The economic crisis in Indonesia has -- not for the first time -- been accompanied by open hostility toward ethnic Chinese, who control a disproportionate share of the country's wealth. At the same time, observes PNS editor Andrew Lam, ordinary Indonesians are strongly drawn to Chinese culture, old and new. The popularity of a new Hong Kong-produced TV soap opera, based on the millennium-old tales of Judge Dee, is a case in point. Lam, a journalist and short-story writer, just returned from a two month trip to East and Southeast Asia.

JAKARTA -- "They are greedy and arrogant. They share nothing with the Indonesian people and they hide behind powerful people who help them own almost everything -- banks, hotels, shopping malls."

Mr. Salim Ramani, 48, a recently laid off hotel worker, is giving me his opinion of the local ethnic Chinese.

Mr. Ramani's view is a popular one these days in Indonesia, but as he speaks I cannot help but notice that his family is transfixed by "The Legends of Judge Bao" on television. This Hong Kong-made series features the dark- faced judge, famous for his virtue and the crescent-shaped birthmark on his forehead -- familiar to Western readers in the Judge Dee series by Robert van Gulik. These tales from the Tang dynasty -- more than 1,000 years ago -- are extraordinarily popular throughout southeast Asia.

Our conversation comes to an abrupt halt when Mr. Ramani's teenage son informs him that the good judge is about to have the emperor's cousin's head chopped off. The Ramani family is mesmerized, and so am I.

On screen the King's aunt is borne in to the Judge's court on her golden palanquin. She tries to save her murderous son -- and fails miserably. The judge, though respectful, manages to best her in an argument about Confucian ethics and orders the execution. Her son's head is swiftly removed, the royal aunt faints, justice prevails.

The story wins a collective murmur of approval from the Ramani family. I cannot refrain from asking -- if the Chinese are so terrible, how can he be so engrossed with a video that oozes Confucianism, made in Hong Kong?

Mr. Ramani, taken aback, thinks a while. Then he says: "I like a judge who executes all those who are corrupted and greedy and commit crimes against the poor and powerless, even if he's Chinese."

There are plenty of fearful ethnic Chinese also who may wish the Judge really existed as well.

"We Chinese are called 'greedy' and 'unpatriotic'," says a Chinese store owner in Jarkarta's posh Kota district who won't give his name for fear of retaliation, "but it's mostly us who brought the country into prosperity for last two decades. Now we are blamed for everything -- yet they watch Hong Kong shows filled with Chinese culture."

He thinks about the judge in terms of Indonesia's history. "So many Chinese died back in 1965, and we have yet to see justice done about that."

In 1965, some 200,000 ethnic Chinese were killed. Those who survived were forced to drop their Chinese names. The use of Chinese characters was banned, Chinese school abolished, and public Chinese New Year celebrations barred.

Paradoxically, these policies served the Chinese population well. Left alone during the prosperous years, many were quietly successful and a few became fabulously wealthy. But this success seems to haunt them now as the country faces economic turmoil.

"The problem is not only that the Chinese have become fabulously wealthy," observes Peter Cendari, an Australian businessman with investments here, "but that they have also become conspicuous. It's hard to pretend to be powerless and invisible when you are that wealthy and your culture is dominant."

Without the judge, how will justice be done in a country full of grievances?

No one seems to know.

For some well-to-do Chinese, leaving the country seems to be the answer. Others have sent truckloads of food to towns in Java -- but this has not done much to change their image -- Mr. Ramani, for example, thinks "The Chinese retailers hoarded the food in the first place and drove up the prices. They are only doing it now to save themselves from being attacked." Judge Bao, he adds, "would have the corrupt tycoons' heads as well as the heads of the corrupt officials who helped them."

I don't know what Judge Bao would say, but I'm struck by a parting comment from Asi, Ramani's daughter -- the Judge, she says, looks "Indonesian."

The Chinese, although much resented here, represent a kind of familiar stranger. They were here before the Dutch colonialists arrived in the 16th century -- and used them as middlemen. The talents and resources of the Chinese are much needed now as Indonesia struggles to find its way out of the crisis. But they must first confront the reality that -- although they have long seen themselves as invisible victims -- they have become the most powerful and wealthy group in Indonesia.

And Mr. Ramani must find a way to give the Chinese some credit for reducing poverty from 80% to 20% in the last three decades -- and perhaps a tear for those 200,000 murdered Chinese.

In Judge Dee's Confucian world, justice comes along with forgiveness and redemption. The reality in Indonesia seems far too complex and volatile for such an outcome. But as the riots continue and Mr. Ramani slips another Judge Bao video in the VCR, the only place where justice can be seen, alas, is on the TV screen.