Charlie Chaplin di Ngamplang, 1927 / Charlie Chaplin at Ngamplang, 1927

‘Charlie Chaplin di Ngamplang, 1927’ is an Indonesian-language poem by Australian poet Ian Campbell, and is a humorous meditation upon certain imaginary events that befell Charlie Chaplin at the Dutch colonial era hill station of Ngamplang in West Java in 1927. In historical terms Chaplin did in fact visit the Dutch East Indies three times between 1927 and 1932, including the area around Ngamplang. The poem was included in Campbell’s poetry and prose collection Tak ada Peringatan (Vivid Publishing, 2013). The Indonesian language version of the poem first appeared in 2012 in the literary pages of the Jakarta mass media daily Kompas. An English-language back translation is included here.