5 - Before Nation: Chinese Peranakan

Summary

The many studies of the Baba or Chinese Peranakan of the three cities of the former Straits Settlements have provided us with an intriguing picture of a wonderfully distinct community. At the first international conference on Chinese Peranakan, I congratulated the organizers for taking the initiative to broaden the subject beyond the Malay peninsula. I also thought that what made the conference special was the way it honoured Tun Tan Cheng Lock who was one of the most important Peranakan Chinese of the twentieth century. He is remembered for his many contributions to the history of Malaya. His story, not only his leadership of Peranakan but also his success in providing a bridge between Peranakan and other Chinese, as well as between Chinese and Malays and other communities of Malaysia, was a remarkable achievement. When fully told, the story would provide us with a better sense of what the Peranakan phenomenon means for those who inherited that heritage.

I had from young seen the community largely from afar, but in the last decade, I have read some remarkable studies and become more familiar with the Singapore community as it is. This has helped me understand how the community has been developing. For example, the TV shows, the revival of certain parts of the culture and, most of all, the historic establishment of the Peranakan Museum. Some years ago, before the opening of the museum, I had the privilege to be invited by the Peranakan Association to talk about “the Peranakan in a global setting”, a topic close to the theme of this conference. At that talk, I concentrated on some features of the community that had attracted my attention. I spoke about the strength of the Peranakan family and the role of the women, especially their roles as mothers, and the effect of time and place on those who grew up in Peranakan families. I looked at the life choices made by individual Peranakan, the consequences of those choices on their later lives, and also about how they kept their identity differently from most other Chinese spread around the world.