by Cook, James A. ,Goldstein, Joshua,Johnson, Matthew D. ,Schmalzer, Sigrid
The Chinese Diaspora
By the start of the twentieth century, there existed both in Southeast Asia and North America large immigrant Chinese populations. In the United States and Canada, the discovery of gold had jumpstarted Chinese immigration. For example, California’s Chinese population grew from approximately 50 in the 1840s to 25,000 by 1852. In 1880 more than 100,000 Chinese resided in the United States, and that number remained relatively constant until the end of World War II.4 When opportunities in the United States ended due to the enactment of anti-Chinese immigration laws in 1882, Canada saw its Chinese population explode from 4,383 in 1881 to 46,519 in 1931.5 Most of the Chinese immigrants coming to North America came from China’s province of Guangdong (Canton).
The number of Huaqiao in North America, however, paled in comparison to their cousins in Southeast Asia, who were scattered across what were then the American Philippines, British Malaya and Burma, French Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), and the independent Kingdom of Siam (Thailand). Large numbers of Chinese had migrated to these areas since the early fourteenth century. A 1947 census estimated that there were over 8.5 million Chinese in Southeast Asia, with the largest populations in Thailand (2.5 million), British Malaya (2.6 million), and the Dutch East Indies (1.9 million).6
While immigrants departed from across all of China, it was the three southeastern provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang that provided the vast majority of the Huaqiao. In particular, it was the people from southern Fujian (Minnan) who were the earliest and most enthusiastic émigrés to Southeast Asia. Small numbers of Chinese had pushed across the border into Vietnam as early as the first-century BCE, but it was not until the development of reliable maritime transportation in the tenth-century CE that we begin to see sizeable numbers journeying abroad. The first overseas Chinese were merchants, and by the fourteenth-century CE Chinese trading centers had been established across Southeast Asia. The famous Chinese explorer Zheng He (1371–1433), who sailed from China to Africa, was certainly aided by these early Chinese settlers. For example, the great trading center of Surabaya, located on the island of Java, housed a robust Chinese community of “more than a thousand families of foreigners; and among these, too, there are people from China” when he visited in 1405.7 Wherever he traveled in Southeast Asia, Zheng utilized overseas Chinese intermediaries to conduct trade and secure spices.
Figure 7.1 allows us to gauge just how deeply early Chinese migration was interwoven with the comings and goings of Chinese traders. Chinese merchant communities, as detailed in Figure 7.1, dotted the coasts of much of Southeast Asia. Sailing south from the ports of Xiamen (Amoy) and Guangzhou (Canton), China’s traders followed the monsoon winds and ventured throughout much of peninsular and island Southeast Asia in search of goods to feed a growing Chinese economy. There, they were joined by Indian and Arab traders who were hoping to exchange their wares for local goods, as well as Chinese silks and porcelains. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Chinese government occasionally banned ocean trade (1550–1567) but most often tolerated and occasionally even entered the trade to Southeast Asia; both long-established and new port cities grew in response to the burgeoning commerce.8 Manila, Hoi An, Phnom Penh, and Batavia (Jakarta) were just a few of the more prominent examples that owed their existence and continued viability to the Chinese junk trade. Indeed, when European traders arrived in the sixteenth century, overseas Chinese merchants were already in command of the intra-Asian trade.
The arrival of European colonialism in Southeast Asia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries only accelerated Chinese immigration. As colonial control spread across the region and the European demand for raw materials from Southeast Asia (rubber, tin, etc.) grew, there was greater demand for both the Chinese commercial agent and the Chinese laborer. Venturing out into the countryside, which European merchants were loath to do, Chinese entrepreneurs harvested vast amounts of rubber, tin, and other raw materials to be shipped back to European factories. For example, in the Philippines, overseas Chinese traders were responsible for the opening of the countryside for Western merchants, leading to a tenfold increase in Philippine exports between 1855 and 1902.9
Figure 7.1 This map shows the trade routes of overseas Chinese merchants throughout Southeast Asia. Maritime trade connected the ports of Amoy, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou to the majors cities of Southeast Asia and these eventually became major population centers for Chinese abroad. Source: Anthony Reid, “Flows and Seepages in the Long-term Chinese Interaction with Southeast Asia,” in Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese, eds. Anthony Reid and Kristine Ailunas-Rodgers (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996), 16. Used with permission.
As the European demand for Southeast Asia’s raw materials continued to grow during the nineteenth century, it became clear that the indigenous peoples of the region would be unable to meet the demand for labor. European rulers and Chinese merchants, therefore, turned to China for large numbers of cheap, indentured laborers. The cities of Xiamen and Guangzhou quickly became centers for the infamous “coolie trade,” which shipped large numbers of locals to Southeast Asia to work in mines and on plantations. Just how many people left China as coolies for Southeast Asia is difficult to gauge. In Xiamen, for example, official records note over 1.3 million people departing the port between 1876 and 1899, though these numbers do not include the many people who left without being registered by local officials. By 1900, this number averaged more than 100,000 per year.10 At the receiving end, more than 5 million Chinese arrived in British Malaya alone during the nineteenth century, with another 12 million in the first four decades of the twentieth century. In fact, by the end of the 1930s, Chinese outnumbered Malays in British Malaya.11
As a result of the coolie trade, enormous numbers of Chinese now lived outside of China. Figure 7.2 illustrates the size of the Chinese diaspora as it stood in 1930. As you can see, China’s total population of over 500 million people was joined by an additional 15 million Chinese abroad. In some cases (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and British Malaya) overseas Chinese were the majority, but in others they represented only a fraction of the total population. We need to keep in mind, however, that even in places like Canada and the United States, where overseas Chinese represented less than 1% of the total population, Huaqiao continued to live in concentrated “Chinatowns” where they remained the dominant cultural and social influence.
Most overseas Chinese, however, did not consider themselves to be permanent immigrants, but rather sojourners or temporary residents in their host countries. This sojourning attitude sprang from a number of factors. The strong pull of the Chinese motherland was important: many Chinese saw themselves journeying abroad solely for economic reasons and hoped to return to China once they had made their fortune. Additionally the institutionalized racism that many Chinese encountered abroad made assimilation into those societies nearly impossible and strengthened their identity with the Chinese motherland. Whether in North America or in Southeast Asia, most Huaqiao were denied citizenship, ghettoized into Chinatowns that separated them from indigenous and Western residents, subjected to unfair and extraneous taxes, and often forced to carry identity cards that labeled them as “Foreign Orientals.” Finally, the rise of a strong Chinese nationalism in the early twentieth century that demanded that all ethnic Chinese, no matter where they resided, contribute to the welfare of the Chinese motherland, ensured that Huaqiao communities abroad continued to be defined as being part of the Chinese nation.
Seeing “China” in Singapore’s Chinatown
In April 1840 a large crowd of overseas Chinese gathered in Singapore’s harbor district to welcome the arrival of a new local celebrity. Gongs and colorful costumes peppered the large crowd, and a group of small children enthusiastically greeted the new arrival. Conveyed in a large canopied chair decorated with yellow silk and crepe, the luminary was surrounded by a bodyguard of celestial warriors who escorted her and th
e tens of thousands in attendance to the newly built Thian Hock Keng (Tian Hou Gong) temple, which would be her residence in Singapore. So many Chinese residents gathered that the procession stretched for over one-third of a mile. Who was this new star in Singapore? Was it an important Chinese official or, perhaps, a famous writer or singer? No, the celebrity was not a person, but a wooden statute of the Goddess of the Sea, or Mazu as she was known among the local Fujianese immigrants.12 Why would this figurine (Figure 7.3) deserve such a royal welcome?
Figure 7.2 This map gives us an idea of the overseas Chinese populations living across the globe. Please note that Taiwan and Hong Kong are separated from China as a result of colonialism. What caused large numbers of Chinese to journey abroad and relocate in these countries? How do these significant numbers of Chinese living abroad force us to rethink what are the borders of China proper? Do we need to redefine the idea of “China”? Source: Map by Michael Lien. Used with permission.
In Singapore’s large overseas Chinese community, which lacked the presence of the formal Chinese state, religion and culture played a much stronger role in the organization of the local community. The Thian Hock Keng Temple, pictured in Figure 7.4, was a place of worship, but its influence in Singapore’s Chinese district went far beyond celestial concerns. Local disputes, judicial matters, and legal questions were also adjudicated under its roof. In order to increase the temple’s importance within the eyes of the local community, every aspect of its planning and construction was infused with visual representations of the cultural links between Chinese communities overseas and the mainland.
The temple was originally a small joss house, or building dedicated to burning incense, for Mazu—the Goddess of the Sea and the patron saint of Fujian’s sailors. As the number of Chinese junks or ships visiting the city’s harbor increased, more and more sailors and wealthy merchants desired to display their gratitude for Mazu’s protection during the long and perilous voyage from China. Eventually the small joss house became the Thian Hock Keng Temple. Sponsored by Tan Tock-seng, a wealthy Hokkien merchant, all of the building materials—the pine wood, the granite pillars, the carvings, even the craftsmen—were imported from China.
The structure of the Thian Hock Keng Temple reveals much about the vicissitudes of life in Singapore. Architecturally based upon a traditional Chinese house or palace, the temple’s layout consists of a series of pavilions constructed around open courtyards that allowed for the movement of people, air, and light through its various bays. What separates Thian Hock Keng from a common house is its rich decoration. Red, black, and gold lacquered wood and brilliant tiling cover the roof and floor. Inside, several areas are specially designated for displays of gratitude toward Mazu and other deities. Perhaps the temple’s most visible symbol, evident in Figure 7.4, is the collection of dragons perched on its roof. Although viewed in Western art as an embodiment of evil, the dragons of Thian Hock Keng are instead synonymous with strength and justice. Surrounding a central flaming pearl of immortality, the dragons, which lived in water, are another representation of the dreams and risks of the Chinese immigrants who traveled to Singapore by sea. They are also an imperial emblem, the self-authorized use of which reinforced the temple’s quasi-governmental status. Finally, color plays a key role in the temple’s powerful imagery. The vigor and festivity of red, a common color in Chinese temples owing to its connection to marriage and family, is combined with the royal presence of yellow on the outside, while inside the temple, green tiling is a symbol of earth. These colors were another important cultural link to the homeland.
Figure 7.3 This is a photograph of the current Mazu statue sitting in the Thian Hock Keng Temple. Although the statue is new, the hopes and aspirations found within the statuary are not. It is located in Singapore, but the statue is distinctly Chinese. What are the markers that tell us that this is a statue created for Chinese worshippers? Source: Used with permission.
Figure 7.4 The Thian Hock Keng Temple. This is a picture of the Thian Hock Keng temple from the late nineteenth century shows the distinctively Chinese architecture of the temple. How do the numerous dragons and the architecture set it off as a distinctively Chinese space that is separated from the rest of the surrounding city? Source: Courtesy of National Museum of Singapore, National Heritage Board. Used with permission.
The temple’s celestial residents were powerful cultural connectors to China. Its most important occupant was, of course, Mazu. Believed to be a reincarnation of Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, Mazu was, according to legend, born in 960 CE on Meizhou Island in Fujian. The seventh daughter of a local fisherman, Mazu was able to save her father and several of her brothers from a typhoon by praying for their safety. Near this legendary savior stood a plaque proclaiming Boqing nanmo or “Tranquility in the South Seas,” a direct reference to the importance of maritime trade in Singapore. Owing to the size of the Fujianese émigré population in Singapore, it should come as little surprise that Mazu played an important role in the city’s religious life.
Mazu, however, was not the only inhabitant of the temple. Seated behind her is Guanyin. Another dweller is Confucius, the venerated scholar, and sitting directly opposite him is a statue of the Gambler Brother (Figure 7.5, see website). The presence of Confucius established a scholarly connection to the mainland. Fearful of losing their Chinese identity, the study of Confucian classics was an important cultural identifier for many immigrants. A similarly important cultural icon, the Gambler Brother was not the decider of games of chance, but rather of fate. The instability of life in Singapore elevated the importance of luck in seeking one’s fortune among Singapore’s Huaqiao.
Thian Hock Keng’s role within the community was not limited to religious functions. It was also an administrative and welfare center. The temple was the de facto headquarters of the Chinese Kapitan—the local leader appointed by the British colonial officials to oversee tax collection, minor police matters, and judicial issues. Since the Kapitan was entrusted to maintain law and order in the Chinese community, but was not provided with funds to do so, the moral and religious presence of the temple eased his burden. Additionally, in times of need, Thian Hock Keng distributed food and medicine for the sick and needy.
Equally ubiquitous throughout Southeast Asia was another structure that symbolized the transnational flows of culture and commerce that defined Chinese communities abroad. Originally found in southeastern China, the shophouse had migrated to Southeast Asia with the Chinese diaspora. The structure had caught the eye of Singapore’s governor, Sir Stamford Raffles, when he had resided in Java from 1811 to 1815.13 Ever a devotee of commerce, Raffles admired the combination of work and residence that the building represented and mandated its appearance throughout Singapore shortly after he founded the colony in 1819.14
A two- or three-storied structure, the bottom level contained the occupant’s business while the top acted as a residence. Owing to the area’s subtropical climate, the top story extended out over the bottom floor, acting as an overhang to protect pedestrians and customers from the sun and frequent rainstorms. Moreover, shophouses were commonly built next to one another in order to provide a continuous overhang for pedestrians. Figure 1.6 (see Introduction) captures one of the buildings’ most significant features. Each building adjoined the next, and each was built exactly in line with its neighbor in relation to the sidewalk, creating an uninterrupted string of commercial facades along the street. No front yards or courtyards of any kind separated their facades from the public. Rather, their aligned facades were built flush with the sidewalk, and their doorways give out immediately onto the public street. Thus, the public space of the street was contained by a solid front of commercial space.
A number of architectural elements mediated the closeness of public and private space that traditionally had been separated by a courtyard or front yard. These elements, such as doors, windows, the overhang, and, particularly, business signs, became much more significant to the pedestrian once the facades
of the buildings were made flush to the sidewalk. Nonetheless, the shophouse openings provided a means of direct communication—visual, vocal, and even tactile—between the customer and the shopkeeper, engendering exchanges of conversation, food, service, merchandise, and gestures. This was a radical change from the privacy of the courtyard design that had dominated traditional Chinese architecture. Combined with the construction of modern thoroughfares, the shophouse and the boulevard marked a radical re-conceptualization of the separation between interior and exterior, public and private, house and street; one where commercial exchange rather than privacy now dominated community life (Figure 7.6, see website).15
The primacy of commerce and culture were obviously ingrained into Singapore’s built environment. Overseas Chinese in Singapore journeyed to the city for no other reason than to seek their fortunes. Often the very homes and streets which provided shelter were themselves commercial vessels. Living in a foreign country and isolated from the rest of the population by colonial officials, Singapore’s overseas Chinese population turned to temples, schools, Chinese Chambers of Commerce, and native-place associations for important government services. Colonial governments wanted to keep the cost of running their colonies low, and so they declined to pay for the welfare and educational services of Chinese sojourners. Relying upon the traditional Chinese practice of employing elite leadership in these functions, temples and other social organizations became powerful quasi-government organizations in Chinatowns across the world. Located far beyond the confines of the borders of China, temples like the Thian Hock Keng reinforced what it meant to be Chinese, but in traditional cultural and religious terms rather than nationalistic. The ways in which the buildings of Singapore’s Chinatown were constructed, painted, and decorated held particularly strong symbolic values, and they dominated the life of Chinese across the globe.
