A General History of the Chinese in Singapore

The following sections are included:

• Foreword by the Prime Minister of Singapore
• Message by SFCCA Honorary President
• Message by SFCCA President
• Preface by Wang Gungwu
• Contents
• Editors’ Note

It was, this chapter argues, a millennium-old Hokkien trading world in the South China Sea which provided the context and the foundations for the arrival of a community of Hokkien merchants to help start the British station Stamford Raffles established on Singapore, and the subsequent development of a Chinese community in Singapore. With a homeland which is “eight parts mountains, one-part water and one-part farmland” the Hokkiens had to turn to the sea “as their farmland they ploughed.” From the time of the Ming dynasty, if not earlier, the Hokkien traders formed sojourning communities through the South Seas. 19^th-century Singapore was another such sojourning community.

For over a century, from the 18^th century to the mid-19^th century, Chinese junk trade went through a period of rapid growth. 18 February 1821 was a day worthy of commemoration in Singapore’s history, as the first Chinese junk which sailed directly from Amoy arrived in Singapore.

The turning point for the decline of Chinese junks in Singapore trade can be traced to the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, when Qing China was forced to open up five treaty ports. The decline of Chinese junks was a slow and gradual process.

Chinese junks not only brought goods to Singapore, but also economic prosperity and diligent, hardy, and intelligent Chinese migrants. Many of these migrants became the pioneers of Singapore. The significant contribution of Chinese junks to Singapore’s growth should not be overlooked.

Gambier planting was introduced to Singapore by Teochew planters from Riau before Raffles’ arrival in 1819. New gambier plantations were established after the article was first used in Europe for leather tanning in 1836. However, over supply soon put a stop to the booming gambier market in Singapore. A greater blow to the industry came in 1843 when the British colonial government started to collect rent on cultivation lands. The move promptly pushed the planters to move to Johor where they were warmly welcomed by the Temenggong of Johor who eventually instituted the kangchu system.

In the 19^th century, Singapore River was the centre of the regional gambier trade, where the shopkeepers, or towkays, including Tan Yeok Nee, also provided financing to the planters and supplied sundry goods to both the plantations in the interior of the island and Johor in return for their monopoly in the gambier trade. The exhaustion of plantation lands and the advent of pineapple and rubber in the late 19^th century, among other factors, brought the era of gambier plantation to an end.

The history of Singapore’s Chinatown is unique. It marks the beginning of the history of Singapore’s Chinese community development. It also forms a key chapter in the history of a regional Chinese diaspora in Nanyang, or Southeast Asia. Chinese immigrants, together with Chinese cultural traits, have since shaped Chinatown’s socio-cultural characteristics in a multi-racial and multicultural Singapore since its foundation.

This Chapter traces Chinatown’s immigrant background and the emergence of a thriving Chinatown in 19^th-century Singapore; the life and charm during the heyday in the greater part of the 20^th century; and its coming to terms with the changes in contemporary Singapore.

This chapter explores, through a macro-perspective, the origin and nature of the bang structure and bang politics of the Singapore Chinese society and its changes.

The polarised bang structure led to serious conflicts in 1854 between the Hokkiens and the united front of the lesser dialect groups. The de facto polarised social structure was institutionalised by the bang-based organisational structure of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce formed in 1906. Prewar pro-China and pro-British political ideologies led to the consolidation of Chinese dialect groups.

The formation of the Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations after Independence has ended a period of ethnic parochialism within the Chinese society, and taken on a new mandate to upkeep and promote Chinese heritage and culture in nation building.

This section analyses the political transformation of Chinese leadership based on three broad periods. Firstly, it explores the management modalities, functions, traditions and continuity of Chinese leadership in the 19^th century. Secondly, it outlines the emergence of contending Chinese political leaders in the early 20^th century, their power bases, rivalries and collaborations, as well as the British policies and reactions. Lastly, it analyses the post-war Chinese elites and their political transformation, and how the People’s Action Party strived for self-governance and independence, and eventually gained an influential foothold of Singapore’s politics till today.

