1
The Prospect of the Peranankan Community at the Age of
Globalization
By Tan Ta Sen
Ladies and Gentlemen, I felt extremely honoured to be here today
to share with
you my thought on the prospect of the Peranakan community at the
age of globalization.
Being a Baba and Nyonya yourself, I am sure, you are very
concerned about the future of
the Peranakan community. The word “peranakan” is very commonly
used in bahasa
Indonesia than in bahasa Melayu. In the past “baba and nyonya”
were commonly used for
the localized Chinese. Peranakan in fact includes all localized
foreigners or their
descendents. Thus we have the Chinese peranakan (baba &
nyonya), Indian peranakan
(Chitty or mamak-Indian Muslim), Portugese peranakan, European
peranakan (eurasian
or serani). Melaka is the home of the Peranakans in both
Malaysia and Singapore and so
it is not only appropriate and relevant but also historically
significant for me to deal with
this topic here. Although I am a Singaporean and I am not a
Baba, in the past decades, I
have business concerns in Melaka, and a frequent visitor of
Melaka. Thus, I am virtually
a local Melakan, live at the centre of the old town and have
witnessed the change that has
taken place in the past two decades.
I would like to begin by giving you a few significant glimpses
into the history of
Chinese diaspora as well as the eventual development of the
Peranakan community in
Melaka so as to set the tone of proper historical perspective.
The Chinese have been
migrating southward from China to Southeast Asia for centuries,
driven from their
homeland by economic necessity, political disturbance, flood and
drought. Chinese
diaspora outside China are generally addressed as Tang Ren (Teng
Lang ) because 2 since the 7th century in the Tang
Dynasty, Chinese mariners and traders were engaging in
considerable international maritime trade, traveling as far
afield as East Africa through
the Straits of Malacca. They went to mainland Southeast
Asia much earlier and they
were addressed as Qin Ren (). However, they were merely
sojourners before the
14th century. Cheng Ho’s historic seven voyages to
the Western Ocean in the early 15th century marked the
first wave of Chinese migration to Southeast Asia. Cheng Ho
discovered
the presence of Chinese settlements in Island Southeast Asia.
Three crew members of
Cheng Ho’s fleet, Ma Huan, Fei Xin and Gong Zhen have recorded
their eye-witness
accounts of Cheng Ho’s voyages to the western ocean in their
books. They witnessed the
existence of Chinese settlements in Sumatra’s Palembang and
Java’s Majapahit, Tuban,
Gresik and Surabaya. This first wave of Chinese emigration was
characterized by
indigenization (localization) as these pioneers were quick to
interact and even
intermarried with the natives and as a result they were
gradually assimilated into
the local population. However, Ma Huan and Gong Zhen made
no mention of Chinese
settlement in Melaka but Fei Xin casually referred to some
pale-looking people among
the Melaka residents as the “Tang” people. ”Tang” like “Han” is
commonly used to refer
to the Chinese. Therefore, we safely conclude that there were a
handful Chinese in
Melaka during Cheng Ho’s era and they were too few to form any
so-called Chinese
settlement. As Cheng Ho built an outpost in Malacca and all
ships going to other ports
were required to assembled in Malacca awaiting fair wind to make
the homeward
journey, there were certainly sizable crew members of Cheng Ho’s
fleet temporarily 3
putting up in the guanchang (government warehouse complex). Ma
Huan, Gong Zhen
and Fei Xin were quite clear about these itinerant Chinese and
so it was unlikely that they
would be confused between the itinerant Chinese crew members who
were sojourners
and the few Chinese residents.
The legend of Hang Li Poh has hinted the existence of Melaka’s
earliest Chinese
settlement at Bukit Cina during the Cheng Ho era. Princess Hang
Li Poh has long been
conveniently dismissed by historians as a myth. But I would like
to review the Hang Li
Poh story in a fresh historical perspective. On the subject of
Hang Li Poh, in my opinion,
it was a historical event which might have possibly taken place.
When we survey the
legends of Southeast Asia, especially of Indonesia and Malaya,
we often find stories of
Chinese princesses marrying native rulers. It can be attributed
to the fact that China
throughout history was a great power and a cultural centre
surrounded by undeveloped
native states. These native rulers would feel extremely
honoured to marry a Chinese
princess as it could enhance the prestige of the native rulers
and win the trust of the
Chinese emperors. During colonial period, it would be great
honour for a native to marry
a white girl. In history, there were many examples of Chinese
princesses marrying native
rulers such as Princess Wencheng who was married to a Tibetan
king and Wang Zhaojun
to a Xiongnu ruler. Hang Li Poh could have been another Wang
Zhaojun who was not a
princess but a maid in the imperial palace. In fact, the Malay
Annals’ story of Hang Li
Poh marrying Sultan Mansor Shah was an error. The sultan who
married Hang Li Poh
should have been Megat Iskandar Shah (Parameswara’s son).
