My Dutch Wife

When I first traveled to Indonesia a lifetime ago in 1979, I noticed that the beds all had a long body-length oblong pillow. I asked someone why, they told me they were called “Dutch wives.” The idea was that by hugging it, it somehow kept you cooler in the hot Indonesian nights. 

 

While it was England, Spain, France and Portugal that did the lion’s share of horrific colonization in the glamorized “Age of Exploration,” the Netherlands joined in and invaded Indonesia, particularly in Java. They were every bit as brutal as their other West European counterparts, enslaving people to increase the spice trade that motivated them in the first place (always “follow the money”). But unlike the British in Ghana, for example, there are very few traces of the Dutch presence in modern-day Java save a few colonial buildings. Very few speak Dutch, there are few (or no) Dutch schools that I’m aware of and though there are many Indonesian restaurants in Amsterdam, there are few (or no) Dutch restaurants in Jakarta. Perhaps their most last legacy was the Dutch wives pillows.

 

At any rate, I have one on my bed here in Taiwan and though it’s far from hot here, I can report my sleep has been better hugging my fluffy surrogate wife. Certainly not an ounce of sexual energy here, just the grand pleasure of embracing something soft and cozy with no expectations of small talk or long-term commitment. 

 

Sometimes all it takes for happiness is hugging a pillow.