‘True blue’ or part Peranakan? Peranakan Chinese identity, mixedness and authenticity in Singapore

ABSTRACT

While no longer associated with colonial economic and political privilege, Peranakan Chinese identity is now often viewed as an ‘authentic’ heritage in contemporary Singapore that is made visible through hybrid cultural and material markers. But for the Peranakan community, what does it mean to be authentically Peranakan in post-colonial Singapore? This paper explores concepts of hybridity and authenticity for Peranakan individuals, highlighting how being Peranakan is informed by ideas of belonging, mixedness and purity, from being ‘true blue’ to generational shifts towards being part Peranakan. Drawing on critical mixed race theory, the paper provides an historical overview of Peranakan identity in the region, tracing how ‘authentic’ Peranakan-ness has changed over time. Using a series of narrative interviews with self-identified Peranakan individuals across three generations, the paper explores public and private representations of identity, and how mixedness and purity are seen as being ‘authentic’ aspects of Peranakan culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Peranakan
• mixedness
• authenticity
• ethnic identity
• critical mixed race studies
• Singapore

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. Ng, ‘Peranakan Community and Culture’; Hardwick, ‘Neither Fish nor Fowl.’

2. Sarkassian, ‘The More Things Change’; Teo, ‘The Peranakan’s Interconnected World Hybridity’; Pue, ‘Peranakan as Plural Identity.’

3. Teoh, ‘Domesticating Hybridity.’

4. Neo, ‘Popular Imaginary and Cultural Constructions of the Nonya.’

5. Hardwick, ‘Neither Fish nor Fowl.’

6. Rudolph, ‘Reconstructing Collective Identities’; Teoh, ‘Domesticating Hybridity.’

7. Kwa, ‘The Colonial State in the Making’; Rudolph, ‘Reconstructing Collective Identities.’

8. Tan and Teoh, ‘A Nostalgic Peranakan Journey in Melaka.’

9. Teoh, ‘Domesticating Hybridity’; Sarkassian, ‘The More Things Change.’

10. Pue, ‘Peranakan as Plural Identity’; Teo, ‘The Peranakan’s Interconnected World Hybridity.’

11. Tan and Teoh, ‘A Nostalgic Peranakan Journey in Melaka’; Stokes-Rees, ‘Making Sense of a Mélange’; Hardwick, ‘Neither Fish nor Fowl.’

12. Hardwick, ‘“Neither Fish nor Fowl”: Constructing Peranakan Identity in Colonial and Post-Colonial Singapore’; Hoon, ‘Between Hybridity and Identity’; Wu, ‘The Construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese Identities.’

13. See note 3 above.

14. Sarkassian, ‘The More Things Change’; Frost, ‘Transcultural Diaspora’; Ng, ‘Peranakan Community and Culture.’

15. Hardwick, ‘‘Neither Fish nor Fowl.’

16. Teo, ‘The Peranakan’s Interconnected World Hybridity’; Hardwick, ‘Neither Fish nor Fowl’; Henderson, ‘Ethnic Heritage as a Tourist Attraction.’

17. Lee, ‘The Peranakan Baba Nyonya Culture’; Teo, ‘The Peranakan’s Interconnected World.’

18. see Wu et al., ‘Genetic Admixture.’

19. Ibid.

20. Rudolph, ‘Reconstructing Collective Identities’; Montsion and Parasram, ‘The Little Nyonya.’

21. Tan, The Baba of Melaka; Hardwick, ‘Neither Fish nor Fowl.’

22. Rudolph, ‘Reconstructing Collective Identities’; Hardwick, ‘Neither Fish nor Fowl’; Stokes-Rees, ‘Making Sense of a Mélange’; Sankar et al., ‘Chinese Culture and Customs.’

23. Rudolph, ‘Reconstructing Collective Identities’; Goh, ‘Oriental Purity’; Sankar et al., ‘Chinese Culture and’; Kwa, ‘The Colonial State.’

24. Chua, ‘The Domiciled Identity’; Goh, ‘Oriental Purity.’

25. Teoh, ‘Domesticating Hybridity’; Henderson, ‘Ethnic Heritage.’

26. Rudolph, ‘Reconstructing Collective Identities.’

27. Teo, ‘The Peranakan’s Interconnected World Hybridity’; Teoh, ‘Domesticating Hybridity.’

28. Chua, ‘The Domiciled Identity in Colonial Singapore.’

29. Frost, ‘Transcultural Diaspora.’

30. Cheah, ‘Nonya Beadwork’; Montsion and Parasram, ‘The Little Nyonya.’

31. Henderson, ‘Ethnic Heritage.’

32. Hardwick, ‘Neither Fish nor Fowl’; Rudolph, ‘Reconstructing Collective Identities.’

33. Henderson, ‘Ethnic Heritage as a Tourist Attraction.’

34. Other mixed populations faced similar situations as colonial rule came to an end, where mixed populations were seen as allied with the colonial elite, and perhaps more insidiously, as biologically linked to the colonizers. For example, Anglo Indians in India, Mestizos in the Philippines and to some extent Eurasians in Singapore.