Western scholars were also
agreeable to this version but mistakenly regarded her as the
daughter of a local Chinese 4
kapitan. The kapitan system was only introduced by the
Portuguese in the 16
th century but the Hang Li Poh story took place
in the early 15th century. In my view, Hang Li Poh
was very likely one of the maids in Yongle’s palace. In
addition, ‘Puteri” in Malay and
Indonesian languages may not necessarily mean “princess”. It is
widely used as pet name
for girls like Chinese call their daughters Qian Jin ()
(thousand gold). Historian’s
suggestion about the story of Hang Li Poh as a legend
simply because there was no
record on her in the Ming dynastic history may not be totally
correct. The Malay and
Indonesian historiographies are fairly similar to the Chinese
historiography as literature
and history is inseparable. Literature, biography, even
mythology are in complete
harmony with historical facts. Moreover, Hang Li Poh was
not a princess, why should
Chinese official record this event?
Cheng Ho’s historic seven voyages to the Western Ocean in the
15th century
opened the door for the Chinese living in the coastal provinces
in China such as
Guangdong and Fujian to migrate abroad. The second wave of
Chinese emigration took
place between 1644 to 1840s and was characterized by
westernization. The
overthrow of the Ming Dynasty by the Manchus in 1644 led to an
exodus of Ming
royalists to Southeast Asia. A group of these Ming
royalists like Melaka’s second
Chinese kapitan, Li Wei King () also known as Li Jun Chang or
Li
Kap took refuge in Melaka and later given the Kapitan post by
the Dutch ruler.
These cultured Ming royalists soon made fortunes from trade and
were
picked by the Portuguese, Dutch and British colonial governments
as community 5
leaders and appointed them as Kapitans in charge of Chinese
affairs from the 17th
to 19th centuries. The office of the Chinese
kapitan was located in the Cheng Hoon Teng
Temple, the oldest Chinese temple in Melaka and Malaysia. Hence,
Cheng Hoon Teng
was the most important power base of the Chinese in Melaka.
Cheng Hoon Teng Temple
was jointly established by the first two Chinese Kapitans, Tay
Hong Yoe (
) also
known as Tay Kap and Li Wei King in 1673 . Then, the Chinese
population in Melaka
was small about 100 plus; there were 160 Chinese in 1675, two
years after the foundation
of the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple. In 1678, the Chinese population
increased significantly
to 426. Since they were entrusted to be in charge of the Chinese
affairs, they took the first
step to organize the Chinese community by forming the Cheng Hoon
Teng Temple.
Li Kap, a native of Xiamen, was one of the Ming royalists who
fled from
Manchu rule after the overthrow of the Ming Dynasty in 1644.
Together with other likeminded Ming royalists, he took refuge
in Malacca. These Ming royalists being learned
Confucian scholars, brought Chinese culture to Malacca. Li Kap
went into business and
made his fortunes. He then collaborated with Tay Kap to
establish the Cheng Hoon Teng
Temple. Later, he bought and donated a piece of land for use by
the Chinese community
in Malacca as a burial ground in Bukit China or Sam Po Hill. It
is not surprising that Tay
Kap and Li Kap had targeted temple and burial ground as urgent
services for the Chinese
in Malacca. For immigrants the temple is constantly the first
refuge to seek salvation of
inner peace and spiritual attachment to and link up with fellow
clansmen in a foreign
land, and the cemetery is to ensure the wanderers a last resting
place. In any early
Chinese settlement abroad, temple, clan associations and burial
ground are always the 6
first forms of social organizations as they bond the immigrant
community into a cohesive
society.
In 1698 a French business delegation on its way to
China made a brief stopover
in Melaka and visited Cheng Hoon Teng. One of delegation members
, Froncois Froger
paid a visit to the Cheng Hoon Teng and he wrote about the
temple with a temple layout
plan. He described that the temple consisted of four major
sections, namely the main hall,
front hall, inner hall and women’s prayer quarter. On the day of
his visit, the temple
priests were performing religious ritual. He was so engrossed
that he stayed in the temple
for two hours and jotted down his impressions of the happening.
Froger made one
important remark of very historical significance. He
called the Cheng Hoon Teng
Temple as “The Pagoda of the Chinese Refugees in Melaka”. It
testified the existence
of a considerable group of Ming royalists taking refuge in
Melaka after the Manchus
overthrew the Ming Dynasty in 1644. After half a century, this
“refugee” impression of
Melaka was still distinctively noticeable.
These refugees or Ming royalists were the pioneers of Melaka
Chinese society.
They brought Chinese culture to Melaka shaping the development
of the Chinese society
in Melaka and eventually nurtured the birth of a Peranakan
Chinese culture showing the
fusion of the cultural traits of both Chinese, English and Malay
cultures.
The kapitan system was a legacy of the Portugese, Dutch and
British colonial
governments from the 16th to early
19 th centuries. The kapitans were acknowledged as
the
Chinese leaders by virtue of their enormous wealth and high
social status. Their
descendants attended Portuguese, Dutch and English schools. Many
of them worked 7
in foreign firms while others started their own companies
engaging in imports and
exports of spices and China trade. They were the forefathers of
the westernized
prosperous Peranakans. For instance, Kapitan Chua Soo
Chong in the 18
th century was the father of prominent Baba Chua
Chong Long and the grandfather of Baba Chua
Yan Ling.
The British abolished the Kapitan system in 1825.
Thereafter Cheng Hoon Teng
Temple introduced an appointment of temple president to be the
leader of the Chinese
community in Melaka in place of kapitan. The temple presidential
system was later
abolished in 1915. From 1825 to 1915, there were a total of six
temple presidents: Liang
Mei Ji, Si Hoo Keh, Tan Kim Seng, Tan Beng Swee, Tan Beng Jiak
and Tan Jiak Wai. Si
Hoo Keh, Tan Kim Seng, Tan Beng Swee and Tan Beng Jiak and so on
were prominent
Babas and dominant Chinese leaders in Singapore and Melaka. It
shows that the
Peranakans were the backbone of the Chinese in Singapore and
Melaka in the 19
th century and the first part of the
20 th century.
In the 18th and 19th centuries the Babas were involved in opium,
sireh, nutmeg,
pepper and gambier cultivation, tin mining, commodity trading
and property. In the
early
20th century, many Babas invested in rubber. Baba
and Nyonya were financially
better
off than China-born Chinese. Their family wealth
and connections with the Malay
royalties and the British and Dutch colonialists
enabled them to form a
Straits-Chinese
elite, whose loyalty was strictly to Britain or
the Netherlands. Most Peranakans
were
English or Dutch-educated, as a result of the
Western colonization of Malaya and
Indonesia, Peranakans readily embraced English
and Dutch culture and education as a
8
means to advance economically. Thus
administrative and civil service posts were
often
filled by prominent Straits Chinese. Many in the
community also worked as
compradores
(Chinese middlemen) for big Western companies and
banks. The Peranakan community
thereby became very influential in Malaya,
Singapore and Indonesia and were
known
also as the King's Chinese due to their loyalty
to the British Crown.
The third wave of Chinese migration to Southeast Asia in the
19
th century
coincided with political turmoils in China and economic
exploitation of Southeast
Asia by the Dutch and British colonial powers. The Taiping
Rebellion in China was a
widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864. The
First Opium War from
1839 to 1842 and the Second Opium War from 1856 to 1860 between
China under the
Qing Dynasty and the British Empire. These events caused great
hardships and economic
dislodgements to the farmers in Fujian and Guangdong. In
the meantime, the Dutch and
British colonial governments were earnestly engaged in
developing labour-intensive
sugar and tin-mining industries in Dutch Indies (present
Indonesia) and British Malaya in
the Malay Peninsula. As a consequence, the job opportunities in
Indonesia and Malaya
led to the mass exodus of the dislodged farmers in Fujian and
Guangdong to the region.
These new arrivals, mostly illiterate, worked as
cheap labourers in plantations and tinmines. As a result of the
massive influx of the Chinese immigrants, the
China-born
Chinese outnumbered Peranakan
Chinese. The demographic change coupled
with
the rise of a good number of adventurous new rich who made their
fortunes from
tin-mines, gambier and rubber plantations as well as trade,
ushered in a new phase
in the history of Chinese Diaspora. The
rising China-born Chinese merchants
9
overtook Peranakans as community
leaders. They actively built temples,
clan
associations and Chinese schools to educate the immigrants’
children. As a result, it
signified a phase of re-sinicization as a dominant feature
of this third wave of
Chinese migration and Chinese-educated Chinese became the
mainstream of the
Chinese communities.
This re-sinicization process remained predominant during the
fourth wave of
Chinese migration which was triggered by the outbreak of the
Sino-Japanese War
in 1937. Soon after the war, a great number of Chinese
literates and intelligentsia
such as teachers, journalists and so on migrated to Southeast
Asia and they
reinforced dissemination of Chinese culture in overseas Chinese
communities.
