1945 Singaraja, Indonesia

Chen Wen Fu

Born 1935

Singaraja, Bali, Indonesia

Interviewed on 02/05/2026

By Brandon Lin

Preface: This interview was conducted in Mandarin, which isn’t my nor my grandfather’s native language, so an exact transcript was difficult to attain. The answers here are pulled from notes I took during the interview.

What is the first movie you remember seeing?

Tarzan by MGM (likely Tarzan and the Amazons (1945)).

Were there other movies you remember seeing around this time?

I remember this movie about a hero in all black with a longsword, which I remember seeing around the same time as Tarzan. The name was “Zoro” (I did some research and think this is likely The Mark of Zorro (1920 or 1940)). My younger brother and I also liked watching the movies where Americans moved out west, the ones with cowboys. I liked “Zoro” since he was a hero (a Chinese idiom was also used here, but I couldn’t catch it). He was like a Robin Hood figure, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. They stood up for the oppressed, and my younger brother and I picked up on this value. I remember picking up good values from these movies and learning moral lessons from them. The Westerns portrayed the cowboys much the same way as heroes in opposition to the Native Americans, which is why we enjoyed them so much as children, but in hindsight this was obviously not right.

How old were you (approximately)?

I can’t remember the exact year, but I was around 10 years old.

What do you remember about the movie? What did you think of the character(s), actor(s), story?

I remember the story of Tarzan, who could fly around the forest. I remember that the main actor was Johnny Weismuller. My younger brother and I liked the movie a lot because Tarzan had a really inspiring physique. There were several Tarzan movies that followed, but they weren’t as good since Weismuller had the best physique, possibly from being a former athlete (my grandfather was an amateur bodybuilder when he was younger). The movie itself was pretty straightforward. There was a group of people who had come to try and take things, and Tarzan would put a stop to it. There were groups of good and bad guys, and Tarzan would stand with the good guys. About the music, I distinctly recall that there was this theme that would announce Tarzan’s arrival. When something happens and Tarzan’s help is needed, then there would be music that indicated Tarzan would be showing up.

Who was with you?

My younger brother. We watched all these movies together.

How did you get to the theater/venue?

We walked to the theater. There were no cars when I was a kid, only horse-drawn carriages, so I walked everywhere. It was around a 15/20 minute walk from our house.

Was there a concession? Did you have a favorite candy?

The theater didn’t have concessions, but they would sell things like water and snacks on the street outside. We wouldn’t get any though, since my parents only gave us the money for tickets.

Do you remember the name of the theater? Were there ushers?

The theater was in my hometown of Singaraja in Bali, Indonesia. There were two theaters where I used to watch movies, an old one called Sampurna and a newer one called Maya. Sampurna was where I watched Tarzan, and it was the closest to my house, so my parents let me go there. There were no ushers.

What do you remember about the theater after buying the tickets and going inside?

We’d buy the tickets, go in and look for seats. There was a first class area in the back with better seating, but all the kids like us sat in the front on wooden benches. If parents were there, they would typically sit with their kids in the first class area. The theater wasn’t fancy. It had a white screen on a stage and fans, since there was no air conditioning. I also remember that there would be this waiting music that would play inside, it was a U.S. naval march.

Chen Wen Fu is my maternal grandfather. Both he and my grandmother were born and raised in Bali, Indonesia.