This chapter aims to construct an analytical framework on the history of Chinese secret societies in Singapore. It questions some of the common historical interpretations on the formation and operations of secret societies, which tend to treat the different units, mainly the China Revolutionary Triad, kongsi (trading company) and wushu (martial arts) groups, as the one and the same. In distinguishing the roles of each unit and re-examining clues from material evidences, the chapter offers a re-conceptualisation on the nature of secret societies in Singapore.

Chronologically the development of Chinese secret societies can be clearly divided into four stages. Important distinctions are made between the Revolutionary Triad made up of Triad member refugees following failed rebellions in China and the Virtual Triad involved in the coolie trade following the mass influx of coolies in the 1840s.

Bukit Brown Cemetery was the first Chinese municipal cemetery in Singapore, opened in 1922 to cater to the burial needs of all non-Christian Chinese in Singapore. This chapter argues that the cemetery captured a fragment of the Chinese community’s cultural history in the inter-war years of the last century, profiling the emergence of a pan-Chinese consciousness, the regional embeddedness of the Singapore Chinese, and the cosmopolitan character of Singapore and its Chinese.

Since the mid-19^th century, the Chinese population in Singapore had increased steadily. In 1876, China under the government of the Qing dynasty started negotiating with the British Foreign Office in London on the possibility of setting up a consulate in Singapore to protect the Chinese.

Alarmed by the London negotiation, the Straits Settlements government promptly planned for a counterpart, the British Chinese Protectorate formed in May 1877, to handle a myriad of Chinese affairs, such as the import of coolie labour, secret societies, prostitution and the like. The Qing consulate was established a mere five months later on 5 October 1877.

During the period under review, both the British Chinese Protectorate and the Qing consulate in Singapore fought bitterly over the control of the Chinese population in Singapore. This chapter examines the sources and issues of their rivalry.

In the late Qing era, China was facing frequent natural disasters without adequate means to tackle the problems, while the Overseas Chinese were enthusiastic in acquiring fame and social status. These circumstances led to Qing honours and titles flooding the markets in Singapore and Malaya. This chapter analyses the sale of Qing titles, the hidden political interests of the sellers (the Qing government) and the benefits the titles bestowed on its buyers, such as the raising of social status and legitimising leadership claims.

What enabled these Malacca Chinese merchants to succeed in Singapore, this section argues, was more than an entrepreneurial spirit which drove them. This section attempts to show that it was British colonialism that provided these Malacca/Straits-born Chinese the opportunities to accumulate the wealth and establish their leadership of the Chinese community and the wider colonial society. Restated, the Straits-born Chinese rose to positions of influence and power within the Chinese community because they were compradors and collaborators of the British. It was more this ability to interface Asian and colonial trading worlds and networks that defined the Peranakans and their contribution to transforming Singapore from an East India Company settlement to a colonial port city which has been described as a crown jewel of the Empire.

“Peranakan” has meant different things at different times. The “Golden Age” of the Peranakans was around the 1830s till 1930s, when they were at the height of their political and economic power. Peranakan Chinese in Singapore displayed multiple allegiances, retaining the customs of their progenitors and contributing to causes in China, but distinguishing themselves from the new immigrant “Chinaman” as “British subjects”.

Who are (or were) these Peranakans, and did they share distinct social qualities as a class? Can we speak of a common “Peranakan” culture and identity? Or is it more helpful to consider these diverse hybrid communities as a regional phenomenon resulting from Southeast Asia’s long history of migration, intermingling and acculturation? Is the Peranakan culture a unique and authentically Singapore Identity?

This section explores Peranakan culture, identity and communities beyond the Singapore context, and how the Peranakan Museum in Singapore presents the Peranakans from a regional, Southeast Asian standpoint, beyond the rigid confines of racial essentialism and nation-states.

The Peranakan or Baba in Singapore and Malaysia is the descendant of the early Chinese immigrants who had married indigenous or Malay women in Malacca under Dutch rule in the 17^th century. Subsequently, their “mixed” children also married each other or the new immigrants from China, who came in large numbers in the 19^th century.

Baba society forms an important part of Singapore and is closely-linked to the history of Malacca, Penang and Singapore. The Babas, also known as Peranakans, local-born Chinese or Straits-born Chinese, share cultural, linguistic and sociopolitical traits unique to Southeast Asia.

