Performing Chineseness in multicultural Singapore: a discussion on selected literary and cultural texts

Abstract

Chinese Singaporeans in different eras perceive their identity as a Chinese very differently, both with regards to historical specificities and in the context of a multicultural Singapore. Through the discussion of various literary and cultural texts, this article aims to rethink how the concept and perception of Chineseness change over half a century, in relations to Singapore's multicultural society, and especially to the presence of China, ideologically, psychologically and economically.

Keywords:

• performance
• Chineseness
• Singapore
• literature
• Singapore ballads
• theatre

Notes

¹ Drift, directed by Kok Heng Luen, premiered in Shanghai in November 2007 and was restaged in Singapore in June 2008, as part of the Singapore Arts Festival. More details will be discussed toward the last part of this article.

²The post-performance dialogue – a regular feature of Drama Box's productions – which I attended was conducted after the show on 5 June 2008. Such dialogue sessions are more common for Mandarin productions by theatre companies such as The Theatre Practice and Drama Box, but not so for English-language productions. One exception is The Necessary Stage, which also holds regular post-performance dialogues. It is apparent that such dialogues have the practical function of educating the audience by further discussing the issues represented in the play.

³Ang, On Not Speaking Chinese.

⁴For the case of Lim, see Kwok, ‘Lim Boon Keng’, 203.

⁵The issue of cultural identity is further complicated if we take into consideration Singaporeans who speak a combination of Mandarin, one or more of the Chinese dialects, English and Malay, the last being a common language among Chinese Peranakans.

⁶Although both Lim and Kuo are generally perceived as bilingual and bicultural Singaporeans, the way in which they became bilingual and bicultural are essentially different. While Lim was a third-generation Chinese Peranakan born in Penang, Malaya, and had only started learning Chinese as an adult, Kuo was born in a village in the Hubei province of China, and learned English after he arrived in Singapore when he was ten years old. Lim and Kuo represent two models of bilingual Singaporeans with different paths to becoming bilingual. Their perceptions of their Chinese identity are in many ways related to their life experiences, but this is beyond the scope of the present discussion.

⁷I am focusing on the linguistic traits of this group of Chinese Singaporeans since my discussion in this section is primarily on texts written in the Chinese language. These Singaporeans are, in many instances, described as Chinese-educated. This means that they went through formal education taught in Chinese and bear significantly similar characteristics as a social group. See Kwok, ‘Chinese-educated Intellectuals in Singapore’, 495–519.

⁸For a socio-political discussion of the concept of Chineseness among Chinese-speaking Singaporeans, especially in recent years, see Tan, ‘Reconceptualizing Chinese Identity’, 109–36.

⁹Xi, ‘Bianqian: Ershi Shiji Mo Nanyang Liu Shi San Dai Fugao Shilu’, 50–1.

¹⁰More stories and essays with similar concerns by Xi and other Chinese-language writers have been translated into English. See St. André, Droplets.

¹¹Liang, ‘Ah Ben Ah Ben’, 26–7. Some songs, including ‘Ah Ben Ah Ben’, listed in this book are also available as audio recordings on a compact disc accompanying the book. This song was originally included in Liang's first record album entitled Men [The door] released in 1986.

¹²Kong, ‘Making “Music at the Margins”?’, 99–124. A relatively comprehensive study of xinyao is in Tan, ‘Xinyao (Singapore Ballads)’. For a more recent account which situates xinyao and its successor in the context of Asian pop music industry, see Liew, ‘Limited Pidgin-type Patois?’, 217–33.

¹³Liang, ‘Taiduo taiduo’, 70–1.

¹⁴‘Singapura’ and ‘Di Tangjong Katong’, together with other songs in English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil, were popularly sung by primary and secondary school students in the 1970s and 1980s. Collectively, they are called the Assembly Songs, which have an apparent objective to promote national identity. These songs can be found in printed collected volumes distributed to every student, such as Assembly Songs for Secondary Schools.

¹⁵Scholars have discussed the relations of Chinese-educated Singaporeans and political activism during the immediate pre-independence era, for example, see Turnbull, A History of Singapore, 239–44; Liu and Wong, Singapore Chinese Society in Transition: Business, Politics, & Socio-economic Change,141–68; Hong and Huang, The Scripting of a National History, 137–52.

¹⁶Kwok, Channels & Confluences, 71.

¹⁷The painting has been dated 1950 and 1959 by two different writers. For a brief discussion of this issue, see Goh, ‘Interpreting National Language Class’.

¹⁸Lim, Singapore Artists Speak, 32.

¹⁹Kwok, Channels & Confluences, 72.

²⁰Ibid.

²¹Goh, ‘Interpreting National Language Class’.

²²Lee, On the Beat to the Hustings, 60–1.

²³Performing Arts Studio, also translated as Singapore Performing Arts School, is known as Practice Performing Arts School since 1984.

²⁴ Flower, Youth, Sea was the debut production of the Performing Arts Studio and was co-presented by two more established arts groups, namely, the Singapore Amateur Players and the Metro Philharmonic Society.

²⁵Synopsis in Flower, Youth, Sea programme booklet (Singapore: Performing Arts Studio, 1965).

²⁶For a more detailed account of Flower, Youth, Sea, and ‘The Little Red Flower’ in particular, see Quah, ‘Form as Ideology’, 27–42.

²⁷Synopsis in Drift programme booklet (Singapore: Drama Box and Shanghai Drama Arts Centre, 2008).

²⁸It is apparent that the years chosen are loaded with historical significance. 1942 marks the beginning of the three-and-a-half years of Japanese occupation in Singapore. 1966 marked the launch of the Cultural Revolution in China. Both years represent the beginning of a tumultuous era, especially for Chinese Singaporeans. 2006, on the other hand, represents the immediate past.

²⁹Quotes of the play in this article are from a DVD recording of the performance and the unpublished script.