The post-war political developments in Indonesia, Malaysia and
Singapore
had great impact on the history of Chinese Diaspora. The end of
the Pacific War in
1945 saw a rise of multi-racial nationalist movements in
Southeast Asia and people
of all ethnic groups of former colonies were united to fight for
independence.
Changing Chinese communities entered a phase of commitment to
national identity
after World War Two. We saw two noticeable features in
this process. Firstly, the
rise of a local pan-Chinese identity signified the decline of
the Chinese dialect or
sub-ethnic groups including the Peranakan Chinese when the
Chinese joined hands
with the Malays and Indians in the struggle for independence.
Secondly, after
independence, the Chinese moved to adopt citizenship and develop
a sense of
national identity and actively engaged in nation-building.
10
Now we come back to review how these postwar changes had
affected the
Peranakan community. As a community that always considered
Malaya home, many
Peranakans were involved in civic projects and local government.
Due to their
strict
loyalty, they did not support Malaysian
Independence. Things started to change in
the
later half of the 20th century, with some leading Melakan
Peranakans, for examble Tan
Cheng Lock and Tan Siew Sin, starting to support Malaysian
independence.
Peranakan culture has started to decline in Malaysia and
Singapore after
Independence. Without
British colonial support for their perceived racial
neutrality, they
have been faced with a cultural identity
crisis. The Japanese Occupation and
the
Government policies in both countries following Independence
from the British have
resulted in the assimilation of Peranakans back into mainstream
Chinese culture.
Singapore classifies the Peranakans as ethnically Chinese, so
they receive formal
instruction in Mandarin Chinese as a second language
instead of Malay. In Malaysia, the
standardization of Malay as Bahasa Melayu (required for all
ethnic groups) has led to a
disappearance of the unique characteristics of Baba Malay. The
Peranakan culture is
losing popularity to modern Western culture, but to some degree,
Peranakans try to
retain their language, cuisines and customs. Young Peranakans
still speak their creole
language, although many young women do not wear the kebaya.
Marriages normally
follow the western culture because the traditional Peranakan
customs are losing
popularity.
The situation has been aggravated in the present age of
globalization in which we
see the fifth and last wave of Chinese emigration into Southeast
Asia in the last 30 years 11
since the Chinese government relaxed the policy on overseas
emigration. The rapid
economic integration and the improved political relations
between ASEAN and China
resulted in new Chinese migration to Southeast Asia being
possible and acceptable.
Following the rise of China as a world’s powerful political and
economic nation, China’s
export, Chinese investment and contracted project constructions
in Southeast Asia, have
risen dramatically with massive new Chinese immigrants coming
into Southeast Asia.
This new wave of Chinese migrants to Southeast Asia and beyond
is
unprecedented in Chinese history not only because the migrants
originate from northern
and central Chinese provinces, but also because travel has
become easier due to better
transportation links both inside and outside of China. That is
results in potentially larger
numbers than previous waves of Chinese migration throughout the
globe. These new
immigrants are a breed apart from their forebears, who spoke
regional dialects and
exhibited little nationalism, identifying more with the
localities in China from which they
hailed. The recent arrivals are not only better educated, speak
Mandarin, but also tend to
identify with China as a whole. They are patriotic and loyal to
the motherland. They are
currently rising up as an important force within overseas
Chinese and ethnic Chinese
communities. However, the new immigrants have to move along with
time to develop a
sense of national identity and integrate into the mainstream
local Chinese society.
The Peranakans were therefore squeezed on the one hand by the
governments’
nation-building policies, and on the other hand by the influx of
the Chinese new
immigrants. Despite the national overtone of
nation-building policies, it consciously
draws Peranakans into the mainstream Chinese society politically
and culturally. The
Chinese immigrant phenomenon also puts pressure on the
Peranakans to be re-sinicized. 12
Hence, in the 21st century, the Peranakans face the same
dilemmas and problems
as other Chinese communities in Singapore and Malaysia: the
decline of traditions, the
inability to speak the dialect, the growing number of mixed
marriages. All these factors
lead to the great changes in the culture and uncertainty about
the future. The frenzied
activities revolving around Peranakan life and language in this
decade could perhaps be
seen as the frantic last throes of a declining community. But
the Peranakan community
seems determined to re-assert its identity in the face of
encroaching modernity and loss of
traditional culture and within the context of language shift and
re-acculturation.
In short, the Peranakan community was born during the Cheng Ho
and western
colonial eras. Their main characteristic was at first being
localized (indigenized-Malay or
Indonesian) ; westernized during colonial era, and re-sinicized
at the present national
stage.
Thank you.
http://www.chengho.org/downloads/TTS-_Peranakan_talk.pdf