In a broad historical perspective, the rise of the Confucian revival movement in Singapore and Malaya in late 19^th and early 20^th centuries was mainly a response of traditional Chinese cultural nationalists to the threat of westernisation and babaisation within the Chinese communities, and their attempt to reassert Confucian values on the communities.

This chapter examines the origins, the course and the development of the movement and its problems. It also analyses and assesses the roles of the leadership and the ideology in the movement.

Chinese commercial enterprises have been characterised by bang trade specialisations originating from the dialect-based power structure in Chinese society throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Certain trades were, and still are, dominated by different dialect groups. Dialect trade specialisation has long been noted in Singapore since the early decades of the 19^th century, despite the cohesion provided by Chinese culture and the long history of inter-dialect business contacts. The spatial concentration of dialect groups in specific quarters of the city did provide each dialect group with an advantageous geographical and socio-economic base for initiating a particular trade. This trade, once established, would be consolidated and further expanded as the dialect population in the area increased and spilled over to other areas. Consolidation and expansion were further aided by the way that technical and commercial skills were imparted. This section examines its complex process of evolution, exclusion, competition, regression and succession.

Chinese business and entrepreneurship has long played an important role in the history of Singapore. The changes in the structures and strategies of Chinese big business in the last two centuries have reflected the transformations in the political economy of Singapore in the colonial period and as a nation-state, as well as the shifts in the global economic and political environments. This section attempts to provide a broad survey of the changes in the structures and dynamics of Chinese business, especially big business, in Singapore, between 1819 and the present, and to locate these shifts and continuities in the contexts of local, regional, and global political and economic environments.

Historians have worked on the development of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI) as either part of broader narratives on Singapore’s past, a main subject of analysis, or its role in leading specific events such as trade fairs and the post-war Chinese citizenship campaign. This chapter seeks to explore how these works reflect the changing economic, political and social roles played by the SCCCI from its inception in 1906 till the present day in greater detail. In so doing, it proposes four potential research possibilities to expand the historiography of the SCCCI and to further our understanding of its transitions within broader changes in local, regional and global contexts.

Since the British East India Company founded a trading post in 1819, modern Singapore has been a multiracial and multilingual society. The earliest prints in Singapore were in languages such as English, Siamese, Malay, Arabic and Chinese. This section focuses on the evolution of early printing in the Chinese language during the 19^th century, its development in different stages and the impacts it made on the Chinese language and Chinese communities.

This section starts with a survey of what was published during the 19^th century. Based on the printing activities and the kind of materials printed in different periods in time, it examines the changing role of early printing in the Chinese language, and how this early availability of printing in the Chinese language impacted China and the multiracial and multicultural society here throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Chinese newspapers in Singapore played an important role in passing down Chinese cultural traditions. The rise of Chinese newspapers was a testament of the growing influence and strength of ethnic Chinese and Chinese culture. Its development accompanied the evolution of Singapore history and mirrored the challenges experienced by the local ethnic Chinese community.

The establishment of Lat Pau (《叻报》) in 1881 marked the beginning of the Chinese daily in Singapore. A century later in the 1980s, the Chinese newspaper industry in Singapore experienced a tremendous change. In March 1983, the two most influential Chinese newspapers in Singapore, Nanyang Siang Pau and Sin Chew Jit Poh, were officially merged as Lianhe Zaobao (LHZB).

Today, LHZB has become an important means for Chinese in different parts of the world to know more about Singapore. It has also earned the recognition of higher-educated reader demographics. This section focuses on the development of Chinese newspapers in Singapore from 1819 to 2000 and analyses its close relation with the transformation of the Chinese community.

The first Chinese schools in Singapore were not founded by the Chinese but by the London Missionary Society. Early private schools were set up in the 1840s by the Chinese community following China’s age-old traditional private elementary educational system. Singapore’s modern Chinese education system was an offshoot of the Qing government’s reform movement in the late 1890s. Early modern Chinese schools were set up by respective clan associations. The first Chinese Middle School in Singapore came into being in 1919 and the founding of the Nanyang University in 1956 signified a complete Chinese education system from primary to university was achieved in Singapore. Since Independence in 1965, Chinese schools have been integrated into Singapore’s national education system.