35. Hardwick, ‘Neither Fish nor Fowl’; Stokes-Rees, ‘Making Sense of a Mélange’; Montsion and Parasram, ‘The Little.’

36. See note 5 above.

37. Daniel et al., ‘Emerging Paradigms in Critical Mixed Race Studies.’

38. Ibid., 26.

39. Daniel et al., ‘Emerging Paradigms in Critical Mixed Race Studies’; Rocha and Yeoh, “Orang Cina bukan Cina.

40. See note 37 above.

41. Teo, ‘The Peranakan’s Interconnected World Hybridity.’

42. Nagel, ‘Constructing Ethnicity.’

43. Hoon, ‘Between Hybridity and Identity.’

44. Bhabha, ‘The Third Space,’ 211.

45. Hoon, ‘Between Hybridity and Identity’; Hutnyk, ‘Hybridity Saves.’

46. Ifekwunigwe, Scattered Belongings; Hutnyk, ‘Hybridity Saves?.’

47. Bhabha, ‘The Third Space.’

48. Chong, ‘Manufacturing Authenticity.’

49. Goh, ‘Protecting Chek Jawa.’

50. Chang, ‘Theming Cities.’

51. Chang and Lim, ‘Geographical Imaginations.’

52. See note 43 above.

53. See note 47 above.

54. Hoon, ‘Between Hybridity and Identity,’ 168.

55. Duruz and Khoo, Eating Together, 151.

56. Ang, On Not Speaking Chinese.

57. Riessman, Narrative Analysis.

58. Riessman, Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences.

59. Teoh, ‘Domesticating Hybridity’; Cheah, ‘Nonya Beadwork.’

60. See note 48 above.

61. See note 49 above.

62. See note 48 above.

63. See note 5 above.

64. See note 26 above.

65. Rudolph, ‘Reconstructing Collective Identities’; Lim, ‘Appropriating Hybridized Cultures.’

66. Lim, ‘Appropriating Hybridized Cultures.’

67. Wu et al., ‘Genetic Admixture’; ‘We Need Something of Our Own.’

68. Henderson, ‘Ethnic Heritage as a Tourist Attraction’; Tan and Teoh, ‘A Nostalgic Peranakan Journey in Melaka.’

69. Chong, ‘Manufacturing Authenticity,’ 878.

70. See note 3 above.

71. See note 41 above.

72. See note 3 above.

73. See note 8 above.

74. See note 48 above.

75. Cheah, ‘Nonya Beadwork.’

76. Cheah, ‘Nonya Beadwork’; Teoh, ‘Domesticating Hybridity.’

77. Teoh, ‘Domesticating Hybridity,’ 139.

78. Montsion and Parasram, ‘The Little Nyonya’; Teoh, ‘Domesticating Hybridity.’

79. Montsion and Parasram, ‘The Little Nyonya,’ 166.

80. Duruz and Khoo, Eating Together; Montsion and Parasram, ‘The Little Nyonya.’

81. see, for example, Woon, ‘Why the Baba-Nonya.’

82. See note 51 above.

83. Rudolph, ‘Reconstructing Collective Identities’; Teo, ‘The Peranakan’s Interconnected World Hybridity.’

84. Ng, ‘Peranakan Community and Culture’; Duruz and Khoo, Eating Together.

85. Hutnyk, ‘Hybridity Saves?.’

86. See note 51 above.

87. Rocha and Yeoh, ‘Orang Cina bukan Cina.’

88. Hutnyk, ‘Hybridity Saves,’ 41.

89. See note 33 above.

90. Lee, ‘The Peranakan Baba Nyonya Culture.’

91. Stokes-Rees, ‘‘We Need Something of Our,’ 25.

92. Chang, ‘Theming Cities, Taming Places.’

93. Tan and Teoh, ‘A Nostalgic Peranakan Journey in Melaka’; Rudolph, ‘Reconstructing Collective Identities.’

94. A Peranakan noodle-based dish.

95. Cole, ‘Beyond Authenticity and Commodification.’

96. See note 50 above.

97. Stokes-Rees, ‘Making Sense of a Mélange.’

98. Eng, ‘The Little Nyonya.’

99. Duruz and Khoo, Eating Together.

100. See note 79 above 158.

101. See note 43 above.

102. See note 75 above.

103. See note 87 above.

104. Wu, ‘The Construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese Identities’, 163.

105. Wu, ‘The Construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese Identities’; Hoon, ‘Between Hybridity and Identity.’

106. see Gans, ‘Symbolic Ethnicity.’

107. See note 42 above.

108. See note 75 above.

109. Teo, ‘The Peranakan’s Interconnected World Hybridity’; Montsion and Parasram, ‘The Little Nyonya.’

110. Lee, A Grammar of Baba Malay with Sociophonetic Considerations, 7.

111. Chee, ‘Letter from the President’; Lee, A Grammar of Baba.

112. Sarkassian, ‘The More Things Change.’

113. see Nagel, ‘Constructing Ethnicity.’

114. See note 31 above.

115. See note 112 above.

116. See note 75 above.

117. Chee, ‘Letter from the President.’

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Singapore [FY2014-FRC2-008].

Notes on contributors

Zarine L. Rocha

Zarine L. Rocha is a sociologist, and the Managing Editor of Current Sociology and the Asian Journal of Social Science. She specializes in issues of race/ethnicity, multiculturalism, diversity and identity in Asia and the Pacific, with a focus on mixed race/mixed ethnic identity and belonging. She is an affiliated researcher with the Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, and an honorary research fellow at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her recent work includes The Palgrave International Handbook of Mixed Racial and Ethnic Classification (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020, with Peter J. Aspinall).

Brenda S. A. Yeoh

Brenda S.A. Yeoh FBA is Raffles Professor of Social Sciences, National University of Singapore (NUS) and Research Leader, Asian Migration Cluster, at NUS’ Asia Research Institute. Her research interests in Asian migrations span themes such as gender, social reproduction and care migration; skilled migration and cosmopolitanism; higher education and international student mobilities; and marriage migrants and cultural politics. Her recent books include Handbook of Transnationalism (Edward Elgar, 2022, with F.L. Collins).