tempo doeloe

Borrowed from Malay or Indonesian tempo dulu (“the past, the olden days”).

• IPA^(key): /ˌtɛm.poː ˈdu.lu/

• Audio:

  (file)

tempo doeloe m or n

1. (Netherlands, Indonesia) the period of the Dutch East Indies, the period of Dutch colonisation in Indonesia, in particular as a nostalgic construct in personal, familial or social history; even more specifically, the time between 1870 and the beginning of the First World War around 1914
   • 1978, “Arm Den Haag”, in Willem Wilmink (lyrics), Harry Bannink (music), Weerzien met Indië‎^[1], performed by Wieteke van Dort:

     Arm Den Haag, dat is toch erg dat jij maar niet vergeten kan / de klank van krontjong en van gamelan / In het Indisch restaurant gonst het gesprek van alle kant / tempo doeloe, tempo doeloe in dat verre, verre land

     Poor The Hague, what a shame you can't seem to forget / the sound of keroncong and gamelan / In the Indonesian restaurant, conversation buzzes from all sides / the good old days, the good old days in that faraway, faraway land

• The term is chiefly used by Indo Dutch people (both Europeans and Eurasians) with a sense of nostalgia in reference to a bygone, semi-mythologised era. It is also used for a period before one's own life time. It is not well known outside the Indo Dutch demographic.
• Its use for the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is informed by a certain 'pioneer' romanticism, because this was a period of early modernisation before large-scale industrialisation, also a time when Dutch settlement increased but was still too small to form a wholly closed caste isolated from the native population.

tempo doeloe (plural tempo-tempo doeloe)

1. superseded spelling of tempo dulu (“time of old, olden days”) (pre-1947)