The dream of building a university to serve the Chinese community in Singapore and Malaya was first mooted in 1950 and then publicly announced in 1953. Formal classes began in 1956 and an official opening ceremony held in 1958. Eventually, the university was unceremoniously shut down in 1980 by the Singapore government through a merger scheme. Discussion for a full renaming of the university and some forms of resurrection was attempted in the early 2000s but yet were abruptly aborted by 2005.

This chapter serves as one useful window to glimpse into its long and complicated history. It provides an in-depth examination of the controversy aroused over the 1965 University Curriculum Review Committee Report submitted by Professor Wang Gungwu as Chairman of the committee. It begins by exploring how the government methodically set the stage for a third major external review of Nantah, coming after the S.L. Prescott Report (1959) and the Gwee Ah Leng Report (1960). It then lays out the essence of the Wang Gungwu report and the storm of student protests it quickly unleashed, before examining three significant contextual issues: differing notions of “Being Malayan”, positioning the Chinese language, and perceiving “Anglicisation”.

The numerous traditional deities worshipped by the Chinese can be categorised as ancestral, occupational, Confucian, Buddhist and Daoist. Following the migration of Chinese, these deities were transplanted and housed in their respective temples in Singapore after 1819. Owing to colonial town planning, economic competition, dialect and religious bonds, among others, the Chinese had tended to concentrate spatially in dialect enclaves in the city area. Keen competition among the major dialect groups led to the formation of bangs.

Since Singapore’s independence in 1965, national development has greatly transformed the ethnic/dialect enclaves across Singapore. Rural Chinese temples have been demolished and rebuilt in new towns, while most of the major temples in the city area have been renovated to become community-oriented. The Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations, inaugurated in 1986, has vested itself with the social responsibility for the Chinese community which was previously assumed by the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry from 1906 till the early 1990s. Nevertheless, the Chinese need for deity’s blessings has remained unchanged.

This chapter provides an overview of the different categories of Chinese temples, their related institutions in Singapore and their transnational networks. It focuses particularly on the Hokkien community in Singapore.

Based on preliminary research findings related to these dialect communities and their religious networks, the chapter examines the role of Protector Gods (Regional or Village Temple Main Gods), Taoist Altars, as well as religious networks connecting Chinese communities and traditions in Southeast China and Singapore.

It argues that all the religious networks of the Main Gods and the Taoist Altars play a significant role in the transnational movement of resources between Singapore and China. These resources include people of varying socioeconomic background, various forms of ritual knowledge and innovations, money and materials.

Festivals constitute an important dimension of Chinese cultural, socio-political, and economic life. The Nine Emperor Gods (NEG) festival is one of the largest traditional Chinese festivals in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and parts of western Indonesia. Its history and forms are very much situated in the history and structural dynamics of China-Southeast Asian migrations and circulations, and of Chinese communities in the region. Between 2016 and 2017, an island-wide research project was conducted to document the festival at different temples and sites in Singapore. This chapter provides some preliminary insights into the festival, highlighting how it is embedded within the broader Chinese cultural and social landscape and history, on the island and beyond, as well as broader networks of the NEG Festival in the region. By showcasing the NEG festival in this volume, our project hopes to encourage more research into Chinese festivals to provide new insights into the history of the Chinese in Singapore and Chinese cultures, communities and identities.

Visual arts activities in Singapore began a few decades into its founding and had tended to be divided along ethnic and linguistic lines until after the war when a more multicultural consciousness emerged. Largely dominated by artists from China the scene had been nurtured by education and sustained by commerce since the end of the 19^th century. This development led to the establishment of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 1938.

The Chinese artists began with a sojourner’s consciousness but later developed a strong sense of localness giving rise to an aesthetic sensibility called Nanyang style. As a distinct group, the Peranakan artists active during the first half of the 20^th century developed a different trajectory and made some significant contributions too. Though more multiracial and multicultural, the scene today sees strong support for traditional Chinese art forms especially among associations whose membership is open to all.

