Malang

The Malang plateau was the heart of two important Javanese kingdoms. Kanjuruhan, known from an inscription of 760, was among the earliest states in East Java, and in 1222 Ken Arok founded Singhasari here, the kingdom whose temples at Singosari and whose statues survive north of the modern city; Singhasari's collapse in 1292 led directly to the founding of Majapahit. The area's early temples, Badut among them, date from this long period of Hindu-Buddhist rule.

The modern city is Dutch. A colonial administrative post was established in the 19th century, and coffee, sugar and later tea plantations on the surrounding slopes made Malang prosperous. Its height and cool air attracted planters and officials, and in 1914 it became a self-governing municipality; the boulevards, squares and villa districts that still define the centre were laid out on plans by the architect Thomas Karsten. Hotels, schools and a military garrison followed.

During the revolution Malang was a republican stronghold, and the KNIP, the national committee that served as Indonesia's parliament, met here; a monument in the city marks the session. Dutch forces reoccupied the city in the fighting that followed. After independence the plantations were nationalised and the city turned to education: Brawijaya University and a string of other institutions made it one of Indonesia's main student cities. Since the 1990s it has grown quickly, absorbing the surrounding countryside, while Batu separated as a city of its own in 2001. The stadium disaster at nearby Kanjuruhan in October 2022, in which more than a hundred people died in a crush after a football match, was a national tragedy that still shapes local feeling about the game.

Malang's identity rests on two things: students and football. Around a dozen universities and colleges bring hundreds of thousands of young people from across Indonesia, and the city's cafés, music venues, independent publishing and street art grow out of that. Boso walikan, a local slang that reverses syllables so that Malang becomes Ngalam, began as a resistance code during the revolution and is now a badge of belonging.

Football support here is famous and intense. The city's club and its supporters are a central part of civic life, with their own songs, colours and traditions, and the 2022 disaster at the stadium in the neighbouring regency left a lasting mark on the community and on the way matches are policed.

Javanese culture continues in a quieter register: wayang and gamelan at ceremonies, ritual meals called selamatan, and the calendar of Islamic observance shared with the rest of East Java. In the highlands around Bromo the Tengger people keep a Hindu faith of their own, with priests, temple ceremonies and the annual offering into the crater, and their villages are among the few places in Java where Hinduism survived the spread of Islam. Manners in the city are informal and friendly, less courtly than in Central Java.

About 890,000 people live in the city itself, and some 3.1 million in the valley around it, taking in the surrounding regency and the neighbouring city of Batu, which form a continuous urban area across the plateau. Students make up a substantial share of residents, and the city noticeably empties during long university holidays.

Education is the largest industry, alongside tourism, food processing, cigarette manufacture, and agriculture in the hills — apples, vegetables, flowers, sugar and coffee. Small household workshops making tempeh crisps, ceramics and furniture are a visible part of the economy, and the tourist trade to Bromo supports jeep drivers, guides and guesthouses across the plateau.

The rhythm of the day is set by the climate and the campuses: cool bright mornings, hot middays, rain in the afternoon in the wet months, and evenings spent outdoors at stalls and squares. Motorcycles dominate traffic, which has thickened as the city has grown. Congestion, the conversion of farmland to housing, waste and water supply, and the pressure of weekend visitors on the hill roads are the everyday concerns, along with living within reach of two active volcanoes.

Malang's signature is bakso. The meatballs are served in clear beef broth with noodles, tofu, fried wontons and steamed dumplings, with chilli, sweet soy and vinegar added at the table; the version with a large meatball stuffed with egg is a local speciality. Cwie mie, thin noodles with finely minced chicken and wontons, is the city's other noodle dish, and it is milder than most Javanese cooking.

East Javanese staples fill the warungs: rawon, black beef soup made with keluak nuts; soto ayam and soto daging; pecel, blanched vegetables with a spiced peanut sauce, eaten at breakfast; and orem-orem, tempeh and chicken simmered in coconut milk, which is particular to Malang. Grilled and fried river fish, sate and nasi campur are everywhere, and the food is generally saltier and hotter than in Central Java.

The hills supply the rest. Apples from the orchards around Batu are pressed into juice, dried into crisps and made into sweets; strawberries, milk and yoghurt come from the same slopes. Sanan, a district in the south of the city, is given over to making keripik tempe, wafer-thin fried tempeh crisps sold in flavoured packets and carried home by visitors. Warm drinks suit the climate: angsle, a coconut-milk soup with bread and rice balls, and wedang ronde, ginger with glutinous rice dumplings, are sold from carts after dark.