditional weapon from Sulawesi—on his right thigh. Under the badik is a name of a woman, Herlina. “Who’s that?” I ask.

"I'm embarrassed,” he says, laughing.

“An ex-girlfriend from your migration years?”

“It’s the past.”

Back in Sosso' village, a man named Ikhlas lifts up his sleeve and shows me a tattoo of a fake name he used as a migrant labor in Malaysia. Ikhlas, who went by Lukman for a few years, worked in Palu, Sabah, and Kalimantan before going back to Sulawesi.

In Malaysia, Ikhlas worked a timber worker for six years. In 1989, when the timber industry took a hit, there wasn't much to do. “At the time, a lot of us were halau (laid off), so we didn’t make any money," he says. "We just got ourselves tattooed."

Some of Ikhlas’ tattoos have faded and turned purple. On his thigh is a tattoo of a bottle that says Athi, the name of an ex-girlfriend. Then there's a tattoo that says "Looking For Friends." "Us migrants are everywhere, always looking for friends,” Ikhlas says.

I meet another man, Syarifuddin. He's smoking on his terrace wearing nothing but shorts, revealing his chest tattoos. They're of a tiger and the word KENT, a Malaysian cigarette brand. But nope, he says, KENT is an acronym that means "You arouse me."

“I like the cigarette as well, but KENT stands for 'karena engkau nafsu terbuka,” he says.

On his left arm is an image of a butterfly. “I was what people call a night butterfly," he says, laughing. "This is the symbol. I was a playboy."

Kasim Soyyang, a 45-year-old man, migrated to Malaysia in 1988. He worked at an oil drilling refinery. On his right arm is a naked woman, and on his left arm is a peace symbol that consists of two fingers and the numbers 2159. His experience as a migrant laborer wasn't always pleasant. In 1990, Kasim caught malaria. He was in pain for 10 months before finally getting treatment at a clinic in Tawau. After getting better, he got into a fight with a Filipino laborer and had to spend 18 months in prison. “I got out on 16 August 1993,” he tells me.

Muhammad Ali bin Kaco, a 59-year-old man, says it hurt like hell. “It’s like being bitten by tons of ants,” he says.

Ali has tattoos on both of his arms. One is a bull and the other is a dragon. Those tattoos were done in 1976, when he was out of work at a oil drilling refinery in Kalimantan. “I wanted a cow, since before migrating I was a cattle farmer," he says. "But on the Chinese zodiac gambling papers we used for reference, there was only picture of a bull, so I thought, that’s close enough."

Darman, 46, migrated to Sabah in 1988 and worked as a palm oil worker and house construction. “Working at a palm plantation is like a 24-hour job and you make almost nothing,” he says.

On his right arm is the words "Sabah Malaysia Derita 5 Tahun," or "A 5-Year Struggle in Sabah, Malaysia." On his left arm is a long-haired woman. “So the friend who tattooed me said if all the tattoos you have are just words, you're not a man," he says, smiling.