Xiqu, also known as Wayang as well as Chinese opera, and Chinese dance and drama in Singapore, overcame their decline and entered a new phase of development in the recent years. The Chinese arts practitioners’ strong sense of cultural mission and their desire to achieve artistic excellence have provided solid resistance to the pressures of modernisation and globalisation. They are now evolving viable responses to these pressures in order to thrive. Globalisation and information technology are no longer seen as threats but as new opportunities to promote Chinese performing arts in a multicultural society.

Singapore’s movie industry reflected the multiracial and multilingual nature of the local society, its unique geographical location meant that the nation is exposed to a diverse mix of regional and international influences over the years. This section traces the origin of Singapore’s movie industry to the Malay film production in the 1930s. The subsequent anti-colonial movement and Singapore’s independence led to the growth of local Chinese-language film and TV serial industry. The section also explores its over half a century’s history with particular emphasis on the Chinese language as well as the cinema operators.

Early immigrants from China went abroad to look for opportunities and to seek a better life. They left behind families in their home villages. How they could support their loved ones in the home villages while they were abroad was always a crucial problem close to their hearts. To solve the problem, these pioneering and enterprising migrants had established a private mail delivery system, called Qiaopi (侨批), whereby money was sent by mail together with the family letter to their home villages in China. Hence, the history of Qiaopi is an integral part of the history of the Chinese in Singapore. Qiaopi was recognised and registered in the Memory of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) on 19 June 2013 with world heritage status.

The Jinan Massacre and Mukden Incident sparked an anti-Japanese campaign among the Chinese in Singapore and eventually developed into a large-scale Overseas Chinese National Salvation Movement in 1937. On the other hand, the colonial government was looking for reliable Chinese community leaders who could lead the salvation movement. Tan Kah Kee, who was known to be politically neutral, was elected as the chairman of the Singapore China Relief Fund Committee (SCRFC), an anti-Japanese national salvation organisation based in Singapore. The Chinese in Singapore not only raised funds for China but also volunteered themselves to transport strategic materials into China. On the eve of Singapore’s fall, the Chinese also assisted the colonial government in maintaining Singapore’s law and order. The insistence and determination of the SCRFC persisted until the end, when Singapore was captured by Japan. Before the fall, Tan Kah Kee took refuge in Indonesia.

This chapter relives the uncertainties, the depravation, the suffering and humiliation experienced by our parents and grandparents during the Japanese Occupation.

It first traces the Chinese antipathy towards the Japanese that originated from China’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, and the central role played by Singapore Chinese leaders in the Southeast Asia-wide China relief fund-raising movement to aid China in the Second Sino-Japanese War after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937. The consequence was that many innocent lives were lost during the mopping-up operations organised by the Japanese military police to get rid of anti-Japanese elements in Japanese-occupied Singapore now called Syonan. One of the demands made on the Chinese communities in Syonan and Malaya was the Japanese military’s demand for a “contribution” of $50 million towards Japan’s war efforts.

This chapter serves as an introduction to the chapter. It first shows the decisive defeat of the Progressive Party in the 1955 elections reflected in the unpreparedness of the Straits Chinese British Association (SCBA) for the turn from the conservative politics they were comfortable with, to the increasingly radical politics and violence after the 1955 elections. As a consequence, the 19^th and early 20^th century leadership that the forbearers of the SCBA provided has passed on to a new generation of “Peranakans” in the core leadership of the People’s Action Party that come into power in 1959.

This chapter chronicles the life and political career of Lim Chin Siong, Singapore’s most important left-wing leader in the years leading up to Singapore’s independence. Socialised to be patriotic and love China while still in school, Lim gravitated towards the radical left-wing socialism of the Malayan Communist Party and was, by the age of 22, Singapore’s most important unionist and mass mobiliser. We explore his brief but meteoric political career, starting from his role in founding the People’s Action Party in 1954 to his break with the Party in 1961, the formation of Barisan Sosialis and his final detention under Operation Coldstore in 1963, and examine the legacy of his brand of left-wing activism and political mobilisation.

