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rt forms of all the regions and ethnic groups in the archipelago. And to realize this idea in line with the motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika ( Unity in Diversity ), the regional government feels obliged to develop all traditional art forms as equitably as possible with the local Betawi art forms as host heading the rest. (Jakarta Now-Culture)

Based on that information, several points can be argued here. Put in the page about Jakarta culture, this may signify that the culture of Jakarta is referred and attributed to Betawi culture. Nowhere in the narration, does the information explain about other cultures except in their personification and embodiment inside Betawi culture. In its brief explanation, the information leads the multicultural aspect of this city into one summary of 'the local Betawi art forms as host heading the rest'. The notion of local and non-local can be abstracted here. It identifies that Betawi culture as local while the others as non-local. While, when we try to look outside, not far from where the museum stands, the notion of locality may become a very complicated term.

The Dancing Lion
To find out the unofficial points of view about this history, mainly related to the Chinese ethnic and identity, I enrouted to Glodok Business District. Located around one kilometre from the Stadhuis, Glodok is an oldest business district of the city and is a home for Chinese ethnic. Dated back to the account of Chinezenmoord, Glodok was 'a separate Chinese quarter [which]was built outside the town' (41) as notified by Blusse. Connecting this, to the notion of locality referred to Betawi culture and ethnic meets its irrelevant reference.

My conversation with Pak Latif Yulus, owner of Warung Kopi Tak Kie (coffee shop), provided me with a different perspective in the narrative of history of Jakarta, opposed to what the museum 'projected'. Accompanied by some digitalized Mandarin music and song in the background, boosted from the Hi-fi sound system, Pak Yulus shared his stories about this city and the people who live in it, even he gave the story and myth about the lions that I spotted in the Glodok area and in the Stadhuis.

He warned me that 'beware a€| the lions in the stadhuis are sometimes spotted to be alive in the midnight'. He explained that the stadhuis is always haunted by many spirits and ghosts. And, he told me that he has the ability to see those things and the power to exorcize those spirits; the ability that he said he learnt from 'the book of Buddha'. He then explained that the placement of the lions at the main stairs of the museum was related to 'Hong sui, because 'orang-orang bule'(the western people) also believed in it'.

From his stories about the lions and stadhuis, I can draw that for him the place is present in the form of mythical and mystical. The way he narrated the stories about the museum, 'routed' back to the ideoscapes of the Chinese mythologies and superstitions. The rationality that is depicted in the construction of the building, through the classic baroque architecture, is interpreted in superstitions. This perhaps, was also the familiar perspective for the Dutch during the construction of the building, as inscribed in the dialogue among the materiality of the museum. This shows that the stadhuis is the result of the cultural transactions between certain ideoscapes which are, then, materialized in certain techniques of construc