Under Lee Kuan Yew’s leadership, Singapore went from third world to first in less than three decades, with its annual per capita income rising from that of Ghana’s in 1965 to one that exceeds its former colonial master’s in 2015. Today, Singapore is known as a developed economy.

The rise of Lee Kuan Yew coincided with an upsurge of nationalist movements in post-war Southeast Asia. He formed the People’s Action Party (PAP) in 1954 and led Singapore through autonomy, merger and separation from Malaysia to become an independent nation in 1965. Guided by his governing ideas based on the rule of law, meritocracy, racial harmony and anti-corruption, Singapore was transformed into an internationally renowned nation.

The “Speak Mandarin Campaign”, launched in 1979, has become an on-going long-term annual event for 40 years. Over the years, the Campaign has gone through evolutionary changes in its target audience, annual objectives, and campaign strategies. As a long-lived language planning movement, the Campaign has made lasting impacts on the sociolinguistic profile, as well as the status of Mandarin vis-à-vis that of English and Chinese dialects in Singapore.

The Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations (SFCCA) was formally inaugurated on 27 January 1986. The formation of the SFCCA is undoubtedly a major event in the history of the Chinese in Singapore. The Federation’s main objective is clear: to concentrate manpower as well as material and financial resources into launching large-scale activities that are difficult for the individual clan association to handle.

Since its establishment, the SFCCA has been responsible for the mission of leading the Chinese community, its cultural activities, and the Chinese tradition. It organises or sponsors educational, cultural, and social activities to raise public awareness of the Chinese language, culture, and tradition. The SFCCA has since come to represent the apex of the Chinese clan associations in Singapore.

Since modern Singapore’s founding in 1819 up to 1941, Singapore has attracted large numbers of Southern China immigrants. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Chinese migration to Singapore fell sharply from the 1950s to the 1980s due to restrictions imposed by the Chinese and Singapore authorities on emigration and immigration.

However, following China’s reform and opening-up in 1990 as well as Singapore’s established diplomatic ties with China, many Chinese immigrants flocked to Singapore. The wave of immigration has been going on for more than two decades, bringing hundreds of thousands of new Chinese immigrants here.

These new immigrants have strived to adapt and integrate into Singapore society. This chapter focuses on the influence of the new immigrants and their impacts on Singapore society.

Pre-war British colonial officers, western journalists and lawyers had published numerous articles in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society and The Straits Chinese Magazine. Chinese writers from China like Khoo Seok Wan and Yeh Chih Yun too, provide rich materials for the study of the Chinese in Singapore. After the war, prominent Western and local scholars who specialised in the study of Singapore Chinese included Victor Purcell, Carl A. Trocki and James Warren, Hsu Yun Tsiao, Tan Yeok Seong, Chiu Shin Ming, Wang Gungwu, Yen Ching-hwang and C.F. Yong. Since the 1960s graduates from Nanyang University have formed the backbone of the South Seas Society and Singapore Society of Asian Studies, both of which devote largely to the study of Singapore Chinese.

The beginnings of Wanqingyuan (晚晴园) is traced possibly to the 1880s, with ownership to a wealthy Chinese Cantonese merchant. It had a quantum leap to revolutionary fame when a subsequent owner offered it to the republican revolutionaries of China at the turn of the 20^th century as an overseas base to overthrow the Qing dynasty and to establish a modern Chinese republic. Nearly a century later, the People’s Action Party government gazetted it as a national monument and transformed it into the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall in 2001.

The extensive renovation and repositioning were aimed at supporting the government’s imaginary of a “Big Singapore”, including a crucial historic role in the Chinese diaspora. The state-driven project initially met with considerable contestation, not least by the Chinese-educated intellectuals. After several more revamps, the Memorial Hall has settled into its current role as one of the primary ethnic heritage sites. Its journey of repositioning, reorienting history, and ethnicisation of national identity neatly captures some of the intricate sociopolitical dynamics within the Singapore Chinese community.

The following sections are included:

• Appendix I. Chronology of Singapore Chinese History
• Appendix II. Fifty Prominent Chinese in Singapore
• Appendix III. Important Historical Monuments and Artefacts

The following sections are included:

• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Chief Editors
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements