Contesting Chineseness: Ethnicity, Identity, and Nation in China and Southeast Asia (Asia in Transition, 14) 981336095X, 9789813360952

Table of contents :
Contesting Chineseness
Praise for [Contesting Chineseness]
Acknowledgements
Contents
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction: The Historicity of Nation and Contingency of Ethnicity
1.1 Historicizing the Construction of Chineseness
1.2 Negotiating Chineseness in Southeast Asia
1.3 Constructing Chineseness in Popular Culture
Bibliography
Part I Historicizing the Construction of Chineseness
2 Negotiating Authorities of Cultural Resource: Recent Scholarly Discussions on the State Ancestor-Worship of the Yellow Emperor
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Who is the Cultural Authority? Manipulations of Chinese Culture
2.3 What Do the Local Governments and Locals Want? A Political Economics Interpretation
2.4 Conclusion
Bibliography
3 A Voice from the Margins: Collaborative Colonialism of Hong Kong, 1925–1930
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The System No Longer Worked
3.3 A Perfect Storm
3.4 A New Alliance
3.5 Confucianism as an Antidote Against Radicalism
3.6 A Paradox in Time
3.7 Fragrant Sea and Famed Mountain
Bibliography
4 Liberating Architecture from “Chineseness”: Colonial Shinto Shrines and Post-colonial Martyrs’ Shrines in Post-war Taiwan
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Imperial Palace in Beijing: Urban Setting, Axis, Color, the Roofs and the Decorations
4.2.1 Urban Setting: Backed by the Mountain, Facing the Water
4.2.2 The Most Awe-Inspiring Grand Axis
4.2.3 The Yellow Color and the Grand Yellow Roof
4.2.4 Magic Number “9”: The Nine Regions and the Nine Auspicious Animals in the Imperial Palace
4.3 Taiwan as Japanese Colony: Constructing Colonial Shinto Shrines for Winning the Hearts of the Colonized
4.4 The (Chinese) Spatial Design Elements in Karenkō Jinja in Hualien and Gokoku Jinja in Taipei
4.5 Post-colonial Taiwan: Re-Appropriating Colonial Shinto Shrines and Constructing Martyrs’ Shrines
4.5.1 Imperial Palace-Looking Martyrs’ Shrines: Amplifying The Surmised “Chineseness”
4.5.2 Neo-Colonizing Mentality: Sinicize To De-Japanize and the Absence of Taiwanese-ness
4.6 Chineseness(es) at Play: Hidden, Reduced, Magnified, Distorted and Appropriated for Different Purposes
Bibliography
5 Negotiating Chineseness in the Post-WWII Context of Singapore (1955–1965)
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Singapore in the Nineteenth Century
5.3 The Arrival of South-Bound Chinese Intellectuals and Rising Literacy Rate
5.4 Why the Vested Interest in the Distribution of Chinese Films Among Intellectuals?
5.5 Producing Malayanized Chinese Films in Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s
5.6 Conclusion
Bibliography
6 The Chinese of Thailand: Academic Diplomacy and the Convergence of Sino-Thai Intellectual Nationalisms
6.1 A History of Thailand in Sino-Thai Relations: Scholars and Emotion
6.2 History of the Chinese in Thailand and Its Politics During the Cold War
6.3 Anti-American Sentiment, Changing Image of China, and the Rise of Thai Intellectual Nationalism
6.4 Chinese Intellectual Nationalism and an Untold Story of Sino-Thai Diplomatic Relations
6.5 Strange Parallels in Thailand
6.6 Academic Diplomacy and the Convergence of Sino-Thai Intellectual Nationalism
6.7 Sinlapawatthanatham: A Place Where Intellectual Nationalisms Converged
6.8 Conclusion
Bibliography
Part II Negotiating Chineseness in Southeast Asia
7 Rethinking the Position of Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Pre-colonial and Colonial Period
7.3 Post-independence Period: The Rise of Indigenism and the Cold War
7.4 Normalization of Relations with China and the Revival of Chineseness in Southeast Asia
7.5 The Intensification of Great China Complex (大中華情結) and the Growing Threat of China Towards Academic and Journalistic Freedom
7.6 Conclusion
Bibliography
8 Ethnic Identity and the Southeast Asian Chinese: Voices from Brunei
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Traditional Chinese Values and Ethnic Identity
8.3 Traditions, Culture and the Expression of Chineseness Among Southeast Asian Chinese
8.4 The Ethnic Chinese in Brunei
8.5 Purpose and Research Questions
8.6 Methodology
8.7 Results and Discussion
8.8 Conclusion
Bibliography
9 Between Hybridity and Identity: Chineseness as a Cultural Resource in Indonesia
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Theorizing Hybridity
9.3 Hybridity and Resistance: Chinese Identity in Indonesian History
9.4 Hybridity and Essentialism: Chineseness in Post-Suharto Indonesia
9.5 Hybridity and Resinicization: Chineseness as a Cultural Resource
9.6 Conclusion
Bibliography
10 Embodying Islamic Chineseness: A Chinese-Indonesian Muslim Doctor’s Advice on Health Care
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Performing Salat as a Technique of Acupuncture Massage and Stretching Exercise
10.2.1 Ablution and Sins of the Limbs
10.2.2 Salat, Bodily Cultivation, and Conduct of Life
10.2.3 Dietetics of Ramadan
10.3 Chinese Bodily Cultivation as a Body Technique
10.4 Embodying Ritual Practice with Islamic Chineseness: A Theoretical Reflection
10.5 Concluding Remarks: Islamic Chineseness in Motion
Bibliography
11 Becoming a Nanyang-Style Artist in Postwar Singapore and Malaya: Georgette Chen’s Drawing and Her Construction of Asian Themes
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Structure of the Chinese Diaspora’s Feelings During the Political Transitional Period
11.2.1 “Diaspora Time” and “Diaspora Moment” in Asia During the Cold War Era: Georgette Chen’s Uncertainties in the Mid-Twentieth Century
11.2.2 Georgette Chen’s Sense of Identity: Becoming a Singaporean
11.3 Construction of the Nanyang Style: Georgette Chen as One of Singapore’s Pioneer Artists
11.3.1 Establishing the Nanyang Art Style and Asian Themes: Georgette Chen’s Drawings in Her Tropical Newfound Homeland Singapore
11.3.2 Legacy of Georgette Chen’s Cultural Practices: Teaching as Singapore’s Pioneer Artist at NAFA
11.4 Conclusion
Bibliography
Part III Constructing Chineseness in Popular Culture
12 Negotiating Chineseness Through English Dialects in Crazy Rich Asians
12.1 Introduction
12.2 Crazy Rich Asians and Asian Representation in Hollywood
12.3 Singapore as a Hollywood Rom-Com Setting
12.4 What Chineseness, and Whose?
12.5 Negotiating Chineseness in English Dialects
12.6 General American English and an American Rom-Com Heroine
12.7 British Received Pronunciation For Post-colonial Prestige
12.8 Standard Singapore English (SSE) for Local Prestige
12.9 Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) and Singaporean Solidarity
12.10 African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) for the Cross-Cultural Insider–Outsider
12.11 Conclusion
Bibliography
13 Language, Identities, and Resistance: Comparing Two Ethnic Chinese Rappers from Malaysia and Singapore
13.1 Introduction
13.2 Globalization of Hip-Hop and the Politics of Language
13.3 Shigga Shay: Rapping the Hybrid Multicultural Singaporean Identity
13.4 Namewee from Malaysia: Caught Between “Diaspora” and the “Sinophone”
13.5 Indeterminacy of the Sinophone: Comparing SHIGGA Shay and Namewee
Bibliography
14 Chinese Talentimes and “Kopi-O”: Singapore’s Xinyao’s 80s Tele-Rhythms
14.1 Introduction: “First Time on TV”
14.2 Xinyao and the Making of Sinophone Studies
14.3 Chineseness and Singapore Television
14.4 Talentimes, Singing Units and Xinyao
14.5 From Music to Dramas: Xinyao and the Declining Popularity of the Chinese Talentime
14.6 Xinyao, Theme Songs and the Sonic Scripting of the Singapore Story
14.7 Conclusion
Bibliography
15 Chineseness in Ancient-Style Girls’ Comics in Contemporary China
15.1 Introduction
15.2 From Xinmanhua to Webtoon: A Brief History of Shaonu Manhua and the Ancient-Style Motif
15.3 Chineseness in the Text of Ancient-Style Shaonu Manhua
15.3.1 Constructing Chineseness with Intertextual Connections
15.3.2 Representations of Chineseness
15.4 Chineseness in the Production and Consumption of Ancient-Style Shaonu Manhua
15.5 Conclusion
Bibliography
16 Straightly Chinese: The Emergence of Systemic Homophobia in China
16.1 Introduction
16.2 Theorizing Queerness in China
16.3 Regulating Chineseness: Censorship and Heterosexism
16.4 Silence Speaks Louder Than Words
16.5 Conclusion
Bibliography
Conclusion: Quo Vadis, Chineseness?
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Asia in Transition 14

Chang-Yau Hoon Ying-kit Chan   Editors

Contesting Chineseness Ethnicity, Identity, and Nation in China and Southeast Asia

Asia in Transition Volume 14

Series Editor Bruno Jetin, Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Gadong, Brunei Darussalam Editorial Board Jonathan Rigg, Asia Research Institute, Singapore, Singapore Victor T. King, Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Gadong, Brunei Darussalam Lian Kwen Fee, Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Gadong, Brunei Darussalam Zawawi Ibrahim, The Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Gadong, Brunei Darussalam Noor Hasharina Haji Hassan, Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei Darussalam, Brunei Darussalam

This book series, indexed in Scopus, is an initiative in conjunction with Springer under the auspices of the Universiti Brunei Darussalam – Institute of Asian Studies (http://ias.ubd.edu.bn/). It addresses the interplay of local, national, regional and global influences in Southeast, South and East Asia and the processes of translation and exchange across boundaries and borders. The series explores a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. Submission and Peer Review: Proposal submissions are to be sent to the Series Editor, Dr Bruno Jetin: [email protected] and Springer Publishing Editor Alex Westcott Campbell: [email protected] using the Book Proposal Form available in the sidebar. All proposals will undergo peer review by the editorial board members. If accepted, the final manuscript will be peer reviewed internally by the editorial board as well as externally (single blind) by Springer ahead of acceptance and publication.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13611

Chang-Yau Hoon · Ying-kit Chan Editors

Contesting Chineseness Ethnicity, Identity, and Nation in China and Southeast Asia

Editors Chang-Yau Hoon Universiti Brunei Darussalam Brunei, Brunei Darussalam

Ying-kit Chan IIAS, Leiden University Leiden, The Netherlands

ISSN 2364-8252 ISSN 2364-8260 (electronic) Asia in Transition ISBN 978-981-33-6095-2 ISBN 978-981-33-6096-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Praise for [Contesting Chineseness]

“The Chinese overseas often saw themselves as caught between a rock and a hard place. The collection of essays here highlights the variety of experiences in Southeast Asia and China that suggest that the rock can become a huge boulder with sharp edges and the hard places can have deadly spikes. A must read for those who wonder whether Chineseness has ever been what it seems.” —Wang Gungwu, University Professor, National University of Singapore “In a time when China’s rise to global power is an increasingly dominant concern worldwide, contestations of ‘Chineseness’—what it means, who it applies to and how it is defined—have acquired heightened intensity. As the Chinese party-state is increasingly intent on imposing its monolithic, China-centric and nationalistic definition of Chineseness on dispersed overseas Chinese communities around the world, the stakes have never been higher for the recognition of localized, hybridized and fluid understandings of what it means to be (or not to be) Chinese. This is especially the case in the countries of Southeast Asia, where generations of diasporic Chinese people have long made their homes while in varying ways maintaining, adjusting or discarding their identifications with Chineseness. This book is an excellent contribution to this endeavor. By including reflections on constructions of Chineseness in both China itself and in various Southeast Asian sites, the book shows that being Chinese is by no means necessarily intertwined with China as a geopolitical concept, while at the same time highlighting the incongruities and tensions in the escapable relationship with China that diasporic Chinese subjects variously embody, expressed in a wide range of social phenomena such as language use, popular culture, architecture and family relations. The book is a very welcome addition to the necessary ongoing conversation on Chineseness in the 21st century.” —Ien Ang, Distinguished Professor of Cultural Studies, Western Sydney University “By bringing together scholars of different disciplines to discuss ‘Chineseness’ in both China and Southeast Asia, this book provides a comparative perspective to the discussion of culture, history and nation. It contributes substantially to the debate v

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Praise for [Contesting Chineseness]

about the politics of identity and how Chineseness is constructed, expressed and contested.” —Tan Chee-Beng, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Sun Yat-sen University “Contesting Chineseness: Ethnicity, Identity, and Nation in China and Southeast Asia offers a comprehensive coverage of how Chinese individuals and communities in Mainland China and Southeast Asia negotiate their identity from historical time to contemporary world. The papers in this volume argue that the notion of Chineseness is not monolithic and it cuts across time and space where Chinese identity is viewed as a lived, experienced and performed entity that is shaped by their inter-relationship with the state, other ethnicities and regional differences both within China and in the Southeast Asia. From interrogating the role of state in ancestor worship in ancient China to colonial architecture to individual voices and popular culture in Southeast Asia, the rich array of papers from this volume is a must read for scholars and students of migration, identity and Chinese Diaspora and Southeast Asian Studies.” —Khun Eng Kuah, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Chinese Diaspora Studies, Jinan University “In an engaging tour de force, Chang-Yau Hoon and Ying-kit Chan propose a dynamic understanding of the idea of Chineseness as it is practiced and represented in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. By showing the depth and fluidity of identity imagination, the insightful case studies have traced the complexities of nationhood, citizenship, social and cultural formations, political histories, definitions and interpretive strategies of Chineseness. The essays in this volume capture also the effervescence of debates on hybridity, migration, nationalism, essentialism, identity markers, and they would relish historians, sociologists, anthropologist, as well as scholars and students in Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies.” —Jérémy Jammes, Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies, Lyon Institute of Political Sciences (Sciences Po Lyon, France)

This book is dedicated to our mentor, teacher and role model, who have inspired us in our academic journey: (The Late) Associate Professor Romit Dasgupta, from Chang-Yau Hoon Professor Lee Cheuk Yin, from Ying-kit Chan

Acknowledgements

The idea for this book was mooted by Ying-kit during the Chinese Culture in the Global Context International Conference, held at the Open University of Hong Kong in March 2019. The project would not have been possible without the contributions of the authors who have supported the project and diligently met all the deadlines that we set. We are very thankful for the research grant (UBD/RSCH/1.12/FICBF(b)/ 2019/017) provided by Universiti Brunei Darussalam for us to hire a copyeditor and a research assistant to help us with the preparation of the manuscript. We would particularly like to acknowledge Pranika Lama for her patience and tireless efforts in handling the copyediting of this volume. We are indebted to our distinguished colleagues who have encouraged us greatly with their kind and generous words published in the frontpages of this book: Prof. Wang Gungwu (National University of Singapore), Prof. Ien Ang (Western Sydney University), Prof. Tan Chee-Beng (Sun Yat-sen University), Prof. Kuah Khun Eng (Jinan University) and Prof. Jérémy Jammes (Science Po Lyon). This volume would not have been possible without your pioneering research that has defined the field. We express our sincere gratitude to Dr. Bruno Jetin, Series Editor, and the members of the Editorial Board, at the Springer-IAS UBD Asia in Transition Series; and to Alex Westcott Campbell, Editor at Springer, and Ameena Jaafar, Editorial Assistant; for your interest, guidance and support at every stage of the publication process. Last but not least, we are grateful to our respective mentors, confidants and role models, the late Associate Prof. Romit Dasgupta (University of Western Australia) and Prof. Lee Cheuk Yin (National University of Singapore) for inspiring us to ask questions, push boundaries and pursue knowledge. This book is for you.

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Contents

1

Introduction: The Historicity of Nation and Contingency of Ethnicity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ying-kit Chan and Chang-Yau Hoon

1

Part I Historicizing the Construction of Chineseness 2

3

4

5

6

Negotiating Authorities of Cultural Resource: Recent Scholarly Discussions on the State Ancestor-Worship of the Yellow Emperor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hin Ming Frankie Chik

25

A Voice from the Margins: Collaborative Colonialism of Hong Kong, 1925–1930. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tze-ki Hon and Hok-yin Chan

41

Liberating Architecture from “Chineseness”: Colonial Shinto Shrines and Post-colonial Martyrs’ Shrines in Post-war Taiwan. . . . . Liza Wing Man Kam

59

Negotiating Chineseness in the Post-WWII Context of Singapore (1955–1965). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Soo Ei Yap

83

The Chinese of Thailand: Academic Diplomacy and the Convergence of Sino-Thai Intellectual Nationalisms. . . . . . . . 101 Sittithep Eaksittipong

Part II

Negotiating Chineseness in Southeast Asia

7

Rethinking the Position of Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia. . . . . . . . 125 Wu-Ling Chong

8

Ethnic Identity and the Southeast Asian Chinese: Voices from Brunei. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Debbie G. E. Ho and Hannah M. Y. Ho xi

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9

Contents

Between Hybridity and Identity: Chineseness as a Cultural Resource in Indonesia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Chang-Yau Hoon

10 Embodying Islamic Chineseness: A Chinese-Indonesian Muslim Doctor’s Advice on Health Care. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Syuan-yuan Chiou 11 Becoming a Nanyang-Style Artist in Postwar Singapore and Malaya: Georgette Chen’s Drawing and Her Construction of Asian Themes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Qilin Zeng Part III Constructing Chineseness in Popular Culture 12 Negotiating Chineseness Through English Dialects in Crazy Rich Asians. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Chun-Lung Ma 13 Language, Identities, and Resistance: Comparing Two Ethnic Chinese Rappers from Malaysia and Singapore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Brenda Chan 14 Chinese Talentimes and “Kopi-O”: Singapore’s Xinyao’s 80s Tele-Rhythms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Kai Khiun Liew and Mandy S. F. Goh 15 Chineseness in Ancient-Style Girls’ Comics in Contemporary China. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 Ying Huang 16 Straightly Chinese: The Emergence of Systemic Homophobia in China. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Lin Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Chang-Yau Hoon is Associate Professor and Director of Centre for Advanced Research (CARe) at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam. He is also Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia (UWA), and International Fellow at the King Abdullah International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue in Austria. Prior to this, he was Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Sing Lun Fellow at Singapore Management University (SMU), where he was awarded the SMU Teaching Excellence Award in 2012 and SMU Research Excellence Award in 2014. He is the author of Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Culture, Media and Politics (2008, Sussex Academic Press), and co-editor of Contemporary Brunei Darussalam: Challenges and Prospects in Socioeconomic Development (ISEAS Publishing, Forthcoming), Catalysts of Change: Ethnic Chinese Business in Asia (World Scientific, 2014) and Chinese Indonesians Reassessed: History, Religion and Belonging (Routledge, 2013). Ying-kit Chan is a research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden University. He is also Taiwan Fellow at the Center for Chinese Studies in Taipei. He received his Ph.D. in East Asian Studies from Princeton University and BA and MA degrees in Chinese Studies from the National University of Singapore. Broadly interested in late imperial China and Republican China, he is researching the development of natural history as an academic discipline and establishment of natural history museums in twentieth-century China. He is the co-editor of Alternative Representations of the Past: The Politics of History in Modern China (De Gruyter, 2020).

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Editors and Contributors

Contributors Brenda Chan Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore Hok-yin Chan Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China Ying-kit Chan IIAS, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands Hin Ming Frankie Chik Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA Syuan-yuan Chiou Department of Sociology, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan Wu-Ling Chong University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Sittithep Eaksittipong Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand Mandy S. F. Goh School of Business Management, Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore, Singapore Debbie G. E. Ho Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Hannah M. Y. Ho Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Tze-ki Hon City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China Chang-Yau Hoon Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Ying Huang The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China Liza Wing Man Kam Department of East Asian Studies, Georg-August University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany Kai Khiun Liew Independent Scholar, Singapore, Singapore Chun-Lung Ma Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong; King’s College London, London, UK Lin Song University of Macau, Macau, China Soo Ei Yap Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Qilin Zeng National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Fig. 4.1

Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3

Fig. 4.4

The memorial archway in Tuen Men, Hong Kong (courtesy of Chris, Ka-ho Ng). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Current Hualien Martyrs’ Shrine. The Imperial Palace-looking architecture converted from the former colonial Karenk¯o Jinja. This bronze horse statue (Shinmei 神馬) was the only trace of the former Japanese architecture. (author’s photo) (Permission has been received to use all photos in this chapter that are not the author’s own.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Entrance of the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei (author’s photo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Drawing showing a typical Shinto shrine’s spatial arrangement. Worshippers enter through the Gate (1. Torii), ascend to the frontal approach (3. Sand¯o), wash their hands, faces and mouths at the washing place (4. Chozuya), and worship in front of the worship hall (5. Haiden). The main hall (6. Honden) is restricted for public entrance as it is the most sacred place hosting the deity (Kami). (https://orias.berkeley.edu/sites/def ault/files/styles/openberkeley_image_full/public/general/ plan_of_shinto_shrine_0.jpg?itok=QoGKmLYT×t amp=1563581753. Accessed 10 January 2020.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gokoku Jinja (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/d/d7/Taiwan_Gokoku_Shrine.jpg. Accessed 10 February 2020.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Fig. 4.5

Fig. 4.6

Fig. 4.7

Fig. 4.8

List of Figures

Karenk¯o Jinja Worshipping Hall (Photo archive from National Taiwan University Library. https://ap-img 01.ext.exlibrisgroup.com/iiif/2/eyJyZWdpb24iOiJhcC1zb 3V0aGVhc3QtMSIsImJ1Y2tldCI6ImFwLXN0MDEu ZXh0LmV4bGlicmlzZ3JvdXAuY29tIiwia2V5IjoiOD g2TlRVX0lOU1Qvc3RvcmFnZS9hbG1hL0VDL0Y2L 0M2LzJBL0Y5LzI1LzlDLzA5Lzc1LzkzLzI2L0ZBLzA 1LzEwLzgwLzFBL250dWwtZmEtcGIyMDE2NTM3LT AwMjItaS5qcGciLCJyZXBfaWQiOiIxMjI4Mzk2OTk3 MDAwNDc4NiIsImluc3RhbmNlIjoiYXAwMSIsImluc3 RpdHV0aW9uIjoiODg2TlRVX0lOU1QifQ%3D%3D/ full/580,/0/default.jpg. Accessed 10 February 2020.). . . . . . . . . . . Karenk¯o Jinja’s hanging bridge (Photo archive from National Taiwan University Library. https://ap-img 01.ext.exlibrisgroup.com/iiif/2/eyJyZWdpb24iOiJhcC1zb 3V0aGVhc3QtMSIsImJ1Y2tldCI6ImFwLXN0MDEu ZXh0LmV4bGlicmlzZ3JvdXAuY29tIiwia2V5IjoiOD g2TlRVX0lOU1Qvc3RvcmFnZS9hbG1hL0VDL0Y2L 0M2LzJBL0Y5LzI1LzlDLzA5Lzc1LzkzLzI2L0ZBLzA 1LzEwLzgwLzFBL250dWwtZmEtcGIyMDE2NTM3LT AwMjItaS5qcGciLCJyZXBfaWQiOiIxMjI4Mzk2OTk3 MDAwNDc4NiIsImluc3RhbmNlIjoiYXAwMSIsImluc3 RpdHV0aW9uIjoiODg2TlRVX0lOU1QifQ%3D%3D/ full/580,/0/default.jpg. Accessed 10 February 2020.). . . . . . . . . . . An old photo provided by Mr. Huang Jia-rong, a Hualien local historian, who bought the photo from a flea market. The Japanese Shinto shrine elements such as the sacred entrance gate (Torii), the stone lantern rows were still there, but between the two horizontal elements of the Torii there is an extra plaque inserted with “忠烈祠” [Martyrs’ shrine] written on it. According to the information provided by Mr. Huang from an expert interview, the image shows the Hualien Martyrs’ Shrine in the 1960s. His judgement is built on the appearance of the stone lanterns. According to the “Armed Forces Reserve Command of Taiwan” website, the current Hualien Martyrs’ Shrine was converted from its former Japanese construction in 1980. (Image download link: Huang Jia-rong’s Facebook Page. https:// www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=101577615943308 20&set=a.10150238060050820&type=3&theater). . . . . . . . . . . . . Hand-written official documents issued by He Ying-qin (Image source: Academia Historica, Taiwan. https://aho nline.drnh.gov.tw/index.php?act=Display/image/879753 sxjQwk2#24fa. Accessed 4 August 2020.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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List of Figures

Fig. 4.9 Fig. 4.10

Fig. 4.11

Fig. 4.12

Fig. 6.1

Fig. 10.1 Fig. 10.2

Hualien Martyrs’ Shrine bridge with stone lion decorations (author’s photo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Double-eave hip roof crowned on the main hall of the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei (author’s photo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Front elevation with 9 chambers divided by 10 red columns, main hall of the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei (author’s photo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nine statuettes of auspicious animals erected on the ridges of the main hall of the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei (author’s photo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A propaganda poster entitled “The Autonomous State” produced by USIS in the 1950s (The Autonomous State (Poster) ca. 1950–ca. 1965) (Image courtesy of the US National Archives). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Book cover of Wijayakusuma’s Hikmah Shalat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An illustration of ear acupuncture points and ritual ablution (wudu). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xvii

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103 184 188

List of Tables

Table 7.1

Table 8.1

Confucius Institutes (CIs)/Confucius Classrooms (CCs) in Southeast Asia (Confucius Institute Headquarters [Hanban] n.d.a, n.d.b). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thematic patterns of participants’ description of the concept of Chineseness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 1

Introduction: The Historicity of Nation and Contingency of Ethnicity Ying-kit Chan and Chang-Yau Hoon

“Chineseness is back on the agenda” (Reid 2009a, p. 197) yet again. In the introduction to the special issue on “Chineseness Unbound” published in Asian Ethnicity in 2009, historian Anthony Reid (2009a, p. 199) argues that “The tension between the center and the periphery, the political and the cultural, the lumpers and the dividers or deconstructers, makes Chineseness again a critical field of contestation.” Even after the debate presented in the seven papers published in the special issue on whether Chineseness could or should be “unbound” from China, race, or definition of culture, many scholars continue to take the category of “Chinese” as a given and remain focused on the essentialist notion of Chineseness. In view of the constructivist nature of ethnicity, identity, and nation that has produced such categories, Contesting Chineseness: Ethnicity, Identity, and Nation in China and Southeast Asia departs from such essentialism and promises to push the boundary of how Chineseness is constructed, articulated, and theorized. The book has three objectives: (1) to bridge and compare the construction of Chineseness in China and Southeast Asia; (2) to question the method of historicizing the nation in investigating issues arising from the idea of Chineseness; and (3) to highlight the contingency of ethnic identities under changing national, regional, and global circumstances. By critiquing “Chinese” as a label or modifier for terms such as culture, ethnicity, film, language, literature, nation, and society, the book contributes to a more complete understanding of how Chineseness has moved across different spatial and temporal confines. The attempts by our contributors to dismantle what literary scholar Rey Chow (1998, p. 6) calls

Y. Chan (B) IIAS, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] C.-Y. Hoon Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_1

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“sinochauvinism,” which transforms the perceived national humiliation and victimization of the Chinese into “fascistic arrogance and self-aggrandizement,” might help critique the ethnic premises of the nation in China and Southeast Asia. On the basis of these theoretical concerns, the book presents empirical studies on how the idea of Chineseness is lived, performed, and practiced in China and Southeast Asia. In China, which has never been formally colonized, the key research question is how most of its people became Chinese and managed to create a supposedly monolithic nation from a historically multiethnic empire. In Southeast Asia, save for perhaps Thailand, the founding of nations was more straightforward, having arisen from European decolonization after the Second World War. Significant differences thus exist among the Chinese at the local, regional, and global levels. In China, the Chinese, specifically the Han, are the ethnic majority. This is perhaps why monographs and journal articles on the construction of the Han ethnicity in China, which has become synonymous with “Chinese,” are lacking (Leibold 2007; Mullaney et al. 2012).1 In Southeast Asia, with the exception of Singapore, the Chinese are classified as an ethnic minority. Together, the Chinese who are labeled so by their governments might well comprise the largest ethnicity in the world. Most studies on the Chinese outside China have focused on their construction as an ethnicity and how they, after being constructed, are assimilated or have resisted assimilation—thus inviting discrimination or suppression—into Other-majority nations. The assimilation-resistance-suppression paradigm, while useful for some scholars in understanding Chinese communities in individual nations, has made an ideal out of the absorption of the Chinese into the body politic in Southeast Asia. It also posits the Chinese as a problem to be resolved or eliminated, thereby supplementing the subtly racist Yellow Peril discourse, which suggests that the disproportionate control of national economies by the Chinese, with their mobile wealth and loyalties being divided between China and their host nation, is detrimental to national interests. With the recent rise of China, particularly its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that will bring about tremendous economic ramifications for Southeast Asia, the Yellow Peril discourse has been elevated to a “China threat” among nationalists who fear the further encroachment of China into the region (Blanchard 2019; Dittmer and Ngeow 2017; Yang and Li 2019). In light of China’s rise as a regional and global power, the ways in which adherents, supporters, or critics of the idea of Chineseness are engaging with China for a variety of reasons or purposes have gained renewed significance. Interpretations and representations of Chineseness will change as a result of such engagements. Chineseness is thus less about the character of some ethnicity or nation than about the collective manifestation of cultural and political intents. By first historicizing the construction of Chineseness and then focusing on the process in the putative Southeast Asia periphery and in the non-territorial domain 1

In studies on China, the emphasis remains on how leaders of the Han ethnicity explained ethnic differences and integrated people of different ethnicities into the Chinese nation. The category or idea of the Han or Chinese ethnicity in the context of China is thus uncritically applied rather than rigorously tested. The works cited here have tried to remedy this issue in the field.

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of popular culture, this book examines the intersections of authenticity, authority, culture, identity, media, power, and international relations that support or undermine different identifications with Chineseness and its representations. Although China and Southeast Asia remain what historian Harry Harootunian (2012, p. 7) has called “fixed spatial containers” that collectively signify an unchanging modern structure that regulates and simplifies rather than liberates and complicates scholarship, they reveal the different geographical scales that identity, or bearers of their chosen identity, can assume or transform as part of the agency to survive or thrive. The transmutation of area studies into identity studies, which presumes ethnocultural determinations and privileges the spatial over the force and forms of time, has not only caricatured regions based on supposedly historical or scientific criteria but also transubstantiated alternative modernities or multiple temporalities into a single temporality that marks the distance between the so-called developed and the undeveloped worlds (Harootunian 2012). By adopting philosopher M. M. Bakhtin’s concept of chronotope, which helps restore time to spatial considerations and analyze unique forms of temporality, the book challenges the conventional narrative of historical sedimentation, which is so crucial and relevant to nationalistic discourses on the past and which identifies specific space–time relationships that are centered on the idea of Chineseness and are independent of simplistic longue durée assumptions. The book seeks to rescue the present from the past by offering case studies of contingent encounters that produce the ideas, identities, and practices that become the categories nations need to justify their own existence. It aims to recover narratives marginalized or suppressed by the hegemonic and teleological discourse on the inevitability of the nation and suggests how identity and “other-ness”—its implied opposite—are mutually constitutive. But that is not to say that Chineseness is exceptional in each context or nation and hence necessarily reverses the privileging of a national perspective. Rather, the dynamic and fluid representations of Chineseness demonstrate that it has never been an undifferentiated whole in both space and time. Through physical movements and inherited knowledge, agents of Chineseness have deployed a wide variety of interpretive strategies to define and represent themselves vis-à-vis the local, regional, and even global in their respective temporal experiences. The different political histories and social formations of China and Southeast Asia have led to different definitions and interpretive strategies of Chineseness. While intellectuals and political leaders in China since the beginning of the twentieth century have promoted a form of Sinocentric ethno-culturalism thinly veiled as universalistic nationalism (Zhao 2004), their counterparts in the former Western colonies of Southeast Asia have displayed greater qualms about parading their Chineseness and adopted varied ways of coping with it. While the former have modified the contents of Chineseness to justify how the non-Han ethnicities that had been subjugated by the Manchu Qing Empire can assimilate into the new Chinese or greater Han nation, the latter have considered methods that would negotiate their inclusion in colonial and postcolonial societies, first as economic collaborators and then as constructive if not submissive communities to “native” majorities. For instance, the canonical postcolonial text The Myth of the Lazy Native (Alatas 1967; cf. Thongchai 1994), often seen

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as a treatise of anti-Orientalism and anti-imperialism, actually asserts the nationalistic determinations of those “who were there first” and can thus claim temporally endowed and subsequently legal rights to the geo-body of their nation. Before we can provincialize Europe (or China) by adopting the same postcolonial tools to analyze, for example, the Anglo-Saxon majority in Britain (or the Han people in China), it might be instructive to compare the (Han) Chinese as defined in China with the Chinese as categorized in Southeast Asia and rethink comparative possibilities—one of the failed promises of area studies (Harootunian 2012). The editors of this book, one concerned with China and the other with Southeast Asia, have offered the comparative insights needed to invite relevant contributions and examine the contingent complexities of ethnic formations in both China and Southeast Asia. Within Chinese studies, the concepts of “cultural China” and “Sinophone,” introduced by philosopher Tu (2005) and literary scholar Shih (2011), respectively, have been popular, even though they have influenced by different modes of alternative thinking. Tu’s “cultural China” was invoked at a time when the PRC was mired in the chaos of its Cultural Revolution. The renaissance that it promoted included not only the aspirations of Chinese overseas for a greater China but also an enlightened Sinophilic community. Its cosmopolitanism was not unlike that of Sinophone studies, but the intellectual influences driving Tu, a neo-Confucian, were hardly commensurable with those on Shih, a Chinese overseas whose comparative literature writing was influenced by postmodernism and subaltern studies. Both the concepts of cultural China and the Sinophone resonate with the Chinese diaspora, insofar as they champion views of China and the Chinese from the outside. This remains particularly true in Southeast Asia, where the presence of Chinese overseas has been greatest. Why, then, is it necessary to broaden the scope of inquiry to China? After all, this book could have simply focused on the Chinese overseas in Southeast Asia; the diversity of cultural and historical experiences in their societies can already generate constructive discussion on its own. But as anthropologist and China specialist Gladney (1998, p. 1) famously declares, “Majorities are made, not born,” and the Han (Chinese) majority in mainland China are no exception to the rule. Mainland China, as well as the other so-called predominantly Chinese societies of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, offer rich material for a comparative analysis of how accepted categories such as “ethnicity,” “identity,” and “nation” are variously constructed (Gladney 1998, p. 4). By comparing the constructions of majority (“Greater China”) and minority Chinese (Southeast Asia), the myth of an “organic” China that dispenses the “truest” form of Chineseness may be dispelled, thereby allowing us to de-essentialize the idea of Chineseness even further. A powerful medium of ethnic and identity formations, historical discourses, especially those created and deployed by scholars and the state, have made and marked who and what are officially “ethnic” in China and Southeast Asia. The structure and overall tenor of the chapters reveal the book’s emphasis on the historical, constructed, and negotiated nature of Chineseness. The geographical focus on Southeast Asia and the margins of mainland China is thus deliberate; they constitute a region that is presumably most susceptible to China’s cultural influence and political power. The presence of substantial Chinese populations in this region means that they often

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figure in the intellectual, official, and public debates about statehood and national identity in the countries encompassed by it. By focusing on maritime rather than mainland Southeast Asia, this book follows literary scholar Brian C. Bernards in arguing that, in expressing national cultures, “the archipelagic imagination conceptually differs from the continental imagination, prioritizing contact, exchange, heterogeneity, and creolization instead of racial, ethnic, or linguistic uniformity and singularity” (Bernards 2016, p. 13). Our contributors thus recognize the “transcultural affinities that cross and transgress the boundaries imposed by colonial and national regimes” in the region (Bernards 2016, p. 13); this is particularly evident in Part Three of the book. We agree with the conclusions reached by Ma and Cartier (2003) that the culture of Chinese overseas crosses national boundaries and that they should be understood as a fluid network that challenges the control and assimilationist policies of nation-states. In this book, then, the key differences between constructions in history, constructions of ethnicity, and constructions in popular culture ultimately lie in the degree of autonomy from the state and official control. National histories may have created ethnicities and identities, but expressions of popular culture tend to complicate if not subvert the formulations. But the binary between state and society is never absolute because the themes of official discourses are often internalized and appear in popular culture in interesting (or mysterious) ways. The disciplinary diversity of this book has prevented us from drawing sweeping generalizations and reaching even broad consensuses, but suffice it to say that Chinese overseas can disentangle—often incompletely—with China in a range of social phenomena such as architecture, family relations, language use, and popular culture. In short, it is easy to speak of Chineseness in vague terms. But given its spatial and temporal complexities, the idea of Chineseness did not simply emerge for the taking. The invention and constant reinvention of the idea are developed by people who use it to label themselves and others, often for their own benefit and understanding. It is the experiences and practices of these people, who appear bound by nationality but, as mobile agents, are relatively free to embrace or reject being defined as Chinese by moving across imagined or territorial boundaries and reinterpreting their own histories, on which this book will focus. The opposition to modern nation-building projects, which have adopted scientific modes of classification that are often ethnological and linguistic in nature, as a technology of power to assert and rationalize immutable ethnic categories embedded in a legitimate past (Keyes 2002), has generated multiple interpretations of Chineseness. The continued existence of nation-states and multiplicity of Chineseness guarantee that Chineseness will always be contested and remain a valid field of inquiry for decades to come.

1.1 Historicizing the Construction of Chineseness In the first part of this book entitled “Historicizing the Construction of Chineseness,” Chik (Chap. 2) creates the backdrop for developments in China. Hon and Chan (Chap. 3), Kam (Chap. 4), Yap (Chap. 5), and Sittithep (Chap. 6) demonstrate how

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the construction of Chineseness began in the colonies and semi-colonies of Southeast Asia during the early decades of the twentieth century almost independently of influence from China. The chapters contribute to a growing literature on how emigrants from what we retrospectively call “China” have modernized, enmeshed it into a global circulation of goods, ideas, money, and people, and undergirded its nation-building project. Emigration is thus not a mere diffusion of culture, meaning, and forces of change from a hegemonic center to its derivative peripheries (Chan 2018). Unlike existing studies that consider colonialism an exploitative power structure discriminating against the ruled society and deprives it of equal opportunities available to the ruling class when discussing the idea of Chineseness (Manomaivibool et al. 2020, p. xvii), the chapters suggest that independent or semi-colonial regimes during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (i.e., China and Siam/Thailand) and postcolonial states that emerged in the mid-twentieth century were equally discriminatory toward the ruled—be they colonial subjects or national citizens—and could deprive the Chinese of rights and privileges available elsewhere. In today’s mainland China, the so-called homeland of ethnic Chinese, no cognate notion, in the Chinese language, of nation or society whose boundary was synonymous with that of an ethnic group had actually existed prior to the Nationalist Revolution of 1911. Only in the early years of the republic did intellectuals associate Zhonghua minzu 中華 民族 (Chinese as an ethnic category) with Zhongguoren 中國人 (citizens of China). That the idea of a national identity is new suggests that “any notions of culture invoked in this regard, no matter how faithfully they are grounded in the past, have to be constructions by nature” (Chun 1996, p. 114). That said, the ethnic Han had begun identifying themselves as “Han” or “Chinese” and distinguishing themselves from the Hui (Muslims), Manchus, Mongols, Tibetans, and other so-called minority groups under the umbrella label of the “Chinese race” (Zhonghua minzu) since the late nineteenth century. After 1911, under the influence of zealous scholars and politicians, the Han people quickly took for granted the veracity of their origin narratives (or, depending on the perspective, myths). At the core of this, Han identity was the concept of huaxia 華夏 rooted in the shared civilization of the first mythical dynasty Xia; huaxia was a “code word for both political legitimacy and historical destiny” (Chun 1996, p. 116). As proud descendants of the mytho-historical Yellow Emperor, the Han people were confident that they could subsume all non-Han ethnicities under a broadly defined Chinese nation. But in Southeast Asia, even in what is generally considered the most benign case of assimilation in Thailand (Kuhn 2008, pp. 283–320), a culturally intermediate “Sinoforeign” or “Sino-Other” community has failed to develop. In twentieth-century Thailand, ethnicity, rather than outward appearance, made one a registered Chinese citizen from birth, and those traits deemed undesirable in the Chinese race—flexibility and thriftiness in business became insincerity and stinginess in society—stuck to the Chinese and their descendants regardless of their cultural adaptation (Tejapira 1992). As “Sino-Thai” historian Tejapira (2009, p. 271) has confessed, “Having gone through all [the] Thaifying rituals [to out-Thai the Thais], one still could not help always feeling like a fake, being inadequate and vulnerable, psycho-culturally rootless, homeless and lost.” Despite the broad differences, then, states and societies

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in both China and Southeast Asia share the tendency of compounding the Chinese into one homogeneous group without a nuanced focus on the distinctiveness of its constituents, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) continuing efforts to create a single Chinese identity and homogenize its citizens culturally and ethnically based on perceived “Chinese” physiognomy (Hodzi 2019). As for the Chinese in Southeast Asia, must their national identity supersede whatever cultural, ethnic, or linguistic heritage they may carry, or can it co-exist with their other identities? By focusing on the dialectical relationship between culture and history, “Historicizing the Construction of Chineseness” shows how culture and history are more than background or context; they directly animate the encounters within and between China and Southeast Asia. That said, it bears repeating that for most Chinese in colonial Southeast Asia, with the notable exception of reformist intellectuals of different political affiliations (anti-Qing, republican, and leftwing, to name a few), China until the mid-twentieth century was more imagined than real. Even for the sojourning Chinese working in port cities and rural plantations, China as a nation was emotively less significant than their own county or village hometowns. By emphasizing the cultural motifs deployed by intellectuals in their various capacities or vocations as architects, gentry, merchants, officials, politicians, and professors, the chapters in the first part explore the psychological dynamics that undergirded the idea of Chineseness and anchored it in the hearts of people. They partake in the psychological and sociological turn in the study of Chineseness, which relies on the “social psychological notion of altercasting and the anthropological notion of post-Chineseness” to examine the identity strategies of Chinese overseas (Shih 2018, p. 280). Chineseness was experienced as much as it was institutionalized, and it empowered as much as it suppressed. Departing from the focus of economists and political scientists on macro-level trends, the chapters present micro-level engagements between people from China or Southeast Asia and their feelings for an imagined China. They suggest how archeologists and historians recreated the cult of Yellow Emperor for themselves and their nation (Chap. 2), how scholars established a link between Chineseness and Confucianism in colonial Hong Kong (Chap. 3), how architects redesigned sites of worship due to regime change (Chap. 4), how filmmakers reshaped ideas of belonging among sojourners-turned-citizens in new communities (Chap. 5), and how scholars identified and defined Chinese and used that identification to facilitate cordial SinoThai relations (Chap. 6). The personal encounters of culture and history illuminate how the concept of Chineseness was constructed and why it was adopted in individual contexts while remaining part of macro-level developments. The chapters attest to the continued salience of Chineseness as a label and to why Chinese overseas, despite having settled in their imposed or self-imposed categories, have felt the need to confirm or renew their “membership.” The rise of China since the late 1980s has been differently felt in the world and inconsistently felt over time, exerting pressure on intellectuals all over the world, not least those of ethnic Chinese origin in Southeast Asia, to defend or reorient their discourses on China (Manomaivibool et al. 2020, p. xviii). The reorientation involves what political scientist Chih-yu Shih has called “post-Chineseness,” which “indicates the resources and the processes incurred to achieve reconnection with other actors

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perceived to own a certain type of Chineseness” (Shih 2018, pp. 280–281). Due to its sheer territorial extent and population size, China has been a significant power even in its moments of economic and military weaknesses, so its growing influence on Asia and the rest of the world after its successful reforms and resurgence has created both opportunities and crises of identity expression for Chinese communities within and outside China. “Who is China?” and “Where is China?” have never been easy questions and are further complicated by the PRC’s desire to reassert itself as the center of Chinese culture in line with its ambitions to become an economic and military powerhouse (Callahan 2010, p. 22). As Tu (2005, p. 147) suggests, “The Middle Kingdom syndrome, or the Middle Kingdom complex, may have made it difficult for the Chinese leadership to abandon its sense of superiority as the center.” The problem facing successive imperial dynasties and the current PRC government is thus less about conquering, recovering, or even ruling China than about defining it. In other words, the conundrum is how culturally exclusive China must be—or become—to remain Chinese (Waldron 1990). But Chinese identity, be it felt by the Han in mainland China or the Chinese in Southeast Asia, is not merely a product of top-down state aspiration or nationalism. It is more likely the result of both state and grassroots forces that interact to create not only opportunities and crises but also contradictions and confusion at both macro- and micro-levels. A key point that we quickly learn is that being Chinese is not necessarily intertwined with China as a geopolitical concept or with Chinese culture as a living reality. In China’s absence as a cultural power in Southeast Asia from the Second World War to the Cultural Revolution, when it was mired in political turmoil and largely isolated from the outside world, the Chinese outside China responded to the perceived disintegration of Chinese culture at the China center by trying to revive it from the periphery where they were. According to Tu (2005, p. 155), these Chinese comprised culturally and ethnically Chinese societies in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, Chinese communities in the rest of the world, and the “scholars, teachers, journalists, industrialists, traders, entrepreneurs, and writers who try to understand China intellectually and bring their conceptions of China to their own linguistic communities.” These “symbolic universes” of Chinese, particularly the intellectuals, have shaped the international discourse on cultural China. Many of such intellectuals were part of the mass exodus from the mainland during its tumultuous years. For Tu, this “shows clearly that the civilization-state has lost much of its iron grip on the Chinese intelligentsia, and the Tiananmen brutality may have irreversibly severed the emotional attachment of the diaspora Chinese to the homeland” (Tu 2005, p. 162). Although Tu essay has successfully afforded Chinese overseas a framework for defining China and Chineseness without them having to inhabit the geographical or political space of Zhongguo 中國, it is perhaps time to update it. Chik (Chap. 2) discusses how the PRC state has been trying to revive the Yellow Emperor as a symbol of Chinese culture not only for its citizens but also for Chinese overseas, indicating that the emotional attachment of Chinese overseas to their homeland can be reversed. In retrospect, the direct causes of changing orientations of discourses on China, as the rest of the first part suggests, are not authoritarianism and cultural disintegration of the center that is China. Rather, local politics and concerns are greater considerations

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for Chinese overseas in rethinking their own culture and relationship with China. The first part of the book thus affirms that in the shaping of cultural China, marginality remains a source of change and inspiration that PRC leaders and scholars have tried to incorporate, if not supplant, in their attempts to re-center China (Cohen 1993). This includes encouraging Chinese overseas to “return” to their ancestral villages for religious pilgrimages and setting up Confucius Institutes to promote so-called authentic Chinese culture across the world (Kuah-Pearce 2011; Sahlins 2015). In Chap. 2, Chik examines the public debates over worshiping the Yellow Emperor at the state level and where the relevant ceremonies should be held. The worship of cultural heroes such as the Yellow Emperor has rapidly developed in different places across the PRC since the beginning of the twenty-first century—for example, in the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor in Shaanxi Province and the Yellow Emperor Palace in Henan Province. The PRC government is an obvious beneficiary of the commemoration and ceremonies, which reinforce its claim of a long and continuous past for China. Chik emphasizes the cultural, economic, and intellectual agendas that lie behind the debates, arguing that scholars involved in the debates compete for the cultural authority to interpret the resources of the Yellow Emperor and define his orthodoxy. Local governments of cultural sites hope that the Yellow Emperor cult can help develop the local economy and promote the standing of their own province within China. The different interests of different intellectuals and officials define how the debates have developed and how the worship of the Yellow Emperor is performed in different places of memory. In Chap. 3, Hon and Chan investigate a critical moment of Hong Kong’s colonial history—the “Canton-Hong Kong Strike” (June 1925–October 1926). Lasting fifteen months, the strike not only paralyzed the colony’s economy and global trade, but also dealt a severe blow to British authority in Hong Kong when its system of “divide and rule” no longer worked. By examining the policies of Cecil Clementi (1875– 1947), the governor of Hong Kong (1925–1930), the authors show that while the local Chinese were convinced that their future lay with the British Empire, their cultural identity remained rooted in the Confucian tradition. In the aftermath of the strike, Clementi was able to expand the colonial structure to include more local Chinese in the government. By winning the support of three groups of Chinese stakeholders—Chinese merchants, rural gentry, and Qing loyalists—Clementi gave the humbled Hong Kong government the legitimacy to continue to rule, not only to bring glory to the British Empire, but also to revitalize the Confucian tradition as an antidote to political radicalism. In so doing, Clementi—who is, to this day, deferentially remembered in Hong Kong as Jin Wen Tai 金文泰 (Gold, Culture, and Prosperity)—succeeded in mobilizing the dual loyalty of local Chinese to strengthen the collaborative colonialism in Hong Kong. Consequently, he extended colonial rule more deeply and widely to Chinese society, which had been unimaginable. In Chap. 4, Kam explores how the notion of Chineseness is embraced and manipulated through architectural and spatial designs in Taiwan before and after the Second World War. She illustrates how different elements of Chineseness conceived nowadays were beneficial for, at different times, both the Japanese colonizers and the Kuomintang (KMT) during their respective constructions of temporally preferred

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identities in Taiwan. She shows how Japanese colonizers in Taiwan designed, built, and used Shinto shrines in Taiwan as spatial tools to win the hearts of the colonized. In this context, Chineseness served as a subtle set of conceptual characteristics embedded in colonial Shinto shrines, which was used by the colonizers to influence the colonized. Kam then examines how, after 1949, the Nationalist government appropriated the colonial shrines and transformed them into martyr shrines. After 1966, the KMT converted those spaces again, this time into a distinctive Chinese style when it launched the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement. As a concept, Chineseness was preferred by the KMT, which claimed to inherit the Chinese orthodoxy. Analyzing how the concept and elements of Chineseness could be interpreted and highlighted for different purposes, Kam reveals various versions of Chineseness presented by the Japanese and the KMT in Taiwan. She concludes that Chineseness as a concept should be defined as a collection of dynamic cultural stopovers that has its own intellectual trajectory, rather than being seen as fixed and timeless. Comparing the coloniality in Chaps. 3 and 4, Hon and Chan discuss the issue of political marginality in social protests while Kam highlights the political centrality of Chineseness as inscribed at martyr shrines. In Chinese societies under perceived foreign rule, Chineseness can assume different levels of political significance depending on the agenda and objective of colonial administration. In Chap. 5, Yap examines how some Chinese intellectuals, who arrived in Singapore during the 1920s, made and distributed their films in British Malaya. Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, overseas Chinese nationalism was “taught nationalism” (Wang 1992, p. 42). During the early twentieth century, it was disseminated from China by intellectuals and through cultural products, such as newspaper, textbooks, and literary works, to Malaya. In her chapter, Yap clarifies the different meanings of being a Malayan Chinese and reflects on the “Nanyang aesthetic” inherent in a new national culture promoted by the newly independent Malayan state in the 1950s and 1960s. To do so, she focuses on the life of Chua Boon Hean, a Chinese intellectual who had settled in Singapore since the late 1930s. Chua was a scriptwriter for the Malay Film Productions (MFP) Limited during the 1950s. He was also a poet and editor for the film magazine Screen Voice who rebooted the theme on inter-racial romance through his work Sri Menanti (1958), which starred local Malay artistes such as Zaiton, Salleh Kamil, and S. Kadarisman as well as Hong Kong film stars such as Chang Chung and Tang Dan. The film was first released in Malay and then dubbed in Mandarin under a new name Malai Fengyue (1958). Well-received by local audiences, it predated the official launch of Malayan culture in Singapore. Ultimately, Yap demonstrates that Malayan filmmakers and viewers understood the preoccupation of both colonial and postcolonial states with race relations during the 1950s and 1960s, suggesting why the Chinese majority in Singapore did not challenge official policies of making Malay the national language and incorporating the learning of the Malay language in the school curriculum. In Chap. 6, Sittithep examines the Chinese in Thailand as an object of knowledge by focusing on how the meaning of being Chinese was shaped during the 1980s and early 1990s, a moment when Thailand-China relations were greatly improved. He suggests that the status of the Chinese as a significant part of the Thai nation

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was systematically constructed during this period as a result of the convergence of Thai and Chinese intellectual nationalisms. Redefining the meaning of the Chinese in Thailand from being “the Other” to being a significant part of the Thai nation (i.e., the Chinese of Thailand) was necessary for the PRC and Thailand to forge cordial diplomatic relations with each other, especially in the context of Soviet and Vietnamese attempts to expand their influence in continental Southeast Asia. A tool that had facilitated the forgetting of former animosities between the PRC and Thailand at the height of the Cold War, the transformation of the “Chinese in Thailand” into the “Chinese of Thailand” also renegotiated the boundary between Chineseness and Thainess in Thailand.

1.2 Negotiating Chineseness in Southeast Asia The second part of the book, “Negotiating Chineseness in Southeast Asia,” examines empirically the ways in which Chineseness is lived, performed, and practiced among the Chinese minority in Southeast Asia. Chong (Chap. 7) sets the scene for a comprehensive understanding of the political, social, and economic position of the Chinese in the region, followed by more specific discussions by Ho and Ho (Chap. 8), Hoon (Chap. 9), Chiou (Chap. 10), and Zeng (Chap. 11) on the construction and maintenance of ethnic identity, cultural values, and hybridity among the Chinese in Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and post-war Singapore and Malaya. As identity and otherness are mutually constitutive, Chineseness is not merely an expression of Chinese minority agency but is also defined by state regulations and policies. In other words, the interpretative strategies adopted by ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia are contingent on the majority’s interaction with and the state’s response toward the ethnic other. Surely one would expect that citizenship would unite the diverse population within a nation-state, but Chong’s chapter clearly shows that differentiated citizenship and institutional racial discrimination work in disadvantaging the Chinese communities who continue to be marginalized in a place where they live and die for generations. While racial differences are often identified as the main culprit for such differentiation, beneath the surface lies the real discrepancy caused by social class distinction, as well as a long history of mutual distrust between the “indigenous” and the “newcomers” embedded in the colonial legacy of divide-and-rule policy. Beyond the nation-states of Southeast Asia where this minority resides, the other major force that continues to influence the interpretation of Chineseness is the People’s Republic of China, which regards itself, and is considered by some Chinese overseas, as the “center” for any definition of Chineseness as far as authenticity is concerned. For many Chinese overseas, living in the midst of otherness has reinforced the need for a cultural identity, an anchor that might provide them with the meaning of who they are. However, any affinity to a cultural identity would demand “loyalty and existential authenticity” (Yao 2009, p. 259), which is what sustains

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cultural essentialism.2 While Yao attests that “essentialism represents the shackles that chain Chineseness to the wall of a lightless prison room” (2009, p. 255), he also acknowledges the fact that it is impossible for culture to totally escape from essentialism “in the real social, political world” (2009, p. 216). This paradox of being trapped in between wanting to resist Chinese essentialism yet unable to reject the whole idea of Chineseness is noticeably discussed in the other four chapters in Part Two. The “burdens of Chineseness,” as Reid (2009b) calls it, continue to beset the Chinese in Southeast Asia not only through state policies, such as mandatory racial identification, that discriminate or racialize the population, but also through the minority’s voluntary self-identification and preservation of essentialist Chineseness.3 Since “being Chinese is not absolute,” the question of whether one is “more or less Chinese” (Wang 2003, p. 184) is often measured by an essentialist yardstick of one’s commitment to traditional Chinese culture and values, with the perception of China “as an unambiguous political entity and Chineseness as a feature shared by ethnic Chinese on the basis of discrete traits and traditions” (Chun 1996, p. 113). Such an approach is demonstrated in Debbie Ho and Hannah Ho’s study on the cultural identity of third- and fourth-generation Chinese Bruneians in Chap. 8. Nonetheless, post-structuralist theorists have offered some hope in foregrounding hybridity as a critique as well as an alternative to essentialism. As the antithesis to the essentialist notion of identity, hybridity is a transgressive concept that blurs and traverses the boundaries by which identities are bounded (Hoon 2017). For Ang (2000, p. xix), the process of cultural hybridization will inevitably engage in “destabilization and contestation of prevailing cultural purities, essentialisms and chauvinisms.” Between the poles of identity and hybridity lies the multiple positions that depend on how agency and power are exercised. The negotiation between maintaining cultural identity and giving way to hybridity is illustrated in the case of Chinese Indonesians by Hoon (Chap. 9) and Chiou (Chap. 10). Intrinsic to the process of migration and dislocation, hybridity is a continuous and often convoluted process of cultural translation and negotiation that is never complete. The unique “Nanyang Art Style” that emerged during the post-war political transition in Malaya/Singapore discussed by Zeng (Chap. 11) shows how such a process is also contingent to local and global political contexts. On the other hand, Chiou’s discussion on how a Chinese Indonesian Muslim doctor incorporated Chinese practices originating in Taoism into indigenous Indonesian Muslim’s healthcare regime demonstrates that the process of hybridity is indeed a “translingual practice” that can creatively manage the incommensurability between Chinese and 2

In a similar vein, Allen Chun (1996, p. 123) argues that, “The difference between their ethnic disposition as characterized by custom or language and their sense of identity as a bounded community vis-à-vis others is important for understanding why Chinese overseas could continue to claim to have a sense of ethnic Chineseness, regardless of how deeply they were actually assimilated into indigenous society.” To him, Chineseness will continue to exist as long as the bounded concept of identity or ethnicity persists (p. 125). 3 Wang argues that many Chinese overseas choose essentialist cultural elements to preserve in order “to defend their descendants from becoming rootless” (2009, p. 213).

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Islamic cosmologies and redefine “their forms of classification, symbols, categories, and universes of meaning” (Jammes and Palmer 2018, p. 421). Such a product of hybridity cannot be regarded as purely Chinese, Indonesian, or Islamic but is uniquely Chinese, Indonesian, and Islamic, or what Chiou coins as “Islamic Chineseness.” However, Hoon’s study of the negotiation of Chineseness in Indonesia between primordialism and hybridity shows the continuous tension in the articulation of identity among the Chinese communities outside China. Indeed, hybridity is not only abhorred by cultural purists but also by the state that perceives it as a site of anxiety to the national identity that is typically constructed in imaginary terms of cultural purity, homogeneity, and authenticity. This is seen in the case of contemporary Indonesia, where the lived reality of hybrid Chineseness has given way to an essentialist, primordial version of Chineseness, which is a preferred currency in the advent of China’s rise and the growing usefulness of Chineseness in business. As Reid observes, “some of the Peranakan who forgot their Chineseness a decade ago may now be remembering it for certain purposes, as they have every right to do” (2009b, p. 295). In light of such dynamics, the chapters in Part Two will examine the interpretive strategies of the Chinese in Southeast Asia as they negotiate their cultural identity amid forces of localization, hybridization, and (re)sinicization. In Chap. 7, Chong presents a comparative perspective on the political, social, and economic position of the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia, taking into account both their historical and contemporary contexts. Through a thorough review of the major literature on Chinese communities in various Southeast Asian countries, Chong identifies ethnic, cultural, religious, and social factors that contributed to the prejudice among the indigenous population toward the Chinese. The discriminatory measures and restrictions imposed on the Chinese in Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia during the 1960s and 1970s show that similarities in culture and religion are not enough to absorb the Chinese into the local society. During the Cold War, the anticommunist politics resulted in the perception of the Chinese minority as the potential “fifth column” for China among some governments in the region. The discrimination against the Chinese only began to wane after the opening up of the Chinese market to foreign investors and the subsequent normalization of diplomatic relations between China and most Southeast Asian countries. The ethnic Chinese in these countries have played a role in contributing to the economic development of the countries. Nonetheless, this has also led to unintended negative consequences, such as the intensification of the Great China complex, especially among ethnic Chinese in Malaysia and Indonesia who are upset with the discriminatory policies imposed on them by local powerholders, and the subsequent increase in blind support of certain ethnic Chinese for the Chinese government, which leads to the loyalty of the Chinese to their “host” countries once again being questioned. In Chap. 8, Debbie Ho and Hannah Ho take a cultural turn in asking how the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia describe themselves as Chinese. Using the case study of the Chinese minority in the Malay Muslim sultanate of Brunei Darussalam, the chapter addresses these questions: (1) What characterizes a Chinese in terms of cultural and moral values? (2) To what extent do these characteristics reflect the traditional Chinese cultural and moral values? and (3) How different, or similar,

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are the Chinese in Brunei from the Chinese in other parts of Southeast Asia and from mainland China? The chapter examines the ways in which Chinese Bruneians negotiate their multicultural layered identities in integrating into local mainstream society, on one hand, and maintaining their cultural traditions, on the other. In an attempt to provide an insider’s perspective on the issues of Chinese ethnic identity and values, the study draws on data collected from individual interviews and focus group discussions with ethnic Chinese citizens, permanent residents, and long-term settlers in Brunei from different age groups, economic, social, and educational backgrounds. The results of this study indicate that most participants, despite being third- and fourth-generation Chinese overseas, continue to practice and identify with various Chinese traditional cultural values such as filial piety, observance of festivals, and worshiping of ancestors. In Chap. 9, Hoon examines the contestation in articulating Chineseness in contemporary Indonesia and the ways in which the marginalized Chinese minority negotiated their identity as the nation underwent a process of democratization and reformation after the fall of President Suharto in 1998. The chapter highlights the cultural politics within the Chinese community between promoting a “primordial Chineseness” by older-generation Chinese cultural and business elites on one hand and practicing a “hybridized Chineseness” by culturally assimilated Chinese Indonesians on the other. In light of the rise of China, the chapter unpacks the deeper embedded cultural and economic meanings to the primordial version of Chineseness, which can be used as a strategic resource to tap into the transnational Chinese capitalist networks and to achieve trust for business dealings with other members of this imagined community or with China. This is contrasted with the organic, localized, and hybridized Chineseness that is reflected in the daily experience of most Chinese Indonesians. Hoon argues that such hybridity is not a harmonious syncretism of Chinese and Indonesian cultures but is a process of complex negotiation and identification that intersects with forces of globalization, modernization, primordialism, and localization. However, this hybrid identity that characterizes the lived reality of most Chinese Indonesians has been hardly represented in the public sphere that continues to privilege primordial Chineseness, which is seen as more universal/global, authentic, and economically relevant. For hybridized Chinese to access Chineseness as a cultural resource and to gain economic benefits from the rising China, they often have no choice but to subject themselves to performing primordial Chineseness through a process of resinicization. In Chap. 10, Chiou explores the notion of “Islamic Chineseness” in Indonesia through the case study of how a Chinese-Indonesian Muslim doctor applies his knowledge of Chinese medicine to Muslim healthcare. To claim national belonging and indigeneity, Chinese Muslims in Indonesia have often cited the historical legacy of the Chinese involvement in the Islamization of Java by invoking the history of early Muslim saints with Chinese origin and the voyage of Zheng He 鄭和 (1371–1433), a Chinese Muslim admiral, to the Malay world. Chineseness is also conspicuously embodied in the Islamic practice of Chinese Muslims in Indonesia, as can be seen in their building of Chinese-style mosques, incorporation of salat (Islamic prayers) into their celebration of Chinese New Year, and performance of nashid—a form of

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Islamic popular music—using Mandarin lyrics, dressed in Chinese mandarin jackets. Chiou’s study of the Chinese-Indonesian Muslim doctor who reformed the Islamic ritual performance of salat as a technique of bodily cultivation, derived from the Taoist practice of qigong, stretching exercises, acupuncture massage, and healthy diets, has offered a way of imagining a modern collective Muslim Self underpinning a Chinese bodily imaginary. The promotion of Islamic ritual practice through holistic healthcare has created an alternative Islamic Chineseness in motion, which is not only confined within the Chinese-Indonesian Muslim circle but has also been incorporated into indigenous Indonesian Muslim’s healthcare regime. In Chap. 11, Zeng analyzes the paintings and cultural practices of Georgette Chen (1906–1993). Born in China, Chen was one of Singapore’s pioneer Li Ying painters who helped establish the Nanyang Style of painting. Thanks to her wealth, she was able to live and receive an art education in Paris, New York, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Chen eventually settled in Singapore and was awarded the state’s Cultural Medallion in 1982 for her artistic contributions. In her chapter, Zeng highlights the localization, structure of diasporic feelings, and the sense of identity in the paintings she completed in Malaya and Singapore. Zeng argues that Chen presented in her drawings Chinese and Southeast Asian themes with Western techniques. Like other first-generation painters in Singapore, Chen realized the need to invent a uniquely local artistic style that could capture the spirit of the tropics. This new style of painting became known as the Nanyang Style. Chen was fascinated with Singapore’s landscapes, Nanyang children, and their mothers, which featured prominently in her work. Zeng discusses Chen’s Nanyang Style in a transnational framework and explores her localization drawings with the following questions in mind: How did the political transition spanning the dissolution of British colonialism and the independence of Malaysia and Singapore help develop Chen’s artistic practices? In what ways did Chen, a non-Western artist who acquired Western art techniques, construct Asianthemed paintings in the context of art histories in China, Singapore, and Southeast Asia? How did Chinese overseas such as Chen feel during the transition from colonial to postcolonial rule? By analyzing Chen’s paintings and writings, Zeng aims to contextualize the development of art and art education in colonial Malaya and postcolonial Malaysia and Singapore.

1.3 Constructing Chineseness in Popular Culture Part Three of the book examines the ways in which Chineseness is constructed and reproduced in popular culture, visual arts, and literary and cultural productions. Chapters 12–14 focus on case studies in Southeast Asia, while Chaps. 15 and 16 examine how Chineseness is regulated through nationalist discourses and censorship in contemporary China. The concept of Sinophone is useful in conceptualizing the locally situated artistic works produced by Chinese overseas who are settled in multiple localities at the margins of China and Chineseness. According to Shih (2013, p. 8), “the Sinophone spaces are scattered around the world and Sinophone culture

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is produced in different locations, but in each site the Sinophone is a place-based, local culture, in dialogue with other cultures of that location.” Drawing on Shih’s concept, Chan’s study of two popular singers in Malaysia and Singapore, respectively, in Chap. 13 shows that Sinophone can be a contested site both for “expressing nationalism, nostalgia and longing for China, as well as antiChina sentiments or indifference toward China.” On the other hand, Ma’s discussion on the expression of global diasporic Chineseness through the use of different English dialects in Chap. 12 demonstrates precisely the kind of Sinophone that has nothing to do with the Chinese state but reflects local situatedness and subsequent transnational realities augmented by the practice of migration. Perhaps the hyphenated ChineseSingaporean production of Xinyao examined by Liew and Goh in Chap. 14 is more apposite to Shih’s conception of Sinophone. “As a vehicle for the performance of Chinese identity among a younger generation without the anxiety baggage borne by their predecessors” (Quah 2009, p. 230), Xinyao represents a de-centered diasporic Chinese language popular music produced and sprouted in Singapore with practically no direct input from Mainland China. These case studies of Sinophone texts point to the existence of alternative Sinic-language cultural products that is “away from the otherwise singularized ethnicity of a fantasized pan-Chinese nation” (Liew and Goh, Chap. 14) that resist “China-centrism and the hegemonic call of Chineseness” (Shih 2011, p. 710). However, Chun’s question remains: “But to what extent do disenfranchised voices from the periphery offer alternative conceptions of identity or of ‘Chineseness’?” (1996, p. 120). The reemergence of China has unwittingly undermined the multiplicity of Chineseness organically developed in the peripheral Sinophone space that is de-centered, diasporized, hybridized, and de-territorialized. Using the myth of an imaginary ancestral homeland to reinforce the hegemonic center of cultural China, Chinese overseas have been under pressure to reroute back to the “prison-house of Chineseness” (Ang 2001, p. 44). Cognizant of the potential contribution of the Chinese overseas, since the beginning of the Reform and Opening-Up Policy Beijing has been homologizing global Chineseness to a PRC-centric Chineseness most notably through the estab) in 1978 to embrace lishment of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (qiaoban (PRC citizens who live outside China) and the huaren 華人 both the huaqiao (ethnic Chinese of any citizenship).4 In recent decades, China has intensified its engagement with the Chinese overseas community through soft power and public diplomacy (Ding 2014). In fact, way back in 1995 when Xi Jinping was the Party Secretary of Fuzhou, he had already advocated for “big overseas Chinese work” (da ). After Xi became President, the Overseas Chinese Affairs remains an qiaowu integral part of Xi’s “Chinese Dream” discourse of economic modernization, scientific and technological innovation, and cultural revival (Liu and van Dongen 2016, p. 805). Systematic efforts have been invested by the Chinese state to place itself 4

The Chinese overseas had played an instrumental role in the early stages of China’s journey of economic growth. They brought in as much as two-thirds of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows when China implemented the Reform and Opening-Up Policy in the late 1970s and gave China a resource unavailable to any other rising power (Lee 2016).

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resolutely at the center of a new nationalism incorporating all qiaobao (Chinese compatriots overseas) as a whole, regardless of their citizenship (Reid 2009a). The implication of China’s renewed interests on the global qiaobao is that the authority to define Chineseness has now shifted from the Chinese overseas in the periphery to the Chinese state that has reasserted itself as the center. Wang (2009) argues that the question of Chineseness is an irrelevant notion to people who are born in China of Chinese parents compared to the Chinese overseas who are of a minority ethnic community. Yet it has become customary for official and scholarly publications in China to translate “Chineseness” into the exclusive and state-centric Zhongguo xing 中國性 (the character of China) instead of the more inclusive and depoliticized Huaren xing 華人性 (the character of being ethnic Chinese). In recent years, the Chinese government has invested heavily in promoting soft power through the conspicuously controversial Confucius Institutes, as well as in the entertainment industry including TV series, singing competitions, and variety shows that bring together artists from the different “symbolic universes” of cultural China— Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Chinese overseas globally. The aim of soft power development is to promote Chinese nationalism by invoking a sense of nostalgia regarding a “5000-year-old” civilization and an imagined sense of cultural belonging. Regardless of origin and differences, the transnational reach of Chinese soft power has facilitated the distribution of Chinese popular cultural products to divergent global Chinese communities (Lin and Um 2017). Within China, Xi Jinping’s colossal propaganda campaigns on “China Dream” that are obsessed with the glorification of Chinese history and traditional Chinese culture have quite successfully rallied domestic nationalism as a “legitimation strategy” for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (Huang 2020). Nonetheless, this comes at the expense of the freedom of expression. Huang’s discussion on ancient-style Chinese national comics in Chap. 15 and Song’s study on political homophobia in China (Chap. 16) show that state scrutiny, regulation, and censorship on cultural, artistic, or gender/sexuality articulations are common under Xi’s regime. In this context, Chineseness or the character of being a PRC Chinese citizen encompasses an individual’s ability to conform to state-imposed expectations of their political ideology, cultural affinity, morality, values, and loyalty to the state. In Chap. 12, Ma examines the negotiation of diasporic Chineseness among the characters featured in the critically acclaimed Crazy Rich Asians, a box office hit adapted from a novel written by a Singaporean-American writer Kevin Kwan in 2014. Using the premise that English functions as a global lingua franca among some communities in the Chinese diaspora, the chapter explores how dialects and accents of English are used as markers of education, class, social status, and cultural identity. Cast in the cosmopolitan city of Singapore, the heterogeneity of diasporic Chineseness is expressed, articulated, and contested through the use of a diverse array of English dialects and accents including General American, British Received Pronunciation, Standard Singapore English, Singapore Colloquial English (or Singlish), and African American Vernacular English. The diasporic Chinese characters in the film, as the author observes, share a Chineseness that is not so much defined by their relationship with the Chinese nation-state as embedded in the traditions and shared

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cultural codes inherited from older generations specific to their families’ unique transnational heritage and the social and cultural environs of their places of residence. In this regard, Ma argues that the film, rather than telling the Asian story or the Chinese story, tells a diasporic Chinese story. In Chap. 13, Chan draws upon the concept of the Sinophone to critically discuss the linguistic hybridity in the songs of two ethnic Chinese rappers from Malaysia and Singapore. The chapter focuses on the ways in which the rappers use songs to express their identities and resistance toward the language hierarchies in the multiethnic and multi-lingual societies where they are born and raised. The colonial experience of the two Southeast Asian societies has given rise to hybridized forms and patterns of speech with the intermixing of Chinese dialects, indigenous languages, and English, the language of their former colonizer. While the pop music written and performed by both artistes may exhibit characteristics of the Sinophone, the songs also articulate the contradictions and ambivalence in how the musicians negotiate Chineseness when expressing their ethnic and national identities. The limits and possibilities of the notion of Sinophone are demonstrated in the singers’ utilization of Chinese dialects in their songs, which either bears little connection to the Chinese state or expresses the incongruities and tensions of an inescapable relationship with China. This illustrates, as the author argues, the impossibility of entirely retiring the notion of diaspora, as the scholars of Sinophone studies would have hoped. In Chap. 14, Liew and Goh examine the role of Singapore’s national television in the scripting of a hyphenated Singapore-Chinese cultural identity through from the early 1980s. the local Chinese-language popular music of Xinyao Quintessentially part of the Sinophone cultures of diasporic Chinese language texts autonomously engendered outside Mainland China, Xinyao is synonymous to Singaporean Chinese-language popular music. Like some of the Sinophone cultural products considered in Chap. 12, Xinyao songs are mainly influenced by contemporary pop songs from Taiwan and Hong Kong, with few or no references to the Chinese state. While the Sinophone is often considered peripheral, the leveraging of Xinyao onto the platform of the national reveals the critical role of broadcast media in the localization and commercialization of Sinophone literatures. As the genre is increasingly recognized as part of the republic’s intangible cultural heritage, the authors discuss Xinyao’s evolution as part of the de-centering of Sinophone popular literature for a genre of music that germinated autonomously from Mainland China. Leveraging on the Chinese language national media networks in tandem with the official privileging of the Mandarin over Chinese dialects, Xinyao became a contemporary Sinophone enterprise in Singapore’s mediascape. The chapter critically explores the ways in which the Xinyao movement served in Mandarinizing the sonic-linguistic cultural imaginations within the landscape of nation building and identity formation in contemporary Singapore. In Chap. 15, Huang examines the ways in which Chineseness is expressed in a subgenre of “national comics” called gufeng manhua 古風漫畫 under the influence of state ideology, popular among young female consumers in the domestic cultural market in China. This ancient-style manhua features characters and symbols of traditional Chinese culture and history, which evokes a sense of nationalistic Chineseness

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by deliberately recalling collective memories of the nation’s past. The aggrandizement of traditional Chinese culture and history as a form of soft power to enhance national solidarity and to foster national identity and pride began in the 1990s but has intensified in the past decade as part of Xi Jinping’s promotion of the “China Dream,” which includes cultural campaigns such as patriotic education. In her endeavor to examine how Chineseness is constructed and represented in the texts and in production and consumption of the ancient-style manhua, Huang undertakes visual and textual analysis and conducted in-depth interviews with readers and staff of comic production companies. The investigation of Chineseness in and beyond the texts of these comics reveals the relationships between the state and manhua as a popular cultural form in contemporary China. While the production of these comics remains largely market-oriented and has avoided becoming the “mouthpiece” of the partystate like state-owned media, producers are still expected to navigate the sensitivities of state censorship and comply with official ideology. The negotiation between market logics and state control is one of the main highlights of Huang’s chapter. In Chap. 16, Song builds on the discussion from the preceding chapter on how Chineseness is regulated in contemporary China through political silencing and the official establishment of notions of morality, heteronormativity, and heterosexism. The current cultural campaigns and nationalist propaganda promoted by the Chinese Communist Party, including state-endorsed Confucianism, are aimed at upholding a morality centered on heterosexual familialism and hegemonic masculinity. Through this official discourse, all forms of non-heterosexual, nonfamilial, and non-monogamous sex are considered abnormal and morally unacceptable; consequently, being Chinese becomes synonymous with being able to conform to heteronormative expectations. This chapter draws on critical concepts of “political homophobia” and “reticence politics” to analyze incidents of censorship and gaybashing in contemporary China, which witnessed the rise of systemic homophobia at both individual and institutional levels. It attempts to expand the scope of analysis in contemporary Chinese queer studies from optimistic, bottom-up interpretations of individual agency and social progress to include the practical aspects of the top-down reinforcement of state and other institutionalized powers. In particular, the chapter addresses the following questions: In what ways have decades of censorship shaped how queerness is defined and perceived by the non-queer public in China? How does state power work in regulating Chinese queerness, and how has it created violence against queer subjects?

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Lin, C.-Y., & Um, H. (2017). From “Blue and White Porcelain” to “Island’s Sunrise”: Young audience perceptions of Chineseness and Taiwaneseness in Taiwan’s popular music. East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, 3(2), 153–167. Liu, H., & van Dongen, E. (2016). China’s diaspora policies as a new mode of transnational governance. Journal of Contemporary China, 25(102), 805–821. Ma, L. J. C., & Cartier, C. (Eds.). (2003). The Chinese diaspora: Space, place, mobility, and identity. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Manomaivibool, P., Shih, C., Tanigaki, M., & Singh, S. (Eds.) (2020). Introduction. In Colonial legacies and contemporary studies of China and Chineseness: Unlearning binaries, strategizing self (pp. xv–xxxvi). Singapore: World Scientific. Mullaney, T. S., Leibold, J., Gros, S., & Vanden Bussche, E. (Eds.). (2012). Critical Han studies: The history, representation, and identity of China’s majority. Berkeley: University of California Press. Quah, S. R. (2009). Performing Chineseness in multicultural Singapore: A discussion on selected literary and cultural texts. Asian Ethnicity, 10(3), 225–238. Reid, A. (2009). Chineseness unbound. Asian Ethnicity, 10(3), 197–200. Reid, A. (2009). Escaping the burdens of Chineseness. Asian Ethnicity, 10(3), 285–296. Sahlins, M. (2015). Confucius institutes: Academic malware. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press. Shih, C. (2018). Post-Chineseness as epistemology: Identities and scholarship on China in the Philippines. Asian Ethnicity, 19(3), 279–300. Shih, S. (2007). Visuality and identity: Sinophone articulations across the Pacific. Berkeley: University of California Press. Shih, S. (2011). The concept of the Sinophone. PMLA, 126(3), 709–718. Shih, S. (2013). Introduction: What is Sinophone studies? In S. Shih, C. Tsai, & B. Bernards (Eds.), Sinophone studies: A critical reader (pp. 1–16). New York: Columbia University Press. Tejapira, K. (1992). Pigtail: A pre-history of Chineseness in Siam. SOJOURN, 7(1), 95–112. Tejapira, K. (2009). The misbehaving Jeks: The evolving regime of Thainess and Sino-Thai challenges. Asian Ethnicity, 10(3), 263–283. Thongchai, W. (1994). Siam mapped: A history of the geo-body of a nation. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Tu, W. (2005). Cultural China: The periphery as the center. Daedalus, 134(4), 145–167. Waldron, A. (1990). The Great Wall of China: From history to myth. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wang, G. (1992). Community and nation: China, Southeast Asia and Australia. St. Leonards, New South Wales: Allen and Unwin. Wang, G. (2003). Don’t leave home: Migration and the Chinese. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press. Wang, G. (2009). Chinese history paradigms. Asian Ethnicity, 10(3), 201–216. Yang, Y., & Li, F. (Eds.). (2019). The belt and road initiative: ASEAN countries’ perspectives. Singapore: World Scientific. Yao, S. (2009). Being essentially Chinese. Asian Ethnicity, 10(3), 251–262. Zhao, S. (2004). A nation-state by construction: Dynamics of modern Chinese nationalism. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Ying-kit Chan is a research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden University. He received his PhD in East Asian Studies from Princeton University and BA and MA degrees in Chinese Studies from the National University of Singapore. Broadly interested in late imperial China and Republican China, he is researching the development of natural history as an academic discipline and establishment of natural history museums in twentieth-century China. He is the co-editor of Alternative Representations of the Past: The Politics of History in Modern China (De Gruyter, 2020).

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Chang-Yau Hoon is Associate Professor and Director of Centre for Advanced Research (CARe) at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam. He is also Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia (UWA), and International Fellow at the King Abdullah International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue in Austria. Prior to this, he was Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Sing Lun Fellow at Singapore Management University (SMU), where he was awarded the SMU Teaching Excellence Award in 2012 and SMU Research Excellence Award in 2014. He is the author of Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Culture, Media and Politics (2008, Sussex Academic Press), and co-editor of Contemporary Brunei Darussalam: Challenges and Prospects in Socioeconomic Development (ISEAS Publishing, Forthcoming), Catalysts of Change: Ethnic Chinese Business in Asia (World Scientific, 2014) and Chinese Indonesians Reassessed: History, Religion and Belonging (Routledge, 2013)

Part I

Historicizing the Construction of Chineseness

Chapter 2

Negotiating Authorities of Cultural Resource: Recent Scholarly Discussions on the State Ancestor-Worship of the Yellow Emperor Hin Ming Frankie Chik

2.1 Introduction Since the late Qing period, when reformists and revolutionaries structured a new shared national identity in their plan to overthrow the Manchu ruler, Huangdi 黃 帝 (literally translated as Yellow Emperor or Yellow Thearchy; hereafter the Yellow Emperor) has been said to be the national ancestor of an “imagined community” Anderson (2016) referred to as the Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu 中華民族). Although this late Qing invention included only the Han nation or race at its earliest stage, given its limitation on handling the independent movements on the frontier, it was later expanded to cover other races after the collapse of imperial China (see Duara 1995, p. 76). Fei Xiaotong (1910–2005), for instance, argued that the Chinese nation refers to all the people living in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and referred to the Yellow Emperor as its original ancestor (Fei 1989). Modern scholars have widely discussed the development of his ascension to this status, and it is not necessary to rehearse their scholarship in detail here (see, for example, Bernal 1976; Cohen 2012; Luo 2002; Matten 2018; Shen 1997; Sun 2000). Because of this ancestral role, “members” of the Chinese nation have worshipped him on multiple public occasions after the dynastic period. A well-known example is that on the eve of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937, the members of both the Communist Party (Lin Zuhan) and the Nationalist Party (Zhang Ji) worshipped the legendary ancestor in his tomb site in Yan’an 延安 of Shaanxi 陝西 Province. The ancestor-worship ritual in Yan’an has become increasingly important since the 1980s, after its decade-long suspension. Functional structuralist Emile Durkheim argued that rituals and ceremonies create a sense of belonging and thus generate a collective identification among the ritual practitioners (Durkheim 1965). The importance of the ancestor-worships of the Yellow Emperor in contemporary China, following Durkheim’s theory, lies in its function H. M. F. Chik (B) Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_2

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to remind the ritual practitioners of their shared identity as the descendants of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi Zisun 黃帝子孫). This identity, as will be shown, is Han-centric in its nature. Thus, in order to maintain Taiwanese identity and cultural diversity, the current president of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen decided to cancel the “remote sacrifice carried out by the central government [of Taiwan] on the tomb of the Yellow Emperor” (zhongshu yaoji huangdi ling dianli 中樞遙祭黃帝陵典禮), which had been held regularly in Taipei until its cancellation in 2017 (Ziyou 2017). Despite its Han-centrism, the Communist Party of China(CPC) has treated this identity as a forceful weapon to defend its rule. Since the predynastic period, as many sinologists have acknowledged, ancestor-worship rituals, including that of the Yellow Emperor, have been utilized to legitimize those in power and strengthen their political authority (see, for example, Bokenkamp 2007; Cheung 2015; Keightley 2000; Liu 1999). Given its symbolic power in politics, the Yellow Emperor has been worshipped across the PRC and lively debate about which ancestor-worship of the Yellow Emperor is the “orthodox” one has started in recent years among scholars. Here, I understand the orthodoxy as both state orthodoxy and an ideology legitimized by a group of scholars. Orthodoxy is established in competition with other bodies of doctrines. As Thomas Wilson (1995, p. 24) has suggested, the state orthodoxy in imperial China “was never fixed, but always contested, redefined, and modified through a dialogic encounter in which the throne and members of competing for Confucian sects both within the bureaucracy and outside it confronted one another, but never entirely resolved their differences.”A similar situation has also happened in the contemporary world. In this context, this chapter will examine the debate over the intended elevation of the ancestor-worship of the Yellow Emperor to a state-level and the location of this proposed ceremony among contemporary PRC scholars. Whether the CPC should elevate the ancestor-worship of the Yellow Emperor to a state-level has been discussed since 2000, when the worship of cultural heroes like the Yellow Emperor in different places throughout the PRC had rapidly developed. In recent years, scholars have even argued over where they should hold the state ancestor-worship of the Yellow Emperor. His mausoleum in Yan’an and his alleged birthplace, namely Xinzheng 新 鄭 city of the Henan 河南 Province, are the focal points of this debate. This chapter will reveal the driving forces that evoke this debate. Obviously, the CPC would be the beneficiary of this ceremony for its function of legitimizing its rule. However, instead of focusing on this political agenda by the CPC, this chapter will discuss more the cultural, intellectual, and economic agendas that lie behind this debate. It will argue that the scholars involved in this debate compete with each other for the cultural authority to interpret the traditional resources of the Yellow Emperor and to define the orthodoxy of this national ancestor. Meanwhile, the local governments, of what Pierre Nora (1989) has called the places of memory (lieux de memoire), desire economic advancement, and to score political points through the worship rituals of the Yellow Emperor. The interests of different actors thus define how the debate has developed and how the ancestor-worship rituals of the Yellow Emperor are performed in different places of memory.

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2.2 Who is the Cultural Authority? Manipulations of Chinese Culture For convenience, I shall clarify the state, the CPC, and the local governments before starting our discussion. They sometimes overlap but denote differently in this chapter. The state represents here the PRC as a polity, with the CPC as its ruling party. Nevertheless, the CPC should not be confused with the state, although this invalid equivalence is the central message of the CPC’s political propaganda (see Zhao 2004, especially pp. 209–247). Thus, when saying the interests of the CPC, this chapter does not mean the interests of the PRC. Rather, it refers more to the interests of the core members of the central organization. In addition, although all officials at different levels are members of the CPC in principle, the interests of the local officials are varied, and we have no reason to treat the interests of the local officials as similar to those of the CPC. As we will explore below, satisfying the interests of the CPC is a means to pursue local interests. After defining these terms, we can now start our journey to the debate over the ancestor-worship of the Yellow Emperor. It is impossible to recount this debate in great detail here due to the sheer volume of argument. The following discussion will thus summarize the major arguments and issues raised in the debate on the location of the ceremonies. The summary of their arguments will show that engaged scholars, no matter which sides they took, frequently cited evidence from traditional written records or archeological materials in their argumentations. The newly excavated objects, which had been absent for millennia, are interpreted based on the records in the traditional materials, which are more familiar to sinologists. Their manipulation of the traditional resources represents their intention to become the interpretive authority on the traditional culture more than their aim to build up any convincing arguments about the location of the proposed state ancestor-worship. The debate over the location of the Yellow Emperor’s proposed state ancestorworship officially started in the second half of 2015, when the Association for Yan Huang Culture of China (中華炎黃文化研究會; hereafter AYHCC) and the Henan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference coorganized the conference on “the Ancestor-worship of the Yellow Emperor in His Hometown and the Construction of Chinese State Culture” (黃帝故里拜祖大典與 國家文化建設). On 7 September 2015, Guangming ribao 光明日報 (Guangming Daily), a daily newspaper that is under the direct jurisdiction of the Publicity Department of the CPC, published a report on this conference. According to the conference report, participants reached the consensus that it is appropriate to promote the ancestor-worship dedicated to the Yellow Emperor held in Xinzheng on every third day of the third month in the Chinese lunar calendar as a state-level ceremony. The keynote speakers of the conference, who were leading scholars of ancient Chinese history in the PRC and whose speeches were appended to the conference report, provided reasons for this consensus, ranging from historical to political. Xu Jialu, the chairman of the AYHCC and vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the 9th and 10th National People’s Congress, declared at the conference that having the

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Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship in Xinzheng as state-level worship can provide the Chinese nation with a symbol on which the entire nation agrees (一個全民族共 同認可的標記或符號). Thus, Xu suggested this proposal is historically reasonable and practicable (Xu 2015). Already at the ninth international forum on the Yellow Emperor’s culture (第九屆國祭黃帝文化論壇) held on 20 April 2015, Xu (2015) had explained the necessity of promoting the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship to a state-level, for it will agglomerate and associate the members of the Chinese nation. This prestigious state-level ceremony should be held in Xinzheng because all ancestor-worships, in principle, had been held in temples but not in mausoleums since the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046–256 B.C.). The ceremony in Yan’an, Xu has further argued, is inferior to that in Xinzheng. This suggestion was immediately challenged and criticized by Fang Guanghua (2015), the Deputy Mayor of Xi’an People’s Government, and Fan Gaolin (2016), the chairman of Yan’an City Committee of the Political Consultative Conference and the adjunct professor at Yan’an University. They questioned the plausibility of having this proposed state-level ceremony held in Xinzheng, although agreeing that they have every reason to elevate the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship. They concluded that the principle that the ancestor-worship rituals of the Yellow Emperor were held only at the ancestral temple fails the historical test. In the Ming (1368– 1644) and the Qing (1636–1912) dynasties, the royal houses not only worshipped the Yellow Emperor in his mausoleum but also worshipped him multiple times in a temple of ancient monarchs located in the capitals but not in his birthplace, Xinzheng. This statement is not groundless. For instance, in 1532, the Jiajing Emperor (r. 1522– 1567) worshipped the Yellow Emperor, together with other Former Kings, in Beijing (Zhang 1987, p. 1294). Sharing the same stance with Fang and Fan, Li Guiminat Liaocheng University argued that it is difficult to draw a clear line between worshipping in a tomb site and an ancestral temple because most ancestral temples were built near the mausoleums (Li 2016, 2018). Thus, Li concluded that there was no such principle as worshipping in temples rather than in tomb sites and that the importance of worshipping in mausoleums was never replaced by worshipping at the temple. The scholarly divergences of the correct location of the proposed state-level ceremony may have political reasons. As for scholars like Fang Guanghua and Fan Gaolin who have had official positions in Shaanxi governments, these scholars’ stances might represent the interests of the local governments. We should not, however, overemphasize their political roles when analyzing their motivation(s) for rejecting Xinzheng as the ideal place of the state-level worship. Scholars such as Li Xueqin seem to have no relationship with either Xinzheng or Yan’an, but they still offered their opinions on the issue. To say it conservatively, these scholars may seek to use the cultural resources to exert influences on the politics in the PRC. However, by doing so, these scholars should first guarantee their cultural authority on manipulating and utilizing these resources. Ascertaining the historicity of this national ancestor becomes the foremost and crucial methods they may use. Tracing back the Yellow Emperor’s life becomes particularly important in this process. Therefore, when elevating the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship in a specific place, one must prove that the place is historically relevant to him as a national ancestor.

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However, given his lack of historicity, the Yellow Emperor’s relationship with these places is controversial. Similar to Confucius—another national icon of the Han population (Jensen 1997; Matten 2018) whose historicity is also uncertain and whose various and contradictory images are seen in writings from different traditions (Jensen 2002; Hunter 2017)—the Yellow Emperor’s historicity is an accumulated product of a long-term process in which different historical actors combined heterogeneous narratives. More importantly, the Yellow Emperor’s historicity is even weaker than that of Confucius. As Li demonstrated in his keynote speech, Xinzheng has been considered the Yellow Emperor’s motherland since Huangfu Mi (215–282) of Western Jin (266–316)—about two thousand years after the legendary time of the Yellow Emperor. We also cannot prove whether he is a historical or mythical figure. His ambiguous historical existence had already caused Ge Jianxiong (2003), the former Director of the Institute of Historical Geography of Fudan University, to criticize elevating the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship in his mausoleum to a state-level. Since no valid evidence confirms whether the Yellow Emperor was a human being or a transcendent being, Ge believed that arbitrarily promoting the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship would lead to a constitutional problem, for it constrains the freedom of religion that PRC citizens are supposed to enjoy. Ge Jianxiong’s rejection had been made a decade before the debate on which this paper is focusing. Nevertheless, Ge did raise an important issue that challenges the legitimacy of worshipping the Yellow Emperor on a state-level. The debate centered on where to hold the proposed state-level worship. An assumption that lay behind this debate is that the intended elevation is inevitably reasonable. As we can see from their arguments, the questions the debaters asked was not should the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship in either place be promoted, but why must it be promoted. Although some debaters like Xu Jialu touched on this issue and emphasized the importance of the intended elevation to the Chinese nation, they consciously shifted their focus to determining the location of the proposed state-level worship and unanimously agreed on the need of the proposed elevation. However, the legitimacy of such intended elevation is fundamental yet controversial. As Ge has contended, a reason for the controversy is that the historical existence of the Yellow Emperor is indeterminate. Xu Jialu, however, asserted that the Yellow Emperor’s historical existence should never be suspected. Moreover, Xu utilized the new findings to support his argument that those archeological remains suggest a form of polity in the time of the Yellow Emperor and that his historical existence is therefore beyond doubt. Xu may have overinterpreted the archeological materials, and his argumentation is logically problematic. The authenticity of the Western Jin materials used by Li Xueqin is also questionable. This chapter does not intend to go over such arguments and examine those traditional records in detail. Indeed, no one can judge the validity of such arguments given that the materials we have are in shortage and anachronistic. Moreover, despite the Yellow Emperor’s lack of historicity and divergence of opinion among modern scholars, parts of the Han population in the PRC and Taiwan and some overseas Han Chinese (Pan 1994) still acknowledge themselves as the offspring of the Yellow Emperor. What we need to deliberate, therefore, is the reason for scholars’ continuous

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efforts of reconstructing the unverifiable historicity of the Yellow Emperor. In his study of the Confucian temple in Qufu 曲阜, Thomas Wilson stated that although Confucius’s sagaciousness is the focus of the Confucian temples, his historicity stressed in the familial temple in Qufu is requisite for his sagaciousness (Wilson 1996). Similarly, in the case of the Yellow Emperor, when seeing him as the symbol of the Chinese nation, a historical person called the Yellow Emperor should be in presence to act as a container of the symbolic meanings of this national ancestor. In another way, only when there was the Yellow Emperor as a historical person in antiquity can the significance of a national progenitor be assigned and embodied. Some scholars mentioned above do believe at heart the historical existence of the Yellow Emperor and endeavor to prove rather than create the existence of the Yellow Emperor. In any case, given the fact that the Yellow Emperor has carried weight in modern Chinese history, whose narrative of and interpretation of his life as a historical figure is more authentic and persuasive are fundamental in any scholarly debate on issues surrounding him. Besides Yan’an, the Zhengning 正寧 County of Gansu 甘肅 Province also has a tomb site of the Yellow Emperor. Some traditional writings and commentaries also suggested that the Jinyun 縉雲 County of Zhejiang 浙江 Province was the place where the Yellow Emperor became transcendent (Li 1966). The Yellow Emperor’s relationship with many sites is primarily due to the ambiguity of his records in traditional writings that gives room to various interpretations. The principle that ancestor-worships was held by royal houses in temples but not in mausoleums in the imperial period is also a matter of interpreting historical documents. Thus, the debate under review is an arena in which involved scholars compete with each other for the authority on manipulating this national icon or symbol. The fight to become a cultural authority is not limited to whose interpretation of the Yellow Emperor and his records is most authentic. As the scholars treated the Yellow Emperor as the common ancestor and the symbol of the Chinese nation, several questions remain. First, should the Yellow Emperor by the representative of the entire Chinese nation? Second, what is the Chinese nation? Third, what is the nature of the Chinese culture or the culture of the Chinese nation? Scholarly answers to these questions will indicate that in considering the elevation of the ancestorworship of the Yellow Emperor to a state-level, scholars are also struggling with providing authoritative explanations for these crucial issues. At the conference on “the Ancestral Worship of the Yellow Emperor in His Hometown and the Construction of Chinese State Culture,” another two keynote speakers Li Boqian at Peking University and Liu Qingzhu at Zhengzhou University explained why the Yellow Emperor is well deserved to be the representation of the Chinese nation and an elevation of his ancestor-worship to a state-level is therefore necessary. Li Boqian has maintained that it is because ethnic minorities like Manchus also worshipped the Yellow Emperor that we should treat this national ancestor as the symbol of the Chinese nation, and his ancestor-worship should be promoted to a state-level (Li 2015). Liu even maintained that because the culture in the Central Plain is the root of China, worshipping its symbol at the state-level is culturally and historically reasonable (Liu 2015). Not only are their arguments Han-chauvinistic, but they have also oversimplified the issue. Their arguments seem to attempt to create

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a cultural hierarchy that the culture represented by the Yellow Emperor, which we call Han Chinese culture (Hanzu Zhonghua wenhua 漢族中國文化), is superior to others. “Who is a Han” is an everlastingly controversial issue, and modern research has defined it as a race (Chow 1997), an ethnic group (Dru 1998), and a nation (Fei 1989). As Yuwei Wang (2013, pp. 37–38) suggested, “There is little point in trying to fit the Han into one single category of race, nation or ethnicity.” Unstable and fluid although the “Han” can be, for the sake of our discussion, I understand it in a more ethnocultural sense because not only does it refer to people sharing similar physical characteristics, but it also refers to a group of people who share a similar culture, language, and history. Meanwhile, this group of Han people is a result of ethnic assimilation over a long period. Bearing this understanding of the Han in mind, we can see that nearly all traditional records of the Yellow Emperor were written in Chinese (Hanzi 漢字) and from traditions with a strong Han Chinese cultural background. The ethnic minorities, such as Tibetans, Kazakhs, Uyghurs, the Taiwanese aborigines, and Manchurians (the “barbarians” whom the revolutionary attacked) whose dwellings are far from the area of Huaxia 華夏(alternatively known as the Central States or Central Plain), a place which people traditionally saw as the cradle of the Yellow Emperor culture, are outsiders to this culture represented by the Yellow Emperor. Some pre-modern families of ethnic minorities indeed claimed the Yellow Emperor as their ancestor, as shown in materials like epitaphs from medieval China (Ho 2013). However, it is pointless to say the Han Chinese culture is superior to that of ethnic minorities. Wang (2002), seeing these attributions as mimicry, has argued that the reasons for the ethnic minorities or “barbarians” from the Han Chinese perspective to worship the Yellow Emperor and claim the genetic link between them are more sociopolitical than cultural. It is not because, as Wang has reminded us, the Han Chinese culture is superior to others in nature that those communities in cultural and geopolitical peripheries have shared blood ties with the Yellow Emperor since prehistory. Instead, it is because the Han population was politically dominant in the majority of pre-modern Chinese history. We may understand the Han-centric arguments of Li and Liu as supporting the recent Han-centrism in the Communist Party’s politics. As John M. Friend and Bradley A. Thayer (2017, pp. 106–107) have observed, “As Chinese nationalism, has become more ethnocentric and less ideological since the 1990s, the cultural chauvinism and nativist beliefs of Han-centric nationalism have become increasingly more influential in defining the nation, specifically what it means to be ‘Chinese’.”However, as Chineseness in the PRC has become more Han-centric, some scholars in the PRC did also warn against this tendency to define the Chinese culture in a narrow Han-centric sense (see, for example, Ge 2017a, b). Either critically reviewing their Han-centric arguments or proving the political intention of their arguments is beyond the scope of this chapter. What matters most to the current discussion is that their argumentations reflect the competition of different traditions of the Chinese culture. The Chinese culture is more heterogeneous than homogeneous, and the Han Chinese culture represented by the Yellow Emperor is only one of its elements. The Han Chinese culture, moreover, is more diverse than

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we can expect. It is noteworthy that the scholars involved in this contest are Han intellectuals. No minority intellectual joined the debate and gave their support to such arguments made by Li and Liu. Given the heterogeneity of the Chinese culture, the debaters, regardless of their disagreements about the location of the proposed state-level ceremony, seem to defend the Han Chinese culture’s“dominant” status that is mainly due to the enormous population of the Han people in the polity. The Han Chinese culture, however, cannot represent all ethnic groups in the PRC. As an alternative, Chen Ming (2018), a professor at Xiangtan University, argued in his interview published on Rujia wang 儒家網 (The Confucian Web) that promoting a cultural symbol of a single ethnic group, like the Yellow Emperor of the Han population, would only lead to disputes on why other cultural heroes of other ethnic minorities cannot be promoted. Thus, Chen believed that it is better to promote the worship of Confucius as state-level worship for the light ethnic color and the universal nature of Confucianism. Chen Ming’s argument may represent the idea of another group of scholars that also has an interest in grasping for the authoritative power to define the Chinese culture. However, his argument is still Han-centric, given that Confucius has been said as a native of Central Plain.1 Although their arguments above may be problematic, they indicate how contemporary scholars attempt to influence the politics of the PRC through their manipulations of traditional cultural resources.

2.3 What Do the Local Governments and Locals Want? A Political Economics Interpretation The previous discussion mentions that some involved scholars have held official positions in local governments. Although we should not say that those scholars were forced mainly by the interests of the local governments, it does not mean that the latter’s interests are absent in the debate. The Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worships do contribute to the development of those places of memory. In his study of the restoration of ancient temples and modern monuments dedicated to another Chinese cultural hero, the Shun, in the Reform era, Robin McNeal (2015) has plausibly demonstrated that the pursuit of economic and political advantage causes the promotion of cultural sites related to the legendary sage Shun. Deeming it difficult in contemporary time to constitute a sense of modern identity without rooting in economic prosperity, McNeal described how Ningyuan 寧遠 County of Hunan Province transformed into a tourist destination because of its reputation as Shun’s burial. We will see a similar situation has also happened in the case of the Yellow Emperor. This section will concentrate on the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship in Xinzheng to explore how economic prosperity has contributed to this debate and the elevation of the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship in the places of memory. There are two reasons for this concentration. First, although certain people have said 1

Robert Eno contended that Confucius was indeed a man with an alien background (see Eno 2003). However, the popularity of this view, especially among PRC scholars, is questionable.

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Xinzheng is the motherland of the Yellow Emperor, it was not until 1992 has this national ancestor’s worship in Xinzheng started being held with the sponsorship of the local government. An analysis of the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship in this place can demonstrate how this new place of memory can rival Yan’an, where this national ancestor’s worship has been held for a long time in the PRC history. Second, Xinzheng is representative enough that similar to other places of memory, its local government has made several relevant cultural and tourism policies to promote the Yellow Emperor culture and develop the tourism industry of Xinzheng. One of Li Xueqin’s arguments is that Xinzheng’s ancestor-worship dedicated to the Yellow Emperor, with its current name the Ancestor-Worship Ceremony in Yellow Emperor’s Hometown (黃帝故里拜祖大典), has a decade-long history until 2015. However, the history of the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship in Xinzheng is considerably shorter than that in Yan’an. After the establishment of the PRC in 1949, the ancestor-worship in Yan’an was only suspended from 1964 to 1979 but was restored soon. Before getting its current name since 2006, the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship in Xinzheng has had its name frequently changed. For example, the ceremony in 2000 was called the Ceremony of Searching for Roots in the Yellow Emperor’s Hometown (黃帝故里尋根拜祖大典), while its name in 2002 was the Great Ceremony of Worshipping the Ancestor in the Flame Emperor and Yellow Emperor Cultural Festival of China (中國新鄭炎黃文化節始祖山拜祖大典). Not only was it not a yearly ceremony at this early stage, but its scale was too small to be as influential as it is nowadays. These imply that the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship in Xinzheng at that time was far from maturity and that reformation was needed to adequately utilize the cultural resources the Yellow Emperor has left to this place. Moreover, according to the record of the Xincheng City People Government (1999), only 100,000 people attended the sixth anniversary of the Flame Emperor and Yellow Emperor Cultural Tourism Festival (炎黃文化旅遊節) hosted by the city government. This city-level ancestor-worship became more important and larger in scale in 2005, when more organizations and province-leveled institutions took responsibility for hosting this ceremony. After 2006, collaborating with Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, AYHCC, All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots, and other associations, the Henan Provincial Committee of the Political Consultative Conference has become one of the hosts of this ceremony. With sponsorships from the provincial government, the ancestor-worship in Xinzheng has developed rapidly and has been listed among the National Intangible Cultural Heritages since 2008, comparable to that regularly held in Yan’an. This summary of the early history of Xinzheng’s ancestor-worship of the Yellow Emperor shows how an originally city-level ceremony has been valued by the provincial government and started to compete with Yan’an. The cultural value of this ancestor-worship and relevant heritages has been made aware by the local officials largely because of the vast economic income this ancestor-worship and relevant heritages can bring to the province, as the “Outline of Planning to Establish Henan as a Culturally Powerful Province 2005–2020” (河南建設文化強省規劃綱要 2005– 2020) announced in 2005 (Zhonghua 2005) revealed. Claiming that Henan Province is the headstream of the Chinese civilization, this outline suggested utilizing the

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culture of the Central Plain to foster the economic development of Henan. Although it did not elaborate on exploring the Yellow Emperor culture in Henan, it is pertinent to assume that the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship was included. According to the official website of the Yellow Emperor’s Native Place Scenic Spot (黃帝故里景區), this scenic spot in Xinzheng, which has been expanded many times since the 1990s, is now a tourist attraction covering 70,000 square meters (Huangdi 2016). This situation manifests that after “rectifying the title” of the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship in 2006, the local officials in Xinzheng and Henan have never ignored the Yellow Emperor culture associated with Xinzheng but have highly valued and developed it. The scenic spot, undoubtedly, bears a strong tourism function. As the Xinzheng Hometown of Huangdi Scenic Area Administration Committee (新鄭市黃帝故裏 景區管理委員會) reported, more than 40,000 travelers were visiting the scenic spot on the Workers’ Day holiday in 2019, which is a quarter more than the number in 2018 (Huangdi 2019). Besides, the report on the work of the Xinzheng City government (Xinzheng 2019) also indicated that there was a surge in Xinzheng’s tourism in the last decade. In 2018, Xinzheng city attracted around 5.03 million tourists, with the tourism revenues hitting 20.1 trillion RMB, which is 64% higher than that in 2017 (12.2 trillion RMB). This rapid increase is even more obvious when comparing the data in 2009, which reveals that the number of visitors this year was only 3.52 million (Xinzheng 2010), with 6.8 trillion RMB travel revenues brought to the city. It is uncertain how much the ancestor-worship of the Yellow Emperor and the scenic spot have contributed to the growth of Xinzheng’s tourism in the past decade. Nevertheless, as a significant cultural resource of Xinzheng, the Yellow Emperor culture has probably played a decisive role in the cultural tourism and the overall tourism of this city. The case of Xinzheng demonstrates the economic benefits that the Yellow Emperor culture can contribute to a memorial place, and it would be imperative for the local government of this place to legitimize its use of the tourism resource of the Yellow Emperor. As mentioned, due to the ambiguity of our traditional writings, different stakeholders have claimed that many places have a relationship with the Yellow Emperor. A place of memory, therefore, should fight for its orthodox status with others to secure the economic advancement this cultural hero bestows. The debate under review exemplifies two methods of legitimization, including a series of academic conferences that were held with the sponsorships from the provincial governments and the local governments’ sponsorships on academic publications to promote the Yellow Emperor culture. The following are three examples that show how the local governments are enthusiastic about engaging in sponsoring related academic activities. First, the Zhengzhou City People Government, the Zhengzhou City Committee of the Political Consultative Conference, and the Xinzheng City People Government have co-organized the Forum of the Yellow Emperor Culture (黃帝文化論 壇) every year since 2007. Second, on 3 and 4 April 2019, the People Government of Shaanxi Province provided sponsorships to the conference on “Worshipping the Yellow Emperor’s Mausoleum and Propagating the Outstanding Chinese Tradition Culture on Qingming Festival in 2019” (2019年清明祭黃帝陵與弘揚中華優秀傳 統文化). Third, the Yellow Emperor Foundation (黃帝陵基金會), an association

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managed by the Civil Affairs Department of Shaanxi Province and the Office of the People Government of Shaanxi Province, published respectively in 2007 and 2008Qingming Huangdi ling jisi dianyi清明黃帝陵祭祀典儀 (Rituals of Worshipping the Yellow Emperor’s Mausoleum on Qingming Festival) and Huangdi wenhua zhi 黃帝文化志 (Treatise of the Yellow Emperor Culture) to promote the Yellow Emperor culture and the ancestor-worship dedicated to him. Apart from these examples, the local governments of Shaanxi and Henan provinces also sponsored the aforementioned conferences in which Xu and other leading scholars expressed their views on the authoritative location of holding the Yellow Emperor’s state ceremony. These academic activities provided scholars with solemn occasions to offer academic arguments about promoting the Yellow Emperor culture in the places under the control of the local governments that sponsored and organized these activities. It would be simplistic, however, to say that invited scholars are solely serving the economic and political interests of the local governments. As shown in the preceding section, their involvement in such academic activities and their arguments on the issue are motivated by their desire to be a cultural authority of the Yellow Emperor culture. However, to the local governments of the places of memory, sponsoring such academic activities is already a gesture to reiterate and reinforce their association with this national ancestor. Besides the economic agenda, local governments’ sponsoring academic activities used to promote the Yellow Emperor culture is also driven toward a political agenda. With the cultural heritage handed down by the Yellow Emperor, unverifiable as it is, these places of memory can claim to be more politically and culturally important than other sites, for the Yellow Emperor is the perfect token to promote the Hancentric nationalism of which the Communist Party is in favor. Suisheng Zhao (2004) has discussed the fusion of pragmatic nationalism and blind patriotism after the political turmoil of the 1980s to promote the interests of those in power and authority. Finding that nationalism, which can create a simplified and imagined Chinese nation with around five thousand years of history, can create a shared cultural framework among most of the Chinese people and remove differences within the country. The pragmatic communist leaders have reiterated the glory of this nation in the past through a series of patriotic education campaigns like the ancestor-worships of the Yellow Emperor. They asserted that a political reunification is needed to maintain and revive this glory, and only the CPC can achieve this goal of the Chinese nation. The CPC, seen in this vein, was the “paramount patriotic force for and the guardian of China’s national pride.” (Zhao 2004, p. 214) Loving the CPC, said by the CPC leaders, is equated with loving the state and the nation which are “vaguely defined” (Friend and Thayer 2017, p. 97). The Yellow Emperor, therefore, represents the origin of this nation and its glorious history. For example, the Yellow Emperor’s mausoleum in Yan’an has been one of the first National Demonstration Bases for Patriotism Education (Aiguo zhuyi jiaoyu shifan jidi 愛國主義教育示範基地) since 1997. Because of its significance, the current president of the PRC Xi Jinping (Beijing 2019) even labeled this mausoleum as “a unique spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation” (中華民族獨特的精神標誌). The local governments must be aware of this political significance of the Yellow Emperor, and the related activities organized by

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them cannot be immune from any political color, particularly when the places of memory are fighting for the acknowledgment by the CPC leaders. As we can see from the following eulogy read off at the ceremony paying respect to the Yellow Emperor in Xinzheng on 7 April 2019, the ancestor-worship of the Yellow Emperor is more apolitical propaganda than a commemoration. After enumerating the Yellow Emperor’s achievements as described in traditional accounts, the text of the eulogy reads as follows (Zhongyuan 2019): Reforming and opening up [China],

改革開放,

the flourishing age is not going to end.

盛世未央。

As for the seventieth anniversary of the birth of China,

七十華誕,

it witnesses the splendor [of this country].

見證輝煌

……

……

[People living in] both coasts are gazing at each other,

兩岸相望,

their blood vessels are interconnected.

血脈相連。

As for unifying [Taiwan] in a peaceful way,

和平統一,

it is an inevitable tendency.

勢所必然。

There is only one China,

一個中國,

even for the termites, it is difficult to shake it.

蚍蜉難撼。

The Belt and Road Initiative,

一帶一路,

the civilizations can lesson from one another.

文明互鑒。

To collaborate on achieving the win-win situation,

合作共贏,

and to develop peacefully.

和平發展。

The “One China” policy and the “One Belt One Road” strategy mentioned in this extract is the political goals that frequently appear in contemporary political discourses. Both of them express not only the need for political unification, which has a very long tradition in China (Pines 2009) but also the pursuit of glory that has passed down from the Tang (618–907) or even earlier from the Han (202 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). This chapter does not intend to judge either the theoretical deficiency or the efficaciousness of this patriotic nationalism. Barry Sautman (1997) has doubts about the effectiveness of these myths of descent. The inclusion of these political goals of the CPC in a eulogy to the Yellow Emperor read off in public ancestor-worship illustrates how a local government has manipulated and used a cultural resource to reach its purpose of being politically and culturally superior. This purpose of the local government is also inseparable from economic advancement. As long as the ancestorworship rituals of the Yellow Emperor can echo with the CPC’s political goals, there is no reason for forbidding the local governments to hold this type of ceremony, as the ban which the CPC issued in the 1960s–1970s. The local governments of the places of memory, thus, can keep using this cultural resource to ask for more economic advancement and to score political points.

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2.4 Conclusion To the CPC, the questions of where the state-level ancestor-worship of the Yellow Emperor should be held whether this ceremony should be elevated to the state-level do not seem crucial. No final decision has been made by the CPC regarding both issues so far. Nevertheless, the discussion over the ancestor-worship of the Yellow Emperor offers a case study to investigate the power dynamics in negotiating the agendas of different historical actors. The Yellow Emperor is a cultural symbol that different stakeholders can manipulate to pursue their particular interests. There is an academic-state partnership in the current PRC that many state-sponsored academic events have an aim to serve the CPC’s political goals. In the case of the Yellow Emperor’s ancestor-worship, many scholars are trying to support the exclusively Han-centric Chineseness that the CPC actively promotes. However, it does not mean that all scholarly works are politically oriented. Indeed, PRC scholars still enjoy certain independence. As shown above, what motivated scholars involved in the debate was their desire to become the authority on interpreting the cultural heritages of the Yellow Emperor and the Chinese culture in general. Meanwhile, scholars like Ge Jianxiong have raised arguments that diverge from the ideas that the CPC promoted. The local governments, rather than merely satisfying the goals of the CPC, also look for economic and cultural goods through their manipulation and promotion of the Yellow Emperor culture. Thus, the debate on the ancestor-worship of the Yellow Emperor in recent years is a mixture of different agendas. I hope my examination of this debate will lead to further reflection on the power dynamics and various forces at play when a cultural resource is used by different agendas.

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Hin Ming Frankie Chik is a doctoral candidate in East Asian Languages and Civilizations (Chinese) at Arizona State University (ASU). Frankie’s research interest covers primarily the intellectual history and historiography from the early to middle period of China. His dissertation, which focuses on the Song antiquarian movement, will examine the anxiety about accessing the ancient wisdom in China’s high antiquity caused by the development of the Chinese writing system. This research will serve as a lens through which one not only re-examines how the privilege of Chinese characters was constructed and redefined, but also reflects on modern Chinese nationalism, which is based on the manufactured glory in high antiquity. Frankie has also translated several scholarly works on Chinese intellectual history from English to Chinese and has authored three book reviews.

Chapter 3

A Voice from the Margins: Collaborative Colonialism of Hong Kong, 1925–1930 Tze-ki Hon and Hok-yin Chan

3.1 Introduction A tiny city at the southern tip of the Pearl River, Hong Kong is full of paradoxes. On the one hand, it is modern and cosmopolitan, marked by the spectacular skyline along the Victorian Harbour, the three languages (Cantonese, English, and Potonghua) used in announcements in public transportation, and the spacious and efficient international airport completed shortly after the 1997 handover. On the other hand, Hong Kong is deeply traditional and hierarchical, clearly shown in the use of “complicated characters” (fanti) in writing, the insistence in giving honorific greetings in public addresses and formal letters, and the rigid segregation between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless. These two sides of Hong Kong—its modernity and its traditional roots—have coexisted for close to two centuries since it was founded as a British outpost in 1840. From its colonial times to the present day, this dual nature of Hong Kong has made it “a voice from the margins” vis-à-vis mainland China because of its unique geopolitical position, its special socio-economic status, it is mixing of foreign and local residents, and above all, its repeated attempts to distance itself from the mainland without overtly separating from it. After the 1911 Revolution, for instance, Hong Kong became a stronghold of the loyalists attempting to restore the Manchu Dynasty while the mainland had become a republic. During the Cold War, Hong Part of the research of this chapter was funded by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, GRF project number: CityU 11605017. T. Hon City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected] H. Chan (B) Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_3

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Kong was the “Berlin of the East” when the mainland was ruled by the Communists. Under “one country and two systems,” today’s Hong Kong is part of China, but she follows different rules and practices, such as pegging the Hong Kong dollar with the U.S. dollar, allowing vehicles to be driven on the opposite side of the road, retaining streets names and hospital names of colonial times (e.g. Queen’s Road and Queen Elizabeth Hospital), and allowing the use of Google, WhatsApp, and Facebook while they are blocked in mainland China. From a broad historical perspective, the paradox of Hong Kong is common in East Asia. In the late nineteenth century, both the Meiji government in Japan and the late Qing government in China had adopted different strategies to combine the “Asian spirit” with the “Western technology,” or the “Eastern essence” with the “Western function.” One may argue that the current policy of “building socialism with Chinese characteristics” in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is another attempt at mixing the East and the West, the past and the present. Nevertheless, the paradox of Hong Kong is unique because it has been deliberately deployed as a strategy to mark the city off from the mainland while maintaining close ties to it. To serve this purpose, the paradox of Hong Kong is used flexibly and creatively in response to changing circumstances. When the mainland puts emphasis on the preservation of Chinese tradition (e.g. the New Life Movement of Chiang Kai-shek’s government in the 1930s), Hong Kong presents itself as a modern city open to foreign investment and foreign culture. When the mainland is engulfed in political radicalism (e.g. the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s), Hong Kong becomes a safe haven for those who want prosperity and stability. When the mainland is engaged in cultural iconoclasm (e.g. the May Fourth Movement of the 1920s and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s), Hong Kong makes extra efforts to preserve Chinese tradition. The goal of this distancing is not to sever relation with the mainland. Rather, it is to demarcate a gap—political, cultural, or socio-economic—that distinguishes the city from its huge neighbor. Whether being more globally attuned, or being more Chinese than China, the distancing is to allow Hong Kong people to develop a dual loyalty—loyal to the outside world and loyal to China. At different times, this dual loyalty takes different forms. In colonial times (1840–1997), the loyalty to the outside world was expressed by a steadfast support of the British Empire, and the loyalty to China was conveyed in a deep devotion to the Chinese language, Chinese culture, and Chinese tradition (but not necessarily to the current Chinese government). In postcolonial times (1997 to the present), the loyalty to the outside world is manifested inconspicuous consumerism, full-fledged participation in global capitalism, and the pursuit of a local identity different from “Communist China.” The loyalty to China is revealed through supporting Chinese capitalism, especially the government’s plans to expand the Sinocentric global order via the Belt and Road Initiatives and to integrate Hong Kong into a network of cities along the Pearl River Delta. In this chapter, we will examine this strategic deployment of the Hong Kong paradox at one critical moment in the city’s colonial history—the “Canton-Hong Kong Strike” (June 1925–October 1926). Lasting for fifteen months, the strike not only paralyzed the colony’s economy and the global trade but also dealt a severe blow to the British authority in Hong Kong when its system of “divide and rule” no longer

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worked. By examining the policies of Cecil Clementi (1875–1947), the governor of Hong Kong from 1 November 1925 to 1 February 1930, we will see the push-and-pull of the dual loyalty of local Chinese, who were convinced that their future lay with the British Empire, but their cultural identity was deeply rooted in the Confucian tradition. Aftermath of the strike was that Cecil Clementi was able to expand the colonial structure to include more local Chinese into the governance. By winning the support of three groups of Chinese stakeholders—the Chinese merchants, the rural gentry, and the Qing loyalists—Clementi gave the humbled Hong Kong government the legitimacy to continue to rule, not only to bring glory to the British empire but also to revitalize the Confucian tradition as an antidote to political radicalism. In so doing, Clementi—who is, to this day, deferentially remembered in Hong Kongas Jin Wen Tai 金文泰 (Gold, Culture, and Prosperity)—succeeded in mobilizing the dual loyalty of local Chinese to strengthen the collaborative colonialism in Hong Kong. Consequently, he extended the colonial rule deeper and wider within the Chinese society that was unimaginable before. For us today, as Hong Kong is facing its most devastating political crisis—the AntiExtradition Bill protest of 2019, it may be worth our while to reflect on Clementi’s clever maneuver between Chinese nationalism and global connectivity, foreign influence, and local support, and Confucian tradition and modern needs. What we will find is a skillful deployment of “Hong Kong paradox” in mitigating conflicts, balancing competing claims, and reestablishing governmentality after a brief loss of order.

3.2 The System No Longer Worked Since its founding in 1840, colonial Hong Kong was ruled by racial hierarchy and limited contact. With colonial officials and transnational merchants (such as William Jardine and James Matheson) at the top, the Hong Kong society was sharply divided among races: the British, the Portuguese, the Eurasians, the Indians, and the Chinese. The racial hierarchy was explicitly marked by segregated and semi-segregated neighborhoods. Protected by the “Peak District Reservation Ordinance” (1904), the British lived on Victoria Peak, the highest point on Hong Kong Island. The Portuguese (who spoke Cantonese and married the locals) resided in Kowloon across the Victoria Harbour. The Indians scattered in various parts of the colony in their distinctly marked ethnic neighborhoods. The intent of this racial segregation was to limit contact between rulers and the ruled, and foreigners and locals, such that each group of people managed their own business without interfering with the other groups.1 This system of “divide and rule” was never hard and fast. It allowed grey area for Chinese compradors, who were Western-educated, English speaking, and socially sophisticated, to serve as the liaison between the non-Chinese and the Chinese. These compradors worked in the British firms as managers, clerks, and translators, 1

For the socio-political structure of early British Hong Kong, see Carroll (2007), pp. 41–45; and Tsang (2004), pp. 47–71.

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and they were part of what Law Wing Sang calls the “collaborative colonialism” that the British created to secure support from selected local groups. According to Law, the colonial system in Hong Kong was not based on brute power. Rather, it was built on “a network of relations” in the form of “an impersonal force through a multiplicity of sites and channels” (Law 2009, p. 3). This impersonal force was particularly clear in two areas. One was the implementation of the policy of “cultural coloniality” that privileged those who spoke English over those who spoke Chinese. This language policy automatically gave the graduates of English school a higher social status than the graduates of Chinese school (Law 2009). The result of this “cultural coloniality” was the strong support from the compradors, whose “super Chinese” status was derived from their mastering of the English language and the Western literary canon (Law 2009, pp. 57–75). The collaborative colonialism also allowed the Tung Wah Hospital to serve as the medium between the non-English speaking Chinese and the British authority. As the link between the colonial rulers and the Chinese residents, the Tung Wah Hospital went beyond providing medical services and the repatriation of the bodies of the deceased. It intervened in legal disputes, labor grievances, and even social unrest (Carroll 2007; Tsang 2004). But in the 1910s, these two pillars of the colonial system—the divide and rule, and the collaborative colonialism—no longer worked. First, World War I (WWI) drained a lot of resources from the British Empire to sustain years of war in Europe. It also weakened the British power in East Asia when Japan earnestly expanded its influence beyond its borders. Second, the prolonged war in Europe gave Chinese businessmen and professionals the opportunity to expand their trade networks within and outside China at the expense of the British firms. In Hong Kong, a potent symbol of this expansion of power of the Chinese businessmen was the founding of the Bank of East Asia in 1919 that was the first public Chinese capitalized bank in the colony.2 Both politically and economically, the old system of racial hierarchy no longer reflected the reality in the city as the Chinese bourgeoisie became more and more powerful and assertive (Carroll 2007; Tsang 2004). Simultaneously, the old system of collaborative colonialism was unable to resolve social problems. Fanned by political radicalism in mainland and the labor movements in Europe and the United States, Hong Kong was plagued by a series of labor unrests such as the Mechanics’ Strike (1920) and the Seamen’s Strikes (1922). The seamen’s strike was particularly devastating to the Hong Kong government because during the strike, the Tung Wah Hospital failed to function as an effective mediator. In the words of Steve Tsang (2004), “[t]his incident showed that the government’s nineteenthcentury practice of leaving the local Chinese elite to keep stability and order with the Chinese community has failed” (p. 89).

2

For the historical significance of the Bank of East Asia, see Sinn (1994).

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3.3 A Perfect Storm By all accounts, the Canton-Hong Kong Strike was a bigger blow to the British rule in Hong Kong than previous strikes. The blow was bigger not only because the Canton-Hong Kong Strike lasted a lot longer and was combined with a nationwide boycott of British goods, but also because it revealed three structural problems of British Hong Kong—(1) the problem of legitimacy when colonial rule became unpopular around the world after the proclamation of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points in 1918; (2) the problem of governance when colonial rulers in Hong Kong failed repeatedly to listen to the voices of the governed; (3) the problem of social inequity when the working class felt exploited by their employers over salaries and working condition. As a result, during the fifteen months of the “Canton-Hong Kong Strike,” the Hong Kong government was caught off guard when almost one-third of the Hong Kong population (approximately 250,000 people) left the colony. The loss of manpower not only slowed down the economy but also created an acute shortage in public services such as transportation, health care, and food supply. As the strike extended from weeks to months, businessmen declared bankruptcy, shops were closed, and the import and export trade—the lifeline of Hong Kong—came to a halt.3 More devastatingly, the strike was also a political movement. Triggered by police shooting of protesters in Shanghai on 30 May 1925, the Canton-Hong Kong Strike was part of a nation-wide protest organized by the Nationalists and the Communists, who formed an alliance in 1923. The goal of the nation-wide strike was to mobilize students and workers to generate massive support for anti-imperialist nationalism (Hu and Chen 1991; Li 2011). As a symbol of the British Empire in the Far East, Hong Kong was singled out as the site to discredit the British presence in China. For this reason, the strike organizers intended to prolong the strike to paralyze the Hong Kong economy and force the British to give up the colony (Cheng 2011). To make matter worse, the governor of Hong Kong, Reginald Edward Stubbs (1876–1947, governor, 1919–1925) was unable to understand the root cause of the labor strikes. “Even after the Hong Kong strikes started,” Steve Tsang (2004) observes, “[Stubbs] still dismissed it as the work of the Communists and did not see the rising tide of Chinese nationalism at work” (p. 96). Instead of addressing the demands of the workers, Stubbs stubbornly focused on toppling the Nationalist government in Canton, which was clearly beyond his reach. In a report sent to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on 30 October 1925, Stubbs attached a memorandum prepared by R. H. Kotewall, a Eurasian with Parsee and Chinese ancestry.4 At

3

For the details of the devastation to Hong Kong, see Administrative Reports for the Year 1925, L4-5. See also Chan (1975, p. 332); Chan (1990, pp. 196, 332); and Zhang (2001, p. 328). The strikers claimed that the strike and boycott turned Hong Kong into an “empty harbor” and a “stinky city.” See “Xianggangjinxin 香港近訊” (1925). 4 The report and the memorandum can be found in the British record “Strike and Boycott” (CO 129-489).

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the beginning of the memorandum, Kotewall declared that “[t]he strike was undoubtedly caused by a Bolshevist intrigue in Canton, conducted with the avowed object of destroying the economic life of Hong Kong.”5 Reaffirming Stubbs’s view of the “Canton-Hong Kong Strike,” Kotewall emphasized the fear of Communism as the major factor leading to the massive exodus that crippled trade and commerce. He wrote, Why did intelligent and ordinary reasonable men, including Government employees in the Post Office, Harbour Department and Sanitary Department, leave their work so readily and suddenly, even scarifying outstanding wages and, in some cases, prospects of a pension? Was it a spontaneous outbreak of patriotic indignation at the unfortunate shooting incident in Shanghai? Or was it as secession brought about by unbearable living conditions? It was neither, but an exhibition of pure terror, of panic fear, in all but a very few cases. (“Strike and Boycott” [CO 129–489], p. 432)

For Stubbs, the only way to resolve the workers’ strike was to topple the Nationalist government in Canton which financed and mobilized the strikers. But Stubbs did not have the resources or the manpower to topple the Nationalist government. Consequently, his plans to unseat the Nationalist government failed, and he lost precious time to reach an agreement with the strikers who were genuinely unhappy with their unfair treatment and poor payment. What Stubbs failed to understand was the dual nature of the labor strike. The laborers were driven simultaneously by socio-economic injustice and national pride. They felt they were victims of British colonialism which, to them, condoned economic exploitation by the industrialists and violated Chinese sovereignty by taking Chinese land. In his notes, Kotewell argued that in addition to the fear of the “Bolshevik intrigue in Canton,” the strike was also sparked by the fear of losing one’s livelihood, the fear of losing one’s family, and above all, the fear of losing China’s sovereignty. He suggested the British authority to take immediate action to reshape the education system to stop the spread of fear. He wrote, It was the students who started the strike in Hong Kong; and it was the studentswho created the shooting incident at Shamen [in Canton] as in Shanghai. … It is the opinion of many Chinese who have made some study of the subject, that there should be a graduated system of school reaching up from the vernacular school to the Chinese middle school, and on to an enlarged and improved department, or school of Chinese studies in the University. In such a system great stress should be laid on the ethics of Confucianism which is, in China, probably the best antidote to the pernicious doctrine of Bolshevism, and is certainly the most powerful conservative force, and the greatest influence for good. (“Strike and Boycott” [CO 129–489], pp. 455–156)

In the tumultuous months of 1925, Kotewall’s recommendation for a drastic change in the educational system seemed impractical and incongruous. But it pointed to the fundamental problems of post-WWI British Hong Kong, namely, the old system of “divide and rule” no longer worked, and the collaborative colonialism did not reach 5 In opening the memorandum, Kotewall wrote: “The strike was undoubtedly caused by a Bolshevist

intrigue in Canton, conducted with the avowed object of destroying the economic life of Hong Kong.” See “Strike and Boycott” (CO 129–489), p. 431.

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deep enough into Hong Kong society to garner sufficient support. In the following years, when a new governor was trying to reestablish order in the colony and the prestige of the British rule, Kotewall’s recommendation was proven to be prescient.

3.4 A New Alliance Cecil Clementi succeeded Stubbs as governor of Hong Kong on 1 November 1925. Having studied Greek classics and Sanskrit at Oxford University, Clementi started his career as a colonial officer in Hong Kong from 1906 to 1912, reaching as high as Acting Colonial Secretary.6 During this time, he became an avid student of Chinese classics and a fluent speaker of Cantonese—the uncommon achievements that made him tremendously popular among local Chinese who did not speak English.7 From 1913 to 1924, he was sent to British Guinea and Ceylon. He returned to Hong Kong as governor in 1925 at the height of the “Canton-Hong Kong Strike.” In the following five years, he made friends with the Qing loyalists who migrated to Hong Kong after the 1911 Revolution; he also kept good relations with Chinese merchants and rural gentry who wanted to preserve patriarchy and the patrilineal family system. Amazingly, he did all these without compromising British rule in Hong Kong. While he vigorously projected an image of an open-minded colonial ruler, he steadfastly protected the racial hierarchy and the British dominance of the Hong Kong economy.8 His success proved that when skillfully deployed, the dual loyalty of Hong Kong Chinese—their loyalty to the British empire and their loyalty to cultural China— could be an asset to colonial rule. Shortly afte Cecil Clementi arrived in Hong Kong as the new governor, he found out that the strike and boycott had spread in many directions. Internationally, the crisis became a struggle of power between the Soviet Union and Britain over-controlling China. Adopting the view of his predecessor, Clementi strongly believed that the strike was organized by the “Bolsheviks” in Canton. Nationally, the crisis was a result of a battle between left-wing and right-wing Guomindang. Whereas the leftists pushed for mass mobilization and drastic changes, the rightists preferred collaboration and consultation with foreign powers. Locally, the failure to stop the strike as a result of a breakdown of communication between the leaders in Canton and the leaders in Hong Kong. Because of their political differences, the leaders of the two cities did not have reliable channels to exchange views despite their proximity. As a result, misunderstanding, rumors, and confusion abounded.9 6

Clementi’s superiors in the Hong Kong government praised him for his administrative skills and his ability to communicate with the locals. See letters, “Sir Frederick Lugard to Lewis V. Harcourt,” and “Sir Henry Lambert to A. A. H. Wellesley.” 7 For Cecil Clementi’s knowledge of Chinese classical studies and his command of Cantonese, see Meibo 程美寳 (1998, p. 62). 8 For a summary of Cecil Clementi’s work as a Hong Kong governor, see Carroll (2007, pp. 95–112). 9 Clementi expressed concern over these three levels of the crisis in his first report as governor to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on 23 December 1925. See “Hong Kong correspondences related

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Unlike Stubbs, however, Clementi knew he must prioritize his agendas. As the governor of Hong Kong, Clementi knew that he could do little to change the balance of power nationally and internationally. But he was confident that he could find ways to improve the communication between Canton and Hong Kong. The first thing he did after becoming the governor was to improve dialogue between the two cities through Chinese merchants. Three merchants were particularly important in serving as a liaison between the two cities: Chow Shou-son 周[U+58FD]臣 (1861–1959), Robert H. Kotewell 羅旭龢 (1880–1949), and Li Yiu-Tsun 李右泉 (1861–1940). They passed information (including proposals and counter-proposals for resolving the strike) between leaders of the two cities,10 and they were active (along with Ts’o Seen-wan 曹善允, 1868–1953) in recruiting workers to take up essential jobs in Hong Kong, giving the colony a semblance of normalcy (see Cai 蔡榮芳 2004, pp. 138–39). In the end, the strike ended not because of the liaison of the Chinese merchants, but because of the rise of right-wing Guomindang. As the new leader of the Nationalists, Chiang Kai-shek shifted the focus from mobilizing the masses to launching a northern expedition to capture the Yangtze River Valley. To prepare for the military expedition, the strike ended quietly on 10 October 1926. Although the strike did not end due to negotiation, Clementi discovered that throughout the strike, Chinese merchants were indispensable in maintaining peace and prosperity in the colony. They were not “a herd of frightened sheep” as Stubbs described them.11 On the contrary, they were effective in creating channels of communication, strengthening networks of friendship, and finding ways to resolve social problems. After the end of the strike, Clementi rewarded these merchants by including them into the colonial leadership, such as appointing Chow Shou-son and Robert H. Kotewell as members of the powerful Legislative Council (Huaqiaoribao 24 January 1930), recommending Li Yiu-Tsun and Ts’o Seen-wan for receiving the prestigious honor, “Commander, Order of the British Empire” (The China Mail 15 July 1929, p. 1) and giving many Chinese community leaders the title of “Justice of the Peace.”12 These actions sent a clear signal that local Chinese, including those who did not speak English, would be included into top leadership to facilitate communication with the Chinese authority on the mainland and with Chinese residents in the city. to the Strike and Boycott, 1925, 1926,” correspondence no. 2 (C2081/26S). In the report, Clementi heavily stressed the breakdown of communication between Canton and Hong Kong, particularly between the Hong Kong government and the British Consul-General at Canton, and between the British Consul-General at Canton and the de facto government at Canton. He implied that as the new governor, he would work hard to reestablish communication between Canton and Hong Kong. 10 See, for instance, “Report of visit of Sir Shouson Chow, Dr. R.H. Kotewell and Mr. Li Yiu-Tsun to Canton,” Clementi Paper/Box 12/File 1. 11 In his report on the causes of the strike and boycott, R. E. Stubbs emphasized the impassivity of local Chinese. He wrote: “In the first panic, when the Chinese might have been likened to a herd of frightened sheep, they (Mr. Kotewell and Mr. Chow Shou-san) immediately came forward and shamed and compelled their fellow countrymen into at least a semblance of courage.” See “Strike and Boycott” (CO 129–489), Stubbs’s report. 12 In 1930 alone, in the capacity as the governor of Hong Kong, Clementi gave out 42 “Justice of the Peace” to Chinese community leaders. See Cheng 鄭宏泰 and Gao 高皓 (2016, p. 338).

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Equally important to the expanded colonial governance were the farmers in the New Territories. During the strike when Canton cut off food supply to Hong Kong, farmers in the New Territories continued to provide meat and vegetable toHong Kong residents (Cheng 2011). A month after he arrived as the new governor, Clementi paid a special visit to the rural gentry in New Territories to thank them for their unwavering support to the British rule. During the visit, he charmed the rural gentry by speaking entirely in Cantonese and won their trust by pledging to resolve local disputes quickly.13 A year later, Clementi rewarded the rural gentry by giving them power to administer local affairs by creating the Rural Council (Heung Yee Kuk 鄉 議局) (Zhang 2016).In so doing, Clementi solidified the support of the rural elite. Through these actions, Clementi indicated a change in colonial governance. For him, the strike taught a great lesson. It showed that in the age of rising nationalism in China, he could not rely primarily on the British merchants, the Eurasians, and the compradors. As much as the prosperity of Hong Kong was dependent upon the global reach of the British Empire and the economic and communicative networks of the British traders, its stability also rested heavily on the support of local Chinese who, despite the anti-foreign rhetoric and the anti-imperialist nationalism, saw Hong Kong their home. For this reason, Clementi was determined to modify the colonial structure that used to privilege the British and the Europeans, and divide the society between those who spoke English and those who did not.14 In ruling post-strike Hong Kong, Clementi deliberately expanded the scope of collaborative colonialism to include two new groups of stakeholders—the Chinese merchants and the rural gentry.

3.5 Confucianism as an Antidote Against Radicalism In recruiting new supporters into his collaborative colonialism, Clementi emphasized the fear of radicalism as R. H. Kotewall hinted at in his 1925 memorandum. Going beyond Kotewall’s analysis, however, Clementi found out that different groups of local Chinesefearedradicalism for different reasons. To the Chinese merchants, their fear came from chihua 赤化 (literally “becoming red”). In a public statement issued on 5 August 1925, the Chinese merchants made three announcements. First, we unanimously support and gladly applaud the Hong Kong government’s efforts to keep the public order and ensure the safety of the business community. Second, we unanimously oppose the strike because workers are threatened andcoerced to take industrial action. Third, we unanimously condemn the radicalization (chihua 赤化) of the present

13

See reports in Huaqiaoribao, December 8 and December 9, 1925. The privileges of the British included their exclusive residence on the Peak and their White-only recreation clubs. In terms of power, practically all the top positions of colonial government were staffed by British. For details of this colonial structure, see Carroll (2007, pp. 9–32), and Tsang (2004, pp. 16-72). 14

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In the joint statement, the Chinese merchants intentionally avoided the two key issues that caused the strike: anti-foreign nationalism among the Chinese and the salary dispute between the workers and their employers. Instead, they focused on the difference between the Canton government and the Hong Kong government. To them, the Hong Kong government was normal because it provided public safety and gave the residents an opportunity to make a living. By contrast, the Chinese government in Canton was abnormal because it adopted radical policies to disrupt the economy. As merchants, they did not care whether the rulers were Chinese or foreigners. What they cared about was a stable environment to do business. Underlying the merchants’ fear of chihua was their somewhat misguided understanding of gongchan zhuxi 共產主義 (literally “a doctrine of sharing property”). In the same public statement, the merchants commented: We are concerned that the spread of gongchan zhuyi in China will lead to the elimination of the family system and the sharing of wives. The result will be disastrous comparable to huge floods and the attacks by wild animals. Presently the propaganda promoting gongchan zhuyi is on the rise; it expands rapidly like plagues. If we do not stop it immediately, it will grow even faster. (Huaqiao ribao 5 August 1925, p. 2)

From the public statement, the merchants appeared to understand gongchan zhuyi from the narrow spectrum of overturning the existing social structure, particularly the patrilineal family system (mielun gongqi 滅倫公妻). It is not clear from where the merchants developed their understanding of gongchan zhuyi. But their understanding led them to see the strike as the beginning of a massive breakdown of law and order. And they blamed the Canton government for being under the Russian spell. To alleviate the merchants’ fear of chihua, Clementi tightened the control of labor unions. He closed the labor organizations that started the strike and passed a law entitled “Illegal Strike and Lockout Ordinance” to prevent future strikes. He also actively monitored the presses and passed a law, “Printers and Publishers Ordinance,” to give him power to shut down presses.16 All these measures sent a clear signal that post-strike Hong Kong would not allow chihua to happen. Similarly, the rural gentry in the New Territories were fearful of radicalism. Although they did not issue public statements condemning the strike or criticizing gongchan zhuyi, they opposed free love and women’s rights that the New Culture Movement promoted. They were also worried about the loss of the authority of the patriarchs and the end of the patrilineal family system. Above all, as big landholders, they were deeply concerned about whether they could continue to pass their property through the patrilineal line. As mentioned earlier, Clementi swiftly dealt with the fear The original reads: (一) 此次罷工期內,政府出示及竭力保護治安,商民賴以安居,我商人一 致贊助,及表示感謝政府之盛意。(二)此次罷工,完全工人受人恐嚇,及為強力壓迫,有以致之, 商人應一致反對。(三)廣州現在政府實行赤化,對於本港商務極力摧殘,擾亂金融,截我糧食,吾 人應一致反對。 16 For Clementi’s tightening the control of the labor organizations, see Carroll(2007, pp. 95–112). 15

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of rural gentry by giving them power to administer local disputes (including land disputes) in the Rural Council. In the same vein, he found a third group of stakeholders he could include in his collaborative colonialism—the Qing loyalists. The loyalists suffered from the 1911 Revolution which ended their careers in the Qing bureaucracy and forced them to move to Hong Kong. They also suffered from the radicalism of New Culture Movement (1915–1925) which took away their cultural capital by attacking Confucian learning and replacing classical Chinese with the vernacular. As leftovers from a defunct dynasty, they became remnants of the past, the walking corpses in a foreign land.17 But in post-strike Hong Kong, Clementi gave the Qing loyalists a new mission. He aggressively solicited their assistance in promoting Confucianism. He consulted them in founding a government-funded Chinese middle school and involved them in creating the Department of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong. Particularly in the latter, the Qing loyalists saw it as a revival of Confucianism after it was shunned by the cultural iconoclasts of the New Culture Movement. In a fund-raising gathering at the Government House in June 1927, Lai Tsi-hsi 賴 際熙 (1865–1937) represented the Qing loyalists to thank Clementi for supporting Confucian learning (Clementi Paper/Box 22/File 3, pp. 38–39, 45–47). In Clementi, Lai saw a return of the Manchu rulers who, as foreigners, ruled China for centuries by strictly following Confucianism. In Clementi, Lai also saw a rebirth of a traditional Chinese government in which rulers and scholars co-ruled the world.18 As governor, Clementi did not hesitate to assume the role of a Confucian ruler. He replied in Cantonese: Chinese must reorganize their national treasures. Their cultural heritage is highly valuable, but it is accessible only to those from the educated families or those who are literally gifted. For this reason, there have been increasing demands for reorganizing the Chinese national treasures [to make them more widely accessible]. Hong Kong is separate from the mainland only by a river. If we can successfully establish the Department of Chinese(in the University of Hong Kong) to gather together a large group of scholars, we will be able to reorganize Chinese learning and give the younger generation a clear direction. Isn’t it comforting and rewarding to do this? For the glory of Chinese culture, we must work together to set up the Department of Chinese.19

For the Qing loyalists, Clementi’s speech was music to their ears. To them, Confucian learning meant more than the Five Classics and the Four Books. It meant broadly a body of scholarship that supported patrilineal lineages, patriarchy, and the morality of the rulers. More importantly, it meant a commitment to a stable growth that was not found in the mainland.

17

In the 1910s and 1920s, Hong Kong was one of the four places where Qing loyalists gathered. The other three places were Shanghai, Beijing-Tianjin area, and Qingdao. For the characteristics of Qing loyalists in these four places, see Lin 林志宏 (2009), especially Chap. 1. 18 After return to Hong Kong as governor, Clementi asked Lai Tsi-hsi to give him Chinese lessons, showing his deep respect to the Qing loyalist. 19 The speech was published in Huaqiaoribao 華僑日報, June 28, 1927.

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3.6 A Paradox in Time According to Bernard Hung-kay Luk, Clementi’s promotion of Confucian learning was potentially dangerous. It was an appeal “made to the cultural tradition of the native people to help safeguard foreign rule against the growth of nationalistic feelings among the young generation” (Luk 1991, p. 660). If not managed well, the promotion of Confucian learning could cause political problems by igniting cultural nationalism among the locals to turn against the foreign oppressors.20 Yet, as Bernard Hung-kay Luk also points out, “[g]iven the unstable condition in China and ideological challenges and counter challenges that left many people dizzy, it was not difficult for Clementi and the literati to gain a certain degree of persuasiveness” (Luk 1991, p. 660). More importantly, Clementi’s promotion of Confucianism turned Hong Kong into a paradox. The British colony was orderly, technologically advanced, and globally connected; but it was deeply traditional among its Chinese residents who honored the Confucian tradition, supported patriarchy, and preserved the patrilineal family structure. As governor, Clementi was not shy to underscore this paradox. He publicly urged students not to participate in political activities (Clementi Paper 28 January 1927), defended the Chinese practice of keeping maids despite the strong opposition from officials in London (Liang 2017), and above all, opposed adamantly to democratize Hong Kong based on the premise that democracy did not fit the East Asian culture (Huaqiaoribao 24 January 1930). In a speech that he delivered before leaving Hong Kong for his new post in Singapore, Clementi succinctly summarized his conservative ideology. He said, Regarding law and order, I have a few words to offer to you. I don’t think the democratic system is appliable to any Far Eastern territories under the British rule. It is because in the Far East, the local politics, the social structure and the economic systemare not suitablefor implementing democracy. I also think that the election of male and female legislators— whatever ways they are elected—is not suitable to Hong Kong. Hence, I do not recommend introducing election now or in the future. (Huaqiaoribao 24 January 1930).

Unrepentantly conservative, what Clementi achieved in 1930 was the creation of a new colonial ideology that used Confucianism to legitimize the hierarchy, patriarchy, and elitism in colonial Hong Kong. More importantly, this new colonial ideology highlighted the paradox in local Chinese’s dual loyalty. On the one hand, the colonial ideology focused attention on the unique identity of three groups of Chinese residents in Hong Kong—the Chinese merchants, the rural gentry, and the Qing loyalists—who claimed that they were more Chinese than their compatriots in mainland China. On the other hand, the colonial ideology asserted the special role of Hong Kong as a haven of stability and prosperity when China was plagued with political radicalism and mass movement. By honoring the Confucian tradition while keeping Hong Kong’s 20

For this reason, in his private writings, Clementi showed a disdain for Confucian classics, describing them as dated in supporting monarchy. See “Notes of conversation with Sir Cecil Clementi by Lugard” (1931). Nevertheless, he saw the promotion of Confucian learning helped him win support from local Chinese.

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global status, Clementi transformed the post-strike Hong Kong into a symbol of East Asian modernity where the past and the present, the East and the West, the global and the local, mixed seamlessly. This new colonial ideology attracted the attention of Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881–1936), a well-known cultural iconoclast of the New Culture movement. In his famous writing, The Diary of a Madman, Lu Xun accused the Confucian tradition of being cannibalistic. At one point in the story, Lu Xun described the Confucian classics as “soaked with blood” because they had caused tremendous oppression and numerous deaths in the restrictive social system that they espoused.21 After a brief visit to Hong Kong in 1927, Lu Xun was stunned after finding that classical Chinese (wenyan wen) was used in the colony rather than the vernacular. He was also amazed by the lavish activities organized by local Chinese to celebrate Confucius’s birthday as if the Confucian tradition was still sacred. He was also disturbed by the continuing practice of patriarchy rather than following the “new culture” of women liberation on the mainland. In short, Lu Xun found Hong Kong so backward that it seemed to be thrown back to the imperial times (Lu 1981). This temporal confusion that Lu Xun experienced was exactly what Clementi wanted to achieve. Like a ghost, the past was summoned to haunt those who were obsessed with progress and novelty. By making Hong Kong a paradox, Clementi turned the colony into a voice from the margins, exposing the problems of rampant radicalism and cultural iconoclasm of early twentieth-century China. By creating a temporal confusion that perplexed Lu Xun, Clementi succeeded in distancing Hong Kong from mainland without separating from it. As a throw-back to the imperial past, Clementi’s Hong Kong was more Chinese than China in the sense of preserving the Confucian tradition, keeping the classical language, and protecting the patrilineal family structure. More significantly, it served as a reminder of what China had missed in its preoccupation with radicalism and iconoclasm.

3.7 Fragrant Sea and Famed Mountain Today, this temporal confusion is still visible if we go to Tuen Mun in the northwest of Hong Kong. There, not far from the Mass Transit Railway station, Siu Hong, lies a splendid memorial archway adorned by four beautifully written characters: 香海 名山 (see Fig. 3.1). Literally “a fragrant sea” (xiang hai) and “a famed mountain” (ming shan), these four characters remind visitors of the geographic uniqueness of Tuen Mun (屯門, Mandarin: Tun men). On the one hand, it faces a vast ocean that connects the Pearl River Delta to East Asia, Southeast Asia, and beyond; on the other hand, it is nested in an awesome mountain that houses one of the best-known Buddhist temples in the city, the Qingshan Temple (青山寺). Judged by the symmetry of the forceful strokes, visitors would assume the characters to have been written by a Chinese person steeped in the long tradition of calligraphy of the country. But if 21

For a study of Lu Xun’s cultural iconoclasm, see Lee (1987).

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Fig. 3.1 The memorial archway in Tuen Men, Hong Kong (courtesy of Chris, Ka-ho Ng)

visitors look at the name of the calligrapher, they will find out the characters were penned by Jin Wen Tai (or Cecil Clementi, the architect of post-strike Hong Kong). In many ways, Clementi’s collaborative colonialism was vividly shown on this memorial archway. Built in 1929, the archway commemorated his two visits to Tuen Mun accompanied by a large group of local Chinese.22 Given the difficulty of reaching Tuen Mun in those days, the trips must have felt like pilgrimages to a holy land. In the four characters he wrote, Clementi attempted to give his friendship with local Chinese a deeper meaning. By linking the openness of “the fragrant sea” to the sturdiness of “the famed mountain,” he presented the friendship as a mixing of the best of the East and the West, the global and the local. Lest that uninformed visitors are not able to grasp the subtle meaning of “the fragrant sea and the famed mountain,” the Qing loyalist, Chen Botao 陳伯陶 (1855– 1930), wrote a couplet to explain the meaning of “the fragrant sea and the famed mountain.” Now hanging on both sides of the archway, the couplet reads: “Following the coast to reach the south, [the Indian Buddhist monk] Beitu leaves his heart in China. Reaching the top of a mountain to pay tribute [to the greatness of Chinese culture], accomplished scholar Han [Han Yu 韓愈 768–824] spread his

22

Clementi visited TuenMun in July 1927 and April 1928. A report of his first visit was published on 12 July 1927 in South China Morning Post and Gongshangribao 工商日報. The list of Chinese leaders who accompanied Clementi was long. It included community leaders, businessmen, and cultural elites.

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name to people in foreign lands.” In the couplet, Chen Botao compares the IndiaChina cultural encounter in Tang China to the Sino-British cultural encounter in twentieth-century Hong Kong. As mentioned earlier, Clementi’s attempt to mix the East and the West was not new. During the late nineteenth century, both the Meiji government in Japan and the late Qing government in China had tried different strategies to combine the “Asian spirit” with the “Western technology.” But in the 1920s, Clementi’s view was no longer fashionable when the leaders of Republican China decided to modernize their country by completely overturning its political and social orders. Thus, when the memorial archway was built in 1929, Clementi’s view became a lone voice from the margins, out of steps with what was going on in the mainland. And as argued above, the promotion of Confucian learning formed the basis of an alliance between the colonial government and three groups of Chinese stakeholders in post-strike Hong Kong. One may say that Clementi was finding a justification to preserve the British rule in Hong Kong amid rising nationalism. One may also say that Clementi’s collaborative colonialism was aimed to subdue the colonized. But for some local Chinese—particularly the Chinese merchants, the rural gentry, and the Qing loyalists who signed their names on the ornated archway, they found Clementi’s collaborate colonialism attractive when comparing the relatively stable condition in Hong Kong with rampant radicalism on the mainland. As succinctly encapsulated in the four Chinese characters, Xian Hai Ming Shan, the post-strike Hong Kong was deliberately constructed as a paradox in time. By being both globally connected and more Chinese than China, Hong Kong was (and, in many respects, is) “a voice from the margins.”

Bibliography Administrative Reports for the Year. (1925). Cai, R. 蔡榮芳. (2004). Xianggangrenzhixianggangshi 香港人之香港史 [The Hong Kong History of the Hong Kong People]. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Carroll, J. M. (2007). A concise history of Hong Kong. Lamham: Roman & Littlefield. Chan, M. K. (1975). Labor and empire: The Chinese labor movement in the Canton Delta, 1895– 1923. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University. Cheng, Kam Po 鄭金波. (2011). 1920 niandaixiangganggagongyundongyanjiu1920 年代香港罷 工運動研究 [The strikes in Hong Kong during the 1920s]. Master’s thesis, University of Hong Kong. Cheng, H. 鄭宏泰, & Gao, H. 高皓. (2016). Baishouxingjia: Xianggangjiazuyushehu 1841–1941 白手興家:香港家族與社會 1841–1941 [Rags to riches: Kinship and society in Hong Kong, 1841–1941]. Hong Kong: Zhonghuashuju. Clementi Paper/Box 22/ File 3. Gongshangribao 工商日報. (1925–1930). Hong Kong correspondences related to the Strike and Boycott, 1925, 1926, correspondence no. 2 (C2081/26S). Hu, T. 胡提春, & Chen, S 陳善心. (1991). Luelunzhongguogongchandangzaishenggangdabagongzhongdezuoyon 略論中國共產黨在省港大罷工的作用 [A study of the impact

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of the CCP in the Canton-Hong Kong Strike]. In Shenggangdabagongyaniu—Jinianshengangdabagongliushiwunianlunwenji 省港大罷工研究—紀念省港大罷工六十五周年論文集 [In Ren Zhenchi 任振池, & Liu Han 劉寒 [Eds.], A study of Hong Kong Strike: A collection of essays for the memory of the 65th anniversary of Canton-Hong Kong Strike], (pp. 48–58). Guangzhou: Zhongshandaxuechubanshe. Huaqiaoribao 華僑日報. (1930). Jinduchuxidinglijuhuiyizhizhihouyici 金督出席定例局會議之 最後一次 [Governor’s last meeting at the regular meeting at the Legislative Council]. Huaqiaoribao 華僑日報, January 24. Huaqiaoribao 華橋日報. (1925). Shangyeweichijudajuhui 商業維持局大敘會. Huaqiaoribao 華 僑日報, August 5. Huaqiaoribao 華橋日報. 1925–1930. Lau, K.C. (1990). Britain and Hong Kong, 1895–1945. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong. Law, W. S. (2009). Collaborative colonial power: The making of the Hong Kong Chinese. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press. Lee, L. O. (1987). Voices from the iron house: A study of Lu Xun. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. Li, D 李達嘉. (2011). Shangrenyugongchangeming(1919–1927) 商人與共產革命 (1919– 1927) [Merchants and the communist revolution, 1919–1927]. Taipei: Zhongyanyanjiuyuanjindaishiyanjiusuo. Liang, B 梁寳龍. (2017). Hanxueweigang: Xianggangzaoqigongrenyugongyun 汗血維港:香港早 期工人與工運 [Building Hong Kong with sweat and blood: The early history of workers and worker movement of Hong Kong]. Hong Kong: Zhonghuashuju. Lin, Z 林志宏. (2009). Minguonaidiguo ye: Zhengzhiwenhuazhuanxingxiadeqingyimin 民國乃帝 國也:政治轉型下的清遺民 [Opposing Republican China: The Qing loyalists in times of political changes]. Taipei: Lianjinchubanshe. Lu, X 魯迅. (1981). Lu Xunquanji 魯迅全集 [The collected works of LuXun]. Beijing: Renwenwenxuechubanshe. Luk, B. H. (1991). Chinese culture in the Hong Kongcurriculum: Heritage and colonialism. Comparative Education Review, 35(4), 650–668. Meibo, C. 程美寳 (1998). Gengzibeikuanyuxianggangdaxue de zhongwenjiayu—ersanshiniandaixianggangyuzhongyingguanxi de yibezhemian 庚子賠款與香港大學的中文教育— 二三十年代香港與中英關係的一個側面 [The Boxer Indemnity and the Chinese education at the University of Hong Kong: A glimpse of Hong Kong and Sino-British relations in the 1920s and 1930s]. Zhongshandaxuexuebao 中山大學學報 38(6), 61–74. Notes of conversation with Sir Cecil Clementi by Lugard. (1931). In Lugard Papers, L95/5, February 20. Oxford: Rhodes House Library. Report of visit of Sir Shouson Chow, Dr. R.H. Kotewell, & Mr. Li Yiu-Tsun to Canton, Clementi Paper/Box 12/File 1. Sir Frederick Lugard to Lewis V. Harcourt. Letter, CO 129/375/Colonial Secretary. Sir Henry Lambert to A. A. H. Wellesley. 1925. Letter, June 5, CO 129/491/Governorship of Hong Kong. South China Morning Post.1925–1930. Sinn, E. (1994). Growing with Hong Kong: The bank of East Asia, 1919–1994. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Strike and Boycott (CO 129–489). The China Mail. (1925–1930). The China Mail. (1929). Mr. Li Yiu-Tsun, honoured by the Chinese Chamber. The China Mail, July 15. Tsang, S. (2004). A modern history of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press. Xianggangjinxin 香港近訊 [Recent News from Hong Kong]. (1925). Gongrenzhiluotekan 工人之 路特刊 [Special Issue of the Road of the Workers], July 25.

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Zhang, S 張少強. (2016). Guanzhixinjie: Diquanfuquanyuzhuquan 管治新界:地權、父權、與主 權 [Administering new territories: Land rights, patrilineal rights, and sovereign rights). Hong Kong: Zhonghuashuju. Zhang, X 張曉輝. (2001). Xiangggangjindaijingjishi, 1840–1949 香港近代經濟史, 1840– 1949 [A modern economic history of Hong Kong, 1840–1949]. Guangzhou: Guangdong renminchubanshe.

Tze-ki Hon teaches history at City University of Hong Kong. Specializing in classical studies and intellectual history, he wrote four books and co-edited four collections of essays, covering topics such as the commentaries of the Yijing (Book of Changes), Neo-Confucianism of the Song-Ming period, the social and intellectual history of modern China, and the global order after WWI. His current research projects include the philosophy of divination of Zhu Xi (1130-1200), the modernity discourse in late Qing and Republican China, the global travels of the Yijing since 1860, and the collective memories in Hong Kong after WWI. Hok-yin Chan is Associate Professor at the Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong. His recent research activities focus on the intellectual history’s development of late imperial China, with particular emphasis on Zhang Tai Yan’s works (章太炎), May Fourth Movement and Hong Kong Studies. He has published over 100 pieces of writing in refereed journals, edited volumes and conference proceedings. In 2015, he won the Hong Kong Book Prize with his book May Fourth in Hong Kong: Colonialism, Nationalism and Localism (Hong Kong: Chung Hwa Book Company, 2014).

Chapter 4

Liberating Architecture from “Chineseness”: Colonial Shinto Shrines and Post-colonial Martyrs’ Shrines in Post-war Taiwan Liza Wing Man Kam

4.1 Introduction Among the several remnants or transformed sites of former colonial Shinto shrines in Taiwan that I have visited since my first field trip in 2017, the Hualien Martyrs’ Shrine and the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei were two of the most impressive ones for a particular reason. The former has most of the Japanese Shinto shrine traces erased except a bronze horse statue (Fig. 4.1) while the latter displays no vestige of Shinto at all on the surface (Fig. 4.2). On the one hand, the grandiosity and monumentality that the architectural complexes present, assuredly, was the reason for their amazement. On the other hand, it was the sense of déjà vu—their strong resemblance to the imperial architecture that one could find in the Forbidden City in Beijing—that stunned me. The current Hualien Martyrs’ Shrine (花蓮忠烈祠) sits at the exact location as its precedent Karenk¯o Jinja (花蓮港神社) in Hualien, in East Taiwan. Whether one plans to get access to the precinct on foot or by vehicles from the urban areas, once she/he ascends to the top of the long flight of steps towards the shrine, turns back and looks through its current “Chinese” style front gate, the Meilun River—which runs perpendicularly to the central axis bisecting the Martyrs’ shrine—catches her/his eyes. The National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine (國民革 命忠烈祠) in Taipei, which now occupies the site of the former Taiwan Gokoku Jinja (台灣護國神社), is situated also on an elevated plateau that overlooks the Keelung River. It also forms a perpendicular spatial relation with an imaginary, yet prominent central axis that strikes through the whole architectural complex.

L. W. M. Kam (B) Department of East Asian Studies, Georg-August University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_4

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Fig. 4.1 Current Hualien Martyrs’ Shrine. The Imperial Palace-looking architecture converted from the former colonial Karenk¯o Jinja. This bronze horse statue (Shinmei 神馬) was the only trace of the former Japanese architecture. (author’s photo) (Permission has been received to use all photos in this chapter that are not the author’s own.)

The combination of their discernible grand yellow roofs, the specific spatial relation between the buildings and their surroundings, as well as the particular geographical conditions in which the two current Martyrs’ shrines are located certainly construct a baronial spatial experience: similar to their counterpart in Beijing, wellknown as the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City. Since the arrival of the Kuomintang (KMT) in Taiwan in 1949, the two sites, amongst other Martyrs’ shrines in Taiwan, are built for the exclusive enshrinement of “national heroes” who had contributed or sacrificed their lives for the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC). Earlier in 1911, the founder of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, led the Revolutionary Alliance and managed to overthrow the Qing Dynasty during the Xinhai Revolution. At this historical moment, the Qing Dynasty’s last Emperor Puyi and his royal family were residing in the Forbidden City in Beijing. Although the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City has been open to the public since 1914, with its architectural style being exclusive to the absolute monarchic power for almost five centuries from 1424, it remains a symbol of power. With that in mind, seeing how the KMT fled mainland China after losing the Civil War to the Communists and arrived at Taiwan to set up their version of “China”—the Republic of China—in 1949, and how they first converted two former colonial Shinto shrines into Martyrs’ shrines with minimum changes, and after 1966 thoroughly transformed the colonial shrines to “Chinese Forbidden City-looking” architecture, raises the question:

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Fig. 4.2 Entrance of the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei (author’s photo)

Was it solely a matter of taste, or was the political symbolism that such aesthetics presented being part of the consideration that resulted in the KMT’s adoption of the same architectural style as the Imperial Palace in Beijing? There are two points that deserve further investigation. The first one is that, even after the Japanese left Taiwan, the physical structure of colonial Shinto shrines was maintained until the early 1980s to serve the public as “Martyrs’ shrines,” as exemplified with our two cases. The second point concerns the tough stance of the KMT and the official physical transformations of these colonial structures into Imperial Palace replicas starting from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. My enquiries that lead to this chapter are thus: What was it about the colonial Shinto shrines as spatial qualities that were so attractive for the KMT to start with? As a new post-colonial authority, why did the KMT decide to host and practice their version of necropolitics in these former colonial shrines? Then, how did turning the Japanese colonial Shinto shrines into Imperial Palace replicas actually complement the goal of the “Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement”? While Chun (1996) and Gellner (1983) note that culture is constructed, imagined, authorized, and institutionalized and that cultural discourses in the form of writing are one of the major means for delivering the imaginative nature of cultural constructions, I can see the stretching capacity of such imagination through further materialization in architectural forms. Drawn upon the theoretical dictum of the diasporic paradigm to consider Chineseness as a category with nonfixed content in racial, cultural or geographical terms which operates as an open and indeterminate signifier (Ang 1998), I seek to search for the various articulations of “Chineseness” being surmised, taken, manipulated, scaled up or down in spatial practices. The design elements, which are commonly acknowledged as “Chinese,” be it hidden or proclaimed, was beneficial for both the Japanese colonizers and the KMT during their respective constructions of the temporally preferred identities in Taiwan.

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I start by showcasing what the KMT imagined as truly “Chinese” in terms of architecture: The Imperial Palace and the spatial design characteristics that it carries. Taking from there, I identify the threads of the (commonly acknowledged as) “Chinese” design elements adopted by Japanese colonial architects in designing the colonial Shinto shrines back in the early 1930s. Finally, I discuss the KMT’s concepts and practical acts in transforming and appropriating the colonial Shinto shrines, while manipulating and utilizing the once “Japanized” “Chinese” design elements—as referring to how it is broadly perceived nowadays. I also discuss the KMT’s construction of Chinese imperial architectures in Taiwan to finally replace the colonial Shinto shrines in accordance with the “Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement” in light of its ambition to “construct” the “China” that they set up after crossing the straits. Over the process of producing colonial Shinto/post-war Martyrs’ shrines, the notion of Taiwaneseness in official discourses materialized in architecture was absent. I conclude that “Chineseness,” as a concept and invention, or China, Chinese as attributions—subliming from its suggestion on spatiality hence geopolitics—should serve as no more than references which is temporal, and as a collection of dynamic cultural stop-overs that has its own intellectual trajectories, rather than being seen as fixed and timeless. The use of the adjective “Chinese” in front of “architecture” or “design elements” deserves close investigation and high degree of contextualization in every case. As Ang (1998, p. 225) denotes, China, or all things Chinese, cannot be “held up as providing the authentic, authoritative and uncontested standard.” Akin to any other attribution in front of that “–ness,” “Chineseness” is relevant only when it is liberated from the modern geopolitical and national boundaries, and in its conditioned and contextualized situations, limited in cultural sense. Any attempt to associate the concept beyond its temporal, situational, and descriptive limits will then fall again into the trap which authorities intend to utilize as “a new kind of boundedness in order to create bonds of horizontal solidarity between equal, autonomous individuals constitutive of the empty, homogeneous social space of the nations,” as Chun (1996, p. 115) puts it.

4.2 Imperial Palace in Beijing: Urban Setting, Axis, Color, the Roofs and the Decorations During the imperial era, Chinese emperors attached great importance to their absolute exclusivity and were reluctant to share their prestige in aesthetic terms. Despite the ubiquitous presence and liberal use of yellow roof Chinese architecture nowadays, the same would have been totally inconceivable during the imperial era. For example, aristocrats or even royalty who possessed any items of the specific yellow color could be regarded as betrayers who challenged the emperor’s authority. Such an act could lead to capital punishment. Since the Ming Dynasty in China, the emperors were the only person who could use the color yellow—the color of the grand “doubleeave hip roofs” at the Imperial Palace in Beijing and its replicas in Taiwan. Since this

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“double-eave hip roof” style is of the highest architectural order in Chinese traditional architecture exclusive for imperial use, in combination with such specific yellow color, architectures—including the Martyrs’ shrines in Taiwan would inconceivably be recognized as signifying imperial relation. The Imperial Palace in the “Forbidden City” in Beijing was built in the early fifteenth century during the Ming Dynasty. It is an architectural complex scrupulously planned in detail and heavily charged with power symbolisms. Starting from the urban settings, the alignment of spatial clusters, color choices for the architectural elements, number of steps on staircases, amount of decorations, to the numbers of individual architectural and sculptural elements—the most fastidious considerations were made in every single stage of the design process. Such considerations were made to ultimately declare that it was the emperor who seized the ultimate power and ruled the palace as well as the universe. Understanding the strong symbolism which the Imperial Palace in Beijing bears is, therefore, helpful to make sense of our two Martyrs’ shrines in Taiwan from an architectural perspective, and hence their underlying power symbolism.

4.2.1 Urban Setting: Backed by the Mountain, Facing the Water Chiu (2008) in his work analyzing the Imperial Palace in Beijing reminds his readers of a few ancient Chinese thinkers and their philosophy on planning cities and palaces. To the ancient Chinese philosopher of Legalism, Guan Zhong, the best natural surroundings were key to spatial planning. He wrote, in ca. 750 BC in “Guanzi, Cheng Ma” (管子:乘馬), “The capital city of the country should be located near a high mountain and be close to a broad river. Being surrounded by water prevents desiccation and is good for defense.”1 Later in 239 BC, in Master Lü’s Spring and Autumn Annals (LüshiChunqiu 呂氏春秋),2 Lü wrote, “Emperors in the ancient time chose the center of the universe to set up the country, the center of the country to set up the palace, the center of the palace to set up the ancestral hall […]”.3 For him, setting up capital cities in the center of “the universe” (the country) was crucial (Chiu 2008). Xun Kuang in Xunzi—The Great Summary (荀子・大略) notes that

1

Original text: “凡立國都,非於大山之下,必於廣川之上;高毋近旱,而水用足;下毋近水,而溝防 省”(管子:乘馬). https://ctext.org/guanzi/cheng-ma/zh.Accessed 1 April 2020. English translation by the author. 2 The LüshiChunqiu is an encyclopedic Chinese classic text compiled around 239 BC under the patronage of the Qin Dynasty Chancellor LüBuwei. See https://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/zh.Acc essed 15 March 2018. 3 Original text: “古之王者擇天下之中而立國,擇國之中而立宮,擇宮之中而立廟” (cited in Chu 2016). English translation by the author.

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“desiring to be close to the four edges, one should occupy the center. Therefore, the emperor should reside in the middle of the world. This is propriety.”4 Beijing might not have been the center of the “Middle Kingdom” in the ancient time, but the Forbidden City in Beijing was arranged with the imperial palace in its center in adherence to theories of Fengshui and Five Elements.5 An axis that runs through the whole complex forms a spatial arrangement with strong symmetry. The artificial mountain, Jingshan (景山), with its height of about 45 m, was built at the northern (the rear) side of the palace. The earth ramped up to form Jingshan was excavated from the moats surrounding the Forbidden City as well as two rivers (“Nei and Wai Jinshuihe”—Internal and External Rivers). The flow of the two rivers passes the front of the two main halls in the Imperial Palace. According to Chiu (2008), this setting forms a perfect Feng Shui arrangement of facing water in the front and a mountain as the backdrop. This also adheres to what Guan promoted in 750 BC.

4.2.2 The Most Awe-Inspiring Grand Axis Chiu (2008) refers to “Fengshui (風水, wind and water)” theory to explicate the absolute linearity in spatial arrangements as being “the most intimidating.” “Whether it is ‘wind’ or ‘water’, once the spaces are arranged in a linear arrangement along an axis, the two will cut through space, the environment and all the contents enveloped. The longer the straight line, the larger the power of destruction…the imperial palace, situated in the center of Beijing, is cut by such a terrifying straight line (approximately 8 km from south to north). While normal people should certainly avoid such powerful line, people in the past believed that the emperors were the only human beings who could survive and even manipulate it and that they could transform that intimidation through the most powerful grand axis into an awe-inspiring power” (Chiu 2008, pp. 20–21).

4.2.3 The Yellow Color and the Grand Yellow Roof The emperors’ exclusive use of the yellow color came from its association as being the color of the soil. Since agriculture was the country’s foundation, working with soil— the most important “element” of all, was considered sacred. Yellow was, therefore, the color of “orthodoxy” and hence supposed to be the most stunning, both visually and conceptually. It could only be used for imperial aesthetics. In architectural contexts, 4

Original text: “欲近四旁莫如中央,故王者必居天下之中,禮也” (cited in Fo 2020). English translation by the author. 5 On Feng Shui and the Five Elements theories involved in planning the Forbidden City, Chiu Kwong Chiu has written a fantastic book describing every calculation which was involved, see Chiu (2008).

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it carried, and to an extent still carries connotations of being sacred, majestic, and prestigious, conveying a sense of ultimate authority. This color was broadly used in the construction of the imperial palace including the Hall of Supreme Harmony (Taihedian, 太和殿). The double-eave hip roof is the pinnacle in the architectural hierarchy in traditional Chinese architecture and is used only for imperial architecture of the highest rank in China.

4.2.4 Magic Number “9”: The Nine Regions and the Nine Auspicious Animals in the Imperial Palace Traditionally, numbers can be classified as either yin or yang (or also known as negative or positive, but not in the same sense as the numerical value in mathematics). Male and odd numbers are yang and also “positive,” while female and even numbers are yin and “negative.” Nine, being the greatest single number is also the greatest “yang” number. The emperor, who was of the highest status amongst all human beings was, therefore, symbolized by the number “9” during the imperial era. That is why, the number “9” is a magical, universal one when we observe and count the number of certain items in the palace. Take the front elevations of the architecture as an example. Sets of ten red columns are arrayed in rows to divide the halls into nine regions, with the exception of the Hall of Supreme Harmony (Taihedian, 太和殿). It is because the Taihedian is the most significant space in the entire complex and thus, on top of the nine regions and ten columns, it has an extra column and one region. The number nine also applied for the decorations. The number of “auspicious animals”—small statues of mythical creatures on the roof ridges is an example. All the halls with the most symbolic significance in the imperial palace are decorated with groups of nine auspicious animals (the only exception again being Taihedian, which, to demonstrate its supreme status, has two extra statuettes—a god and a monkey in the front and the back of the row). The halls of secondary rank are decorated with seven auspicious animals with an extra god and monkey in the front and back of the row, so the total number of decorations on each ridge still equals nine. In conclusion, the design elements incorporated to realize the imperial palace in Beijing—grand axis, yellow double-eave hip roofs, surroundings with a mountain at the back and water in the front, as well as the use of the magic number nine— became design strategies much favored by the KMT in thoroughly re-constructing the Martyrs’ shrines to host their version of necropolitics after 1966. Considering the KMT’s self-depiction as “the guardian of traditional Chinese culture” as regime on the post-war Taiwan (Chun 1996, p. 115), adopting all these design elements which could be identified in the spatiality of “China” might have been logically consistent. It is assuredly convenient for me (and for most of us) to attribute the set of design conditions as “Chinese architecture” or “Chinese style” and to settle on this level of understanding. In considering the theoretical paradigm on Chinese diaspora to define “Chineseness” as fluid (Ang 1998; Chun 1996; Wu 1991), its meaning being arbitrary,

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its potentiality as a framework to produce cultural discourse to facilitate control, I have to question: Does it matter, whether these elements were “Chinese” as viewed in the postmodern world with reference to national boundaries on political maps? Or should our understandings of these design elements be expanded to its ontological level, to an extent that, such cultural and material discourses reifying the boundedness of identities which different colonizers/authorities attempted to exert on us could be visible and articulated so that we are not as easily trapped into the propaganda for any identification processes, be it ethnical or cultural? The next section illustrates how some of these design characters were in fact strategies adopted by the Japanese colonizers in realizing Shinto shrines, in both the metropolitan and colonial versions. To explain this, I first introduce the motives and the Japanese colonizers’ attempts to “construct” a certain nationalism among the Taiwanese colonized populations. I then explain why using certain design elements which are commonly acknowledged as “Chinese”—so to say—was favorable and beneficial for the colonizers.

4.3 Taiwan as Japanese Colony: Constructing Colonial Shinto Shrines for Winning the Hearts of the Colonized During Japanese colonization between 1895–1945, D¯oka (assimilation) and K¯ominka (imperialization) policies were imposed on the Taiwanese population, with the agenda to “Japanize” her colonial subjects (Peattie 1984, p. 40). “Japaneseness” penetrated every aspect of the Taiwanese people’s life, in order to transform them into “diligent, loyal, law-abiding ‘imperial people’ with same values, bearing the same responsibilities and sharing the same lifestyles of Japanese in the same islands” (Peattie 1984, p. 40). Such permeation comprised economic, language, and culture aspects and affected both secular and religious daily practices. During the Meiji Period, in 1871, when State Shinto was introduced in Japan, “serving the nation” became the political mission for Shinto in spite of its original nature as a folk belief system. By 1937, more than 120,000 Shinto shrines had been built in Japan to host Shinto ritual activities (It¯o 1944). Departing from their previous role as mere centers of worship, these shrines also served as expressions of political power and assisted in shaping the Japanese national identity (Tsai 2001). As Taiwan became the “extended territory” of Japan in 1895, Shinto shrines were also constructed in Taiwan. These colonial Shinto shrines were, proclaimed as religious spaces, highly charged with Japanese political and military power symbolisms, carrying the mission to “enlighten” the colonized. They acted as the symbolic “surveillance” and “reminder” of the Japanese Empire’s greatness (Tsai 2001, p. 11). The colonized people had to worship at these shrines to demonstrate their loyalty to the emperor in Japan. Later in the colonial period, Shinto shrines became the most significant spatial and material symbols under the K¯ominka policy. Even in the present, as Tsai (2001) denotes, as Taiwan did not share the same religious framework with Japan,

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the Shinto shrine architectural prototype would inevitably be regarded as the icon of colonial power. The Japanese colonizers’ strong urge to ingrain a sense of belonging to the Japanese Empire among the Taiwanese population, as Ching (2001, p. 90) cited Tomiyama (1995), was through “materialization of ideology” and “performative rituals.” He argues that to become Japanese is not “simply a question of belief or ideology.” It is rather imagined through and within the “bodily practice of everyday life” (seikatsu to iushintaitekinajissen no naka) (Tomiyama 1995). To provide the physical space for hosting such bodily practice, the colonial authority constructed Shinto shrines to conduct their ideological engineering to the colonized. Over three hundred Shinto shrines were built in Taiwan during the Japanese colonization (Kaneko 2018). While it was the colonial authorities that commissioned the construction of the larger-scaled jinjas in Taiwan, some smaller shrines were supported by the Japanese expatriates who ran businesses such as factories (manufacturing sugar, fertilizers, concrete, etc.) or department stores (for example, the Hayashi Department Store in Tainan) in the colony. The size and architectural style of each shrine might vary depending on its level of significance. In the case of our two shrines, Karenk¯o Jinja in Hualien was a “prefectural Jinja” and Gokoku Jinja in Taipei was for “Gukoku” (護国), meaning “protecting the country.” The country here refers to the Japanese Empire, of which Taiwan was an extension and was thus included, despite its subordinate status.

4.4 The (Chinese) Spatial Design Elements in Karenk¯o Jinja in Hualien and Gokoku Jinja in Taipei In the Shinto belief system, Shinto shrines are the physical homes for Shinto deities (Kami). They are well-situated and clearly defined with physical boundaries such as gates and stone walls. Chen denotes that, traditionally, Shinto shrines should be surrounded by spectacular natural scenery, so that the “inhabiting” deities could feel pleasant and respected in the graceful dwelling (2007). Axial arrangement for the sanctuary architecture in shrine complexes is also a prominent practice. In preeminent shrines in Japan such as the Ise Shrine(IseJingu 伊勢神宮) and Izumo Shrine (Izumo Taisha 出雲大社), Shinto shrine worship halls (Haiden, 拜殿) and main halls or deity halls (Honden, 本殿) are commonly arranged along a strong axis and are symmetrical in its spatial planning. Worshippers are visually and physically guided to proceed through the frontal approach (Sand¯o, 參道) marked with gates (Torii, 鳥居), to purify themselves—physically, by washing their hands and faces at the washing place (Chozuya, 手洗舍) and also mentally, by passing through the Sando to prepare their minds to go through the pilgrimage. In some of the shrines built in colonial Taiwan, the route of such mental purification was accentuated with physical ascending onto the monumental and straight axial path (see Fig. 4.3).

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6

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Fig. 4.3 Drawing showing a typical Shinto shrine’s spatial arrangement. Worshippers enter through the Gate (1. Torii), ascend to the frontal approach (3. Sand¯o), wash their hands, faces and mouths at the washing place (4. Chozuya), and worship in front of the worship hall (5. Haiden). The main hall (6. Honden) is restricted for public entrance as it is the most sacred place hosting the deity (Kami). (https://orias.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/styles/openberkeley_image_full/public/ general/plan_of_shinto_shrine_0.jpg?itok=QoGKmLYT×tamp=1563581753.Accessed 10 January 2020.)

In 1937, the then-colonial president in Taiwan Seiz¯o Kobayashi (小林躋造) further advanced the ideological engineering in spatial form by means of implementing the policy of “One Township One Shinto shrine” (Kaneko 2018). Chen (2007) notes some additional principles applied when colonial authorities designated the shrine locations in Taiwan. Firstly, most major colonial shrines were located in the northern part of the towns and were distant from the urban area. Secondly, they were located on elevated terrains. Thirdly, the shrines had to be connected, visually, and physically, to the urban areas and the town center area in the south with an axis. Such arrangement allowed the formation of an envelope with the colonial population in the middle between the “sacred power” in the north (the Shinto shrine) and the “administrative power” in the south (colonial municipality). In terms of architectural arrangements, the fourth principle was that shrines should orient their entrances to be south-facing (Chen 2007). Worshippers approaching the precinct from the south would be therefore facing, proceeding, ascending, and therefore unintentionally bowing to the north—where the Japanese Emperor (Tenn¯o, 天皇) were in geographical relation with Taiwan. With the motive of enunciating a strong power over its subordinated colony, for the Japanese colonizers, it was perceptive to select the most strategic locations for building colonial Shinto shrines. The former sites of both the Karenk¯o Jinja in Hualien and Gokoku Jinja in Taipei, indeed, fulfilled an ideal set of conditions for such purpose. Both were situated in the northern part of the

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Fig. 4.4 Gokoku Jinja (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Taiwan_Gokoku_ Shrine.jpg. Accessed 10 February 2020.)

town and connected to the urban areas with grand axes. They were also located on elevated terrains with their entrances south-facing. These conditions worked together as combination of what Chen (2007) summarizes as principles for colonial Shinto shrine planning, as well as the considerations one could observe in the case of imperial palace in Beijing. The axial elements and the north-south relation were prominent on the one hand; on the other hand, both shrines faced a waterway (the Keelung River in the case of the Gokoku Jinja in Taipei and the Meilun River in the case of the Karenk¯o Jinja in Hualien) that runs perpendicularly to the central axes cutting through the two precincts (Figs. 4.4 and 4.5). Such spatial arrangement served beyond a grandiose visual purpose. Departing from the visual monumentality, the colonial Shinto shrines were set as such for a particular reason. During the colonial era, all school pupils were obliged to attend mandatory worships and had to follow their teachers up the steps of their local Jinja as a group, at the end of every month. In March 2018, an 85-year old elder from Miaoli told me in an interview that, as a little girl growing up under Japanese rule, a school excursion or pilgrimage to the Jinja was a spectacular event. Walking down the grand boulevards during a hot summer’s day was exciting; crossing the rope bridge (Fig. 4.6) was daunting; climbing up all those stairs to approach the worship hall (Honden, 本殿) of the Shinto shrine for the official ceremonies was impressive and intimidating. It took so much effort just to reach the Shinto shrines and worship the then-enshrined national heroes, who my then-young informant in Miaoli cared little about. The process demanded physical effort: the worshippers should never take the grace of the deities as given—one should feel lucky and blessed to have achieved the shrine and finished the pilgrimage. The elevated positions of the shrines thus guaranteed that they had an imposing visual impact, but they also ingrained

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Fig. 4.5 Karenk¯o Jinja Worshipping Hall (Photo archive from National Taiwan University Library. https://ap-img01.ext.exlibrisgroup.com/iiif/2/eyJyZWdpb24iOiJhcC1zb3V0aGVhc3QtMSIsImJ 1Y2tldCI6ImFwLXN0MDEuZXh0LmV4bGlicmlzZ3JvdXAuY29tIiwia2V5IjoiODg2TlRVX0l OU1Qvc3RvcmFnZS9hbG1hL0VDL0Y2L0M2LzJBL0Y5LzI1LzlDLzA5Lzc1LzkzLzI2L0ZB LzA1LzEwLzgwLzFBL250dWwtZmEtcGIyMDE2NTM3LTAwMjItaS5qcGciLCJyZXBfaW QiOiIxMjI4Mzk2OTk3MDAwNDc4NiIsImluc3RhbmNlIjoiYXAwMSIsImluc3RpdHV0aW9uIj oiODg2TlRVX0lOU1QifQ%3D%3D/full/580,/0/default.jpg. Accessed 10 February 2020.)

in worshippers a sense of “unreachability”—and of beatitude. Both the physical structure of the shrines and their enshrined national heroes were “unreachable” in that, less than a century ago, it would have taken half a day to complete the journey (crossing the river and ascending the hill) and still, upon arrival, for the worshippers, holiness would remain distant to them. This is particularly significant considering the colonial authority’s ambition to “imperialize” their colonials, which was primarily to turn the colonials into subjects of the empire. Such “disciplinary procedure,” as how Ching (2001, p. 90) puts it, “emerged as the crucial nexus in determining the process of becoming Japanese” in “war mobilization” (2001). Started in the early years to cultivate in school children’s minds a sense of loyalty to Japan, such inculcation was proven not totally non-effective, considering the number of Taiwanese young men who volunteered to serve in the imperial army to fight for Japan in the Pacific War. According to Chao (1996, p.186), there were 425,921 Taiwanese men who applied for one thousand positions in the army in 1942. Colonial Shinto shrines were erected in Taiwan between 1895–1945. The architectural historian Xinian Fu dates back the earliest influences from China to the Buddhist architecture in Japan (such as the world-famous H¯ory¯uji in Nara) to be as early as the Asuka Period (538–645).6 Eizo Inagaki (1987) notes the significant influence of the Chinese construction techniques and city planning methods on Japan 6

The traces of resemblance refer to, for example, the modular system and bracket system in the physical construction. For more details, please refer to Xinian Fu and Alexandra Harrer (2017).

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Fig. 4.6 Karenk¯o Jinja’s hanging bridge (Photo archive from National Taiwan University Library. https://ap-img01.ext.exlibrisgroup.com/iiif/2/eyJyZWdpb24iOiJhcC1zb3V0aGVhc3QtMSIsImJ 1Y2tldCI6ImFwLXN0MDEuZXh0LmV4bGlicmlzZ3JvdXAuY29tIiwia2V5IjoiODg2TlRVX0l OU1Qvc3RvcmFnZS9hbG1hL0VDL0Y2L0M2LzJBL0Y5LzI1LzlDLzA5Lzc1LzkzLzI2L0ZB LzA1LzEwLzgwLzFBL250dWwtZmEtcGIyMDE2NTM3LTAwMjItaS5qcGciLCJyZXBfaW QiOiIxMjI4Mzk2OTk3MDAwNDc4NiIsImluc3RhbmNlIjoiYXAwMSIsImluc3RpdHV0aW9uIj oiODg2TlRVX0lOU1QifQ%3D%3D/full/580,/0/default.jpg. Accessed 10 February 2020.)

during the Asuka and Nara Periods (552–785). The urban forms in the Heian Capital (794–1185), Kyoto in Japan was designed based on the Tang Capital (618–907) Chang’an (now Xi’an) model, which locates in the current national boundary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Arranging the Imperial Palace (and many other buildings of significance) symmetrically along a north-south axis as the focal point, and planning the streets on grid patterns, in Inagaki’s words was “the Chinese method” which considerably influenced the method of planning in the Early Historic (sixth–twelfth century) Asuka, Nara and early Heian Japan (1987, p. 739). Widely accepted as being “Chinese,” such attribution is but yet a pure simplistic one which is reduced to the most convenient categorization with reference to the contemporary national borders. Is it “Chinese,” solely because it was originated in Tang Dynasty which the spatiality overlapped the contemporary state of the People’s Republic of China? Its “Chineseness” is highly negotiable, especially when the mobilization of ethnic groups—hence the intellectual trajectories penetrating the existing borders of this physical land over millennials—is considered. What Chun perceptively points out substantiates such thoughts: “Prior to the Nationalist Revolution of 1911, there was no cognate notion in Chinese society of nation as a polity whose boundary was synonymous with that of an ethnic group” (1996, p. 114). In view of the subtle power of these design characteristics that functioned together to project a prestigious and

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grandiose sense in order to manipulate the colonized and facilitated the ideological engineering, as architectural scholar, I could empathize yet more thoroughly with the KMT’s appreciation to these colonial Shinto shrine complexes when they seized Taiwan in 1949. As Wu (1991) notes, Chineseness in terms of material culture was never clearly defined. Whether such set of design elements was “Tang,” “Chinese,” or “Japanese” could not be simplistically defined and certainly did not affect that decision taken by whichever authority as to standardize or articulate them as cultural discourse to facilitate their respective identification processes. Current scholars on Chinese diaspora know that, so as the post-war KMT. Conveniently adopting these complexes and the spatial qualities which the colonial Shinto shrines offered, the KMT transformed these complexes, with minimum effort at the beginning, into institutions such as Martyrs’ Shrines for their versions of necropolitics.

4.5 Post-colonial Taiwan: Re-Appropriating Colonial Shinto Shrines and Constructing Martyrs’ Shrines As Japan lost the Second World War and left Taiwan, the island became home to the retreating government of KMT since 1949. According to Chen (2004), “to the newly arrived KMT, Taiwan was, as a former Japanese colony, regarded as ‘toxic’ and the Taiwanese population was intoxicated with a sense of being ‘slaves’ of the colonizers. The KMT was convinced that Taiwan had been ingrained with imperialist ideologies and a Japanese historiography. In order to ‘cleanse’ such ‘enslaved minds’, ‘sinicization’ became the means adopted to counter the ‘poisonous imperial mind-set’ and build up a sense of loyalty to the Republic of China” (2004, p. 87). Considering the KMT’s plan to return to mainland China soon to defeat the Communists and rule the mainland again, an efficient solution for converging and mobilizing the colonized Taiwanese was at stake. It would be perfectly reasonable to expect that in 1945, once they had “liberated” Taiwan from the “defeated” Japanese colonizers, the KMT would have promptly eradicated all the colonial shrines. This, however, was not the case. Desperately looking to establish themselves and legitimize their authority over the islanders, they swiftly set up Martyrs’ shrines all over the country and replaced the Japanese enshrined deities in the colonial Shinto shrines with the “anti-Japan” national heroes, who sacrificed their lives fighting Japan and contributed to establishing the Republic of China. On the other hand, seeing the retreat to Taiwan as temporary and planning to “fight back” to the mainland (反攻大陸) within a short period of time, the KMT made use of some existing colonial Shinto shrines as physical structures for hosting their new version of ideological engineering. Shown on an old photo provided by a local historian Mr. Huang Jia-rong in Hualien, the precinct, although “spiritually” was already transformed into the so-called Hualien Martyrs’ Shrine, the physical and material Japanese Shinto shrine structure from Karenk¯o Jinja continued to exist in the 1960s (Fig. 4.7). The current imperial palace-looking Martyrs’ Shrines were not built

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Fig. 4.7 An old photo provided by Mr. Huang Jia-rong, a Hualien local historian, who bought the photo from a flea market. The Japanese Shinto shrine elements such as the sacred entrance gate (Torii), the stone lantern rows were still there, but between the two horizontal elements of the Torii there is an extra plaque inserted with “忠烈祠” [Martyrs’ shrine] written on it. According to the information provided by Mr. Huang from an expert interview, the image shows the Hualien Martyrs’ Shrine in the 1960s. His judgement is built on the appearance of the stone lanterns. According to the “Armed Forces Reserve Command of Taiwan” website, the current Hualien Martyrs’ Shrine was converted from its former Japanese construction in 1980. (Image download link: Huang Jia-rong’s Facebook Page. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157761594330820&set=a.101502 38060050820&type=3&theater)

until 1983 (the Hualien case) and 1969 (the Taipei case). Two key benchmarks on the timeline might be helpful to explain the delayed replacement of the “Japaneseness” with KMT’s surmised “Chineseness.” The first one is the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement initiated in 1966. The second one is Japan’s severance of diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1972. With the outburst of the February 28 (or “2.28”) Incident in 1947, the KMT exerted strong control over the Taiwanese people, presuming that as the best way to govern. Chen referred the KMT’s way as “hysterically” executing “sinicization” (2004, p. 87). Essentially the KMT’s version of“sinicization” was to emphasize the inherent connection between Taiwan and China and to ingrain, in the minds of the islanders, the “greatness” of the Chinese as orthopraxy. In 1966, with the Cultural Revolution in China, it offered the KMT the chance to further magnify their position as the heir of Chinese orthodoxy by condemning the Cultural Revolution erupted across the Strait. Castigating the Communists’ destruction to the traditional Chinese

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culture in the mainland, Chiang Kai-shek established the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement Commission (中華文化復興運動推行委員會) to guide restorations and preservations of Chinese culture in Taiwan (Lin 2011). The infiltration of “Chineseness” became apparent in the realm of spatial design strategies. To complement the political agenda in promoting the KMT’s legitimacy to rule Taiwan as the heir of “Chinese orthodoxy,” under the umbrella of the Chinese Culture Renaissance Movement, many spatial reconstructions and interventions were executed. Apart from thoroughly reconstructing some of the former Shinto shrine architecture and transforming them into Martyrs’ shrines, some of the colonial Shinto shrine complexes were re-appropriated to function as Confucius Temples after the late 1960s.

4.5.1 Imperial Palace-Looking Martyrs’ Shrines: Amplifying The Surmised “Chineseness” He Ying-qin, former Premier and Head of the National Defense of the ROC, issued an official document dated 25 May 1967 proposing a thorough reconstruction of the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine (Fig. 4.8). He listed fourteen guidelines which the new shrine should meet as architectural requirements. The first item on

Fig. 4.8 Hand-written official documents issued by He Ying-qin (Image source: Academia Historica, Taiwan. https://ahonline.drnh.gov.tw/index.php?act=Display/image/879753sxjQwk2# 24fa. Accessed 4 August 2020.)

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the 14-point list explicitly specified that the future Martyrs’ shrine converted from the former Gokuko Jinja should follow the architectural order of the Imperial Palace. Other design guidelines on the list included the use of white marble stones for the interior of the Main Hall and decorating its ceilings after the architectural orders adopted at the imperial palace. The palace-looking National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei became the architectural prototype for the forthcoming conversions of colonial Shinto shrines into Martyrs’ shrines. The final design demonstrated layers of connotations. As for how He commissioned, the architects managed to adopt the Imperial Palace style through architectural interventions. Such stylistic and aesthetic interventions, which otherwise would have stayed at a superficial level, functioned but perfectly together with, and even excelled the “Imperial Palace style” by adopting the set of urban conditions left by the former colonial Shinto shrines. Taking over their urban settings such as the elevated terrains in the north of the city, the entrance being south-facing, axes connecting to the city with waterway running perpendicular to it, the final Martyrs’ shrines are merged products of ultimate political symbolisms. The former hanging bridge over the Meilun River connecting the former Karenk¯o Jinja in Hualien to the urban area has become asphalt-covered concrete bridge decorated with numerous white marble stone lions in pairs facing each other—an arrangement that chimes with that of the Imperial Palace in Beijing (Fig. 4.9). The National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei consists of chambers crowned with the aforementioned “double-eave hip roof” arranged along a grand axis (Fig. 4.10); its main hall is divided by ten red columns in a row with nine regions (Fig. 4.11); nine statuettes of auspicious animals are erected on the ridges of the main halls (Fig. 4.12). The post-colonial Taiwanese population, ascending the same physical path to approach the Martyrs’ shrines instead of the colonial Shinto shrines, were to be reminded of KMT’s (instead of the Japanese) authority and its political agenda. Such agenda displayed, through different ways, the KMT as the ruler of China and the ROC as being the real heir of Chinese orthodoxy. One day, both mainland China and Taiwan would come together again as the Fig. 4.9 Hualien Martyrs’ Shrine bridge with stone lion decorations (author’s photo)

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Fig. 4.10 Double-eave hip roof crowned on the main hall of the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei (author’s photo)

Fig. 4.11 Front elevation with 9 chambers divided by 10 red columns, main hall of the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei (author’s photo)

Republic of China—and both should view Chinese cultural practices (such as practicing necropolitics in the imperial palace-looking shrines) as orthopraxy. Although the KMT conceived imperial palace architecture as being Chinese—as promoted through the construction of imperial palace-looking Martyrs’ shrines in Taiwan—it was in fact just one of the many forms of “Chinese culture.” Such an act of advocating one way of cultural practice and simultaneously suppressing any other possibilities of the unfolding of local practice precisely and concisely echoes with how Chakrabarty refers “language” as “being dialect backed by an army” (2007, p. 43).

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Fig. 4.12 Nine statuettes of auspicious animals erected on the ridges of the main hall of the National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei (author’s photo)

4.5.2 Neo-Colonizing Mentality: Sinicize To De-Japanize and the Absence of Taiwanese-ness As mentioned, despite a swift conversion of the colonial Shinto shrines into Martyrs’ shrines with a convenient approach to use the existing structure, a final decision to eliminate the colonial structures did not occur until 1974, which was twenty-five years after the KMT took over Taiwan and three years after the Japanese government decided to cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan, or the “Republic of China,” and establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. According to Chen (2004), when Japan decided to sever all diplomatic ties with the ROC (Taiwan) and recognize the PRC as the sole representative of China, the KMT could only direct all anger at destroying the relics left over from the Japanese colonial era as a means of transforming their sense of powerlessness into a statement of nationalist pride. The document “Internal Civil Affairs No. 573901,”7 released by the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of China (ROC–Taiwan) on 25 February 1974, set out the framework for how the country was to treat the colonial relics. This document, known as “Notes to Eradicate Colonial Memorial Relics Which Demonstrate Japanese Imperialism Left from the Japanese Colonial Era in Taiwan” (清除臺灣 日據時代表現日本帝國主義優越感之殖民統治紀念遺跡要點), consisted of six main points. Theoretically, it provided the direction that “All Japanese Shinto shrine relics should be eradicated.” Other monuments and architectural elements that suggest Japanese imperialism and superiority should also be eliminated. Other structures, if not of strong political connotations, were temporarily spared from demolition but no further public resources should be devoted to preserving them (Chen 2004). From my observations during my field trips in Taiwan in 2017 and 2018, these notes 臺內民字第573901號函, 清除臺灣日據時代表現日本帝國主義優越感之殖民統治紀念遺跡 要點 (Original in traditional Chinese). https://nchdb.boch.gov.tw/assets/overview/historicalBuild ing/20160906000001. Accessed 14 March 2020. 7

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served as a mere set of guidelines, considering the vast amount of colonial Shinto shrine relics existing and re-appropriated in the present.

4.6 Chineseness(es) at Play: Hidden, Reduced, Magnified, Distorted and Appropriated for Different Purposes “First it came the Japanese, then it came the Chinese”: a dialogue line from the Taiwanese film The City of Sadness (directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien in 1989) told by the brother of the protagonist, who was an Islander, Taiwanese “Benshengren” (本省 人) in 1947. The Japanese colonizers perceived the need to control the mentality of the Taiwanese populations through spatial means by careful planning and constructing forms of infrastructures including Shinto shrines. These shrines, adhering subtly and abstractly to the architectural and spatial principles in constructing the ancient Buddhist temples and palaces in China, imported and propagated its intellectual trajectories through spatial design in Taiwan. The absolutism, expressed in its explicit and elaborated form at the imperial palace in Beijing, got its ideas extended and directed to Taiwan. Spatial production, as process per se, is cultural discourse expressed in materiality, which reflects temporality. If architecture is result of negotiations and competitions among multifold of political forces and economic patronages, the adoption of the imperial palace architecture prototype as physical form hosting the KMT’s version of necropolitics implies the momentary victory of such Chinese essentialism, over any potentiality in terms of decentering the stylistic paradigms in architectural styles and blossoming of local practice. Respect to local conditions, as should have been the rule number one in architectural design, was absent in this whole Martyrs’ shrine construction. Even if imposing “Chineseness” was the only resolution to facilitate a post-colonial governance over Taiwan, out of all the available “Chinese” traditional architectural prototypes, why was it the style of the imperial palace that the KMT defined as “Chinese” and chose to adopt? What makes, as an example, the Veranda prototype ( 亭仔腳, tîng-á-kha) built by generations of immigrants from the Fujian and Canton regions from mainland China to Taiwan any less Chinese, and less suited to the Taiwanese terrain in their long rainy summer, in comparison to the large courtyards surrounded by those grand yellow-roofed chambers which were designed for the dry northern continental climate to start with? The absolutism represented by and embodied in the imperial palace architectural prototype merged with colonialism (during the Japanese colonial era) and hybridized in a mutated form of authoritarianism with the KMT’s arrival in Taiwan. Then, out of all the novel architectural design languages available during the 1960s, for example, Modernism,8 which could project 8

Modernism as an architectural design term is known for its use of modern material and the thenmodern building technology such as reinforced concrete and glass panels. It would have been a clear statement as to claim detachment to any traditions. For example, the British colonial government in Hong Kong decided to construct the Edinburgh Place—a whole spatial complex to host colonial

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an image of the post-war Taiwan as being international and modern, the KMT decided to adopt the style of the imperial palace to construct their Martyrs’ shrines. The then-perceivably novel architectural genre, the Martyrs’ shrines, was materialized with the design language of absolutism as part of the KMT’s gesture to counter the destructive approach undertaken by the Communists. Such spatial practice, although could only be retrospectively interpreted, reflect the rulers’ ambition and intention: Taiwan was not considered a new political center but a temporary retreat; her people were not granted the chance to unfold their local culture and discourse. Decentering, de-universalizing, or de-colonization did not take off. To elaborate my numerous wonders in response to the KMT’s choice of design language will certainly exceed the limit of this chapter, but the largest contradiction, logically, was that the imperial palace, for hundreds of years being the residence of the emperors in “the Middle Kingdom” had hosted the absolute authority which the founder of the Republicans, the KMT had striven to overthrow in the 1911 revolution. And yet this kind of architecture, with all of its meticulously engineered symbolism demonstrating the absolute power of the emperor, became the blueprint for all the Martyrs’ shrines in a supposedly new decolonized Taiwan. This chapter showcases the various forms of “Chineseness” that the two authorities in Taiwan—Japanese colonizers between 1895–1945 and the KMT since 1949 until the 1980s—surmised, essentialized, disguised, proclaimed or manipulated for their convenience during their regime over Taiwan. Without a doubt, the Japanese occupation of Taiwan and their attempt to aggrandize Japanese culture to override any local cultural practices certainly fit into the broad definition of colonization. The design elements applied in colonial Shinto shrine constructions—the axis, the symmetry, the landscaping and etc.—continually evolving from intellectual productions in architectural forms since the early historic period in Japan (the sixth century)—have been present and absent, mutated, adopted and erased in Japanese architecture, then followed its intellectual trajectories to play a role in the power enunciation of the Japanese colonizers in spatial forms. These elements, so as many other cultural elements, could not be easily defined, with simple nationalistic attributions such as being purely “Japanese,” “Chinese” or “Taiwanese.” Intellectual inputs intertwined in composing cultural productions for political use as long as they are compatible. The KMT’s construction of Martyrs’ shrines and the adoption of their conjecture of “Chineseness” in terms of architectural design language is regarded, spatially, any potential claim of local culture or future developments. Such a practice, unfortunately, did not differentiate itself from the logic of Japanese colonization. To promote the cultural and ethnic nationalism desired, the two perceived foreign regimes transformed elements of Chineseness into design strategies facilitating the individual cases of necropolitics and hence (neo-)colonization. In light of the discontinuity between the term “Chineseness”—its essential reference in context and the limitations the attribute “Chinese” imposes according to the contemporary definitions of ceremonial display—with such architectural design language, in the early 1950s. It was a time when the colonial government deliberately left Hong Kong from any influences during identification in either mainland China or Republic Taiwan.

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nations and states, I urge the interpretation of “Chineseness” as attribution to design elements to be liberated from any geopolitical spatiality. “Chineseness”, as a concept and invention, or China, or “Chinese” as attributions—subliming from its suggestion on spatiality hence geopolitics—should be highly specific serving as temporal references—yet not to go beyond its situational and defined temporal framework. The collection of dynamic cultural stop-overs which could be interpreted as “Chinese” under sets of conditions has its own intellectual trajectories which are not to be simplistically understood as fixed and timeless. The use of the adjective “Chinese” in front of “architecture” or “design elements” deserves close investigation, a high degree of contextualization, and extra attributions in every case. What Ang (1998, p. 225) denotes deserves a recap: China, or all things Chinese, cannot be “held up as providing the authentic, authoritative, and uncontested standard.” Same as any other attribution prior to that “–ness,” attempts to predicate something to be of “Chineseness” in cultural sense could be vague and untenable, knowing its limitation ensnared in the modern definitions of geopolitics and national boundaries. Such arbitrary attribution, laden with temporal, situational and descriptive limits becomes, however, authorities’ manipulation to form—as what Chun (1996, p. 115) and Gellner (1983) refer to—“the empty, homogeneous social space of the nations” which binds the normally independent individuals by creating a blurry, purportedly friendly and “cultural common ground” in the name of, solidarity.

Bibliography Ang, I. (1998). Can one say no to Chineseness? Pushing the limits of the diasporic paradigm. boundary 2, 25(3), 223–242. https://doi.org/10.2307/303595. Chakrabarty, D. (2007). Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial thought and historical difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chao, W 周婉窈. (1996). 從比較的觀點看台灣與韓國的皇民化運動 (1937–1945年) [Viewing imperialization movement in Taiwan and South Korea from a comparative point of view 1937– 1945]. In Chang Yen-hsien 張炎憲, Lee Hsiao-feng 李筱峰, and Tai Pao-tsun 戴寶村(Eds.) 台灣史論文精選(下) [Taiwan History Academic Paper Selection Second Part], (pp. 161–201). Taipei: Yu-shan Publication. Chen, L.F 陳鸞鳳. (2007). 日治時期台灣地區神社的空間特性硏究 [Spatial characteristics of colonial Shinto shrines in Taiwan]. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Geography, National Taiwan Normal University. Chen, Y.H. 陳翼漢 (2004). 歷史與文化資產之於, 過去[History and cultural heritage: The difference of “passology”].博物館學季刊[Museology Quarterly] 18(2), 79–84. 國立自然科學博物 館 [National Museum of Natural Science]. http://web2.nmns.edu.tw/PubLib/Library/quaterly/ 200404_79.pdf.Accessed 10 February 2020. Ching, L. T. S. (2001). Becoming Japanese: Colonial Taiwan and the politics of identity formation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chiu, K.C. (2008). The grand Forbidden City—The imperial axis (Special Edition). Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (H.K.) Co., Ltd. Chu, H.T. 楚漢唐 (2016). 春秋戰國[Spring and autumn and warring states period]. Sound of Hope Radio Network, November 9. https://m.soundofhope.org/post/218126?lang=b5. Accessed 1 Apr 2020.

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Chun, A. (1996). Fuck Chineseness: On the ambiguities of ethnicity as culture as identity. boundary 2, 23(2), 111–138. Fo, G.S. (2020). 荀子・大略 [Xunzi, the great summary]. Chinese Notes. http://chinesenotes.com/ xunzi/xunzi029.html. Accessed 1 Apr 2020. Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and nationalism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Inagaki, Eizo. (1987). The architecture of the pre-colonial cultures outside Europe. In John Musgrove (Ed.), Sir Banister Fletcher’s a history of architecture (19th ed., pp. 714–744). London: Butterworths. 祠祀葬厝介紹: 花蓮縣忠烈祠 [Introducing the ancestral and burial house: Hualien County Martyrs’ Shrine]. (2016). 國防部後備指揮部 [Armed Forces Reserve Command].https://afrc. mnd.gov.tw/AFRCWeb/Unit.aspx?ID=1&MenuID=12&ListID=1258. Accessed 4 Aug 2020. It¯o, C 伊東忠太. (1944). 日本建築の美社寺建築を中心として [The beauty of Japanese architecture: Focus on shrines and temples].Tokyo: 主婦之友社. Kaneko, N 金子展也. (2018). 為何日本在臺灣大量建造「神社」? [Why build so many Shinto shrines in Taiwan?] https://www.nippon.com/hk/column/g00541/?pnum=4. Accessed 15 Feb 2020. Lin, K 林果顯. (2011). 中華文化復興運動 [Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement]. 臺灣大百 科全書 [Encyclopedia of Taiwan]. Ministry of Culture, Taiwan. http://nrch.culture.tw/twpedia. aspx?id=3968. Accessed 10 Feb 2020. Peattie, M. R. (1984). Introduction. In M. R. Peattie & R. H. Myers (Eds.), The Japanese colonial empire, 1895–1945. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tomiyama, I 富山一郎. (1995). Senjo no kioku 戦場の記憶 [Memories of the battlefield]. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai hyoronsha. Tsai, J 蔡榮任. (2001). 一種傅科權力技術的歷史性建構 – 從台灣日治時期神社到戰後忠烈 祠 [A historical construction of Foucault’s Technology of Power—From Jin-Ja during Japanese Colonial Period to Martyrs’ Shrine after WWII in Taiwan]. Master’s thesis, Department of Architecture, National Cheng Kung University. Wu, D. Y. (1991). The construction of Chinese and non-Chinese identities. Daedalus, 120(2), 159–179. Xinian, F., & Harrer, A. (2017). Traditional Chinese architecture: Twelve essays, N. Steinhardt (Ed.). Princeton: Oxford: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt21668kt.

Liza Wing Man Kam was trained in architectural schools and practices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Liverpool, London and Paris before she joined the Bauhaus in Germany and obtained her Ph.D. in Architecture in 2013. She is Assistant Professor of Urban Studies and Chinese Societies at the Department of East Asian Studies at Georg-August University of Göttingen, Research Fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity and visiting scholar in Europe, US and Asia. Her research interests include: transformation of symbolism represented by colonial urban heritage in various unique post-colonial settings; inter-relation between architecture, historiography, identity and civic awareness; comparing the seemingly antithetical colonial nostalgia and decolonization in the cases of various Asian polities; and the intellectual trajectories of design and culinary ideas with empire expansions. She has published works on the material and symbolic transformation of colonial urban heritage in the neo-/post-colonial Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Chapter 5

Negotiating Chineseness in the Post-WWII Context of Singapore (1955–1965) Soo Ei Yap

5.1 Introduction The years between 1955 and 1965 marked an extremely turbulent period for Singapore. In the span of a decade, Singapore first transitioned from a British colony to self-government in 1959. It gained independence through the merger with the Federation of Malaysia in 1963 but was asked to be separated in August 1965. Starting with the elections under the Rendel Constitution in 1955, which saw the victory of the Labour Front led by David Marshall, it was a time when the British began to transfer substantial powers to local politicians, thereby providing ample opportunities for anti-colonial agitation to occur. In 1956, a colonial report noted that “[among] the Chinese youths, there is a strong patriotic attachment to everything that can be termed as ‘Chinese culture’ [and this] feeling can be turned into a political issue” (The National Archives (United Kingdom) 2018a). Such was the backdrop in which Yeo (1973, p. 281) commented that “[what] contributed most to the emergence of an independence movement was the other level of political life that occurred largely outside the legislative and electoral frameworks.” In other words, debates on political rights, internal security, and economic development were not the only issues that caused apprehension among the predominantly Chinese population in Singapore after the Second World War. The coalition between members of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and Chinese-educated youth activists in organizing a series of anti-British activities highlighted that unequal treatment of different communities in Singapore and matters related to Chinese education could not be divorced from the independence movement in the mid-1950s (Turnbull 1989). Following the closure of the Singapore Chinese Middle Schools Students Union in September 1956, the MCP quickly shifted their activities to the newly opened Nanyang University, where acts of protests continued to be staged and supported by students (Turnbull 1989). S. E. Yap (B) Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_5

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Shortly after Singapore gained internal self-governance in May 1959, CathayKeris, which was founded by Loke Wan Tho in 1953 to produce Malay films in Singapore, also announced their grand plans to produce a series of four Malayanized Chinese films every year, featuring only local actors and actresses who would eventually be Malayan citizens. While the political leaders were busy rallying for the merger, film companies in Singapore were anxious to produce works that would allow them to capitalize on this “Malaya” national fervour. After all, film companies in Hong Kong had already made profits prior to 1959 by banking on the idea of “tales from Nanyang,” whereby the term Nanyang (or South Seas literally) was commonly used by the Chinese diasporic communities to reference Singapore and Malaysia before the Second World War. However, when local Chinese newspapers began to replace Nanyang with catchphrases such as the “Federation of Malaysia” (Malaya), “Malayanization movement,” and the “Malayan culture,” created to promote a localized perspective among the readers, such efforts were inevitably confounded by film companies that sought to produce “Malayanized Chinese films” for local audience during the same period. How did the latter address the complex issues of multiracialism and the Malayan (Chinese) identity onscreen when it posed a huge challenge for local Chinese newspapers to clarify these issues through lengthy debates and articles? What was the role of the South-bound Chinese intellectuals who were involved either in teaching or writing for the local Chinese newspapers, or serving as scriptwriters and film directors in film companies before 1965? How did the amorphous Chinese ethnic identity become something that painfully needed to be defined within the newly emerging Malayan identity in the 1960s? Having said so, it should be noted that the state initiative to promote the Malayan culture in the 1950s and 1960s did not intend to rope in either Chinese or Malay filmmaking in Singapore, even though the industry was well established in the postwar era with professional production studios, extensive distribution, and exhibition networks. As seen from former Minister for Culture S. Rajaratnam’s observation that “music, painting, drama, literature and a concern for beauty generally are what transforms a prosperous society into a civilised society… without these Singapore remains not more than a prosperous and efficiently run pasarmalam [night market]” (Rajaratnam 1970, p. 1), political leaders showed little interest in utilizing the film industry to promote its ideology until the recent jubilee celebrations in 2015, which marked Singapore’s fiftieth year of independence (Tan 2017). At the same time, other tools for propaganda such as the radio and television were already placed under the charge of the Ministry of Culture by 1959. Nevertheless, political leaders had not overlooked the close relationship between filmmaking and ideology; rather, it was something which was closely monitored by both the colonial authorities in Singapore and Hong Kong, which tried to differentiate the South-bound Chinese intellectuals from pro-Communist members who were championing the preservation of the “Chinese language and culture” (The National Archives (United Kingdom) 2018b) with ulterior motives after 1949. This paper seeks to first delineate the context in which droves of South-bound Chinese intellectuals arriving in Singapore in the pre-Second World War period had a vested interest in the distribution of Chinese films in the 1920s. This phenomenon

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emerged in an age where Chinese overseas nationalism was “taught nationalism” (Wang 1992, p. 42) disseminated from China through activists and cultural products like textbooks, literary works, and newspapers to British Malaya in the early twentieth century. The second part of this paper seeks to clarify the different interpretation of becoming a Malayan citizen and reflecting the “Nanyang aesthetic” inherent in the new Malayan culture launched by the ministry in the 1950s and 1960s. The last part seeks to answer the questions above by zooming in on Chua Boon Hean, a Southbound Chinese intellectual who arrived and settled down in Singapore since the late 1930s. Chua was a scriptwriter for the Malay Film Productions (MFP) Limited in the 1950s, but he was also a poet and editor for the film magazine Screen Voice. He successfully rebooted the theme on inter-racial romance through his work Sri Menanti (1958), starring local Malay stars such as Zaiton, Salleh Kamil, and S. Kadarisman, as well as Hong Kong Chinese film stars, Chang Chung and Tang Dan. This film was initially released in Malay and later dubbed in Mandarin under a new name Ma Lai Feng Yue (1958), which was generally well received by the local audience, predating the official launch of the Malayan culture in Singapore.

5.2 Singapore in the Nineteenth Century Yet the encounter between the Chinese and people of other races was not something unheard of, as seen from the work done by Kuhn (2008), who noted how Southeast Asia became the meeting point for economic exchange between China and Europe in the sixteenth century, with Chinese syahbandars serving as essential middlemen. Among the Chinese overseas, their strategy was to carve out a niche by relying on skills acquired from their homeland and subsequently band together for protection through setting up clan associations, guilds, and temples. Over time, these institutions helped to sustain migrants living abroad and supported kinsmen back home; niches which were established earlier on offered a certain degree of job security and further encouraged emigration to Southeast Asia throughout the decades. Kuhn (2008) thus described this phenomenon as constructing a compatriot niche in which “a cultural, social, and economic corridor to the old hometown” (p. 46) was maintained, connecting Chinese overseas with their hometown regardless of the geographical distance. Shortly after Raffles, the then Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen (1818–1824), signed a treaty with the Temenggong of Johore in 1819, Singapore was set up as a free trading port which gradually overshadowed the importance of Malacca and Penang (Yeoh 2009). When Raffles returned to Singapore in 1822, he developed a detailed town plan for the colony, demarcating specific districts for the different ethnic communities living in Singapore. The town plan, according to Turnbull (1989), marked out the area stretching from Fort Canning to the Singapore River for government use while the European town would stretch from the east of the cantonment to the southwest bank of the Singapore River. The Chinese enclaves would be located on the west of the Singapore River adjoining the commercial quarter while the Indians would

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settle further up-river (Turnbull 1989). The Bugis and Arab merchants were allocated land close to the residence of Sultan Hussein (the local Malay ruler) and the mosque. This area, known as Kampong Glam to the local Malay population, continued to develop throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Turnbull 1989). Raffles saw the need to segregate the population according to where they had originally hailed from, due to the difference in spoken languages among the people. To avoid the clash of different beliefs among the immigrants, there were instructions to establish different sites within each district for such purposes which conveyed the impression of maintaining communal harmony in the society. Yet, the primary concern for putting together such an extensive town plan was to ensure stability and ease of trade in the colonial city of Singapore; when complemented with the free trade policy pursued in the region, it was believed that the colony would gradually prosper under the British rule in the nineteenth century. Within the Chinese population, Raffles noted that the Hokkien-speaking merchants were considered respectable traders (Song 1975). There were also the Teochews involved in gambier and pepper agriculture while Pickering (1876), the first Protector of the Chinese in Singapore, noted that miners and artisans were mainly Cantonese and Hakkas. The wealthy Chinese merchants from Malacca were mostly Hokkiens (Chen 1940), while Teochews were noted to be shopkeepers cum financiers whose wealth was tied up with extending credit to small plantation owners and exporting agricultural products such as gambier (Seah 1848). Finally, a relatively small percentage of the Chinese population was the Hainanese, who were mainly sailors, unskilled labourers, or domestic servants for the European community (Turnbull 1989). Here, we get a sense of the five subgroups within the Chinese society of Singapore in the nineteenth century, where the Hokkiens, Teochews, and Cantonese formed the three dominant dialect groups; this remains true even today. The population, while transient by nature (as many of these migrants would return to China after several years and new batches continued to arrive), also increased exponentially from a mere 3317 in 1824 to 86,766 in 1881 (Lee 1978). New migrants in each subgroup would turn to their own respective community leaders, charity organizations, or clan associations for help although joining the secret societies in the early nineteenth century was a common practice among the bulk of the migrants who came to Singapore without family or friends. Moreover, members of the secret societies were sworn to brotherhood by participating in certain rituals which then granted them access to protection from the organization and functioned as a form of parental substitute. Lee (1978) also noted how the ability to use force to prevent members from leaving was another characteristic of secret societies in Singapore. This was reflected in the writings of Pickering (1876) who recorded that as high as 60% of the Chinese population living “in [the] colonies and the native states are sworn members of the secret societies [in 1876]” (p. 440). The frequent riots which happened throughout the nineteenth century eventually led to the British colonial government opting for stronger interventions in the Malay Peninsula. The Chinese Protectorate was established in the Straits Settlements in 1877 to address matters concerning the Chinese community. A pool of civil servants conversant in the various Chinese dialects was recruited to help manage the newly arrived coolies (labourers) and deal with secret

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societies, victims of prostitution, and containment of venereal diseases. In 1890, the government also enacted an ordinance to restrict dangerous societies who would be denied registration and hence, were considered unlawful organizations. For those that were granted registration under the ordinance, such “friendly” societies as well as the existing clan associations would be placed under the supervision of the new Chinese Advisory Board where prominent Chinese merchants held leadership positions. In time to come, these Chinese leaders were largely drawn from either the mercantile or clerical class who would be more amenable to the interests of the British while the pioneer economy of agriculture also declined significantly by the late nineteenth century (Lee 1978). With this, the function and strengths of secret societies soon diminished. Saw (1970) observed that after 1870, trends for a more settled Chinese population also kicked in with female migrants being attracted to Singapore.1 Clan associations thus began to play bigger roles in the local Chinese society, taking over religious needs, social welfare, and later, the setting up of schools offering primary education in the various spoken dialects of each association. As early as 1902, the British colonial government had also started to build more English-medium schools in Singapore, and during the boom years of the mid-1920s to early 1930s, generous subsidies were given to these English-medium schools which were instrumental in preparing the locals for clerical work, civil service, as well as other commercial employment in Singapore (Turnbull 1989). The government also provided free Malay primary education in Singapore but left Chinese and Indian schools largely to the respective communities or private charity. For example, in 1904, Zhang Bi Shi founded the Zhong Hua School to offer modern Chinese education in Penang while Puan Yeow Pang founded the Chung Hwa Girls’ School in 1911 in Singapore (Lee 2006). There was also discussion on the need for night schools appearing in the local Chinese newspaper Lat Pau as early as 1908, catering to the working adults. The result was a divisive society in Singapore which granted individuals relatively easy access to education in the different languages, but their employment prospects after graduation were highly restricted to sectors in which each ethnic community tended to conglomerate. The outlook of students among the different schools was hence far from homogenous, and for the bulk of the population in Singapore who were Chinese and had completed their primary education in the local Chinese schools, one was inclined to look towards China instead of the indigenous society in which they resided.

1

Following the relaxation of the ban on emigration by the Qing government in 1860, this is likely to have encouraged Chinese females to emigrate. The approximate sex ratio of the Chinese population in Singapore also improved from 11.3 in 1830 to 6.2 in 1871 and to 2.8 in 1911 (Saw 1970).

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5.3 The Arrival of South-Bound Chinese Intellectuals and Rising Literacy Rate In 1786, the British acquired Penang as its colony while Singapore and Malacca became British colonies in the early nineteenth century. By 1884, Penang was estimated to have 52 schools run by Chinese residing in the colony and in Singapore as well as Malacca, and there were 51 and 12 schools being set up, respectively (Straits Settlements Annual Education Report 1884). The students from these schools were educated in Confucian principles, and for those who came from wealthy families, they might return to China to pursue higher education. The same period of time also saw Christian missionaries setting up Chinese schools in Malacca in 1815 and branches of the missionary schools were set up in 1819 in Penang and Singapore. Protestant missions and the Roman Catholics were equally active in the early nineteenth century with the setting up of schools in British Malaya. While religious teaching was an important part of the school curriculum, other subjects such as languages, arithmetic, geography, and literature were included for students (Lee 2011). Finally, there were also public free schools in the Straits Settlements (i.e., Singapore, Penang, and Malacca), focusing on the teaching of vernacular languages such as Chinese and Malay; these were maintained by public contributions and housed in schools built by the colonial government, generally perceived as feeder schools of the Straits government since this system was particularly useful in training interpreters and clerks for the various departments of the colonial government. By the early twentieth century, Tan (1988) noted in his study of the Chinese Peranakans in Malacca, a preference among them to send their children to English-medium schools for their education, which would allow them to harness the socio-economic benefits that came with working for the British colonial government. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the Qing government had also increasingly turned to the wealthy overseas Chinese merchants for donations, and hence, overseas Chinese schools were considered an avenue to secure the loyalty of Chinese individuals. For example, merchants who had contributed to public causes such as education could be bestowed with official titles by the Qing government. There was also the Ji Nan School opened in Nanjing in 1907 which would allow students from Malaya to enrol for further studies. For the China-born Chinese migrants, it was common for them to regard China as their homeland and such efforts by the Qing government reinforced the idea of a China-Singapore connection through the learning of Chinese language and culture. The arrival of political exiles such as Kang Yu Wei and Sun Yat-sen at the turn of the twentieth century also encouraged the educated overseas Chinese in Singapore to engage in debating various reformist and revolutionary ideologies in newspapers and reading clubs that were set up for propaganda purposes (Yen 2008). The result was a growing awareness that promoting Chinese education and literacy was crucial in garnering supporters among the Chinese diaspora in Singapore. With the setting up of the Republican China in 1912, the revolutionary party founded by Sun Yat-sen was reorganized into the Kuomingtang (KMT) and party members started to establish modern-style Chinese

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schools in Malaya as well as reading clubs that would arrange lectures and other philanthropic activities such as putting up performances to promote literacy in general (Yen 2008). By January 1925, the KMT registered 4317 members, six newspapers, twenty-six schools, and fifteen propaganda outlets throughout Nanyang, testifying to the rapid growth of Chinese education after the success of the 1911 Revolution (Monthly Review of Chinese Affairs 1934). Lee (2006) also noted that the twin features of Chinese schools in the region were nationalism and patriotism where the surge in Chinese schools was increasingly perceived as a worrying phenomenon for the colonial authorities in the early twentieth century. More importantly, Chinese schools were known for their ability to organize activities, mobilize students, as well as propagate ideas among the general masses. The setting up of Chinese middle schools in Singapore also meant that students could pursue higher education locally instead of going back to China. It was with this intention that the Nanyang Girls High School was set up in 1917 by Teochew and Hokkien merchants Chuang Hee Tsuan, Teo Eng Hock, and Tan Chor Lam, as well as the Chinese High School in 1919 by Hokkien rubber tycoon Tan Kah Kee. In 1919, four more night schools were also set up by the Hainanese-speaking community. These developments ushered in a period of youth activism in local Chinese schools where students took inspiration from the May Fourth Movement in China. The deportment of the “six gentlemen” in November 1919, namely Song Mu Lin, Zhao Shi Chi, Li Xi Meng, Yang Yao Guang, Yang Jian Hong, and Wu Dun Min, was noteworthy as Song was the principal of the Zun Kong School in Kuala Lumpur and Wu was editor of the Yik Khuan Pao.2 This incident suggested that Chinese intellectuals who were involved with education and the Chinese newspapers tended to be educators cum activists at the same time. As youth activism brought frequent disruptions to the economy, the colonial government sought to tighten control of Chinese schools through the Schools Registration Ordinance in 1920 which required schools with 15 or more students to be registered. In 1923, grants-in-aid were also offered to Chinese schools if they were willing to abide by the teaching of “Chinesespeaking children through the medium of their domestic dialect or dialects which they understand” (Lee 2006, p. 60). It was also added that “[the] curriculum in aided Chinese vernacular schools should as far as possible be so arranged as to make it a useful preparation for an English education, with special reference to arithmetic and geography” (Ibid.). To a certain extent, Mandarin (Guoyu), which was established by the government as the national language of Republican China, was perceived to be more “political” as compared to other Chinese dialects. Coupled with the May Fourth Movement which advocated the use of vernacular written Chinese (Bai Hua), the Straits Settlements Annual Education Report (1932, pp. 763–764) noted that “[since] the National Language Movement in 1920, which originated in China, the Chinese Vernacular Schools in Malaya have wholeheartedly adopted the National Language or Kuo Yu as the medium of instruction.” This phenomenon was also reflected in the low interest among Chinese schools to seek grants-in-aid while an 2 Among the six gentlemen, Wu Dun Min played an important role in leading the Communist activities in British Malaya (see Yong 1997).

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amended Ordinance was passed in 1926 by the colonial government to refuse the registration of any school suspected to be used for political purposes. Shortly after, in March 1927, the Kreta Ayer Incident saw police crossing fire with Chinese protestors on the streets of Chinatown, resulting in the death of “six Chinese” (The Straits Times 14 March 1927).3 Following the court’s sentence that the police’s shootings were justified and hence not to be held responsible for the deaths, various Chinese schools soon launched another series of boycotts, and anti-British propaganda was circulated. Subsequently, several schools were declared unlawful and ordered to be shut down; a list of Chinese textbooks prohibited in the Straits Settlements was also published in 1928. Between the years 1928 when Japanese and Chinese military forces clashed in Shandong and 1931, when the Japanese tried to set up Manchukuo under the puppet emperor Pu Yi, Chinese students frequently organized public demonstrations and anti-Japanese boycotts in Singapore. In the Federated Malay States, several teachers and principals were banished by the authorities on suspicion of engaging in political activities. In 1932, the reduction in the monthly quota of Chinese immigrants to the colonies led to widespread unhappiness and the arrest of fifty-nine individuals for inciting unrest (Kenley 2003). It is noteworthy that between 1880 and 1900, four Chinese newspapers started publishing in Singapore and seven more appeared between 1900 and 1914 (Chui 1993). Although the total number of English newspapers published in Singapore between 1824 and 1876 exceeded the total number of the Chinese newspapers, the readership for the latter had been fairly strong by the early twentieth century. The period of 1920–1929 marked the most vibrant period where 17 Chinese newspapers and 89 tabloid papers were recorded (Wu 1997). Although there is no direct correlation between the increase in Chinese newspapers/tabloid papers and the number of Chinese schools in the 1920s, this flourishing situation of newspapers was set against the backdrop of a rapid increase from 252 Chinese schools in the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States in 1921, to 564 in 1924, and 665 in 1927 (Yung 1967). In 1931, statistics revealed that the literacy rate among Chinese males and females in Singapore rose to 44% and 10.7%, respectively (Zheng 1997), and some of these Chinese newspapers claimed to reach an estimated readership of several tens of thousands such as the Nanyang Siang Pau established in 1923 and the Sin Chew Jit Poh established in 1929 (Kwa and Kua 2019). Over time, Chinese newspapers also included literary supplements which became a standard feature in most Chinese newspapers after the 1920s. An unintended outcome of the popularity of supplements in local newspapers was how debates on what constituted modern Chinese literature or the “New Culture” in Singapore after the May Fourth Movement in 1919 inevitably led to issues on tackling inequality and exploitation in the colonial society. In fact, between 1914 and 1919, Cheah (2009) traced the arrival of anarchism as a form of political ideology, which was first imported to China from Japan at the turn of the twentieth century and brought to the Southeast Asian region via Chinese intellectuals like Zhang Hong Cheng, Hu Du Chu, Fan Zhang Fu, Wu Dun Min, and Wang Yu Ting (Cheah 2009). He noted how 3

For details of the Incident, see Kenley (2003, pp. 56–59).

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in 1918, Wu Dun Min started the Yik Khuan Pao in Kuala Lumpur (part of the Malay Federated States) as the first daily newspaper for the Chinese population while Wang Yu Ting started a newspaper named Zhen Li Bao in Kota Semarang in Java in the same year to promote ideas of anarchism to the overseas Chinese population. Wu was later deported by the colonial authorities as one of the “six gentlemen” for inciting the anti-Japanese demonstrations in November 1919, but his newspaper continued to be supervised by at least seven other editors who shared the same political inclination. Wu was not alone in using newspapers to promote anarchism as a form of political ideology which challenged the colonial rule. Kenley (2003) mentions that other newspapers and their supplements in the 1920s also carried articles that discussed communism, Darwinism, democracy, socialism, and a plethora of “isms” that had to be censored by the British government. Although the Printing Presses Ordinance was amended in 1930 to give the colonial authorities greater control over the newspaper industry in the Straits Settlements, these political ideologies continued to be introduced subtly to Chinese readers through literary concepts such as “Proletarian literature” and “Nanyang aesthetics” in literature which was produced by South-bound Chinese intellectuals (Tee 2003, pp. 107–108).

5.4 Why the Vested Interest in the Distribution of Chinese Films Among Intellectuals? With limited success in reaching out to the masses through newspapers, Southbound Chinese intellectuals like Wang Yu Ting, Wang Xuan Hua, and Gui Hua Shan decided to set up the Nanyang Film Company in 1923, specializing in the distribution of Chinese silent films from Shanghai. The three of them were all Hokkien-speaking intellectuals from the Fujian province and felt strongly of the need to promote education among the overseas Chinese, following their early working experience in the Dutch East Indies, Malay Federated States, and Philippines. Both Wang Yu Ting and Wang Xuan Hua met through the Chinese newspaper Ping Min Ri Bao while Gui Hua Shan and Wang Yu Ting collaborated for a fund-raising activity in Manila, Philippines. The Nanyang Film Company soon emerged as one of the three prominent film distributors in Singapore where they would screen Chinese films at the Marlborough Theatre. They also rented Palacegay Theatre in Singapore and in Kuala Lumpur; they ran the Yi Jing Yuan as well as the Zhong Guo Theatre in Ipoh as venues for film screening. They would utilize mobile screening equipment to exhibit Chinese films brought in by smaller companies such as Lian Yuan, Tiong Nam, Da Zhong, and the Xin Hua Film Company throughout Singapore and the Straits Settlements (Zhongguodianyingziliaoguan 1996). It should be noted that Marlborough was bought over by Tan Cheng Kee in 1909 (Rea and Volland 2015), a wealthy Straits-born Chinese and eldest son of Tan Keong Siak while the owner of Palacegay was attributed to the Straits-born Chinese Tan Quee Eng who also invested in Empire Theatre, Tong Lam Theatre, and the Nanking Film Company (Malaya Tribune 17 October 1936).

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The Nanyang Film Company regularly donated its ticket sales to support Chinese schools as seen from how the revenue generated from the re-run of Chinese film Yu Li Hun on 15 August 1924 at the Marlborough Theatre (Nanyang Siang Pau 15 August 1924) was donated entirely to the Chinese Industrial and Commercial Continuation School founded in 1920.4 The company also made a monthly contribution of two dollars to the publicly funded Qiao Xing Ping Min School (Nanyang Siang Pau 13 April 1925) in 1925, which was founded by Chinese merchant Deng Wen Guang from Dapu, Guangdong Province, and owner of the Tong Xing Iron Shop (Kua 1995). Financial instability was a common feature of these publicly funded Chinese schools and in May 1926, it was reported that the manager of Nanyang Film Company (i.e., Wang Xuan Hua) and Li Xi Lang, the manager of Lang Hua Film Company, each donated one hundred dollars to help sustain the school operations (Nanyang Siang Pau 17 May 1926). Apart from relying on donations from individuals, the Qiao Xing Ping Min School also collaborated with the Tarn Kah Keng Ying Charitable Dramatic Association to raise funds in 1927 (Nanyang Siang Pau 5 May 1927); this association was a Cantonese opera cultural group set up in 1925 to promote Chinese opera and music, as well as fund-raising to support the anti-Japanese resistance efforts in China in the late 1930s (Zhou 2007). Another South-bound Chinese intellectual who had a vested interest in the business of film distribution would be Li Xi Lang, who hailed from Mei Xian, Guangdong. Li was born in 1898. He came to Singapore in 1925 to take up the editor’s job for the tabloid paper Xiao Xian Zhong founded by Wang Xuan Hua. He also edited for the newspaper Zhong Hua Chen Bao in Ipoh. After the Lang Hua Film Company was shut down, he started another Xing Hua Film Company in the 1930s. Li became acquainted with Chinese intellectuals such as Fu Wu Men, Li Tie Min, and Hu Lang Man through Xin Bao which was founded in 1952 (Tang 2001). He was reported to be one of the shareholders of Nan Hai Film Company and he also invested in the Jubilee Theatre with a few other friends in the 1930s. Li was a poet but he also wrote a novel titled Man Hua Can Guo which was first serialized in 1925 in the literary supplement of Sin Kok Min Jit Pao in Singapore. It focused on the hardship faced by Chinese workers who arrived to seek a living in British Borneo, fusing subtle anti-colonial sentiments in his writing. After the end of the Japanese Occupation in Singapore, Li Xi Lang, Su Qiu Sheng, Li Cheng Gong, Su Wei Lian, Hu Lang Man, and Wang Dao Ming chipped in to buy over the Jubilee Theatre (Koh 2016). The theatre continued to screen Mandarin sound films and was reported by Lianhe Zaobao (14 December 1986) to attract a significant crowd till 1950. These Chinese intellectuals would later become a part of the organizing committee for the Malaya Film Education Association that was set up in August 1941 (Nanyang Siang Pau 5 August 1941). The lucrative business of film distribution also attracted Runme Shaw and Run Run Shaw to come to Singapore in the 1920s, and by the 1930s, their film production 4

It was mentioned that Huang Yuan Jian (黃淵鑑), manager of the Tiong Nam Film Company, also donated to the School. See The Chinese Industrial and Commercial Continuation School Sixtieth Anniversary Magazine, 1921–1980 (1980, p. 11).

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companies (Unique) in Shanghai and Hong Kong could supply the necessary Chinese films for screening among its numerous theatres in Singapore and Malaya. The Straits-born Chinese merchant Loke Wan Tho also entered the industry in 1935 by forming the Associated Theatres and eventually ventured into the production of Malay and Mandarin films in the 1950s (Rea and Volland 2015). Essentially, both Shaw and Loke also engaged South-bound Chinese intellectuals in their film companies after the end of the Second World War, who turned to locally produced literature for their film productions, prioritizing those with the “Nanyang aesthetic,” which was first discussed in articles written by Zeng Sheng Ti and Chen Lian Qing for the Nanyang Siang Pau and Lat Pau respectively in the late 1920s (Wong 2002). Apart from Zeng and Chen, Cheah (2009) mentions that intellectuals like Qiu Shi Zhen also contributed to the debates on producing Chinese literature beyond China in March 1934. Qiu emphasized that only writers living in Malaya were rightful heirs to Malaya Indigenous Literature. He felt that writers from Shanghai who might have incorporated the “Nanyang aesthetic” in their writings were insincere and hence, unable to produce authentic forms of literature. Qiu also completed a novel titled Baba and Nyonya in 1932 which probably inspired Fang Bei Fang to attempt his own version of Nyonya and Baba in 1954. Both works focused on the downfall of the wealthy Straits-born Chinese family in Singapore. It should be noted that Fang Bei Fang’s work was written during the anti-yellow culture campaigns launched by students and Chinese intellectuals, who were perceived by the British colonial government to be largely left-leaning and sympathetic towards the Communist cause in Singapore (Chong 2018). What started out as an apolitical aim of seeking a realistic portrayal of the living conditions in Malaya (as part of the making of a Malaya Indigenous Literature in the 1930s) then took on additional political nuances during the 1950s. Fang’s novel was also the basis for the Mandarin film Nyonya and Baba starring the famous star couple Yen Chun and Li Li Hua in 1956 (Nanyang Siang Pau 18 September 1980); the film was distributed a year later in Singapore and Hong Kong by the Cathay Organization with lukewarm reception. Another example would be Yao Zi (real name is Zheng Meng Zhou) whose works reflected the growing consciousness of incorporating localized content from British Malaya (Yan 2012). Yao was born in Quan Zhou, Fujian in 1924 and he initially came to Singapore to teach at the Tao Nan Primary School in 1947. Similar to other Southbound Chinese intellectuals, he soon joined the Nanyang Siang Pau as editor for their supplement but quitted in 1954 to focus on writing novels. Yet, Yao’s novel Ka Fei De You Huo written in 1951 did not escape fierce criticisms during the anti-yellow culture campaigns. Portraying the story of a dance hostess who travelled from China to Singapore to make a living, Yao’s novel was later made into a Mandarin film titled Blooming Roses directed by Yeung Kung-leong for the Shaw enterprise in Hong Kong in 1952. However, because Yao generally adopted a non-judgmental attitude towards the various social injustices contributing to the plight of the protagonists in his novel, some critics conveniently labelled his work as a form of yellow culture for its “sensationalistic” depiction and its unwillingness to condemn the British colonial rule (Chong 2018, p.36). The 1948 Emergency Regulations also enforced a ban on Chinese magazines alleged to contain Communist content and links (Ibid.), allowing

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tabloid papers to flourish instead, which were likely to be non-Communist in nature. The politically charged period of the early 1950s hence imbued Yao’s novel with additional meanings, and Blooming Roses was never screened in Singapore.

5.5 Producing Malayanized Chinese Films in Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s In hindsight, becoming a Malayan citizen was more complicated than the creation of a Malayan culture as the former was largely dominated by negotiations undertaken by political leaders who wanted the merger with the Federation of Malaysia to be successful in order to gain full independence from the British rule. However, Tunku Abdul Rahman, who was then the Prime Minister of Malaysia in 1957, was hesitant to agree to the merger for fear that the sheer number of Chinese in Singapore would displace the Malay population in the Federation (Lee 2008). Amid the ongoing negotiations that managed to include Sabah and Sarawak into the Federation of Malaysia in order to ensure that the racial balance will remain tilted towards the Malay population after the merger, the newly elected People’s Action Party (PAP) government also needed to drum up support from the local population in Singapore. The launch of the second phase of the anti-yellow culture campaigns (between 1959 and 1980s), seeking to foster “a healthy culture based on a Malayan outlook” was for such a purpose (Chong 2018) while Malay was declared as the national language of Singapore. Malay training classes was offered to 1,080 teachers from non-Malaymedium schools (Wong 2002) and evening Malay classes were offered to members of the public to learn the Malay language. At the same time, a Malay Studies Department was recommended to be set up within the Chinese-medium Nanyang University, where the first batch of Malay students was eventually admitted in 1967 (Suryadinata 2012).5 The PAP also promised to give Chinese schools equal treatment and allow the use of Mandarin as the main medium of instruction, but the learning of Malay and English had to be included in the curriculum of all Chinese schools. Here, what the PAP was articulating as the Malayan culture resembled the policy of multiracialism, which was highly similar to the earlier British colonial cultural policy (Chong 2018) in Singapore. Following the separation from the Federation of Malaysia in August 1965, the PAP advocated a bilingual education policy, which inevitably resulted in English being studied as the first language for most local students. This was perceived by Chinese intellectuals to change the identity of Chinese schools through anglicization and by extension, threatening the “root” of Chinese culture and language (Yeo 1994). Undaunted by the complexity, both Chua Boon Hean and Yi Shui (whose real name is Tang Pek Chee) set out to offer different interpretations of the Malayan 5

The logo of the Nanyang University as designed by the South-bound Chinese intellectual Pan Shou featured three rings which represented the Chinese, Malay, and Indian ethnic communities in Singapore.

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culture, Chinese identity, and national language in their works produced around the late 1950s. Chua hailed from Chao-an, Guangdong, and he was initially teaching at the Da Tong Primary School in 1928. He subsequently joined the two Shaw brothers in Singapore as editor for their film magazine Screen Voice in 1937; after the war, he agreed to be a scriptwriter for MFP where he wrote at least a dozen of scripts in Chinese to be later translated into Malay during actual film shooting in the 1950s. It should be noted that Chua consciously tried to bridge the gap between Malay and Mandarin films through the incorporation of songs and the use of dubbing. For example, his work Sri Menanti (Nanyang Siang Pau 7 June 1958) which depicted a romantic tragedy between a Malay village girl, played by popular Malay actress Zaiton and a Chinese musician, played by Hong Kong actor Chang Chung, was first shot in Malay and the cast were required to speak Malay while shooting. The film was later marketed as a different film titled Ma Lai Feng Yue after it was dubbed in Mandarin for release in December 1958 (Nanyang Siang Pau 10 December 1958). MFP also invited Hou Xiang (real name is Li Hou Xiang) to compose the tune and Ku Wen-Chung to write the lyrics for six original Chinese songs in the Mandarin film. A film booklet was published to promote Ma Lai Feng Yue to the Chinese audience, using Tang Dan (second female lead) as the cover girl instead of Zaiton, who was the first female lead in the original Malay film. This film eventually kick-started the acting career of Chang Chung and Tang Dan who moved on to shoot more Mandarin films in Hong Kong in the 1960s. It definitely created a deep impression among the audience who could still recall the plot two years after the film was screened. Unlike Chua, who was a South-bound Chinese intellectual, Yi Shui was born in Perak and he lived in Thailand with his parents for a brief period before returning to Singapore to seek employment. In June 1959, Yi was named by Loke Wan Tho as the person-in-charge for producing a series of four Malayanized Chinese films at Cathay-Keris, in order to lend their support to the Malayanization movement in Singapore (Nanyang Siang Pau 20 June 1959). The titles of the four films were Shi Zi Cheng, Tang Shan Ya Shu, Da Xue Sheng, and Lü Se Jin Ma Lun where their ambitious plan was for Tang Shan Ya Shu to be shot in Cantonese while the other three would be shot in Mandarin (Nanyang Siang Pau 19 July 1959). Amid the excitement, only Shi Zhi Cheng was completed where the film was about the romance of a female factory worker Feng Ling (played by local amateur actress Hu Ji) and Shao Ming (played by local amateur actor Pan En), son of a wealthy factory owner, set in Singapore in the 1950s. A key highlight of this film was the scene featuring Feng Ling and her parents listening to the radio announcement on voting results for the formation of the new Legislative Assembly as self-governance had been recently granted to Singapore in May 1959 (Hee 2017). The film also included a scene in which Feng Ling attended a night school with her other classmates and was sharing her knowledge of the diverse ethnicities and multiple languages spoken in Malaya. There were many shots that covered actual outdoor locations such as the Merdeka Bridge in Singapore, the Straits of Malacca as well as the long water pipes which supplied drinking water from Malaysia to Singapore. The intention of the director was very clear: the shots were meant to build up an acute sense of the nation-in-making among the audience whereby Singapore would be connected to the Federation of Malaysia.

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The newly appointed Yang di-Pertuan Negara (Head of State) Yusof bin Ishak and his wife were subsequently invited to grace the screening of Shi Zi Cheng in 1960 at the Odeon Theatre by Loke Wan Tho. Even though Yusof bin Ishak and his wife were not literate in Mandarin, subtitles in English were provided in the movie (Nanyang Siang Pau5 December 1960) and the opening speech was made in the national language of Malay followed by Chinese translation (Nanyang Siang Pau 7 December 1960). This gathering of members from different ethnic backgrounds (The Straits Times 7 December 1960)6 to support the first Malayanized Chinese film in Singapore exemplified the creation of the Malayan culture in its most ideal state. Yi Shui however, soon began to receive negative reviews in the local Chinese newspapers from critics who noted that the acting skills of the female lead needed improvements, while the sound recording, dialogues, and interior shots were badly done (Nanyang Siang Pau 17 December 1960b).7 Chua’s second son, writing under the alias Lian Silan, also criticized the plot as monotonous, and the background of the two main characters as poorly introduced (Nanyang Siang Pau 17 December 1960a). The biggest flaw was that it was unrealistic because “no rich man’s son would ever ride a lorry and visit the factory, nor would he be truly in love with a factory worker” (Ibid., p. 19). He added that incorporating actual locations or events (such as the formation of a new Legislative Assembly in Singapore) would not translate into authenticity. On a side note, he felt that it was possible for the difference in social status between the male and female protagonists to be played out in a more dramatic fashion that would likely make the film more enjoyable to watch. He concluded that it was a huge disappointment, for as much as he was a locally born Malayan citizento-be and hence shared the pride in seeing the completion of the first Malayanized Chinese film, he could not agree that it was a work of high quality (Ibid.). Chua’s work, Ma Lai Feng Yue, was also named by a member of the public (who wrote under the alias Cao Zheng) for a comparison with Shi Zi Cheng in 1960 (Nanyang Siang Pau 24 December 1960). In Cao’s article, he felt that it was unnecessary to discuss inter-racial romance in Singapore because he had previously viewed Chua’s work and another stage performance written by Zhu Xu which portrayed the Malay religion as a possible obstruction to the couple’s relationship. He noted that since Chinese intellectuals were not willing to challenge the restrictive nature of Malay religion nor able to provide a solution to how “true love” could transcend the many issues faced by inter-racial couples in reality, it was misleading to present such a topic in films or theatre. Cao was worried that there might be gullible members in the audience who would “leave the cinema thinking that most Malay patriarchs are too conservative and unwilling to change” or even “hate” the Malay religion, eventually disrupting racial harmony in Singapore.

6 7

S. Rajaratnam, Lee Kuan Yew, and Othman Wok also attended the film screening. These film critics are Lin He Li, Long Sha, and Fang Liang.

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5.6 Conclusion The various comments on the works by Chua and Yi provided an entry point to ponder the fluid nature of the Chinese identity vis-à-vis Malayan culture and the declaration of Malay as the national language of Singapore on the verge of merger with the Federation of Malaysia. Clearly, the preoccupation with race relations was understood by audience, filmmakers, and politicians in the 1950s and 1960s, and making Malay as the national language or incorporating the learning of Malay in the school curriculum was non-problematic for the Chinese majority in Singapore. The key difference between the works by Chua and Yi, however, was how rising nationalistic sentiments could still allow a degree of “Chineseness” to be subsumed into a part of the Malayan culture—Chua’s interpretation which was manifested in his onscreen depiction of an inter-racial romance first produced as a Malay film and later dubbed into Mandarin suggested that translation could work to assimilate both the Malayan and Chinese identity. This was also in line with the bilingual or trilingual policy, which saw students in Chinese schools coping with the learning of English, Mandarin, and Malay even though it meant additional workload for themselves. After Singapore was separated from the Federation of Malaysia in August 1965, the learning of Malay was soon relegated to the third language in all schools for non-Malay students.8 On the other hand, Yi’s interpretation of the Malayan culture and his intended production of four Malayanized Chinese films sought to reorient the audience towards a sense of belonging to Malaya. For Yi, his Malayanized Chinese films could be produced in Mandarin or Cantonese (and need not be the same as the national language of Malay) as long as they encouraged a sense of belonging to the nationin-making. Therefore, it was crucial that the films featured local cast and actual geographical locations in Singapore and Malaya. Yi also adopted a line of defence stating that “Malayans should support Malayanized film productions” in Singapore following the criticism of Shi Zi Cheng in the local Chinese newspaper (Nanyang Siang Pau 12 December 1960, p. 15). He saw Chua’s work as merely a Mandarin film with “Hong Kong characteristic” and rejected its authenticity as a Malayanized film, which claimed to reflect Malayan culture.9

8 The Ministry of Education Language Centre was set up in 1978 to offer French and Japanese as a Third Language for local secondary school students in Singapore. A year later, the choices for Third Language were expanded to include German. Subsequent years saw the introduction of Malay as a Third Language in 1986 and Arabic and Bahasa Indonesia in 2008. See https://www.moelc.moe. edu.sg/courses/. 9 More recently, political leaders like Mahathir’s vision of building a Bangsa Malaysia (Malaysian Malaysia) instead of a Bangsa Melayu (Malay race/nation) garnered lukewarm support among the local population. While the implication for the former suggested a civic sense of nationalism similar to what was proposed by Yi Shui, the latter represented the populist view of linking a core ethnic/race to the nation through the national language of Malay as well as aspects of the Malay culture such as the Jawi script. In 2019, the introduction of khat (Jawi calligraphy) into the curriculum for vernacular schools led to much public anxiety among the Chinese in the local society. The issue

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The National Archives (United Kingdom). (2018b). FCO 141/14599: Singapore. Report on Chinese newspapers from the Commissioner General’s Office. Secret—Migrated archives (01/01/1955– 31/12/1955). Accessed at the National Archives of Singapore. The Straits Times. (1927). Preliminary police report. The Straits Times, March 14. The Straits Times. (1960). Che Yusof at “Lion City” premiere. The Straits Times, December 7. Turnbull, C. M. (1989). A history of Singapore, 1819–1988. Singapore: Oxford University Press. Wang, G. (1992). Community and nation: China, Southeast Asia and Australia. St. Leonards, NSW: Asian Studies Association of Australia in association with Allen & Unwin. Wong, M. V, & Xu, N. X. (Eds). 黃孟文、徐乃翔主編. (2002). Xinjiapo huawenwenxueshi chugao 新加坡華文文學史初稿 [A history of the Singapore Chinese literature]. Singapore: NUS Chinese Studies Department. Wong, T.-H. (2002). Hegemonies compared: State formation and Chinese school politics in postwar Singapore and Hong Kong. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Wu, Q. T. 吳慶棠. (1997). Xinjiapo huawenbaoye yu zhongguo 新加坡華文報業與中國 [Singapore Chinese newspapers and China]. Shanghai: Shanghai Social Sciences Publishing Company. Yan, M. 顏敏. (2012). Yuju jingyan yu bentu duihua-shi lun Yaozi de Nanyang xushi ji qi yiyi 寓居 經驗與本土對話-試論姚紫的南洋敘事及其意義 [The Nanyang narrative and its significance in the works of Yao Zi]. Xinhua Wenxue 新華文學 77: 156–171. Yen, C.-H. (2008). The Chinese in Southeast Asia and beyond: Socioeconomic and political dimensions. Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific Publishing. Yeo, K. W. (1973). Political development in Singapore, 1945–1955. Singapore: Singapore University Press. Yeo, S. N. 楊松年. (1994). Chuantong wenhua yu shehui bianqian 傳統文化與社會變遷 [Traditional culture and social change]. Singapore: Tung Ann District Guild. Yeoh, S. G. (2009). Penang and its region: The story of an Asian Entrepôt. Singapore: NUS Press. Yong, C. F. (1997). The origins of Malayan communism. Singapore: South Seas Society. Yung, Y. L. (1967). The contribution of the Chinese to education in the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States, 1900–1941. Master’s thesis, University of Malaya. Zheng, L. (1997). Overseas Chinese nationalism in British Malaya 1894–1941. PhD dissertation, Cornell University. Zhongguodianyingziliaoguan (Ed.). 中國電影資料館編. (1996). Zhongguo wusheng dianying 中 國無聲電影 [Chinese silent films]. China Film Publishing Company. Zhou, N. (Ed.), 周寧主編. (2007). Dongnanya huayu xijushi 東南亞華語戲劇史 [A history of Chinese drama in Southeast Asia]. Xiamen: Xiamen University Press.

Soo Ei Yap is a Ph.D. candidate with the Department of History at the Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research focuses on Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia, migration, film, and identity. Her research seeks to understand how “popular imaginations” envisaged by the intellectuals overlapped with crucial historical moments in the twentieth century which impacted on the identity-formation and the Chinese society in Singapore.

Chapter 6

The Chinese of Thailand: Academic Diplomacy and the Convergence of Sino-Thai Intellectual Nationalisms Sittithep Eaksittipong

6.1 A History of Thailand in Sino-Thai Relations: Scholars and Emotion After the student uprising known as the October 1973 incident overthrew the military regime that had legitimized its rule in Thailand by self-claiming to be the protector of the nation against communist threat, Thailand-China diplomatic relations were established two years later in 1975. However, the relations did not turn out to be smooth until years later. Conflict and distrust still loomed large in both Thailand and China. Be that as it may, in the 1980s, Sino-Thai ties greatly improved. Most studies on the development of Sino-Thai relations point to the significance of geopolitics: the expansion of Soviet and Vietnamese influence in mainland Southeast Asia as a condition pressing Bangkok and Beijing to improve their ties in the 1980s (Chambers 2005; Chulacheeb 2009; Deng 1992). Hence, the two nations had to cooperate closely to balance Soviet and Vietnamese influence. Nevertheless, geopolitics was not the sole definitive factor. Dominated by realist perspective focusing on politico-economic factors and the role of political elites, studies on Sino-Thai diplomatic relations tend to ignore cultural factors and the role of ordinary people. Furthermore, reason rather than emotion is portrayed as the underlying force governing the decisions of political actors in Sino-Thai relations. This chapter proposes a novel way to explore SinoThai diplomatic relations by focusing on cultural factors and the role of ordinary people, i.e., the construction of knowledge on the Chinese in Thailand and the role In referring to Thai persons after their full name appears for the first time, this chapter uses the given name in subsequent references instead of the family name, which is a common practice among Thais. For in-text citations, given names are provided in the citations rather than surnames. In bibliography, Thai authors are cited with given names first followed by surnames. S. Eaksittipong (B) Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_6

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of academicians. It argues that emotion, especially nationalist sentiment, rather than reason, was the driving force that governed Thai and Chinese scholars to produce a certain set of knowledge on the Chinese in Thailand that helped facilitate the cordial Sino-Thai relations. From the mid-1970s till the mid-1980s, underneath the political developments leading to the improvement of Sino-Thai relations, Thai and Chinese scholars who were driven by nationalist sentiments produced historical knowledge that defined and conditioned both Thai and Chinese actions toward each other. The reorientation of Thai history, as a result of cooperation between Thai and Chinese scholars, was an important factor in turning “foe” to “friend” and building mutual trust between the two nations. At the center of this change was the reorientation of the Chinese in Thai history. It is these changes in the historical arena, I argue, that paved the way for the tightening of Sino-Thai ties in that period, which has had a long-lasting effect that is felt even today. These changes also provided an impetus for the ordinary Thai of Chinese descent to identify themselves with the Thai nation.

6.2 History of the Chinese in Thailand and Its Politics During the Cold War Learning the history of Thailand was not a pleasant experience for the Thais of Chinese ancestry during the Cold War. Reminiscing on his own experience, a Thai of Chinese descent who was traumatized by Thai history class stated that: One could not really partake in Thai historical imagination… One couldn’t surely comfortably feel part of the Thai nation when one learned from official Thai history textbooks that it must have been one’s Chinese great-great grandparents who had driven the great-great grandparents of Thai classmates and teachers out of central China all the way down south to Thailand a thousand years before. As an ethnically predetermined potential “fifth columnist,” one became ill at ease and nervous whenever one found government-published, anti-red China propaganda posters posted on school bulletin-boards. (Kasian 2003, pp. 248–249)

Based on racial nationalism that began to rise in the 1920s, Thai national history at the time emphasized a long and glorious history of the Thai by portraying the Chinese as “the Other.” It narrated that the ancestors of the Thai originated from Mount Altai located in the north of China and had their homeland there. Then the Thai ancestors found successive glorious kingdoms in China. However, the peaceloving Thai were attacked by the aggressive Han several times and had to migrate southwards repeatedly until they reached their final stand—Nanchao in Yunnan. There, the Thais were once again raided by the Chinese army under the Mongol overlord, Kublai Khan, during the Yuan Dynasty. This forced them to migrate en masse to present-day Thailand, where they successively founded the Sukhothai, Ayutthaya, and Bangkok kingdoms, along with other polities. During the Cold War, the alliance of the Thai military regime and Washington was suspicious about the loyalty of the Chinese in Thailand who were stigmatized as potential fifth columnists. To deal with the “Chinese problem” in Thailand, the

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Fig. 6.1 A propaganda poster entitled “The Autonomous State” produced by USIS in the 1950s (The Autonomous State (Poster) ca. 1950–ca. 1965) (Image courtesy of the US National Archives)

alliance used Thai history as a tool. Popular Thai history of the time was thus propagandized and reinforced to implant Thai nationalism and “destabilize” the identity of the Thais of Chinese ancestry so as to facilitate their assimilation into Thai society. Coupled with the formation of the Dai Autonomous People’s Region in the early 1950s in Yunnan, where Nanchao was located, the Nanchao story became a perfect example for portraying the Chinese communists’ southward aggression.1 As the Thai population including scholars then did not make clear distinction between the Taispeaking ethnic groups in China, particularly the Dai (Daizu in Chinese) and the Thai, it was possible to conflate the two together and insist on their historical continuity based on the migration trope. The US Information Service (USIS) made an anti-communist poster portraying Chairman Mao and an ethnic minority Dai from the Dai Autonomous People’s Region pointing their fingers toward Thailand with a caption reading “Danger from the North” (Fig. 6.1). The Chinese in Thailand then had no place in Thai history except being “the Other.” However, a history of the Chinese in Thailand was in the making by an American social scientist as part of American anti-communist strategy. Skinner’s (1957) Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History was produced in this context. Through the academic textualization of binary categories of “Chinese” and “Thai,” and a linear progressive history of “the Chinese in Thailand” depicting the cultural assimilation of the Chinese into Thai society as an inevitable historical teleology, 1 In China, the ethnonym “Dai” (傣) referred mainly to a Tai-speaking people known in Thailand as “Leu” , but Thai writers normally referred to this group in Yunnan by the more ambiguous . ethnonym of “Tai”

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assimilation as a social scientific theory based on the American ethnic management experience became a dominant paradigm in academic and political practices toward the Chinese in Thailand. Using American research as guideline, Thai government began to implement assimilation policy systematically (Sarup ekkasan…No. 6/2508). The American experience of assimilating immigrants, perceived as the best solution to creating a harmonious society then, was used as a model in dealing with the Chinese in Thailand. The book, based on his research conducted in the early 1950s, portrays the Chinese in Thailand as “the Other” who need to be assimilated into Thai society. To strengthen his plot, Skinner historically portrays the assimilation of the Chinese in Thailand as a recurring cycle in Thai history. Chinese Society in Thailand was part and parcel of the US anti-communist strategy that aimed to modernize Thailand and turn the country into a capitalist fortress against communism. In doing so, the assimilation of the Chinese in Thailand into Thai society was necessary as the Thai-ified Chinese would identify with the Thai nation rather than communist China. Furthermore, the Thai-ified Chinese could serve as economic dynamo of the Thai nation since they posed an entrepreneurial spirit that the Thais lacked. Thus, the assimilation of the Chinese was a significant factor in making Thailand walk the capitalist path (Koizumi 2013; Sittithep 2020).

6.3 Anti-American Sentiment, Changing Image of China, and the Rise of Thai Intellectual Nationalism Since the late 1960s, modern Thai academia, supported by American aid as part of its anti-communist strategy, paradoxically began to act against American academic involvement with Thailand. Thai scholars began to question American academic influence over Thai academia and the American production of knowledge on Thailand, including knowledge on the Chinese in Thailand. Articles campaigning for Thais to stand on their own intellectual footing while casting a critical stance toward American academic involvement with Thailand (seen as tainted with particular political agendas) were prevalent in Sangkhomsat Parithat (Social Sciences Review), the journal of Social Science Association of Thailand. Scholars who wrote for the journal criticized Americans for their lack of genuine understanding of Thailand. American academic aid was also perceived as a means for prolonging Thai dependence on the USA. Laden with nationalist sentiments, they made a generalization that knowledge produced by American specialists was merely an anti-communist tool and a way of modernizing Thailand along American lines (Paichit 1966; Warin 1970; Wittayakon 1970). This nationalist sentiment was lifted to its extreme by the Academic Advisory Council of Thailand (AACT) scandal. In 1970, American student activists circulated leaked documents revealing certain American scholars as colluding with Washington’s counter-insurgency efforts in Thailand through the AACT, an organization established by the USAID to supply information necessary for its development and

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counter-insurgency programs. This incident led to an investigation, and the scandal drew the attention of Thai scholars. News updates and personal opinions regarding the issue were reported in Sangkhomsat Parithat. Arousing Thai intellectual nationalism, an editorial of an issue of the journal enunciated that as intellectual sovereignty was part of the nation’s sovereignty, Thailand was a “de facto American colony,” pointing to the political aspect of American academic involvement as seen in the AACT case (Suchat 1970b). Following this declaration, the journal published articles criticizing almost every aspect of American academic involvement to arouse intellectual nationalism. Even student exchange programs and the promotion of English education were portrayed as facilitating American neo-colonialism (Chalit 1974; Ranson 1974; Thanet 1974). American research on Thailand and academic aid in general were criticized—though with few or no American scholars mentioned by name—as the means to perpetuate Thailand’s dependency on the USA, a tool to gather intelligence, and a subtle method to Americanize Thailand (Kroeksin 1970; Suchat 1970a; Theerawet 1972; Warin 1970). As the USA was demonized, Thai scholars began to seek alternative models for intellectual inspiration and national development. Knowledge of socialist countries, especially the PRC, once marginalized, was now in demand. From the mid-1960s, Sangkhomsat Parithat started to publish articles relating to China. The articles were mostly summaries of English sources written by Western scholars or sometimes English books published by the PRC’s People’s Publishing Press. Topics such as censorship in China and the biography of Li Dazhao, a founder of the Communist Party of China, were chosen to introduce Chinese politics and socialism to the journal’s readers (Khien 1966; Vipha 1974). Unsurprisingly, these articles depicted Chinese politics in a positive light. One article even supported the Chinese student movement during the Cultural Revolution and implicitly portrayed it as a model for Thai students (Thandon 1973). The journal also devoted its entire November issue (Vol. 9, No. 5) in 1971 to the PRC, even though this placed it in a risky position, as the Anti-Communist Act was still in force. Paradoxically, the government censorship heightened the thirst for knowledge about communist China. When it was published, the Sangkhomsat Parithat issue on the PRC was quickly sold out. China’s image in the Thai intellectual perception gradually changed from negative to positive. However, establishing Sino-Thai diplomatic relations was not an easy task. Pingpong diplomacy and Nixon’s 1972 visit to China were shocking for the Free World allies, especially the Thai junta, who were ill-informed about the groundbreaking mission. Having denounced Communist China as the red evil and portrayed it as menace to the Thai nation, the junta was suddenly left in the lurch. After filing a few complaints to its “great ally” on not informing them in advance about such an important decision, the Thai government imitated the American gesture (Puangthong 2006, p. 117). Following the initiative to open diplomatic relations with the PRC, there was grave concern over the Chinese problem in Thailand. Haunted by the communist specter for decades, the Thai feared that the replacement of the embassy of the Republic of China by the PRC would lead to the spread of communism and arouse ethnic nationalism

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among the Chinese. After all, the violent clash in the heart of Bangkok’s Chinatown in 1945, known as the Yaowaraj incident, still haunted many Thais. The rising status of the Republic of China, which emerged from World War II as a victor, had aroused nationalism among the Chinese who had been treated badly by the Thai government during the war. The expression of this nationalism led to violent clashes between the Chinese community and the authorities, which paralyzed Bangkok’s Chinatown for days (Wasana 2009). With the rising status of the PRC in the international arena, fear was now prevalent among the Thai that something similar to the Yaowaraj incident might occur. The fear came true when the Phlapplachai riot, a three-day riot in Bangkok’s Chinatown area, happened in July 1974. Again, violent clashes broke out between the Chinese and the authorities after two police officers arrested an ethnic Chinese taxi driver for parking illegally (Sittithep 2012). Unsurprisingly, an opinion poll released after this incident revealed the public’s concern that the appearance of the PRC embassy in Bangkok might instigate a Chinese nationalism that could, in turn, lead to political chaos (Khien 1975).

6.4 Chinese Intellectual Nationalism and an Untold Story of Sino-Thai Diplomatic Relations As soon as the official China-Thailand diplomatic relationship was established in July 1975, the Thai historical issue caught Beijing’s attention. After signing the official documents with Zhou Enlai, the then prime minister of the PRC, Thai Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj (1975–1976) made a trip to Yunnan with Hua Guofeng, the deputy prime minister of the PRC, and Han Nianlong, the deputy minister of foreign affairs. With the story of the Nanchao kingdom in mind, Kukrit provided his Chinese counterparts with anecdotes from Thai history and stated that the Thai capital was once in Yunnan, and visiting this place was like “coming back home” (Chen 2003, p. 1). “Tomorrow, I will raise the Thai flag over here and declare that we come here to liberate Yunnan from China. We are here to reclaim our land,” Kukrit stated humorously, while in Yunnan (Anand 2000, p. 19). Unfortunately, the Chinese officials did not understand Kukrit’s humor; they were appalled. Unaware of the sensitivity of the issue, especially in the 1980s, when the traumatic memory of the Cultural Revolution still haunted the Dai ethnic group in Yunnan whose tradition and way of life were destroyed during that time, Thai statesmen who visited Yunnan in those years repeated the sentiment that they felt close to the Dai, whom the Thai called “Tai,” and mentioned to the Chinese officials that this part of Yunnan was the original home of the Thai (Hsieh 1993). This situation caused a stern reaction from Chinese officials as they feared that this might lead to the Dai identifying with the Thai nation instead of the Chinese nation. Shocked by the story that referred to part of China as having been under Tai rule, while emphasizing past animosity between the Thai and the Chinese, Beijing issued an order to the Yunnan Institute of History (YIH) to conduct a systematic research on the issue.

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A research team on China-Thailand relations headed by Chen Lüfan, a senior researcher at the YIH who took a leading role in this project, was formed (Chen 2003). The project focused on two important issues: debunking the idea of a Tai polity in pre-modern Yunnan and removing animosity between Han and Thai ethnic groups. From its inception, the research team was deeply entangled with politics. Knowledge produced by the team aimed not only to provide correct information to Beijing but also “correcting incorrect foreign bourgeois thought” (Yunnansheng lishi yanjiusuo 2003, p. 226). Just a few months after the team was formed, Chai Zemin, the first Chinese ambassador to Thailand, visited the team in Yunnan to discuss the issue. While offering his help in sending the team to conduct fieldwork in Thailand as either a cultural or an academic delegation, Chai emphasized the significance of scholarly knowledge to Chinese foreign policy and hinted at the use of academic diplomacy. He stated: Foreign bourgeoisie produced a large quantity of works and disseminated everywhere their wrong views. We Chinese have not produced our own and positive views, thus those who are not clear of historical truth would for sure be influenced by Western and Thai scholars’ views. We could work hard on this and use the Marxist view to produce our own research. At least, in the first step, it could be used as a reference in inner circles. (Yunnansheng lishi yanjiusuo 2003, p. 226).

After a year of research, the team began to publish articles in the PRC’s academic journals and circulated them “for internal distribution.” Academic institutions working on the relations between China and Southeast Asia such as Sun Yat-sen University and Xiamen University were involved as well, since their expertise could be utilized to serve Beijing’s foreign policy. Indeed, after receiving articles from Chen’s research team, senior scholars from the two universities praised his works for demonstrating “how historical research could serve the practical purpose of the class struggle” (Chen 2003, p. 5). For its research project on China-Thailand relations that lasted almost two decades from its inception as a project associated with the YIH to its elevation to a project associated with the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (henceforth, Yunnan ISEAS), the research team made it clear from the beginning that the history of China-Thailand relations had always been a friendly one. The Dai of Yunnan, whom the Thai in present-day Thailand claimed as their cousins descended from the original Tai, neither originated from Mount Altai nor established any kingdom in China. Thus, there had been no war and no resulting chain of migrations. The research team denounced the version of Thai national history based on racial purity as absurd and denied any direct connection between the Thai in Thailand and the Dai ethnic group based on this particular connection. Employing Sinicization as a subtle tool, they acknowledged a cultural connection between the Tai-speaking ethnic minorities in China such as the Dai and the Zhuang (whom the Thai also categorized as “Tai”) and the Thai in Thailand, but portrayed the two groups as influenced by Chinese civilization and culture through friendly relations. For the research team, the Thai in Thailand and the Dai in China were, in fact, members of the same ethnic group. Indeed, for them, notwithstanding the various ethnonyms such as the Shan, Dai, and Thai, all Tai-speaking peoples were the same

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ethnic group who shared a similar culture and language but lived in different nationstates and were thus called by different names. Western imperialism was blamed as the villain who had strained China-Thailand cordial relations through the introduction of Thai history based on a racial concept and for turning Thailand and China into “semi-colonial, semi-feudal” countries, a standard Marxist term describing countries that had not been officially colonized but had been subjected to foreign political and economic influence. Simultaneously, they described the contribution of the Chinese in Thailand to the nation especially in terms of economics, ranging from facilitating tributary trade between Siam and China to developing the modern economy of Thailand (Zou 2003). In parallel with the debunking of the Thai historical myth, the Chinese scholars were rewriting another version of history in which the Thais of Chinese lineage played a role that was more heroic than villainous. As the Chinese in Thailand and their descendants were representatives of China for the Thais, casting them in positive light would help in facilitating cordial Sino-Thai diplomatic relations. Studies depicting the contribution of the Chinese to the Thai nation were thus simultaneously produced. G. William Skinner’s Chinese Society in Thailand, translated into Chinese, was one of the significant sources of knowledge.2 Chinese scholars reinterpreted and decontextualized Skinner’s work from its original context portraying the Chinese as “the Other” that needed to be Thai-ified, the scholars used it to portray the Chinese contribution to and identification with the Thai nation. In sum, they reinterpreted Skinner’s assimilation paradigm and utilized it as it suited their political aims in establishing trust between Thailand and China. An article released in the early stages of the team’s research is a good example reflecting the plot that repeatedly appeared in subsequent Chinese scholars’ works. Wang (1982) of Yunnan’s ISEAS published “The Cause of Chinese Migration to Thailand and Their Economic Activities” in 1982. Her article used the Chinese in Thailand as a tool to express China-Thailand friendly relations. Citing Skinner’s (1957) Chinese Society in Thailand, Wang stated that historically, the Chinese had lived peacefully in Thailand, and many Chinese had served the Thai court to the extent that they were ennobled as officials. Even one of the national heroes, King Taksin, was of Chinese ancestry. Then, after briefly discussing the factors that led to Chinese migration to Thailand, such as the increasing demand for labor in Thailand, the threat of Western imperialism, famine in China, and the improvement of transportation technology, the article relates the Chinese contribution to the Thai economy in various aspects. Information derived from Skinner’s (1957) work, such as the number of Chinese rice mills in Thailand and the number of Chinese tin miners in Phuket, was utilized to depict Chinese roles in Thai economic life. In sum, it portrayed how the Chinese from all walks of life, from coolies to merchants to entrepreneurs, had served as economic dynamos in developing the economy.

2

Beginning from 1962, this book was partly translated into Chinese and serially published in Nanyang wenti ziliaoyicong.

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Implicitly arguing that the paranoia over the Chinese problem in Thailand affecting China-Thailand ties was groundless, Wang made a contrast between Western imperialists and the Chinese in Thailand to show that it was the former not the latter who were the real threat. Unlike Western imperialists, the Chinese migrants were humble laborers and builders who obeyed Thai laws, as stated by Wang (1982). To reinforce her argument, a reinterpretation of the assimilation paradigm was used. Wang believed that “the Chinese have been assimilated into Thai society” (Wang 1982, p. 98). However, for Chinese scholars like Wang, complete assimilation as proposed by Skinner had not occurred. Quite the contrary, the Chinese in Thailand had retained their Chinese cultural identity but politically identified with the nation. Hence, according to Wang (1982), “cultural and kinship ties became the main ties between them and China. They are significant bridges linking the political and economic relations between Thailand and China” (p. 98).

6.5 Strange Parallels in Thailand In 1974, the year that China-Thailand diplomatic relations were established, Thai intellectual nationalism was at its height. Continuing its critical stance toward America’s academic involvement with Thailand, Sangkhomsat Parithat sarcastically published its July issue (Vol. 12, No. 7) with the headline “American intellectual colonialism,” released in the month that Americans celebrated their Independence Day. As anti-American sentiments rose to an emotional pitch, harsh criticism over American academic involvement with Thailand escalated. Even the American Field Service intercultural program for high school students and English language teaching were deplored as brainwashing programs in Sangkhomsat Parithat (Ranson 1974; Thanet 1974). Two months before the establishment of China-Thailand diplomatic relations, the Mayaguez incident worsened the situation. As the US Marines used Thailand as its base of operations for rescuing the SS Mayaguez from the Khmer Rouge without Thai consent, anger at the USA heightened. The bald eagle, America’s national emblem displayed in front of its embassy in Bangkok, was torn down while the American flag was burned during the mass protest over the incident. Among the crowds who joined the protest were Thai scholars (Julaporn 1986). Although Sangkhomsat Parithat ceased its publication due to political reasons after the student massacre and military coup in October 1976, new publications arose and flourished to continue its purpose. Driven by intellectual nationalism, there was a sense of duty among Thai scholars that they needed to formulate genuine Thai knowledge that could liberate Thai intellectuals from being a “colony of foreign academia” (Srisak 1986, p. 2). For them, the knowledge had to be rooted in the concrete historical experience of Thailand and should represent the aspirations and needs of the Thai masses (Suthy 1983). Knowledge associated with the old establishment reinforced by the pioneer American Thailand specialists in modernizing Thailand came to be seen as irrelevant. A top-down Thai history, giving a central role to the monarchs as national heroes who had saved and modernized the nation,

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came under scrutiny. Marxist-inspired historiography and local history were on the rise. The origin of the Thais focusing on the conflict between the Tai race and others was increasingly seen as questionable as it was a part of old establishment’s rhetoric and Cold War propaganda (Thongchai 1995). At the same time, there was an attempt to place the Chinese, who were once perceived as “the Other” to the Thais, into the Thai nation. Thai scholars thus rewrote Thai history to redefine the meaning of “Thainess,” “Thailand,” and “the Thais.” Among like-minded Thai scholars who formed a network to reorient Thai history, Sujit Wongthes and Nidhi Eoseewong were significant driving forces in the network. Sujit Wongthes, a prominent scholar and the owner of Sinlapawatthanatham (Arts & Culture), a famous semi-academic magazine, was the vanguard in reorienting Thai history. Sujit raised the issue of “Thainess” and the meaning of being Thais to the public by publishing two famous books, The Thais Did Not Come From Somewhere Else (1984) and A Mixture of Chek and Lao (Chekpon Lao) (1987). As both the Lao and the Chinese were ethnicities formerly looked down upon by the Thai, Sujit’s attempt to redefine “Thainess” and include the “Chinese” into the Thai nation by labeling the Thai as an admixture of ethnic Chinese and Lao caused a stir. Sujit (1987) intended to use “Chek,” a pejorative term for the Chinese in Thailand to shock his readers. He stated definitively that the Thai were no longer a well-defined race. For Sujit, the Thais in Thailand were people formed out of an admixture of various races and cultures. Hence, they did not come from anywhere else but had continuously lived in Thailand since ancient times. Thais like himself were thus a mixture of Chek and Lao. Besides the books, Sujit published his own articles and selected articles from like-minded scholars in his magazines to reinforce his stance. Nidhi Eoseewong, a prominent Thai historian of Chinese ancestry, was a regular contributor to Sujit’s Sinlapawatthanatham. His tours de force, Bourgeois Culture and Early Bangkok Literature (1982) and Thai Politics in the Reign of King Thonburi (1986), shook Thai historical scholarship by redefining the Chinese role in Thai history. While the first book redefined the Chinese as a significant agent of Thai historical change in terms of economy and culture, the latter book assigned the Chinese with the role of heroes of the Thai nation. Nidhi’s works, polemic against Thai history which excluded the Chinese, were popular among Thai readers of Chinese ancestry. In Bourgeois Culture and Early Bangkok Literature, Nidhi (1982) argued that early Bangkok was actually an era of the proto-capitalist market economy. Trading and the export-oriented economy were crucial parts of early Bangkok. This gave rise to the bourgeoisie forming out of alliances between the crown, the aristocracy, and wealthy Chinese families. The Thai elite’s mentality became more humanistic, rational, and realistic, a significant feature of the bourgeois, as is evidenced in literature produced in this era. He argued that the Chinese were significant historical agent in this era. In the section entitled “The Chinese: A Significant Factor of Change,” Nidhi used information derived from Skinner’s (1957) Chinese Society in Thailand to portray the Chinese in a positive light, not “the Other” that needed to be assimilated. Selectively choosing and decontextualizing information from Skinner’s discussion of the cultural dichotomy between the Thai and the Chinese that underpinned the ethnic division of labor, Nidhi played down the dichotomy and emphasized “connection” instead of

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“division.” Citing Skinner (1957), at the beginning of the section, he argued it was the Chinese migrants’ industriousness, patience, and knowledge of the market economy that contributed to the development of Thai economy. Nidhi went on to portray the Chinese as agents who connected the Thai elite and commoners to the proto-capitalist market economy, which significantly shaped the Thai mentality toward economic activities (Nidhi 1982). He also blurred the cultural boundaries between Thai and Chinese culture, poking fun at the lofty Thai elite regarded as the archetype of “Thainess” by demonstrating that the low culture brought by the Chinese, especially popular novels, “tremendously interested the Thai elite,” who took it as a part of their high culture (Nidhi 1982, p. 104). Nidhi wrote the Chinese back into Thai history both in economic and cultural terms. In Thai Politics in the Reign of King Thonburi, an authoritative work on King Taksin which has since been republished repeatedly,3 Nidhi (1986) declared that choosing King Taksin as the subject of his research was polemical and political. The book points to the ironic fact that the Thai nation was once rescued and protected by the Chinese, while in recent decades the Chinese have been stigmatized as a potential national threat. In the preface, Nidhi stated that he chose to study King Taksin as both he and the King were “Chek,” a pejorative term he cheekily used to refer to the Chinese in Thailand. However, Nidhi polemically redefined this term by using it in this affectionate manner. He took the first step by depriving it of its derogatory meaning by citing a philological work of a renowned Thai scholar of Chinese ancestry named Li Guangrong, popularly known by his noble name, Phaya Anuman Rajadhon (2009) (hereafter Phaya Anuman). Phaya Anuman argued that the original meaning of “Chek” was “stranger” (Prince Narisara 2009). Thus, it was originally not a derogatory term at all. Nidhi defined the term as someone brought up in a cultural admixture of Thai and Chinese. “Chek” was thus a distinct category and only existed in Thailand. Their place was only in Thailand (Nidhi 1986). In the book, Nidhi made King Taksin’s Chineseness prominent. Contrary to mainstream history emphasizing Taksin as a “Thai” noble, Nidhi emphasized Taksin’s Chinese roots and argued that his success in rescuing the nation was due to his utilization of Chinese networks (Nidhi 1986). Skinner’s (1957) Chinese Society in Thailand was used as one of Nidhi’s sources in writing King Taksin’s story. Nidhi (1986) repeatedly cited it to portray Taksin’s early life and his connection with Chinese community. Interestingly, in redefining the Chek and replacing them in Thai history using King Taksin’s case, Nidhi reiterated that the Chinese were part and parcel of the Thai nation. Furthermore, unlike Skinner, whose work forced one to choose to be either Thai or Chinese, Nidhi used Skinner’s work to portray King Taksin’s life to show that one could be Chinese and a Thai national hero at the same time. It thus confirmed his argument in the preface that the Chinese in Thailand possessed a unique “Chek” identity that was a result of the blend of Thai and Chinese cultures. The success of the reorientation of Thai history, however, was not merely facilitated by the efforts of the Thai intellectual network. Although domestic changes in 3

This book has been published in more than ten editions since its first publication.

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Thai historical scholarship were the main force, the knowledge and political operation of Chinese scholars undeniably contributed to the debunking of the Thai history that was based on the purity of the Thai race, while facilitating the writing of the Chinese back into Thai history. In the 1980s, knowledge from China was perceived as an alternative to American knowledge, which was harshly criticized. Historical knowledge of Thailand and the Chinese from China played a significant role in shaping Thai historical perception as well.

6.6 Academic Diplomacy and the Convergence of Sino-Thai Intellectual Nationalism Just a few years after the PRC scholars started to engage with the Sino-Thai historical relations issue, the Thai began to learn about this Chinese research. This research paved the way for Sino-Thai academic diplomacy. Partly driven by his attempt to ride on the “anti-American, pro-Chinese” wave to revive his political charisma, and partly by his own academic interests, Kukrit Pramoj, the Thai prime minister, whose humor caused a stir in China, decided to introduce Chinese scholarship to the Thai. After receiving an English translation of Chen and Du Yuting’s (1978) article “Whether Kublai Khan’s Conquest of the Dali Kingdom [i.e., Nanchao] Gave Rise to the Mass Migration of the Thai People to the South” translated by a Thai diplomat in Beijing, Kukrit (1978) roughly summarized the article in Thai and published it in his own column, “Ringside,” in the Siamrath newspaper in June 1978. He emphasized that the article was originally written to denounce the misleading Thai historical beliefs that had originated in Western scholarship. Using Chinese historical sources to argue that Nanchao was not a Thai kingdom and that the conflict with the Chinese resulting in the Thai southward exodus was a fabricated fact, the article caused a sensation among many Thais and sparked Thai interest in Chinese scholarship in Thai history. Seeing academic cooperation as a diplomatic tool strengthening Sino-Thai relations, Thai Prime Minister General Kriangsak Chamanan (1977–1980) heeded the call. Since the Sino-Thai alliance was crucial in blocking the expansion of the Soviet-Vietnamese influence in mainland Southeast Asia, the deepening of Sino-Thai friendly relations was necessary. During the 1980s, both Thailand and China stood on the same side in supporting the Khmer Rouge against Vietnam backed by the Soviet Union during the Cambodian-Vietnamese war. If Thailand and China had a SovietVietnamese alliance as a common enemy on the battlefield, Western scholarship was conceived as the common enemy in the academic field. In proposing to Chinese officials that Thailand and China should have academic cooperation especially in the field of history, Kriangsak stressed that “Thai history written by western scholars is unreliable” and thus “we should work together on it” (Wenhuabu wailianju 2003, pp. 16–17). Seeing this cooperation as a way to penetrate Thai academia in order to shape Thai perception toward Sino-Thai relations, Beijing gladly responded to

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Kriangsak’s proposal. The 1980s thus opened up an era of Sino-Thai academic cooperation evolving around two-related issues: the origin of the Thai and the historical status of the Chinese in Thailand. To pave the way for Sino-Thai academic cooperation, Kriangsak decided to use the Commission for the Investigation of Thai History Relating to China from Chinese Documents (CTCC), an organization established in 1972 under the direct control of the Prime Minister’s Office when Thailand began to consider normalizing its relations with China. Kriangsak turned a paper organization into a diplomatic tool. After being inactive for eight years, the commission released its first publication, Thai-Chinese Diplomatic Relations during 1282–1852 in 1980. It portrayed amicable Sino-Thai relations beginning from the Sukhothai era during the Yuan Dynasty to the early Bangkok period during the Qing Dynasty, under a tributary trade system in which the Chinese in Thailand played important roles as merchants, seamen, and bureaucratic nobility facilitating the trade (Commission for the Investigation 1980). Following the publication signaling the use of history as a tool to tighten Sino-Thai relations, the commission applied to Beijing for permission to conduct research in Yunnan. Intending to use this request as a channel to penetrate Thai academia, Beijing gladly approved the request and assigned the leader of Yunnan’s ISEAS, Chen Lüfan, who was also the leader of the Sino-Thai relations research team, to host the commission’s academic activity in Yunnan in April 1984. However, the CTCC’s members were not the sole invited guests. Realizing the influence of Sinlapawatthanatham in Thai intellectual and cultural spheres, Yunnan ISEAS also invited its editor, Sujit Wongthes, to join the event. Besides engaging in academic workshops on Thai history with Yunnan’s ISEAS staff, the commission and Sujit were taken to Sipsongpanna and Dali. In Sipsongpanna, they saw and experienced Dai’s pleasant living conditions in the market town and the Thai-style local temples that implicitly conveyed a message of harmonious living between the Thai and the Chinese. In Dali, they were taken to historical sites such as Kublai Khan’s inscription, which proved that his conquest of Nanchao was a peaceful one. They toured around the old town to see with their own eyes Dali’s ethnic composition, which were mostly the Bai and Yi ethnic groups, not the Dai. It was a well-planned program to show the Thais that Nanchao as a Tai Kingdom was just a fantasy, and Sino-Thai relations had, in fact, always been amicable. Similar trips modeled on this one were repeated from 1985 to 1988, with other groups of Thai scholars and statesmen visiting Yunnan (Hsieh 1993). After returning to Thailand, the CTCC compiled and translated Chinese classic works on the Tai-speaking people such as Li (1933,1984) Cheli, Jiang (1984,1989,1991) History of the Tai, among others (Bai 2001) of which they learned the existence from their trips. This experience revealed to the Thais how they could learn about the Tai from Chinese sources and at the same time instigated an interest on the Tai-speaking people outside Thailand. Many Thai scholars then began to conduct research on the Tai-speaking people outside Thailand, especially in China, with the purpose of finding a pristine Thai culture perceived to be the essence of Thai identity. Ironically, research done by the scholars did not lead to such a discovery. Instead, the scholars found how diverse the Tai-speaking people from different countries were

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in terms of culture, religion, and way of life, which supported the proposition of Thai progressive scholars like Sujit on the heterogeneity of the Thai, as they were people formed from an admixture of various races and cultures. “Thainess” thus was not defined by the homogeneity of culture but by cultural pluralism. In this sense, the Thais of Chinese descent could be regarded as a part of the Thai nation. Furthermore, it could be said that they shared more “Thainess” with the Thai than the Tai-speaking ethnic groups outside Thailand, as they spoke the same Thai language, practiced Buddhism, and were loyal subjects of the Thai monarch (Keyes 1995; Rattanaporn 1998). To push Sino-Thai academic diplomacy further, the Thai academics invited Chinese scholars led by Chen to present their findings and conduct fieldwork in Thailand. Prapruet Sukonrattanamethi of the CTCC and Sujit Wongthes of Sinlapawatthanatham acted as their hosts to return the Chinese hospitality. Chen, the director of Yunnan’s ISEAS, was invited to participate in the International Conference on Thai Studies in Bangkok in August 1984. Chen brought with him the completed English translated version of “Whether Kublai Khan …” to be presented in the conference. Besides the conference, Chen was invited to give a lecture at the Siam Society and Silpakorn University in 1984. There, he presented a paper arguing that Nanchao was a kingdom of Bai and Yi ethnic minority groups and was heavily influenced by Chinese culture, as proven by an analysis of cultural relics. This presentation thus reinforced his argument proposed in “Whether Kublai Khan …” that the Thai conventional history—an amalgam of narratives based on the Sino-Thai conflict, a southward migration, and China as the original homeland of the Thai—was a myth. These two presentations were later published in Journal of the Siam Society (Chen 1989; Chen and Du 1989). As a part of his attempt to strengthen Sino-Thai relations, the director of Yunnan ISEAS also visited Khien Theeravit, the pioneer of Chinese studies in Thailand, and the Teochew Association, one of the most significant Chinese associations in Thailand, to discuss issues relating to Sino-Thai relations. Wherever he went, Chen repeated the process of debunking Thai conventional history and campaigning for the study of a history of Sino-Thai friendly relations. Chen justified his academic activities as a part of the PRC’s academic diplomacy to tighten Sino-Thai relations to counter “the looming Soviet and Vietnam hegemonies over Southeast Asia” (Tongxunyuan 1984, pp.61–62). In addition to Yunnan ISEAS, Sun Yat-sen University’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (hereafter SYU ISEAS) played an important role in forging Sino-Thai academic relations. With its academic strength on the overseas Chinese, SYU ISEAS undertook the responsibility of promoting a positive image of the Chinese in Thailand and linking them with China. Having observed the situation in Thailand closely, the institute knew well how to deal with the Thai. A similar plan with the Yunnan ISEAS was employed to forge Sino-Thai academic relations. Groups of Thai scholars and statesmen, especially those of Chinese ancestry, were invited to visit Guangdong and had academic discussions with scholars from the SYU ISEAS. There, they were taken to two historically meaningful places, their ancestral hometowns in Guangdong and King Taksin’s cenotaph—both places loaded with cultural significance (Sulak 1994).

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While visiting their ancestral hometown helped forge the ties of the Thai of Chinese descent with China, visiting King Taksin’s cenotaph conveyed to the Thai visitors, regardless of their ethnicity, the Chinese goodwill to the Thai nation. To cater for the surge of interest in King Taksin in Thailand, China repaired the king’s cenotaph which had been raided during the Cultural Revolution and used the monarch as a cultural icon to secure warm Sino-Thai relations. To deepen this connection, the first official co-research project involving both Thai and Chinese scholars was proposed. It was decided that a research project on the Chinese in Thailand and their connection with China should be explored, as it had both academic and diplomatic value. The SYU ISEAS and Chulalongkorn University’s Institute of Asian Studies under Khien’s leadership thus concluded a research agreement in 1986. Having Chinese officials from the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese who served as chairman and vice-chairman of the Guangdong Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese as consultants, the project evidently had political implications. After years of research, the findings were published in Thai and Chinese editions as a two-volume edited book titled The Teochew in Thailand and in Their Native Land of Chaoshan (Supang and Vorasak 1991,1996). Focusing on the period between 1767–1949 that was from the beginning of the King Taksin era to before the Communist Party of China rose to power, the project portrayed Sino-Thai cordial relations beginning with King Taksin, a Thai of Chinese ancestry, rescuing the Thai nation from a foreign enemy. Although historically there were conflicts between the Thai and Chinese especially since the rise of nationalism in both countries in the early twentieth century, these were rarely mentioned. Overall, articles written by Chinese scholars in the two-volume monograph adhered to the same formula that they exploited in China. Assimilation, contribution of the Chinese to Thailand, King Taksin as the Chinese-Thai hero, and the peaceful coexistence between the two nations were immanent. Hence, it was common to see statements pointing to these amalgams appearing in Chinese scholars’ works. The story of King Taksin was repeatedly mentioned in the monograph. Sharing the Thai scholars’ “the Chinese of Thailand” discourse, Lin (1996) deplored the terms “Chinese society in Thailand” and “Overseas Chinese society” as misleading since the terms assumed the status of the Chinese as “the Other” who lived “in” Thailand and formed their own separate “Chinese society” (p. 96). Assimilation was emphasized as an ongoing trend leading to the emergence of Sino-Thais who had contributed to Thai development, especially in the economic realm. The Sino-Thais were portrayed as agents linking their host and ancestral homelands (Zhang 1996). Furthermore, for the sake of good relations between Thailand and China, some Chinese historical perspectives were ignored. When discussing tributary trade between Thailand and China, Deng (1996) adopted the Thai point of view by stating that the Thais regarded tributary trade as economic activity and did not think about it as political submission to China. He stated that when compared to trading with Western countries coming along with imperialism, tributary trade with China was not a threat to Thailand and was much more beneficial.

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6.7 Sinlapawatthanatham: A Place Where Intellectual Nationalisms Converged During the 1980s, numerous articles written by Chinese scholars appeared in Sinlapawatthanatham. While the editor of the journal had the final say in selecting articles for publication, it was undeniable that the articles written by Chinese scholars were supplied to Sinlapawatthanatham for propagandistic purposes. Some articles were Thai-translated or originally written in Thai directly supplied from China, while other articles were handed directly to Sujit or passed through his friends for the journal’s consideration. In the latter case, however, it was a well-calculated plan from the Chinese side since Chinese scholars knew well the high potential of Sujit to publish those articles. In other words, the Chinese scholars were using Sinlapawatthanatham to realize their political aim in reorienting Thai history. From the Thai scholars’ perspective, however, it was they who used Chinese scholarship to redefine the Thai nation through reorienting the past. However, with their mutual interest in reorienting the Thai past, their intellectual nationalism found a convergent point in the pages of Sinlapawatthanatham. Overall, articles written by Chinese scholars that appeared in Sinlapawatthanatham revolved around four themes: the debunking of Thai conventional history, the Chinese contribution to the Thai nation, friendly Sino-Thai relations, and exotic cultures from China. For Chinese scholars, these themes could boost a positive image of China and promote friendly relations. For Sinlapawatthanatham, these themes were marketable and could be used as reinforcement for its cause in reorienting Thai history. Articles written by Chinese scholars were used to reinforce the “Chinese of Thailand” discourse through writing the Chinese into Thai history. As Thai scholars used King Taksin as a cultural icon to renegotiate the Chinese place in the Thai nation, articles on the king written by Chinese scholars were welcomed. Beginning in 1983, an article titled “Changlin Bay in Chenghai District and the First Phase Teochew Migrants to Thailand” written by Duan (1983) of SYU ISEAS was published in Sinlapawatthanatham. It narrated the story of the large-scale Teochew migration during the late Qing Dynasty from Changlin Bay to Thailand. Among the crowd of migrants was King Taksin’s father. The article devoted a section to discussing King Taksin as the epitome of the Chinese descendants’ contribution to and identification with the Thai nation. A few years later, Sinlapawatthanatham published another of Duan’s articles. This time, it made King Taksin’s Chineseness even more outstanding. In “King of Thonburi and the Chinese Emperor,” Duan (1985) focused on two issues: the king’s Chinese origin and his relationship with Qianlong. The article was published while there was a heated debate going on in Sinlapawatthanatham on the king’s ethnic background. Using Chinese historical sources and fieldwork experience visiting the king’s ancestral hometown in Chenghai where the king’s cenotaph containing his clothes was, Duan proved the king’s Chinese ethnicity. It thus closed the debate on the king’s ethnicity case that was controversial among the Thai. In addition,

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it silenced the Thai conservatives, who found it unacceptable to acknowledge the Chinese ethnicity of a Thai national hero. The article also emphasized cordial SinoThai relations. Interestingly, it argued that having Burma as a common enemy was a significant factor uniting Qianlong and Taksin. Be it a historical coincidence or a political manipulation of history, the discussion of Taksin’s reign was done in the context when Thailand and China had Vietnam and the Soviet Union as common enemies. The past was used to mirror the present and insist on the significance of the Thai and Chinese cooperation against a common enemy. Apart from King Taksin’s issue, articles from China emphasizing the Chinese economic contribution to the Thai nation were published in Sinlapawatthanatham. An article entitled “The Cause of Chinese Migration to Thailand and Their Economic Activities” written by Wang (1987) of the Yunnan ISEAS mentioned earlier was published. In making use of this article to reinforce “the Chinese of Thailand” discourse, Sujit printed an excerpt from the article and used it as a headline to broadcast the Thai and the Chinese as “We” against the Western “Other.” It read: Thailand was faced with a labor shortage problem. The Chinese migration to Thailand solved this problem. This situation happened when Thailand and China were invaded (rukran) by western capitalists. Chinese migrants were neither colonialists nor conquerors like them. On the contrary, they were workers and contributors. (Wang 1987, p. 112)

Following the publication of Wang Xiaoyan’s article, and based on his lecture at Thammasat University, “The Teochew in Thailand” written by Wang (1988) of Jinan University was published. The article reproduced the plot on the Chinese in Thailand laid by Wang Xiaoyan on Sino-Thai friendly relations and the Chinese economic contribution to Thailand. The only difference was Wang Mianchang’s focus on the Teochew. For Wang Mianchang, the Teochew “have always felt grateful to the Thai nation. They are obedient royal subjects and good citizens who have contributed to the nation in various ways including fighting against foreign enemies” (Wang 1988, p. 56). In utilizing Wang Mianchang’s article to reinforce the “Chinese of Thailand” discourse, Sujit used the same tactic employed in Wang Xiaoyan’s article. Again, Sujit used an excerpt focusing on the Chinese as a part of Thai society as a headline, “The Ayutthaya court never saw the Chinese as outsiders. The Chinese were perceived as reliable insiders” (Wang 1988, p. 53), underlining the Chinese identification with the Thai nation.

6.8 Conclusion In his landmark article on the changing landscape of Thai historiography in the 1980s, Thongchai Winichakul (1995), a noted Thai historian, once observed that “there is no authoritative work in Thai on the Chinese overseas in Thailand which can nurture a sense of communal history” (p. 116). However, despite having no authoritative work, there were many scattered works which, when combined together, could nurture a sense of communal history for the Chinese in Thailand. Furthermore, to look at how

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this sense of communal history has been formed, it is necessary to put these scattered works in the changing context of Sino-Thai relations in the 1980s. At the center of Sino-Thai relations in the 1980s, the construction of the meaning of being Chinese in Thailand through historical scholarship provided an impetus for nurturing a sense of community among the Chinese in Thailand as a significant part of the Thai nation. Seeing Sino-Thai relations as a sophisticated link between politics, history, and scholars, this chapter argues that the cordial relations between Thailand and China from the 1980s onwards could not be sustained without the constant reinforcement of historical narrative emphasizing the Chinese in Thailand as an agent of goodwill who contribute to the Thai nation as Thai of Chinese ancestry—not foreign Chinese. The Sinicization of Thai history and Thai identity that occurred in tandem with the Thai-ification of the Chinese in Thailand by Thai and Chinese scholars alike played an important role in Sino-Thai diplomatic relations. In this sense, it seems that Sinicization and Thai-ification are the two sides of the same coin. The construction of “Chineseness” either in or outside China is always an intricate process that has multi-layers and involves not only Chinese but others as well. Hence, to understand the multiple and constantly changing meanings of being Chinese, it is necessary to go beyond a Sino-centric approach that confines the analytical framework to political elites in Beijing and China’s territory.

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Lin, F. (1996). Waduai ‘saisamphan ha laksana’ lae sangkhom chaochin phonthalae nai Thai [On ‘five relations’ and Chinese overseas society in Thailand]. In Supang C. & Vorasak M. (Eds.), Chaochin Taechio naiprathet Thai lae nai phumlamnao doem thi Chaosan [The Teochew people in Thailand and in their native land of Chaoshan] (Vol. 2, pp. 95–116). Bangkok: Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University. Nidhi, E. (1982). Watthanatham kradumphi kap wannakham ton Rattanakosin [Bourgeoisculture and early Bangkok literature]. Bangkok: Thai Khadi Research Institute, Thammasat University. Nidhi, E. (1986). Kanmueang thai samai Prachao Krung Thonburi [Thai politics in the reign of King Thonburi]. Bangkok: Sinlapawatthanatham. Paichit, U. (1966). Sangkhom Thai lae kansueksa phaen tawantok [Thai society and Western education]. Sangkhomsat Parithat, 4(3), 7–21. Prince Narisara Nuvadtivongs. (2009). Banthuek khwamru rueangtangtang [Notes on knowledge], (Vol. 1, 3rd ed). Bangkok: Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa Foundation. Puangthong, P. (2006). Songkhram Wiatnam: Songkhram kap khwamching khong “RatThai” [Vietnam War: War and truth about the “Thai state”]. Bangkok: Khopfai. Ranson, D. (1974). Chakkawatniyom thang phasa [Linguistic Imperialism]. Trans. Songyot Waewhong. Sangkhomsat Parithat, 12(7), 45–50. Rattanaporn, S. (1998). Khrongkan pramoen sathanaphap tai sueksa: Ekkasan prakop kanprachum sanoe phon kanwichai, lem 10 prawatsat [Evaluating Tai Studies Project: Proceeding from the Presentation of Research Findings, No.10 History]. Bangkok: Thai Studies Center, Chulalongkorn University. Sarup ekkasan kho phitcharana khong khanakammakan wang phaen khong saphakhwammankhong haeng chat No. 6/2508 rueang nayobai kiaokap khon chin laeluk chin nai prathet Thai [Synopsis of the document reviewed by the National Security Council No. 6/2508 on a policy towards the Chinese and their descendants in Thailand]. Kanprachum khana rattamontri [Ministerial meetings]. Kanborihan ratchakan [Government administration]. M.L. PIN; SB 5.1.1/414 box 90, National Archives of Thailand. Sittithep, E. (2012). Kabot chinchon bon thanon Phlapphlachai [The rebellion of the Chinese commoners on Phlapphlachai Road]. Bangkok: Matichon. Sittithep, E. (2020). The Social and Political Lives of G. William Skinner and Chinese Society in Thailand. In Y.K. Chan & F. Chen (Eds.), Alternative Representations of the Past: The Politics of History in Modern China (pp. 85–118). Berlin: De Gruyter. Skinner, G. W. (1957). Chinese society in Thailand: An analytical history. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Srisak, V. (1986). Introduction to ThidaSaraya. In Prawatsat thongthin [Local history]. Bangkok: Muang Boran. Suchat, S. (1970a). Kanwichai wichakan rue kancharakam [Academic research or academic espionage]. Sangkhomsat Parithat, 8(3), 3–5. Suchat, S. (1970b). Khamprakat khong khwamrusuekmai [The declaration of a new sentiment]. Sangkhomsat Parithat, 8(2), 3–5. Sujit, W. (1984). Khonthaimaidai ma chaknai? [The Thai did not come from somewhereelse?] Bangkok: Chaopraya. Sujit, W. (1987). Chek pon Lao [A mixture of Chek and Lao]. Bangkok: Sinlapawatthanatham. Sulak, S. (1994). Konkhaosu chin pen krangti hok [Prior to the sixth visit to China]. In Khod klet mangkon [Scrape off the dragonscale], pp. 1–9. Bangkok: Kledthai. Supang, C., & Vorasak, M. (Eds.) (1991). Chaochin Taechio nai prathet Thai lae nai phumlamnao doem thi Chaosan [The Teochew people in Thailand and in their native land of Chaoshan] (Vol. 1). Bangkok: Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University. Supang, C., & Vorasak, M. (Eds.) (1996). Chaochin Taechio nai prathet Thai lae nai phumlamnao doem thi Chaosan [The Teochew people in Thailand and in their native land of Chaoshan] (Vol. 2). Bangkok: Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University.

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Suthy, P. (1983). Thitsadi setthasat patthanakan: Khronkop thang udomkan khong rabop thunniyom lok [Theory of economic development: Ideological hegemony of global capitalism]. Setthasat Kanmueang, 2(3), 47–68. Thandon, T. (1973). Naenam Satharanarat Prachachon Chin/Palang nak sueksa. [Introducing the People’s Republic of China/Student power]. Sangkhomsat Parithat, 11(12), 103–106. Thanet, C. (1974). Ananikhom thang panya: A.F.S. cha yup rue mai yup [Intellectual colonialism: A.F.S. abandon it or not?]. Sangkhomsat Parithat, 12(7), 51–55. Theerawet, P. (1972). Nakwichaisailap rue nakwichai wichakan [Academic spy or academic researcher]. Sangkhomsat Parithat, 10(3), 12–17. Thongchai, W. (1995). Changing landscape of the past: New histories in Thailand since1973. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 26(10), 99–120. Tong, C. K., & Chan, K. B. (Eds.). (2001). Alternate identities: The Chinese of contemporary Thailand. Singapore: Brill Academic Publishers; Times Academic Press. Tongxunyuan [Correspondent]. (1984). ‘Taiguo yanjiu’ guoji xueshu taolunhui yu liang wei zhongguo xuezhe [Thai Studies, international conference and two Chinese scholars]. Dongnanya, 4, 61–62. Vipha, U. (1974). Li Dazhao. Sangkhomsat Parithat, 12(12), 71–80. Wang, M. (1988). Khonchin Taechio nai prathet Thai [The Teochew in Thailand]. Trans. Sukhon Arunlamleut. Sinlapawatthanatham, 9(8), 52–59. Wang, X. (1982). Huaren yimin ju Taiguo de yuanyin jiqi jingji huodong [The cause of Chinese immigration to Thailand and their economic activities]. Yunnan ShehuiKexue, 6, 91–98. Wang, X. (1987). Sahet thi chaochin opphayop phai yuthi mueang Thai lae kitchakham thang setthakit [The cause of Chinese migration to Thailand and their economic activities]. Trans. Pasan Pattharawan. Sinlapawatthanatham, 8(3), 112–120. Warin, W. (1970). Panha samkhan khong nganwichai nai prathet Thai [Important issues for research in Thailand]. Sangkhomsat Parithat, 8(3), 18–28. Wasana, W. (2009). From Yaowaraj to Plabplachai: The Thai state and ethnic Chinese in Thailand during the Cold War. In T. Vu & W. Wasana (Eds.), Dynamics of the Cold War in Asia: Ideology, identity, and culture (pp. 165–186). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Wenhuabu wailianju. (2003). Zhongtai wenhua jiaoliu de tedian he wenti (di babu fen) [SinoThaicultural communication features and problems]. In L. Chen (Ed.), Taizu qiyuan yu Nanzhaoguo yanjiuwenji [A collection of research on the origin of the Tai and Nanchao kingdom] (Vol. 3, pp. 16–17). Beijing: Zhongguo shuji chubanshe. Wittayakon, C. (1970). Panha khong khon numsao nai lok thi sam [Youth problem in the third world]. Sangkhomsat Parithat, 8(2), 12–16. Yunnansheng lishi yanjiusuo. (2003). Zhu Taiguo Dashi Chai Zhemin lai wosuo zuotan [The Chinese Ambassador to Thailand Chai Zhemin came to our institute for discussion]. In L. Chen (Ed.), Taizu qiyuan yu Nanzhaoguo yanjiuwenji [A collection of research on the origin of the Tai and Nanchao kingdom] (Vol. 2, pp. 226–227). Beijing: Zhongguo Shuji Chubanshe. Zhang, Y. (1996). Phon krathop chak phaithammachat lae khwamwunwai thang sangkhomthimi to kan-opphayop khong prachakon amphoe Choenghai [Impact from natural disaster and social chaos towards migration in Chenghai]. In Supang C. & Vorasak M. (Eds.), Chaochin Taechio nai prathet Thai lae nai phumlamnao doem thi Chaosan [The Teochew people in Thailand and in their native land of Chaoshan] (Vol. 2, pp. 31–40). Bangkok: Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University. Zou, Q. (2003). Guanyu Taiguo gudaishi he Zhongtai guanxi ruogan wenti de bianxie tigang [Anoutline of several questions relating to ancient Thai history and Sino-Thai relations]. In L. Chen (Ed.), Taizu qiyuan yu Nanzhaoguo yanjiu wenji [A collection of research on the origin of the Tai and Nanchao kingdom] (Vol. 2, pp. 228–234). Beijing: Zhongguo Shuji

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Sittithep Eaksittipong is a lecturer at the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, Chiang Mai University. Sittithep received his BA in Political Science (International Relations) from Chulalongkorn University, MA in History from Chiang Mai University, and Ph.D. in History from the National University of Singapore with the support from Harvard-Yenching InstituteNational University of Singapore Joint Doctoral Scholarship. He was a research fellow at HarvardYenching Institute during the 2016–2017 academic year. Sittithep’s research interests lie in Chinese Overseas, transnational and cross-cultural contacts between China and Southeast Asia, particularly between China and Thailand.

Part II

Negotiating Chineseness in Southeast Asia

Chapter 7

Rethinking the Position of Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia Wu-Ling Chong

7.1 Introduction Southeast Asia has the largest number of ethnic Chinese outside China. According to Rigg (2003), of the 25–30 million ethnic Chinese around the world, about 23.9 million of them live in Southeast Asia. This is due to the proximity of Southeast Asia to China. With the exception of Singapore, ethnic Chinese are a minority in Southeast Asian countries. Nevertheless, it has been widely acknowledged that ethnic Chinese have played an essential role in the economic development of Southeast Asia (Suryadinata 2001; Yen 2008). Historically, in Thailand and the Philippines, the Chinese were well assimilated into the indigenous population and enjoyed a better and more secure economic position. In some other countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, the Chinese are still perceived as an alien minority and experience various discriminations. It is also worth noting that in Singapore, although ethnic Chinese are the majority, the role and importance of the Chinese language were downplayed by the People’s Action Party (PAP) government led by English-educated Chinese who prioritized the use of English in government and business since their independence in 1965. For instance, the PAP government, which was anti-communist, perceived Nanyang University—the only Chinese-medium university in Singapore as well as Southeast Asia—as a hotbed of communism and eventually merged the university with Singapore University to form the National University of Singapore, with English as the medium of instruction for most programs in 1980 (Kwok and Chia 2012). This chapter discusses the political, social and economic positions of the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia in the historical and contemporary contexts. By reviewing major literature on ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and other related works, this chapter analyzes the factors that shaped their position.

W.-L. Chong (B) University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_7

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The rest of this chapter is organized into five sections. The first section examines the factors that shaped the political, social and economic positions of the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia during the pre-colonial and colonial period. The second section covers the post-independence period that saw the rise of indigenism in political, social and economic aspects, as well as the breakout of the Cold War. The third section discusses how the normalization of diplomatic relations between Southeast Asian countries and China in the 1980s–1990s has improved the situation of ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and led to the revival of Chineseness in the region. The fourth section focuses on the intensification of the Great China complex (大中華情 結) among some ethnic Chinese in the region, the growing issue of China’s threat towards academic and journalistic freedom, as well as the negative consequences. The fifth section is the conclusion.

7.2 Pre-colonial and Colonial Period In the pre-colonial period, Chinese migrants had come to and settled in Southeast Asia for trading purposes (Reid 1993). Many local rulers appointed Chinese merchants as intermediary traders dealing with the indigenous population and external markets. Due to the status of the Chinese as “a minority without a local homeland,” these local rulers “preferred the Chinese to indigenous people to fill this occupational niche in order to prevent the rise of an indigenous merchant class that might challenge their position” (Chong 2018, p. 25). In pre-colonial times, the Chinese were generally well integrated into the indigenous population through assimilation and intermarriage (Wertheim 1964). After the colonization of many parts of Southeast Asia by Western powers, however, some colonial regimes enforced the divide-and-rule policy to prevent the Chinese and the indigenous people from combining forces to challenge them. The most notorious example was the separation of the population of the Indonesian archipelago according to their ethnicity enforced by the Dutch colonial regime. According to Mona Lohanda (1996), during the rule of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Dutch classified the population in the Indonesian archipelago into westerners (Europeans) and non-westerners (non-Europeans) and, on a religious basis, Christians and non-Christians. All Chinese from different speech groups such as Hokkien, Hakka and Hainanese were classified as Chinese. The VOC appointed local headmen to rule non-western ethnic groups, respectively (Lohanda 1996). After the fall of the VOC in 1800 due to corruption and mismanagement, Indonesia was under the direct rule of the Dutch regime. Later in 1854, the colonial regime divided the population of Indonesia into three groups, i.e., Europeans who formed the upper level, Foreign Orientals which included Chinese, Arabs, Indians and Japanese living in Indonesia who formed the middle level and the indigenous population who formed the bottom level (Govaars 2005; Shiraishi and Shiraishi 1993; Suryadinata 1993). In addition, in order to prevent the Chinese and the indigenous people

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from uniting, the Dutch further separated the Chinese and indigenous population by introducing zoning and pass systems in 1835 and 1863, respectively. Both systems required the Chinese to live in restricted areas and prohibited them from traveling out of these areas unless they had applied for passes beforehand (Suryadinata 1993). These systems effectively restricted interaction between the Chinese and the indigenous population. I have mentioned elsewhere the impact of such a divide-and-rule policy on the position of the Chinese minority in Indonesian society: The Chinese therefore began to occupy an ambivalent position in Indonesian society during Dutch rule. On the one hand, they played a crucial role in the colony’s economic development. On the other hand, the Chinese began to be perceived as the ‘Other’ because of this and were increasingly regarded with suspicion and prejudice by the indigenous majority. (Chong 2018, p. 27)

The Spanish colonial regime in the Philippines also imposed a similar racial segregation policy upon the Chinese population in the colony. As Ang See (2008) notes, the Spanish required the non-Christian Chinese to reside in restricted areas known as the Parian enclave and travel passes were required for them to travel out of these areas. However, ethnic Chinese who were Christians and those married to the indigenous people were allowed to reside outside the Parian. In French Indochina that covered the present-day Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, the colonial regime passed a law in 1871 that required all Chinese to become members of one of the seven Chinese congregations, i.e., Chinese clan associations recognized by the colonial regime, if they wanted to stay in the colony. These Chinese congregations included Canton, Fujian, Hakka, Hainan, Chaozhou, Fuzhou and Quanzhou (Barrett 2012). The French also promoted a separate status for the Chinese community (Tran 1993). The Chinese were allowed to engage freely in rice, opium and alcohol industries. They were also allowed to own land, to return to China for a visit and to transfer their wealth out of the colony (Tran 1993). All these policies had not only minimized the interaction between the Chinese and the indigenous people, but had also led to the emergence of prejudice and hostility among the indigenous people towards the Chinese, as suggested by what happened in the Dutch East Indies. In British Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo and Portuguese Timor, although the colonial regimes did not confine the Chinese in their exclusive enclaves, they perpetuated the division of labor based on ethnicity in the colonies. The colonial regimes allowed the Chinese to dominate trade and commerce as most indigenous people were largely engaged in agriculture or civil service. But there was a difference in ethnic relations between the Chinese and the indigenous population in British Malaya and Singapore in comparison with North Borneo and Portuguese Timor: In Malaya and Singapore, as very few Chinese believed in Islam, which was the religious belief of most indigenous people, especially the Malays, intermarriage between the Chinese and the indigenous people was rare (Tan 2000). Thus, the Chinese overall remained significantly segregated from the indigenous majority and still keep most Chinese traditions, customs and languages. In North Borneo and Portuguese Timor, however, the majority of indigenous people were Christians or believers of animism. The Chinese could still maintain most Chinese traditions and

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customs such as ancestor worship and pork eating after marrying the indigenous people. In addition, the relations between the Chinese and Timorese in rural areas were closer compared to their counterparts in cities as “some intermarriage took place between Chinese men and Timorese women” (Dunn 2003, p. 9). It can therefore be said that the relations between the Chinese and the indigenous people in North Borneo and Portuguese Timor were generally closer than those in British Malaya and Singapore. In British Burma, although many Chinese also engaged in trade and commerce, their role in those sectors was not as dominant as the Indian minority (Than 1997). Therefore, the hostility of the indigenous population towards the Chinese due to economic factors was not as strong as that towards the Indians. Moreover, as Than (1997) notes, the Chinese were “socially more acceptable to Myanmar than other foreigners…because of racial affinity, language affinity with the Shan, one of the native races, and the ethnic Chinese’ [sic] easy adoption of Myanmar language, dress and local customs” (p. 130). In addition, most Chinese and Burmese were Buddhists. While most places in the region fell to Western colonial rule between fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, Thailand remained independent. The lack of the divideand-rule policy commonly implemented in some countries in the region, the same religious belief, i.e., Buddhism shared by the Chinese minority and the indigenous majority, and the kings’ encouragement to the Chinese to assimilate into the indigenous population, resulted in the relatively well integration of the Chinese into Thai society. Apart from the economic sector, the Chinese also played a crucial role in politics (Akira 2008; Sidel 2008; Skinner 1957, 1996). However, this did not mean that the Chinese in Thailand never encountered any prejudice and oppression from the government at all. In the early twentieth century, nationalist sentiments oriented toward China emerged within the Chinese community in Thailand after Sun Yat-sen ( 孫逸仙/孫中山) (1866–1925), a prominent political leader from China, paid a visit to the Chinese community in Thailand (Chantavanich 1997). Sun sought to rescue China that was invaded and plundered by the allied armies—an alliance of the armies of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA)—with the help from the overseas Chinese (Govaars 2005). The Chinese nationalist movement alarmed King Vajiravudh, or King Rama VI (reign: 1910–1925), the then Thai King. He published an article entitled “The Jews of the Orient” that employed slander and prejudice to suggest that the Chinese were not loyal to Thailand (Vatikiotis 1998, p. 221). The government later passed the Last Name Law in 1913 that required the Chinese to adopt Thai surnames when they became Thai citizens (Chantavanich 1997). After the 1932 coup that ended the absolute monarchy, the military regime excluded Chinese who were not Thai citizens from 27 professions (Vatikiotis 1998). Teaching in Chinese was either prohibited or only allowed in private schools for a limited number of hours. Chinese newspapers were also shut down but were later allowed to operate again (Chantavanich 1997; Vatikiotis 1998).

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7.3 Post-independence Period: The Rise of Indigenism and the Cold War Post-Second World War Southeast Asia saw the rise of nationalism in the region. Most countries in Southeast Asia gradually achieved independence following the end of the Second World War in August 1945. Nationalism in many newly independent Southeast Asian countries was centered on ethnic and cultural indigenism. As mentioned earlier, ethnic Chinese in many Southeast Asian countries were seen as an alien minority group that dominated the economy. The economic disparity between the Chinese and the indigenous majority gave rise to prejudice and hostility among the indigenous population toward the Chinese. In addition, due to the anti-communist politics associated with the Cold War, some governments in Southeast Asia perceived the ethnic Chinese as the potential “fifth column” for China who attempted to undermine the sovereignty and solidarity of the countries.1 As a result, some Southeast Asian countries introduced discriminatory measures against the ethnic Chinese. For instance, in November 1959, the Indonesian government issued the Presidential Decree No. 10 that prohibited alien Chinese from getting involved in retail trade in rural areas (Badan Koordinasi Masalah Cina-BAKIN 1979). Although the decree was officially only directed at Chinese without Indonesian nationality, in reality, many Chinese with Indonesian nationality were also subjected to the prohibition since the distinction between citizens and aliens was still unclear at that time (Hoon 2008).2 According to Huang (2000), in West Java alone, 9,927 Chinese were forced to move from rural areas to urban places. There were also Chinese who were sent back to or chose to leave for China (Mackie 1976; Thee 2006). After the military takeover in 1965, the Suharto regime in Indonesia perceived the Chinese minority as China- and communist-oriented and branded Chinese culture and the very existence of ethnic Chinese in the country as “the Chinese problem” (Allen 2003, p. 387; Hoon 2008, p. 37). Consequently, the Suharto regime forced its assimilation policy on the Chinese minority and prohibited the Chinese from openly expressing their ethnic and cultural identity. The Chinese were also urged to adopt indigenous-sounding names (Chua 2008; Coppel 1983, 2002; Suryadinata 1992, 1997). Hence, as Hoon (2008, p. 96) notes, the Suharto years are the “dark ages” for Chinese culture in Indonesia. In Malaysia, inter-ethnic riots between Chinese and Malays (the largest indigenous ethnic group in Malaysia) broke out on May 13, 1969. The riots were due to ethnic tensions after the 1969 general elections, the economic inequality gap between the Chinese and Malays, as well as the internal strife within the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the Malay party in power (Heng 1998; Kua 2007). After

1

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d.), the expression “fifth column” refers to a “clandestine group or faction of subversive agents who attempt to undermine a nation’s solidarity by any means at their disposal”. 2 For the background of nationality issues of Chinese in Indonesia, see Willmott (1961) and Coppel (1983, pp. 26–27).

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the riots, the government introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP), an affirmative action program in favor of the indigenous majority, in 1970. As Lee and Heng (2000) point out, during the NEP period, “large Chinese companies were required to restructure to allow for Malay equity participation” (p. 209). The government also reserved most licenses and contracts for Malays or state-linked Malay enterprises. In addition, various restrictions were also imposed on the Chinese for entry into civil service and public universities. Although the government-funded Chinese-medium primary schools in the country and never implemented assimilation policies to curtail Chinese culture, Chinese-medium secondary schools were left to operate privately and never received official recognition (Lee and Heng 2000). In the Philippines, all Chinese-medium schools were Filipinized in the early 1970s. The Chinese portion of the curriculum was considerably reduced. As a result, student skills in Chinese language declined significantly (Wickberg 1998). In Brunei, although many Chinese have lived in the kingdom for generations, only about 9,000 ethnic Chinese were given full nationality after independence in 1984. About 20,000 were only given “permanent resident” status and are considered “stateless”. Consequently, many Chinese have migrated to other countries (Tolman 2016; Zhao 2013). In Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, after the governments adopted socialism or communism in the 1960s and 1970s, despite the same religion of Buddhism that both the Chinese and the indigenous majority shared, the governments perceived the Chinese as comprador capitalists who exploited the local people and damaged the economy of the countries. The Chinese were either forced to leave the countries or faced various restrictions and discriminatory measures imposed upon them. In Myanmar, after the military takeover in 1962, the government declared the country a socialist state and took over private enterprises that were mostly owned by Indians and Chinese. This led to an exodus of more than 300,000 Indians and about 100,000 Chinese between 1963 and 1967. The government also shut down all Indianand Chinese-medium schools as well as newspapers (Lintner 1998). In Cambodia, under the rule of the Khmer Rouge (1975–1978) and the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) (1979–1989), the governments imposed forced assimilation on the Chinese minority. Chinese-medium schools, temples, organizations and cultural sites were eliminated. From 1979 to 1985, the PRK even prohibited the Chinese from joining the military (Sean 2012). In Laos, the Chinese minority suffered a serious setback after the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, or better known as the Pathet Lao, came into power in December 1975. The Pathet Lao was a communist party in Laos. Chinese-medium schools were shut down, and Chinese organizations’ activities almost came to a standstill. Chinese businesses also ceased operation as many Chinese quit the country. Those who stayed were mostly aged 40 and above or the very young. Anti-Chinese sentiments of the regime and the indigenous people forced the Chinese to keep a low profile. They observed Chinese festivals behind closed doors and never openly used Chinese languages (Ng 1998). In Vietnam, after the fall of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, to Hanoi’s army in 1975 and the reunification of the country in the following year as the Socialist

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Republic of Vietnam (SRV), the government carried out a series of anti-Chinese campaigns that led to the closing down of Chinese-medium schools, Chineselanguage newspapers, hospitals and voluntary associations (Li 1998; Pan 1998). Moreover, relations between Vietnam and China worsened during 1977–1979 due to the latter’s support of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which was hostile to Vietnam (Pan1998; Tran 1997). Many Chinese in Vietnam encountered harassment and persecution by the government. This resulted in the mass exodus of the Chinese between 1975 and 1979. According to Tran (1997), “about 230,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam for China and another 220,000 left for Southeast Asia by boat” (p. 276). In Singapore, as mentioned earlier, although Chinese are the majority ethnic group, the government led by English-educated and anti-communist Chinese perceived Nanyang University as a hotbed of communism. The government subsequently shut down the university in 1980 by merging it with Singapore University to form the National University of Singapore, using English as the main medium of instruction. Later in 1985, the government also converted all Chinese-medium schools (and other vernacular schools) in the country into English-medium schools.3 Chinese-educated graduates were marginalized and could not compete with English-educated graduates in the job market (Kwok and Chia 2012; Wee 2014).

7.4 Normalization of Relations with China and the Revival of Chineseness in Southeast Asia The restrictions and discriminatory measures imposed on the Chinese were only gradually relaxed following the normalization of diplomatic relations between Southeast Asian countries and China in the 1980s–1990s. The improvement in relations between Southeast Asian countries and China was closely associated with the rise of China as an economic power at the global level. Since its opening up to foreign direct investments in the late 1970s, its launch of the Going Global strategy in 1999 that encourages Chinese firms to invest abroad and its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, China has been experiencing rapid economic growth. Moreover, in 2013, China introduced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global development strategy that involves the participation of China in infrastructure development and investments in many countries across the world. China also pursues the establishment of friendly relations with Southeast Asian countries. Hence, most Southeast Asian governments no longer perceive China as an ideologically threatening country. As China becomes increasingly powerful economically, business connections between Southeast Asian countries and China also increase. 3 The Chinese language (read: Mandarin) became merely one subject that was compulsory for Chinese Singaporean students to take. This was in line with the government’s policy of bilingualism that compelled each Singaporean student to learn English and his or her “official mother tongue”—Mandarin for Chinese Singaporeans, Malay for Malay Singaporeans and Tamil for Indian Singaporeans. For more details about the language policy of Singapore, see Wee (2014) and Chua (2017, pp. 134–145).

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Some ethnic Chinese businesspeople in Southeast Asia play an important role in assisting the governments to establish economic ties with China as they are well connected to state officials and businesspeople in China (Chansiri 2008; Setijadi 2016). The normalization of diplomatic relations between Southeast Asian countries and China has significantly improved the situation of ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia. For instance, in Indonesia, after the fall of Suharto in May 1998 amid the Asian financial crisis, the new government has been pursuing friendly relations with China. The government abandoned Suharto’s forced assimilation policy and allowed the Chinese to openly express and celebrate their ethnic and cultural identities, as well as to get involved in politics. Likewise, the Chinese in Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have been allowed to establish Chinese-medium schools, Chineselanguage presses and Chinese organizations since the improvement in relations between those countries and China (Khin 2015; Sean 2012; Suryadinata 2013; Than 1997; Tran 1997).4 In 2008, Indonesia even saw the establishment of the Asian International Friendship Foreign Language College (Sekolah Tinggi Bahasa Asing Persahabatan Internasional Asia [STBA-PIA], 亞洲國際友好學院), the first and only tertiary institution in the country that offers a bachelor’s degree program in Chinese language. The college was founded by the North Sumatra Chinese Community Social and Education Association (MITSU-PSP), a coalition of Chinese organizations and Chinese community leaders in North Sumatra, and funded by Sin Chew Media Corporation Berhad, the largest Chinese publishing group in Malaysia and several Chinese organizations in North Sumatra (Chong 2018). In the mid-2000s, China also began to project its soft power across the world, including Southeast Asia, by establishing educational organizations known as “Confucius Institutes” (CIs) or “Confucius Classrooms” (CCs) in several countries (Shuto 2018; Suryadinata 2017). Hanban (漢辦) (also known as the Confucius Institute Headquarters), a public institution affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education, is in charge of the setting up of CIs and CCs (Suryadinata 2017). In Southeast Asia, CIs are usually set up in partnership with selected local universities in targeted countries while CCs are managed by local ethnic Chinese communities (Shuto 2018). The objective of CIs and CCs is to “spread knowledge of the Chinese language and culture across the world” (Suryadinata 2017, p. 182).5 Thus, these educational organizations offer courses on Chinese language and culture. The first CI in Southeast Asia was established in Thailand on March 31, 2005, at Kasetsart University (Confucius Institute Headquarters [Hanban] n.d.a). At the time of writing, there are 56 CIs/CCs in the region (see Table 7.1). Brunei and TimorLeste are the only countries in the region that have neither CI nor CC. As Suryadinata (2017) notes, “these differences show the limited and uneven success of Beijing in spreading its soft power in the Southeast Asian region” (p. 201). 4

It should be noted that Chinese-language newspapers in Laos are mostly imported from Thailand because Laos does not have its own Chinese-language newspapers due to the lack of capital and experienced journalists with strong Chinese language skills. See Yao (2013). 5 The Chinese language here refers to Mandarin, which is the official language of China.

Kong Zi Institute for the Teaching of Chinese Language at University of Malaya (July 8, 2009) Confucius Institute at SEGI University (July 15, 2014) Confucius Institute at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (November 13, 2018) Confucius Institute at Universiti Malaysia Pahang (November 14, 2018) Confucius Classroom at Pay Fong Middle School Malacca (October 25, 2017) Confucius Classroom at Fuxing Language and Chinese Class (February 15, 2008) Confucius Classroom at Fuqing Language and Computer School (February 3, 2008) Confucius Classroom at Eastern Language & Business Centre (November 25, 2013)

9

2

5

3

3

Indonesia

Laos

Malaysia

Myanmar

Singapore

Name of CI/CC and date of establishment

Confucius Institute at Nanyang Technological University (June 27, 2005) Confucius School in Singapore (March 19, 2007) Confucius Classroom at Crestar Education Group Pte. Ltd. (April 28, 2012)

Confucius Institute at National University of Laos (September 9, 2009) Confucius Institute at Souphanouvong University (November 16, 2017)

Kursus Mandarin BTIP (Bina Terampil Insan Persada) (September 28, 2007) Pusat Bahasa Mandarin at University of Al Azhar Indonesia (June 28, 2010) Pusat Bahasa Mandarin at Malang State University (June 28, 2010) Pusat Bahasa Mandarin at Maranatha Christian University (28 June 2010) Pusat Bahasa Mandarin at Universitas Negeri Surabaya (June 28, 2010) Pusat Bahasa Mandarin at Tanjungpura University (June 28, 2010) Pusat Bahasa Mandarin at Hasanuddin University (June 28, 2010) Confucius Institute at Universitas Sebelas Maret (July 30, 2018) Tourism Confucius Institute at Udayana University (December 10, 2019)

Confucius Institute of Royal Academy of Cambodia (August 12, 2009) Confucius Institute at University of Battambang (December 5, 2018)

Number of CIs/CCs

2

Country

Cambodia

Table 7.1 Confucius Institutes (CIs)/Confucius Classrooms (CCs) in Southeast Asia (Confucius Institute Headquarters [Hanban] n.d.a, n.d.b)

(continued)

7 Rethinking the Position of Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia 133

Confucius Institute at Chulalongkorn University (August 9, 2006) Confucius Institute at Kasetsart University (March 31, 2005) Confucius Institute at KhonKaen University (March 16, 2006) Confucius Institute at Mae Fah Luang University (December 21, 2005) Confucius Institute at Chiang Mai University (July 11, 2005) Confucius Institute at Prince of Songkla University (February 23, 2006) Confucius Institute at Mahasarakham University (February 20, 2006) Confucius Institute at Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University (November 13, 2006) Confucius Institute of Suan Dusit Rajabhat University at Suphanburi (June 24, 2006) Confucius Institute at Phuket, Prince of Songkla University (March 1, 2006) Confucius Institute of Betong Municipality (February 19, 2006) Confucius Institute at Burapha University (November 20, 2006) Confucius Institute at Assumption University (September 4, 2014) Maritime Silk Road Confucius Institute (April 28, 2015) Confucius Institute for Traditional Chinese Medicine at Huachiew Chalermprakiet (November 25, 2015) Maritime Silk Road Confucius Institute at Phranakhon Rajabhat University (December 22, 2017) Confucius Classroom at Srinakorn School (November 21, 2008) Confucius Classroom at Chltralada School (November 21, 2008) Confucius Classroom at Rayong Wittayakorm School (November 21, 2008) Confucius Classroom at Suankularb Wittayalai School (November 21, 2008) Confucius Classroom at Swang Boriboon Witaya School (November 21, 2008) Confucius Classroom at Lampang Kanlayanee School (November 21, 2008) Confucius Classroom at Nawamintharachinuthid Horwang Nonthaburi School (November 21, 2008) Confucius Classroom at Xingmin School Phitsanulok (November 21, 2008) Confucius Classroom at Phuket Wittayalai School (November 21, 2008) Confucius Classroom at Assumption Commercial School (November 21, 2008) Confucius Classroom at Traimit Wittayalai High School (March 10, 2006)

27

(continued)

Name of CI/CC and date of establishment

Number of CIs/CCs

Country

Thailand

Table 7.1 (continued)

134 W.-L. Chong

Number of CIs/CCs

4

1

Country

The Philippines

Vietnam

Table 7.1 (continued)

Confucius Institute at Hanoi University (October 14, 2013)

Confucius Institute at Ateneo de Manila University (October 30, 2006) Confucius Institute at Bulacan State University (July 11, 2007) Confucius Institute at Angeles University Foundation (October 27, 2009) Confucius Institute at the University of the Philippines (December 7, 2014)

Name of CI/CC and date of establishment

7 Rethinking the Position of Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia 135

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The establishment of CIs/CCs in the region is also not necessarily smooth. For instance, according to Theo and Leung (2018), as early as in 2004, the Jakarta Chinese Language Teaching Center (BTIP-Bina Terampil Insan Persada), which was a private language institution, together with the Malang State University and Maranatha Christian University, already “discussed the idea of establishing CIs with the Indonesia Ministry of Education” (p. 6). Later in 2007, BTIP eventually established the first CI in the country known as the Jakarta BTIP Kongzi Institute or Kursus Mandarin BTIP in Indonesian in collaboration with Hainan Normal University.6 Not long after that, when the two aforementioned universities were about to launch their CIs, the Indonesian government suddenly “issued an order to suspend the launches” due to political sensitivity about the Chinese issues (Theo and Leung 2018, p. 6). It was only in 2010, namely three years later, that both the Indonesian and Chinese governments agreed to jointly establish CIs in six Indonesian universities, including the Malang State University and Maranatha Christian University by signing an agreement in Beijing on June 28 (Theo and Leung 2018). It is worth noting that while each CI is still known by its normal name in Mandarin, i.e., Kongzi Xueyuan, and Confucius Institute in English, its Indonesian name, Pusat Bahasa Mandarin (Mandarin Language Center) or Kursus Mandarin (Mandarin Course), does not have the word “Confucius” at all. Theo and Leung (2018) note that this was due to the Indonesian government’s concerns that some Indonesians might mistake the institute for a religious one since Confucianism is recognized as a religion in the country. The case of CIs in Indonesia clearly shows that the establishment of CIs/CCs in Southeast Asia is not without difficulties, and there is potential backlash from the local governments as well as citizens towards China’s soft power. In addition, although the regulations on the use of the Chinese language in Southeast Asian countries had been relaxed after the normalization of diplomatic relations between those countries and China, in general, the Chinese literacy of ethnic Chinese populations in the region (with the exception of Malaysia and Singapore) remains low, and many Southeast Asian countries do not have enough Chinese-language teachers, thanks to the past policy of restriction on the Chinese language (Suryadinata 2017). According to Liu Fangbin (2016) from China’s Central Institute of Socialism, as of 2016, the shortage of Chinese-language teachers in Southeast Asia reached around 30,000–40,000. Furthermore, at least 65% of the Chinese-language teachers in Indonesia were 65 years old and above (Liu 2016). Hoon and Kuntjara (2019) observe that apart from those who are from the Chinese-speaking older generation Chinese Indonesians, other local Chinese-language teachers in post-Suharto Indonesia are either young indigenous graduates majoring in Chinese language from Indonesian universities or Chinese-speaking younger generation Chinese Indonesians who studied overseas, particularly in China. On the one hand, the knowledge of the language among the young indigenous graduates is allegedly “shallow” and “may not surpass the high school level in a Chinese-medium school”; on the other hand, there are very few Chinese-speaking younger generation Chinese Indonesians who 6

But according to Hoon and Kuntjara (2019), the Jakarta BTIP Kongzi Institute is considered unofficial as it is not affiliated with any university.

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are interested in becoming teachers because their “Chinese competency could fetch them a higher-paying job in private enterprise” (Hoon and Kuntjara 2019, p. 590). To solve this problem, some schools or higher education institutions recruited teachers from China to teach the Chinese language in their countries. The recruitment was either conducted on their own or with the assistance of the Chinese government. For instance, every year the Chinese government sent about 100 paid teachers and volunteer teachers to teach Chinese language in Indonesia. This effort is carried out through the Hanban and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (also known as Qiaoban) (國務院僑務辦公室 or 僑辦). However, this still does not meet the high demand for Chinese-language teachers in the country (Hoon and Kuntjara 2019). Moreover, recruiting Chinese-language teachers from China only partially solved the problem because of language and cultural barriers between the teachers and students. The teaching of the Chinese language did not turn out to be as effective as expected since the teachers encountered difficulties in communicating with the students. Hence, the rise of China and the subsequent liberalization on the use of the Chinese language in Southeast Asia have so far led to limited and uneven revival and enhancement of Chineseness among ethnic Chinese in the region.

7.5 The Intensification of Great China Complex (大 大中華情 結) and the Growing Threat of China Towards Academic and Journalistic Freedom The rise of China as an economic power at the global level has no doubt bolstered the ethnic identity of many Chinese in Southeast Asia (although still limited and uneven), especially those who were Chinese-educated and aged 60 and above. At the same time, it has also intensified the “Great China complex”(大中華情結 or 中華情 結) among many Chinese in the region. The Great China complex refers to pro-China sentiments and the ideology that only a strong China could guarantee the interests of ethnic Chinese. To the knowledge of the author, at present there are very few scholarly works that examine in detail such a complex among ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia. One of them is Li Zhengxian’s (2009) book on the coverage of China in two Chinese-language newspapers in Malaysia. Li reveals that in general, Chinese-language newspapers in Malaysia give wide and positive coverage on China due to the pro-China sentiments among Chinese Malaysians. Such sentiments are due to the discriminatory policy imposed by the Malaysian government, on the one hand, and the rise of China, on the other hand: Due to the suppression and various discriminatory policies imposed by the Malaysian government on the ethnic Chinese, the Chinese began to feel upset and disappointed with the government. Such a big environment coincided with the rise of China. Hence, the ethnic Chinese who have been subjected to oppression in Malaysia began to have some imaginations of China and feel proud to be Chinese. Therefore, the experience of being discriminated by the unequal policies and the power-holders naturally generated a kind of ethnic pathos (民族

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悲情) among the ethnic Chinese. They long for a powerful China to ‘stand up’ (出頭) for them… (Li 2009, p. 112, author’s translation from Chinese original)

The term “Great China complex” has also been used by Joshua Hong Man Fatt (Mandarin: Tang Nan Fa, 唐南發), or better known as Josh Hong, a Chinese Malaysian political commentator, in describing the pro-China sentiments among the Chinese in Malaysia. He vividly describes the Great China complex among some Chinese Malaysians in his commentary article on the condemnation of several Chinese Malaysians to the 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests as follows: [The Chinese in Malaysia] have been politically vulnerable all this while. Their economic interest also declines gradually. Hence, it is easy for a mentality hoping for protection from an external and powerful China to grow among Chinese Malaysians. I tentatively call such a mentality the Great China complex. It is simply a constructed community, naively believing that members of a unified and reviving “Chinese nation,” regardless of where they are, are closely related with each other, and form a “community with a shared destiny.” (Tang [Hong] 2019, author’s translation from Chinese original)

I argue that Chinese-language presses in the region play a crucial role in spreading and intensifying such a complex. This can be seen from the extensive coverage on China in many Chinese-language newspapers in Southeast Asian countries—as shown in Li (2009) for the case of Malaysia, for example. They usually download and appropriate news on China from Xinhua News Agency (新華社) and China News Agency (中新社), state-owned news agencies in China. The Great China complex is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it has led to the revival and celebration of Chineseness among ethnic Chinese in the region, but on the other hand, those Chinese with such a complex identify China as their cultural motherland and strongly believe that a strong China will guarantee the interests of ethnic Chinese outside China. Hence, they have been strongly supporting the Chinese government’s policies, including those that violate human rights of Chinese citizens (such as the bloody crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests) and the Chinese government’s heavy-handed approach to Hong Kong after the city’s return to China in 1997. To make matters worse, in recent years, there has been a growing threat of China towards academic and journalistic freedom outside China.7 Hence, some Chinese-language newspapers in the region do not want to publish anything that is critical to the Chinese government as this may upset the Chinese government and readers who are pro-China. For example, in 2014, when a group of young Chinese Malaysian social activists jointly organized a series of events with Malaysiakini (an online news outlet in Malaysia) in commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the organizers received several phone calls from older generation Chinese Malaysians accusing them of being ignorant of the truth behind the incident and of attacking China despite being ethnic Chinese (Huang [Ng] 2014; “Zhongguo shiguan” 2014). 7

For such cases outside Southeast Asia, see He Qinglian’s (2019) book on the global expansion of China’s influence in the media of various countries and Clive Hamilton’s (2018) book on China’s threat towards Australia’s academic and journalistic freedom.

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Moreover, two plainclothes police officers, upon the Chinese Embassy’s request, visited the venue of the events to get more information of the events. Nevertheless, they did not stop the events from going on (“Zhongguo shiguan” 2014). But this example clearly illustrates the strong pro-China sentiments among older generation Chinese in Malaysia and also the growing threat of China towards civil society activities related to the issues of China, even if they are held outside China. Another example of the strong pro-China sentiments among older generation Chinese in Southeast Asia can be seen from the commentary entitled “Sanshinianqian Tiananmen shijianZhongguozhengfuguoduanxingweishi dui de!” (“Chinese government’s decisive action on Tiananmen Incident 30 years ago was right!”) published in Qiandao Ribao (also known as Harian Nusantara) (The Archipelago Daily), one of the Chinese-language newspapers in Indonesia, on June 11, 2019. The commentary strongly supported the Chinese government’s violent suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. The author of the commentary was a Chinese Indonesian in his 80s but still working as a journalist for Qiandao Ribao. He labeled the protesters as “baotu” (“thugs”) and argued that if the Chinese government did not suppress the protests back then, China would not be as progressive as today (Zhuomuniao 2019).8 Another good example is the reactions of some Chinese, Chinese organizations and Chinese-language newspapers in some Southeast Asian countries towards the awarding of Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese writer cum human rights activist, in 2010. Liu actively advocated for political reforms and was involved in campaigns against communist one-party rule in China. He was consequently incarcerated as a political prisoner by the Chinese government in 2008 and remained behind bars until his death in 2017 (Ray 2019). In other words, Liu never had the opportunity to receive the Nobel award in 2010 as he was still in prison. According to Radio Free Asia, apart from prohibiting the mass media in China from reporting on the news, the Chinese government also pressurized the Chinese-language newspapers in Thailand to not reporting on the matter. As a result, all Chinese-language newspapers in Thailand did not publish any news article on the awarding of Nobel Peace Prize to Liu and refused to publish any advertisement that congratulated Liu (Qiao 2010). A similar incident also took place in Malaysia. Not long after the awarding of the prize to Liu, the Civil Rights Committee (CRC) under the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH), a well-established local Chinese organization, planned to hold a talk on the issue on October 20, 2010. The title of the talk was “Liu Xiaobo huojiang: Zhongguominzhu de lishijiyu?” (“Awarding Nobel Prize to Liu Xiaobo: Historical opportunity for China’s democratization?”) and the organizers invited three speakers to share their views on Liu’s award. Perhaps due to the sensitivity of the title, the Chinese Embassy in Malaysia interfered in the matter 8

“Zhuomuniao” is the pen name of the author of the commentary. His real name is Shen Hui Zheng (沈慧爭). He used to teach in pre-Suharto era Chinese-medium schools. He joined Qiandao Ribao as a journalist since the establishment of the newspaper in 2000 (Shen 2015). For the origins of the Tiananmen Square protests, see Oksenberg et al. (1990), Han and Li (1992) and Calhoun (1997). On the historical significance and influence of the movement on China’s subsequent development, see Wang (2019).

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and pressurized the organization into not holding the talk. But the organizers refused to cancel the talk. Instead, they proposed to postpone the talk and invited another speaker who was very pro-China and held the position of honorary president in the Malaysia-China Chamber of Commerce (MCCC). While the talk was eventually successfully held on October 29, 2010, the organizers encountered additional problems before the talk as two of the original speakers decided to withdraw from the talk because they were upset with the interference from the Chinese Embassy. Worse still, only two days before the talk, the additional speaker suddenly withdrew from the event due to “busy schedule.” Consequently, the organizers had to look for other speakers at the last minute, and they managed to get two speakers to join the talk (Li 2010; Li and Yang 2010; “Ye Zi Lin” 2010). The two aforementioned cases clearly illustrate China’s growing threat to journalistic and academic freedom. This is very similar to the Braga incident that took place in 2014 in which Xu Lin (許琳), the chief executive of the Confucius Institute Headquarters, ordered her staff to remove several pages that included information of Taiwanese academic institutions from the published abstracts for the European Association for China Studies (EACS) conference in Braga, Portugal. She claimed that the materials were “contrary to Chinese regulations” (Redden 2014, para. 4). The Great China complex is also vividly manifested in the reactions of many ethnic Chinese and Chinese-language newspapers in the region towards the ongoing Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests. In early 2019, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) introduced amendments to Hong Kong’s extradition laws that would allow local authorities to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China. Many Hong Kongers opposed the amendments as they believed “the changes would put them at the mercy of Chinese courts” (“Hong Kong protests” 2019). Since March 2019, several mass protests have been held and the participants include not only local pro-democracy political parties, social activists, university students and a few Christian churches, but also several civil servants (“Hong Kong protests” 2019; “Keeping the faith” 2019). In suppressing the protest movement, the police force has resorted to various human rights violations such as mass attacks on protesters, enforced disappearance and sexual violence against female protesters (Needham 2019; Palmer 2019). The protests and the police response have basically turned Hong Kong into a battlefield. Nevertheless, many ethnic Chinese and Chinese-language newspapers in Southeast Asia condemned the protesters without understanding the deepest concerns of the protesters, i.e., the potential erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy and rule of law. For instance, in Indonesia, the two major Chinese-language newspapers, Guoji Ribao (International Daily) and Qiandao Ribao, published few commentaries that condemned the protests. In Malaysia, the Facebook pages of local Chineselanguage newspapers and online news outlets such as Sin Chew Jit Poh, Oriental Daily and Malaysiakini’s Chinese version saw numerous comments of users that strongly supported the proposed amendments to Hong Kong’s extradition laws and the Hong Kong police’s suppression of the protests. They also labeled the protesters as troublemakers and “feiqing” (“廢青”), i.e., “useless youths” or “losers.”

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Moreover, a few Chinese organizations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, including the Lim Lian Geok Cultural Development Centre (林連玉基金) (hereafter LLG Cultural Development Centre) that was formed in 1995 to commemorate the contributions of the late Lim Lian Geok in Chinese education and citizenship right movements of Malaysia, initially planned to jointly organize a talk on social movements in Taiwan and Hong Kong by Professor Ho Ming-sho (何明修) from the National Taiwan University on November 10, 2019.9 However, on November 1, 2019, the organizers decided to cancel the talk because they thought it was “not a right time” to hold the event (Huang [Wong] 2019a). In fact, Ho later revealed that the cancelation of the talk was due to the pressure from the Chinese Embassy. At the end of October 2019, the Chinese Embassy in Kuala Lumpur contacted the LLG Cultural Development Centre requesting for the event to be canceled (Ho 2019).10 Nevertheless, Ho was still invited to give talks on the topic by a few other organizations led by young Chinese Malaysians including the Amateur (業餘者), Agora Society Malaysia (群 議社) and Cheng Khay Community Space (晴溪坊) (Huang [Wong] 2019b). Unlike other Chinese organizations in Malaysia that were mostly led by the older generation Chinese, these organizations were not influenced by the Great China complex because their founders subscribed to universal liberal principles of liberty and equality that transcended ethnicity. The aforementioned cases clearly imply not only the growing threat of China towards academic and journalistic freedom, but also how some Chinese, Chinese organizations and Chinese-language newspapers have been blinded by the Great China complex to the extent of supporting any policy and action of the Chinese government, even if it violates human rights.

7.6 Conclusion The above discussion shows that the position of ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia was shaped by multiple factors. Ethnic, cultural and religious differences did cause some prejudice among the indigenous people towards the Chinese, but this was always coupled with the economic disparity between Chinese and indigenous population. It is also worth noting that cultural and religious similarities between Chinese and indigenous population did not necessarily guarantee equal rights for the Chinese minority. This can be seen from the discriminatory measures and restrictions imposed upon the Chinese in Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the 1960s and 1970s. In those countries, the Chinese were mostly Buddhists, similar to their indigenous counterparts. However, during the Cold War period, after those countries 9

For more information of the contributions of Lim Lian Geok and the LLG Cultural Development Centre, see the web site of the Centre at https://llgcultural.com/en/. 10 Initially, Ho was also invited by the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya to give a talk. But the talk was also canceled after the LLG Cultural Development Centre canceled his talk (Huang [Wong] 2019b).

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adopted socialism or communism, the Chinese were perceived as comprador capitalists and subsequently encountered hostility and discrimination from the governments and indigenous population. The anti-communist politics associated with the Cold War also resulted in the perception of the Chinese minority as the potential “fifth column” for China among some governments in the region. The governments therefore imposed various restrictions upon the Chinese in order to control them. It was not until the opening up of the Chinese market to foreign investors and the subsequent normalization of diplomatic relations between China and most Southeast Asian countries that the discriminatory measures and restrictions previously imposed on the Chinese minority were relaxed. In order to establish economic ties with China, Southeast Asian governments need the assistance of ethnic Chinese businesspeople who are well connected to state officials and businesspeople in China. Many discriminatory policies towards the Chinese have been lifted so that they can contribute to the economic development of the countries. However, as mentioned earlier in this chapter, while the rise of China has led to the revival and enhancement of Chineseness (albeit limited and uneven) among ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia as well as indirectly improved their position, it has also brought some unintended negative consequences, i.e., the intensification of the Great China complex, especially among ethnic Chinese in Malaysia and Indonesia who are upset with the discriminatory policies imposed upon them by the local power holders, and the subsequent increase in the blind support of certain ethnic Chinese for the Chinese government. Moreover, the increasing threat of China towards academic and journalistic freedom outside China only makes the situation worse. These negative consequences, if left unaddressed, might threaten the position of the ethnic Chinese in the long run as the non-Chinese would perceive the Chinese as an ethnic group that is still loyal to China and unable to distinguish right from wrong.

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Wu-Ling Chong is a senior lecturer at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia. After earning her M.A. in Southeast Asian History at the University of Malaya, Wu-Ling studied at the National University of Singapore, where she obtained her Ph.D. in Sociology in 2014. Her Ph.D. research explores the role of ethnic Chinese Indonesians in shaping the democratisation process as well as their position in post-Suharto Indonesia across business, politics and civil society. Her thesis was published as a book entitled Chinese Indonesians in postSuharto Indonesia: Democratisation and ethnic minorities (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2018). Wu-Ling has published articles and book reviews in Asian Ethnicity, Pacific Affairs, Southeast Asian Studies, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (JSEAS), JATI—Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Sejarah, Sarjana and Borneo Research Journal (BRJ).

Chapter 8

Ethnic Identity and the Southeast Asian Chinese: Voices from Brunei Debbie G. E. Ho and Hannah M. Y. Ho

8.1 Introduction According to Phillips (1992), the dispersion or spread of the Chinese beyond China is one of the most extensive diasporas in the world today. Well-known historian Wang (1993) estimates that there are between 25 and 30 million Chinese migrants in the world, with four-fifths of them in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, he claims that the Chinese overseas are different from one another and that Chinese communities abroad do not have a common view of China. According to him, they respond differently to the expectations of their adopted lands. From the nineteenth century, there was mass emigration of Chinese (also known as the Chinese diaspora) from the coastal areas of southeastern China, namely Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan to Southeast Asia. There were push and pull factors for the mass emigration of Chinese to Southeast Asia. Starvation, poverty, foreign invasion and corruption back in China and the attraction of trade and business opportunities in the Southeast Asian countries were the motivating factors for this migration. From sources cited in Wang (1993) on the Nanyang trade, these Chinese migrants invested in Southeast Asia not only to make profits and feed their families back home but also to support the Chinese economy back in China, which they felt duty bound to do (Yong 1987). Initially, the idea was to return to China after making enough money, but after the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many of these migrants decided to settle down permanently in their adopted countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and so forth. Today, many ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia are citizens or permanent residents of these countries and see their future as contributing members of the local society. Once referred to as Huaqiao (Chinese sojourners), they now D. G. E. Ho · H. M. Y. Ho (B) Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei e-mail: [email protected] D. G. E. Ho e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_8

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describe themselves as Huaren (ethnic Chinese) and Huayi (Chinese descents) to show that they are no longer temporary settlers; they are now citizens or permanent residents of countries outside China (DeBernardi 1993). According to Suryadinata and Tan (1997), Huaren continues to be used today to refer to the Chinese living and working in Southeast Asia. Wang (1993) makes an important distinction between the terms overseas Chinese and Chinese overseas. Overseas Chinese, according to him, refers to Chinese nationals of China living and working overseas. On the other hand, Chinese overseas are Chinese who reside permanently as citizens and permanent residents of countries outside of China. The study in this chapter will use the term “Chinese overseas” to refer to the ethnic Chinese citizens and permanent residents in countries outside of China, including the Chinese Bruneians. Given the extensive diaspora of the Chinese in the Southeast Asian nations, the questions asked in this chapter echo those asked ten years earlier in Tong (2010) with regard to the notion of “Chineseness” among the Chinese in Southeast Asia: How do the ethnic Chinese in these countries describe themselves as Chinese? Would their conception of “Chineseness” be similar to the traditional Confucian or neoConfucian teachings that form the core of traditional Chinese values? How similar or different are they from the ethnic Chinese residing in other parts of the region? These questions have been discussed, debated and problematized over the years, and because of the complexity of influencing factors adding to ongoing debates over the definition of who or what a Chinese is, these questions continue to be asked today. Certainly, it would be interesting to find out to what extent the Chinese in Brunei support Wang’s (1993) claim that Chinese overseas are different from one another due to their allegiances to their respective local customs, norms and governments. It is recognized that any intellectual discourse on the Chinese ethnic identity will necessitate a discussion on the traditional Chinese cultural and moral values and how they have evolved over centuries of cultural, political and social changes from ancient to modern China. First and foremost, it is noted that when it comes to discussing the notion of Chineseness, there is no agreement among writers and researchers on who or what a Chinese is and what exactly constitutes Chineseness. And despite ample and well-documented literature on the Chinese people, Chinese identity is a “fragile identity (even) for the ethnic Chinese themselves” (Goodman 1997, p. 18). Indeed, in his paper on “Chinese identity” as a problem, Wang (2007) argues that it is not possible to come to an acceptable collective definition of the Chinese due to its diverse peoples and the wide range of dialects that are often not mutually intelligible between the dialect groups. Indeed, the topic of the Chinese identity has been problematized and politicized with no agreeable end in sight. Barth’s (1969) definition of an ethnic group’s identity is interesting in that instead of looking at identity in terms of “racial difference, cultural difference, social separation and language barriers, spontaneous and organised enmity” (p. 11), he believes that the central identity marker of ethnic groups should be the “culture-bearing aspects[…] the morphological characteristics of the cultures of which they are the bearers” (p. 12). According to Barth (1969), these are particular traits of a group’s culture that not only distinguish it from other groups, but also enable one ethnic group in different environments to retain its “basic cultural

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and ethnic unity over long periods” (p. 13). The culture-bearing aspects of an ethnic group may be a good approach both to describe the ethnic identity of the Chinese and to find out the similarities and differences between the Chinese in different parts of Southeast Asia. Zhang (2013), in writing about China’s cultural and moral values, claims that traditional Chinese values are the key factors for the Chinese psyche. In their study on the extent to which traditional Chinese values are affected by dramatic cultural changes in modern China among young Chinese in China, Hu et al. (2018, article 1799) conclude “that young Chinese still mentally associate traditional culture with moral value of interpersonal obligations despite large-scale modernisation.” There is also the sociological claim that traditional value systems, of which China is an example, do endure despite the pervasiveness of globalization and modernization in China (Inglehart and Baker 2000). The question is whether this is true for the Chinese who reside as citizens and permanent residents outside of China.

8.2 Traditional Chinese Values and Ethnic Identity Although the claim that ancient China is the oldest culture still existing today is debatable, solid evidences substantiate not only an ancient lineage of hominids and human beings in China but that it also has a highly sophisticated early culture (Mark 2012). One such evidence is the discovery of a Neolithic village near Xian called Banpo village. The design of the village and the artifacts and tools recovered from it show a very advanced culture at the time of construction. China’s early culture also led to the emergence of Chinese philosophy with influential philosophers such as Lao-Tzu, Confucius, Mencius and Mo Ti. All lived during the second half of the Zhou Dynasty (eighth–third century BCE). Chinese culture as a whole has been shaped by the influence of these intellectual leaders. China’s early culture led to a set of cultural and moral values expounded by one of China’s greatest philosophers, Confucius. He lived during the spring and autumn periods of China’s history (772–476 BCE), periods noted for advancements in philosophy, poetry and the arts. Confucian teachings became the driving force in the psyche of the Chinese. The key elements of his philosophy are on interpersonal obligations and particularistic role duties (Hwang 1998). Later, during the Song period, neo-Confucianism came into being. A vigorous revival of Confucianism, neo-Confucianism teachings developed to meet with the demands of a changing China and also competition from the rising religions of Buddhism and Daoism. Confucian thought and teachings were still central elements, but the issues emphasized by Confucian teachers changed to give these values new relevance. Confucianism or neo-Confucian teachings have had a powerful influence on the traditional cultural and moral values of China for centuries and are still very much observed by the Chinese today (Hu et al. 2018; Zhang 2013). According to Zhang (2013), the core Confucian values are harmony, benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, honesty, loyalty and filial piety. It is important to

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live in harmony with nature, with one’s neighbors and with the society one lives in. Confucianism holds that harmony should exist in five key relationships: between ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger, and friend and friend. Being benevolent toward one’s family members and blood connections and obligations is a core value of Confucianism. To be righteous is to seek what is beneficial to both the individual and society, and courtesy refers to respecting the laws of the country and the festivals such as Chinese New Year and Lantern Festival. Wisdom is the ability to distinguish right from wrong, to flee from evil and do good works. Honesty has to do with trustworthiness, integrity and credibility— moral virtues that are greatly valued by the Chinese. Then there is loyalty to the motherland where every effort is put into protecting one’s country as one would his home, including faithfulness to family and friends. Loyalty also means that one should put the state’s interests before personal interests. According to Ebrey’s (1984) translation of Family and Property in Sung China: Yuan Ts’ai’s Precepts for Social Life, the family is at the center of Confucian teachings. Family is seen as the basic unit of society, and thus, one should put family interests before personal interests. Filial piety is extended to ancestors, and younger family members are taught to observe rites such as making offerings of food and drink to their deceased ancestors. Children are highly valued in the Chinese family and are mentored and nurtured by older family members. Confucianism is not so much a religion but a way of life that has existed for centuries. Confucian values have been inculcated through education in China and among many Chinese overseas who received an education in Chinese schools.

8.3 Traditions, Culture and the Expression of Chineseness Among Southeast Asian Chinese Central to any discussion about the notion of Chineseness for the Chinese overseas in Southeast Asia are concepts such as assimilation, acculturation, integration, loyalty and how the ethnic Chinese differentiate themselves from those living in other parts of the region or from their homeland. Homeland here is defined in Kuhn (1997) as a combination of the physical, objective facts such as the Chinese revolution, the modern Chinese state and the subjective visions of China in the minds of the Chinese overseas. Perhaps it is useful to describe the Southeast Asian Chinese communities under Wang’s (1993) third group of Chinese overseas: locally born, educated in the national systems and are willingly or unwillingly assimilated into the national identity, are expected to help with nation-building, never sure of their future as ethnic Chinese and yet not fully accepted as loyal subjects in their adopted countries. They are also generally “not involved in the emergence of Greater China and would not be interested in furthering its cause” (pp. 945–946). How these Chinese navigate their Chineseness amid the local cultures and norms in their adopted countries continues to fascinate writers and researchers. Tong (2010,

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p. 1) wrote about the “multiple Chineseness” of Singaporean Chinese, even though the Chinese make up an estimated 76% of the total population (according to the Department of Statistics, Singapore). Although Singaporean Chinese identify themselves as Chinese in terms of birth, blood ties and other “primordial affinities and attachments… that a person …acquires at birth… (Isaacs 1975, pp. 30–31)”, he claims that the close-knit Chinese community in the old days has largely disappeared, and modern-day Chinese Singaporeans do not identify themselves according to Chinese culture and traditions. They are more diverse, individualistic and less communal, qualities that are more associated with the English-educated Chinese. In Ho and Ho (2019), the portrayal of young Singaporean Chinese women shows not so much a loss of ethnic identity as a conflicted one. They live in a westernoriented Southeast Asian country and are educated in English but come from deeply traditional Chinese families. Added to the complex situation of Singaporean Chinese is the recent influx of Chinese from China and their effect on the cultural landscape of this predominantly Chinese-populated city-state. According to Liu (2011), this state-initiated importation of Chinese from mainland China has brought about what Lee (2017) calls the new Chinese diaspora, which is happening elsewhere as well, including Brunei. This phenomenon, while new and interesting, will not be discussed further as it falls outside the scope of study in this chapter. Suffice to say that in Singapore, the new migrants and the associations formed to support them in their new country have established a transactional social sphere to help revive Chinese nationalism and link them to their homeland (Liu 2011). According to Zulueta (2007), where cultural and ethnic identity is concerned, Filipino Chinese have undergone various transformations in accordance with the social and historical changes in the country. Tan (1988) traced three generations of the Chinese in the Philippines and found the third generation to be more Filipino than the two previous generations because of greater exposure to the Filipino culture. The declining Chinese culture is evident even among the dominant Hokkien dialectspeaking community in the country. Young Chinese have fully integrated into the Filipino culture with Tagalog taking over as their first language. As a result, they cannot speak Hokkien. Still, there are indicators of a desire to stay connected with their Chineseness. One such indicator is the use of code-switching where they would switch between Tagalog (the standard Filipino language) and a smattering of Hokkien words/phrases when talking to other members in their dialect community. According to Zulueta (2007), it appears that code-switching is a conscious effort, first to express their Chinese cultural and ethnic identity and mark their integration into the larger Filipino community and second to differentiate themselves from the non-Chinese Filipinos. A similar situation is found in Thailand where presently, Thais of Chinese descent express a shift in ethnic identity from Chinese to Thai with a shift from their heritage languages to standard Thai. According to Lee (2014), Thai is the only language spoken at home and in public domains by the majority of ethnic Chinese there. They have integrated fully into Thai society, adopting Thai values, speaking Thai, going to Thai schools and celebrating Thai festivals. Tong (2010), however, argues that

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this assimilation into Thai culture is not straightforward, because at the same time, they also speak Chinese, worship their ancestors and join Chinese associations to maintain their identity. In short, they have maintained what is called a “bicultural layered identity” (Tong 2010, p. 4). It is also noted that not all Chinese communities are given freedom to practice or embrace their culture. In some Southeast Asian nations, ethnic Chinese communities experience challenges in maintaining their ethnic identity. They are treated as the “other,” the outsiders and where the “us versus them” distinction is clearly visible (Eriksen 1993). According to Wang (2007), “the Chinese always remains the Other” (p. 32). In Indonesia, for example, the Indonesian Chinese are not viewed as part of mainstream Indonesian society (Setijadi 2016). During Suharto’s administration, efforts were made to erase the Chinese identity altogether, such as the closing of Chinese-medium schools, newspapers and associations and the ban on celebrating any form of Chinese festivals. Although such measures to eradicate the Chinese identity have reduced over the years, Chinese Indonesians are still largely discriminated against and are not allowed to assimilate even if they wish to (Chua 2004). Despite these challenges, the Chinese still see themselves as Chinese and have developed multiple layered identities to survive as a community. Indonesian Chinese are adept at negotiating their identity in their daily lives (Hoon 2006; Tong 2010), compartmentalizing their private lives (as Chinese) and public lives (as Indonesians). In Myanmar, the Chinese remain a distinct community, despite adopting Burmese names, language and dress in an effort to integrate into Burmese society. Whether this integration is voluntary or coerced, the Chinese are considered as the “other” and viewed with suspicion by mainstream society (Maung 1990; Than 1997). The stigma attached to this ethnic group in Myanmar has resulted in a situation of “fragmentation, hostility and blatant discrimination” (Tong 2010, p. 170). The opposite is true for the Chinese in Vietnam, who tend to separate themselves from Vietnamese society and guard their Chinese identity closely. And because Vietnam was under Chinese rule for almost a thousand years, the Chinese there identify themselves as Chinese more readily because their ancestors were from China and so they have a clear idea of their identity as one born into a Chinese family with Chinese blood ties. Among the Vietnamese Chinese, “there is a high degree of resistance to intermarriage with a Vietnamese,” (Tong 2010, p. 192) and the older Chinese guard their Chinese identity more closely than the younger generation. This is a short review of the experiences of the Chinese living in Southeast Asia, but it provides some interesting insights into how their Chinese identity is being expressed. The taking on of bicultural layered and multicultural layered identities in order to integrate into local mainstream society while maintaining their traditions at the same time seems to be a way of negotiating their Chineseness. But the cost of such negotiation will surely be some loss of their cultural values and possibly lead to a transformation of the Chinese as an ethnic group. One could expect the evolution of Chineseness to be ongoing for the next few generations. On the other hand, the review also shows the adaptability and resilience of the Chinese to the surrounding environment. Their ability to hold onto traditions and rituals such as observing the Chinese festivals and worshipping of ancestors in the face of constraints

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and discrimination from the wider society must be appreciated. One is reminded by Wang (1993) that the assumption that most Chinese overseas have a shallow perspective of China or that they have little sense of their past history is not true in many countries, notably those in Southeast Asia. And according to Barth (1969), ethnic groups with a long history of culture and traditions behind them tend to hold onto their traditions for long periods despite the institutional constraints of local society. The question, however, is how long the Chinese overseas can hold on to their traditions and cultural identity, especially when they are constantly engaged and involved in the local customs, values and systems of their adopted “homes.”

8.4 The Ethnic Chinese in Brunei While there is a relatively prolific and well-documented intellectual and research literature on the Chinese in Southeast Asia, very little is known about the Chinese in Brunei, specifically those who are citizens and long-term settlers in this tiny Islamic sultanate on the north-western part of Borneo Island. The history between the Chinese and Brunei Darussalam (henceforth Brunei) dates back to the tenth century when China first made contact with Brunei and a flourishing trading relationship began between the two countries until the sixteenth century (de Vienne 2011). In the first wave of Chinese migration to Southeast Asia, the Nanyang trade route in South China Sea was a busy gateway for trade between the countries of Southeast Asia and the Chinese from the southern coastal states of China seeking to escape poverty, starvation and unrest back home (Wang 1993). In Brunei, as in many other Southeast Asian countries, the initial Chinese migrants took the opportunity to make enough money to support their families and economy back in China. Many ended up settling down and forming Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, Brunei included. The main exports of Brunei are oil and natural gas. In the 1970s and 1980s, many Chinese migrants went to work in Brunei. At the height of the oil-boom years, the Chinese population rose to 26% as it was a period when they could make a lot of money (de Vienne 2011). Furthermore, because of their commercial and business acumen, they decided to settle in Brunei. Today, their contribution to the country remains important, particularly in the trade and construction businesses. Chinese Bruneians are multilingual speakers of Chinese, English and Brunei Malay (a dialect of standard Malay spoken by the wider Bruneian community). In terms of Wang’s (1993) four groups of Chinese overseas, they fit into Wang’s (1993) third group of Chinese overseas mentioned earlier. And many young Chinese Bruneians may even fit into his fourth group—those who do not even identify themselves as Chinese. Chinese Bruneians come from a wide range of dialect groups. These dialect communities are scattered over the four main districts of the country. The biggest dialect group is the Hokkien, found largely in the Brunei-Muara district, which is also where the capital of Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan, is located. Also known as the Qemoy (from Kinmen and Xiamen in China), this dialect group came to Brunei in 1918 (de Vienne 2011). The Hakka, Cantonese, Hainanese and Fuzhou groups

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are found in Seria and Kuala Belait within the Belait district. Many of these dialect groups came from Sarawak in East Malaysia and settled in the town of Kuala Belait in the 1960s. These dialect groups are supported by their respective associations, whose main role is to keep Chinese traditions alive. This includes organizing cultural, festival celebrations and regular get-togethers. And apart from a small number of Chinese Christians, a large number of Chinese in Brunei are Buddhists and Taoists. In terms of population, the Chinese in Brunei exist as a small minority ethnic group against a backdrop of other ethnic groups. Brunei is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and has a diverse ethnic and linguistic landscape consisting of the indigenous and non-indigenous ethnic groups. The Brunei Malay community is the dominant indigenous ethnic group in Brunei. The Chinese are categorized under the non-indigenous groups. Even so, they attempt to carve out inclusive spaces for themselves within the national and Chinese communities (Ho 2020). According to the Department of Economic Planning and Development in the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the total population of Brunei currently stands at 442,400. The biggest and most dominant group is the Malay group (made up of seven indigenous ethnic groups) and constitutes 66% of the total population. The Chinese make up an estimated 10% (45,600) of the total population. The national and official language in Brunei is Malay, with Brunei Malay (a dialect of standard Malay) as the lingua franca for all the ethnic groups. There are two main languages spoken by Bruneians—Brunei Malay and English. English is a significant second language, if not a first language for a growing number of younger Bruneians. Considering that Brunei has a bilingual education system (Jones 1996; Jones et al. 1993), both Standard Malay and English are used as the medium of instruction at different levels in the school system. While Mandarin as a language is present to some extent (there is a daily Mandarin news broadcast), Chinese dialects are not promoted in the country. Although the older generation still speaks their dialects among themselves, the younger generation of educated Chinese families tends to use English and Mandarin in everyday intra-ethnic discourse. As a result, Chinese dialects are dying out in the country (Dunseath 1996; Ho 2008; McLellan et al. 2016). Most Chinese Bruneians are well integrated into mainstream Bruneian society. Chinese culture and traditions are not promoted in the country, but Chinese Bruneians are not forbidden to practice them. There is no local Chinese newspaper, but Chinese newspapers from neighboring East Malaysian towns are allowed to be distributed in the country. The Teng Yun Temple located in the center of the capital Bandar Seri Begawan is the hub of activities and festivals for the Chinese in Brunei. There are Chinese-medium schools set up over the four districts of the country, and although these schools follow the national learning curriculum, students are also taught traditional Chinese values.

8.5 Purpose and Research Questions The study in this chapter aims to find out how Chinese Bruneians see themselves as Chinese. Brunei may be part of Southeast Asia, but it has its particular cultural,

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social and political norms that will affect the Chinese living and working in the country. Presently, little is known or written about the ethnic Chinese here. The second purpose of the study is to widen the scope of discussion on the notion of Chineseness to include the viewpoints of everyday practicing Chinese whose definition of their identity may be based more on the traditions passed down to them by their parents and grandparents, and by watching how their elders live as Chinese, than on any scholarly knowledge of the subject. While questions about the Chinese identity and what makes a Chinese have been problematized, politicized and debated from the academic and intellectual platforms, it would be interesting to include the viewpoints of the common Chinese person in the street. This study seeks to provide an insider’s viewpoint on the issues of Chinese ethnic identity and values via individual and focus group interviews with Chinese citizens, permanent residents and long-term settlers of Brunei from different age groups, economic, social and educational backgrounds. Three questions are posed: (i) What characterizes a Chinese in terms of cultural and moral values? (ii) To what extent do these characteristics reflect the traditional Chinese cultural and moral values? (iii) How different, or similar, are the Chinese in Brunei from the Chinese in other parts of Southeast Asia and from mainland China?

8.6 Methodology This study is part of a larger research project involving 105 ethnic Chinese respondents to a questionnaire from three age groups. A stratified random sampling method is used to select one respondent from each age group to form the sample population for this study. There are altogether 23 ethnic Chinese participants, all of whom have lived in Brunei for ten years or longer. All are citizens, permanent or long-term residents, who are attending or have attended local government or private schools that are exposed to the national education, and are active contributors to the local society. All but one speak three languages—Mandarin, Brunei Malay and English. Many participants, especially those in the older age groups, can also speak their respective dialects. In order to have a sample that is representative of the Chinese population in the country, the participants are selected from a range of age groups, educational levels, and social and economic backgrounds. They are divided into three age groups: Nine are between 20 and 39 years old, nine are between 50 and 65 old, and five are aged seventy and above. The education levels range between tertiary and secondary school. One participant is from an English-medium school, seven are from Chinesemedium schools, and nine studied in Chinese-medium schools up to primary level before moving on to English-medium government schools for their secondary education. The other participants did not offer information on their medium of education. All are active members of the local community as students, entrepreneurs, teachers and civil servants.

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This study adopts a qualitative approach to data collection via individual and focus group interviews. Twenty individual interviews and one focus group interview (consisting of three participants with a moderator) are carried out at different locations. Although an interview guide is drawn up with possible topics for discussion, these are largely unstructured interviews much like informal conversations where the interviewer/moderator initiates with a topic that is then expanded upon or further explored based on the interviewee(s) responses. Each interview lasts between fifteen and thirty minutes. For the purpose of analysis, the interviews are audiotaped with the consent of the participants. Each interview is then transcribed, and the transcript is subjected to a thematic analysis according to Braun and Clarke’s (2006) framework. The goal is to identify the thematic patterns in the data that can help address the research questions. Furthermore, this study employs a bottom-up or inductive analysis, one where the themes emerge from the data itself. Because of the more subjective nature of this method of analysis, the transcripts are reviewed and interpreted by two researchers separately to obtain reliable and valid findings.

8.7 Results and Discussion To address the first question, participants are asked to talk about what, to them, characterizes a Chinese. Each interview transcript is then reviewed and analyzed by two researchers separately before coming together to discuss the significant themes found. There is 100% inter-coder agreement on six recurrent themes emerging from the data and presented in Table 8.1. From Table 8.1, the most common characteristic in a Chinese is his/her obligations to his/her family. Participants in sixteen of the twenty-one interviews mention the importance of family within the Chinese community. Moreover, the concept of family for the Chinese is not only confined to the immediate and present family members but includes their ancestors as well. Filial piety toward one’s parents and respect for the elders of the family, even their ancestors, is expected. For the Chinese, these values indicate proper upbringing: I always tell them [my children] you must always remember, you must love your parents, like that because if you don’t love your parents, next time your children also don’t love you (13); so, we know all this, like, to respect people, the elderly especially, you see… (06); …the central idea of us Chinese people is filial piety…filial piety as priority (09); the hierarchical sphere in relation to relationships between Chinese, is that it is always intermingled with hierarchical ranks that cultivates respect (12); …they like worship their forefathers…(08); …respect your ancestors…our ancestors would be watching us in every step of our lives (21). Family obligations are not only observed by the younger members in a family. Parents and older members of the family are also expected to nurture and look after their children and younger siblings so “they don’t have to work so hard as their ancestors” and to “have a better life for the next generation” (02). Indeed, the Chinese are always deeply concerned about providing the next generation with a better future:

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Table 8.1 Thematic patterns of participants’ description of the concept of Chineseness Theme

Frequency of occurrence

Examples from interview data

Observing family obligations

34

…significant so far is respect your ancestors… (21) Honestly, the Chinese Hokkien… their mind is, number one is family (07) We Chinese people prioritize family teaching (09)

Observing festivals/rites

24

…every festival we celebrate, you know. A special prayer to the ancestor … (10) …Chinese New Year, Lantern Festival, children would play lanterns at the streets and the Chinese operas will perform… (20)

Being frugal

17

Frugality is a must-have virtue, especially for the old generation (20) When they are in the childhood, the parents already starting teaching us to save money. That’s one. (04)

Being diligent

14

Every traditional Chinese culture like all my grandmother… have to be hard working… (10) …ancestors who depended on education and labor for better systems of living (12)

Maintaining the Chinese culture

12

Because we are Chinese, we have to keep out identity (04) I think we maintain our culture, that’s the key (05) Well, most of us will try to keep our culture… (08)

Importance of discipline

6

Our Chinese central value is that we must discipline our children by ourselves (09) While in our Chinese families, we employ China’s harsh child discipline… (19) … discipline in the family, obey your parents… (02)

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it’s in the Chinese…even the poor farmer. They will have a land left over for their kids (02); Chinese people always like to take care of their next generation… (02); and then we will save for our future, like for family, for the kids, you see…the kids, you have to send them overseas next time for study (06); yeah, if they have more, they give it to the children (08); they [the Chinese]don’t mind themselves suffer and sacrifice. But their next generation, their younger generation, they have to make sure that they have a way out, you see (10). Another recurrent theme is observing the Chinese festivals. This theme occurred in eleven of the twenty-one interviews where participants say that celebrating festivals such as Chinese New Year, Lantern Festival, Dumpling Festival, Mooncake Festival and so forth is key to being a Chinese because of the stories of Chinese history attached to these festivals: We just don’t celebrate like lantern festival or dumpling festival, things like that. Everything there’s a story…(02); and they keep their festival, let’s say whatever, whatever, they keep it (08); I think to the Chinese, Chinese New Year eve is the time of reunion…and then we have the reunion dinner…it also reminds you that you are Chinese. That you have some Chinese roots (10); …in Chinese New Year we must wear red color, because there’s a story says that there’s this animal called Nian… (13). In addition, there are rites attached to these festivals that the Chinese are expected to practice, such as the tea ceremony to older family members during Chinese New Year: this culture of serving tea, Chinese, normally they have this…the custom of serving tea and respect your parents and your grandparents… (13), and the sweeping and cleaning of ancestors’ graves during the Qingming Festival (the Chinese equivalent of All Souls’ Day): we would clean our ancestors’ graves, basically clean them up on Qingming (All Souls’ Day), burn them paper money, offer them incense sticks (21). Saving money or being frugal is also a common topic brought up by the participants. According to them, saving money is instilled in them at a very young age: for us to buy something we save first before we buy the whole item…rather than getting it on hire purchase (01); when they are in the childhood, the parents already starting teaching us to save money…don’t spend anyhow. If you earn a dollar, you can spend fifty cents, and the fifty cent you keep for saving (04); yeah. Inherited [Chinese values]. So, like we have to be thrifty, we have to do a lot of saving… (10). For the Chinese, and this goes back to their concept of family, it is important to save money so that their children and the next generation will have a comfortable life: and then we will save for the future, like for family, for the kids, you see…so, all, for me lah, like typical family. We would save our money, instead of spending it all… (06); …we have to do a lot of saving…so, you see all our children make sure that when they have the opportunity, they are capable, we send them overseas for their studies (10). From the interview data, there are fourteen instances of diligence as an attribute of the Chinese. In ten of the twenty-one interviews, participants claim that hard labor is an important part of being a Chinese. By diligence, they mean being hardworking and having a “good working attitude” (13) and that being Chinese is to be hardworking: we feel proud of being a Chinese even as oversea ones, we are hardworking, independent,

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good at budgeting… (19). Also, they believe that actual hard work, and not just talk, is the only way to make more money to help in the family: my dad taught us to work more and talk less. Action speaks louder than words. If you don’t work hard, you can’t earn more money (20). There is little tolerance for laziness: one of the things…that is distinctively Chinese is the efforts that we put into our work, how we have to give our best to achieve our results that we want and we shouldn’t slack off in our work… (21). Two other themes that emerged from the interview data are a need to maintain the Chinese culture and being disciplined. For the participants, maintaining their Chinese culture is an expression of their Chinese identity: because we are Chinese, we have to keep our identity (04); well, most of us will try to keep our culture…culture means more than writing, you know. Let’s say the way of life… (08). They see their culture as deeply rooted in the Chinese history: It is our historical background that enable us to teach our children by using some unique and traditional theories that help them to respect and love their parents, to get along well with others (19). Added to the participation and celebration of the Chinese festivals and rites as in “practically every festival we celebrate, you know. And especially prayer to the ancestor” (10), the use of dialects is also noted to be an important expression of the Chinese culture: always talk about our, using our Hokkien language (04); Chinese is always Chinese. They speak different kinds of dialects (04); and I think I am very Chinese in the sense that I speak Chinese (13); if you want to know a culture, you need to know the language…if you know the culture but you don’t know the language, that is just not complete (21). Being disciplined is also deemed an important quality of being Chinese and one that children are expected to cultivate at a young age from parents and teachers: one central Chinese value is that we must discipline our children by ourselves…then, until the age of six, when they go to school, the teachers are expected to discipline them (09). According to the participants, it is from being disciplined that they learn about responsibility: yah, like a task being given, you will try to finish it even after office hour, even twenty-four hours, we were doing. That is our culture…our Chinese culture (05). An analysis of the data provides interesting insights into how the participants see themselves as Chinese. The thematic patterns in Table 8.1 are largely concerned with the Chinese cultural and moral practices and way of life. It can be seen that for the participants, holding on to traditions and practicing them are a large part of their Chineseness. In a way, they identify themselves via what Barth (1969, p. 12) calls “culture-bearing” traits of their culture. Considering that the themes in Table 8.1 are recurrent, one is reminded in Wang (1993) that it is misleading to think that Chinese overseas have a shallow sense of their traditions, culture and history. From the interviews with these participants, one can also support Oyserman’s (2002) claim that these are values that have become an inherent part of their everyday lives. On the other hand, the participants are also fully aware that traditions could die if not passed on to the younger generation. This was brought up quite frequently by the older group of participants who said that unless parents explain these traditions to their children, they will not likely survive. Indeed, the younger participants in the study claim that they take part in the traditional practices only because they

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are expected to by their parents. A younger participant finds these traditions to be meaningless in Brunei, and the result is a conflicted identity: …it’s like I don’t feel Bruneian, I don’t feel Chinese, I don’t feel like anything…I don’t know who I am (14). A closer study of the responses from the participants aged 20 and 27 finds them to be conflicted in their views. One says that while he would feel less Chinese if he does not celebrate Chinese New Year, he does not think there is a need to continue with these traditions in Brunei: it’s not compulsory for me to continue with this kind of practice… (15). Despite such sentiments, they resolve to teach their children about Chinese culture when they become parents: I would definitely teach them customs of Chinese festivals such as Qing Ming (the traditional cleaning of ancestors’ graves and the offering of food at their grave sites) because I do it so often, and of course Chinese language (21); …I am still rooted by the Chineseness of my past ancestors, but as a member of the younger generation I have too, been exposed to other languages and beliefs aside from Chinese language and ideologies (12). None of the participants in the younger age groups denies their Chinese ethnic identity. They are just uncertain about the sustainability of the traditional cultural values as Chinese overseas. Also, during the interviews, while the participants have little difficulty describing their cultural ethnic values, when asked to list qualities that distinguish them from other ethnic groups, many are confused as to what the question means. This supports the claims by researchers and writers that defining the Chinese identity as a collective whole is problematic (Goodman 1997; Tong 2010; Wang 2007). For the participants, identity is not defined in terms of racial or social or even political differences from their surrounding environment, but on the cultural traits particular to their ethnic group. To them, holding onto traditions is the key to maintaining the Chinese culture, and, therefore, the loss of traditions means the loss of their ethnic identity. As for the question of whether Chinese Bruneians share similar traditional, cultural and moral practices to the Chinese in other parts of Southeast Asia and in China itself, the results are less conclusive. Nine of the twenty-three participants are noncommittal and by their own admittance feel that they are not sufficiently exposed to Chinese people outside of Brunei to comment on the differences and similarities. Of the twelve who answered the question, three claim that Chinese people are similar regardless of where they are because all originated in China and “our history comes from there” (02). Furthermore, these participants believe that the Chinese share a similar way of life and speak a similar language, and so wherever they go, whether in Taiwan or China, “we also feel like we are the people there…” (06). In addition, they feel that the nationality one adopts (outside of China) does not affect how Chinese one is: you can be Singaporean, you can be Malaysia, Canadian, as long as you are a Chinese, that is more important. You can speak the language, you can understand the culture practices that we do, then that’s fine (21). Conversely, four participants claim that Chinese Bruneians are different from Chinese elsewhere. Singaporean Chinese, for example, cannot speak dialects as “they mainly speak Mandarin, their dialect is very off already” (04) and appear to have a superiority complex about them, thinking “that their country is more superior”(09). Chinese Bruneians, in contrast, are “genial” (09), and unlike the Chinese in mainland

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China and the Chinese in Indonesia, Chinese Bruneians “are open. Brunei Chinese mix around…respect each other [other ethnic groups] in terms of culture or religions…” (05). Five of the twelve participants think that the Chinese in Brunei are similar to those living in Singapore and Malaysia, but quite different from those in mainland China. They feel that Bruneian, Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese speak the same dialects and have similar work attitudes: as for Malaysian Chinese, they are not as far off from our Chinese people (09); …in Miri (in East Malaysia) you speak Hokkien a lot. Kuching you speak Hokkien a lot. Then you, in Singapore, in KL, in Brunei, you speak Hokkien…but they [Chinese in China] speak differently, you know. They are not Hokkien. They speak Mandarin, mainland China Mandarin (07). They believe that China, on the other hand, operates under a system that is different from theirs: and again, Brunei, I think umm with the commonwealth, we apply commonwealth standard. That’s a lot different from mainland China. That’s how I feel…system wise, I think different from what we apply here (05). And although Bruneian, Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese are loyal to their respective countries, participants still feel that they are similar “culture wise” (08). According to the participants, compared to the Chinese in Brunei, those in mainland China “are more exposed…the way we talk, the way we socialize, you know, is very different from them. Quite different” (07), and because China’s economy has grown rapidly in recent years, they tend to “think that their country is dominant/superior” while Chinese Bruneians are friendlier: everyone is amiable (09). It is noted that while there are differences between Chinese Bruneians and those elsewhere and especially in mainland China, many of the differences mentioned by the participants appear to be due to the effects of the “different ecological niches” (Barth 1969, p. 11) that the Chinese live and work in. Characteristics such as aggression, superiority complex, busyness and exposure are all due to expectations of local society, and to a certain extent, survival skills if one is to live and work in a certain community. At the same time, the participants claim that despite these differences, there is no difference between them and the Chinese elsewhere or in China when it comes to cultural traditions such as family obligations and filial piety, saving money, observing festivals and rites and looking after the next generation: they are national of China, we are national of Malaysia, or national of Brunei…but the culture wise is similar (08). As one participant puts it: the environment may be different, but the core values remain similar (02). This claim appears to support Barth’s (1969) viewpoint some fifty years ago that one “does not confuse the effects of ecologic circumstances on behaviors with those of cultural tradition, but which makes it possible to separate these factors and investigate the non-ecological cultural and social components creating diversity” (p. 11).

8.8 Conclusion This study attempts to shift the argument of the notion of Chineseness from the academic and intellectual perspectives to the arena of the everyday practicing Chinese

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overseas, which in this case are the Chinese born, bred and integrated in Brunei society. The viewpoints expressed by the participants via individual and focus group interviews have provided important insights into how the common Chinese person in the street views his or her Chineseness. Ethnic identity is defined within the boundaries of traditions, a set of Confucian-based code of cultural markers that seeks not so much to distinguish them from other ethnic groups, but to describe their ethnicity. Knowing the history of ancient China and its culture is paramount to understanding the enduring influence of traditions for the Chinese people. And yet, the culture of an ethnic group is not something that is static; it transforms according to changes in the immediate environment as witnessed by the literature on the Chinese overseas elsewhere (Lee 2014; Tong 2010; Zulueta 2007). Modern China’s neoConfucian teachings, a refinement of Confucian values, emerged as a response to changes within China over the centuries. Indeed, a few of the younger participants in this study have questioned the necessity of holding onto the traditions of their parents. Nevertheless, the results of this study indicate that for the majority of the participants, despite being third and even fourth-generation Chinese overseas, their cultural and moral values have not deviated much from the traditional values of their forefathers. Values such as family obligations and filial piety, observations of festivals and worshipping of ancestors and saving money are still very much part of their everyday practices. Perhaps, the experiences of the Chinese Bruneians, as distinct from those experienced by Chinese overseas elsewhere in Southeast Asia, have helped them maintain the traditional cultural practices. In any case, this study provides a platform for future studies on the transformation of the Chinese Bruneians in the generations to come. On the question of how they are different from or similar to the Chinese elsewhere, many of the participants feel that while they do share similar cultural values with the Chinese in the neighboring countries of Singapore and Malaysia, they are different from the Chinese in China. The differences, however, appear to be less about traditions and cultural traits of the Chinese than about features that have to do with the expectations or demands of the environments in which they live. It has to be noted that this study is limited to a small group of Chinese in Brunei and may not represent the sentiments of Chinese overseas as a whole. Moreover, their viewpoints may be influenced by their experiences as nationals of Brunei and may therefore not be representative of viewpoints expressed by the Chinese in other parts of the world. Nevertheless, it is a valuable contribution to the study of the Chinese diaspora and adds to the ongoing debate on the notion of a collective Chinese identity.

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in Brunei Darussalam: A kingdom of unexpected linguistics diversity (pp. 9–16). Singapore: Springer. Oyserman, D., Coon, H. M., & Kemmelmeier, M. (2002). Rethinking individualism and collective: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses. Psychological Bulletin, 128(1), 3–72. Phillips, A. (1992). The Chinese of Southeast Asia. An MRG International Report, 92/6. Setijadi, C. (2016). Ethnic Chinese in contemporary Indonesia: Changing identity politics and the paradox of sinification. Perspective, 12, 1–11. Suryadinata, L., & Tan, C. B. (1997). Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia: Overseas Chinese, Chinese overseasor Southeast Asians? New York: St. Martin’s Press. Tan, A. S. (1988). Five hundred years of anti-Chinese prejudices. Intolerance and Prejudices, UNESCO, Manila: Paper presented at The Many Faces of Racism. Than, M. (1997). The ethnic Chinese in Myanmar and their identity. In L. Suryadinata (Ed.), Ethnic Chinese as Southeast Asians (pp. 115–157). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Tong, C. K. (2010). Identity and ethnic relations in Southeast Asia: Racializing Chineseness. New York: Springer. Wang, Bin. 2007. “Chinese identity” as a problem. Transtext(e)s Transcultures 2: 27–32. Wang, G. (1993). Greater China & the Chinese overseas. China Quarterly, 136, 926–948. Yong, C. F. (1987). Tan KahKee: The making of an overseas Chinese legend. Singapore: Oxford University Press. Zhang, L. (2013). China’s traditional cultural values and national identity. Window into China series, November 21. Zulueta, J. O. (2007). “I speak Chinese, but…”: Code-switching and identity construction among Chinese-Filipino youth. Caligrama (Säo Paulo online), 3(2).

Debbie G. E. Ho holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Adelaide University in Australia. She published her first book in 2006 on ESL (English as a Second Language) in the formal classroom in Brunei with Peter Lang AG in Berlin. To date, she has written research articles for journals including Asian Englishes, RELC, World Englishes, Journal of Pragmatics, and the ARAL. She has also written book chapters on functional linguistics, genre analysis and discourse analysis published by Springer Nature and Springer Singapore. More recently, her research interests include looking at minority ethnic groups and language vitality. Her interest in the Chinese community in Brunei could be traced back to 2008 when she presented the use of Mandarin as mother tongue education in Chinese medium schools in Brunei at the joint ASEAN-World Bank conference on mother tongue education in Bangkok. Currently, she is working under a research grant by Universiti Brunei Darussalam on the Chinese diaspora identity in Brunei. Hannah M. Y. Ho is an Assistant Professor with the English Studies programme at Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD). She read her Ph.D. in Contemporary Asian Diaspora studies at the University of York. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Kings’ College London and University of California, Berkeley. Her publications in journals include Global Society, Asiatic and Southeast Asian Review of English. Recently, she has contributed book chapters, such as in The Faces of Depression in Literature (2020) published by Peter Lang. She is co-editor of the Springer book titled Engaging Modern Brunei: Research on Language, Literature and Culture (2021). Currently, she is working with Debbie G. E. Ho under a research grant on Brunei’s Chinese diaspora. In Brunei, she has run consultancies for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defence.

Chapter 9

Between Hybridity and Identity: Chineseness as a Cultural Resource in Indonesia Chang-Yau Hoon

9.1 Introduction Chineseness is a much-celebrated “ethno-commodity” in post-Suharto Indonesia (Sai and Hoon 2013). This is evident especially during Chinese New Year festive season when colorful parades featuring lion and dragon dances are performed in Chinatowns and Chinese temples and where major shopping malls are decorated with ornaments in the lucky color red. The mass media flock to feature Chinese-themed programs ranging from game shows where audiences dress in traditional Chinese costumes to talk shows featuring Chinese feng shui and fortune telling (Hoon 2009). These scenes were totally unimaginable two decades ago when President Suharto was in power from 1966 to 1998. Historically, the Chinese in Indonesia were divided between the pure-blood, China-oriented newcomer “totok” and the acculturated “peranakan” who had intermarried with the local population and settled in the Malay Archipelago for centuries. The cultural synthesis of the latter had produced a unique peranakan heritage in language, religious, customary and culinary practices. However, after going through the forced baptism of assimilation during the New Order, the cultural gap between the totok and the peranakan had narrowed because very few practical ways were left to sustain the totok culture. During the New Order regime, Chineseness was subject to suppression as the state perceived it to be a security threat associated with Communism. The People’s Republic of China and, by association, the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia were both alleged to have been involved in the September 1965 abortive coup. After the coup, a surge of anti-Communist and anti-Chinese sentiment swept through the country (Suryadinata 1978a). The ethnic Chinese—their culture, their religion, their role in

C.-Y. Hoon (B) Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_9

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the nation’s economy and their very existence—were labeled by New Order politicians as the “Chinese Problem” or Masalah Cina (Allen 2003, p. 387). To manage this “problematic” minority, the state implemented a military-backed assimilation policy to prohibit all expressions of Chineseness in the public sphere, including Chinese names, schools, organizations, media and cultural practices. The fact that printed matter in Chinese characters fell under the category of prohibited imports like narcotics, pornography and explosives when entering Indonesia is a testament to the gravity of the regime’s treatment of Chineseness as a menace to the nation. After the fall of the Suharto regime in May 1998, the draconian assimilation policy was replaced by multiculturalism, which came as part and parcel of democratization and reformation (Hoon 2006). With previously denied legal rights of the Chinese gradually restored, Chinese culture and identity have been revitalized in Indonesia. The resurgence of Chineseness encompassed language, religion, media and politics, as well as cultural symbols and practices including the aforementioned public celebration of Chinese New Year (Hoon 2008). Furthermore, the rise of China along with the economic opportunities the country has to offer has led to renewed pride among the Chinese overseas in their cultural heritage and identity. It can be argued that the post-Suharto resurgence was dominated by “primordial Chineseness” that is characterized by a naturalistic, fixed and essentialized notion, fundamentally based on tradition, language, generational lineage, physical attribute and culture.1 The expressions of such Chineseness were largely promoted and financed by an older generation totok business elites who were keen to revive the pre-Suharto “golden age” when Chinese schools, associations and media thrived and flourished (Hoon 2008). Moreover, the primordial version of Chineseness with which the global Chinese diaspora identifies can be used as a strategic resource to tap into the transnational Chinese capitalist networks and to achieve trust for business dealings with other members of this imagined community or with China (see Menkhoff et al. 2014). This primordial Chineseness can be contrasted with the more organic, localized and hybridized Chineseness that is reflected in the daily experience of most Chinese Indonesians. In negotiating ways to maintain their own culture and becoming “Indonesian,” contemporary Chinese ethnicity in Indonesia had transformed into a creative, adapted, hybridized Chinese Indonesian identity (Hoon 2006). Such hybridity is not a harmonious syncretism of Chinese and Indonesian cultures, but it is a process of complex negotiation and identification that intersects with forces of globalization, modernization, primordialism and localization. However, this hybrid identity that characterizes the lived reality of most Chinese Indonesians is hardly represented in the public sphere which privileges the primordial Chineseness as it is seen as more universal, authentic and economically relevant. For the hybridized Chinese to get a share of the economic pie associated with China’s rise, they need to acquaint 1

According to Werbner (1997a, p. 228), “To essentialize is to impute a fundamental, basic, absolutely necessary constitutive quality to a person, social category, ethnic group, religious community, or nation. It is to posit falsely a timeless continuity, a discreteness or boundedness in space, and an organic unity. It is to imply an internal sameness and external difference or otherness.”

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themselves with primordial Chineseness through a process called “resinicization,” such as by learning Mandarin (Hoon and Kuntjara 2019; Setijadi 2016b). In light of the recent developments, this chapter will first discuss the concept of hybridity and then apply it to the context of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia through a mapping of both historical and contemporary trajectories of their identity constructions. It explores the multidirectionality of the hybridizing process of the Chinese Indonesians, from assimilation during Suharto’s New Order (1966–1998) to “resinicization” following the democratization process after the fall of Suharto. For many assimilated Chinese Indonesians who are unable to access the cultural resources in Chinese, learning Mandarin appeals more to economic rather than cultural logic. This chapter will attempt to unpack the deeper embedded cultural and economic meaning to the return to primordial Chineseness among the Chinese in contemporary Indonesia. As the antithesis of identity, hybridity blurs and traverses the boundaries that identities have established, undermining the phantasmic integrity and purity that the boundaries attempt to safeguard. Werbner maintains that, “rather than being open and subject to fusion, identities seem to resist hybridization” (1997b, p. 3). To resinicize or be “Chinese again” involves returning to primordial identity and the essentialist “cultural stuff” (Barth 1969) in which “identity” is bounded. This chapter endeavors to examine the cultural politics of the Chinese Indonesians in negotiating between hybridity and identity, as well as the underlying power dynamics in such negotiations. Lastly, in light of the rise of China, this chapter will explore the cultural and political economy of resinicization in post-Suharto Indonesia.

9.2 Theorizing Hybridity There is no easy way to define “hybridity.” As one of the most contested ideas to have emerged from the discourse of globalization, this term has given rise to the “new configurations of multilayered identities that are described as ‘hyphenated’, ‘creole’, ‘mestizaje’, ‘diasporic’, and ‘syncretic’” (Bhatia 2011, p. 405). For Burke, hybridity is a “slippery, ambiguous term, at once literal and metaphorical, descriptive and explanatory” (2009, p. 54). Hybridity can be described as a transgressive force that encompasses syncretism and the complexities of cultural crossings, borrowing and mixing. It is the antithesis of identity as it disrupts the boundaries that give meaning and definition to identity. The term “hybridity” traditionally carried the connotation of being “impure,” “racially contaminated” and genetically “deviant” in social evolution theory. Borrowing the botanical or biological metaphor for cross-fertilization, “hybridity” was a notion popularly used in the nineteenth-century and twentieth-century colonial discourses to describe “mongrels” or “bastards”—the much frowned upon products of miscegenation (Burke 2009, p. 49). Despite the epistemological origin in pseudoscientific racism, in the late twentieth century, the notion of hybridity has been positively re-appropriated to signal cultural synthesis (Ifekwunigwe 1999). While the

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transformation of this term from a discourse of dangerous racial contamination into one of cultural creativity can be seen as empowerment (Werbner 1997b), hybridity can also be concomitantly disempowering in communities that insist on cultural purity and authenticity. People who purport the dominant essentialist ideology of identity may not accept hybridity because they still perceive mixture as “contamination, a breach of purity and infringement of ‘identity’” (Ang 2001, p. 200). Nonetheless, hybridity is a useful concept for the understanding of how identities interact and intersect, and the power relations involved in such a process. Although often cited in postmodern literature and discussed as a phenomenon of the late capitalist world, hybridity is by no means a postmodern invention (Ifekwunigwe 1999). In fact, as Said contends, “all cultures are involved in one another… none is single and pure, all are hybrid, heterogeneous” (1993, p. xxv). By the same token, Werbner argues that, “despite the illusion of boundedness, cultures evolve historically through unreflective borrowings, mimetic appropriations, exchanges and inventions” (1997b, p. 4). While cultural hybridity as an organic process has been taking place throughout history, the volume and intensity of the cross-cultural flows and cultural mixture have proliferated in recent decades with the advent of globalization (Papastergiadis 2005). The politics of hybridity is intrinsic to the process of migration and dislocation and has been practiced by locals and migrants in their daily negotiation and construction of their identities, consciously or unconsciously. It is thus crucial to note that hybridity is a continuous and often convoluted process of cultural translation and negotiation that is never complete. For Bhabha, the space of the “inter” is the “cutting edge of translation and negotiation, the ‘in-between’ space” (1994, p. 38). The migrant who experiences “multiple rootedness and consciousness… is forever mixing and mixed, forever crossing, traversing, translating linguistically and culturally. He [sic] is not either/or, but both” (Chan and Tong 1995, p. 7). However, the emergence and proliferation of hybridity is not only an anathema but also a fear to some governments. This is partly because the “messy reality” that hybridity represents has inadvertently undermined the evocations of social order (Papastergiadis 2000, p. 172). Guneratne notes that even though there is no historical validity to the concept of racial or cultural purity, the perception of cultural purity is nevertheless an indispensable “precondition for the development of nationalist sentiments” (2002, p. 20). The impurity, mixture, fusion and lack of authenticity that hybridity manifests are threatening to the state, as it perceives hybridity as a force that might undermine the sovereign identity of the nation, which is usually constructed in terms of cultural purity and authenticity. Therefore, to such governments, “hybridity, whether ethnic or cultural, has to be suppressed, and becomes the site of anxiety” (Silva 2002, p. i). In fact, Goldberg argues that, “hybridities are the modalities in and through which multicultural conditions get lived out, and renewed” (1994, p. 10). While “true” multiculturalism is about the acknowledgment of the existence of a matrix of different cultures and identities within each individual, multiculturalism as a policy is often more interested in displaying a selection of mono-cultural groups donned in their ethnic costumes that presumably represent their individual culture, making those

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cultures to appear monolithic and unchanging (Hoon 2006). Such images of “multiracial harmony” are especially conspicuous in Singapore where the state systematically racializes its citizenry. However, is there a possibility that hybridity can be institutionalized as a policy? And how would that look like? Chan (2005) casts doubt on the possibility of hybridity being institutionalized as a political discourse because current discourses of hybridity have not yet taken into serious consideration the social and economic relations of power. Moreover, he noted that “hegemonic racial hierarchies” based on essentialism are still very much sustained within current institutional practices. For the purpose of this chapter, the concept of hybridity is used as “heuristic device” (Ang 2001, p. 17) and “methodological concept” (Papastergiadis 2005, p. 56) to analyze the complex identity politics of the ethnic Chinese in contemporary Indonesia. As an analytical tool, hybridity allows us to think beyond cultural boundaries that delineate ethnic identities and foregrounds an accommodation of cultures at the local level which constantly challenges various dichotomies between the Self and the Other.

9.3 Hybridity and Resistance: Chinese Identity in Indonesian History Identities are constructed through difference. It is only through a relation to the “Other”—a relation to what is not and to what is lacking—that identity can be constructed. Thus, identities are the outcome of the production of difference and exclusion rather than symbols of “identical, naturally-constituted unity” (Hall 1996). Identity is also a product of historical development and is a constant process of change and transformation (Hall 1996). An examination of the continuity and change of Chineseness in Indonesia’s history conventionally begins with the primordial totok/ peranakan distinction that has bifurcated the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. The identification of the totok/ peranakan distinction has historically been based on birthplace and “race” (see Somers 1964; Williams 1960). Centuries of residence in Indonesia caused peranakan men to lose many of the features of their “Chineseness” as they adopted local culture, language, customs and practices and intermarried with local women because most of the Chinese immigrants were male. Some of them had even converted to Islam, adopted Muslim-sounding names and dresses and were recognized by the Dutch authorities as natives (Salmon 1996). However, Williams argues that, by 1900, a large proportion of peranakan had still “never been fully assimilated into the native population” (1960, p. 13). Although thoroughly hybridized in many aspects of their culture, the peranakan had never totally disappeared as an ethnic group. Salmon (1996) divided the peranakan into two segments: the “visible” and the “invisible” ones. The latter were those who were merging into local societies such as the Muslim converts, while the former were those who persistently held on to what was left in their “Chineseness,” which allowed them to retain their identity as Chinese, distinguishable from the native population.

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Among other factors, colonial racial hierarchy, economic privileges, religion and cultural identity were the main obstacles to assimilation. In the colonial society of the Netherlands East Indies, the population was divided into three “racial” groups with different legal rights and privileges: The Europeans were at the top, the Foreign Orientals (mainly Chinese) were in the middle, and the natives were at the bottom. Wedged between the Europeans and the natives, the Chinese were the tax collectors and loan providers and were granted monopoly privileges to engage in profitable commercial activities such as the selling of opium and the operation of gambling establishments and pawnshops. The granting of exclusive licenses to the Chinese proved to be a simple and inexpensive means for the colonial government of raising official revenues from license fees (Williams 1960). The pribumi (indigenous population) resented the Chinese for their economic roles in the nineteenth century as they perceived the Chinese as blood-suckers of the Javanese (Anonymous 1992). Under the colonial racial regime, there was little incentive for the Chinese to assimilate into indigenous society because it would have meant a drop in social status and the loss of some of these privileges. The persisting monumental power of identity is demonstrated in the paradox where a community that is hybrid resisting hybridity. This can be seen in the resistance of Islamization by some peranakan Chinese associations in the mid-nineteenth century. They viewed conversion to Islam as a “serious threat to the survival of Chinese identity” and thus attempted to “resinicize peranakan women in order to keep them separate from Javanese and curb the assimilation process” (Salmon 1996, p. 198). As discussed earlier, identity is formed on the premise of an exclusive boundary between “us” and “them.” Hybridity, on the other hand, transgresses such boundary and thus is seen as “a form of danger, loss and degeneration” (Papastergiadis 2000, p. 174). With this logic, the fear of these peranakan in conversion and assimilating into the native community was essentially about not wanting to lose their identity as Chinese. Scholars also attributed the peranakan resistance to hybridity as a sign of Chinese chauvinism and a sense of cultural superiority. For instance, Amyot argues, “peranakan society distinguishes itself from Indonesian society by what it has retained of Chinese culture. These retentions are due partly to the character of Chinese culture itself which is hardy and singularly persistent even under the most adverse conditions” (1972, p. 73). Williams (1960) also conjectures that Chinese belief in the supremacy of their civilization was possibly the chief barrier to social communication with Indonesians. This point is further attested by a Chinese scholar, Li, who iterates that “feelings of Sino-centrism or Han-centrism prevented the Chinese from integrating completely into the local society” (2003, p. 223). Nevertheless, no matter how much they resisted hybridization, there was no dispute that the peranakan formed a hybrid community. The identity of the peranakan was by no means unified, even though it was racially and patrilineally defined, i.e. the group was defined and constituted by the race and gender of immigrants. Coppel argues that the “peranakan Chinese were a product of particular historical circumstances in particular localities” (2002, p. 108; for an account of their diversity, see Onghokham 2005). In general, the peranakan spoke one of the Indonesian dialects

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or a type of Sino-Malay language (Bahasa Melayu-Tionghoa), which became an emblem of peranakan hybrid identity (Sim 2003). Also known as Batavian Malay, the predecessor of the current day Jakarta dialect, the Sino-Malay language combined the use of bazaar Malay and the Hokkien dialect and was later enriched by borrowings from Dutch and other Western languages (Hidayat 1976; Oetomo 1988; Suryadinata 1981). The impact of Chinese culture in Indonesia was manifested in the loanwords from Chinese dialects in the Indonesian vocabulary, many of which were used for food, evincing the Chinese influence in Indonesian culinary culture (see Tan 2008, p. 93). Although there is evidence showing that this version of Malay was the lingua franca of the Dutch East Indies, the colonial government discredited it as “low Malay” against the court-derived “high Malay.” The latter was legitimized and promoted by the Dutch administration through its sponsored publishing house, the Balai Pustaka (see Suryadinata 2007, pp. 153–156). The dualism between low and high Malay was constructed based on the logic that the former was merely a language of communication used particularly by the non-Malays, while the latter was a language of culture and authentically Malay. Thus, the Dutch administration and a number of puritan philologists were determined to replace the impure, creole Malay with the “purified, authentic and standard Malay” (Coppel 2002, p. 201). Again, this shows how hybridity, including creole language, was regarded as impure or inauthentic and thus undesirable. The same fate was experienced by the Sino-Malay literature (Sastra MelayuTionghoa)—the literary product of the peranakan community published in the late nineteenth until almost mid-twentieth centuries. Like the Sino-Malay language, this literature was also officially deemed to be of low quality, deserving little attention from Indonesian literary critics and publishers (Allen 2003). This is notwithstanding the fact that the writer of the first “modern” Indonesian novel was a peranakan Chinese, Lie Kimhok (1853–1912), who was also known as the “Father of SinoMalay.” Furthermore, Lie’s grammar book, Malayoe Betawi (1886), was possibly the first Malay language grammar book ever published in the Malay Archipelago (Liaw 1995). The Sino-Malay literature was further marginalized in postcolonial nationalist discourses that privileged standard Bahasa Indonesia. Consequently, this genre of literature discontinued when peranakan writers began to write in standard Indonesian which could not be differentiated from their pribumi counterparts (Suryadinata 2007, p. 156). Suryadinata observes that publications in low Malay continued to be excluded from national Indonesian literature as being unworthy of study until the 1990s. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of various scholars who discovered “forgotten” literature in the Sino-Malay language and advocated for its recognition, the Sino-Malay literature has now been increasingly regarded as part of modern Indonesian language and literature.2 2 For instance, a prominent peranakan Chinese journalist and writer, Nio Joe Lan (1904–1973) published a book in 1962 entitled, Sino-Indonesian Literature, to advocate for its recognition as an integral part of Indonesian literature but attracted little attention (see Coppel 2002, Chap. 12).

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As identity is defined through difference, the arrival of the new wave of Chinese immigrants to Indonesia in the last decades of the nineteenth century confronted the peranakan with a different way of being Chinese. In juxtaposition to the earlier predominantly male migrations, these new immigrants included a significant number of women. As a result, it became possible for Chinese men to take a China-born bride rather than to marry an indigenous or peranakan woman, and these immigrants formed a distinct totok community (Mackie and Coppel 1976). This community was not a unified group because they came from different parts of China and spoke in different Chinese dialects. The 1930 Census showed that the four largest groups were the Hokkien, the Hakka, the Cantonese and the Teochew. However, when contrasted to their peranakan counterparts who differed significantly from them in cultural practices, language and political outlook, the internal heterogeneity of the totok seemed unified. The migration of Chinese from China into Indonesia had halted after the Great Depression of 1929. As a result, totok communities were not regenerated with new immigrants (Coppel 2002). Such development rendered the totok/peranakan distinction based on race, ancestry and birthplace unrealistic. Scholars began to adopt a socio-cultural distinction to account for these communities (Skinner 1963; Suryadinata 1981; Tan 1997). According to this definition, a totok referred to those Chinese who were brought up in Chinese culture and used Chinese as the medium of communication even though they were born in Indonesia. Similarly, a peranakan referred not only to the Chinese with mixed ancestry, but also to those pure-blood local-born Chinese who could not speak Mandarin or any Chinese dialect (see Coppel 2002, Chap. 7). The two communities generally diverged in their identity, cultural, political and educational outlooks throughout the first half of the twentieth century. For instance, the peranakan spoke the Sino-Malay language, went to Dutch or Malay schools and were culturally and politically oriented to either the Netherlands or Indonesia. On the other hand, the totok spoke a Chinese dialect or Mandarin, went to Chinese schools and had cultural and political affinity with China or Taiwan (Suryadinata 1981). However, there were instances where these communities decidedly altered their cultural identity as a result of particular political or social circumstances. A case in point would be the rise of the pan-Chinese nationalism in the Indies in the early 1900s that fostered a renewed sense of Chineseness among the peranakan and led to the emergence of Chinese organizations such as the Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan (THHK, or the Chinese Organization), the Sianghwee (Chinese Chamber of Commerce) and a Sino-Indonesian newspaper, Sin Po (Wilmott 1956). The recently arrived totok also presented a version of Chineseness which were appealing to some peranakan who longed for cultural belonging and who felt that their hybrid identity and inbetweenness lacked cultural authenticity. These peranakan participated in the THHK that sought to reform the “corrupt” Chinese customs practiced by the peranakan, to The monumental work of a French sinologist, Claudine Salmon (1981), who discovered more than 3000 literature published in Sino-Indonesian language once again raised the profile of this forgotten literature.

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promote Confucianism and to provide Chinese schools with a modern curriculum (see Salmon 1996). The resinicized peranakan began to reorient themselves culturally and politically toward China owing to the influence of Confucianism and Chinese education that had “awakened” them to a sense of pride in being Chinese (Somers 1964, p. 67). The relevance of the totok/peranakan distinction gradually diminished after the implementation of the military-backed Assimilation Program during the New Order. Under this program, Chinese schools, organizations and presses were required to close down. All Chinese were forced to enroll in Indonesian-medium schools and speak Bahasa Indonesia, the national lingua franca. Suryadinata (1978b, p. 32) argues that most Chinese were “Indonesianized” during that period, signifying the breakdown of the dichotomy between totok and peranakan. After more than three decades of assimilation, the distinction between totok and peranakan had become so blurred that the categories are confusing, superficial and misleading (Tjhin 2002). The identity of Chinese in the post-Suharto era, especially the younger generation, are hybridized by the forces of globalization, modernization, consumerism, primordialism and localization. They tend to identify themselves as “Chinese Indonesians”; the totok/peranakan dichotomy no longer reflects the complexity and heterogeneity of their identity.

9.4 Hybridity and Essentialism: Chineseness in Post-Suharto Indonesia Although the relevance of the totok/peranakan distinction has diminished, the cultural inheritance from this historical distinction is still, to some extent, visible in the identity of most Chinese organizations that emerged in post-Suharto Indonesia (see, e.g., Hoon 2016).3 These organizations were mostly established and funded by affluent older generation Chinese totok elites who held economic power and financial resources. These organizations and their founders were mainly interested in two agendas: The first was a cultural mission to revitalize Chineseness in Indonesia and to resinicize the “rootless” generations that grew up during the assimilationist policy of the New Order (see Hoon 2008) and second, to use the organizations as a platform to facilitate business networking among Chinese Indonesians and with Chinese businesspeople from China (Setijadi 2016a). After three decades of being silenced, the cultural euphoria experienced by Chinese Indonesians in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the New Order was comprehensible. With the newly opened public sphere, Chineseness suddenly became fashionable. It captured the curiosity of both the assimilated Chinese as well as the pribumi population, who had been influenced by the state’s association

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Tong’s recent study shows that his Chinese Indonesian interviewees still used the socio-cultural distinction of totok/ peranakan for self-identification (Tong 2010, p. 142).

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and mainstream media’s representation of Chineseness with Communism, corruption, disloyalty and other stereotypes. To fill the lacunae and to gain viewership, films with Chinese Indonesian themes started to emerge and the public media began to host programs to include Chinese characters, which were previously absent. However, perhaps due to a lack of understanding of Chinese culture, or due to the assumption that Chineseness is fixed and unchanging, most of such representations were based on caricatures that are both essentialist and stereotypical. For example, Hoon (2008) observed that “Chinese” characters were increasingly appearing in popular Indonesian TV serials known as sinertron. In showing that the characters were acting as “Chinese,” the actors had to don a “traditional” Chinese costume, and the male wore a pigtail while the female held a silk handkerchief. The show also deployed popular stereotypes of the Chinese, including the accentuation of “Chinese” appearance—slanted eyes (mata sipit)—and “Chinese” characteristics—stingy (pelit) and money-oriented (mata duitan). Hence, it can be argued that while the newly found openness in the media provided the necessary conditions for re-imagining the Chinese Indonesians, it did not ensure a radical shift in the politics of representation as the Chinese can still be “demeaned and disenfranchised” within these representations (Sen 2006, p. 182). As the example above shows, the representation of Chineseness in mainstream media only focused on essentialist characteristics of Chinese identity and not the hybridized culture of the Chinese Indonesians. While such representation is far from social reality, it raises the questions of how to represent hybridity and whether hybridity can be caricaturized. How would viewers know that a character is “Chinese” if s/he looks, behaves, converses and dresses in the same manner as other Indonesians? In other words, are representations of identity possible without essentialism? The essentialist representation of Chineseness did not just come from external forces but also from within the Chinese community itself. Even though in reality Chineseness is highly contested, hybrid and diverse, community leaders and power elites may appropriate or reinvent certain aspects of primordial Chinese cultural traditions and homogenize them to represent the identity of all Chinese in Indonesia. One example of self-essentialism by Chinese organizations is the annual Koko Cici beauty competition that has been held in West Jakarta since 2002. Koko Cici (Hokkien terms for older brother and older sister) is a contest jointly organized by the Indonesian Chinese Social Association (Paguyuban Sosial Marga Tionghoa Indonesia or PSMTI) and the West Jakarta Municipality. With the aim of promoting Chinese art and culture and to showcase Indonesia’s multiculturalism and to promote tourism in Jakarta, the show invites participants to go through various stages of audition before the final contest which is broadcast live on television. Besides criteria on physical appearance and personal etiquette, preference is given to contestants who have knowledge of Chinese culture and are able to speak Mandarin. The competitors have to wear “traditional” Chinese costumes—red outfit with Chinese collar for males and a red cheongsam for females—during the contest. As ambassadors of the city and representatives of the Chinese community, the winners are expected to wear the same costumes when attending public events. The contest has been so successful that it has, in recent years, expanded its functions to include

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a beauty school (the KOCI Academy), charity works (KOCI Peduli) and a talk show (KOCI Talk) (see www.kokocicijakarta.com). The representations of Chineseness in the Koko Cici contest demonstrate what Werbner (1997a) referred to as self-essentialism. She maintains that selfessentializing is a rhetorical performance used by ethnic community leaders to invoke a communal identity (Werbner 1997a). In fact, all discursive acts of naming or labeling constitute essentialism; all ethnicities, and by its extension, any form of identity, are essentialist. However, Werbner advocates a critical differentiation between essentialism as “objectification,” a positive type of collective self-identification, and essentialism as “reification,” which distorts and silences difference (1997a, p. 229). In her words, “[s]elf-essentializing as a mode of reflexive imagining is constitutive of self and subjectivity. It is culturally empowering. But it is not, unlike racist reifications, fixed and immutable” (Werbner 1997a, p. 248). If put in another way, ethnic identity is voluntaristic and positive, while racialization is imposed and negative. In this logic, we recognize that while essentialism can never be entirely avoided, the motive of any essentialist representation needs to be scrutinized to determine whether it is an act of self-identification or xenophobic reification. The politics of representation that determines the strategy taken by cultural actors to express a particular version of Chineseness—essentialist or hybrid—depends largely on how agency and power are exercised. Sai and Hoon argue that the contentious signs of Chineseness “are here to stay, particularly in their essentialized and commodified forms” (2013, p. 16, italics in original). The negotiation between hybridity and identity in the social, economic and political circumstances of postSuharto Indonesia shows that primordial Chineseness was privileged in the contestation. While the post-1998 liberalization of cultural expression has provided a fertile ground for the older generation to express their nostalgia for primordial Chineseness in a bid to reclaim their long-suppressed identity, a more salient global force is shaping the expression of Chineseness in contemporary Indonesia.

9.5 Hybridity and Resinicization: Chineseness as a Cultural Resource The momentous rise of China as a new global superpower has given rise to essentialist discourses of Chineseness among the diasporic Chinese communities (Kuehn, Louie and Pomfret 2013). New communication technologies have now enabled the global diasporic Chinese community an instant engagement with China’s nationalism. In contemporary Indonesia, the refashioning of Chineseness among hybridized Chinese Indonesians resembles, to some extent, the aforementioned “resinicization” of the peranakan during the pan-Chinese nationalism movement of the early twentieth century. With the new economic and political dynamics following China’s rise, Ang (2013) asks whether there will be space for vernacular, localized, hybrid Chinese

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diasporic identity, or whether they will increasingly be overpowered by homogenizing, essentializing and nationalizing forces of a global China. The answer seems rather obvious, at least in the case of the Chinese Indonesians. In identifying the Chinese Indonesians as an “economic ethnicity,” Tong (2010) argues that the survival of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia as a distinct group does not solely depend on traditional cultural markers but also economic ones. Indeed, the ethnic identity of the Chinese Indonesians who grew up during the Suharto regime is more aptly defined by their class identity—i.e., the middle-class position that most of them occupy—rather than by culture because most of them are unfamiliar with Chinese traditions and cultures and have lost the ability to speak Chinese. The Chinese ethnicity, thus, becomes a form of social capital which allows this community to maintain a common identity through business networks for economic and ethnic survival (Tong 2010). For Indonesia and many other countries, the rise of China is not just an empty rhetoric but is economically consequential. In 2016, China overtook the United States to be the third-largest investor in Indonesia, after Singapore and Japan, bringing in USD 1.6 billion of foreign direct investment to Indonesia (Bloomberg News 1 November 2016). It overtook Japan in 2019 as Chinese investment in Indonesia grew to USD 4.7 billion (The Jakarta Post 24 February 2020). China’s deepening economic ties with Indonesia are also reflected on other ambitious projects to build roads, ports and railways in the archipelago. Furthermore, Indonesia is expected to be a major beneficiary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Southeast Asia, which aims to pump around USD 87 billion into infrastructure projects (The Jakarta Globe 18 May 2016). The growing Chinese investments in Southeast Asia provide China an opportunity to build on the role played by the region’s Chinese diaspora. Setijadi (2016a) notes that China has been using the metaphor of a “bridge” (qiao) to describe the Chinese overseas since the 1970s, signifying the brokerage role of this community to make connections between their host society and their ancestral land. When China first opened up its economy to foreign investments, overseas Chinese accounted for as much as two-thirds of the foreign direct investment flows into China. They were able to capitalize their Chineseness and personal networks to mitigate some of the inherent risks faced by non-Chinese investors. Huang (2014) argues that this same group could play a reverse role in facilitating China’s outward investment in Southeast Asia. Cognizant of the role of the Chinese diaspora and to leverage on the economic benefits of a relationship with China, Beijing has attempted to exert strategic influence on the Chinese diaspora through soft-power incentives by promoting Chinese language through the establishment of Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms worldwide (see Chang 2013; Suryadinata 2017). Chineseness has now become an indispensable social capital, cultural resource and ethno-commodity that can benefit commercial dealings with China. The economic incentive that China has to offer has become a major impetus for Chinese Indonesians, particularly the younger generation, to “resinicize” by reconnecting their clan connections, learning Mandarin and enthusiastically consuming Chinese cultural products (Hoon 2008; Hoon and Kuntjara 2019). Setijadi (2016b) observes that

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Chinese Indonesian entrepreneurs would strategically perform their Chineseness as a way of creating a sense of primordial affinity when dealing with their counterparts from China. However, while they may share linguistic and cultural similarities, observers argue that most ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia do not have affinity with China beyond purely economic interests and investment’s profitability (Chang 2013; Huang 2014; Tong 2010).

9.6 Conclusion As a transgressive concept that blurs and traverses the boundaries by which identities are bounded, hybridity is the antithesis to identity. Because of their inability to authenticate with primordial and essentialist characteristics of identity, hybrid subjects are often seen as impure, contaminated and even dangerous. Between the poles of identity and hybridity lies the multiple positions that depend on how agency and power are exercised. In the discussion of the identity of Chinese in Indonesia, this chapter has demonstrated that historical, social, political and economic contexts play a central role in the positionality on which an ethnic subject takes. The history of the peranakan in Indonesia shows a constant negotiation between hybridization and identity. Under a particular historical circumstance, they resinicized when they perceived that their residual Chineseness was in threat of total disappearance into the local community; in another instance, their resinicization was inspired by the pan-Chinese nationalism and prompted by their longing for cultural belonging and identity. The post-Suharto resurgence of Chineseness shows the persistent nature of identity even under the most draconian assault such as the assimilation policy of the New Order. The fact that the post-1998 scene was dominated by expressions of primordial Chineseness bears testament to the monumental role of economic power in cultural and identity politics. The agendas of the older generation business elites, in tandem with the rise of China, created a situation where the organic, daily experience of hybrid Chineseness was mitigated by the hegemonic, essentialist and nationalistic Chineseness, which is seen as more authentic and economically relevant. Because hybridity is not included in the current representation of Chineseness, hybridized Chinese, like their peranakan predecessors, have to subject themselves to resinicization in order to be able to access Chineseness as a cultural resource. In this manner, Chinese Indonesians use self-essentialism as a political or economic strategy to achieve solidarity or affinity with global China. Although in reality, post-Suharto Chineseness can never be a simple return to a Chinese primordial identity nor should any particular version of Chineseness be reified as “authentic”—because “authenticity” is always relative and contextual; it is important to recognize that “identity” is never an objective description of one’s state of being but a political process defined by complex dynamics of power relations.

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Suryadinata, L. (1978a). Pribumi Indonesians, the Chinese minority and China: A study of perceptions and politics. Singapore: Heinemann Educational Books. Suryadinata, L. (1978b). The Chinese minority in Indonesia: Seven papers. Singapore: Chopmen Enterprises. Suryadinata, L. (1981). Peranakan Chinese politics in Java: 1917–1942. Singapore: Singapore University Press. Suryadinata, L. (2007). Understanding the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Suryadinata, L. (2017). The rise of China and the Chinese overseas. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing. Tan, M. G. (1997). The ethnic Chinese in Indonesia: Issues of identity. In L. Suryadinata (Ed.) Ethnic Chinese as Southeast Asians, (pp. 33–65). Singapore: Allen and Unwin and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Tan, M. G. (2008). EthnisTionghoa di Indonesia: Kumpulan tulisan [Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia: A collection of essays]. Jakarta: YayasanObor Indonesia. The Jakarta Globe. (2016). The only way is up for Indonesia in China’s One Belt One Road initiative. The Jakarta Globe, May 18. https://jakartaglobe.id/business/way-indonesia-chinas-one-belt-oneroad-initiative/. Accessed 22 Apr 2020. The Jakarta Post. (2020). BKPM boss fears decline in Chinese investment over coronavirus outbreak. The Jakarta Post, February 24. https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/02/24/bkpm-bossfears-decline-in-chinese-investment-over-coronavirus-outbreak.html. Accessed 22 Apr 2020. Tjhin, C. S. (2002). Reflections on the identity of Chinese-Indonesians. Master’s thesis, East Asia Studies Program, Faculty of Asian Studies, The Australian National University. Tong, C. K. (2010). Identity and ethnic relations in Southeast Asia. Dordrecht: Springer. Werbner, P. (1997a). Essentialising essentialism, essentialising silence: Ambivalence and multiplicity in the construction of racism and ethnicity. In P. Werbner, & T. Modood (Eds.), Debating cultural hybridity: Multi-cultural identities and the politics of anti-racism, (pp. 226–255). London: Zed Books. Werbner, P. (1997b). Introduction: The dialectics of cultural hybridity. In P. Werbner, & T. Modood (Eds.) Debating cultural hybridity: Multi-cultural identities and the politics of anti-racism, (pp. 1– 26). London: Zed Books. Williams, L. E. (1960). Overseas Chinese nationalism: The genesis of the pan-Chinese movement in Indonesia, 1900–1916. Illinois: The Free Press, Glencoe.

Chang-Yau Hoon is Associate Professor and Director of Centre for Advanced Research (CARe) at the University of Brunei Darussalam. He is also Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, and International Fellow at the King Abdullah International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue in Austria. Prior to this, he was Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Sing Lun Fellow at Singapore Management University (SMU), where he was awarded the SMU Teaching Excellence Award in 2012 and SMU Research Excellence Award in 2014. He is the author of Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Culture, Media and Politics (Sussex Academic Press, 2008), and co-editor of Contemporary Brunei Darussalam: Challenges and Prospects in Socioeconomic Development (ISEAS Publishing, Forthcoming), Catalysts of Change: Ethnic Chinese Business in Asia (World Scientific, 2014) and Chinese Indonesians Reassessed: History, Religion and Belonging (Routledge, 2013).

Chapter 10

Embodying Islamic Chineseness: A Chinese-Indonesian Muslim Doctor’s Advice on Health Care Syuan-yuan Chiou

10.1 Introduction Chinese-Indonesian Muslims generate their “Islamic Chineseness” mainly in two ways. The first is by emphasizing the historical legacy of Chinese-Muslims in the macro-historical narrative of the Islamization of Java. This is done by presenting the history of Chinese-Muslims in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and Zheng He’s voyage to the Malay World as evidence of Chinese contributions to the spread of Islam. Much has been debated about whether Chinese-Muslims and their descendants played an important role in the early Islamization of Java (Kumar 1987). This historiography was rather controversial when initially conceived in the 1960s but has been redressed during the post-New-Order period and is now intended to serve as a bridge between the Chinese minority and the Indonesian majority (Chiou 2010; Al-Qurtuby 2003). Second, Chineseness is embodied in the manner in which Chinese-Indonesian Muslims practice Islam. Prominent examples include building mosques in a distinctively Chinese style (Chiou 2007) and performing the Islamic popular music known as nashid with Mandarin lyrics and dressed in Chinese mandarin jackets. More interestingly, they have initiated a new ritual discourse of Islamic worship by incorporating into salat (Islamic prayer) Chinese stretching exercises and massage and have also incorporated salat into their celebration of Chinese New Year, known in Indonesia as “Imlek” (Chiou 2013). This chapter introduces how a Chinese-Indonesian Muslim doctor applies his knowledge of Chinese medicine for health care of Muslim. He even initiates a new ritual discourse of performing salat. His new idea of salat is not merely an impractical discursive innovation confined to the circle of Chinese-Indonesian Muslims; it has

S. Chiou (B) Department of Sociology, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_10

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Fig. 10.1 Book cover of Wijayakusuma’s Hikmah Shalat

been promoted by indigenous Indonesian Muslims as an operable body technique of health care. Hembing Wijayakusuma (張鑫銘, 1940–2011) (Fig. 10.1) was a famous ChineseMuslim national figure and a practitioner of Chinese medicine in Indonesia. He did not confine himself to practicing in his own clinic in Jakarta; he was also involved in TV programs and popular publications, promoting his ideas of health care, and giving guidelines on how to lead healthy lives by using simple techniques of self-care and self-cure. As a young boy, Wijayakusuma studied herbs with his great-grandmother and acquired the knowledge of herbology. At the age of 18, he went to Hong Kong where he was enrolled in an institute of Chinese Medicine and trained as a doctor in Chinese medicine and as an acupuncture specialist. After completing his studies, he returned to Indonesia and gradually gained fame because of his excellent medical talents. Since the 1990s, Wijayakusuma has published almost 80 books. Except for a few books which deal with social criticism and histories of Chinese-Indonesians, and two biographies based on interviews of him, most of his books are about Chinese

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medicine, recipes for herb beverages and healthy meals, self-healing, and pharmacopoeia. He was also a television celebrity, creating several programs on how to have a healthy life using simple approaches such as diet, exercise, and so on (Sutoyo 2000). His publications and TV programs have popularized the knowledge and practice of Chinese medicine, satisfying the urgent needs of the Indonesian middle class interested in improving their health by self-healing and diet. Since the mid-1990s, he had been involved in preaching sermons from the Islamic and health perspectives. Among his healthcare publications, three books had been written especially for Muslims to enhance their mental and physical well-being in performing Islamic rituals (Wijayakusuma 1994, 1997, 2002). Wijayakusuma applied his knowledge of Chinese medicine and physiology to Islamic rituals and practices, suggesting that Muslims could improve their health through ritual fast in Ramadan and performing salat and personal prayer (do’a). While the idea of incorporating health care with Islamic rituals is not totally new, there are three interesting new ideas in his books. First, he introduced the ideas of qi (vital energy) and the meridian system1 in the practice of salat and regarded performing salat as similar to doing acupuncture massage and practicing stretching exercises. Second, based on Chinese theories of mental and physical health, he gave an interpretation of the ritual of salat as a means to instill self-discipline and to organize the Muslim community. Thirdly, unlike most of the popular literature on Ramadan, which usually concentrates on the ritual details of correct performance of worship, and the fasting or how the God’s divine boons would benefit Muslims, he offered healthy recipes for dinner after the daily fasting during Ramadan. There exists a considerable body of popular literature exploring the relation between health and performance of Islamic rituals in medical studies and Sufi practice (Ernst 2003, 2005). Muslim medical researchers have tried to argue the curative effects of salat and ritual fast in medical practice and social work (Azizi 2002; AlKrenawi and Graham 1999; Rassool 2000; Reza, Urakami, and Mano 2002). Muslims or Sufi groups see the performance of salat as akin to practicing yoga or doing physical exercise. There are common ritual discourses, for instance, stressing that ritual ablution (wudu) is a form of hygiene, that concentration on performing salat induces mental and psychical health, and analyzing the execution of salat as Yoga. However, my purpose here is not to argue whether the performance of salat and ritual fast are medically effective. Instead, I will examine how Wijayakusuma applied his medical knowledge and techniques of Chinese acupuncture massage, stretching exercises, and dietetics to Islamic rituals such as wudu, salat, and ritual fast in Ramadan. His ritual discourse on Islam and health, infused with cultural elements of Chinese bodily cultivation, has shed light on a theoretical implication embodied in certain dimensions of Islamic rituals: Performing wudu and salat has become a physical technique for health care by which the Muslim practitioners formulate their modern religious selves, using the physiological approach to build up a modern Muslim community.

1

The concepts of qi and median system will be expanded on later.

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10.2 Performing Salat as a Technique of Acupuncture Massage and Stretching Exercise In the following discussion, I will show how Wijayakusuma incorporates his ideas on health care in the discourse of Islamic prayer and Ramadan, including wudu, salat, and consumption of the evening meal after the daily break of fasting during Ramadan.2

10.2.1 Ablution and Sins of the Limbs Salat is a very structured Islamic ritual in terms of the ritual acts and regulations. It has four requirements: “(1) an intention to dedicate the prayer to God; (2) a prescribed sequence of gestures and words; (3) a physical condition of purity; and (4) proper attire” (Mahmood 2005, p. 123). Though there are some differences among the various traditions of legal schools, basically the practice of salat contains formal components, which are divided into ablution (wudu) and a number of pray circle (rakaat). The ablution is mandatory before performing the formal prayer. When performing ablution, practitioners have to sequentially wash or wipe limbs of the body, including head, ear, mouth, nose, and other limbs. The prayer circle consists of four postures and acts: standing, bowing (ruku), prostration (sujud), and sitting (duduk). In the five daily prayers, various numbers of prayer circle are required on different occasions. A typical prayer formula usually explains why salat is a core religious obligation and guides Muslims on how to pray with legally acceptable bodily posture, timing, place, rehearsal of sura, ritual purity, and so on. However, in addition to that, Wijayakusuma emphasizes that if Muslims want to know better about the advantages of salat, they should consider salat not only from the perspective of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) but also from the perspectives of health care and medical knowledge. Combining Western and oriental3 medical knowledge with religious knowledge based on the Koran and hadith, he asserts that performing salat is a ritual practice as well as a way of doing acupuncture massage and stretching exercises to improve the health of Muslims. Because it brings about the well-being of body and mind and is constitutive of inner self-discipline and mental and physical health, performing salat can further contribute to a good social life and a wholesome Muslim community. With reference to the Prophet’s saying, “seek knowledge by even going to China,” Wijayakusuma (1994) introduces the idea of acupuncture, the meridian system, and qi (pp. 71–73) and suggests that Islam is a religion that emphasizes the importance 2

There are three basic forms of prayer in Islam: personal prayer (do’a), ritual prayer (salat), and dhikr. 3 Wijayakusuma vaguely mentions the term “oriental medical knowledge,” which, more exactly, should be indicated as “Chinese medical knowledge.” In particular, acupuncture, the meridian system and qi-cultivation are knowledge coming from the Chinese medical tradition.

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of maintaining good health so as to prevent illnesses and ensure general well-being, including that of their thoughts, mind, and morality (pp. 67–68).4 According to Wijayakusuma, there are three main advantages in performing ablution. Wiping the body can rid the body of dirt and germs that are detrimental to our health. It is a typical idea among Muslims to regard ablution as a habit of hygiene in everyday life. The acts of ablution are meant to purify the sins of the body, caused by wrongdoings. Wijayakusuma (1994) explains the sins of limbs. The symbol of hands has two different meanings, viz. creation and destruction. To wipe one’s hands means to purify the wrongdoing that has been committed by one’s hands. Washing hands symbolizes the purification of our misdemeanor so as to avoid future punishment and suffering. Cleaning the mouth and tongue by gargling is important because the mouth cavity is a hotbed of germs, which cause diseases. The tongue is boneless but flexible, capable of saying something good or bad; the tongue can produce honey or toxin, the former to please and the latter to harm people. Washing the face, including the eyes, is very important because one’s behavior and intentions are influenced by what one sees, and hence, the eyes can cause one to commit evil, uncivil, or inhumane acts. Hence, washing one’s face and eyes with clean water symbolizes the purification of one’s misdeeds. Cleaning one’s scalp and hair symbolizes cleansing impure thoughts. Washing one’s head can improve one’s mental health and wipe away negative emotions such as fear, anger, and so on. The head of a human being is faced toward and bowed to God when performing salat; this symbolizes how the brain is submitted to God. When we wash our head, we are cleansing our tainted thoughts and intentions, thus improving the health of our brain, which is the master of our body. Hence, one will receive divine blessings and favors (hikmah) from God. The ear is the sense organ for listening; without our ears, our beliefs would become chaotic because we cannot listen. Washing our feet is aimed at purifying our actions. When washing our feet, we reflect on our behavior. The water of ablution can clean the impure and evil in us, thus strengthening our attitude and fortifying our mind. The symbols used by Wijayakusuma to describe the sins of the limbs are common motifs in line with the discursive traditions of Islamic jurisprudence and theology. However, most interestingly, he addresses another alternative efficacy of ablution, noting that when we wipe the body during the performance of ritual ablution, the acupuncture points of the body will be simultaneously stimulated to benefit the body, as in acupuncture massage (Fig. 10.2). The therapy of acupuncture massage is based on Chinese medicine, which holds that the body has a meridian system through which the qi is circulated and engender the living power of a human being, and that special points along the meridian system regulate the flow of qi. When Muslims wipe their limbs when performing ablution, the result and effects are similar to massaging the acupuncture points. In his other healthcare books (1999, 2002) Wijayakusuma teaches people how to practice the acupuncture massage on the soles of feet and the 4 The two types of qi, Yin and Yang, circulate through the meridian system inside body. If the qi can circulate smoothly and harmoniously, it shows that the body is in healthy condition. The idea of qi, meridian, and acupuncture will be expanded later.

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Fig. 10.2 An illustration of ear acupuncture points and ritual ablution (wudu)

neck. He applies the same therapy of Chinese natural self-healing in explaining the benefits of ablution.

10.2.2 Salat, Bodily Cultivation, and Conduct of Life Like a bodily exercise, salat consists of moving between four postures: standing, bowing (ruku), prostration (sujud), and sitting (duduk). Similarly, Wijayakusuma continues his idea of treating the bodily movements in the prayer circle as doing acupuncture massage. Because of the bodily movements, Wijayakusuma also sees salat as stretching exercises through which the body can be exercised to benefit the bones, muscles, and organs, as well as the circulation, endocrine, and nervous system.5 Wijayakusuma might be aware that he could be accused of altering the meaning of salat from a fundamentally religious obligation to a Chinese physical exercise, when he applies the technique of acupuncture massage and stretching exercises to the practice of salat. Thus, in an effort to distinguish and distance salat from physical exercise, he elaborates on the effects of executing salat in three dimensions: moral self, bodily health, and wholesome Muslim community. He claims that according to the Prophet, if we perform the salat without pious intentions, we 5 The writing style which Wijayakusuma uses to explain the physical effects makes his book look like a textbook of physiology in which one can find many anatomic pictures, including the meridian system. This style can also be found in his other books.

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merely “carry out” (mengerjakan) this ritual performance rather than “establishing” (mendirikan) salat.6 Performing salat without pious intentions is similar to doing exercises without focusing on God. Though exercise can relieve stress and improve physical health, it cannot deal with spiritual problems because our minds are still preoccupied by mundane matters. This means that exercises can improve only physical health rather than achieve spiritual well-being. Although the issue of sustaining health by performing salat is one of Wijayakusuma’s central concerns, this is not the only characteristic he attributes to salat. Performing salat with total pious concentration can help a Muslim to feel calm and have inner peace; he will have an energetic and ordered life, benefitting both the body and spirit. Thus, the meaning of performing salat should include the social and spiritual dimensions as well. In summary, Wijayakusuma’s “salat theory” includes three continuous steps. Based on the pious intentions toward God, performing the salat is akin to simultaneously exerting the body according to the application of Chinese acupuncture massage and stretching exercise whose benefits have been explained by empirical knowledge of physiology and Chinese medicine. Through disciplined ritual practice, it cultivates a pious self with good morals and healthy mental attitude. This can be the groundwork for outward transformation as reflected in disciplined social activities, eventually leading to the establishment of a wholesome Muslim community.

10.2.3 Dietetics of Ramadan Wijayakusuma’s book (1997), Puasa itu Sehat (Ritual Fasting is Healthy), aims at a very different concern other than the typical ritual formulas of Ramadan found in most books about Ramadan. In Moller’s (2005) review on five Ramadan books published in Indonesia, he has found that all of them deal with issues such as when the ritual fast should begin, how the ritual fast should be performed, and why Muslims have to follow the legal regulations. Moller found seven motifs present in the books studied. First, there was an exploration of the religious meanings of Ramadan, explaining the boons, and extraordinariness of the ritual fast. The meanings of pursuit of pureness in ritual fast and worships are elaborated and highlighted to show how Muslims can achieve merit, forgiveness, and charity by learning self-control, donating money, and feeding the poor in this particular month. The second motif is about the timing of when exactly to begin Ramadan; there have been always different legal opinions broadly divided between the modernist and traditionalist Muslim groups. The third motif concerns the various additional and supererogatory ritual prayers, which may be the most important ritual activity in Ramadan. Muslims believe that by performing the ritual prayers during the Ramadan month, they can gain more blessings and merits 6

People pray but usually cannot concentrate on God. People who murmur do not really know what praying means. Those who pray must concentrate with sincere and pious orientation from their heart.

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from God. Reformist and traditionalist Muslims disagree over the number of prayercycles (raka’at)—some say eight, others twenty, or more—of the tarawih prayers in the evenings of the fasting month. “The Night of Power” (lailatul qadar) is extremely important for Muslims because they believe that it was during the night that the Koran was revealed to the Prophet and humankind; they also believe that by performing ritual prayers and commemorating God, they can accumulate more merit from their prayers in this night than at any other time. The fifth issue is how to perform iktikaf (a form of retreat in a mosque, in accordance with some ritual legal regulations). The sixth motif concerns how to perform the required ritual prayers during the feast of Lebaran (Idul Fitri). Finally, the explanation of how to perform a valid ritual fast is one of the most important activities. The ritual regulations are usually illustrated according to complicated Islamic jurisprudence, which is based on the principles of normative Islam. In contrast, Wijayakusuma’s Ramadan book, similar to his salat book, serves more like a guide to health care for Muslims in carrying out Islamic rituals. It takes a different form by providing healthy recipes on nutritious dishes for the evening meal at the break of the daily fast. Unlike his salat book, which was interwoven with references to the Koran and Hadith, and presented in a fiqh style, this book on Ramadan only takes few pages to explain his ideas and reasons for wanting to promote healthy recipes, especially for dinners during Ramadan. In addition to explaining how to achieve mental, physical, and spiritual health through performance of Islamic rituals, he introduces the physical benefits of fasting. He then includes a very different topic, that is, how to eat healthily after the daily fast. Thus, his book has become a recipe-like Ramadan book. Convinced that fasting can facilitate self-healing of the body, Wijayakusuma highlights the physical and physiological advantages of fasting. He also believes that fasting, as a form of self-control, is good for mental health. He argues that when Muslims know how to control desires through fasting, they would master the technique of controlling their emotions and thoughts. Hence, they would not be easily influenced by sensory stimulations which may have negative impacts on the body (Wijayakusuma 1997). Additionally, he states that fasting can help one to stop drinking, smoking, and taking drugs (Wijayakusuma 1997). Explaining that the endocrine system produces adequate hormones such as insulin and adrenalin to sustain the body during fasting, Wijayakusuma advises Muslims not to worry about whether the nutrition and energy levels are sufficient for the body’s need when fasting. Then he explains that he offers the Ramadan dietetics because “fasting and nutrition, like the two sides of a coin, cannot be separated” (Wijayakusuma 1997, p. 20). After the daily fast, Muslims feel so hungry that they often drink and eat much more than they usually do and should. Although the food they eat is not against Islamic law, the problem is that their bad habit of drinking and eating too much harms their health. In essence, drinking and eating too much for a meal contradicts the call for self-control during Ramadan. Instead of such bad eating habits, he suggests that Muslims should eat moderately in terms of quality and quantity by taking necessary nutrients like fats, glucose, and protein from various food sources.

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Moller’s (2005) review of other Ramadan books shows that they hardly contain any information on healthy meals for Muslims when they break their daily fast in the evening. But, as Hoffman (2005, p. 41) has observed: Fasting during Ramadan is rarely associated in the minds of Muslims with the renunciation of the flesh in the broader sense, but rather with the acquisition of humility and compassion through hunger. Contemporary Muslim discussions of the fast emphasize Ramadan as a time of increased devotion and the renunciation of the anger, but not the renunciation of fleshly desires per se. The fact that Muslims commonly break the fast each sunset with sumptuous meals and joyful celebrations, and that often more is consumed during Ramadan than any other month, demonstrate the lack of negative feeling toward the body among religious Muslims.

Wijayakusuma’s Ramadan recipes pay more programmatic attention to eating rather than focusing on spiritual matters such as blessings and merits. This pragmatism shows that he may have found the issue of eating to be very important. He seems to have bridged the gap between normal religious texts and real need for healthy recipes for Muslims.

10.3 Chinese Bodily Cultivation as a Body Technique As mentioned above, in addition to the books focusing on the healthcare issues in performing salat, and ritual fast, Wijayakusuma’s other books include those that promote a Do-It-Yourself health care, guides to practicing qigong (an exercise that integrates movement, breath, and meditation used for health or spiritual cultivation, or martial arts), stretching exercises, acupuncture massage, and books on healthy diets. Why does Wijayakusuma incorporate the ideas of techniques of acupuncture massage, stretching exercises, and the recipes in the performance of Islamic rituals as a way of improving Muslims’ heath? To answer this question, it is necessary to review some elemental ideas of Chinese medicine and to explore how the technique of bodily cultivation is applied in salat and ritual fast. The cultivation of qi and the meridian system are two fundamental concepts of Chinese medicine, originating from Taoist bodily cultivation practice. In Taoism, the body is the key field to be cultivated for health and immortality. Taoists believe that qi, one of the core concepts in Chinese cosmology and philosophy, exists in all things but cannot be comprehended. Qi is also understood as proto-material; by executing the skill of qigong, the qi circulated inside the body can be strengthened and used to improve organ functions and metabolism. Therefore, how to cultivate qi and keep it in a harmonious and vital condition is one of the important goals of Taoist philosophy. The Taoist practitioners believe that bodily cultivation absorbs and transforms proper, healthy, and harmonious qi from the subtler levels of cosmic energy of the natural world and human community “through breathing, food, drink, physical contact, sexuality, and emotion” (Kohn 2005, p. 30). Qi is circulated inside the body through the meridians, i.e., invisible channels connecting organs, inner and

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outer parts of the body. Along the meridians, there are various acupuncture points where the meridian comes closest to the skin; these can be stimulated by needles, heat, and finger pressure. Thus, qi-circulation can be facilitated through acupuncture for medical purposes. The Taoist body is regarded as the most fundamental field and instrument through which practitioners exercise meditation, qigong, and stretching exercises to pursue immortality and eternal salvation. According to Levi (1989, pp. 105–126), the body is the Taoists’ coat of arms, represented as “alchemy of divine” and “vessel of divine images.” In other words, the Taoist bodily cultivation intends to achieve longevity and immortality by merging ego with the natural world. On the other hand, though the Taoist bodily cultivation is “performed by individuals in seclusion and solitude” and “rested in tranquility, away from all turmoil” (Xu 1999, p. 969), it is not merely confined to an anti-social mysticism but also includes a pursuit of social well-being, which is important for achieving harmony in the family, clan, state, and the cosmos at large (Xu 1999). In the pursuit of immortality, body and mind are equally important, and their relationship is considered as a whole, based on the belief that the body has its own inherent autonomic capability to heal itself. Although the Taoist bodily cultivation in the religious sense is “often informed by occult knowledge about the spiritual transcendence and immortality” (Xu 1999, p. 969), the knowledge of Taoist bodily cultivation has been gradually transformed to secular medical practice and has even been adapted for programmatic self-care and self-healing methods. There are several longevity techniques for promoting good health, sustaining and increasing the qi, such as acupuncture, massage, qigong, breathing skills, stretching exercises, and meditation. The bodily cultivation technique is based on skill training to enhance and cultivate qi through various practices. The qigong is roughly divided between jinggong (qigong focusing on quiet meditation) and donggong (qigong forms practiced with bodily movements with breathing control techniques),7 as well as other practices of health care such as dietetics, herbology, massage, and sexual yoga. Acupuncture massage is a form of massage combining massage and acupuncture. The idea is similar to acupuncture therapy which uses the technique of inserting fine needles into acupuncture points to regulate the qi-flow. Acupuncture massage is like doing massage to stimulate the acupuncture points to enhance the qi-flow to facilitate the innate healing ability of the body (Kohn 2005). Chinese dietetics, including food cures and diets, is known as Chinese mediated diet or nutritional therapy based on the principle of eating selected food according to the healing properties of the food8 for the purpose of prevention or healing or to perform fasting for religious selfcultivation. It is not only used as a medical prescription but also popularized as local knowledge practiced in everyday life for health and healing. 7

Generally speaking, donggong consists of stretching exercises, Taiji Quan (Great Ultimate Boxing), and martial arts, while stretching exercises is gentler than martial arts in bodily movements, and sometimes, its practice is combined with massage. 8 In a general classificatory system, food has three main properties: stimulating (heating/qienhancing), calming (cooling/qi-reducing), and neutral (Kohn 2005, p. 138).

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It is apparent that Wijayakusuma’s applications of acupuncture massage and stretching exercises in performances of wudu, salat, and dietetics in Ramadan recipes reflect influences from the practices of Chinese bodily cultivation in such a way that a bodily imaginary behind the Chinese body technique has been transplanted in the Muslim’s body. But there are some interesting differences among his three books on Islamic rituals and his other healthcare books, which do not deal in particular with Islam. Although the ideas of meridian system and acupuncture points in his discourse on salat are based on the theory of qi, Wijayakusuma does not explain the principle of qigong as he has done in other books, and neither does he really guide Muslims on how to apply breathing in performing salat as traditional Chinese qigong did. To avert possible criticisms that his application is a physical exercise rather than Islamic ritual obligation, he places the intention (niya) in the center, stressing the importance of pious intentions and highlighting the totality of the body, including the physical and spiritual aspects. It seems that he does not want to make the performance of salat and wudu resemble Chinese acupuncture massage and stretching exercises. Wijayakusuma’s innovation of incorporating Chinese techniques of bodily cultivation has created some new elements in discourses on Islamic rituals. A similar combination of martial arts and Islamic pureness occurs among the Hui community of Inner Mongolia, China. According to Hallenberg (2002, 2003), there is a symbolic link between wudu and Hui Muslim martial arts. Tangping (water bottle) is a tea kettle-like washing can. It is a hot water bottle with a lid, a handle, and a spout. It was originally from Inner Asia, and it is still used by Hui Muslims for wudu before performing salat. Gradually, the tangping has become a symbol for halal, used as an ethnic icon on signboards to indicate the Hui Muslim’s pureness apart from non-Muslim Chinese (Hallenberg 2003). There has been a long tradition of martial arts among the local Hui Muslims, and it has produced discourses claiming that the practice of martial arts is legitimated by the religious textual authority of Sunna and Hadith (Hallenberg 2002). One of the Islamized forms of martial arts is called Tangpinggong (Tangping style boxing). The tangping is not used as a weapon. Instead, the practitioner’s body imitates the form of tangping in exercises of Tangpinggong, including a series of movements and practice of qigong. There are some interesting similarities among martial arts, salat, and wudu. For practitioners who perform martial arts after salat, “ablutions were necessary before practicing wushu (martial arts) just as they are before performing prayer” (Hallenberg 2002, p. 168). By comparing the application of bodily cultivation in Wijayakusuma’s salat discourses and Hui Muslims’ Islamized form of martial arts, we can see that the Chinese technique of bodily cultivation has been infused in the discourses of Islamic ritual and vice versa. Asian religious cultures have rich traditions of self-cultivation that exercise mind and body through physical and meditational training. The body has long served as a vehicle for the religious cultivation that can be analyzed by Mauss’s (2006) concept of “techniques of the body” in which the body is seen by Mauss as “Man’s first and most natural instrument” (p. 83). The term is also transformed to another concept, borrowed from Aristotle, “habitus,” which “vary especially between societies, education, proprieties and fashions, prestige” and are understood as “the techniques and

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work of collective and individual practical reason” (Mauss 2006, p. 80). This points to the socially informed body which can physically cognize and master things in practice. The bodily imaginary in Asian religious traditions is unlike that of the traditional Western vision of body, which is based on Christianity that divides spirit as eternal and transcendent and the body as worldly and inferior. Neither is the bodily imaginary in Asian religious traditions trapped in the Cartesian model, believing the mind is superior to the material world and the division of spirit and flesh is ontologically irreconcilable. In contrast, Taoism considers body and mind as belonging to essential oneness and is of homological importance to the religious cultivation (Kohn 2005). We have discussed how elements of Chinese bodily imaginary have been infused in the performance of Islamic rituals that relates the characters of the Islamic rituals with health care by a way of a technique of bodily cultivation. The next section will examine how salat has become a bodily technique and is transformed in building bodily imaginary as a part of the modern Muslim’s self.

10.4 Embodying Ritual Practice with Islamic Chineseness: A Theoretical Reflection According to Wijayakusuma, carrying out acts of salat with pious intentions and acupuncture massage will lead to mental, spiritual, and physical well-being. Such a state of well-being will facilitate the formulation of a pious self, eventually leading to the establishment of a disciplined, rational, and wholesome Muslim society. Wijayakusuma’s application of Chinese bodily cultivation in the performing of salat has created a ritual discourse, stressing that the body can serve as a vehicle for Muslims to temper mental tranquility, exercise physical health, discipline the social behaviors, and formulate good Muslim community. His salat discourse has not only raised the question of how to consider the cultural meaning of body but also showed the character of Islamic rituals in view of the paradigm of embodiment and theory of practice. Islam, in light of the ritual practice of salat, has been understood by some Western scholarship as “a religion of orthopraxy more than of orthodoxy, focused more on ritual practice and proper comportment than on theological doctrines and philosophical reflection” (Powers 2004, p. 426). Powers (2004) criticizes those who describe Islam as “mechanically ritualistic,” “ethically superficial” (p. 426), and thus “defective religion” (p. 453), saying that such opinions are based on the assumption that a complete religion should be inner-oriented, spiritual, and individual. He argues that the concept of religion “in fiqh al-ibadat is consistently presented in bodily, formalistic terms, an embodied orientation toward God” (Powers 2004, p. 450). It is reflected in John Bowen’s examining the salat practice of three Indonesian Muslim groups. Bowen (1989) concludes that examining the discursive practice of salat is more useful than observing the symbolism of salat. This is because the

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salat is a simplistic ritual without profound symbolic meaning that offers a space where various Muslim groups can appropriate their interpretations of salat in diverse contexts, fulfilling the need of identity politics. Bowen (1989) concludes: …the prostrations and recitation in the salat do not have the intrinsic symbolic richness of the Ndembu milk-tree, Trobriand spells or any circumcision rite…. The salat is not structured around an intrinsic propositional or semantic core. It cannot be ‘decoded’ semantically because it is not designed according to a single symbolic or iconic code. In particular times and places Muslims have constructed the salat as conveying iconic code or semantic meanings, but as part of particular spiritual, social and political discourses… (p. 615)

Since Bowen’s pioneer study of salat in anthropology, emphasizing the approach of discourse analysis, research has come a long way. Some of this research is published in a collection titled Islamic Prayer Across the Indian Ocean. In the concluding remarks of this edited volume, Stephen Headley (2000) looks at the language and bodily posture used in salat, as well as at how the congregational form of salat contributes to consolidating the umma. His main theoretical concerns are the linguistic and social dimensions of prayer. The above theoretical approaches have considered salat with regard to discursive, linguistic, and social functional aspects. However, they have also shown some theoretical insufficiency of being unable to cover the symbolic implication and embodied dimension of the practice of salat. This theoretical insufficiency is found in Asad’s (1993) critique of Clifford Geertz’s definition of religion. Asad observes that the concepts, symbols, moods, and motions used by Geertz (1973) have put the interiority as a center of religiosity. This mode of religiosity works to implicitly fit into some style of religiosity such as Protestantism. However, some religions like Catholicism and Islam are oriented more toward embodying practice, discipline, and community than toward belief and the status of the individual believer. Following a similar critical line of thinking, he argues that the anthropological theory of ritual inherited a tradition of reformist Christian theology. He has assumed the semantic distinction between outward sign and inward meaning that universalizes the concept of ritual as symbolical action. It fails to see that the embodied dimension in ritual practice has implicated discipline, emotion, and body techniques (Asad 1993). Hence, Bowen’s (1989) claim that salat is an Islamic ritual lacking in symbols has been shown to have glaring epistemological limits. By examining Islamic scholarly tradition and the interpretation of wudu and from different Islamic jurisprudential arguments and theological interpretations on wudu, Katz (2005) concludes that the ritual discourses of wudu contain symbolic meanings. But it does not mean that he agrees that the “interpretive-textual model” is undoubtedly fit for analysis of Islamic ritual; instead, he emphasizes (Katz 2005, p. 112): …to critique the understanding of ritual as “symbolic communication” is not to assert the absence of meaning. The essence of the critique is not that there are no meanings involved in ritual practice, but that the decoding of symbols or the communication of meaning is not its raison d’etre. The symbolic logic of ritual is an embodied logic, and its meaning are physically mastered rather than spiritually pondered or intellectually understood.

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In what sense can “the symbolic logic” of salat be an “embodied logic,” and what kind of meaning can be “physically mastered?” Henkel (2005) disagrees with Bowen’s interpretation and argues that salat has been most clearly structured “around an intrinsic propositional or semantic core” (p. 498). The practice of salat is like “a minutely choreographed body technique” through which Muslim practitioners “generate and maintain their commitment to the Islamic tradition” (Henkel 2005, p. 498). This commitment is also “systematically integrated into more encompassing forms of life, shapes the practitioner over time” in which the ideal Muslim lifeworlds are shaped. Thus, Henkel (2005) sees salat as “the absolutely fixed point of the Islamic tradition” (p. 503) and defines it as “a part of a matrix of disciplines and institutions in which Muslim forms of subjectivity and social relations are forged and reproduced” (p. 489). Henkel attempts to methodologically apply phenomenology to salat and sees it as an original point of bodily practice for constructing Muslim lifeworlds. But he does not consider how the ritual practice constructs the Muslim self. In examining the Egyptian Muslim women’s Salafi movement, Mahmood (2001) finds that salat can be a bodily technique and a discipline through which the religious self is not only constrained, but the self is also realized by the rigid conduct of life directed by the practice of salat. Mahmood compares two salat discourses. One emphasizes salat as a sign showing absolute submission to God while the other discourse considers salat as a direction contributing to the formulation of civil consciousness. She argues that “the body as a signifying medium stands in no determinate relationship to the self” (Mahmood 2001, p. 848), such that even when salat is practiced in the same cultural milieu, it may lead to different effects. Hence, the significance of bodily practice should include “an analysis of the particular conception of self and authority in which these practices reside” (Mahmood 2001, p. 848). Wijayakusuma’s application of acupuncture massage and stretching exercises in salat assumes that the body has its own capacity to heal itself. Hence, the performance of salat becomes a body technique and a physical and spiritual exercise in which Muslims can improve their mental, physical, and spiritual health. Wijayakusuma believes salat can lead to the formulation of morals, a disciplined and organized life as well as the establishment of a wholesome Muslim society. In particular, his application of self-cultivation of Chinese medicine, originally developed from Taoist cultivation, adopts the idea of Chinese bodily cultivation as a modern bodily imaginary, which entails the notion of Chinese bodily thinking during the performance of salat. Such a bodily imaginary reflects three implications in the ritual discourse of salat. As Henkel’s (2005) phenomenological approach attributing the practice of salat as a bodily fundamental commitment to the ultimate truth of Islam in which the daily ritual acts universally to “enable both changing interpretations of the Islamic tradition and the affirmation of Muslim community across different interpretations of Islam” (p. 489). Wijayakusuma goes further to corporealize the performance of salat as the “bodily location of Islam,” which is supposed to be the origin of constructing Muslim lifeworlds. His appropriation of Chinese bodily cultivation is based on empirical knowledge of Chinese medicine that is rather different from other Islamic spiritual

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healing, which usually attributes healing to supra-natural power. Unlike Mahmood’s case, Wijayakusuma’s inscription of a body technique in the practice of salat is not trapped in the discipline of power enacted on the Muslim’s self.9 Alternatively, he argues that salat is neither solely a physical exercise nor an unanimated rigid regulation or military discipline that allows no free will and choice. Instead, salat should be performed in a calm and peaceful environment in pursuit of balance for mental and physical health. Wijayakusuma’s agenda not only makes salat a technique for health care but also expands the ritual effect through a relaxed approach to achieve self-discipline and self-civilizing consequences. The idea of considering salat as self-discipline and self-civilization is also applied by Egyptian textbooks to create a modern version of Islam, guiding school children to cultivate a modern sense of moral of cleanness, discipline, and order by performing wudu and salat.10 Therefore, Wijayakusuma’s interpretation is not completely unique in this regard. But what is interesting about his ritual discourse is that he imbues a bodily imaginary with elements of Chinese health care in the practice of salat to inject the image of Muslim self and society. He even stresses that if we worship God with acts, the spirit of executing salat should further enable Muslims to lead active and energetic lives; they would not become obstinate, static, repressed, and apathetic because rigidity in life is akin to death.

10.5 Concluding Remarks: Islamic Chineseness in Motion Wijayakusuma’s re-formation of the ritual performance of salat as a technique of bodily cultivation has offered a way of imagining a modern collective Muslim self underpinning a Chinese bodily imaginary. We need to explore how the performance of salat has been transformed as a way of “Islamic making of the self” and how the micro-practice of Islamic rituals associated with it offers a blueprint for formulating a modern Muslim self and a modern Muslim society. Sociologists have elaborated on the Weberian thesis of “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” to show how religious values can direct a modern “conduct of life” by constructing a modern mentality that is more suitable to satisfy the need to adapt to the modern capitalist society. It would seem that a similar Weberian thesis can be used to explain the religious impact of modern Islam on 9 Another interesting analysis on the power and ritualization of body is to explore how Islamic rituals are used by African-American Muslims in the Nation of Islam; see Edward E. Curtis IV (2002). 10 This is evident in, for instance, a text cited by Starrett (1995, p. 962): “Because in prayer there is rising and bowing and prostration, all actions that invigorate the body, and the Muslim devotes himself to work with zeal and energy, and increases production and spreads the good, and promotes (the progress of) the nation…Prayer accustoms us to order, and the keeping of appointment, and the binding together of Muslims with cooperative ties and love and harmony…Collective prayer binds society with tie of brotherhood and equality, as it acquires every Muslim with the conditions of his brothers.”

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the formulation of modernized everyday life among Indonesian Muslims, especially the largest modernist Muslim organization in Indonesia, Muhammadiyah (Peacock 1978). Wijayakusuma does not discuss ideas that are obviously relevant to the application of Weberian thesis, but there are some similarities, such as trying to take salat as collective practices or bodily technique to discipline the Muslim’s pious self and civilize the Muslim society. Wijayakusuma’s ritual discourse has innovated a tradition of salat as a bodily cultivation, which provides consequential methods to be practiced for individual health care and collective communal lives. It has shown that his experience of Chinese medicine makes him inclined toward incorporating the bodily practice of wudu, salat, and ritual fast in health care for the Muslim community. In addition, it is interesting that considering salat as a kind of stretching exercises is not solely addressed by Wijayakusuma. His pioneer idea has been adopted and promoted by an indigenous Indonesian Muslim doctor, Sagiran (2007). He argues that the health benefit of salat is not the only purpose for Muslim’s religious obligation, but the movement of salat indirectly has healthy impacts for those who perform salat.11 Similarly, though not totally the same, a Muslim preacher (ustad) Zen Zainul (2007) has introduced the idea of integrated health care through physical exercise, meditation, and dhikr (Sufi ritual practice), which can help nourish the body and soul holistically. Therefore, in a sense, Wijayakusuma’s idea of health care and Islamic ritual practice has created an alternative Islamic Chineseness in motion, which is not only confined within Chinese-Indonesian Muslims but also circulated in indigenous Indonesian Muslim’s thinking of health care.

Bibliography Abbas, K. F. (2013). Ajaibnya gerakan shalat bagi perkembangan janin [Miracle of salat movements for fetal development]. Yogyakarta: Diva Press. Al-Krenawi, A., & Graham, J. (1999). Social work and Koranic mental health healers. International Social Work, 42(1), 53–65. Al-Qurtuby, S. (2003). ArusCina-Islam-Jawa: Bongkar sejarah atas peranan Tionghoa dalam penyebaran agma Islam di Nusantara abad XV & XVI [A confluence of China-Islam-Java: Exploring histories of roles of Chinese for the spread of Islam in the Indonesian archipelago in the 15th and 16th centuries]. Yogyakarta: Inspeal Ahimsakarya Press. Asad, T. (1993). Genealogies of religion: Discipline and reasons of power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Azizi, F. (2002). Research in Islamic fasting and health. Annals of Saudi Medicine, 22(3&4), 186– 191. Bowen, J.R. (1989). Salat in Indonesia: The social meanings of an Islamic ritual. Man (N.S.), 24(4), 600–619. Chiou, S. Y. (2007). Building traditions for building differences: Islamic imaginary homelands of Chinese-Indonesian Muslims in East Java. In C. Kwok-bun, J. W. Walls, & David Hayward (Eds.), East-west identities: Globalization, localization, and hybridization (pp. 265–278). Leiden: Brill. 11

Considering salat as a healthy stretching exercise is even promoted for Muslim women, in particular, pregnant women. See Khalid Fauzi Abbas (2013) and Tujuh Sahabat (2010).

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Chiou, S. Y. (2010). Contested legacy of Chinese Muslims and appropriation of Zheng He’s Muslim images in Indonesia. In O. Atsushi, O. Masaaki, & A. Suaedy (Eds.), Islam in contention: Rethinking Islam and state in Indonesia, (pp. 319–72). Kyoto: Kyoto University. Chiou, S. Y. (2013). A controversy surrounding Chinese-Indonesian Muslims’ practice of Imlek (Chinese New Year) salat in Central Java. In S. M. Sai, & C. Y. Hoon (Eds.), Chinese Indonesians reassessed: History, religion, belonging, (pp. 200–222). London: Routledge. Curtis, I. V., & Edward, E. (2002). Islamizing the black body: Ritual and power in Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam. Religion and American Culture, 12(2), 167–196. Ernst, C. W. (2003). The Islamization of Yoga in the Amrtakunda translations. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland (Third Series), 13(2), 199–226. Ernst, C. W. (2005). Situating Sufism and Yoga. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, 15, 15–43. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. Hallenberg, H. (2002). Muslim martial arts in China: Tangping and self-defence. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 22(1), 149–168. Hallenberg, H. (2003). The Tangping washing can: A symbol of purity and ethnicity for the Hui Muslims in China. Studia Orientalia, 95, 299–319. Headley, S. (2000). Islamic prayer across the Indian Ocean: Inside and outside the Mosque. Psychology Press. Henkel, H. (2005). Between belief and unbelief lies the performance of salat: Meaning and efficacy of a Muslim ritual. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), 11(3), 487–507. Hoffman, V. J. (2005). Islamic perspectives on the human body: Legal, social and spiritual consideration. In L.S. Cahill, M.A. Farley (Eds.), Embodiment, morality, and medicine (pp. 37–55). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Katz, M. H. (2005). The study of Islamic ritual and the meaning of wudu. Der Islam, 82, 106–145. Kohn, L. (2005). Health and long life: The Chinese way. Petersburg: Three Pines Press. Kumar, A. L. (1987). Islam, the Chinese, and Indonesian historiography — A review article. The Journal of Asian Studies, 46(3), 603–616. Levi, J. (1989). The body: The Daoists’ coat of arms. In M. Feher, R. Naddaff, & N. Tazi (Eds.), Fragments for a history of the human body, part one (pp. 105–126). Newton: Zone Books. Mahmood, S. (2001). Rehearsed spontaneity and the conventionality of ritual: Disciplines of salat. American Ethnologist, 28(4), 827–853. Mahmood, S. (2005). Politics of piety: The Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mauss, M. (2006). Techniques, technology and civilization. New York: Berghahn Books. Moller, A. (2005). Ramadan in Java: The joy and jihad of ritual fasting. Lund: Lund University. Peacock, J. (1978). Purifying the faith: The Muhammadiyah movement in Indonesian Islam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Powers, P. R. (2004). Interiors, intentions, and the “spirituality” of Islamic ritual practice. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 72(2), 425–459. Rassool, G. H. (2000). The crescent and Islam: Healing, nursing and the spiritual dimension. Some considerations towards an understanding of the Islamic perspectives on caring. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 32(6), 1476–1484. Reza, M. F., Urakami, Y., & Mano, Yukio. (2002). Evaluation of a new physical exercise taken from salat (prayer) as a short-duration and frequent physical activity in the rehabilitation of geriatric and disabled patients. Annals of Saudi Medicine, 22(3&4), 177–180. Sagiran. (2007). Mukjizat gerakan shalat: Penelitian dokter ahli bedah dalam pencegahan & penyekbuhan penyakit [Miracles of salat movement: A doctor’s research for the prevention and cure of diseases]. Jakarta: Qultum Media. Sahabat, T. (2010). Hikmah sehat gerakan shalat: senam harmon tubuh dan olah hati [Health wisdom of salat movements: Gymnastics to harmonize body and soul]. Jakarta: Lingkar Pena Publishing House.

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Starrett, G. (1995). The political economy of religious commodities in Cairo. American Anthropologist, 97(1), 51–68. Sutoyo, A. (2000). Kiatsukses prof. Hembing [Prof. Hembing’s way to success]. Jakarta: PrestasiInsan Indonesia. Wijayakusuma, H. (1994). Hikmah shalat: Untuk pengobatan dan kesehatan [The Boons of salat: For therapy and health]. Jakarta: Pustaka Kartini. Wijayakusuma, H. (1997). Puasaitu sehat: Manfaat pusat bagi keshatan dan resep-resep hidangan sahur & berbuka puasa yang berkhasiat obat [Ritual fasting is healthy: The benefit of fasting for health and healthy recipes for sahur and breaking fast]. Jakarta: Gramedia. Wijayakusuma, H. (1999). 10 menit menuju sehat dengan terapi tulang kepala belakang [10 minutes to fitness on head]. Jakarta: Gramedia. Wijayakusuma, H. (2002). Terapi pijat refleksi kaki [Foot massage therapy]. Jakarta: Milenia Populer. Xu, J. (1999). Body, discourse, and the cultural politics of contemporary Chinese qigong. The Journal of Asian Studies, 58(4), 961–991. Zainul, Z. (2007). Kekuatan metode Lafidzi: Hidup sehat dengan olah lahir fikir, and dzikir [The strength of Lafidzi method: Healthy living with sports of bike, and dzikir]. Jakarta: Qultum Media.

Syuan-yuan Chiou is an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology, National Chengchi University, Taiwan. He has published several book chapters about Chinese-Indonesian Muslims. His current research project focuses on the Indonesian Muslim community in Taiwan.

Chapter 11

Becoming a Nanyang-Style Artist in Postwar Singapore and Malaya: Georgette Chen’s Drawing and Her Construction of Asian Themes Qilin Zeng

11.1 Introduction Georgette Chen Li Ying (1906–1993), born in Yong Chun, Fujian, China, was one of Singapore’s pioneer artists who established the Nanyang Style of painting. Her wealthy family allowed her to live and receive an art education in the great cosmopolitan cities of Paris, New York, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. She and her second husband Dr. Ho Yung Chi moved to Penang after her exhibition in Paris in 1950. After their divorce, Georgette came to settle in Singapore and was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 1982 for her outstanding achievements and contributions to art in Singapore. Her life story spanned cultures in different continents and several crises of the twentieth century. In the words of Georgette Chen, “sometimes when I think that I am the product of four world events, all wars—two Chinese revolutions, the one of Dr. Sun and Mao Tse-tung and the first and second World War, in all of which I have been inexorably involved, the wonder is that my professions should have been one of good-will and peace” (Chen 17 May 1967). This chapter stresses that the transition process of Georgette Chen’s sense of identity and her construction of the Nanyang Art Style was not only a result of her personal experiences and choices, but these were also influenced by a series of global and local events. Some scholars have undertaken studies on the overseas Chinese in transnational turns and multiple communities, such as Adam KcKeown, Philip Kuhn, and Madeline Hsu. They offer a new understanding of how national, regional, and global changes impact waves of Chinese emigration (Kuhn 2008; McKeown 2001; Tagliacozzo and Chang 2011). Conducting research on the overseas Chinese, scholars have paid substantial attention to the concept of a diaspora (Chan 2018; Ma and Cartier 2003; McKeown 1999; Shih 2007; Wang 2001, 2004). Although some leading scholars, such as Wang Gungwu and Shu-mei Shih, refuse to use the Q. Zeng (B) National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_11

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idea of a diaspora, their discussions could serve as a starting point for the term. In Wang Gungwu’s research, he emphasizes that as the Chinese in Southeast Asia is varied by class, gender, and historical experiences shaped by local context, to call and think about them as a Chinese diaspora can lead to a reduction of the Chinese as a homogenous group (Wang 2001, 2004). A few scholars have raised the idea that the establishment of communist China in 1949 accelerated the transformation of overseas Chinese identification(McKeown 1999). In this approach, regional or international events such as the Cold War, the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the independence of Singapore will be taken into consideration when discussing Georgette Chen’s identity shift and that of the Chinese diaspora after World War II (WWII). Georgette Chen was influenced by multicultural perspectives, which were internalized in her thoughts, her artworks, and her life, through the practices of her art. Throughout her life, her drawings presented Chinese and Southeast Asian themes with Western techniques. Also, she experienced the transitional political situation in British Malaya, followed by the Federation of Malaya, and then the birth of Singapore. Like Singapore’s other first-generation artists who came to Singapore from China, Georgette realized the need for establishing a local art style which could capture the spirit of the tropics. This new style of painting was known as the Nanyang Style. As Singapore’s pioneer artists, Georgette Chen, Chen Chong Swee, Cheong SooPieng, Liu Kang, and Chen Wen Hsi, who were part of the Chinese diaspora, presented their new homeland with a unique tropical character. Georgette was obsessed with objects, Singapore’s landscapes, Nanyang children, and their mothers during that period. After she came to Singapore, Georgette started teaching in the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) until she retired in 1980. During her stay in Singapore, she maintained contact with intellectuals from Malaysia, Hong Kong, mainland China, Paris, and the United States. This chapter discusses her contributions to the development of the Nanyang Style in a transnational framework and explores Georgette’s localized drawings through her cultural practices at the NAFA. The word “Nanyang,” which literally means “South Sea,” reflects Sino-centric geographical and cultural connotations. This concept originated with imperial China’s vision of a seascape off its southeastern coastline and was represented as an outside civilization, which was regarded as anathema to sedentary Zhongyuan civilization. (Bernards 2015). It combines a strong nostalgia towards China. Increasing scholarly objection is being raised to use the term “Southeast Asia” rather than “Nanyang.” Zou Kunyi raises the idea that adopting the “Nanyang Style” to discuss the art, which is created in Singapore, should be a misnomer (Zou 2016). Considering the term “style” in art history, it refers to a “…distinctive manner which permits the grouping of works into related categories” (Fernie 1995, p. 361, cited in Zou 2016, p. 32) or “the constant form—and sometimes the constant elements, qualities, and expressions—in the art of an individual or a group” (Schapiro 1998, pp. 143– 149, cited in Zou 2016, p. 32). Though the continued reference to the concept of a “Nanyang Style” is worthy of an in-depth discussion in itself, in this Chapter, I would like to continue using this concept since it is commonly accepted and officially

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used (Sabapathy 2015) to describe the style that Nanyang artists’ paintings have in common: a mixture of globalization, Chinese elements, and localization. In the field of Nanyang Art studies, scholars have paid more attention to the art that was created during Malaysian or modern times rather than Singaporean or midtwentieth century (Sabapathy 2002, 2018). Research has been increasingly conducted on Singapore’s artists. However, these studies mainly focus on male artists, especially Liu Kang, Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi, and Cheong Soo Pieng (Lee 2015; Liu et al. 2005; Sabapathy 1995; Zou 2016). Female artists in Singapore have largely been compromised and simplified. This gender blindness leads a few scholars to pay substantial attention to Georgette Chen. Most of the studies that have been conducted on Georgette focus on her bibliography, speeches, and art collections (Ministry of Community Development and National Museum of Singapore 1985; Chia 1997; Lee 2018; Liew 2014). An examination of Georgette Chen helps to address the lack of Singaporean female pioneering artists in the existing scholarly literature since she represents one of Singapore’s pioneering artists. Furthermore, she is one of the Chinese overseas painters who reflect their subtle identity changes and shifting sense of belonging in their artwork. It is with this rationale that I conduct in-depth research on Georgette Chen. Using materials collected from letters, magazines, newspapers, government documents, archival materials, oral histories, Chen’s artworks, and bibliography, I shed light on the intricate and continuous process of identity transformation of the Chinese overseas in turbulent mid-twentieth century Asia during the Cold War era. In this chapter, I draw special attention to the period after WWII, during which there was a succession of crises: the Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in mainland China, the establishment of the PRC, the shortlived Malayan Union, the Bandung Conference, the Cold War between two world superpowers, and the birth of Singapore. These regional and global movements brought drastic changes to the lives of the overseas Chinese. This period helped bring into view the works by Chinese overseas, involving an interaction between the self and the world. During this period, there emerged cultural practices that sought to identify personal options and self-expressions. Quite a few scholars have undertaken the study of intellectuals in the mid-twentieth century. They discuss the intellectuals’ subjectivities and reflections on historical moments from a variety of media forms, such as poetry, fiction, and calligraphy (Barmé 2002; Link 2000; Wang 2013; Wang 2015). In this chapter, I discuss Georgette Chen’s drawings and cultural practices to stress the need to consider the crucial role of aesthetics and female pioneer artists in the process of constructing the Nanyang Art Style and a national identity in Singapore. Such an approach takes into account the recent scholarly emphasis on the sentiments and poetics of selfhood that inform the historical moments in a different light. This essay demonstrates that studying the creation and development of the Nanyang Art Style can help map out some cultural interactions among art, artists, and politics. “Chineseness” in my view, is a continuous process of becoming. It is a process that involves a struggle and negotiation between the desire to return and the acculturation of local elements. Rethinking Chineseness through the case of Georgette Chen is

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important to examine how Singapore’s pioneer artists used the Nanyang Style as a tool for evaluating their multifaceted identities and to reveal the ongoing complexities of identification among the Chinese overseas in Southeast Asia in post-war Singapore and Malaya. The following questions will be asked: How did the period of political transition spanning the dissolution of British Colonialism and the establishment of two independent nations contribute to the development of Georgette’s local art and education practices? In what ways did Georgette, who was a non-Western artist with Western art techniques, construct Asian-themed drawings in the context of art histories in China, Singapore, and Southeast Asia? What were Chinese overseas intellectuals’ living status and the structure of the diaspora’s feelings during this period? Through such studies on Georgette’s art and writings, my paper aims to recover the background to the post-WWII growth of local art, art education, and a pioneering generation of artists on the island of Singapore and in peninsular Malaya.

11.2 Structure of the Chinese Diaspora’s Feelings During the Political Transitional Period Considering the ongoing complexities of national identification in Southeast Asia and rich dimension sentiments of the Chinese overseas during the turbulent twentieth century, Raymond Williams’s concept of the “structure of feeling” is employed to investigate Georgette Chen. In Williams’s view, the structure of feeling presents social consciousness as lived experiences in the process (Williams 1977). I adopt the working assumption that the discourses of diaspora in the mode of Huaqiao participate in an intersection process of identification, individualism, and nationalism. They are not simply representations or expressions of inner sentiments, but mixture practices that participate in redefining self, the social order, and the society. In the following sections, I lay out an analytical framework that, I hope, will enable me both to shed some new light on examining the discourses of diaspora that situates the individual in society and to discuss how a local Chinese in Nanyang(mainly Singapore) identifies herself during turbulent times of wars and national independence.

11.2.1 “Diaspora Time” and “Diaspora Moment” in Asia During the Cold War Era: Georgette Chen’s Uncertainties in the Mid-Twentieth Century The political transitional period in the mid-twentieth century has spurred a new horizon. Shelly Chan (2018) uses the two concepts, “diaspora time” and “diaspora moment,” to examine the temporalities of the diaspora in Chinese history. She stresses that “diaspora time” describes the diverse, ongoing ways in which migration affects the lives of individuals, families, and communities. Also, it is a slow-moving and

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silent condition that is continuously combined and combining with other everyday realities. In her book, “diaspora time” represents the ongoing process in which a family-based strategy of survival is negotiated with the larger forces of globalization. On the other hand, “diaspora moment” refers to the development of sovereignty and diplomacy, knowledge about world history and geography, debates over tradition and modernity, reform of marriage and family, and a struggle between socialism and capitalism (Chan 2018). I would like to adopt these two concepts to launch an in-depth study on Chinese overseas intellectuals’ living status and the structure of the diaspora’s feelings during the political transitional period. The case of an individual like Georgette Chen represents an individual’s “diaspora time” during the turbulent moments of wars and national independence in Asia during the Cold War era. After her first husband Eugene Chen died in 1947, Georgette Chen toured parts of China, such as Hong Kong, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Shanghai. After that, she married her second husband Dr. Ho Yung Chi in 1947. She described her decision on her second marriage as: “It came as a surprise to many of my friends including myself, I admit. I had indeed determined that it was impossible for me to remarry after the richness of my life with Eugene Chen and planned to devote the rest of days to my art which Eugene so loved and encouraged. But I allowed Dr. Ho Yung Chi, whom I had known for ten years and was a close friend of Eugene, as well as his colleague, to convince me at last that ‘it was too lonely to live alone in this sad world’” (Chen 4 July 1949). In the 1940s, Georgette had to bear not only the trauma of her beloved husband Eugene Chen’s death, but also the political turbulence in China and the world, which drove her life into sadness. She returned to Paris alone in April 1949 to recover her studio, where she had experienced sweet times with her first husband. “The Paris chapter of life, which is filled with wonderful memories is now coming to a close. I am here to wind up my affairs before returning to New York where I still have my apartment. Yung Chi could not accompany me as he is now editing a Chinese weekly periodical in New York” (Chen 4 July 1949). The painful and lonely trip to Paris made Georgette want to finish handling her affairs at a fast pace. The Chinese newspaper, which she mentioned her husband Dr. Ho was working, could be regarded as a way in which they could keep up with friends in mainland China. This couple was waiting for an opportunity to return to China to “do our bit.” They both kept up a correspondence with family and friends in China during that period and so had regular reports about the situation there (Chia 1997). At the time, Georgette was interested in ceramics. She was even thinking about opening a studio “when we return home” (Chen 17 December 1950) in 1950. Although Georgette and her husband desperately wanted to go back to China, the political events in mainland China and the international political conflicts made it impossible. The Cold War between two world superpowers pushed this couple to reconsider their political status and next step. Yung Chi finally made up his mind to wait no longer and we began to liquidate our ties here and make ourselves mobile for our next decisive jump… the political horizon had again become very dark, owing to the Korean Crisis so we have not yet decided where and when to go…what worries us is whether people like us were considered too ‘left’. Now we may

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be considered too ‘right’…but staying in a foreign country is unsatisfactory unless one has unlimited means…Going to America is also making us hesitate since in the mood in which America is today, it must be uncomfortable for Chinese of whatever political color apart from the difficulty of getting a visa. (Chen 17 December 1950)

During this unsettling period, the choice between returning to China and staying in America was equally hard for them. This political predicament drove the Chinese overseas couple to flee to Penang, Malaysia. Georgette was optimistic about their stop-over in Penang at first, but their relationship came to an end in 1953. To Georgette, her second marriage was discouraging and painful (Chen 15 November 1952). She decided to settle in Singapore and rebuild her life there in 1953. The crisis that happened in Georgette’s personal life and worldwide political events pushed her to opt to settle in Singapore instead of going back to communist China. The Bandung Conference in 1955 was also another factor that affected her decision. At the conference, the PRC Prime Minister Zhou Enlai stated the nation’s policy toward overseas Chinese. He said that the CCP had no intention to claim any right over overseas Chinese as long as they chose the nationality of their adopted countries. Zhou Enlai confirmed with the Chief Minister of Singapore, David Marshall, that the Chinese government was willing to see the Chinese in Singapore obtain Singapore citizenship (Fitzgerald 1972). When Communist China presented their clear attitude, the structure of the diaspora feelings could be found in the identification process of the overseas Chinese in Singapore and Malaya. Georgette’s drawings and writings showed her diaspora time among the collective diaspora moments during the crisis. In the drawing, New Year Cakes (1950–1953), piles of new year cakes are placed on the traditional Chinese desk. Some of the cakes, with “blessing” stickers, are well-wrapped as new year gifts. The decoration of the desk, the well-wrapped cakes, and the tradition of pasting “blessing” stickers demonstrate the traditional New Year custom in China. Also, in her painting The Dragon Plate (1955–1960), Georgette draws a plate, with a typical Chinese totem—dragon—standing in the middle of the picture. Though a traditional Chinese vase and a spoon are painted beside the plate, they only take one-third of the total proportion of the picture. Georgette named the painting The Dragon Plate, which is easily connected with China. Tracing back to her creation period of these paintings, she was staying in Paris, America, Penang, and Singapore. Georgette not only expressed her strong willingness of going back to China but also kept recalling symbolic Chinese elements and traditional customs through her works, which reflect her diaspora feeling and a strong nostalgia towards China in the mid-twentieth century.

11.2.2 Georgette Chen’s Sense of Identity: Becoming a Singaporean Faced with the PRC’s attitude towards the overseas Chinese, growing movements and campaigns for independence in Malaya, and her marital failure during the emergence

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of the Cold War, Georgette Chen was confronted with the herculean task of making a decision on what to do and where to go. Her decision to take up residence in Singapore would undoubtedly be an important milestone in her life. Georgette Chen was familiar with Singapore as she had visited there several times with Eugene Chen. Singapore, apart from bringing back sweet memories, signified a new beginning in a place Georgette found suitable for herself. Her transregional life in China, Europe, and America made Georgette think that she and Singapore had some similarities. “I also found Singapore a veritable paradise for me with all these motifs of the East to which I am dedicated. The forms and gorgeous colors of this multiracial society constantly inspire me and feast my avid eyes. What is more, these picturesque, calm tropical shores resolve half of the problems of existence for the proverbial starving artist. Here, he can live in dignity. Can we wonder why Gauguin made his home in Tahiti? Feeling immediately at home in this world where East meets West. I did not hesitate to make my second major decision to build a small permanent shelter on an installment basis with my meager capital and settle down to fulfill my destiny” (Chen 5 February 1962). Georgette expressed her fascination with Singapore with regard to its tropical colors, multifaceted motifs, and position as a place that included well-combined elements of the East and the West, which she had experienced previously. Regarding Singapore as her permanent shelter after years of turbulence and trauma, she even considered obtaining a new pen name. I now have a Malay name. Out of three names with the word Chen in them, I chose Chendana (sandalwood). Some friends preferred Chenderawaseh, which means paradise or the paradise bird, but I thought that bird was too “highbrow” which I am not; also too seldom seen and too beautiful. The other word was Chendawan (mushroom). I rather liked it too, but to be a piece of wood is better since I am a natural blockhead. Now I remain one with a difference—a fragrant one! (Chen 11 February 1963)

Choosing “Chendana” as her Malay name could be regarded as involving her full consideration from several aspects: Firstly, Georgette’s first husband was Eugene Chen and she adopted her married name “Chen” for all signatures on her works. “Chen” could be short for her new Malay name “Chendana” as well. In this way, “Chen” became a word that perfectly combined her love for her soulmate and Nanyang. Secondly, she preferred Chendana (sandalwood) to Chenderawaseh (paradise or the paradise bird) or Chendawan (mushroom). Compared to Chendana, which is a typical tropical tree in Nanyang, the other two names are much more common and could be used in any place. Despite her sentiments, and the localization of the name, “Chendana” could be regarded as a symbol of her sense of becoming a part of Singapore like this tropical tree. “I have remade my life, but truly it is not very different from the one I had with dear Eugene…Perhaps this Malayan chapter is my last one, I have become a real tropical plant and thrive like one” (Chen 17 August 1963). Georgette felt grateful for the chance to rebuild her life in Singapore. Life there was even equated with sweet times with her first husband. The happiness and changes gave her a sense of belonging to be a real part of this tropical place. Apart from seeking a Malay name, Georgette Chen also started to learn the Malay language. “For a quite few years now, I have been studying the Malay language which

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is far more easy than our own” (Chen 17 August 1963). Her love towards Malaya enabled her to study the local language at a fast speed. Her passion for learning the local language and culture allowed her to achieve great success in passing the Government Standard Two National Language Examination in 1966. Georgette’s sense of belonging and great love for Singapore led her to integrate herself into the tropical place. In addition to her new name and learning the local language, she chose to adopt a new nationality—as a Singaporean—in 1966.

11.3 Construction of the Nanyang Style: Georgette Chen as One of Singapore’s Pioneer Artists As the Cold War extended its reach to the cultural field, it was gradually regarded as a clash of ideas and cultures as much as military and strategic conflicts (Westad 2007). Increasing attention has been paid to art, films, and other cultural productions during the Cold War period to explore the cultural dynamics of global conflicts. Art was on the front line in the cultural Cold War. When the British government returned to Malaya, they came up with a “Grand Design” (Turnbull 2009, p. 216) to deal with the rising communist threat. Art was regarded as a form of propaganda to counter the communists and a significant political tool in creating a Malayan consciousness. Ejected from Malaysia in 1965, the Singapore government was facing the task of establishing a nation with which all people could identify, a multicultural and multiethnic society that was cohesive. In this specific context, new art for the newly formed nation was expected to aid in the construction of a national identity. The next section will discuss how Georgette Chen’s drawings and cultural practices promoted the construction of the Nanyang Art Style, how her drawings developed in Singapore and incorporated local elements and her legacy to the Nanyang Art Style.

11.3.1 Establishing the Nanyang Art Style and Asian Themes: Georgette Chen’s Drawings in Her Tropical Newfound Homeland Singapore In Singapore Art Society’s 20th Anniversary Souvenir Magazine, Georgette Chen talked about her affection for Singapore in the article Singapore My Tropical New Found Land: When I came here fifteen years ago and saw this island of perpetual summer again, I was completely conquered by it. I had become a D. P. (Displaced Person) and was in search of a quiet place somewhere in Asia in which to rehabilitate and connect to live. What better place could an artist find indeed where even the problem of clothing, one of the three basic needs of man, was asked. I decided then and there to start life afresh in this my newfoundland, or my Tahiti, with its picturesque and peaceful shores, its multi-cultures and cosmopolitan ways. Gathering myself up along with what was left of my earthly possessions. I built a shelter in

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Singapore, settled down, determined to paint the motifs and learn the national language of my new home. (Chen 1969)

Determined to settle down in this newfound land in Asia to rehabilitate and become a Singaporean, Georgette Chen was fascinated by its possibility to offer an artist bread and butter, together with its beautiful sceneries. Like the negotiation of identity, the creation of local art was not developed in an easy path. Georgette Chen had to deal with multi-ethnic and ideological conflicts in Singapore as well as her identity transitions at that time. The following part will show how Georgette presented her tropical newly founded land, with its picturesque and peaceful shores, its multiple cultures, and cosmopolitan ways. As an artist based in Singapore, Georgette deepened her role in connecting art with nation-building, so her identity in the newly established nation will also be discussed. During this period, significant development can be seen in her drawings. In her early days, self-portraits and those of her first husband Eugene Chen took up the majority of her works. Upon her arrival in Singapore, she was obsessed with painting women. Tracing back to 1953, when she moved to Singapore and divorced in the same year, it is hard to imagine her sentimental trauma or the social criticisms she had to bear in 1950s Singapore. “I do value the force of friendship. Without the moral support of friends, how indeed could I have survived those hectic days when I was struggling to regain my liberty, alone, shelterless, penniless, and stationless in a new land” (cited in Lee 2018, p. 91). From her description, starting her life in Singapore was not that easy for her, and friendship became a strong source of support. Her tough situation was not only connected with her identity as a divorced single woman in Asian context but also her social status as a female artist. Being a woman seemed to be unfortunate for Georgette in a period when a strict and hierarchical art publication and art criticism system was dominated by males. As Ng Eng Teng said, “it’s just unfortunate she was a woman at that time… the Chinese men were so wary of women…It’s just unfortunate she was a woman but she stood by herself very well and her works are very impressive…” (cited in Chia 1997, p. 14). I would like to adopt Zhang Ailing’s suggestive phrase “Ba Wo Bao Kuo Zai Wai 把我包括 在外 (including something or someone to its or his/her exclusion)” (Zhang 1979) to describe Georgette’s identity as a female artist in Singapore at that time. It seems that being a female artist did not bother her, although she was not invited to visit Bali to experience local culture and capture typical tropical sceneries in Southeast Asia with other Singapore male artists in the 1950s and 1960s. She painted women from multiple ethnic groups in Singapore, as shown in the Malay Maiden (1961); the East Coast Vendor (1961); the Girl with a Veil (1962); and Dr. Nalla Tan’s Portrait (1966). Disregarding gender stereotypes, she drew Singapore females in a variety of occupations. Multi-ethnic groups and the multitude of cultures in Singapore were emphasized through dressing and skin color. Georgette drew all these women with big determined eyes, which are a sign of strong-mindedness and independence. Her love of presenting female subjectivity and women from different ethnic groups were not merely a result of her struggling position as a female artist. Her female subjectivity, identity, and sense of belonging were also built upon the coming and

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going between points of identification and continuous process of becoming a local in Nanyang. This process, together with the diversities of Singapore, drew her attention to presenting women from multi-ethnic groups and various occupations. Apart from constructing national art based on the core identity of an ethnic country, the Singapore government tried to establish a unique identity as a cosmopolitan, global city (Lim 2005). In 1968, Mr. Ong Pang Boon, Minister for Education of Singapore, made his opening speech at the Singapore Teachers’ Art, Craft and Photography Exhibition: …The present campaign to turn Singapore into a garden city may be regarded as a step towards inculcating in the people of Singapore that love for nature which is an intrinsic part of men’s character… it must be pointed out that in the context of our society, art should serve a utilitarian rather than a decorative purpose. More emphasis must be placed on the need to utilize art to serve the industry. For this reason, the artist-craftsman is in a better position to serve the state than the fine art artist… (Ong 1968)

According to this speech, the Singapore government addressed the practical use rather than the aesthetics of art. They looked forward to constructing art to benefit the industrial development of the new nation and shaping the local consciousness. The Nanyang Style also conveyed artists’ responses towards modernity. I will explore how Georgette Chen used her drawings to meet the need to construct Singapore as “a cosmopolitan, global garden city where people from multi-ethnic backgrounds could live together” (Guan et al. 2009, p. 188). Georgette Chen was influenced by multicultural perspectives, which were internalized in her thoughts, her art practices, and her life. Her biography reveals she lived and gained an art education in the great cosmopolitan cities of Paris, New York, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. She was closely affiliated with cosmopolitanism and openness. When her friends mentioned Georgette Chen, they frequently described her modern dressing style in Singapore in the 1950s: “She was very unusual physically. She was small and striking. She dressed well and had an elegance about her. I think her sense of style came from her Paris years. She was very beautiful when young. I have seen photographs of her in her youth” (cited in Chia 1997, p. 54). This petite, modern, and elegant woman with high heels and French-influenced dressing frequently drove her distinctive red Morris Minor traveling around Singapore. In her paintings, this red car is frequently presented. Her modern car with fashionable and stunning colors became her signature to capture the spirit of the tropics. It provides an understanding of the “tactical” walking that Michel de Certeau believes is able to undermine the spatial and temporal discipline that undermines autonomous subjectivity(de Certeau 1984, pp. 128–131). Georgette Chen made this modern, red and fashionable car to be a vital element in her paintings, which could not only be regarded as a way to witness the development, modernity, and local scenery in Singapore, such as in the drawings Singapore Water Front (1958), Boats and Old Houses (1963–1965), and China Building (1963–1965); it also represents her sense of localness and belonging, as she integrated the red car with the local scenery, and to be a part of Singapore’s view. Furthermore, she combined this red car with typical Singapore buildings, local people, and other local views, reminding people of the mixture of its colonial past and recent modernity in Singapore. The outstanding view of her modern stunning

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red car in drawings represents her inherent personality as an independent modern female artist in Singapore. The pioneers of the Nanyang Style admitted that they had adopted different kinds of aesthetic techniques to present typical Singapore scenes. The Western techniques that Georgette had learned abroad were rarely seen in Singapore at that time. She combined these Western techniques with Asian images as Singapore was “a veritable paradise for me with all these motifs of the East to which I am dedicated…feeling immediately at home in this world where East meets West” (Chen 5 February 1962). Singapore’s particular cultural environment greatly affected her paintings. Although she accepted a systematic European method of drawing still life, she also experimented with using Chinese brush painting and Western oil painting techniques to present Singapore sceneries and local elements. Georgette continuously painted still life on canvases after she came to Singapore. Some of these paintings contribute to a full cognizance of their cultural significance and a sense of place, as seen in the Dragon Plate (1955–1960); A Feast of Mooncakes (1955–1960); and Lion Dance Mask (1965–1968). In an interview, Georgette mentioned that “I am fond of baskets because I discovered that a basket always represented a particular district of a country. For instance, in China, when you painted a basket, you would know from what district that basket came from. That’s why people called me ‘basket Chen’…I think baskets are very beautiful” (National Archives of Singapore 1988). Baskets constitute the main part of Georgette’s drawings, particularly in still life genre paintings. This motif did not come to an end when she came to Singapore. She loved advertising her favorite baskets, which incorporated typical tropical fruits, flowers, and food, such as in the paintings: Bananas in a Basket (1953–1955); A Basket of Fruits (1959); Crabs in a Basket(1961); Orchid (1963–1965); Durians and Mangosteens(1965); Sweet Rambutans(1965); and Still Life and Big Durian (1965). During her stay in Singapore, Georgette Chen’s still life paintings turned out to be an art form that could be utilized as a response to her environmental transitions. These features and objects reflect her insistence in painting her familiar scenes and daily life but in an Asian context. The cultural and ethnic ambiance, together with regional particularities, provided Georgette with creation elements. Her painting of rambutans was described as follows: “The most outstanding is her painting of rambutans. Each fruit seems to have just been plucked from the trees; fiery red, succulent, and sweet as honey, which one cannot help but crave for” (Yeo 2011, p. 64). These fresh rambutans indicate the proximity between people’s living area to the rambutan trees. Also, her choice of social activities, landscape, and scenery could be regarded as a way of presenting daily life in Singapore. In her paintings, people live at the Kampong Amber (1961). It may be as ordinary as a gathering of people with an indigenous theme, such as the selling of fruits in Trengganu Market Scene (1961); vendors resting at the East Coast (1961); the Satay Boy (1964) having lunch with families; and the Bumboats (1963–1965) gathering in Singapore River. She accommodated people in their living environments, which provided a strong sense of Nanyang identity. The social activities the people were involved in, the landscapes behind these groups of people, and their typical dressing, including arcade houses, banana fronds, the seashore, and

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other local features, indicate the typical daily life in Nanyang. A sea-view could be regarded as Georgette’s favorite background for her paintings. When she and her second husband Dr. Ho arrived in Malaya in 1951, Georgette expressed her strong love towards the sea and this tropical area: “Everything inspires me…the Malaysian huts along the sea. The sea like in Hong Kong is green and purple. It is perhaps the fruits with their unexpected forms that intrigue me the most at the moment…Their colors are warm and intense…and the flowers…they are almost fragrant” (cited in Lee 2018, p. 12). As a part of the Nanyang Style movement, Georgette Chen used her own way of painting to help people to have a better understanding of their surroundings and their lives during the Singaporean nation-building process. Her personal experience as a female artist and a divorced woman led her to present independent women and female subjectivities. She highly valued her independent lifestyle in Singapore. Her drawings presented Singapore as a highly developed cosmopolitan, multicultural, and multiracial place. Georgette also had a keen desire to portray her new homeland in her art, which showed Singapore’s distinctive tropical character with forceful colors, strong sunlight, a peaceful sea view, and varieties of living styles.

11.3.2 Legacy of Georgette Chen’s Cultural Practices: Teaching as Singapore’s Pioneer Artist at NAFA The separation from Malaysia and the establishment of the Republic of Singapore in 1965 were astonishing and, without doubt, brought a great challenge to the leaders of Singapore. Many Singaporeans expressed their anxieties and uncertainties towards the future of this new country. The construction of a sense of national belonging to unify its people from various ethnic groups was an urgent task for the Singapore government. To deal with this complicated situation, art and artists were regarded as important ways to plant the seeds of nationalism in Singapore and establish a local identity. In this context, art activities, art organizations, art exhibitions, and art societies, including the establishment and development of the National Art Gallery, the Arts Council, Singapore Academy of Arts, and NAFA, rapidly blossomed. Nanyang Art was later promoted as Singapore’s national art, according to Redza Piyadasa and T. K. Sabapathy’s studies on Nanyang artists and NAFA (Piyadasa 1979; Sabapathy 1982). They raised the idea that art development in Singapore was shaped by institutions. Tracing the history of NAFA, which was Malaya’s first formal art school, the institution offered official art training in Singapore. It was established in 1938 with the attempt, by the overseas Chinese art community in Malaya, to promote the development of an artistic style that was closely linked to local elements. The founder of this art center in Malaya, Lim Hak Tai, clearly pointed out the objective and role of this art education institution: “To create a Nanyang Style, and that was the reason including [sic] Nanyang in the school name” (cited in Leong 2018, p. 16). Nanyang,

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as mentioned previously, carries Sino-centric geographical and cultural connotations. In this context, the name NAFA was founded and sustained by the Chinese diaspora’s network at the beginning. Closed during WWII, NAFA was reopened with more concern for the new political and socio-economic environment. In 1955, at the 15th graduation ceremony of NAFA, Lim Hak Tai emphasized his expectations on the Nanyang Style: to link up the art of the East and the West; to fuse customs and cultural features from different ethnic groups; to exert the scientific spirit and ethos of the twentieth century; to reflect the needs of local people; to invest in the scene a tropical flavor; and to combine the style with educational theory and social function (Lim 1955). NAFA’s faculty thus acted as an authority for professional development in the fine arts in Singapore. When Georgette Chen held an art exhibition in Singapore, which was sponsored by the Singapore Art Society and the British Council in 1954, she had come to be known throughout the various artists’ networks and art associations. She received an opportunity to meet the principal of NAFA at the institution during the exhibition period (Chia 1997). Their meeting was also her first time at this art institution, where she described the scene: Immediately, I decided to visit it and what a pleasant surprise greeted me on arrival at 11 St. Thomas Walk, a sympathetic old house surrounded by old trees in secluded airy surroundings. There I met Mr. Lim Hak Tai, the principal who showed me the place. The easels scattered around in the two or three classrooms downstairs…reminded me of my student days in the academy of New York and Paris…Here indeed was a place where students could study, draw, or paint…to their heart’s content 365 days a year…for it’s even open on Sundays and its doors virtually never close. (NAFA 1957)

From Georgette’s description, we could tell that she probably agreed with Mr. Lim Hak Tai’s vision of establishing the Nanyang Art Style at NAFA as she decided to join the institution as an art teacher after the meeting. Apart from sweet memories, financial support was also an aspect that attracted Georgette to be a part of NAFA. “When I first came to this fair land and decided to settle here, the first problem was that of livelihood. To have taught full-time in a school would have assured me bread and butter, but that would have meant artistic suicide. I decided to compromise and to teach part-time assuring bread without butter” (Chen 25 December 1954). As a new settler in Singapore, Georgette earned her living and showed her insistence on spending more time on her artistic creations in this professional art institution. She managed to find a balance that enabled her to paint freely and directly participate in encouraging the new generation of aspiring artists in Singapore. The answer was being a part-time teacher at NAFA. Considering the salary at NAFA at that time, making contributions to the establishment of the Nanyang Style and educating the young generation of artists in Singapore were factors that made her decide to be an art teacher at NAFA. “Yes, they were delighted to have someone both so well trained in art and with good English. As well as teaching, she helped on the admin side with correspondence and so on. She was very supportive of her students and wrote letters of recommendation to overseas art schools in support of them. She was only part-time (three days a week I think) so that she had time for her painting. Her income from NAFA was very small but it was enough for her with

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the sales from her exhibition and commissions” (cited in Chia 1997, p. 48). At NAFA, she worked with her colleagues Liu Kang, Cheong Soon Pieng, Chen Wen Hsi, and Chen Chong Swee, who were regarded as “Singapore’s pioneer artists,” and managed to promote the Nanyang Style through their teaching process and cultural practices in Singapore. Georgette Chen’s contributions to establishing a professional Nanyang Style throughout her 27 years (1954–1981) of teaching generations of young artists in the official art institution NAFA should be well examined. Her artistic training started from her teenage years when she took private art classes with émigré Russian realist painter Victor Podgorsky, and classes at Art Students League in New York City. After that, she headed to Paris from 1927 and took classes at Académie Colarossi and Académie Biloul. In Paris, the vanguard city of modern art, Georgette was inspired by the Belle Epoque luminaries of Montmartre and freely translated still life and sceneries in France into her paintings. She was greatly influenced by post-impressionist painters in the Parisian art world, such as Paul Cézanne and Maurice Utrillo. Georgette’s painting style gradually formed during her stay in Paris. Trained in Western professional techniques in multiple cosmopolitan cities, especially in Paris, Georgette brought these drawing ideas and techniques to young generations of artists in Singapore. At that time, courses on Western art techniques, especially oil painting, were rarely seen in Singapore. She strictly trained the young generations of artists at NAFA and emphasized drawing from their observations. One of her students remembered Georgette’s class: “…Georgette Chen was…an excellent and rather strict tutor…She taught me and everyone else to draw well and insisted upon careful measurement and observation, pointing out the importance of negative space” (cited in Chia 1997, p. 52). Her strict requirements for her students pushed them to establish an aesthetic formation based on modernist ideas and develop a hybrid art form from their observations on daily life, which consisted of local features, Asian themes, and tropical elements. For Georgette, the Nanyang Style was a way of combining Western techniques with Asian motifs or philosophy. It was an artistic form that could express her localized identity in Singapore and connect Eastern and Western artistic traditions. This had a great impact on those artists who gradually dominated the creative artistic scene in Malaysia and Singapore. Such artists include Dorothy Bordass, who was one of her students and became an outstanding artist and member of art societies in Malaysia and Singapore. Furthermore, Georgette’s teaching philosophy and ideas for the Nanyang Art Style met official expectations on establishing a kind of art form “to help people have a better understanding of their surroundings and their lives…high-quality works need our painters to look for their themes from the things and people they see around them daily” (cited in Zou 2016. P. 192). Despite introducing Western techniques and Eastern philosophy, together with local motifs and elements to her students, “she was very supportive of her students and wrote a recommendation to overseas art schools in support of them” (Chia 1997, p. 48). Providing these precious chances to learn cutting-edge art and pursue further studies abroad, well-trained generations of young artists had their sights broadened. They absorbed tropical elements while adopting the latest modern art. The continuous development of the Nanyang Style was committed to projecting Singapore’s identity

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to the world to meet its national agenda of constructing a modern, international and cosmopolitan city. Georgette was glad that young artists’ artworks could be presented in this modern industrialized society, Singapore, with multiracial elements blended together with their artistic experience (Chen 1977). As a teacher at NAFA, Georgette devoted herself to helping students from different aspects. She mentioned: “We are struggling. Sometimes I like to compare ourselves to an artist who seeks neither fame nor fortune; only a modest livelihood in the service of the arts and happiness. We are a small group of practicing artists not only in charge of guiding students but also sharing the administration of our school affairs and the solutions to its problems” (cited in Chia 1997, p. 83). Faced with the potential breakup of NAFA and exacting demands both from the administration and the students, Georgette dedicated her teaching to creating comfortable circumstances with love and happiness for her students. Though she developed a reputation for being very strict in her classes and placed high standards and expectations on her students, her encouraging words towards the students’ achievements motivated them to be better. Her kind guidance, strong support, and clever pedagogical strategy allowed her to successfully achieve her goal of helping the new generation of artists in Singapore. Her colleague Liu Kang commented on Georgette: “She taught at NAFA for many years and many students were influenced by her…the influence is definitely great…I believe that her influence was on the attitude of creating artwork because she was a serious artist” (National Archives of Singapore 1995). Georgette felt a sense of accomplishment as her knowledge had helped to construct the Nanyang Style and direct the new generations through her dedication for working and teaching at NAFA. She said, “always remembering and accepting the happiness and sadness govern mankind, we continue forward with philosophy and dedication. Our most comforting thoughts is the knowledge that we have helped to form the majority of our rising artists in Singapore and Malaysia” (cited in Chia 1997, p. 83). For her contributions to shaping the Nanyang Style through her artworks and exhibitions, together with her great impact on her students, Georgette Chen was honored as Cultural Medallion Winner in 1982. She is officially regarded as one of “Singapore’s pioneer artists,” each of whom signifies an artist who “represents major directions in aesthetic exploration in Singapore from the 1930s onwards. Although from the 1960s onwards, artistic development here had to be perceived in a more pluralistic way, the direction of…pioneer artist…continued on as major artistic impulses” (Kwok 1993). Georgette’s legacy to Nanyang Art is not limited to her dedication to becoming a Nanyang artist and her efforts in helping new generations. In the present day, a multitude of local artworks and cultural productions in Singapore are continuously inspired by her artworks and personal experiences, including a musical Georgette: The Musical, a graphical novel Warm Nights, Deathless Days: The Life of Georgette Chen written by Sonny Liew, and a three-part drama produced by the Singapore National Gallery.

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11.4 Conclusion This chapter revisits Georgette Chen’s drawings and cultural practices after she returned to Southeast Asia from New York in the 1950s. I have re-examined the significance of a period of social, cultural, and political transition to the development and construction of modern art in Singapore and Malaya. The vivid case of Georgette substantiates the complicated identity shift which was taking place in post-war Singapore and Malaya. The international influence of the Cold War, the year of 1949 when the PRC was founded, and the turbulent political situation in Southeast Asia made the transformation of overseas Chinese become a multifaceted, controversial and complicated ongoing process. I have argued that the Bandung Conference in 1955, which reflected the political identity of the overseas Chinese and the PRC government’s attitude to them, also contributed to accelerating the process of their identity transformation in the mid-twentieth century. Georgette, together with other overseas Chinese, witnessed all these dramatic political, economic, cultural, and transformational moments. As an individual overseas Chinese, she was a talented female artist making a living in a male-dominated artistic system in Singapore during that period. I have adopted the ideas of “diaspora time” and “diaspora moment” to discuss Georgette Chen’s sense of belonging and her identity transformation in a transnational framework. The case of this artist sheds some light on the dimension of the continuous and complicated national identification process, living status, and structure of the diaspora’s feelings among the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia during a turbulent period. I have examined Georgette’s settlement in Singapore after years of uncertainty, her choice of a pen name with typical Nanyang character, her strong interest in learning the local language, and her final choice of becoming a Singaporean in 1966. These personal choices and cultural practices proved her sense of belonging, which led to her actively integrating herself into Singapore. Political transition in British Malaya, followed by the Federation of Malaya and the birth of the Republic of Singapore, urged the Cold War Asia to extend its reach to the cultural sphere. This also contributed to the increasing importance of creating the Nanyang Art Style to establish local consciousness. I see a significant development in Georgette’s painting: she shifted her preference for self-portraits and those of her husband towards painting local women. Her social status as a divorced female artist in Singapore and her continuous process of becoming a local in Nanyang raised her awareness of presenting female subjectivity and women from multi-ethnic groups and multiple occupations. Georgette Chen’s modern dressing style and red Morris Minor made her become a part of the modern city of Singapore. Furthermore, her drawings, especially those presenting local sceneries with her red car, remind people of the mixture between a colonial past and the present modernity in Singapore. Apart from presenting Singapore as a modern cosmopolitan city where people from multiethnic backgrounds could live together (Kwa et al. 2009), Georgette Chen kept her love of painting still life in response to her environmental transitions. These paintings reflect her combination of Western techniques, Chinese philosophy, and local motifs

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in an Asian context. In addition to her painting motifs, techniques, and changes, this chapter focuses attention on the official artistic institution of NAFA, where Georgette worked since her arrival in Singapore until her retirement in 1981. Her contributions to shaping the Nanyang Art Style through her artworks and teaching at NAFA, together with her great impact on young generations of artists in Singapore, have been examined in this chapter. Through this discussion, three main reasons become clear for conducting an indepth research piece on Georgette Chen’s drawings and her construction of Asian themes in the context of post-war Singapore and Malaya. First, I have shed light on the local consequences of international affairs (Engels 2007). Putting Georgette’s creations and cultural practices in a transnational framework reflects the ways that the global consequences of the Cold War interacted with local forces in terms of the construction of politics, cultural production and national identity in Singapore and Malaya, together with individual responses. Secondly, this chapter achieves a rethinking of Chineseness by discussing Georgette’s drawings. Her construction of the Nanyang Style represents the efforts of Singapore’s pioneer artists to use this art form as a tool to evaluate their multifaceted identities. Individual “diaspora time” and collective “diaspora moments” are considered to describe the complex and continuous identity transition process among the overseas Chinese in post-war Southeast Asia. Thirdly, Georgette’s contributions to constructing the Nanyang Art Style are not limited to her artworks, exhibitions, and her cultural practices; I have emphasized her legacy in the development of the generations of young artists in Singapore and her cultural impact.

Bibliography Barmé, G. R. (2002). An artistic exile—A life of Feng Zikai (1989–1975). Los Angeles: University of California Press. Bernards, Brian. (2015). Writing the Southseas: Imagining the Nanyang in Chinese and Southeast Asian postcolonial literature. Washington: University of Washington Press. Chan, S. (2018). Diaspora’s homeland: Modern China in the age of global migration. Durham; NC; London: Duke University Press. Chen, G. (1949–1974). Georgette Chen’s letters. Letter. Accessed at Singapore Art Museum. Chen, G. (1969). Singapore my tropical new found land. Singapore Art Society 20th Anniversary Souvenir Magazine. Chen, G. (1977). Singapore: Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts 40th Anniversary Souvenir Magazine. Chia, J. (1997). Georgette Chen. Singapore: National Heritage Board. de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press. Engels, J. (Ed.). (2007). Local consequences of the global Cold War. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center. Fernie, E. (1995). Art history and its methods: A critical anthology. London: Phaidon. Fitzgerald, S. (1972). China and the overseas Chinese: A study of Peking’s changing policy 1949– 1970. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuhn, Philip. (2008). Chinese among others: Emigration in modern times. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.

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Kwa, C. G., Yong, T. T., & Heng, Derek. (2009). A 700-year history. Singapore: National Archives of Singapore. Kwok, K. C. (1993). Pioneers of Singapore art: Our heritage. Singapore: National Museum Publications. Lee, J. (2018). The artist speaks: Georgette Chen. Singapore: National Gallery Singapore. Lee, R. F. L. (Ed.). (2015). Arts hats in Renaissance City: Reflections and aspirations of four generations of art personalities. Singapore: Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. Leong, W. K. (2018). Art and soul: 80 years of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. Singapore: Epigram Books. Liew, S. (2014). Warm nights, deathless days: The life of Georgette Chen. Singapore: National Gallery Singapore. Lim, C. T. (2005). Fragments of the past: Political prints of post-war Singapore. Heritage Journal, 2(1), 37. Lim, H. T. (1955). Nanyang Style. Preface. 15th Graduation Yearbook of NAFA. Link, P. (2000). The use of literature— Life in the socialist Chinese literary system. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Liu, K., Ho, H. Y., Sabapathy, T. K., & Chai-Hiang, C. (Eds.). (2005). Re-connecting: Selected writings on Singapore art and art criticism. Singapore: Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore. Ma, L. J. C., & Cartier, C. L. (2003). The Chinese diaspora: Space, mobility, and identity. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Mckeown, A. (1999). Conceptualizing Chinese diasporas, 1842–1949. Journal of Asian Studies, 20, 306–337. Mckeown, A. (2001). Chinese migrant networks and cultural change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii 1900– 1936. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Ministry of Community Development and National Museum of Singapore. (1985). Georgette Chen Retrospective, 1985. Singapore: National Museum. Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA). (1957). Class of 1957 Yearbook. Singapore: Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. National Archives of Singapore. (1988). Interviews with Georgette, November 9. Accessed at Visual Arts, Oral History Center, National Archives of Singapore. National Archives of Singapore. (1995). Interview with Liu Kang, June 6. Accessed at Visual Arts, Oral History Center, National Archives of Singapore. Ong, P. B. (1968). Speech, October 11. Opening of the Singapore Teachers’ Art, Crafts and Photography Exhibition, Victoria Memorial Hall, National Academy Singapore. Piyadasa, R. (1979). Pengaruh Akademi Seni Halus Nanyang [The influence of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts]. Katalog Pameran Restropektif Pelukis-pelukis Nanyang. Kuala Lumpur: National Art Museum. Sabapathy, T. K. (1982). Scroll met easel. Straits Times Annual, pp. 114–127. Sabapathy, T. K. (1995). Singapore artists: The forgotten generation. Singapore: National University of Singapore. Sabapathy, T. K. (Ed.). (2002). Past, present, beyond: Re-nascence of an art collection. Singapore: NUS Museum and National University of Singapore. Sabapathy, T. K. (2015). Modern art in Singapore: Pioneers and premise. In L. R. F. Lee (Ed.), Art hats in Renaissance City: Reflections and aspirations of four generations of art personalities (pp. 105–112). Singapore: World Science Publishing Company. Sabapathy, T. K. (2018). Writing the modern: Selected texts on art & art history in Singapore, Malaysia & Southeast Asia 1973–2015. Singapore: NUS Press. Schapiro, M. (1998). Style. In D. Preziosi (Ed.), The art of art history: A critical anthology, (pp. 143– 149). Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Shih, S. (2007). Visuality and identity: Sinophone articulations across the Pacific. Berkeley: University of California Press. Tagliacozzo, E., & Chang, W. C. (Eds.). (2011). Chinese circulations: Capital commodities and networks in Southeast Asia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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Turnbull, C. M. (2009). A history of Singapore 1819–1988. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press. Wang, D. D. (2015). The lyrical in epic time— Modern Chinese intellectuals and artists through the 1949 crisis. New York: Columbia University Press. Wang, G. (2001). Don’t leave home: Migration and the Chinese. Singapore: Times Academic Press. Wang, G. (2004). A single Chinese diaspora? In G. Benton & L. Hong (Eds.), Diasporic Chinese ventures: The life and world of Wang Gungwu (pp. 157–176). London: Routledge Curzon. Wang, X. (2013). Modernity with a Cold War face—Reimagining the nation in Chinese literature across the 1949 divide. Cambridge; London: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard University Press. Westad, O. A. (2007). The global Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press. Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yeo, W. (Ed.). (2011). Liu Kang (1911–2004): Colorful modernist. Singapore: The National Art Gallery. Zhang, A. (1979). Ba wobaokuozaiwai把我包括在外 [Including something or someone to its or his/her exclusion]. United Daily News, February 26. Zou, K. (2016). Art, artist, and identification: Liu Kang and Nanyang art. Ph.D. dissertation, National University of Singapore.

Dr. Qilin ZENG received her BA in Chinese Language and Literature from Nanjing University and MA in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature from National University of Singapore (NUS). She completed her studies with the Chinese department of NUS and received her PhD degree in June 2020. Her PhD dissertation Expressions in Dilemma: Studies on Feng Zikai in the P.R.C. (1949–1975) explores the competing expressions, textual strategies, and rhetorical methods which exist in Feng’s works and cultural practices in the Maoist era. Moreover, considering the mid-twentieth century was a period when the Cold War took place and Feng kept close relationships with overseas intellectuals, a transnational perspective is also employed to analyze his cultural activities after 1949. This thesis aims to show the complex relationship between intellectuals’ subjectivity and the socialist Chinese literary system in the mid-twentieth century. Zeng’s research interests include modern and contemporary Chinese literature, Chinese cinema, cultural studies, and art.

Part III

Constructing Chineseness in Popular Culture

Chapter 12

Negotiating Chineseness Through English Dialects in Crazy Rich Asians Chun-Lung Ma

12.1 Introduction Mainstream Hollywood romantic comedies are typically set in major AngloAmerican cosmopolitan cities such as London, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The rom-com urban settings are often pristine, pastel-colored, fashionably edited versions of the actual cities. With Crazy Rich Asians (2018), Singapore joins the likes of Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Bangkok as an Asian urban setting for Hollywood cinema. What sets Singapore apart from these other Asian settings is the city’s language environment where English is much more commonly spoken on the streets. For this reason alone, setting a Hollywood story in Singapore where characters can speak English seems to make logical sense. As a Hollywood romantic comedy, Crazy Rich Asians, perhaps unsurprisingly, relies on certain clichéd Asian stereotypes and tropes: an Asian nerd, tiger moms who are never satisfied with their children’s accomplishments, and emphasis on filial piety—these racial stereotypes function as immediately recognizable signs of Asianness/Chineseness but also as narrative shortcuts that push the plot forward. As has been repeatedly pointed out in its promotional campaign, the film is directed by an Asian-American director, featuring an all-Asian cast, with a screenplay co-written by an Asian American based on a source novel written by an Asian American. This acknowledgment creates an impression that the stereotypes are re-appropriated by Asians and thus should be perceived more as ethnic in-jokes than as insults. It also adds to the perceived cultural significance of the film in its Asian representation in Hollywood. What this film demonstrates, which may have gone unnoticed by critics, is the way English functions as a global lingua franca even within the diasporic Chinese community. The film depicts a privileged segment of Singapore society in which C.-L. Ma (B) Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] King’s College London, London, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_12

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people of Chinese descent of different national backgrounds speak English as their common language. They speak the same language, but what differentiates them is the multitude of language varieties, dialects, and accents, with different levels of codemixing and code-shifting. And for a film that explores Chineseness and cultural identity, mainland China is rarely mentioned. There is little connection made in the film to mainland China, as a homeland or as a concept. In the film, Chineseness is expressed in English, particularly by the Peranakan Chinese elites who are represented by the Young family.1 The Peranakan Chinese have traditionally held high regard for English-medium education and in colonial times were even referred to as “King’s Chinese” due to their proficiency in English and higher socioeconomic status by association with the British (Lim 2010). In this community, English is the preferred everyday code of communication (the exception is the grandmother character Ah Ma, who insists on communicating in Mandarin Chinese only). This chapter will first give context to the significance of Crazy Rich Asians in terms of its much-celebrated Asian representation in Hollywood cinema. It will then explore Singapore as a romantic comedy setting and the notion of diasporic Chineseness before moving on to the main discussion on how, within the larger genre-specific framework of Hollywood romantic comedy, dialects of English are used as markers of education, class, social status and cultural identity in the negotiation of diasporic Chineseness. The English dialects and accents to be discussed include General American (GenAm2 ), British Received Pronunciation (RP), Standard Singapore English (SSE), Singapore Colloquial English (SCE, or Singlish) and African American Vernacular English (AAVE).

12.2 Crazy Rich Asians and Asian Representation in Hollywood Adapted from Singaporean American writer Kevin Kwan’s 2014 novel, Jon M. Chu’s 2018 feature film Crazy Rich Asians follows Rachel Chu, a second-generation Chinese-American economics professor, and Nick Young, her Chinese Singaporean boyfriend as they venture to his homeland Singapore to meet his friends, relatives, and his Chinese Singaporean family who, unbeknownst to her, are part of the upper echelon of Singapore’s high society, the “crazy rich” in the title. It has been promoted as the first Hollywood studio picture in 25 years with an all-Asian cast since Wayne Wang’s The Joy Luck Club. It also became the first romantic comedy to top the United States (US) box office in three years and the highest-grossing romantic comedy in 1

Although the Young family’s Peranakan Chinese heritage is not explicitly explained in the film, it is implied in the film by being described as “old money” who “left China in the 1800s […] to Singapore”. 2 Other terms and acronyms have been used to describe this standard variety including Standard American English (SAE) and Mainstream US English (MUSE). I use the term General American (GenAm) in this essay.

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a decade (Fang 2018). Its commercial success has been hailed in the US media as a triumph for Asian representation in mainstream American cinema (Hsu 2018), and an important sign of the revival of the Hollywood rom-com (Bricker 2018). While the film has attracted much critical acclaim, scoring a 91% approval rating on the film review aggregation website RottenTomatoes.com, it has also generated criticism in the press for its inability to be all things to all (Asian) people. Some criticize the film for its selective depiction of Singapore’s elite class ignoring the country’s real racial and social problems (Han 2018; Nansi 2018; Wong 2018), while others object to the use of the word “Asians” in the title when the film only depicts the Chinese diaspora (Ellis-Petersen and Kuo 2018). Such criticism is likely to have stemmed from the fact that there has not been a major Hollywood studio “Asian movie” like this in such a long time that the film has to shoulder the high expectations from audiences hungry for diverse Asian representation. A 2016 study examining characters in 800 Hollywood films from 2007 to 2015 found that “Hollywood has a diversity problem” (Smith, Choueiti and Pieper 2016, p. 16). The study shows that among the 100 highest-grossing films in the US in 2015, 49 of them are missing any speaking or named Asian characters, and of all speaking or named characters, only 3.9% are Asian. This systematic lack of Asian presence not only limits the possibility of depicting the diversity of Asians, but it also creates a glass ceiling for Asians who wish to pursue an acting career. The New York Times reported that Nina Jacobson, one of the film’s producers while scouting in drama schools in New York and London for potential Asian actors to play the male lead Nick, was told “we have not had a male Asian graduate in years” (Ho 2018). Working within the framework of Hollywood romantic comedy, a genre rarely associated with authentic or realistic representation, Crazy Rich Asians offers diversity in its portrayal of Asian people, specifically diasporic Chinese people both in America and in Singapore’s exclusive world of the super-rich, where the common language is English. To borrow Gilroy’s (1993) terminology, the film reflects their shared ancestral roots through their negotiation of the contested notion of Chineseness; but it is their English, spoken in different varieties, dialects, and accents, which reveals these diasporic Chinese characters’ globetrotting life journeys underlining their routes.

12.3 Singapore as a Hollywood Rom-Com Setting New York and London are the two most prominent cities in the Hollywood romantic comedy canon. Since the 1990s, the decade that saw a resurgence of the genre, rom-com filmmakers seem fixated on telling love stories set in these cities. Many of the successful London-set rom-coms from the past few decades are written by screenwriter Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Love, Actually). The popularity of these films and the uniformly fictionalized London prompted articles such as Guardian writer Dowling’s (2003)

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“Curtis Britain: A brief guide” in which he details the highly romanticized cinematic London and suggests that “[for] many Americans, Britain is a strange and exotic land glimpsed only through the work of Richard Curtis.” Jermyn (2009) has looked at how New York City, with its Manhattan backdrop, became the ultimate romantic playground enshrined in numerous Hollywood rom-coms. She has outlined the connections between the city, the urban woman, and consumerism: “it is because New York permitted the rise of the ‘savvy’ or ‘spunky’ urban single woman that she became so readily available and focal to the genre (and its hero) within this location, flourishing into a dynamic character type with which to facilitate the romantic machinations of the rom-com plot” (Jermyn 2009, p. 15). It perhaps comes as no surprise that Crazy Rich Asians alludes to these two staple rom-com metropolises. The film opens with two brief scenes, one in London followed by another in New York. The beginning flashback scene takes place in 1995 and it shows a younger Eleanor, her sister-in-law Felicity Young, and their children Nick and Astrid being turned away by the staff at a luxury Mayfair hotel allegedly because they are Chinese (“May I suggest you explore Chinatown?”). In reaction to this, she calls her husband in a rage from a red London phone box outside in the rain. After just one phone call, the hotel is sold to the Young family. In the following scene, the audience is taken to New York City to witness the film’s central heroine, Rachel Chu, an Asian-American economics professor at New York University impressively lecturing her students on game theory before going on a date with her RP-sounding dashing boyfriend Nick in an upscale restaurant. These brief expository scenes in London and New York are as much a nod to the quintessential Hollywood rom-com cities as a transitional buffer to take the genre’s viewers out of the comfort zone of a familiar Anglo-American backdrop and ease them into the twenty-first century English-speaking Asian urban setting that is Singapore. If New York City, as Jermyn (2009) has argued, is mythicized in the genre for its symbolic meaning of being the gateway to the new world comprised of America and twentieth century modernity, Hollywood’s use of Singapore, and indeed other Asian cities, as a setting can also be seen as a sign of the dawn of the so-called “Asian Century” (p. 16).

12.4 What Chineseness, and Whose? Crazy Rich Asians presents Chineseness not as something that has a singularly defined essence shared by the ethnic Chinese characters but as something specific and particular to their transnational heritage as well as the social and cultural environs of their places of residence. Chun (1996) has argued about how Chinese people outside of mainland China interpret Chineseness differently depending on local contexts and that there is no universal definition of Chineseness: “the very nature of identity as a selective process in the mind of individual subject-actors grounded in local contexts of power and meaning makes the possibility of ‘Chinese’ identifying with a common discourse a hopelessly impossible task” (p. 130). Similarly, Ang (2013) finds the label

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“Chineseness” problematic and ambiguous. For her, diasporic Chineseness does not have to be “geo-anchored” or defined in relation to the Chinese nation-state (p. 24). In one of the early scenes, after agreeing to go to Singapore to meet Nick’s family and friends, Rachel and her mother Kerry go shopping for clothes in preparation for the trip. This scene reveals that this will be her first trip to Asia. When Rachel shows confidence about the prospects of winning Nick’s family over, her mother says, “It’s just, Nick bringing a girl all the way there to meet them can mean a lot to these overseas families. Eh, they’re different from us.” Rachel quips, “How are they different? They’re Chinese. I’m Chinese. I’m so Chinese I’m an economics professor with lactose intolerance.” Kerry explains, first in English, “You grew up here,” and then in Mandarin, “Your face is Chinese. You speak Chinese. But here [pointing at Rachel’s head], and here… [pointing at her heart], you’re different.” Rachel is befuddled by the possibility that her and Nick’s family do not share the same Chineseness. After all, she and Nick seem to have much in common: both successful, Englishspeaking diasporic Chinese living in a big city. One major difference, however, is that Rachel grew up in an ethnic minority group in the US but Nick belongs to the Chinese ruling majority of Singapore. Despite her ability to speak some Mandarin and having a Chinese-born mother from Guangdong, growing up in America means that her notion of Chineseness is regionally specific and, as her joke suggests, it is at least partly informed by racial stereotypes perpetuated in American popular media. Therefore, it will likely be dismissed as inauthentic by Nick’s family. In Crazy Rich Asians, the routes of the main characters take precedence over their common ancestral roots in China. This can be seen in another early scene: upon arriving in Singapore, Rachel visits Peik Lin, her best friend from college who is a Chinese Singaporean native. Peik Lin is shocked to find out that Rachel does not know who Nick’s family are and so she takes it upon herself to become Rachel’s cultural navigator in Singapore. Peik Lin explains by using the map of Asia printed on a pink handbag how the “old money rich” Young family migrated from China to Singapore in the 1800s. It is later revealed in the film that Kerry ran away from an abusive husband and fled from Guangdong to America while pregnant with Rachel. There is also Nick who was born in Singapore, went to school in England, and now lives in New York. Each major character in the film has a transnational backstory that crosses national borders and spans continents. In the 1990s, Tu’s (1991) concept of “cultural China” emphasized the periphery as the center. He argued that the diasporic Chinese communities were the main forces that shaped Chinese cultural modernity. In recent years, this idea has been challenged especially vis-à-vis the rise of China, which has promoted the transnational flows of people and ideas between mainland China and the Chinese diasporas. China in this new era, as Kuehn et al. (2013) have argued, “has inspired those in the vanguard of the cultural production of Chineseness to write and rewrite the ways in which the communities of which they are part articulate their ‘exile’” (p. 2). Berry (2019) proposed the term “cinemas of the Sinosphere” to describe the cinematic phenomenon as a result of the rise of China. This umbrella term encompasses all Chinese films in all their transnational dimensions including not only films from, about, and co-produced with China, but also films and cinemas that are shaped by China’s emergence as a global

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superpower. While Crazy Rich Asians downplays the connection with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in this Singapore-set story, China’s ascendency will likely play a bigger role in the plot of the sequel, China Rich Girlfriend (the word “China” is a modifier here), as it has been reported in the media that Warner Bros. is already planning a follow-up movie based on the second novel in the trilogy (Sun and Ford 2018).

12.5 Negotiating Chineseness in English Dialects Crazy Rich Asians’ diegetic rom-com fantasy world is grounded in the language reality of Singapore. In this foreign-set Hollywood film with an all-Asian cast, having all the characters speak English may be mistaken as a form of creative liberty by those unfamiliar with the sociolinguistic situation in Singapore and the diversity of the Chinese diasporas. The film highlights the role of English as a global lingua franca, which extends across Chinese diasporic communities in Asia, Europe, and North America. It also reflects the reality that this language of the former colonizer now connects the people of ethnic Chinese descent of different national backgrounds. The premise of the film is a high society wedding that brings together overseas Chinese relatives and guests to Singapore, a country where English is not only a national common language in the public sphere but is increasingly being spoken at home. According to Singapore’s General Household Survey of 2015, English has replaced Mandarin Chinese as the most commonly spoken home language, and for more than half of the ethnic Chinese below the age of 25, English is the most frequently used language at home (Department of Statistics Singapore 2015). The same report shows that the use of English at home is more prevalent among Singaporeans with higher qualifications: 52.2% of the Chinese Singaporeans with university degrees speak English at home. Language attitudes and racial stereotyping can be seen in Hollywood’s long tradition of using accents and dialects in characterization. Accents are often used as an auditory shorthand, so villains are given British and Eastern European accents while Asians with exaggerated accents are fair game for ridicule (Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles and Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s). Viewers are conditioned early as well. The sociolinguist Lippi-Green (2012) believes that Disney films teach children how to discriminate based on accents they hear in films. She has found that 40% of foreign-sounding non-native English-speaking characters in Disney films are “evil” (p. 92), and to be “sexually attractive,” a Disney character must “sound white and middle-class American or British” (p. 97). Crazy Rich Asians partly conforms to this tradition but it also challenges it by including a variety of English dialects and to have them spoken by “foreigner” Asian characters no less. While Rachel’s General American and Nick’s British RP would not sound incongruous in a Disney romance, the film does make room to showcase the diversity of English, native and second-language varieties, spoken in diasporic Chinese communities. This special attention to language seems to have

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been a deliberately integral part of the creative process. When the trailer of the film went “viral” in 2018, there were voices of concern over the lack of Singapore English in it. The novel’s author Kevin Kwan, who also served as an executive producer on the film, responded in a CNA interview: “There will be many accents and there will be Singlish. And we were really purposeful in choosing actors and choosing performances that really emphasized the different accents that are in Southeast Asia. That’s one of the things we really wanted to show. Every character had to be true to their accent” (MacCarthy 2018). The following paragraphs explore the main dialects and accents of English used in the film.

12.6 General American English and an American Rom-Com Heroine As the central heroine of a Hollywood romantic comedy, Rachel Chu “naturally” speaks General American English. General American, or GenAm, refers to the widely accepted “standard” variety of American English. Linguist Andy Kirkpatrick (2007) calls American English “the most influential and powerful variety of English in the world today” (p. 55). This phenomenon can be attributed to three factors: America’s political power, its role as the leading exporter of popular culture, and its dominance in communications technology (Kirkpatrick 2007). Unlike standard British English, General American is an “institutional construct” (Kretzschmar 2010, cited in Galloway and Rose 2014, p. 79) with no native speakers and is characterized by speech that avoids marked regional accent features, rather than conforming to a given standard. When juxtaposed with the various foreign accents in the film, Rachel’s GenAm’s perceived normalcy creates an anchoring effect. The General American accent has been normalized through its continual prevalence in mainstream US media. Speakers with this accent are often considered to have “no accent.” Rachel’s GenAm has been Hollywood’s default, natural accent choice because for the American audience it does not call attention to itself. As she ventures to a foreign land where she experiences culture shock and hears English being spoken in unfamiliar dialects and accents, Rachel, being the film’s central, sympathetic character that the audience is supposed to root for, needs to not only be relatable but to sound relatable as well. Yet in the film’s Singapore setting, Rachel’s GenAm becomes an outsider accent. If British Received Pronunciation is the preferred accent of the young Chinese Singaporean elites, GenAm, being the other internationally dominant standard, does not carry the same level of prestige. Chinese characters with an American accent, such as Rachel and Mr. Goh (played by Ken Jeong), do not belong in the elitist “crazy rich” world. Rachel’s standard American accent, for instance, is received negatively by Eleanor, Nick’s Cambridge-educated mother, the key character that represents the establishment of Chinese Singaporean elite society. Her unexplained and seemingly illogical disdain for Rachel’s American accent and anything American is obvious

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throughout the film. When Nick says to his mother, “I thought you might be excited that the first girl that I bring home is a Chinese professor,” Eleanor replies, “Chinese American.” Later in the conversation, noticing a touch of American influence in her son’s accent who is now a New York resident, Eleanor says “Is that an American accent I’m hearing?”. Eleanor’s Chinese Singaporean elite identity is partly rooted in its Britisheducated Chineseness in post-colonial Singapore. Eleanor differentiates herself from Rachel by emphasizing Rachel’s American nationality and downplaying her Chinese ethnicity. Eleanor’s snide remarks turn American Rachel from the princess in a romantic fairytale into the underdog in an uphill battle. Despite personal success and achievements, in her quest to connect with another diasporic Chinese community, Rachel’s Americanness becomes an obstacle. The other character that has a General American accent is Peik Lin’s father, Goh Wyn Mun. Mr. Goh is first introduced in the scene where Rachel meets Peik Lin’s family in their mansion. He first affects a thick, exaggerated Chinese accent before quickly revealing to Rachel, “No, I’m just kidding. I don’t have an accent. I’m just messing with you.” This remark serves as a knowing wink at the audience who are used to hearing Asian characters speaking with overly broad and generalized mock Asian accents. Mr. Goh adds, “No, I studied in the States, too. Yeah, Cal State Fullerton.” His slightly unconvincing explanation, that an American university education can make him “not have an accent,” reconfirms the status of GenAm as the default “normal” accent. The Goh family’s adoption of American speech (Mr. Goh’s GenAm and Peik Lin’s occasional AAVE) and Americanness reinforces their detachment from Singapore’s colonial past and establishes themselves the newly rich Chinese Singaporeans. The Goh family represents the arriviste, nouveau riche. They are eccentric, their taste gaudy and ostentatious, a contrast to the tasteful, sophisticated, composed elegance of the Young family in terms of speech, home decor, and mannerisms. The tongue-incheek naming of their dogs, Astor, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller, shows the Gohs’ pride in their self-made middle-class status while alluding to the notion of the American Dream. These entrepreneurial Chinese Singaporeans identify with American culture, and unsurprisingly, their home is where Rachel is admired and welcomed with open arms.

12.7 British Received Pronunciation For Post-colonial Prestige In the film, British RP is used as a marker of class, education, and attractiveness in the Chinese Singaporean elite community. Nick and Astrid are cousins who have been close since childhood (as seen in the opening London scene). They are both idealized as good-looking, well-mannered people with a heart of gold. These perfect,

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romanticized characters are, unsurprisingly, given RP accents. The use of the poshsounding RP for Nick and Astrid, perhaps the two most idealized characters in the film, follows the usual pattern of how the accent is used in Hollywood cinema. This association between RP and class can be understood as a remnant of British colonization. RP is believed to have been born out of compulsory schooling in Britain which increased interaction between the social classes. A widely accepted, “desirable wealthy accent” emerged due to this increased inter-class contact (Galloway and Rose 2014, p. 45). RP was codified by phonetician Daniel Jones in 1917 and most British English dictionaries give RP pronunciations. RP has been used and accepted as the pronunciation model in the United Kingdom and for the teaching of English in former British colonies as well as other territories that speak English as a foreign language. Even though the accent originates from Southern England, it is nowadays considered a marker of class and education rather than region. Language attitudes among American viewers towards foreign accents tend to be consistent but when it comes to RP, they can be more ambivalent. According to Dobrow and Gidney (1998), “[speakers] of British English are portrayed dichotomously as either the epitome of refinement and elegance or as the embodiment of effete evil” (p. 117). In this film, Nick and Astrid exemplify class and sophistication as the high society-approved, Oxbridge-educated younger generation of elite Chinese Singaporeans. RP is recognized worldwide as standard pronunciation especially in the English as a Second Language (ESL) commonwealth countries such as Singapore. It suggests heritage, education, and power. Research has also found that RP is rated even higher than Singapore English by Singaporeans in terms of intelligibility and refinement (Chia and Brown 2002). Just as RP is known as Queen’s English, in this elite community, descriptors of class are imbued with connotations of British nobility. Peik Lin describes Nick’s family as “like royalty.” When Rachel says to Nick, “You really should have told me you’re like the Prince William of Asia,” Nick replies, “That’s ridiculous. I’m much more of a Harry.”

12.8 Standard Singapore English (SSE) for Local Prestige Standard Singapore English is employed as a respectable variety and a marker of establishment for Chinese Singaporeans. Eleanor’s inner circle of “aunties” speak SSE as it is Singapore’s prestige variety, or “High variety,” especially when considered alongside Singapore Colloquial English (SCE), or Singlish, the “Low variety” (Lim and Foley 2004, p. 10). Just as the High and the Low varieties serve different functions in Singapore society (Ferguson 1959, cited in Lim and Foley 2004, p. 10), the two varieties signify different character traits in the film. Schneider (2011, p. 158) has stated that “[since] the 1960s English has spread massively and developed local roots to an unprecedented extent.” It grew from “an ethnically neutral link language” to “the language in which the country is run, and increasingly the country’s first and most important language” (p. 158). Singapore’s language policy shows “how deeply English can penetrate an Asian

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society” and English has increasingly become a native language of many young speakers (Schneider 2011, p. 159). This may be due to the unique circumstances when Singapore was established as an independent country. Tan (2003) has outlined the three phases of “Singapore’s management of Chineseness.” In the first phase (1965–1979), there was an emphasis on “de-Chineseness” as a strategy so as not to be seen as a “third China” (after mainland China and Taiwan). Coincidentally, to emphasize his Singaporean identity, the then prime minister Lee Kuan Yew made sure that his first visit to China in 1976 was conducted entirely in English. Tan also argues that since Singapore’s independence, “ethnic Chinese identity has been closely managed by the ruling elites which have been dominated by the English-educated Chinese” (p. 751). In Crazy Rich Asians, the parent-generation of the upper echelons of Chinese Singaporean society speak Standard Singapore English (SSE). This dialect can be heard in Nick Young’s mother Eleanor (played by Michelle Yeoh) and the “aunties”(“used as a polite way of addressing or referring to an older woman” as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary) who gather to drink tea, read the Bible and gossip, in a manner similar to the idle, English upper-class ladies in an Oscar Wilde play. According to Goh (2010), the popularity of Christianity has been growing in postcolonial Singapore, especially among the young, English-educated Chinese. Chong and Hui’s (2013) “Different Under God” study has found that within Singapore’s Christian community, the wealthier, more established English-proficient middle class are more likely to go to mainline Christian churches and come from Christian families. The megachurch goers are more likely to belong to the emergent middle class and come from less privileged backgrounds. This phenomenon is reflected in this scene where the aunties are distracted by the news that Nick is bringing a girlfriend home to Singapore. Alexandria, Eleanor’s sister-in-law, says, “I do hope she’s a good Christian girl.” This scene also exposes the hypocrisy of the “crazy rich”: while being served by their maids, they read Colossians verses such as, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” In their world, SSE is a respectable variety of English for those of an older generation who grew up in Singapore and those, like Astrid’s self-made businessman husband Michael Teo, who married into high society.

12.9 Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) and Singaporean Solidarity The “Low variety” SCE, more commonly referred to as Singlish, functions as a marker of solidarity and closeness and is reserved for family and friends. “Singlish has emerged only since the 1970s, a product of both the rapid gain in the importance of English and the country’s multilingual and multicultural roots. Many Singaporeans have embraced it enthusiastically as both an informal symbol of national identity and an indicator of social proximity and a relaxed atmosphere in situations when it is

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appropriate to use it” (Schneider 2011, p. 159). In the film, Singlish can be seen in the social media platform “Radio 1 Asia” which is essentially a WhatsApp group for commoners to exchange high society gossip. The old-money social elites almost never use Singlish. It is reserved for the working class and the nouveau-riche. Singlish speech embodies the multiculturalism of Singapore which can be seen in Singlish speakers’ habit of code-mixing. Singlish speech is often sprinkled with words and phrases borrowed from Malay, Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew, and other Chinese languages (which the Singapore government calls “dialects”). When Rachel arrives at the Gohs’ palatial mansion, she meets Peik Lin’s mother Mrs. Goh, who prefers to be called Auntie Neenah. Auntie Neenah’s welcoming nature and hospitable warmth are expressed in her Singlish. Rachel says, “Your house is amazing!” To that Neenah replies, in Hokkien, “Li gaou kong wei ah (You’re such a sweet talker).” Neenah’s distinctly Singlish dialect and her code-mixing suggests that Hokkien may be her natural home language. In Singapore, there is a generational difference in terms of home languages. In the Chinese community, Southern Chinese languages such as Hokkien, Cantonese, and Hakka are not mutually intelligible, and they function mostly as home languages. According to Wong (2014), young Chinese Singaporeans only speak these languages to their parents and grandparents at home. In all other situations, English is their common language, whether they are communicating interracially or intraracially (Wong 2014). Moreover, her Singlish and her husband’s General American accent set the Gohs apart from the SSE-speaking aunties in the Youngs’ circle. Mr. Goh and Neenah are likely to have come from similar backgrounds but their difference in English accents is supposedly due to their educational background: Mr. Goh studied in California, but Neenah did not study overseas. Mr. Goh’s GenAm and his daughter Peik Lin’s AAVE suggest their greater affinity to American culture while Neenah’s unmistakable Singlish accentuates her down-to-earth quality (which makes her almost a foil to the snobbish Eleanor). The ascription of these characters’ accents suggests a conflation of the Gohs’ Chinese Singaporean entrepreneurial ambition and Americanness.

12.10 African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) for the Cross-Cultural Insider–Outsider Peik Lin, Rachel’s best friend from college, understands the inner workings of Singapore’s social stratification, and her role as the cross-cultural insider–outsider is marked by her occasional use of AAVE. Like the fairy godmother to Cinderella, Peik Lin imparts insider wisdom and provides useful guidance to Rachel, helping her American friend navigate the exclusive world of the crazy rich. Her wisecracking, street smarts, and immense ethnic and social knowledge are often expressed in AAVE. AAVE is an ethnolect, a dialect of American English spoken in the black communities across the US, which has also been adopted and appropriated by non-blacks. As Wolfram and Schilling (2016) have pointed out, “some non-black speakers may

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use elements of AAE to index affiliation with African American ethnicity or with character traits (stereotypically) associated with it (e.g. coolness, being street-smart)” (p. 219). When Peik Lin first appears in the film, she greets Rachel with the colloquial expression, “New York in the house! Yeah! […] Whaddup, bitch?” In a later scene in which she explains to Rachel about traditional Chinese family dynamics while coaching her best friend to deal with her boyfriend’s mother Eleanor, who has told Rachel that “you will never be enough,” she suggests, “you gon’ roll up to that weddin’ and be like ‘bawk bawk, bitch.’” Peik Lin’s adoption of AAVE in certain key moments and her refusal to speak only GenAm like Rachel and her father, Singlish like her mother, or Standard Singapore English like the rest of the social elites signify her reluctance to participate fully in the social hierarchy game. Peik Lin enjoys the luxury and benefits that her family’s wealth and her new association with the Youngs offer, but she also seems to have seen through the artificiality of class among the Singaporean Chinese social elites. Awkwafina’s performance as Peik Lin has attracted praise (Fontoura), but her adoption of AAVE features has generated some criticism as well. For African Americans, AAVE has been considered a linguistic badge of identity and ethnic pride against the cultural mainstream (Wolfram and Schilling 2016). The appropriation of the dialect in popular media has often been controversial. In a Vulture article, Jackson (2018) has commented on Peik Lin’s use of what she calls “blaccent” (the imitation of AAVE by non-black people) and questions the ownership of the black vernacular and whether AAVE features are just part of Anglophone popular culture “lingo” spread and consumed globally: “[it is] impossible to know whether a nonblack millennial from Forest Hills studied black culture like a textbook or grew up with the same media like most of us, where blaccents in the mouths of white, snappy performers have been autonomous and apart from the actual speech patterns of black people since America had a theater tradition to call its own” (para. 10). It seems that the adoption of AAVE features in the characterization of Peik Lin has more to do with the associated stereotypical traits than the alleged cultural theft.

12.11 Conclusion Crazy Rich Asians does not attempt to tell the Asian story or the Chinese story because neither of them exists. Rather, it tells a diasporic Chinese story. As Hall (2003) has argued, one’s cultural identity is defined by shared cultural codes as much as by specific differences. In this first installment of what has now become a rom-com franchise, the diasporic Chinese characters share a Chineseness that is not so much defined by their relationship with the Chinese nation-state but is embedded in the traditions and shared cultural codes passed down from older generations though specific to their families’ unique transnational heritage as well as a local sociocultural and sociolinguistic milieu. Actor Constance Wu, who plays Rachel Chu, sums up the film’s diverse representation:

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So frequently Hollywood thinks that Asians are this one monolith. Like there isn’t a difference between Asian Asians and Asian-Americans. Or British Asians or Australian Asians. And there is a difference! Because there’s a cultural difference. The fact that this movie really differentiates that, it’s something that doesn’t happen a lot. (Poulou 2018, para. 8)

This chapter has explored Crazy Rich Asians’ representation of this diversity through the use of English dialects and accents in the characters’ negotiation of diasporic Chineseness. It has first contextualized the significance of the film for its perceived Asian representation, and then discussed urban Singapore as a Hollywood romantic comedy setting and the much-contested notion of Chineseness for diasporic communities. The main analysis has focused on how diasporic Chineseness is articulated, expressed, and lived in English, the common language of the ethnic Chinese characters in the film. Their commonality is expressed in English and their unique social and cultural diversity is characterized by their use of various dialects and accents of English.

Bibliography Ang, I. (2013). No longer Chinese? Residual Chineseness after the rise of China. In J. Kuehn, K. Louie, & D. M. Pomfret (Eds.), Diasporic Chineseness after the Rise of China Communities and Cultural Production (pp. 17–31). Vancouver-Toronto: UBC Press. Berry, C. (2019). Cinemas of the Sinosphere: Chinese transnational cinema today. Keynote presentation at Symposium: New Interdependencies in Chinese Cinema, University College London, London, 18 November 2019. Bricker, T. (2018). Why you can thank Crazy Rich Asians and Netflix for saving rom-coms. E! Online, August 21. https://www.eonline.com/news/961630/why-you-can-thank-crazy-rich-asi ans-and-netflix-for-saving-rom-coms. Accessed 31 March 2020. Chia, B.P., & Adam, B. (April 2002). Singaporeans’ reactions to Estuary english. English Today, 18(2), 33–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078402002055. Chong, T., & Hui, Y.-F. (2013). Different Under God: A Survey of Church-going Protestants in Singapore. Singapore: ISEAS Publishing. Chu, J. M. (Director). (2018). Crazy Rich Asians [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures. Chun, A. (1996). Fuck Chineseness: On the Ambiguities of Ethnicity as Culture as Identity. Boundary 2, 23(2) (Summer), 111–138. Crazy Rich Asians. Fandango. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/crazy_rich_asians. Accessed 20 February 2020. Department of Statistics Singapore. (2015). General Household Survey 2015. Singapore: Department of Statistics, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Republic of Singapore. https://www.singstat. gov.sg/publications/ghs/ghs2015content. Accessed 31 March 2020. Dobrow, J.R., & Calvin, L.G. (1998). The good, the bad, and the foreign: The use of dialect in children’s animated television.The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 557(1), 105–119. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716298557000009. Dowling, T. (2003). Curtis Britain: A brief guide. Guardian, November 13. https://www.thegua rdian.com/film/2003/nov/13/britishidentity.uk. Accessed 31 March 2020. Ellis-Petersen, H., & Lily, K. (2018). Where are the brown people? Crazy Rich Asians draws tepid response in Singapore. Guardian, August 21. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/aug/21/ where-are-the-brown-people-crazy-rich-asians-draws-tepid-response-in-singapore. Accessed 31 March 2020.

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Fang, M. (2018).Crazy Rich Asiansis now the highest-grossing romantic comedy in adecade. HuffPost, September 30. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/crazy-rich-asians-box-office-rom-com-rec ord_n_5ba932afe4b0375f8f9f8ce4. Accessed 31 March 2020. Fontoura, M. (2018). Meet Awkwafina, the Breakout Star of Crazy Rich Asians. Rolling Stone, August 15. https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-features/crazy-rich-asians-awkwafinarapper-710684/. Accessed 31 March 2020. Galloway, N., & Rose, H. (2014). Introducing Global Englishes. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Gilroy, P. (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness (reissue). Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Goh, D.P.S. (2010). State and social Christianity in post-colonial Singapore. SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 25(1), 54–89. Hall, S. (2003). Cultural identity and diaspora. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity: Community, Culture and Difference (pp. 222–239). London: Lawrence and Wishart. Han, K. (2018). Crazy Rich Asians is a win for Asian Americans. But it gets Singapore wrong. Vox, August 17. https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/8/17/17715124/crazy-rich-asians-movie-sin gapore. Accessed 31 March 2020. Ho, R. (2018). Crazy Rich Asians: Why did it take so long to see a cast like this? New York Times, August 8. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/08/movies/crazy-rich-asians-cast.html. Accessed 31 March 2020. Hsu, H. (2018). Crazy Rich Asians and the end point of representation. New Yorker, August 20. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/crazy-rich-asians-and-the-end-pointof-representation. Accessed 31 March 2020. Jackson, L.M. (2018). Who Really Owns the ‘Blaccent’? Vulture—New York Magazine, August 24. https://www.vulture.com/2018/08/awkwafina-blaccent-cultural-appropriation.html. Accessed 31 March 2020. Jermyn, D. (2009). I ♥ NY: The rom-com’s love affair with New York City. In S. Abbott & D. Jermyn (Eds.), Falling in Love Again: Romantic Comedy in Contemporary Cinema (pp. 9–24). New York: I.B. Tauris. Kirkpatrick, A. (2007). World Englishes: Implications for International Communication and English Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuehn, J., Louie, K., & Pomfret, D. M. (2013). China rising: A view and review of China’s diasporas since the 1980s. In J. Kuehn, K. Louie, & D. M. Pomfret (Eds.), Diasporic Chineseness after the Rise of China Communities and Cultural Production (pp. 1–16). Vancouver-Toronto: UBC Press. Kwan, K. (2014). Crazy Rich Asians. New York: Anchor. Kwan, K. (2016). China Rich Girlfriend. New York: Anchor. Lim, L. (2010). Peranakan English in Singapore. In S. Daniel, T. Peter, W.S. Edgar, & P.W. Jeffrey, (Eds.), The lesser-known Varieties of English: An Introduction, (Vol. 332). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lim, L., & Foley, J. A. (2004). Singapore English: A Grammatical Description. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Lippi-Green, R. (2012). English with an Accent. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. MacCarthy, M. (2018). Crazy Rich Asians author Addresses Criticism about Accents in Movie Trailer. CNA, May 4. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/videos/crazy-rich-asians-authoraddresses-criticism-about-accents-in-10204140. Accessed 31 March 2020. Nansi, P. (2018). Crazy Rich Asians is one of our saddest moments. Inkstone News (Hong Kong), August 22. https://www.inkstonenews.com/opinion/pooja-nansi-crazy-rich-asians-hailed-repres entative-it-ignores-people-singapore/article/2160802. Accessed 31 March 2020. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. (2010). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Poulou, P. (2018). Crazy Rich Asiansbreaking Stereotypes, Box Office. VOA News, August 24. https://www.voanews.com/arts-culture/crazy-rich-asians-breaking-stereotypes-boxoffice. Accessed 31 March 2020.

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Schneider, E. W. (2011). English Around the World: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, S.L., Choueiti, M., & Pieper, K., (2016). Inclusion or Invisibility? Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity in Entertainment. Los Angeles, CA: USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California. https://annenberg.usc.edu/pages/~/ media/MDSCI/CARDReport%20FINAL%2022216.ashx.Accessed 31 March 2020. Sun, R., & Rebecca, F. (2018). Crazy Rich Asians sequel moves forward with director Jon M. Chu (Exclusive). Hollywood Reporter, August 22. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/crazyrich-asians-sequel-plans-revealed-jon-m-chu-returning-1135890. Accessed 31 March 2020. Tan, E. K. B. (2003). Re-engaging Chineseness: Political, economic and cultural imperatives of nation-building in Singapore. China Quarterly, 175(September), 751–774. https://doi.org/10. 1017/S0305741003000432. Tu, W.-M. (1991). Cultural China: The periphery as the center. Daedalus, 120(3), 1–31. Wolfram, W., & Schilling, N. (2016). American English: Dialects and Variation (3rd ed.). Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell. Wong, J. O. (2014). The Culture of Singapore English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wong, M. (2018). What Does Seeing Asians as “crazy rich” Achieve? Refinery 29 (New York), August 15. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2018/08/206562/crazy-rich-asians-foreign-wea lth-porn. Accessed 31 March 2020.

Chun-Lung Ma is Senior Lecturer in English Language and Culture at the Open University of Hong Kong. He is currently working on his Ph.D. in Film Studies at King’s College London. His project focuses on the representation of Hong Kong in 21st-century Hollywood cinema. Previously he completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies in English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include the cinematic construction of cities, Hong Kong in popular media and Global Englishes.

Chapter 13

Language, Identities, and Resistance: Comparing Two Ethnic Chinese Rappers from Malaysia and Singapore Brenda Chan

13.1 Introduction “What is the nature of Chineseness, and who are the Chinese?” (Chun 1996, p. 111). The terms “Chinese,” “Chinese culture,” and “Chinese language” often refer to the culture and language of the Han Chinese—the ethnic group that forms the majority of the population in China, although there are some 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities in China, such as the Tibetans and Uighurs (Shih 2007). With the dominant Han Chinese co-existing with these numerous ethnic minorities as well as the heterogeneous cultural practices of various provinces (even among the Han Chinese), the definition of Chineseness is already inherently complex within mainland China. In territories outside the mainland that China claims sovereignty over, such as Taiwan and Hong Kong, there exists a spectrum of local identities that have evolved out of historical experiences of colonization, past isolation from Communist China, and persisting ideological differences with the current political regime in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The problem of diverse Chinese identities is even more acute for ethnic Chinese living in sovereign states outside China—referred to as “Chinese overseas” by scholars such as Pan (1999), Ma (2003), and Liu (2006), though not without debate as to how this differs from nomenclature such as “overseas Chinese” and “the Chinese diaspora.” For Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, the extent of identification with Chinese ancestry and retention of Chinese cultural practices may vary considerably depending on the degree to which the Chinese are assimilated into the culture of the host society. In Thailand, for instance, the Thai-Chinese adopt Thai names, attend Thai schools, speak Thai, and self-identify as Thai, but ancestor worship and celebration of Chinese festivals like Qing Ming and Chinese New Year still continue to be practiced (Tong 2010). The ethnic Chinese in Singapore, in contrast, are required B. Chan (B) Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_13

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to learn the Chinese language as a second language in school and are encouraged to maintain their ethnic cultural practices while the state fosters a larger national identity for its multi-ethnic society. Therefore, an essentialist, monolithic, and China-centric notion of Chineseness— often tied to the ability to speak Chinese—has been questioned by scholars such as Chun (1996) and Ang (2001). In the area of literary and cultural production, Shih Shu-Mei has postulated the use of the term “Sinophone” to describe the everyday practices and experiences that are locally situated in communities where immigrants from China have settled and are therefore at the “margins” of China and Chineseness (Shih 2011, p. 710). She contends that the Sinophone can be a site for expressing nationalism, nostalgia, and longing for China, as well as anti-China sentiments or indifference towards China (Shih 2007). Drawing upon the concept of the Sinophone, this chapter will discuss and compare the songs of two ethnic Chinese rappers—Namewee from Malaysia and ShiGGA Shay from Singapore. I will be focusing on the linguistic hybridity in their songs as expressions of the rappers’ respective identities, and as resistance towards the language hierarchies in the multi-ethnic and multi-lingual societies where the rappers are born and raised in. As Shih has emphasized in her writings, the Sinophone “registers not only the multiplicity of Sinitic languages but also how they undergo localization and creolization in relation to non-Sinitic languages in a given locality” (2011, p. 716). The concept of the “Sinophone” is invariably linked to the issue of language— Shih (2011) speaks of the plurality of “Sinitic languages” because the Han Chinese language is made up of various mutually unintelligible topolects that are often called “Chinese dialects.” Mandarin is a northern Chinese dialect that became the national spoken language in China in the 1920s (Snow 2004). It has been designated as the official spoken language in the PRC, where it is known as Putonghua (普通話). Similarly, Mandarin functioned as the “national language” (Guoyu國語) when the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai Shek retreated from mainland China to Taiwan in 1949 after being defeated by the Communists. Modern written Chinese is largely based on the syntax and vocabulary of standard Mandarin, while most vernacular Chinese topolects do not have a written form, with the exception of some which have developed a written form over time, such as Cantonese (Handel 2019). It is the sharing of a common written Chinese script that allows speakers of different Chinese dialects to understand cultural products that circulate across different Chinese communities (Chua 2001). For instance, the dominant form of spoken Chinese in Hong Kong is Cantonese, a southern Chinese dialect originating from Guangdong province in China. A Mandarin speaker from Beijing, however, would still be able to enjoy a Cantonese pop song from Hong Kong because he or she can make out the meaning of the lyrics through reading the Chinese subtitles in the music video. In various parts of Southeast Asia, Chinese immigrants in earlier waves of migration in the nineteenth and twentieth century mainly hailed from southern provinces in China, and spoke dialects such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka, and Hainanese, rather than standard Mandarin. These dialects have also “evolved differently inside and outside China” (Shih 2007, p. 29), and in the context of Chinese communities in

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Southeast Asia, hybridized forms and patterns of speech have developed over time with the intermixing of Chinese dialects, and the intermixing of these dialects with the indigenous languages as well as languages of the European colonial powers. This chapter seeks to examine how ShiGGA Shay from Singapore and Namewee from Malaysia have incorporated Chinese dialects in their music to negotiate issues of identity and belonging, whereby the use of these dialects in their songs may not be connected with the Chinese state or may be fraught with contradictions and tensions in an inescapable relationship with China.

13.2 Globalization of Hip-Hop and the Politics of Language Hip-hop was a youth subculture that originated from the impoverished black ghettoes in South Bronx, New York, in the 1970s, out of communities left in economic deprivation after Robert Moses built the Cross-Bronx Expressway in 1959, which drove the middle-class families to relocate to the suburbs. Emerging from inner-city neighborhoods rife with drugs, crime, and gang violence, the hip-hop subculture was characterized by four major elements—graffiti, breakdancing, MCing (rapping), and DJing (Rose 1989; Williams 2011). Rap music—made up of oral rhymes recited over remixes of existing songs by disc jockeys (DJs) manipulating two turntables (Keyes 1996)—is a significant part of the larger hip-hop subculture. Voicing the experiences and frustrations of everyday lives in the urban slums of white-dominated America, “(r)ap constitutes a form of resistance and self-identification for working-class black communities who are completely marginalized” (Rose 1989, p. 37). In the 1980s, rap as a musical genre began to gain commercial appeal, and by the 1990s, it accounted for 9–10% of music sales in the United States (US), according to the Recording Industry Association of America (Rose 2008). At the same time that hip-hop grew in popularity in the US, it also spread to other parts of the world. Musicians in different countries and economies began to appropriate hip-hop and localize the genre “as an act of resistance and expression of dissent and dissatisfaction toward the social and political status quo” in their own societies (Ross and Rivers 2018, p. 4). The emergence of hip-hop music in Sinitic languages began in the 1990s in Taiwan and Hong Kong, because the People’s Republic of China had only instituted economic reforms in December 1979, and was still in the process of transforming domestic styles of popular music, after decades of a soundscape dominated by Communist propaganda songs. The first artistes to introduce hip-hop to Taiwanese audiences were three ABC (American-born Chinese) boys who formed a boyband called L. A. Boyz, in 1991. The songs by L. A. Boyz represented a sanitized form of hip-hop divorced from the racial problems of the black communities in the US: Best known for their coordinated dance moves and songs rapped in English, with a sprinkling of Taiwanese and Mandarin thrown in for good measure, the LA Boyz projected an image of American modernity, athleticism and youthfulness that was rendered cool through their hiphop iconography… (Wang 2012, p. 6).

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The hip-hop scene in Taiwan started to become more vibrant in the late 1990s when MC Hotdog, Dog G, and LA Dirty 4 were given opportunities to publish albums and their music videos were broadcast via MTV Chinese (Liew 2006). In the late 1990s to early 2000s, hip-hop gradually entered into mainstream Mandarin pop, with singersongwriters such as Wang Lee Hom and Jay Chou inserting rap interludes into their songs, sometimes mixed with traditional Chinese instruments and Chinese opera to create a new style of Chinese hip-hop (Chen 2012; Lin 2013; G.Wang 2012). Next, we will consider the status of hip-hop in Hong Kong, the former British colony that was returned to the PRC in 1997. The local Cantopop (Cantonese popular music) industry had shrunk considerably in the mid-1990s, focusing more on producing idols and love songs. In 1999 hip-hop emerged from the underground and captured public attention, with the local band LMF (LazyMuthaFuckaz) shocking middle-class sensibilities through extensive use of Cantonese vulgarities in their song lyrics and public performances. Although an emcee duo called Fama appeared in 2000 and enjoyed moderate commercial success with college and high school students, hip-hop remains a marginal music genre in Hong Kong with a niche audience, especially after the disbanding of LMF in 2003 (Lin 2009). Hip-hop entered the PRC in the 1990s through dakou (打口) tapes and compact discs—unsold products from large Western companies that were sent for recycling in China but ended up being circulated in the black market in major Chinese cities (Amar 2018). The early 2000s witnessed the development of hip-hop in the underground bars and clubs of Beijing and Shanghai, and the organizing of rap battles by American rapper MC Showtyme (Amar 2018; Barrett 2012; Liew 2006). Liu (2010) observed that rappers in the PRC were mainly youth from lower socio-economic rungs of society—marginalized and left behind by the progress of economic reform. Hiphop music became a site for expressing their discontentment with social injustice from income inequality, and to voice their struggles in daily life. Previously part of the independent music communities, hip-hop as a musical genre recently gained mainstream popularity among the PRC youth in June 2017 due to the success of an online reality show produced by Chinese video-streaming site iQiyi, titled The Rap of China. Many underground rappers from various provinces and cities in China achieved national fame through participation in this rap competition, which drew more than 1.3 billion views in its first season (Amar 2018). In the same year, hip-hop from the PRC began to make inroads into the American market. Higher Brothers, a hip-hop group from Chengdu (in Sichuan province), was signed under the New York-based record label 88rising, which promotes Asian rappers in the US market and helps Asian-American artistes break into China’s market. Higher Brothers’ breakout hit “Made in China” (2017), produced by Richie Souf and featuring Famous Dex, made the rap collective “the first internationally acclaimed hip hop group” from the PRC (Zhao 2019, para. 3). The song, which highlights China as an industrial powerhouse that manufactures most of the daily commodities used by Americans, has about 18 million views on YouTube (as of January 2020). It was later featured in the ending credits of an episode from HBO TV comedy series Silicon Valley (Kelley 2019). In 2018, “My New Swag” by former Rap of China contestant, VAVA, was included in the soundtrack of the American

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film Crazy Rich Asians (Diaz 2018), intriguing audiences with its blend of hip-hop with Beijing opera. “Central to hip-hop culture is the mantra of authenticity, of ‘keepin’ it real’,” which is often associated with representations of violence, drugs, and life in the black ghettoes (Pennycook 2007a, pp. 98–99). The globalization of hip-hop brings the question of authenticity to the fore and gives rise to the dialectic between the spread of cultural expectations of what it means to be authentic, and “a process of localization that makes such an expression of staying true to oneself dependent on local contexts, languages, cultures, and understandings of the real” (Pennycook 2007a, p. 98). Despite different trajectories in the PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in the developments of local hip-hop, rap music from these three societies share a common trait—the use of Chinese dialects in the lyrics as a marker of local identity and as a “benchmark” for authenticity. In her analysis of the sociolinguistics in LMF’s songs, which are laced with Cantonese expletives, Lin (2009) describes that the band projects the image of angry working-class masculine youth in Hong Kong through reproducing the speech patterns of this demographic segment. The lyrical themes of LMF’s music range from a critique of local class inequality (such as materialism in Hong Kong society and the everyday realities of living in public housing) to global injustices (such as condemning the US invasion of Iraq). In the case of Taiwan, the Minnan dialect (also termed as Taiyu) is the most commonly spoken dialect on the island, but for several decades (until the desinicization policies of the Chen Shuibian administration) it has been suppressed under the language policy of the Kuomintang (KMT) government, which confers Mandarin the status of “national language.” After the disbanding of L.A. Boyz and a hiatus from the pop scene, two members of L.A. Boyz—Jeff Huang (Huang Licheng) and Stanley Huang—formed another hip-hop group called Machi Brothers in 2003. Despite their ABC identities, the Machi Brothers sought to affirm their “roots” and connection to Taiwan through rapping in Minnan dialect, in their song “Son of Taiwan” (2003): I am Huang Licheng, son of Taiwan, … I am born in Taiwan, I will die in Taiwan. (Liew 2006, p. 65)

Researchers studying hip-hop music in the PRC also note how to rap songs in mainland China are often rendered in colloquial local dialects (fangyan) rather than Putonghua—official standard Mandarin (Liu 2010,2014), with the rise of an Internet dialect hip-hop subculture as dialect rap songs are being published and circulated online (X.Wang 2012). In the PRC, standard Mandarin is the principal form of spoken Chinese in education and broadcast media. This language policy has created a linguistic hierarchy whereby Mandarin as Putonghua (the common language) enjoys far more prestige than local languages and dialects while the latter are marginalized and deemed as inferior. “(C)haracterized by strong social messages,” local-language rap songs “assert an oppositional, counterhegemonic voice against the Chinese educational system, official culture, and mainstream discourse” that is dominated by Mandarin (Liu 2014, p. 266).

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Liu (2014, p. 266) goes on to argue that the use of local regional dialects in these rap songs “articulate a distinct musicalized, local collective identity for urban youth by adopting a strong convention in the rap music genre, namely the representation of one’s ‘hood/posse/city/region/territory.” Indeed, despite the PRC government’s efforts in fostering patriotism and national identity, “Chineseness” is by no means singular and homogeneous in mainland China. Belonging to a particular region, province, or city, along with the dialect spoken in that locality, continues to play an important part in informing the identity of people in PRC. This is evident in many rap songs from the PRC, for instance, VAVA’s “My New Swag” features Ty. (a former contestant in The Rap of China) rapping in Chengdu dialect, proclaiming that “I come from Chengdu, I’m a godsend to Chengdu” (Warner Music Taiwan 2017). The two ethnic Chinese rappers whom I will be analyzing in greater detail in this chapter, namely ShiGGA Shay and Namewee, are from Singapore and Malaysia respectively, where hip-hop is more actively consumed and performed by nonChinese communities in these two countries. In contrast with the different hip-hop scenes in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the PRC, there are different dynamics in the multi-ethnic environments in which ShiGGA Shay and Namewee produce their rap music, as I shall illustrate in the two sections that follow.

13.3 Shigga Shay: Rapping the Hybrid Multicultural Singaporean Identity In this section, I will examine how Singaporean rapper, ShiGGA Shay, incorporates Chinese dialects into his songs, which challenges the language policies of the state on the one hand, while conforming to the larger discourse of a Singaporean identity on the other. Before looking at ShiGGA Shay’s music, we need to have an understanding of Singaporean society as the context of his creative production. Singapore is a small island-state at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. Formerly a British colony, she joined the Federation of Malaysia briefly in 1963 and became an independent country in 1965. Singapore’s population is made up of Chinese (74.3%), Malays (13.4%), Indians (9%), and other ethnic minorities (Department of Statistics Singapore 2018), making it the only country outside Greater China with a majority Chinese population. The Singapore government adopts a policy of “multi-racialism” that encourages the various ethnic groups in the country to retain their own ethnic cultural identities and practices, while the state concurrently cultivates a supra-ethnic national identity based on loyalty towards Singapore (Tong and Pakir 1996). Singapore has four official languages: English, Malay, Chinese, and Tamil, with the latter three languages “representing” the main ethnic groups in the population. Although Malay is the National Language, it serves more of a symbolic and ceremonial function, being used in the national anthem, military commands, and so on. English, previously the language of the colonial government, is retained as the

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language of state administration and commerce after independence. English is also the main medium of instruction for most subjects in education, although students are required to learn a second language that is based on the student’s ethnicity. Therefore, ethnic Chinese students have to learn Chinese at “second language” level in schools, both in written and oral (Mandarin) form. The ethnic Chinese community in Singapore is made up of immigrants and their descendants from mainly the southern provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, and Hainan Island in China, speaking various dialects such as Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka, Hainanese, and so on.1 Within the Chinese community, there was also a bifurcation between labor immigrants who arrived from China in the late 19th century to early 20th century, and the local-born Straits Chinese descending from early Chinese settlers. The Straits Chinese (also known as Peranakan Chinese) practiced a hybrid culture fusing Chinese and Malay elements; they spoke Baba Malay (a creole form of Malay mixed with Hokkien dialect) and English. Therefore, Mandarin was not the mother tongue for the majority of Chinese in Singapore at the time of independence, though it was used in Chinese-medium schools by the Chinese intellectual elite (Kuo and Chan 2016). In 1979, the Singapore government launched an annual Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC) which continues to run till the present. The initial purpose of the campaign was to encourage Chinese Singaporeans to adopt Mandarin as the lingua franca within their community. To achieve this end, early campaign slogans explicitly discouraged the use of Chinese dialects, for instance, “Speak more Mandarin and less dialect” (1979), “Mandarin’s in, dialect’s out” (1983), and “Better with more Mandarin, less dialect” (1988) (Lim 2009, p. 54). Deliberate policy measures were put in place to restrict Chinese dialects in film and broadcast media. Imported films and television dramas in dialect, such as Cantonese movies and TV dramas from Hong Kong, have to be dubbed in Mandarin before cinematic release and telecast respectively. Airtime for dialect programs in television and radio is also severely limited; songs that carry substantial portions of lyrics in dialects are banned from radio airwaves. The dominant use of English in government, commerce, and education, as well as the SMC, had played a significant role in the language shift over the past few decades in the Chinese community in Singapore. By 2015, English was the most widely spoken household language across all ethnic groups, and the percentage of Chinese Singaporeans (5 years and older) using English as the main household language had risen to 37.4%. The proportion of Chinese using Mandarin as the dominant home language had decreased from 47.7% in 2010 to 46.1% in 2015, while only some 16.1% of Chinese spoke dialects most frequently spoken at home, based on the General Household Survey in 2015 (Department of Statistics 2016). This stands in stark contrast with the figures in the census in 1980—at a time when the Speak Mandarin Campaign had just begun—during which 76.2% of Chinese used dialects 1 From the 1990s onwards, there was a new wave of migration from the PRC from various provinces, and the Chinese immigrants are distinguished from the local-born Chinese Singaporeans by the term “xin yimin” (新移民), which translates into “new immigrants” in English.

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as their most frequently spoken language at home (Kuo and Chan 2016). In fact, so marginalized are Chinese dialects in Singapore that they tend to be associated with the elderly and the less-educated working class, with Hokkien having the most acute “image problem” among the various dialects (Chua 2003, p. 169). In terms of the introduction of rap in Singapore, one of the earliest local rap songs was “Rasa Sayang” (1989) by Dick Lee, a Peranakan Chinese, who adapted a traditional Malay folk song of the same title into the rap genre, inviting Moe Alkaff, Leslie Pillay, and Rizal Ahyar to perform the rap with him, thus conforming to Singapore state’s policy of multi-racialism (Wee 1996). The rap lyrics are initially in relatively standard grammatical English, with the last verse in Singlish, mixed with a smattering of Malay, Cantonese, and Tamil. Singlish is a colloquial variety of English in Singapore that incorporates words from Mandarin, Malay, and Chinese dialects. Singlish has its own syntax, “borrowing certain grammatical structures from these languages as well as from English, and has its own patterns of intonation” (Bokhorst-Heng 2005, p. 186). Though borrowing and indigenizing the rap element of hip-hop subculture, Dick Lee’s “Rasa Sayang” was nonetheless highly sanitized in its lyrics celebrating the eclectic mix of languages and cuisines in Singapore. Consumption and performance of hip-hop in Singapore is more associated with the ethnic minorities, namely Indians and Malays, rather than the ethnic Chinese. According to Yasser Mattar (2003), hiphop was consumed mainly by the Indian community in Singapore until 1996, when there was a string of scandals and tragedies involving American rappers, after which the interest in rap dwindled among Indian Singaporeans and was never revived again. In 1991, a rap duo formed by Sheikh Haikel and Ashidiq Ghazali won the televised regional Asia Bagus! singing contest (Ho 2020). In the early 2000s, another prominent hip-hop group to emerge in the local music scene was Urban Xchange, made up of eight members: TrisnoIshak, Syed MunirAlsagoff, Vanessa Fernandez, Michaela Therese, Terrence Leong, Firdaus Bahri, Rathor Humaa, and Kimberly Olsen. Urban Xchange was also the first Singaporean band to secure a recording contract with Universal Music (National Library Board 2019). In his research on Muslim youth in Singapore, Kamaludeen (2016) notes the popularity of hip-hop among Malay youth, and how the genre has been co-opted by the government and Muslim organizations in Singapore. As mosques and local Muslim organizations became more accommodating towards hip-hop, hip-hop performers were “commonplace at Malay/Muslim community events,” despite hip-hop’s subcultural roots of social resistance in the US. ShiGGA Shay’s production of hip-hop music needs to be understood within this context of hip-hop’s development in the island republic. ShiGGa Shay, whose real name is Pek Jin Shen, is one of the founding members of a hip-hop collective called Grizzle Grind Crew (Hadi 2016). Born in 1992, he belongs to the segment of English-speaking Chinese youth in Singapore who are heavily influenced by American culture (in this case, hip-hop) but are now seeking to acquaint themselves with dialects. ShiGGA Shay shot to fame in 2013 when he released a rap song titled “LimPeh,” which swiftly topped the local iTunes chart, outdoing hits by international pop artists such as Justin Timberlake and Bruno Mars (Rasul and Tan 2013). The song title “LimPeh” is a crass word in Hokkien (a dialect

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that originated from the Fujian province in China) that literally means “your father,” but is typically used as an overbearing way of saying “I,” when the speaker is trying to assert power or authority over the person he is talking to. “LimPeh” features a collaboration between ShiGGA Shay and two young movie actors, Tosh Rock and Wang Weiliang, who gained popularity as the main cast in the Singaporean box-office hit Ah Boys To Men. In the music video (MV) of “LimPeh,” ShiGGA Shay plays the leader of a gang, while Tosh Rock and Wang Weiliang play his key members. A fat boy in their gang is bullied and slapped by a member from a rival gang. During the confrontation between the two gangs, Wang Weiliang’s character berates the rival gang leader in fluent Hokkien, repeatedly referring to himself as “limpeh.” The music video, unfortunately, reinforces the stereotypical association of Hokkien dialect with Ah Bengs (local Singaporean slang word for young Chinese hooligans) and gangsters (Wong 2014). However, unlike the hardcore gangsta rap in the United States, the MV of “LimPeh” is only a parody of thug life—the “gangsters” portrayed in the MV blow bubble wands instead of smoking cigarettes and pull out water guns to “shoot” at their rivals. In fact, the lyrics of “LimPeh” depict different facets of ordinary everyday life in Singapore, such as crowding in the subway trains, drinking “kopi siew dai” (coffee with less sugar) in the local coffee shops, Singaporeans’ obsession with buying lottery and so on. The rap portions by ShiGGA Shay and Tosh Rock feature a mix of Hokkien, Singlish, Mandarin, American English, and a smattering of Malay and Cantonese. Since 2000, the government has been running an annual language campaign known as the Speak Good English Movement, which encourages citizens to speak standard grammatical English instead of Singlish. Although Singlish is frowned upon by the government, it is regarded by a certain segment of Singaporeans as being unique to the country and “a nascent symbol of identity” (Rubdy 2001, p. 345). “LimPeh” thus challenges the official language policies in Singapore, which advocate the use of standard English, and privilege Mandarin over dialects as the spoken language of the ethnic Chinese. The song also attempts to rebut the assumption that English-speaking Chinese youth in Singapore are not interested in dialects, with Tosh Rock arguing that “…you think I can’t speak proper Mandarin/eating potatoes everyday [sic], burgers & apple pies/but now you know my Hokkien’s really not bad/I can fly to Taiwan and chit-chat with the ladies” (Chan 2019, pp. 7–8). It is interesting that the lyrics make reference to Taiwan (and not mainland China) because the main dialect spoken in Taiwan is Minnan dialect (known as Taiyu in Taiwan), which is called Hokkien in Singapore. Both Taiyu in Taiwan and Hokkien in Singapore share the same roots of having originated from the southern part of Fujian Province in China but have developed local variations over time. Like Singapore, Taiwan also has a similar historical experience of suppressing dialects while elevating the status of Mandarin. “Speaking Sinitic languages with certain historical affinity with China does not necessarily need to be tied to contemporary China,” as pointed out by Shih (2007, p. 30). As I have discussed in an earlier conference paper, the use of Hokkien dialect in “LimPeh” is not exclusive in that it is blended together with Mandarin, Singlish,

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American English, and so on, reflecting the existing linguistic hybridity in the daily speech habits of Singaporeans in a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual social environment (Chan 2019). Despite its Hokkien title and Hokkien-heavy rap lyrics, “LimPeh” places Chinese dialects within the context of diversity in Singapore’s multicultural society, as shown from ShiGGA Shay’s effort to include “actors” from various ethnic groups in his music video, such as Bancho the Matrep, a Malay vlogger, as well as LINEATH, a homegrown Indian rapper who was later encouraged by ShiGGA Shay to rap in English and Tamil (Hadi 2016). Although the languages used in the lyrics of “LimPeh” appear to defy the official language policies of the state, ShiGGA Shay affirms his Singaporean identity in the song by proudly declaring that he is a “Lion City kia” (son of Singapore)—whereby “Lion City” refers to Singapore and “kia” is the Hokkien word for “son.” Furthermore, the rap by Tosh Rock expresses pride in the nation by reiterating the state narrative of Singapore’s development from “a small fishing village to today’s metropolis” (Chan 2019, p. 7). The rapid code-switching between Mandarin and Hokkien in the rap lyrics of “LimPeh” functions not so much as a marker of “Chineseness,” but these two Sinitic languages are represented as part of a larger Singaporean culture and identity. This is also evident from ShiGGA Shay’s effort to include Malay and Indian “actors” to play the roles of fellow-gangsters in his music video for “LimPeh.” Following the success of “LimPeh,” ShiGGA Shay released the song “Lion City Kia” in 2004. Unlike “LimPeh,” Hokkien is used more sparingly in “Lion City Kia,” mainly in a few sentences and phrases that are blended into the American English (especially hip-hop slang such as “homie” and “look fly”) and Singlish that dominate the rap lyrics. In addition, the song features two other rappers, Akeem Jahat and LINEATH, performing rap sequences in Malay and Tamil respectively. ShiGGA Shay’s collaboration with Malay rapper Akeem Jahat and Indian rapper LINEATH (the latter being a member of ShiGGA Shay’s Grizzle Grind Crew) conforms to Singapore’s policy of multi-racialism, which operates on classifying the population neatly into the ethnic categories of Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Others (the “CMIO model”) (Siddique 1997), with the government functioning as a neutral and impartial protector of equality for all the four “racial” groups (Chua 1995; Tong and Pakir 1996). There are, however, points of contradiction and resistance towards official discourse in “Lion City Kia.” Although the rap verses in “Lion City Kia” includes three of the nation’s official languages—English, Malay, and Tamil, the song again subverts the state’s language policies by using Hokkien (instead of Mandarin as officially endorsed by the government) to “represent” the spoken language of the Chinese. Moreover, there are many Singlish phrases in the rap, such as “talk cock and sing song” (a colloquial expression for casual chit-chatting) and “walau eh” (an exclamatory remark to indicate surprise or indignation) even though Singlish is perceived as undesirable by the government, because it is regarded as a “corrupted form of English that is not understood by others” and would undermine Singapore’s competitiveness in the world economy (Goh 2000, para. 3). “Lion City Kia” can be read as an extension of “LimPeh” in its emphasis on local Singaporean identity and belonging. This can be seen from both the song lyrics and the two main filming locations of the music video. About 84% of Singaporeans live

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in state-subsidized apartment flats in public housing estates built by the Housing & Department Board (HDB). The lyrics of “Lion City Kia” highlight the experience of growing up in HDB flats. The opening scenes of the music video are filmed around the blocks in Dakota Crescent, especially its sand-filled children’s playground, with ShiGGA Shay rapping: “Welcome to Lion City, where we grew up HDB.” The Dakota Crescent estate is one of the oldest public housing estates in Singapore, built-in 1958 even prior to the establishment of HDB. It was slated for demolition by the end of 2016, although the authorities eventually decided to conserve part of the historic estate (Ng 2017). In a press interview, ShiGGA Shay explained that he chose to film the music video in the Dakota Crescent neighborhood because of the “old-school vibes” of the locale and “it would be cool to feature that place before it’s gone” (Hadi 2014). The second filming location of the music video is an open space with Singapore’s skyline in the background, showcasing buildings such as the iconic Marina Bay Sands casino and the Singapore Flyer (a giant ferris wheel similar to the London Eye). In this second setting, ShiGGA Shay has invited several local celebrities to make cameo appearances, such as radio deejay Rosalyn Lee, television comedian Chua En Lai, singer Benjamin Kheng, social media influencer Dee Kosh and others. These local celebrities jive and pose, repeating the phrase “Born and raised, Lion City kia.” In this song, ShiGGA Shay, together with his fellow-rappers and the Singaporean celebrities, are constantly reiterating and affirming their identity as “children of Singapore.” Be it the residential estates in which most Singaporeans have grown up, or the skyscrapers that symbolize the city-state’s economic wealth, they are proclaiming that the “Lion City” is their home. After a four-year hiatus from uploading videos to his YouTube channel, ShiGGA Shay posted a new single, “Paiseh,” on the channel in April 2019. The title of the song is a Hokkien word that is used to express embarrassment or apology. Compared to “LimPeh” and “Lion City Kia,” however, Hokkien is used more sparingly in “Paiseh.” The song lyrics are dominantly in English and Mandarin, with only short Hokkien phrases scattered into the English lines. In fact, Mandarin is featured more prominently in “Paiseh,” with entire stanzas in Mandarin that alternate with the rap verses in English, such as the following: 最好是給我想清楚 You’d better think carefully 你有可能掉進我冰橱. You could possibly fall into my refrigerator 突然間有了個領悟. I suddenly came to realize 爲什麽我肚子痛 Why I get a stomachache when I see you (ShiGGA Shay 2019, English translation by the author)

Upon first listening, the lyrics of “Paiseh” do not seem to have a coherent theme, but there appears to be a subtext about a guy who believes that he will not be accepted

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by the mother of any (potential) girlfriend that he is seeking, because he speaks Singlish rather than standard English, and lacks academic qualifications: I know ya Mama don’t like me Would I ever change? Highly unlikely We don’t really care, buay paiseh (Author’s note: a Hokkien phrase meaning “not ashamed”) … My people really get no say Yo no se no habla ingles, (Author’s note: “habla ingles” means “speak English” in Spanish) All about getting that paper (Author’s note: “paper” refers to academic qualifications) No time for no hater We speaking that Singlish (ShiGGA Shay 2019)

“Paiseh” points towards the limited space for dissent in Singapore under a highly interventionist government, and carries a critique of the city-state as an achievementoriented society that privileges academic excellence (as a route to career and material success) and the ability to speak fluent English (rather than Singlish). The opening riff of “Paiseh” is vaguely reminiscent of that from “Made in China” by Higher Brothers, a rap song that I have mentioned earlier in this chapter. The latter, being marketed to the American audience, has a music video that is loaded with symbols of traditional Chinese culture. For instance, members of the hip-hop group are seen playing mahjong in a room with Chinese furnishings such as a Chinese folding screen next to the mahjong table, a Chinese blue-and-white porcelain vase, bamboo plants, and so on, while one of the members MaSiWei wields a Chinese fan as he raps. In another scene, members of Higher Brothers bow to one another in a hall decorated with Chinese lanterns and lined with traditional Chinese military weapons such as spears, swords, and battleaxes (88rising 2017). Similarly, the MV for ShiGGA Shay’s “Paiseh” mobilizes several “stereotypical” tropes associated with Chinese culture. Although ShiGGA Shay alternates among different costumes throughout the video, he is primarily dressed in a deep red tangzhuang (samfoo) that is often regarded as a traditional Chinese costume—a two-piece outfit consisting of a loose long-sleeved tunic with Chinese frog buttons and a Mandarin collar. The music video opens with ShiGGA Shay seated in a meditative pose like a mystic guru. A white lady is featured throughout various segments in the MV, executing Chinese martial arts moves in a black samfoo. At about 25 s into the MV, a South Asian–looking young man appears in a grey hoodie playing with a nunchaku, which is undoubtedly a reference to Bruce Lee, the action star who has created an iconic image of Chinese kungfu using this weapon in Hong Kong film Fist of Fury (1972). Unlike the MV of “Lion City Kia” which is filmed with iconic landmarks or locations in Singapore as the “backdrop,” the use of place as a marker of local Singapore identity is completely lacking in the MV of “Paiseh,” despite the song’s lyrical references to “speaking that Singlish” and playing “sepak takraw by the wall” (sepak takraw is a Malay rattan ball game). Instead, there is a brief one-second

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sequence that shows ShiGGA Shay whirling a nunchaku and the white lady practicing kungfu, superimposed against an image of traditional Chinese buildings overlooking a river, which resembles the scenery in the Jiangnan (south of the Yangtze River) region of China. In the MV of “Paiseh,” these highly contrived “orientalized” images are mixed together with those that draw upon well-known Western films, such as ShiGGA Shay fighting with a lightsaber in a Star Wars kimono, and mimicking James Bond by pointing a gun in a tuxedo. ShiGGA Shay has said that prior to the release of “Paiseh,” he was in Los Angeles for three years, “working with different music producers to create a unique Singaporean sound,” and he added that he had “always been passionate about putting Singapore culture on the world map through Singlish.” (KKBox 2019, para. 4). “Paiseh” was mixed and mastered by American music producers OkayJJack and Kevin Gayle, while the music video was directed by Jay Ahn, a Korean-American director and cinematographer (KKBox 2019, para. 5). In a talk show interview, ShiGGA Shay revealed that he gave Jay Ahn free rein in conceptualizing the music video, which was shot in a Los Angeles studio within one day (Asiaone 2019). Given that “Paiseh” was produced entirely in the United States, it is apparent that ShiGGA Shay is making an attempt to attract American listeners to his brand of multi-lingual hip-hop. It is unlikely, however, that “Paiseh” would be able to attain the same online success that the Higher Brothers achieved. The music video of Higher Brothers’ “Made In China” carries both English and Chinese subtitles, whereby the Mandarin rap is translated into English to allow comprehension of the lyrics by audiences who do not understand Mandarin. The subtitling in the MV of “Paiseh,” on the other hand, does little to help non-Chinese listeners make sense of the lyrics. The Hokkien phrases that are scattered in the Singlish/English lines are “romanized” phonetically in the English subtitles, but no English translation is provided to explain what these Hokkien phrases actually mean. The lines that are rapped in Mandarin have only Chinese subtitles without English translation, which means that even non-Chinese Singaporeans who support and follow ShiGGa Shay or Singaporean hip-hop would have difficulty making sense of the substantial portions of Mandarin rap in “Paiseh.”The MV on YouTube had only accumulated 41,201 views about eight months after its release (as of 3 January 2020). Shih Shu-Mei has argued that the Sinophone, in spite of drawing upon Sinitic languages, can articulate longing or opposition towards China, or may not even be related to China at all (Shih 2007). Heavily infused with Hokkien dialect, ShiGGA Shay’s “LimPeh” and “Lion City Kia” may be regarded as Sinophone expressions that assert a Singaporean identity rather than any direct connection with China. In contrast, “Paiseh” is a contradictory text. Lyrically, it is a critique of the rat race in Singaporean society and linguistically it mirrors the plurality and syncretism of speech habits in Singapore. ShiGGA Shay claimed that his inspiration to write the song was borne out of the desire to “write a Singlish song with a word that all Singaporeans use every day” (Asiaone 2019). This shows that certain terms in Chinese dialects, such as “paiseh” in Hokkien, have already been integrated into the creolized local forms of English in Singapore, such that theyare regarded as part of Singlish, and their original Sinitic roots may be obscured, if not forgotten. Yet visually the music video

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of “Paiseh” has little association with Singapore—it appears to target a Western audience by projecting an “imagined” China through depicting the costumes and practice of kungfu that the “Occidental” would associate with Chinese culture. In his analysis of the emergence of rap in Enshi dialect from rural Central-Western China, X.Wang (2012, p. 448) has drawn upon Pennycook (2007b)’s writings on language and localization in global hip-hop to emphasize that the ideology of authenticity or “keeping it real” in hip-hop is “embedded in our local living environment and occupied with keeping it local” (italics in original). Unlike the celebration of the local both aurally and visually in the music videos of “LimPeh” and “Lion City Kia,” the local Singaporean flavor is diluted for ShiGGA Shay’s “Paiseh,” because of the stark incongruence between the lyrics and the music video. When non-American rappers such as ShiGGA Shay take on a global musical form such as hip-hop, reinterprets it locally, and then desires to promote his brand of Singaporean hip-hop to the American audience, the “authenticity” of the local is inevitably diminished, as the production of his music becomes partially controlled by American music producers and directors who are still clinging to Orientalist modes of packaging Asian hip-hop for “Western” consumers. This illustrates the never-ending tension between the local and the global, and compromises that rappers have to face when their hip-hop music moves from the subcultural towards commercialization.

13.4 Namewee from Malaysia: Caught Between “Diaspora” and the “Sinophone” Malaysia is a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual country in Southeast Asia. Her population totals about 32.6 million, out of which 69.3% are Bumiputera (Malays and other indigenous peoples), 22.8% are ethnic Chinese, 6.9% are Indians, with other ethnic groups making up the remaining 1% (Department of Statistics Malaysia 2019). Malay is the National Language and used in all official domains, although English is also frequently used in commerce. Mandarin and Tamil are the key community languages for the ethnic Chinese and Indians, respectively, although the Chinese community in Malaysia also speak a variety of Chinese dialects such as Hokkien, Hakka, and Cantonese (Zhou and Wang 2017). The multi-lingual nature of Malaysian society has a profound impact on the linguistic characteristics of Malaysian hip-hop. The global sounds of hip-hop began to influence local pop music in Malaysia in the 1990s, resulting in “syncretic, cultural multivocality” (Pillai 2013, p. 8). This is evident from the song “Ipoh Mali” by Malaysian Chinese rapper Point Blanc, formerly from the hip-hop group Poetic Ammo. Though the English rap lyrics borrow terms from Black American hip-hop, such as “yo,” “holla,” and “y’all,” there are numerous localized references to cities in Malaysia such as Kuala Lumpur (KL), Johor Bahru (JB), and Penang, such as “to all mah’ peeps all down at JB/throw your hands up if y’all hear me/to all mah cats in

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KL city/holla at me if y’all hear me/to all my pheng yew2 across the sea now/Penang khia3 are y’all still down?” (Pillai 2013, p. 9). For the Malaysian Tamil Indians, hip-hop is the most popular genre of Tamil songs produced within the community, so much so that Malaysian Tamil hip-hop songs and artistes have even gained a reputation in the Tamil-speaking regions of India, with Malaysian Tamil groups such as Yogi B being invited to compose and perform songs for the Tamil film industry in Chennai, India (Balakrishnan 2018). Malaysian Tamil hip-hop first emerged in 1998 with a hit song by the group Poetic Ammo, and the popularity of this genre in the community is attributed to “the increasing sense of disenfranchisement that the minority Tamil youth feel” living in the Malaydominated social order (Balakrishnan 2018, p. 24). One of the key linguistic characteristics of Malaysian Tamil hip-hop is the code-switching amongst English, Malay, and Tamil languages in the lyrics. As Malay is the National Language in the country and Malaysian Tamils are required to learn it in school, Malay has become part of the linguistic repertoire of Malaysian Tamils. The use of English acknowledges the American roots of the genre, whereas the inclusion of Malay in Malaysian Tamil hip-hop is a deliberate effort to “signal their Malaysian upbringing and to localize their music,” as revealed by four rappers in a media interview (Balakrishnan 2018, pp. 26–29). Indigenization of hip-hop in Malaysia goes beyond the linguistic dimension, but also includes the religious as well, given that the Malay majority in the population is Muslim. Pennycook has observed how Malay rap duo Too Phat has developed rap with Arabic lyrics, drawing from the Koran. For example, the song “Alhamdulillah” (2002) is “a critique of materialist values, giving thanks to Allah for the gifts they have received” (Pennycook 2010, p. 598). For the Chinese community in Malaysia, the most prominent rapper is arguably Namewee (Wee Meng Chee), a Malaysian Chinese singer-songwriter who started with singing rap, but also produces works that are in the mainstream pop genre. He is of Hainanese ancestry and grew up in the town of Muar in southern Malaysia (Hee 2019). Namewee is known for political satire and social criticism in his songs. In 2007, when studying at Mingchuan University in Taiwan, Namewee uploaded a rap song titled “Negarakuku” on YouTube and was nearly charged for sedition by the Malaysian government. In a mixture of Malay and Mandarin, with the national anthem of Malaysia as the background tune, the song satirizes corruption of the Malaysian police and the state’s discrimination against ethnic Chinese (Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2007; Koh 2008). Like many Malaysian Chinese who have limited opportunities to enter state universities because Malaysia’s bumiputera policy favors the indigenous Malay majority, Namewee completed his degree in Taiwan. Hence, he tends to write songs in the Sinitic languages of Mandarin and various Chinese dialects, but mixes them together with different languages used in Malaysia, such as English and Malay, to celebrate the diversity of Chinese identities (Koh 2008). In his debut song “Muar Mandarin” 2 3

This is a Hokkien term meaning “friend.”. “Khia” stands for “son” in Hokkien. Here “Penang khia” refers to people of Penang.

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posted on YouTube in 2007, Namewee raps in Muar-accented Mandarin as well as Hokkien, asserting that “there is no such thing as a standard language, only their local forms” (Koh 2008, p. 59). He goes on after this line to say that “I don’t believe that you really get this idea—otherwise why go to KL to learn from people speaking Cantonese?” (Hee 2019, p. 281). According to Hee (2019), Namewee is pointing to the linguistic hierarchy in Malaysia whereby Cantonese—the Chinese dialect that is most widely spoken in the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur—tends to be seen as more superior, whereas Muar-accented Mandarin is looked down upon. By portraying the local daily life in Muar and code-switching between Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese, English, and Malay in the song, “Muar Mandarin” is: a statement against three forms of cultural hegemony in Malaysia, namely the notion of a standard spoken Mandarin Chinese, the representation of Chinese Malaysian as essentially Cantonese, and the conceptualisation of Malaysian culture as Malay-Muslim. …(Namewee’s) identity is firmly grounded in the local and the hybrid. (Koh 2008, p. 60).

Though Namewee may not be as proficient in Cantonese, he is very fluent in Hokkien and frequently composes lyrics in this dialect for his songs. For example, in 2016 Namewee produced an autobiographical piece titled “MOTHER,” inviting his mother to sing in Hokkien, while Namewee raps largely in Mandarin, lapsing into Hokkien in the final verse. Namewee describes how his mother supported his musical career and her anxieties when he faced charges by the Malaysian authorities, but his mother consoles him in the Hokkien chorus: I know you’re working really hard It must be lonely being away from home… Strive to achieve your dreams The journey ahead will be filled with obstacles If you tired [sic] of fighting Come back to home (Namewee 2016)

Despite being of Hainanese descent and growing up in a Hainanese-speaking family, Namewee has chosen to use Hokkien in a song that expresses his gratitude and love towards his mother. Namewee’s mother also sings in impeccable Hokkien. Since the song documents Namewee’s life experiences—from growing up, leaving for studies in Taiwan, to the challenges he faced in his musical career—one can surmise that Hokkien is a dialect close to Namewee’s heart. It is akin to the “mother tongue” that allows him to bring out the most intense of his emotions in the last stanza rapped in Hokkien: “oh my beloved mother / don’t be afraid… please stay healthy and be happy / I’ll come back home with success” (Namewee 2016). Namewee’s music rejects hegemonic notions of Chineseness premised upon the speaking of standard Mandarin as well as China-centric cultural practices. For instance, in “2010 CNY SONG,” Namewee questions why Malaysians are singing Chinese New Year songs with lyrics celebrating the arrival of “spring” (which marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year in China) when Malaysia is a tropical country without four seasons. In his rap, he argues that:

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Chinese New Year songs should have their own culture Why are you just singing the same stuff that comes from China? You have f**king lived here for so long But you don’t know how to LOCALIZE! (Namewee 2010, author’s translation from Mandarin)

Another example is the music video of Namewee’s song, “High Pitched,” which is a parody of televised reality singing contests in mainland China. The song mocks at how audiences and judges have a singular biased preference for contestants singing in a high register (Namewee 2014), thus protesting that hip-hop artistes like himself are marginalized with little chance of winning such competitions. On the other hand, Namewee is a shrewd entertainer who also exhibits the desire to capitalize on the large mainland Chinese market for marketing his songs. In 2017, Namewee approached Wang Lee Hom (an American-born Chinese who became one of the biggest Mandarin pop stars from the late 1990s upon returning to Taiwan) to collaborate with him in “Stranger in the North” (Chan 2018). The song featured Namewee rapping in Malaysian-accented Mandarin, with Wang singing the chorus with his soaring vocals in standard Mandarin. With Wang Lee Hom’s superstar status across Taiwan and mainland China, the song became a massive hit that helped Namewee break into the Taiwanese and mainland Chinese markets, whereas he was a rapper at the margins of the Chinese pop industry prior to the song’s release. The MV of “Stranger in the North” racked up a million views within 55 h of its upload on YouTube (The Singapore Women’s Weekly 2017). The video was filmed in Beijing, while the song lyrics depicted the plight and homesickness of migrant workers from various provinces in China who had “drifted” into the Chinese capital for work, as well as foreigners who felt alienated when residing in the polluted city (Namewee 2017). Hee (2019, p. 282) points out that: These two Chinese singers return to China, their ancestral home, only to find that they fundamentally do not belong there. This powerful feeling of incompatibility with one’s ancestral home is a criticism of the China-centrism of Chinese diaspora discourse.

However, it is too simplistic to just categorize the works and identity of Namewee as “against diaspora” (Hee 2019, p. 279) in the framework of Sinophone theory. Namewee’s relationship with China is far more complex. Though he finds himself a “stranger” in the northern city of Beijing in China, he is not entirely as “alien” to his ancestral hometown of Hainan Island in southern China, where his grandparents came from. On April 13, 2019, Namewee released the song “Lovely Hainan Island” on YouTube. In the description box of the video, he provides the rationale for writing the song: My paternal grandfather migrated from Hainan Island to Malaysia more than 80 years ago, my paternal grandmother is also Hainanese, so are my maternal grandparents. Hence, we speak Hainanese dialect at home. But many Hainanese outside China are no longer able to speak this dialect anymore, and even Hainan Island itself has become ‘Mandarinized’. Therefore, I hope to sing in Hainanese, so others may hear this vanishing dialect. (Namewee 2019a, Author’s translation)

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Dressed in the traditional costume of the Li ethnic minority in Hainan Island, Namewee sings his parts of the song in Hainanese dialect, raving about the alluring beauty of the Li women and how he travels through the main cities and attractions of Hainan Island—from Wenchang, Wanning, Sanya, Five Finger Mountain to Qiongzhong—indirectly introducing the human and physical geography of the tropical Hainan island to the audiences. Namewee also invites Taiwanese pop singer, Sean Lin, to perform in the song, whereby Lin’s parts are sung in standard Mandarin, impersonating the voice and mannerisms of veteran Taiwanese pop star Fei Yu-ching. The music video of the song was filmed in Hainan Island, and Namewee subsequently uploaded a video documenting his return to his paternal grandfather’s village in Hainan Island when he was shooting the MV for the song. The video reveals that he has previously visited the village as a child, and Namewee is surprised that his relatives in the village still remember him. When he reaches the house where his grandfather was born and raised, Namewee finds the photographs of his grandparents displayed on the walls of the vacant house and proceeds to pay his respects to them by offering incense. At the ending of the video, Namewee says, When I was young (my grandparents) always tell me I must remember where they came from, which is Hainan Island, Qiong Hai District, Dan Ling Village, Dan Ling County. I did not forget this address. Will remember it forever. (Namewee 2019b)

Through this journey to his ancestral hometown in Hainan Island, Namewee stresses that he will not forget where his forefathers came from, and his attempt to compose and perform a song in Hainanese dialect reinforces his Hainanese roots and identity. On the other hand, Namewee had consistently emphasized his identity as a Malaysian, be it in his works or in media interviews. Despite the controversy he generated with the song “Negarakuku,” Namewee chose to return to Malaysia, because “he believed that as a Malaysian, Malaysia was where he wanted to start his career” (Koh 2015, p. 37). It is apparent that Namewee sees his Hainanese identity as part of his Malaysian Chinese identity; one does not necessarily conflict with the other. For scholars who have analyzed Namewee’s songs and films, Koh Keng We has described the rapper as “a Chinese Malaysian in ‘exile’ in the diaspora,” being displaced from his homeland Malaysia to Taiwan as a result of the Malaysian government’s discrimination against non-Malays in the population (Koh 2008, p. 53). Hee Wai-Siam, on the other hand, conceives of Namewee’s works as “Sinophone.” If China is taken as the reference point for the Chinese “diaspora,” then Namewee’s “Lovely Hainan Island” exemplifies that it is not always possible to clearly delineate when “diaspora” ends and when “Sinophone” begins, because the descendants of Chinese immigrants around the world inevitably carry “prosthetic memories” of their ancestral homeland (Chen 2015, pp. 52–59). Chen (2015, p. 58) argues that Landsberg (1995)’s concept of “prosthetic memory” can “best explain the diasporic condition of contemporary Malaysian Chinese” and resolves the perpetual tension of their loyalty towards their ancestral culture or Malaysian culture. When people migrate from one place to another, they will bring their memories with them, which are passed down in the family over generations (Chen 2015). Akin to having an artificial limb, more distant generations will have

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“prosthetic memories” of their forefathers’ homeland, despite not having any direct experience or relations with it. Besides deriving “prosthetic memories” from massmediated images, traditional ethnic customs and rituals are an important part of the first-generation migrant’s memories of the homeland that they have left behind, and when practiced over time within an immigrant community, such rituals become “localized and hybridized,” cultivating “prosthetic memories of a distant land” in the later generations (Chen 2015, p. 59). Similarly, Namewee’s relationship with China does not fit squarely into the Sinophone mode, in which being “diasporic” ceases to be relevant. While Safran (1991)’s definition of a diaspora community includes a desire to return to the putative homeland, Namewee’s “return” to his grandparents’ native place in Hainan Island to film his music video is a not a permanent one. His return is premised upon his “prosthetic memories” of Hainan Island, generated through the constant admonition by his grandparents to remember the place where they came from.

13.5 Indeterminacy of the Sinophone: Comparing SHIGGA Shay and Namewee In expounding the concept of the Sinophone, Shih Shu-Mei has criticized how the term “diaspora” implicitly emphasizes longing for the ancestral home, and questions the viability of using the term “diaspora” infinitely upon the ethnic Chinese communities outside China, arguing that “diaspora has an expiration date; one cannot say one is diasporic after three hundred years, and everyone should be given a chance to become a local” (Shih 2011, pp. 713–714). Drawing upon Shih’s notion of the Sinophone, this chapter has analyzed the musical works of two ethnic Chinese rappers from Singapore and Malaysia in the construction of their respective identities. For ShiGGA Shay, he fits more into the conceptual framework of the Sinophone in that the lyrics of his song are rooted in the local context, depicting everyday life in Singapore and proclaiming that he is a “Lion City Kia” (son of Singapore). His rap lyrics bear little or no connection with China; the use of Chinese dialects in his songs is to reflect the hybridized colloquial speech habits of Singaporeans that mix different languages used in the city-state. In fact, ShiGGA Shay’s desire is to produce Singlish rap, although his efforts to export Singlish rap to the US appear to be thwarted—to American audiences and music producers who are not familiar with a small nation such as Singapore, they will only see ShiGGA Shay as “Chinese,” regardless of his nationality. Hence, images of China and kungfu were thrust upon the music video of ShiGGA Shay’s “Paiseh” by the American MV director, despite ShiGGA Shay’s original intentions of promoting Singlish rap in the US market. The case of Malaysian rapper, Namewee, illustrates the indeterminacy of the term “Sinophone” and the impossibility of entirely retiring the notion of “diaspora,” as Shih (2011) would have hoped through introducing the concept of the Sinophone.

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Namewee’s songs span across a spectrum of themes. “Muar Mandarin” and “2010 CNY SONG” challenge a China-centric definition of “Chineseness” and advocate a local Malaysian Chinese identity. Namewee also champions the use of Chinese dialects, which have been marginalized due to the dominance of Mandarin, in his songs “MOTHER” and “Lovely Hainan Island.” Unlike ShiGGA Shay, Namewee’s music is not indifferent to China—he highlights social trends and issues in the PRC through his songs “High Pitched” and “Stranger in the North.” Namewee’s return to his grandparents’ hometown to film the music video of “Lovely Hainan Island” shows that the offspring of immigrants retain prosthetic memories of the ancestral homeland. Though likened to an artificial limb, prosthetic memories are part of the Malaysian Chinese identity of Namewee, and cannot be entirely severed. The example of Namewee draws out the limitations of the concept of the Sinophone, in that writers, filmmakers, and artistes may simultaneously produce works that exhibit both diasporic and “against-diaspora” elements. The “Sinophone” is also not adequate to account for the works of artists who are “twice-displaced” like Namewee, being ethnic Chinese born and raised outside of China, and also “selfexiled” to Taiwan (for a period of his life) due to discriminatory policies in his country, Malaysia, towards ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, the pop music was written and performed by both ShiGGA Shay and Namewee exhibit characteristics of the Sinophone, in that “(a) marriage of multiple Chinese languages, other languages, and accents create the creolized linguistic environment of Sinophone works” (Hee 2019, p. 274). Their songs articulate the contradictions and ambivalence in how these two musicians negotiate Chineseness when expressing their ethnic and national identities and a comparison between them allows us to interrogate the limits and possibilities of the notion of “Sinophone.”

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Brenda Chan is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore, where she teaches an undergraduate course on Chinese Music, Language and Literature, as well as a Master’s course on Chinese Popular Culture. She also serves as Adjunct Faculty of Singapore Management University, running an annual module on popular culture in Asia. Her research interests focus upon Asian popular culture, such as Chinese-language popular music, Chinese cinemas, Asian television dramas, fandom and so on.

Chapter 14

Chinese Talentimes and “Kopi-O”: Singapore’s Xinyao’s 80s Tele-Rhythms Kai Khiun Liew and Mandy S. F. Goh

14.1 Introduction: “First Time on TV” Stiffness, nervousness and awkwardness. These were some of the recollections by the members of Yayun band (雅韻小組) of their first television recording when asked during their interviews for Eva Tang’s 2016 documentary film, The Songs We Sang (我們唱著的歌) on the legacy of contemporary Singapore’s homegrown Chinese language popular music Xinyao (新謠) or “Singapore Chinese ballads” from the late 1970s (Koh 2015). It refers to a local genre of music—Mandarin ballads—composed, written and performed by Singaporean youths. Hu Ronqin (胡榮欽) described the hardest part of being on television as finding the appropriate costumes to wear for the small screen, while the memories of his bandmates were that of facing the cameras in the studio. Huang Gui Qin (黄貴琴) remembered being stiff like a corpse fearing to make any moves as she stared blankly into the camera. In the words of Wang Bang Ji (王邦吉), “the camera kept moving and our eyes just followed along, and we were scolded by the camera crew […] Even as it was just a recording [rather than live broadcast], we still felt very unnatural.”1 Adding to the conversation, Wang’s other bandmate, Li Shun Yuan (李顺源), admitted that they behaved like hicks and therefore their recording was probably not broadcasted on television (Tang 2017).

1

Unless otherwise stated, all translations from Chinese to English are undertaken by the authors. In the absence of official or alternative translations that are considered authoritative for some texts as in the case of Eva Tang’s Chinese language book The Songs We Sang as well as other Xinyao lyrics, the authors have provided their own translated versions. The authors do not claim to be certified translators and all translations presented here are done to the best of their abilities. K. K. Liew (B) Independent Scholar, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] M. S. F. Goh School of Business Management, Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore, Singapore © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_14

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Formed in 1978 as part of Chinese singing contests in postcolonial Singapore’s Chinese-medium junior colleges and the Nanyang University, bands like Yayun heralded the Xinyao movement (Cai 2015). The evolution coincided with the official de-emphasis of Chinese language education into that of a “mother-tongue” language of instruction, in contrast to the rising prevalence of the English language in the ethnic Chinese majority city-state. At the same time, Xinyao took inspiration from its Taiwanese counterpart Min Yao (民謠), which was gaining momentum from the increasing cultural and political consciousness of Taiwan’s campuses in the 1970s. However, the popularity of Xinyao only surged during the 1980s when radio and television popularized these songs. Close to four decades since its germination, the phenomenon of Xinyao is increasingly seen as historical. Such historicization was particularly marked by the oral history interviews, archival records and footages featured in Tang’s The Songs We Sang. Quintessentially part of the Sinophone cultures of diasporic Chinese language texts autonomously engendered outside mainland China, Xinyao is synonymous to Singaporean Chinese language popular music. This chapter seeks to position television’s role in amplifying the otherwise campus-confined “poem-songs” (詩歌) of Xinyao as National-Sinophone Singapore popular music through televised singing contests and theme songs for television dramas like Eric Moo’s (巫啟賢) “Kopi-O” (咖啡烏), which was named after one of the more publicly memorable television series. The case of the televisual transformation of Xinyao shows, in turn, the critical historical role of the broadcast media in the localization and commercialization of Sinophone literature. Xinyao songs and performances for the small screen became the essential tele-rhythms of the scripting of hyphenated Singapore-Chinese cultural identities that run parallel to the projects of social and cultural formations of the contemporary nation-state.

14.2 Xinyao and the Making of Sinophone Studies As a locally germinated music genre in Singapore, Xinyao can be considered as a part of the growing field of Sinophone literature from the autonomous evolution of Sinitic-language cultures de-centered from the Sinocentric and totalizing narratives of Chinese civilization. In what James Clifford (1997) prioritizes as routes over roots, Sinophone cultures engage dynamically as part of adaptive revisions and reinventions of “Chineseness,” particularly in the host societies of the ethnic Chinese minorities (Tsai 2013). This is reflected in the fluid literary and media texts of Sinophone cultures’ “protean, kaleidoscopic, creative, and overlapping margins” between nation-states (Shih 2011, pp. 709–710). In a call to include popular music circulations within Sinophone Studies dominated usually by Literary and Visual Studies, Nathanel Amar (2019) highlights the critical transnationality of musicological-sonic productions. However, he does not discount the importance of the local component in which such musicological cultures are being produced and appropriated. Similarly, Shih Shu-Mei emphasizes that “the

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Sinophone spaces are scattered around the world and Sinophone culture is produced in different locations, but in each site the Sinophone is a place-based, local culture, in dialogue with other cultures of that location” (Shih 2013, p. 8). Away from the otherwise singularized ethnicity of a fantasized pan-Chinese nation disseminated by the media infrastructure, popular music creates more versatile affective identities and communities from multiple localities. The twin notions of locality and transnationality that characterized the evolving conceptualization of Sinophone cultures were noted in earlier scholarly accounts of Xinyao. With little or no references to civilizational Chinese anxieties, Xinyao songs were more influenced by contemporary pop songs from Taiwan and Hong Kong (Kong 1997; Quah 2009). However, both Kong and Quah’s accounts of Xinyao preceded the global trends of Sinophone Studies, and its retrospective inclusion served to strengthen the field of study. While the Sinophone is often considered as peripheral, the leveraging of Xinyao onto the platform of the national television broadcaster underpins a more dynamic interaction with the dominant narrative of the nation-state. By popularizing Xinyao songs into the intimate spaces of the households, television may have remolded and sustained the currency of Chinese linguistic-cultures in addition to participating in the social mobilization projects of nation-building in postcolonial Singapore. As such, a re-visitation of the legacy of Xinyao, which is increasingly incorporated into Singapore’s national history and heritage, enables the framing of the concept of the “National-Sinophone.” The hyphenated term here mirrors the Singapore officialdom notions of prescribed multiculturalism in which the populace’s ethnicity gets hyphenated along ethno-national lines. As stated by Singapore’s current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, “Being Singaporean has never been a matter of subtraction, but of addition; not of becoming less, but more; not of limitation and contraction, but of openness and expansion” (Nur 2017). In the case of the ethnic Chinese community that forms the demographic majority of three-quarters of the citizenry, “Singaporean-Chinese” becomes synonymous here with “National-Sinophone,” a cultural identity bound within the nation.

14.3 Chineseness and Singapore Television With its first public broadcast in 1963, television programming in Singapore reflected the prescribed multiculturalism of the postcolonial government. Mirroring officially racialized categories with English placed as the lingua franca, television channels were established along the ethno-linguistic categories of “English,” “Chinese,” “Malay,” and “Indian” language stations to reflect Singapore’s social demographics (Chan 2011; Yue 2018). Channel 8, the Chinese language television channel of the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) which became the principal channel and subsequently a household name, was catered for Singapore’s ethnic Chinese majority that comprised three quarters of the country’s population.

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It started with a mix of programs in Mandarin and other regional “dialects” like Hokkien and Cantonese that were catered to the diverse ethnic Chinese communities in Singapore, a role that transnational Chinese cinema operatives used to provide (Lee 2009; Taylor 2011; Yung 2008). With the state’s emphasis on the “Speak Mandarin Campaign” in 1979 (Shang and Zhao 2017; Tupas 2015), “dialect” programs were reduced to that of traditional opera performances, and imported Cantonese-based television dramas and programs from Hong Kong were also dubbed in Mandarin (Chan 2011). Until the thaw in diplomatic relations in the early 1980s, imports from mainland China were non-existent on local media with Singapore’s ban on Maoist literature and related content that were labeled as subversive. The dominance of Hong Kong and Taiwanese media or commonly known as Gangtai within the overseas Chinese community was also mirrored in Singapore’s Chinese language radio stations, and Xinyao singers also take their musical references from their Hong Kong and Taiwanese counterparts (Chan 2020; Tang 2017). While this ongoing campaign has systematically suppressed the media transmissions of “Chinese dialects,” the official primacy accorded to Mandarin has also paved the inroads of the Mandarin-based Xinyao into Singapore’s broadcast media (Dairianathan and Chia 2010). Channel 8’s approach toward creating more local content in the 1980s came in two areas: television dramas and their accompanying theme songs as well as variety shows and contests. Apart from engaging cinematographic expertise from Hong Kong in especially the areas of historical martial arts dramas (Liew and Yao 2019), Channel 8 had also started to recruit more local songwriters, composers, singers, performers and actors. For a suddenly disenfranchised generation of Nantah graduates (discussed below) and students from the Chinese-language stream in junior colleges who had lessened employment opportunities, the broadcast media was one of the few remaining outlets that recognized their educational backgrounds. With its locally oriented imaginations and discursive references, Xinyao became synonymous with the cultural musicological landscape of postcolonial contemporary Singapore. Disenfranchised by the systematic de-emphasis on Chinese language education and leveraging on the development of the public broadcast media almost simultaneously, Xinyao navigated through the complex politico-cultural contours of “nation-building” from its germination in the late 1970s to the current nostalgic recollections. Xinyao’s prequel came about from the campus grounds of then Nanyang University, or commonly referred to as Nantah. Established in 1955 as the largest Chinese language university outside China, the campus that was once at a remote western corner of the British colony, became one of the hotbeds of what the authorities considered as Maoist-inspired leftist student activism (Lee 2000). Accompanying this political suspicion was the increasing marginalization of Chinese language as the lingua franca by its English counterpart—ironically instigated by the postcolonial People’s Action Party (PAP) government with an ethnic Chinese demographic majority of close to three-quarters of the two million population of the republic in the 1960s. By 1979, the disenfranchisement felt by the graduates of Nantah was formalized with the subsuming of Nantah under the principally English language-based National University of Singapore (Hong and Huang 2008).

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Amid the tumultuous changes, Nantah students were quietly organizing campus poetry and singing sessions that reflected the climate of the decade. This movement was known as that of the reflective and subtle “poetry-songs” confined to campus surroundings and produced by semi-anonymous writers with pen names. The milestones of Xinyao can generally be based on the following events: the landmark forum organized by Nanyang students (南洋學生) together with the local Chinese language newspaper Nanyang Business Daily (南洋商報) on The Songs We Sang (我們唱著 的歌) on 11 September 1982. From this forum, Xinyao was reportedly coined from the term “the songs produced by young Singaporeans” (新加坡年輕人自創歌). This was followed by other major events like the concert “Sounds of Teens” (沙漠足迹 謠) in June 1983, the release of the first Xinyao album “Tomorrow We’ll Be 21” ( 明天21) a year later, the establishment by several Xinyao singers their distinctive record label Ocean Butterflies (海蝶) as well as the Young Songwriters Society (青 年詞曲創作人協會) in 1986. Prominent Xinyao personalities included singer-composer Liang Wern Fook/Liang Wen Fu (梁文福), Malaysian-born Eric Moo who subsequently expanded his career into Taiwan’s Mandopop market, and Billy Koh (許環良) who founded the Ocean Butterflies recording label. Others pioneers included Koh Nam Seng (許南盛), Huang Yuan Cheng (黄源成), Teo Kay Kiong (張家强) and Colin Goh (吳劍峰). Among the songs with more distinctive sense of the locality was Liang’s “麻雀銜竹枝” or “Sparrow With Twigs” released in 1990 that was derived from that of a traditional popular Cantonese children’s rhyme. Layering the song with that of Singapore’s historical development from the Second World War to the contemporary age and peppering with his autobiographical experiences of growing up in the new Queenstown public housing estates, Liang’s “Sparrow” was meant to reflect the more unique sense of multiculturalism within the ethnic Singaporean Chinese in the republic. 我們這裡是新加坡 (Mandarin) 我表兄金山回來囉 (Hokkien) 小小麻雀銜竹枝 (Cantonese) 都係銜番屋企好得多 (Cantonese) [This is our Singapore My maternal cousin has returned from San Francisco The little sparrows carry the bamboo sticks It is always better to be at home] (Authors’ translation)

These historical milestones were also underpinned concurrently by the numerous recitals and songwriting and singing competitions as well as live performances held in various schools and public places like the Bras Basah Complex known by the Xinyao community endearingly as the “City of Books” (書城) where sessions were held regularly on Saturday afternoons (Toggle2 2015a). Xinyao’s momentum seemed to have ebbed in the 1990s, with its “decline” attributed to commercial saturation and the broader declining standards of Chinese 2

Toggle was renamed to meWATCH on 30 January 2020.

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language education among the younger generation schooled at only its “mother tongue.” Compared to the understated language policy shift, the narrative of commercialization was more visible, particularly in Tang’s The Songs We Sang. Here, Moo himself became the personification and apologist of the commercialization drive of Xinyao that saw him changing into a celebrity as he plugged himself into the broader Mandopop market. It was also from the 1990s that witnessed a new generation of Singaporean singers like Kit Chan (陳侫儀), Stephanie Sun (孫燕姿), JJ Lin (林俊 傑), Mavis Hee (許美靜) and Tanya Chua (蔡健雅), who, despite their comparatively rudimentary proficiency in the Chinese language, were able to make headways into the Gangtai entertainment industry (Liew 2010). The trends continued till recently with singers like Joanna Dong (董姿彥) and Nathan Hartono winning awards in televised singing competitions in China (Tan and Lee 2019). Xinyao singers had often argued for the need for a broader regional market to sustain their productions. However, as this paper will highlight subsequently, it was in Singapore that their commercial and cultural reach was more prominently felt through local television. Xinyao returned to national imagination as part of the collective nostalgic recollections in the forms of “reunion” concerts, tributes, documentaries and feature films on both film and television, and increasingly on social media. The genre made its debut on the commercial big screens in 2013 with Chia Yi Wei’s feature film The Girl in a Pinafore (我的朋友, 我的同學, 我愛過的一切), a retrospective themed musical narrative of teenage romance in the 1990s featuring Xinyao songs sung by youth actors. Probably using the release of the film to announce its periodic review of censored literature, the authorities formally permitted Liang’s “Sparrow” to be publicly aired on radio. With a mixture of Hokkien expressions and Cantonese nursery rhymes inserted into a song that describes Singapore’s changing landscape, “Sparrow” had been barred from being broadcasted on public radio and television for its “dialect” contents under the official “Speak Mandarin Campaign” launched in 1979 (Zaobao 2013). Responding to the lifting of the ban on this song on public airways, the local Chinese language radio stations broadcasted “Sparrow” simultaneously (The Straits Times 5 August 2013). Another Xinyao themed television drama, Crescendos (起飛), with snippets of interviews with Xinyao artistes in the webcast version was also broadcasted in 2015 (Foong 2015). Initiatives were also made to revive the Talentime competitions with inter-school contests named after the earlier Xinyao title “Under the Singapore Skies” (新空下) that was launched in February 2019 (Lee 2019a). The most significant milestone of the 2010s for Xinyao came probably in Eva Tang’s film documentary on the early stages of the development of the genre in The Songs We Sang. Released in 2016 comprising of intimately detailed recordings with the “pioneers” of the scene accompanied by particularly rare television archival footages of performances in the 1980s, The Songs We Sang was also made memorable with the staging and filming of a reunion concert at the Bras Basah Complex two years earlier on 6 July 2014 that saw packed crowds to the event. Two years before the release, in his National Day Rally speech (NDR) that serves as a public annual report in Singapore, with even photographic evidence of his presence in Xinyao concerts in the early 1980s, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong paid

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tribute to Xinyao. Such was part of the state’s affirmation toward the evolution of Chinese culture in Singapore and exhortations to especially younger Singaporeans on learning Mandarin more passionately (Lim 2014). With Lee and his wife officially attending the screening of The Songs We Sang (Lee 2016), during its release, Tang’s documentary was critical in positioning Xinyao as integral to national narrative at a period when the republic was commemorating its Golden Jubilee for 50 years as a sovereign nation-state in 2015. At the time of this writing, the commemorative momentum for Xinyao reached new heights with the official suggestion to list the genre as part of Singapore’s “intangible cultural heritage” and place it under UNESCO listing (Teo 2018). From the celebration of the centennial of Hwa Chong Institution, one of Singapore’s elite schools (Hwa Chong 100th Anniversary 2019), as well as the official opening of the Chinese Cultural Centre (Martin 2017), Xinyao songs and artistes have also fronted the commemorative events officiated and attended by Singapore’s national leaders. Nonetheless, the state’s efforts to legitimize and co-opt Xinyao has not been entirely smooth as reflected in a recent gaffe by the social media posting of the National Heritage Board (NHB) that mismatched Xinyao icons with images of record albums of Chinese music from the 1960s and misspelt the word “細” (fine) as “溪” (creek) in the lyrics of “Shui Yue de Xi Shui Man Man Liu” (歲 月的細水慢慢流) or “water flows finely and slowly over long periods of time” (Wen 2019). While NHB apologized, the incident opened up old wounds on the cultural-linguistic marginalization felt by the Chinese-educated community, with which Xinyao is intimately tied. Commenting to the media on the error made, Liang Wern Fook stated: This incident reflects a larger problem, such as how society has become less sensitive to language, less well-versed in our cultural history and are less motivated in the learning of mother tongues. It could also show that some representatives in charge do not have a good grasp of the Chinese language. (Lee 2019b)

Liang’s poignant reaction to this error highlights perhaps the undercurrent sentiment of the Chinese-educated Singaporeans who continue to experience their linguistic-cultural marginalization by their Anglicized counterparts. For such an error to be made in the official scripting of the otherwise popular Xinyao genre perhaps reflected to Singapore’s postcolonial Chinese community a broader disregard for their experiences and cultural resources. The critical moment for Xinyao’s inroad into the modern electronic broadcast media of radio and television came during the 1980s. The Chinese language radio station FM933 broadcasted a weekly half-hour segment on Xinyao music titled “Our Singers and Songwriters” (歌韻新聲) on Sundays in 1983 (Toggle 2015b). Channel 8’s annual singing contest, the Chinese Talentime (鬥歌競藝) that started in the 1970s, expanded its categories to include a “Vocal Group Section” in 1983 and a “Local Composition Category” in 1985 (TV Weekly 1991). At the same time, Xinyao compositions were further popularized as theme songs of the early wave of locally produced television dramas such as The Awakening, The Flying Fish (小飛

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魚), Happy 123 (青春123) and Kopi-O (咖啡烏). The Xinyao elements in the Talentime competitions and the theme songs will be discussed in detail in the following sections. The popularity of the Chinese Talentime is undeniable as it was a long-running, grand-scale program watched avidly by the Chinese television viewers. The finals were held at the National Theatre (國家劇場) with live audience, live band and glamorous outfits till its closure in 1984. The 3,420-seat National Theatre was the largest and most prestigious venue for the performing arts in Singapore from the 1960s to the 1980s (Kong 2012). Audience would purchase tickets ranging from $5 to $15 to watch the show (TV Weekly 1983). In many ways, in generating new communities and audiences, these Talentime programs were probably critical in gravitating young Singaporeans away from the dialect-based traditional Chinese street operas that once entertained their parents in colonial Singapore (The Chinese Opera Institute 2013).

14.4 Talentimes, Singing Units and Xinyao In his interview for Tang’s documentary The Songs We Sang, Xinyao singer Huang Jing Fu (黄進福) reflected on the discussion within the community on the implications of performing for television: What about going on television? And there were many open singing contests then, weren’t they appealing… About the Chinese Talentime (鬥歌競藝), there were two differing opinions within the Xinyao community: one believes in the innocence of the genre that should not be placed under any spotlight and packaging, another group feels that it is the competition that allows us to test our musical talents […] And gradually everyone felt that moving towards commercialization of the music should not be regarded negatively. (Tang 2017, p. 225, authors’ translation).

Beginning as probably hobbyists satisfied with sharing their music compositions within school grounds, going on television was probably not immediately desirable for the Xinyao generation. It was a period when authors upheld anonymity under pen names for fear of losing the essence of their works upon exposure, according to Xinyao singer-songwriter Wong Hong Mok (黄宏墨). He recalled: “In those days, the whole community of artistes were rather spontaneous and innocent. We never thought of becoming pop stars, and never thought of performing overseas. In contrast, every time there was a need to perform, all of us would want to run away and let others do it. The more outgoing ones included Eric Moo, Jiang Yan (姜鄠), Hong Shao Xuan (洪劭轩) and Fan Ying (番盈)” (Tang 2017, p. 369, authors’ translation). By going on television, these singers moved Xinyao toward the broader national audience. As mentioned earlier, the Chinese Talentime was much loved by the Chinese television viewers. At the peak of its popularity in 1983, the Chinese Talentime attracted more than 4,000 contestants (The Straits Times 26 October 1996, p. 15). In 1987, the program was held in conjunction with The People’s Association and The Residents’ Committee where the preliminaries were conducted in various districts, bringing the

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contest to the neighborhoods. With prizes sponsored by National Panasonic & Technics, there were also home viewer contests for audiences who successfully predicted the winners among contestants as well. The Chinese Talentime played an instrumental role in shaping Singapore’s TV and music industry. Many talents emerged from the iconic program and contributed significantly to the local entertainment landscape. Back in the 1980s, singing programs were staple entertainment during the prime-time slot. SBC had its own singers in its “singing unit” under the tutelage of famous local singer, Poon Sow Keng (潘秀瓊) (Guan 2009). At its peak, this singing unit boosted a strength of 16 full-time members (Guan 1991). The Chinese Talentime was a talent scouting platform for SBC to hire full-time musicians. Some of these winners were offered contracts by the TV station and a place in its singing unit. Some programs produced by this singing unit included Star Star Star (星星星) and Live from Studio One (繽 紛星期五) that lasted for ten years from 1980 to 1990 and 1983 special: 繽紛83. Many of the Xinyao singers were once contestants of the Chinese Talentime. The additional categories of “Vocal Group Section” and “Local Composition Category” turned the singing competition into a launchpad for rising Xinyao talents who later became professional singers or singer-songwriters (Koh 2015). Among the Chinese Talentime contestants who became prominent Xinyao singers are the popular trio The Straws, comprising Billy Koh, Winston Koh and Ng Guan Seng. Billy Koh had formed a singing group called The Straw (水草三重唱), together with his schoolmates, Koh Nam Seng and the late Sunkist Ng (黄元成), to participate in the Chinese Talentime, which was one of the most watched shows then. They became one of the most popular singing groups and one of the most memorable performers of the Xinyao movement in the next six years. Signature tunes like “Ah Ben Ah Ben” (阿 Ben 阿 Ben), “Rockabye” (搖搖民謠), “Where is Our Song” (我們的歌在哪裡), and “The Story of DongDong” (東東的故事) came from this competition (Kong 2010). The group subsequently disbanded as members like Billy Koh started to concentrate on their new record production company, Ocean Butterflies Production. The company was set up in 1986 to promote local compositions and later went on to produce many Xinyao albums and groom budding young talents such as JJ Lin. Billy Koh is still active in the music scene and appears on TV regularly as the judge of singing competitions. Another prominent Xinyao group is twin Lee brothers, Paul Lee Wei Shiong (李偉菘) and his brother Lee Shi Shiong (李思菘), who emerged as champions of the Chinese Talentime in 1984. They were offered singing contracts and went on to release five albums between 1987 and 1992, which received rave reviews in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and China (Lee 2006). Like Billy Koh, the Lee brothers are no strangers to the Asian music scene till today and have groomed talents like local singing sensation, Stefanie Sun. The Chinese Talentime took place during the heyday of local TV and the vibrant entertainment industry. It was the same back then where aspiring singers saw the competition as a platform to showcase their talent and gain notice by recording companies to fulfill their dream of making it big in the music industry. As a former semi-finalist of the contest in 1986, Christian Chia told the authors in an interview

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on 25 October 2018, “I was very interested in singing and just wanted to see how far I could go and if it was possible to make singing as a career through Talentime” (Goh 2018). In a more recent case study of the significance of televised singing contests, Tay (2011) mentions that winning Asian Idol may help the champion reach out to the regional market. This was observed in the early days of the Chinese Talentime when recording companies actively groomed promising singers from the competition to venture overseas. One example is the late Yue Lei (岳雷), the champion of the 1981 Chinese Talentime, who gained fame not just locally but also in Malaysia in the mid80 s. Another outstanding example is the champion of the 1980 Chinese Talentime, Dawn Yip (葉佩芬). Even before she got into the finals, recording company EMI saw her potential and offered her a five-year contract together with an opportunity to be groomed overseas (Guan 1991). Hence, aside from energizing the local Chinese language community, Xinyao at this stage was a launchpad for Singaporean artistes into the broader Chinese market.

14.5 From Music to Dramas: Xinyao and the Declining Popularity of the Chinese Talentime By leveraging on the ChineseTalentime, Xinyao magnified its popularity on the television front, bringing the local brand of Chinese language music into the homes of Singaporeans at a time when household ownership of television was burgeoning in the 1980s. As Xinyao grappled with the issue of commercialization of what was regarded as the “poem-songs” to noisier and more visually flamboyant television shows, the song contest format gradually lost its luster toward the late 1980s (Dairianathan and Chia 2010; Koh 2015). A critical attribute was the increasing emphasis of Channel 8 toward local Chinese language television dramas that were also gaining headway among audiences. Since the commercial success of the police drama, Seletar Armed Robbery (實里達大劫案) in 1982, locally produced Chinese television dramas were becoming increasingly popular with the proliferation of both production as well as multiplication of genres (Singapore Broadcasting Corporation Enterprises 1988). These included local historical dramas like The Awakening (霧 鎖南洋), Samsui Women (紅頭巾) and Five Foot Way (五腳基) that narrated the Chinese migratory experience in Singapore, and contemporary youth-oriented The Flying Fish (小飛魚) and Happy 123 (青春123). On the artiste front, SBC shifted its priorities from singing for stage to acting for drama serials as it democratized its talent hunt with the launch of the Star Search contest in 1988. Of the 12 finalists, 10 were offered one to three-year contracts to start an acting career. It returned for the second year in 1990 with more attractive prizes where the top prize won by Chew Chor Meng (周初明), who later became a television actor, was worth more than $120,000 including a brand-new car. On the

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other hand, Patrick Cheng, the champion of 1991 Chinese Talentime, won a paltry $3000 in cash and $8000 worth of hi-fi equipment (Yam 1992). As SBC directed its effort and resources in promoting its Chinese dramas and turned actors into stars, many of its singers left as they felt they were not given as much exposure as their counterparts in the drama unit. Neither had they had the chance to be voted among the Top Ten Most Popular Stars nor the high profile needed to endorse products in advertisements. Very few Chinese Talentime finalists were offered singing contracts with the station. Even if they were asked to join SBC, their prospects looked unhopeful. The grim career prospects resulted in full-time singers like Wu Jia Ming (吴佳明), Lin Jing Kai and Wendy Ching leaving the station for greener pastures, causing SBC’s singing unit to virtually dissolve in 1991. After its final contest in 1987, the Chinese Talentine took a hiatus and returned four years later in 1991. Efforts were made to resuscitate the program with the installation of computerized scoring systems, enhancing stage visuals and choreographies with more extravagant outfits for singers, martial arts and Chinese opera performances and professional models with movable stage decoration, and more interactions with live audiences (Leong 1991). However, the revamped format was still unable to pull back the audience who were already accustomed to a diversifying media climate. In an interview with The Straits Times in 1991 (Leong 1991), SBC reaffirmed Talentime’s importance in talent spotting but also acknowledged that program had to vie for viewers’ attention in a much more diverse entertainment landscape compared to that of the early 1980s. With the absence of new faces and the retreat of existing singers from the television limelight, Xinyao presence receded alongside the end of the Talentime competition. Today, under a similar title Golden Age Chinese Talentime (黃金年華之鬥歌競 藝), a Chinese Talentime contest runs usually on Saturday afternoons catering to an elderly audience (Toggle 2019). There has been a subsequent episodic revival of the national popularity of television song contests like the English language Singapore Idol and its Chinese language counterpart Campus Superstar in Singapore from the twenty-first century. None of these was able to match the significance of the Chinese Talentime in critically providing the televisual space for the growth of a grassroots popular music like Xinyao. However short-lived, the Chinese Talentine contest was impactful as a springboard for the generation of Xinyao singers into Singapore’s mainstream television in the long term as composers and singers. Although they are no longer prominent on screen, the contributions of the Xinyao generation came more significantly from the official theme songs of television dramas. Some of these unforgettable theme songs include “Flying in a Dream” (飛越在夢) from 1988 Mystery (迷離夜) performed by Liu Xue Fang (劉雪芳), the champion of the 1986 Chinese Talentime (female category) and “Voices of an Ordinary Guy” (小人物的心聲) from 1986 Neighbours (芝麻綠豆) performed by Wu Jia Ming (吳佳明), the champion of the 1986 Chinese Talentime (male category). Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong remarked in 2014' s National Rally that “Voices of an Ordinary Guy” was his favorite Xinyao song (Prime Minister’s Office Singapore 2014). Played repeatedly in every episode almost every evening, these songs were firmly etched into the collective memories

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of their viewers. As would be discussed in the next section, with lyrics following closely to the subjects of the drama serials, these songs became the musical-televisual narratives to that of the Sinophone-national discourse of postcolonial Singapore.

14.6 Xinyao, Theme Songs and the Sonic Scripting of the Singapore Story I have never retired, I just disappeared. It is not the same as retiring. Back then, singers had no allowances for costumes, no managers, and they even had to come up with their own expenses for photography. Given my average financial background, I can’t live as a Xinyao singer alone. (Tang 2017, p. 62)

The interview excerpts of the late Dawn Gan (顏黎明), one of Xinyao’s few female singers, reflect the difficulties of the emerging genre, however popular, in sustaining itself in the post-Chinese Talentime media industry in the 1990s. Apart from Xinyao, Gan was also associated as the singer of “Happy 123,” the theme song of the television drama Happy Trio (1986) that depicted Singapore’s emerging urban youth cultures of high school romances, career aspirations and civic participation in contemporary Singapore. 讓我永遠擁有 永遠的擁有 純真的心靈 在我平凡的生命裡 不斷創造奇蹟 讓我永遠擁有 永遠的擁有 陽光的笑意 在我成長的雨季裡 耐心等待天晴 (National Library Board 2019a) [Let us forever possess, forever possess our pure kindred spirits And even in our ordinary lives continuously produce miracles Let us forever possess, forever possess a smile as radiant as the sun And even in the stormy stages of growth patiently await clear skies] (Authors’ translation)

Written and composed by Liang Wern Fook, the song, which reflected the spirits of the Xinyao movement in the 1980s, re-emerged on social media uploads in collective memories following the death of Gan on 22 September 2018 from a six-year struggle with cancer. Other publicly memorable television drama theme songs included “Water Tales” (水的話), “As If” (仿佛), “Travelling Together Under the Moonlight” (月色同行) and “Dawn Heart” (黎明的心). With one foot in the recording studio through their albums and one in small screen with television drama theme songs, to a large extent, Gan’s legacy reflects that of her counterparts in the Xinyao community. Collectively, Xinyao songwriters and singers have given the critical poetic-musical dimension to Singapore’s Mandarinizing televisual-scapes of Channel 8 of the 1980s. If joining the television singing contests constituted participation in the broader efforts in social mobilization by the interventionist PAP

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government, Xinyao’s role in the theme songs of television dramas were the lyricists of the narratives of nation-building. Through the theme songs of SBC’s Channel 8 dramas, Xinyao singers provided the musico-rhythmic chorus to legitimizing the postcolonial government’s ethos of nationhood on several areas like that of cheerleading state institutions, relating to social changes as well as interpreting history (Tay 2015). Wu Jia Ming, for example, sang all the theme songs of the Channel 8 drama Air Force (1988), one of the earlier dramas of “military/uniform” genre that showcased the military hardware of the Republic of Singapore Air Force. These theme songs included “Fly Through the Skies” (一飛冲天), “Friend” (朋友) and “Confidant” (知己) (Blue Global 2019b). In contrast to the more rigid chorus of the earlier Army Series (新兵小傳) in 1983 (Blue Global 2019a) that was performed by the military band and choir, the melodious and more light-hearted Xinyao version provided by Wu gave the drama Air Force a greater urbane sentiment. The Channel 8 dramas were also critical tools for the government to contextualize and communicate the social changes arising from the state’s radical projects of urbanization and modernization in transforming the colonial port to an industrialized city-state (Montsion 2014; Montsion and Parasram 2018). Such roles of television in molding modern lifestyles and patterns are part of what Lewis et al. (2016) described as “telemodernities.” Among the issues that these dramas focused on were related to making sense of the displacement arising from the government’s urbanization projects in transferring entire rural communities into high-rise public housing apartments. The more notable drama of such rural displacement and relocation was Son of Pulau Tekong 亞答籽 (1985) that revolved around the lives of the villagers from the outlying island of Pulau Tekong slated for relocation into public housing in mainland Singapore. Xinyao singers Weng Su Ying (翁素英) and Cai Zheng Xiong (蔡振雄) were known for their contributions to the theme songs for this production through the following songs, “Attap Chee” (亚答籽), “Island’s Son” (島的儿 子) and “Is It Him?” (是不是他?) (Blue Global 2017). As Chua (2009) observes, “the symbolic/ideological system of what may be called the “vernacular” culture of the Huaren (華人) [ethnic Chinese in Singapore] finds its expression in such mass entertainment” (p. 248). Even when pushing the themes of progressive modernity, the story of those left behind continued, and Xinyao theme songs unwittingly magnified such angsts in the process. The other theme songs contributed by Xinyao singers included Eric Moo’s “KopiO” that was titled after the television drama Kopi-O, which was about micro social relations revolving around the otherwise non-descript coffee shop within a public housing estate. As Moo recalls, it was “Kopi-O” as a television drama theme song that propelled his status as a celebrity singer (Tang 2017). 在一個你我熟悉的地方 有著你我喜歡吃的早餐 咖啡店的老闆 他們的笑容都是一個模樣

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在這個你我熟悉的地方 有著你我熟悉的臉龐 它彷彿就是一個情感的聯絡站 [In a place you and I know well You’ll find a breakfast loved by all The owners of these coffeeshops All have the same kind of smile In this place we all know well You’ll find familiar faces all around It’s just like a hub for our emotions] (Lyricstranslate.com 2019)

As reflected once again, the lyrics convey the affective sense of place for the Singapore streetscapes by Moo through Mandarin which was during the 1980s, still largely unfamiliar to especially the older generation of the republic’s ethnic Chinese population. Similarly, Wu Jiamin’s song “Voices From the Ordinary Guy” (小人物 的心聲) was the theme song from the television drama Neighbours (芝麻綠豆) that revolved around cultivating harmonious community relations within more densely populated urban public housing estates. The popularity of “Voices” lay perhaps in the messages of contentment and gratitude of the working classes from the excerpts of the lyrics below: 我從來都不在乎 自己不是一個大人物 因為平凡也是一種幸福 看到名人總是忙忙碌碌 我的時間由我控制 平凡日子一樣會充實 (National Library Board 2019b) [I never cared about Not being a big shot Because being ordinary is a form of blessing Seeing the famous who are always busy I can control my own time An ordinary life is also as fulfilling] (Authors’ translation)

Decades after the conclusion of the television serials, “Voices” and “Kopi-O” have been continuously played particularly in more celebratory occasions like the republic’s National Day Parade. In this respect, Xinyao has become instrumental in reinforcing status quo within the otherwise potentially divisive tensions within competitive capitalist modernity of contemporary Singapore. The historical storytelling along official lines came with the theme songs from the 30-episode drama broadcasted in 1983, The Awakening. Based on the rags to riches

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concept, and parallel to that of the role of the Chinese immigrant society in developing modern Singapore, The Awakening became the first television drama about Singapore’s history. Popularly received, the series extended to two more seasons depicting the context of Singapore in the postwar decades from communist-instigated social turmoil in The Awakening 2 (霧鎖南洋之風雨同舟) to the development of an independent and prosperous city state in The Awakening 3 (霧鎖南洋之赤道朝陽). Sung by Chan Choon Siang (孫振福), the theme song for the first installment was composed by Liang Li Ren (梁立人) and Mu Zi (木子). Describing the origins of the song, the latter from the Xinyao generation recalled that it was around the end of 1982 when he joined the SBC’s theme song writing competition and came up with the song “霧鎖南洋” and won SGD 800 of prize money (Tang 2017). Describing the struggles of the characters in the dramas as new Chinese immigrants in colonial Singapore, as reflected by the lyrics below, the song paints a bleak subjugated past: 濃霧散見我新家鄉 過去的記憶世代不可遺忘 祖先的流離使我生命更堅強 霧起在南方 霧落在南方 [When the thick fog clears, I see my new home Past memories of a previous era should not be forgotten The tribulations of our ancestors who left their homes inspire us to be stronger The fog rose in the South, the fog will subside in the South] (Authors’ translation)

Describing Singapore as the politically foggy “South,” the song calls upon the younger generation to remember their (Chinese) immigrant legacy that overcame the odds and laid the foundations of a modern Singapore. From songs about contemporary space of urban Singapore, through television, Xinyao finds itself venturing to that of what constitutes the notions of psychic space in Sinophone historical imaginations of diaspora and homeliness (Tsai 2013). This discourse runs in many ways parallel to Singapore’s dominant historical narrative of distinguishing itself from the region as a country founded on modern immigration rather than primordial civilization. Tan (2016) observes that the Singapore government’s “Speak Mandarin Campaign” simultaneously deconstructed the heterogeneous Sinophone community and restructured it into a cohesive homologous unit. But such replacement of Chinese vernaculars with Mandarin denies “dialect-speaking” groups not only access to their ancestral roots, but also their navigation of everyday reality which is heavily dependent on their home languages. In this respect, Xinyao-based theme songs of local Chinese television dramas have served in the sonic-linguistic televisual deconstruction of both ancestries and everyday realities for the Singaporean Chinese viewers to reimagine their identities in Mandarin.

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14.7 Conclusion With its roots dating to the late 1970s as campus music inspired by its Taiwanese college counterpart, Min Yao (民謠), Xinyao represented the emerging locally produced and oriented Mandarin-based popular music in postcolonial Singapore. Ironically, the genre was germinated at a critical historical juncture in Singapore with the de-emphasis of Chinese as the lingua franca following the closure of the Chinese language-based Nanyang University. The popularity of Xinyao songs also ran parallel to the government’s “Speak Mandarin Campaign” to discourage the use of regional “dialects” among the ethnic Chinese populace. With more than four decades of being an integral component in Singapore’s popular music scene, Xinyao’s phenomenon can be seen increasingly as historical in the scholarly study of Sinophone literature. In this respect, this chapter focuses on the role of the mass media, particularly television in Singapore of the 1980s, in giving Xinyao the springboard from campus performances to reach the small screens of homes. Through their participation in the televised singing contests, many Xinyao singers became celebrities and subsequently household names. In the process, such participation had also co-opted the Xinyao movement into Singapore’s state-dominated media infrastructure that was geared toward the discourses of the nation-state. Hence, apart from being part of the social mobilization of youths through the televised Chinese talentime contests, and generating theme songs for Chinese language television dramas, Xinyao artistes also participated in reproducing the agendas of the nation-state. In the case of the “Speak Mandarin Campaign,” cultural policies are not just imposed from above through public institutions, but circulated from the grassroots in which Xinyao artistes have leveraged on the mainstream media in sonically nativizing Mandarin as the new vernacular mother-tongue to the republic’s ethnic Chinese populace. The integration of Xinyao into the political mainstream offers a unique case study toward the scholarly literature of Sinophone Studies that is defined often by the decoupling and de-centering of Sinitic cultural and literary texts from the narrative of the nation-state. While Xinyao artistes have leveraged on the state media mechanisms to broadcast and sustain the currency of their music, officialdom has in return constantly cited, referenced and appropriated these texts and artistes for the purposes of “nation-building” through the formation of hyphenated identities, or what this chapter terms as the National-Sinophone.

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K. K. Liew’s scholarly research is focused on the transnational popular culture flows between East and Southeast Asia. One particular area comes from the position of Singapore as part of the cultural circuits in navigating such flows as a contemporary nation-state with global and regional popular entertainment flows. His publications cover that from Hong Kong and Taiwan-based Cantopop and Mandopop to that of the more recent Korean Wave. He is currently an independent scholar. M. S. F. Goh is a lecturer at the School of Business Management, Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore. Her academic research is focused on the pedagogical approaches in teaching language and communication skills, particularly with the use of emerging innovative technologies. Besides pedagogical research, she is passionate about heritage, new media and digital communication.

Chapter 15

Chineseness in Ancient-Style Girls’ Comics in Contemporary China Ying Huang

15.1 Introduction In the past three decades, Chineseness has been one of the central subjects in the development of manhua—domestically produced comics in mainland China. While contemporary manhua emerged as a product of globalization as its visual and narrative patterns root in Japanese comics (manga), comic producers have been pursuing “Chinese characteristics” in local comics for various purposes, such as to distinguish their works from Japanese ones or to attract domestic readers with localized content. Many chose to feature Chinese traditional culture or history, which evokes the sense of Chineseness by recalling collective memories of the country’s past. Thus, the subgenre of “ancient-style” (gufeng, literally meaning “ancient wind”) manhua is created. Some also name it as “Chinese-style” (Zhongguofeng, literally meaning “China wind”) manhua. Ancient-style comics stress Chineseness by creating storylines based on Chinese literary classics, historical events, figures or periods, or producing fictions by including symbols of traditional Chinese culture and history. Meanwhile, the term “national comics” (guoman) has been frequently used since the 2010s by local media, producers and the general public to refer to domestic comics and animation. Discussions often concern whether “national comics” have risen and prospered. Highlighting the “Chinese” identity of domestic comics, the word conveys a sense of nationalism. The emphasis of Chineseness in local comics is also influenced by the cultural policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s party-state. As Lent and Xu (2017) have demonstrated, the state has played a vital role in the development of the domestic comics industry in China. Shifting from Maoist antitraditionalism, CCP’s ideology began to promote traditional Chinese culture and values from the 1990s to foster national identity and pride, enhance national solidarity and raise the country’s soft Y. Huang (B) The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_15

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power in response to globalization. For example, the former President Jiang Zemin advocated that literature and arts should maintain China’s national characteristics and make contributions to raising national pride and resisting cultural colonialism (China Federation of Literary and Art Circles 2007). The following leader, Hu Jintao, suggested combining national and traditional cultures with modern technology (China News 15 October 2007). Furthermore, the idea of “China dream” is raised by the current President Xi Jinping, calling for the promotion of “traditional Chinese culture excellence” to enhance the country’s “cultural soft power” (People’s Daily Online 13 February 2017). In correspondence, the party-state has started cultural campaigns such as patriotic education with a focus on traditional Chinese culture and history. As Xu (2018) and Guo Yingjie (cited in Walton 2012) have concluded, China has attached much weight to traditional culture and Chineseness by regarding them as a crucial factor for enhancing its prosperity and soft power. With this state ideology and the development of the domestic economy, several cultural movements have emerged aiming to revive traditional Chinese culture. Represented by the “national learning craze” and the “history heat” in the 2000s as well as the “ancient wind craze” in the 2010s, these movements have led to a boom in cultural products featuring Chineseness, such as popular readings of literary classics, historical fictions, ancient-style music and customized traditional Han clothing. Like many other cultural forms, manhua is inevitably affected by this trend, which is evident in the case of ancient-style manhua. In recent years, local producers have created larger amounts of ancient-style comic series, and many comics-related events have used “Chinese characteristics” as themes, not only to seek for government’s financial and policy support by linking manhua to the state ideology but also to meet the need of the expanding market for ancient-style products. Among various genres of manhua, shaonu manhua (girls’ comics) has been influential in China, and ancient style is one of its most popular motifs. Like other types of contemporary Chinese comics, shaonu manhua originates from Japanese manga and is a genre aiming at the demographic readership of teenage girls and young women. As its stories often depict romance, either heterosexual or homosexual relationships, it is also recognized as “romance comics” (lian’ai manhua). It constitutes an important part of Chinese comics. On U17 (Youyaoqi), one of the largest online comic platforms in China providing different types of domestic comics, shaonu manhua accounts for over one-third of the total amount of manhua. Among the 50 most popular shaonu manhua on U17, around a half are featured by the motif of ancient style.1 Likewise, on another major online comic platform in China—Tencent Animation and Comics, nearly 50% of manhua series on the “girls’ ranking” list are ancient-style manhua.2 So far, academic inquiries into manhua mainly concentrate on its history and trajectory of development (e.g. Bi and Huang 2006; Chen 2015; Gan 2008; Huang 1943; Lent and Xu 2017; Ying Tao 2001), particular authors (e.g. Chen 2004) or 1 2

See U17’s website on https://www.u17.com/, accessed on 23 Apr 2020. See Tencent Animation and Comics’s website on https://ac.qq.com/, accessed on 31 Dec 2019.

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specific genres (e.g. Hu 2018; Wan 2012; Yi Ke et al. 2008). Some have discussed shaonu manhua. For instance, Xiao (2020) studies shaonu manhua as youth culture, arguing that its aesthetics of “smallness” offers “alternative means of youth empowerment and resistance strategies” against the male-dominated gender hierarchy (p. 23). As Chinese comics are developed based on the forms and styles originating in foreign countries, many studies have explored Chinese characteristics, localization or sinicization of manhua under the influences from other countries: Huang (1943) raises the idea that manhua’s sinicization should be realized by “inner contents and forms” that depict the “real lives of today’s Chinese people” (p. 64); Chen’s (2015) book has devoted a chapter talking about the development of “Chinese-styled manhua” (pp. 207–258); and Chew and Chen (2010) have examined how contemporary manhua after the 1980s developed by localizing Japanese manga, demonstrating that the localization is facilitated with the demand from both the state and comic fans. However, Chineseness in shaonu manhua is yet to study. Also, while most studies have centered on manhua produced in the periods when print media was the primary medium, digital comics, which has become dominant in today’s Chinese market, is still under-researched. Moreover, it is valuable to look at how people engage with Chineseness in shaonu manhua’s production and consumption, as previous research of Chineseness in other areas have posed the following questions: what makes things “Chinese” (Chow 1998), who are involved in the construction of Chineseness (Ang 2001), and what Chineseness indicates, especially in cultural products (Chow and De Kloet 2011; Hsu 2012; Lu et al. 2014). Accordingly, given that ancient-style manhua’s Chineseness is connected to elements of traditional Chinese culture and history and the nationalist notion of “national comics” under the influence of state ideology and the domestic cultural market, this study focuses on ancient-style shaonu manhua and examines Chineseness in this type of manhua. Holding that Chineseness is constructed and represented in the texts and in production and consumption, I undertake visual and textual analysis of the content of ancient-style shaonu manhua and have conducted indepth interviews with comic company personnel and shaonu manhua readers. This chapter seeks answers to: (1) What constitutes Chineseness in the texts of ancientstyle shaonu manhua? (2) How is Chineseness represented in ancient-style shaonu manhua? (3) How do local comic producers and readers understand and engage with the notions of ancient style, “national comics,” and Chineseness? (4) What factors have influenced the construction and representation of Chineseness in and beyond texts? In the following sections, I first illustrate the history of ancient-style shaonu manhua with a focus on how comic artists have explored Chinese characteristics in their works. Second, by analyzing the texts of ancient-style shaonu manhua, I discuss how Chineseness is constructed and represented in the texts. The third section then follows by investigating the construction and understandings of Chineseness in the production and consumption of ancient-style shaonu manhua.

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15.2 From Xinmanhua to Webtoon: A Brief History of Shaonu Manhua and the Ancient-Style Motif Shaonu manhua did not exist in China before the country’s “reform and opening-up” policies in 1978. Until then, Chinese comic arts comprised mainly satirical cartoons expressing critical opinions on social and political issues, comic strips on newspapers, lianhuanhua (sequential picture books), and caricature (Lent and Xu 2017). None of these genres was aimed at specific readerships based on gender. At the end of the 1970s, the opening-up of China allowed more foreign cultural products to enter the domestic market. Comics from Japan and Europe were then introduced into China. Some were authorized while most were pirated. Among them, Japanese manga had the most profound influence (Lent and Xu 2017). While manga became increasingly popular, traditional genres of manhua declined in the late 1980s due to the changing economic environment and impacts from foreign comics. In the early 1990s, local comic authors started to explore manga-like forms to attract readers, resulting in the birth of xinmanhua (new comics) (Chen 2015). Drawing inspirations from manga, xinmanhua artists adopt cinematographic language in their visual representations, which is a breakthrough from traditional comics (Chen 2015; Chew and Chen 2010). Moreover, xinmanhua also depicts figures in a less realistic way than traditional manhua (Chew and Chen 2010). The manga-like form proved successful by winning the favor from local readers (Chew and Chen 2010). Further, local publishers of xinmanhua learned from manga to target different groups of readers based on gender and age. As a result, the subgenre of girls’ comics—shaonu manhua—emerged. It developed from Japanese girls’ comics (sh¯ojo manga). Catering to young girls, sh¯ojo manga is characterized by the aesthetics of depicting figures with exaggerating big and starry eyes, irregular layouts and abstract background images that help to represent emotions (Shamoon 2012). Moreover, their stories mainly focus on human relations, including romance and friendship (Prough 2011). Sh¯ojo manga and anime were introduced into China in the 1980s, and the popularity reached its peak in the 1990s and 2000s. Witnessing sh¯ojo manga’s success, Chinese publishers and authors followed sh¯ojo manga’s patterns to create local girls’ comics, drawing doll-like characteristics and emotive and decorative backgrounds. Most stories depict love fantasies, including the sub-type of boys’ love stories. Some authors were even accused of plagiarizing Japanese manga. In addition to the impact of Japan, media and technologies used for disseminating and circulating manhua have also helped to foster shaonu manhua and its industry. Before the end of the 2000s, magazines and books were the primary media through which shaonu manhua was disseminated. New manhua series would be first published in magazines, and the popular ones would be later edited into independent books. A boost in the number of xinmanhua magazines appeared due to the “5155 Project” in 1995. It was launched by the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Administration of Press and Publication, aiming to establish five animation and comics publishing base, fifteen series of animation and comic books, and five animation and comic

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magazines. The five magazines provided platforms for shaonu manhua artists to present their works to the public. For instance, Beijing Comics (Beijing Katong) and Youth Comics (Shaonian Manhua) have published early works of Xia Da and Ding Bing, both of whom became famous shaonu manhua artists in China. In addition to the 5155 Project, several non-state-sponsored magazines created in the mid-1990s have also cultivated shaonu manhua. For example, Shanghai Animation Film Studio established Cartoon King (Katong Wang) in 1993. In 1996, it decided to concentrate on “local romantic shaonu manhua,” becoming one of the earliest shaonu manhua magazines in China. It gathered a group of shaonu manhua artists, including Lin Ying, Lin Xi, Ke Xin, Han Lu, Ding Bing, and so on (Chen 2015). Standing on the shoulder of these early magazines, large amounts of magazines and books dedicated to local comics then appeared in the late 1990s and 2000s, which has made shaonu manhua and other xinmanhua more visible in the domestic market. While the genre of xinmanhua stemmed from Japanese manga, the state, local producers and professionals have sought to lessen the influence of manga. From 1993 to 1995, the state banned major publications offering pirated manga. Simultaneously, the government and state-owned media publicly criticized the “negative impacts” of Japanese manga for their portrayal of sex and violence (Chen 2015, p. 85). Meanwhile, in the mid-1990s, some local comic artists started to search for alternatives to the manga-like styles by learning from Hong Kong, Taiwanese or European comics as well as other traditional Chinese paintings (Lent and Xu 2017). Among them is a shaonu manhua artist Hu Rong (Chew and Chen 2010; Lent and Xu 2017). One of her representative works is Romance of the Ghost Maiden Nie Xiaoqian (Qiannu Youhun). The book was adapted from “Nie Xiaoqian,” a supernatural story in the 1740 Chinese fiction Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai Zhiyi). In her drawings, she incorporated techniques of traditional Chinese realistic painting with manga-style panel arrangements and depictions of characters. With the attempts of Hu Rong and other xinmanhua artists who sought for the breakthrough from the Japanese formats and explore new styles, xinmanhua, including shaonu manhua, became more diversified in terms of themes and visual representation. Yet, throughout the 1990s, the manga-like style remained mainstream. Later, entering the new millennium, the development of Internet technology led to easier access to a massive amount of pirated online Japanese manga and anime for local readers. Consequently, many people preferred free manga and anime online rather than buying magazines and books on domestic works. In face of such impact, some xinmanhua magazines such as Comic Fans (Manyou), Comics and Ani’s Reports (Xinganxian) chose to add information of Japanese manga and anime in their content in addition to local works. To attract manga and anime fans to buy their magazine, the editors arranged Japan-related content in the most conspicuous parts of each issue, often on the cover and front pages. Yet, with the impact of the advancing technologies of the Internet and mobile devices, print media started to decline in China. Many comic magazines providing local works ceased publication in the 2000s, and only few survived. In the 2000s, Chinese producers and professionals continued their attempts to differentiate local comics from manga, claiming to develop “Chinese-style” manhua.

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For instance, Chen Weidong, a comic producer and founder of Tianjin Creator World Comic Co., Ltd (Tianjin Shenjie Manhua), raised his “New Chinese Manhua Theory” in 2004. He emphasizes that manhua creators should “get rid of the impact of Japanese-styled comics” and manhua should embody “Chinese characteristics” (Chen 2015, p. 213). He advocates that “all works should be colored to get adapted to digital reading,” “visual language should emphasize ‘oriental-style humor’,” “narratives should follow the traditional zhanghui form by dividing the stories into short sequential chapter,” “themes should promote aesthetics in traditional and modern Chinese society and advocate positive values,” and so on (Chen 2015, pp. 213–217). Chen’s claims conform with the state ideology by calling for distinguished “Chinese characteristics” and national identity and embracing traditional culture. His ideas contextualize the state’s proclaims in the making of manhua, providing a way to evoke Chineseness not only in the stories but also in visual elements and structures. Although not all local producers follow Chen’s “New Chinese Manhua Theory,” in the late 2000s many local producers have abandoned the manga-like black-and-while style and changed their manhua into colorful ones as Chen has suggested. Informant A (39, male), a representative of a comic company, commented on the change: “Using colors to distinguish manhua from manga may be the purpose for some people. But for us, the main reason for making colorful manhua is that the Internet is changing Chinese people’s reading habits and preferences. Colorful manhua looks better on digital devices, and it is a trend.” For shaonu manhua in the 2000s and early 2010s, many still followed the visual aesthetics of sh¯ojo manga. Also, in many shaonu manhua series, the narratives still centered around love fantasies that happen in Japanese-like schools to tales set in an exotic Europe-like world. However, in this period, a group of shaonu manhua artists started to address local topics by drawing on Chinese culture and history or making adaptations of legends and literary classics, which are recognized as ancientstyle shaonu manhua today. Examples include Han Lu’s Chang’an Magical Night (Changan Huanye), Xia Da’s Dreams in the Garden (Youyuan Jingmeng) and Nobody Knows (Zi Buyu), Lin Ying’s Mei Lanfang, etc. After the 2010s, shaonu manhua has experienced a significant change in terms of its forms, visual styles and stories. As more people in China tend to read on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, many Chinese IT and comic companies have developed digital comic platforms such as websites and mobile applications. At the beginning, most of the comics online were pirated versions. From the mid2010s, copyright holders of manga began to take action against piracy in China, and some platforms sought new ways to earn profits by selling authorized content to readers at an affordable price. Consequently, pirated content was removed from most platforms in China. Licensed manga series were provided, but the amount was much smaller than before. In the meantime, digital platforms have replaced magazines and books to become the dominant media through which local manhua are published and disseminated. The number of local manhua also rose drastically due to the massive influx of capital into the local comics and animation industries in around 2016 and 2017 (iResearch 2018). By the end of 2019, one of the largest online comics platforms in China—Tencent Animation and Comics (Tengxun Dongman)—has offered more

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than 4,000 comics online, including over 3,500 domestically produced manhua.3 On the platforms, local manhua series are licensed and most are free. To make it more convenient to read manhua on smartphones and tablets, Chinese producers adopted a new form—webtoon—to publish manhua. Webtoon first emerged in Korea. As its name indicates, it is designed for cartoons on the web. Images of webtoons are arranged in a vertical order. For each episode, all contents are filled into a single strip, and readers scroll from top to down to read the stories. Moreover, most webtoons are in color. Borrowing from Korea, Chinese comic producers make webtoons, calling this form as “tiaoman” (strip comics). Most manhua published on digital platforms after the mid-2010s are webtoons, and many producers also re-organize previous page-by-page manhua series into this vertical form. Like other types of manhua, today’s shaonu manhua are primarily published in the format of webtoon, and most of them are in color. Some popular shaonu manhua published earlier in black-and-white were re-painted with colors and re-arranged into vertical strips. In addition, compared to early comics in magazines, web-based shaonu manhua are produced in a faster speed. While many early works in print were updated every two weeks or every month, shaonu manhua in webtoons can be published twice a week or even on a daily basis. Meanwhile, affected by the domestic cultural environment promoting traditional culture as mentioned in the previous section, stories adapted from Chinese history and legendary tales as well as love comedies set in an imagined imperial China have become popular among shaonu manhua in the mid-2010s. They are called “ancientstyle” (gufeng) manhua by digital platforms, readers and producers. Compared to previous works whose stories were originally created by the authors in many cases, ancient-style shaonu manhua is mostly based on web novels now as it can save the time in writing new stories and the manhua series’ readership can be guaranteed with the fans of the original novels. Throughout the development of shaonu manhua and the ancient-style motif, there has been ongoing negotiation with the impacts of Japanese manga and exploration of Chinese styles. As shaonu manhua develops, its visual formats and themes gradually move away from the manga-like styles, and Chineseness becomes more prominent. It resulted from authors’ resistance against the hegemony of manga, the state’s policies related to manhua publication and ideology of promoting “national culture,” technological innovations and the domestic cultural environment. While ancient-style shaonu manhua stresses Chineseness, it is also developed based on overseas cultural products—Japanese manga and Korean webtoon. Hence, ancientstyle shaonu manhua is more of a hybrid of Chinese, Japanese and later Korean cultures, as well as a hybrid of the global and the local.

3

See the website of Tencent Animation and Comics on https://ac.qq.com/Comic/all/.

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15.3 Chineseness in the Text of Ancient-Style Shaonu Manhua 15.3.1 Constructing Chineseness with Intertextual Connections In the texts of ancient-style shaonu manhua, Chineseness is constructed and evoked by intertextuality. Coined by Kristeva (1980), intertextuality refers to the ways in which authors create their texts by relating to pre-existent texts to generate meanings. In ancient-style shaonu manhua, authors borrow imageries, texts, forms and techniques that are known as symbolic elements in Chinese literature, arts and history to generate the sense of being “Chinese.” First, ancient-style shaonu manhua often derives imageries from literary classics. Flowers and plants such as plum blossoms and bamboo frequently appear in the background. These are typical imageries in traditional Chinese paintings and ancient poems, symbolizing the virtues of endurance and suppleness (McMahon 2003; Welch 2008). Second, some artists create works based on historical periods, figures, locales, costumes, hairstyles, languages, etc. in Chinese history. For example, the Tang dynasty (618–907AD) and its capital Chang’an are the period and place in which many stories happen. Han Lu’s Chang’an Magical Night centers on Chang’an during the Tang dynasty. For Xia Da’s Changge’s Journey (Changge Xing), she includes Chang’an and historical figures of the Tang dynasty in the stories. The protagonist Li Changge is designed as a princess. She leaves Chang’an due to the political persecution from the emperor—Li Shimin—a character based on Emperor Taizong of Tang in Chinese history. Also, in the first episode, the author devotes three pages to portray the landscape of Chang’an city. Meanwhile, recent ancientstyle shaonu manhua works tend to depict the locale of imperial palaces, such as The Psychic Concubine (Tongling Fei) by Rou Rou. In addition, costumes, hairstyles and language also point to Chineseness. Notably, the clothing of “Chinese” figures in many stories are based on ancient Han Chinese outfits instead of traditional costumes of other ethnic minorities in China. Some works also use classic Chinese language in some dialogue and monologue to represent Chineseness. The third type of intertextual connections is that some authors adapt or recreate literary classics in China. Two of the earliest works, Ghost Maiden Nie Xiaoqian and Bai Qiulian by Hu Rong, are adaptations of two love stories from the 1740 book Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio—a collection of mystery and supernatural tales in China. Some other artists borrow titles from ancient literary works but tell different stories. For instance, Lin Xi’s Huan Niang borrows the name from a chapter of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, but its storyline is irrelevant to the original book. Fourth, in some ancientstyle shaonu manhua, Chineseness is realized by employing techniques of traditional Chinese painting or using different tools to simulate the effect of traditional Chinese visual arts. For instance, Lin Xi used Chinese calligraphy brushes to draw a part of images in Huan Niang, as shown in her drawings and indicated in the book’s

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epilogue. Many later works, such as Blossom of Twin Flowers (Liangsheng Huakai) produced by Lifeng Animation and Comics (Lifeng Dongman), also create images imitating the effects of traditional ink wash painting. Notably, many external texts that the symbols refer to are recognized as “representative” materials of Chinese history and culture in China’s public education and state propaganda, representing a hegemonic version of Chineseness. Yet, in ancientstyle shaonu manhua, these “Chinese” elements and symbols are usually mixed with those from other countries, mostly Japan. Han Lu’s Chang’an Magical Night is a typical case in which “Chinese” figures are portrayed with elements that originate in other countries: one of the protagonists is from a Chinese noble family in the Tang dynasty but is dressed in a dark napoleon jacket, which is western-style clothing; also, a “Chinese” Taoist priestess wears the hairstyle of oiran—courtesans of the highest rank in Japan. Likewise, in recent web-based works such as Story of Hua Yan (Hua Yan Ce), the backgrounds usually contain cherry blossoms, which is usually linked to Japanese culture. Hence, in ancient-style shaonu manhua, Chineseness is often juxtaposed with Japaneseness and those of other countries.

15.3.2 Representations of Chineseness In the texts of ancient-style shaonu manhua, symbols derived from traditional culture, literature and history are reconfigured, forming different meanings of Chineseness. For early works before the 2010s which were primarily published in magazines or books, Chineseness is characterized by mystery, Han ethnicity, the dominating class with high social status and national borders. Many early ancient-style shaonu manhua series display Chineseness as mysterious and supernatural. Several authors are inspired by Chinese ancient myths and fictions of “strange” stories. For instance, stories and titles of the paranormal tales collection Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio have been adapted into shaonu manhua series Nie Xiaoqian, Bai Qiulian and Huan Niang. These stories are set in ancient China, in which ordinary people fall in love with paranormal beings embodied as beautiful women. No One Knows (Zi Buyu) by Xia Da also drew its Chinese title and its theme of mystery from a 1788 folktale collection What the Master Would Not Discuss (Zi Buyu). The stories are different from the original book: It revolves around a girl who lives in a suburban area in “contemporary” China. Holding a special power that enables her to communicate with the world of “strange,” she encounters ghosts, spirits and other supernatural beings, often in the sites of old towns with traditional Chinese architectures. The heroine is an in-between figure engaging with the “natural” and the “supernatural,” the “known” and the “unknown,” as well as the “past” and “present.” In the realm of mystery, many of the paranormal characters are depicted as ancient Chinese people in traditional costumes and hairstyles, while some are supernatural creatures from traditional folklores in China and Japan. Likewise, the protagonist of another shaonu manhua series The Recordof Nanyanzhai

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(Nanyanzhai Bilu)4 also mediates between the “ordinary” and the “mysterious” as well as life and death. The stories are set in the Republic of China (1912–1949 AD). The main character is a young woman who owns a store selling incense fragrance. Her products have mysterious powers. For example, they can change people’s memories or exchange the souls of two different persons. Surrounding her are supernatural beings: Her maids are incarnations of flower spirits and she goes to the border between realms of the living and the dead. In these works, ancient Chinese elements stand for a fantasized space detached from “reality.” Notably, although these manhua are linked to traditional Chinese culture, their “Chinese characteristics” of mystery differ or even deviate from the “traditional cultural excellence” promoted by the party-state as the state ideology is based on atheistism. In some other early ancient-style shaonu manhua, China is often depicted as an empire ruled by Han Chinese which has tense or close relationships with other countries of different ethnic groups. Two shaonu manhua series, Changge’s Journey and Chang’an Magical Nights, focus on China’s Tang dynasty. The former focuses on the early years of Tang China, depicting it as a country facing threats from outside and within the country. In the narratives, confrontations occur near the borders, and the princess disguises herself as a male and joins the army to fight against foreign invaders. She is taken hostage by foreign enemies, but her relations with the foreign leaders and people improve when they get along. Within the country, there are power struggles between different groups. On the other hand, Chang’an Magical Night turns to a prosperous period of the Tang dynasty when Tang China had close contact with the world through commercial and cultural exchanges. The protagonist, a prince of Tang China and his friend from a noble family, meet with different foreign traders and travelers in the capital Chang’an. For other stories set in different historical periods, Ding Bing adapted Lao Zhuang Mo Han’s fictional novel Dreams in Loulan (Loulan Yimeng) into a shaonu manhua series, representing the Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) from the gaze of outsiders. The protagonists are a prince and a princess of the Loulan Kingdom. They are sent to Han China as hostages and become friends with one of the emperor’s guardian. When a war between their country and Han China is about to start, they return home and try to stop the conflicts. In these stories, Chineseness is first represented by Han ethnicity as “Chinese” figures are depicted as Han Chinese instead of other ethnic groups. Despite the fact that the CCP-led party-state stresses that the country has 55 ethnic minority groups besides the Han majority, China is rather depicted as a homogenized and monolithic country in terms of ethnicity in ancient-style shaonu manhua. Second, the main “Chinese” characters in the works are usually from the dominating class with high social status—emperors, princes, princesses, and others from imperial or noble families. It represents Chineseness with indications of power, authority, domination and control. Third, in these stories, as the main “Chinese” characters often engage 4

The Record of Nanyanzhai (Nanyanzhai Bilu) was first published in 2012 in the magazine Comic Fans and on the online platform U17 simultaneously. I include this work in this section instead of analyzing it with other digital shaonu manhua because it was not designed in the format of webtoon at the beginning. Later it was re-edited into a webtoon in vertical long strips.

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in communication or conflicts with other countries, Chineseness is articulated by the division of “we” and “the other” as well as “Chinese” and “foreign” with the emphasis on national borders. In contrast to the phenomenon of globalization which undermines the confinement of physical national boundaries (Iwabuchi 2015) and brings about the demise of the nation-state (Appadurai 1996), these early ancientstyle shaonu manhua, which can be seen as a localized product of Japanese manga, invoke Chineseness by highlighting the national and ethnic identity as Han Chinese and reasserting the territorial borders between China and other countries. Yet, there is a gap between the versions of Chineseness shown in these works and in the partystates’ discourse of nation-state which emphasizes the solidarity of multiple ethnic groups in its territory. Later, in the mid-2010s when ancient-style shaonu manhua series began to be primarily published as webtoons, authors have depicted Chineseness with different characteristics—otherworldliness, intrigue and fluidity in gender, class and time. Instead of taking foundations in existed historical periods or events, recent works represent ancient China as an imagined “another world” or “parallel universe,” drawing a clear boundary between the stories and the reality. For instance, The Tale of Zhen Huan: Xu Hua Lie (Zhen Huan Zhuan:Xu Hua Lie), drawn by Wei Ying and scripted by Zuo Xiao Ling, tells stories of an emperor’s concubines in an imagined dynasty named Dazhou. The palace is called “Zi Ao Cheng,” mimicking the Chinese term of the Forbidden City (Zi Jin Cheng), which is the imperial palace for Ming (1368–1662 AD) and Qing (1636–1912 AD) dynasties. Boys’ love manhua, a subgenre of shaonu manhua, are usually set in an imagined world that simulates ancient China, and this type of fantasies usually feature Chinese martial arts and religions. The Founder of Diabolism (Modao Zushi), a boys’ love series adapted from a popular web fiction, includes elements of wuxia (martial arts), Taoism and mystery. The stories are set in an imagined period of ancient China. By depicting ancient China as “another world,” Chineseness is rendered to be distant from the “reality.” The emphasis of otherworldliness can sometimes be a strategy to create and publish comics with sensitive topics such as homosexuality under the state’s censorship. In today’s China, topics related to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) are sensitive for publication. The content of LGBT is considered “immoral and unhealthy” by the government and have been banned on TV (Yang 2019). Still, setting these stories in a fantasized and remote quasi-ancient-China which is less related to the reality, and making representations of homosexuality more implicit can make it easier to pass the censorship. Also, although it is somewhat similar to previous works which portray ancient China and traditional elements to be mysterious and supernatural, many early works are based on literary classics or historical periods, whereas later ones are more of imagination. Moreover, after the mid-2010s, scheming, intrigue and conspiracy have been popular themes among ancient-style shaonu manhua works. In many narratives, protagonists, mostly female characters, are framed by their opponents or rivals, and the storylines focus on the protagonists’ struggles against the intrigues. The Tale of Zhen Huan: Xu Hua Lie (Zhen Huan Zhuan:Xu Hua Lie) by Wei Ying and Zuo Xiao Ling and The Chancellor in Substitution (Daijia Chengxiang) produced by Comics

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Factory (Man Gongchang) are typical stories depicting intrigues in the imperial palace. The former centers on how the protagonist, a concubine of the emperor, strives to survive in the palace where the queen and other concubines plot against each other to gain the favor of the emperor. The latter portrays conflicts among the emperor’s concubines and addresses the struggles of the emperor and his followers against the harm from their opponents. Like the above works, many ancient-style shaonu manhua show how the main characters encounter and respond to the harm imposed on them. While the leading characters are usually from the upper and ruling class, their enemies are also with the same social status. That is to say, the conflicts and struggles happen within the class. Compared to earlier shaonu manhua which portray China’s communication and confrontation with other countries or tribes, the works after mid-2010s concentrate on internal conflicts within ancient China’s upper class. Conflicts in the stories shift from a national level to a personal level. Moreover, in these works, instead of depicting the complexity in the connections between different groups, the relationships between different camps or individuals are usually reduced to a dichotomic division of “we” as the good and “others” as the evil. Chineseness in recent web-based ancient-style shaonu manhua is also related to fluidity in time, gender and class. The transformations of gender and class are enacted accompanied by the shifts from the “present” to the “past.” To be more specific, many stories stress the motif of ancient style by creating scenes of timeslip: “contemporary” characters go back to the “past” by accident and are reborn as ancient figures, and their genders and classes sometimes change during the time travel. For gender, “gender transitioning” (xingzhuan) is a popular theme among recent ancient-style shaonu manhua. For example, in Beauty Allure (Yao Yan Ling) produced by Mandao Culture (Mandao Wenhua), a schoolgirl from “contemporary days” travels back to the past during an accident and turns into a male emperor in ancient China. Later, she finds that the queen is a cross-dressing man who pretends to be a woman. Similarly, The Princess Is a Man (Gongzhu Shi Nanren) by Chongqing Yuanman Cartoon Design (Yuanman Dongman) tells a love fantasy in which a young man in the “present” world transforms into a princess in a quasi-ancient-China. As a man originally, he/she still has affection toward women but simultaneously maintains an ambiguous romantic relationship with a male nobleman. Gender is changeable in this imagined “ancient Chinese” world, which opens for more possibilities of gender by questioning and negotiating the country’s dominant and authoritative gender norms in which LGBT groups are still marginalized. As Hui Faye Xiao (2020) argues about shaonu manhua, this genre represents not only “youthful fantasy, freedom, and pleasures,” but also “new cultural sensibility and gendered effect growing and thriving from the margins of the mainstream aesthetic hierarchy and cultural establishment” (p. 23). In terms of class, its boundaries can also be crossed by traveling back to “ancient China.” Examples can be seen in Beauty Allure (Yao Yan Ling) and The Princess Is a Man (Gongzhu Shi Nanren) mentioned in the previous paragraph, both of which follow stories of “ordinary” people in “contemporary” days turning to be members of

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imperial families through time travel to the past. Even though some other works depict heroines reborn in the past as lower or middle class, in later plots, they usually fall in love with someone from the upper class—such as the emperor or a nobleman— and finally get married and move to a higher social rank. However, rather than going upward with personal efforts, the change of status by time-slip in these shaonu manhua is more of an arrangement by their “destiny.” It resonates with what Fung and Zhang (2012) argue in their study of the “modern Cinderella” narratives in Taiwanese and mainland Chinese TV dramas adapted from the Japanese sh¯ojo mangaBoys Over Flowers (Hana yori dango): “love becomes the ‘symbolic resolution’ to enter the upper class.” (pp. 66–67) As for ancient-style shaonu manhua, marriage and romance also stand for the bridge toward a higher class. Moreover, time-slip also brings about empowerment in a way that characters from the “present” use “modern” knowledge to deal with issues in the “past.” In particular, many ancient-style shaonu manhua producers like to portray heroines as doctors or medical students from the “present” world. Traveling to the “ancient” time, they apply their knowledge in modern medicine to help people and to protect themselves from harm. Examples include The Daughter of the Peasant by Daxingdao Comics (Daxingdao Dongman), The Healing Fairy Baizhi (Baizhi Yixian) by Erciyuan Comics (Erciyuan Dongman) and Qiman Culture (Qiman Wenhua), Evil King and Fairy Concubine (Xiewang Shenfei) by Alibaba Literature (Ali Wenxue), etc. By turning “modern” knowledge into power in the “past,” the protagonists—mostly female—are empowered. Notably, while shaonu manhua originates from Japanese sh¯ojo manga, the depiction of women’s empowerment is somewhat different. For sh¯ojo manga, empowerment is often seen in the subgenre of “magical girls” manga, in which female protagonists use magical powers to transform into fighters and protect ordinary people. However, critics and scholars such as Sait¯o (1998) and Allison (2006) have questioned this type of empowerment since the magical power is based on temporary fantasies, dreams and romance. On the other hand, in shaonu manhua telling stories about female doctors traveling to the past, women are empowered by their knowledge in medicines, which is, science. Compared to magic which is gained accidentally, modern knowledge is acquired by learning and does not disappear when heroines travel to the “past.” Hence, female empowerment in Chinese shaonu manhua tends to be relatively more realistic than that in sh¯ojo manga. Moreover, “great heroine” (danuzhu) has become a popular attribute for the design of female protagonists in domestic girls’ comics in China, and such characters can be seen in many ancient-style shaonu manhua. A “great heroine” is usually ambitious, strong and intelligent and even shows higher abilities than male characters. It echoes the ideology of “women holding up half the sky” promoted by China’s party-state during the Mao era, which claims that women can have equal abilities as men do. However, in many works, the ultimate destination for the adventures of these heroines is still love and marriage, following the typical patterns of sh¯ojo manga to end their stories. Nevertheless, ancient-style shaonu manhua has approached femininity and gender in a different way. While femininity in Japanese sh¯ojo manga is more related to dependence and passivity (Oshiyama 2007), the “great heroine” represents a localized version of femininity and gender in the texts.

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According to the above, by involving symbols intertextually connected to Chinese traditional culture, classic literature and history, the texts of ancient-style shaonu manhua represents Chineseness with the characteristics of mystery, Han ethnicity, and dominating class with high social status in earlier works and otherworldliness, intrigue and fluidity of time, gender and class in recent works. It does not reveal the “real” or “authentic” history or traditions as the symbols are reconfigured in the shaonu manhua texts and no longer carry the same meanings as in the original texts or historical contexts. Looking into different periods specifically, in the early years when shaonu manhua were primarily published in print media, more ancient-style series were adapted from literary classics and historical events. On the other hand, recent works published as webtoons tend more to be pure fiction which are set in a quasi-ancient-China. The depart from “authentic” traditional culture and history in recent works is partly caused by webtoon’s mode of production which requires authors to finish each episode of stories at a fast speed. Instead of spending more time researching historical materials, fictions based on pure imagination can be easily and quickly produced. Also, as historical fictional novels have gained huge popularity in the domestic market, many comic authors choose to repeatedly create historical fantasies to guarantee readership. Moreover, viewing manhua as a cultural product, the undermining of “authentic” history also resembles what Jameson (1991) argues about “pop history”: undergoing reproduction, the historical referents of the symbols in these manhua have been undermined and new meanings are created; consequently, the history and traditions represented in manhua are not based on “real” history, but rather “our mental images of that past upon its confining walls” (p. 25). Apart from “real” history, the “Chinese characteristics” represented in the texts also vary from those advocated by the partystate. Sometimes they even have conflicts with the state’s ideology such as atheism, harmony and ethnic diversity.

15.4 Chineseness in the Production and Consumption of Ancient-Style Shaonu Manhua While Chineseness is constructed and represented in the texts of ancient-style shaonu manhua, it is also shaped beyond the texts in its production and consumption. Taking an ethnographic approach by conducting interviews with comic producers and readers in mainland China, this part demonstrates how producers and readers engage with Chineseness in ancient-style shaonu manhua under the influence of the state and the market. In China, local comic and animation producers and professionals invented the term “dongman” by combining “donghua” (animation) and “manhua” (comics) to create a closer linkage between the two cultural forms. In recent years, domestically produced comics and animation are both recognized as “national comics” (guoman). Until the mid-2010s, the term was only used by some individuals or mass media

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occasionally. In 2015, when the local animated feature film Monkey King: Hero Is Back (Dasheng Guilai) became the then highest-grossing animation in Chinese history, mass media began to address the topic of “the rise of national comics.” It became more popular in 2019 when another animated film, Ne Zha, broke the record of Monkey King and became the second biggest box office grosser among all types of films in China. Both animated films are based on Chinese literature classics (Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods), arousing a strong link between the notions of “national comics,” “Chinese style” and “ancient style.” The popularity of the term “national comics” is fueled by mass media. Reporters and critics usually address “national comics” by talking about the hardships in the development of Chinese animation and comics under the impact of Japanese and American comics. Mentioning the success of Monkey King and Ne Zha as well as the increasing number of online comic platforms and local manhua, many write that “national comics” have reinterpreted traditional culture in a modern way,5 national comics should “talk about Chinese stories and promote Chinese culture,”6 but the whole industries “still have a long way to go.”7 Besides, many have asked whether national comics should follow the path of others, such as Japanese, Korean or American comics.8 Accordingly, the notion of “national comics” is thus closely related to Chineseness in terms of traditional culture and globalization. The concept soon attracted immense attention from comic and animation producers and audiences. In terms of ancient-style shaonu manhua as a type of “national comics,” producers’ and readers’ discussions usually concern whether national comics should emphasize “Chinese” or ancient styles, and whether national comics have prospered. For comic producers, while some argue that national comics should promote traditional culture, most informants hold that “national comics” only means comics created by Chinese authors. Many think local comics should be more diversified instead of focusing solely on traditional and ancient styles. Informant B (26, female), personnel of a comic company and a manga and manhua lover, states that the motifs of Chinese manhua or “national comics” should not be limited to traditional culture: “If you put too much weight on the ancient-style appearances and overlook the spiritual depth, it is too shallow.” Informant A (39, male, representative of a comic company) shares the same view, saying that focusing too much on traditional culture and ancient styles will limit authors’ creativity. Despite producers’ call for diversity in manhua’s themes and motifs, due to the influence of the state’s cultural policies and the market’s demand, ancient-style works 5 Examples include “New national comics becoming closer to traditional culture” published in China Culture Daily on 27 November 2018, and “You are such ‘Ne Zha’: National comics redefines the classics” in China Youth Daily on 20 July 07 2017. 6 Examples include “The rising national comics should tell Chinese stories well” on Wenhui Daily on 11 July 2017. 7 See “The way to the revival of national comics is still long, so slow down” published in Changjiang Daily on 13 July 2016, and “Ticket box of White Snake broke a hundred million in eight days. National comics still has a long way to go” in China Business News on 22 January 2019. 8 See “Traditional culture has too many recourses to be developed into IP in national comcis” on Global Times on 15 January 2020.

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still constitute a large proportion in the comic production for many companies. Firstly, the state and local governments have offered financial and policy support for the creative industries, including the comics industry. As mentioned in the first section, the party-state of China has been embracing traditional culture since the 1990s. In correspondence, policies supporting cultural industries usually require cultural products to represent “Chinese characteristics” and “excellent traditional Chinese culture.” For instance, the Twelve Five-Year Plan (2011–2015) issued by the National People’s Congress is considered an important policy for China’s comics industry. It includes animation and comics industries in the “important cultural industries,” stressing that the state would stimulate their development by centering on “excellent national culture.”9 Accordingly, in order to gain financial and policy support, many comic producers choose to make ancient-style works which can evidently represent traditional and national culture. Informant C (28, female), an employer of a comic company who has worked as an editor and has participated in the making of ancientstyle shaonu manhua series, explained further: It is too tough to develop “national comics” without the government’s support. The whole comic industry and market are still unsophisticated. You can hardly make profits by only selling content. Comic companies have to depend on the policies. Since the government values traditional Chinese culture, you have a bigger chance to get funding if you produce something related.

Secondly, the motif of ancient styles is becoming more popular in the Chinese market, and many producers keep producing this type of comics to generate profits. In the past two decades, novels of historical imagination have become the most gainful genre in Chinese literature (Yu 2014) and ancient-style songs and traditional Han Chinese costumes (hanfu) also experience surging popularity among youngsters. Through this cultural phenomenon, comic producers found a great market for ancientstyle manhua. A representative of Super Comics (Shangman), a comic company which produces original comics and operates a digital comic platform, shared at the business forum of the 14th China International Cartoon and Game (CCG) Expo that manhua centering on traditional Chinese culture tend to succeed in the market, meaning that this genre is more popular and easier to be further developed into derivative products such as animation, TV dramas or films. Among their original comics, 50% of the works based on traditional culture have proved successful, which is higher than the number of other types of comics (fieldwork 2018). The success of ancient-style comics also makes shaonu manhua producers create more works of this type. In terms of ancient-style shaonu manhua, its production is driven mainly by the market. Informant D (21, female), an employee of a company running a digital comic platform, introduced that local comics had accounted for over 90% of all comics on their platform. She states that shaonu manhua was more profitable compared to other genres, and ancient-style ones were popular. Unlike boys’ comics which usually take several episodes to explain the background settings, most shaonu manhua stories are 9 See Issue 2 of Chapter 44 in “Outline of the 13th Five-Year Plan for the National Economic and Social Development,” available on https://www.gov.cn/2011lh/content_1825838_11.htm.

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simple, straightforward and short, so it can develop a group of fans more quickly. She said, “readers can get entertained from the beginning of the stories, finish quickly and then move on to other works, just like eating fast food. And comics with Chinese elements are popular, so many producers like to make girls’ comics with the ancient-style motif.” Meanwhile, in the production of ancient-style shaonu manhua, producers generally would not purposely create content conforming to the state ideology which promotes “excellent traditional culture.” The content of manhua is censored. Yet, as ancient-style settings can be less related to the “present” and the “reality” and the state’s censorship on web-based comics is less strict, ancient-style shaonu manhua is given more leeway to explore different types of content, including topics such as homosexuality that challenge the hegemonic ideology. Thus, it is not rare to see ancient-style shaonu manhua series contain sensitive content in the context of CCP-led China. Turning to consumption, manhua readers’ opinions on why they like “national comics” and whether “national comics” should emphasize Chineseness can be summarized into two types. A group of informants supports “national comics,” agreeing that local comics should draw inspiration from traditional cultural and historical recourses. “Our own comics ought to be something about ourselves. We have hundreds of years’ history and abundant cultural recurses, there is so much to draw about,” said Informant D, a 21-year-old female reader of local comics. Meanwhile, some other informants claim that whether they like a comic work depends on its contents, and the motifs are less important. For the topic of “the rise of national comics,” informants generally hold that they see progress in local manhua, but it is yet to reach real prosperity. Still, most say that they hope “national comics” could grow better. Informant E, a 19-year-old female college student who has read shaonu manhua since middle school, states that “national comics are getting better, and of course we national citizens will support it. But it still has much to improve.” Informant F (25, female) and G (31, male) comment on Xiao Xin’s Fox Spirit Match Maker (Huyao Xiaohongniang), saying that they care less about where the comics are produced. “We like the works with high-quality plots and drawings. Fox Spirit is excellent as a domestically produced manhua. But there is still a gap between Chinese works and Japanese manga.” Generally, in readers’ views on “national comics,” there are two underlying assumptions: “national comics” is something “of our own country,” and “national comics” are usually of lower quality compared to comics produced in other places. Moreover, readers often define “national comics” by comparing local works with comics of other countries, especially Japanese manga. However, it is discussed in different ways between readers of earlier shaonu manhua and readers of later works published as webtoons. On the one hand, before the 2010s, when most local shaonu manhua artists still followed the visual and narrative patterns of sh¯ojo manga, some readers saw the motif of traditional Chinese culture and history as unique and “Chinese.” Informant H (26, female) is a fan of Xia Da, one of the best-selling shaonu manhua artists in China whose works usually draw from Chinese literary classics and history. When she first encountered Xia Da’s ancient-style works Dreams in the Garden (Youyuan Jingmeng) in high school, it was fresh to her. “I was stunned when

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I read her book—how beautiful these ancient elements looked!…. At that time, I felt that our national comics finally tells something different from Japanese manga,” said the informant. On the other hand, for many readers who have mainly read later shaonu manhua in the form of webtoons, they define “national comics” by comparing it to Japanese manga and are concerned more about visual styles. Many agree that the colored and vertical form is an attribute that distinguishes “national comics” from “Japanese” ones. While most local webtoons in China are in color, the domestically produced black-and-white works are often said to be “too Japanese.” As for ancient-style shaonu manhua in particular, a few works are raised as “good” examples of “national comics,” such as Changge’s Journey and Fox Spirit Match Maker. Yet, this genre is more often mentioned as “negative” examples of “national comics” by informants, saying that their plots are cliché, and the drawings are poor. In general, informants find the “ancient” or “Chinese” styles attractive. However, most indicated that their interests in the “authentic” culture and history in China did not increase much after reading ancient-style manhua. Few have further studied the historical materials or original texts related to the works they have read. Readers found the ancient styles in shaonu manhua favorable mainly for the flamboyant visual effects, imagination and humor in the works. “It is hard to describe why I like ancient styles…. The costumes are beautiful, and the architectures look splendid. It is very fancy,” said Informant E (19, female). Another Informant, J (22, female), likes the comedic plots in the works, saying that the humor is designed for Chinese readers. Informant K, a 29-year-old male who read different types of comics including some ancient-style shaonu manhua series, stated: “The ancient Chinese elements are interesting because they make the visuals look good. And they provide us with a space of imagination.” From readers’ discussions, the term of “national comics” and the “Chinese” characteristics reflected in the ancient-style shaonu manhua has aroused the sentiment of nationalism. Firstly, the notion of “national comics” has evoked readers’ national identity. Emphasizing manhua as “comics of our own country,” they see the growth of the cultural industry as a vital part of China’s development. Secondly, the consumption of ancient-style shaonu manhua also reflects the sentiment of consumer nationalism, which means that consumers buy, use or reject products based on their nationality and the countries where the products are produced (Castelló and Mihelj 2018; Gerth 2011; Wang 2006). For domestically produced comics in China, some Chinese readers read and support them for being “Chinese” citizens. However, consuming shaonu manhua featuring traditional Chinese culture and history does not always enhance readers’ cultural pride. For many readers, these manhua are more of a form of entertainment. China is known to be a state which conducts cultural governance by tightly controlling publications and using media and cultural products to propagate its ideologies. Simultaneously, its domestic cultural industries and market have developed and expanded. In this context, we can see that ancient-style shaonu manhua receives relatively greater influence and stimulation from the market than from the state. It is produced and consumed mainly as entertainment. The Chineseness represented by the cultural and historical elements in the content is regarded more as a selling

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point and attraction. The market orientation of ancient-style shaonu manhua echoes with the discussion in the former section that Chineseness represented by these manhua seldom follows the version of Chineseness stressed in the state ideology regarding traditional culture. Yet, the term “national comics” popularized by news coverage evokes Chineseness in a way that engenders the sentiment of nationalism and enhances national identity, especially among the readers.

15.5 Conclusion This chapter has presented how ancient-style shaonu manhua has developed and how early manhua artists have explored “Chinese characteristics” and styles in the wider historical and cultural context. It has also demonstrated how Chineseness is constructed and represented in the texts of ancient-style shaonu manhua and how producers and readers of this type of manhua engage with Chineseness under the influence of the state and the domestic cultural market. The investigation of Chineseness in and beyond the texts of ancient-style shaonu manhua has revealed the relationship between the state and manhua as a popular cultural form in contemporary China. Rather than tight control, the party-state censors manhua but leaves it with a certain amount of leeway. It also affects manhua by providing support, which is received when producers comply with the official ideology. Still, in China’s market economy system, manhua companies are basically private enterprises. Manhua, with a market-oriented attribute, has not become the “mouthpiece” of the party-state like the state-owned media. Thus, Chineseness in ancient-style shaonu manhua is different and yet related to what is promoted in the state ideology. Moreover, the impact of globalization has been prominent in the texts and in the production and consumption of shaonu manhua. “Chinese characteristics” of ancientstyle shaonu manhua as well as the understandings of manhua as “national comics” are constructed and discussed with the comparison of comics of other countries, especially manga. Accordingly, Chineseness is often associated with Japaneseness and those of other countries, and the local with the global. Yet, the findings have been limited to the genre of ancient-style shaonu manhua. Chineseness represented in other types of Chinese comics, such as boys’ comics, has yet to be examined. In addition, as manhua is becoming more influential, some stateowned media and institutions have recently launched projects to collaborate with comic companies to produce “positive energy” manhua, which is used specifically for propaganda. With different types of manhua and the changing relationships between the state and the manhua industry, future studies will need to investigate other manhua genres in which Chineseness may have different representations.

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Ying Huang is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her Ph.D. dissertation examines the production and consumption of comics in contemporary China under the influence of the state and globalization, in which Japanese culture plays an important role. As a part of her research, she conducted fieldwork in China and Japan. Her research interests include trans-Asian cultural flow, popular culture and cultural industries in China and Japan, and comics and animation studies.

Chapter 16

Straightly Chinese: The Emergence of Systemic Homophobia in China Lin Song

16.1 Introduction In May 2018, a 10-s video clip caused much commotion on Chinese social media. The video, which was uploaded to Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, showed several male security guards punching and knocking down two women at the entrance of the 798 Art Zone in Beijing, a complex known for housing art exhibitions and hip creative spaces. The cause of the violence was that the women were wearing rainbow badges handed to them for free in an awareness-raising event held by a volunteer to commemorate the upcoming International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia on 17 May (Mullin 2018). Not only did the security staff try to stop the man from giving out rainbow badges, they also barred those wearing the badges from entering the art zone, which, ironically, served as the main site for Beijing Queer Film Festival back in 2011. According to China’s state media Global Times, a male employee of the property management department for 798 claimed that the zone “has a right to stop illegal activity” and that “wearing a rainbow badge is illegal to [him]” as “the homosexuals” are “terrifying” with their “distorted sexual orientation” (Xin and Yin 2018, paras. 7–8). Although the footage only appeared on Weibo briefly before being deleted without giving a reason, the incident triggered a fervor online particularly among LGBTQsupportive communities. The hashtag “#798beating” was widely circulated, with Weibo users furiously questioning who gave the security staff the power to stop someone from entering into a public place. And many lamented that the 798 beating incident signaled a major step backward in LGBTQ rights and politics in contemporary China. Sadly, this statement may not be accurate, since the 798 beating is hardly an isolated incident in the recent infringement of LGBTQ rights in China. Although L. Song (B) University of Macau, Macau, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9_16

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officially homosexuality was decriminalized in 1997 and de-pathologized in 2001, Chinese homosexual citizens continue to face ebbs and flows in a variety of issues including legal protection, social equality, and media representation and censorship. While recent studies in Chinese queerness have fruitfully captured the complexity of queer selfhood and experiences, they usually adopt a bottom-up framework of analysis that focuses on issues of agency and negotiation at individual levels. Although the significance of a hopeful picture of queer lives in the shadow of an authoritarian and oppressive government should not be dismissed, the 798 incident alerts us to another, arguably more pressing, set of questions: in what ways have decades of censorship shaped how queerness is defined and perceived by the non-queer public in China? How does state power work in regulating Chinese queerness, and how has it created violence against queer subjects? This chapter sets out to answer these questions by connecting the dots in recent gay-bashing and silencing incidents in China. Drawing on two key concepts from queer Asian studies, namely Boellstorff’s (2004) theorization of “political homophobia” and Liu and Ding’s (2005) idea of “reticence politics,” the chapter explicates how persistent cultural censorship and political silencing have not only marginalized homosexual subjects, but also engendered a top-down structure of systemic homophobia that translates into public manifestations of discrimination and violence. By putting forward such an analytical framework, this chapter seeks to redress the tendency in existing scholarship on Chinese queerness to focus on an optimistic interpretation of cultural visibility, and directs attention to questions of governmentality and political violence in China today.

16.2 Theorizing Queerness in China In his 2010 article, Petrus Liu famously claimed that queer theory needs China because China’s rich histories of homosexuality offer the much-needed intellectual tools for queer theory both to reflect on the tensions between its universalist worldview and anti-universalist impulse, and to develop a useful political critique of concrete power relations (Liu 2010). Liu wrote particularly in response to Englishlanguage queer theory’s tendency to treat non-Western cultures merely as sites of difference, and argued for the usefulness of concrete studies of China as an empirical location for scholarly research. China, as he succinctly puts it, should be considered as “an institution of citizenship, a cultural identity, a territory, […] an ethnic group, […as well as] a historical division of human birth-accidents and life opportunities along artificially created borders” (Liu 2010, p. 314). Liu’s insights coincided with the steady growth of an interdisciplinary body of works on Chinese gender and sexual non-conformity. In their pioneering works on contemporary male homosexuality in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), for example, cultural anthropologist Rofel (2007) and sociologists Kong (2010) and Wei (2007) carefully unpacked how Chinese queerness is not merely an extension of its Western counterpart, but a distinct discursive, cultural, and social construction grounded in local histories, political climates, evolving conditions of heteronormativity, as well as dense transnational traffics

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of sexual knowledges and politics. These arguments are shared by later scholars such as Kam (2012) and Engebretsen (2013), whose anthropological accounts on queer women in the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Beijing demonstrate convincingly how local discourses of gender, social class, mobility, respectability, and filial piety critically shape Chinese queer selfhood and negotiative strategies. Collectively, these nuanced socio-anthropological works show that although Chinese queerness is closely connected to West-originated, transnationally circulated discourses of identities and politics, it nevertheless exposes the insufficiencies of their liberal pluralist presumptions. As Engebretsen (2013, pp. 157–160) suggests, the productive tensions emerging from Chinese queer subjects’ paradoxical desire to at once get close to normal and transform normality put forward “a politics of different normativities” that extends beyond a simple formula of confrontational politics. Despite their preoccupation with governmentality and biopolitics, these ethnographical works typically adopt a bottom-up framework of analysis that focuses heavily on individual agency. In his discussion of the theoretical basis of his book on Chinese male homosexuality, Kong (2010) identifies three main levels of workings of power: “the systemic level of social institutions such as the state, the market, schools, churches, the media, etc.; the community level of the cultural context created by race, class, gender and sexuality; and the individual level of personal biography” (p. 29). Because the mainstay of ethnographical research is personal life trajectories and experiences, existing socio-anthropological accounts on Chinese queerness often foreground only the latter two levels, whereas analyses of institutional power usually serve as a backdrop against which surviving tactics and creative negotiations take place. While individual agency undoubtedly holds great significance for the study of queerness, a prime, if not exclusive, focus runs the risk of downplaying and even neglecting the workings of state power. As Lau (2014) sharply points out in her review of Kam’s (2012) book on lesbians in Shanghai, also known as lalas, overlooking “the omnipresence of the Party-state and the ways in which state power is being exercised in every sphere of life in China today” closes off important questions of how queer women make sense of, and respond to, the ways in which they are constructed in public discourses (p. 253). Furthermore, the lack of a careful consideration of the relationship between queer and non-queer communities may result in the misled view of queer people existing in a bubble of extended, imagined community without having to navigate intricate and hostile heteronormative institutional power. This tendency of optimism is all the more pronounced in studies of queerness in Chinese media cultures, where scholars have endeavored to identify and theorize modes of queer representation and becoming under the state’s rigorous censorship regime. A major stream of research in this field focuses on the production and circulation of independent queer films and documentaries as a form of digital video activism for media visibility and gay rights (Bao 2018, 2019; Deklerck 2017; Tan 2016; Wang 2013; Shaw and Zhang 2017; Zhou 2019). Observing the proliferation of independent queer filmmaking both in physical venues such as queer film festivals in Beijing and Shanghai and electronic venues like webcasts and digital documentaries, these works study the aesthetics and politics of Chinese queer cinema and argue for their significance in bringing political change in a country where queer media visibility has been

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consistently low. Bao (2019) uses the hopeful term “queer generation” to highlight the importance and potential of the works by LGBTQ-identified Chinese filmmakers that have gained international attention over the last decade. He argues that the “queer generation” filmmakers’ works “represent grassroots, community-based and activist-oriented political articulations in contemporary Chinese society,” and point to the “political potential of queerness and documentary films in the world today” (p. 214). Bao’s observations are undoubtedly significant and inspiring. But how the alleged “political potential” could be realized and to what extent it is enabled and/or limited by China’s social, cultural, and political climates require further contextualized analyses that take into consideration not only the agency of queer media practitioners, but also the systemic forces that critically condition the production and circulation of the media contents they create. This chapter proposes a different perspective in theorizing Chinese queerness in order to redress the tendency in current socio-anthropological accounts and media studies of queerness to emphasize personal agency over institutional and systemic powers. Through an analysis of recent instances of censorship and gay bashing, the chapter argues that political and media censorship should be carefully accounted for, as they engender systemic structures of homophobia that not only pose direct challenges to queer lives, but also exert long-term effects by shaping how gender and sexual non-conformity is perceived among the non-queer public. In what follows, I will start with a discussion of the relationship between censorship and political homophobia in China, before examining their consequences using the concept of “reticence politics.”

16.3 Regulating Chineseness: Censorship and Heterosexism In his discussion of emerging violence against gay communities in Indonesia, Boellstorff (2004) identifies a “political homophobia” as the result of persistent heterosexism. Central to his theorization is the distinction between homophobia and heterosexism: Whereas homophobia describes “gut level” psychological and behavioral responses against homosexual persons, heterosexism refers to the belief that heterosexuality is the only natural or moral sexuality (p. 471). As Boellstorff explains: It is possible to have homophobia with little or no heterosexism […] where many forms of sexuality are recognized as natural, yet emotional violence against homosexual persons exists—and heterosexism with little or no homophobia, where heterosexuality is presumed superior to other sexualities, yet this does not lead to violence against homosexual persons. (p. 472)

Boellstorff (2004) suggests that although heterosexism and homophobia are often interconnected and mutually constitutive, de-linking them offers new perspectives on sexual inequality especially in non-Western contexts. Whereas for Euro-Americans,

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marginalization of non-normative sexualities and genders often manifests itself through the constant threat of violence, in places like Indonesia where explicit homophobia is apparently absent, pervasive heterosexism functions as the main means through which sexualities are regulated. Everyday heterosexism incubates verbal, emotional, and political homophobia (pp. 471–473). Boellstorff pinpoints a historical moment in Indonesia when non-normative genders and sexualities became interpreted in phobic terms. The increasing masculinization of nationhood, he remarks, encouraged the public to see homosexuality, male homosexuality in particular, as an assault on the nation’s manhood. Heterosexism thus transformed from a silent intellectual assumption to an explicit homophobia fueled by emotional rage. Boellstorff terms this “political homophobia” to highlight how violence could be deployed politically as a means of controlling who can make claims to belonging (p. 480). Heterosexist gendering of national belonging, he concludes, gives rise to cultural logics of inequality and exclusion that further breeds violence against homosexual subjects. Boellstorff’s theorization of heterosexism and political homophobia affords a useful conceptual framework through which to understand queer lives in China, which, though de-criminalized and de-pathologized, are subject to rigorous censorship based on overt heterosexist assumptions. Under such a discursive regime, homosexuality is either completely erased from mainstream media or severely misrepresented. A case in point here is the numerous crackdown campaigns targeting homosexual contents. In early 2016, a China-produced web series Addicted (Shangyin), an adaptation of a boys’ love novel centered on the romantic relationships among four high school boys, attracted extensive attention both in China and across East and Southeast Asia. On its very first day online, the series garnered 10 million reviews. And in less than a month, it recorded a total of 100 million views. After becoming one of the most watched web series, however, the show was abruptly taken off the air halfway through its first season. The remaining episodes were never streamed in China. Two months after Addicted’s removal in March 2016, China’s official censorship body, State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (henceforth SAPPRFT), issued a new set of guidelines that were widely interpreted as a response to the web series’ runaway success. The guidelines stated that “no television drama shall show abnormal sexual relationships and behaviors, such as incest, same-sex relationship, sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual violence, and so on” (cited in Ellis-Petersen 2016). By categorizing same-sex relationships essentially as “abnormal” and a “sexual perversion,” the guidelines employ pathologizing language to reinforce a heteronormative vision of media culture. Anything that falls outside the hetero-familial model of genders and sexualities are deemed inappropriate for the public audience. While the guidelines did not directly elicit violence against homosexual people, it effectively established a heterosexist regime where homosexuality is placed at the bottom of the hierarchy. This heterosexist tendency again manifested itself in a more recent incident of censorship on homosexual contents, this time on the social media outlet Weibo. In April 2018, Weibo launched a “cleanup” campaign allegedly to create a “clear and harmonious community” in accordance with China’s new cybersecurity laws. In an

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official announcement, Weibo stated that the campaign would target “pornographic, violent, and homosexual materials” and will be carried out over the course of three months. The announcement immediately triggered public outcry online. Tens of thousands of Weibo users flooded the site with the hashtag “#I’mGay” to voice their objection against the campaign and support to Chinese LGBTQ groups in China, which soon garnered hundreds and millions of reviews (Huang 2018; Wang 2018). Two days after the initial announcement, People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), posted a short opinion article via its social media platform. The article states that “homosexuality is definitely not a mental illness” and that “there are more than one sexual orientation; both homosexuality and bisexuality are normal” (Yi 2018). It calls on the society to “understand difference and eliminate discrimination.” In the meantime, the article also emphasizes that “sexual orientation should not become the tool of a small group of people to court public attention.” “Homosexual citizens,” it remarks, “are also citizens. As they claim their rights, they should shoulder their responsibilities as well” (Yi 2018). A few days later, Weibo backtracked on its decision in an unusual turn of events and announced that the cleanup campaign would no longer target homosexual contents, without providing further details. The withdrawal of Weibo’s ban on homosexual contents was celebrated as a win for LGBTQ communities in China. As the activist Ah Qiang comments, the incident showcased “the essence of LGBT movements” (cited in Huang 2018, para. 10). “When more and more people stand up,” he remarks, “the only thing homophobic people can do is delete their stupid decisions” (cited in Huang 2018, para. 10). This sense of optimism is strengthened by the semi-official endorsement from People’s Daily, which, to many, signifies the willingness on the part of the government to acknowledge the rights of homosexual citizens. What is neglected in the discussion is the fact that the primary focus and objective of the article is not to fight against homophobia, but to reassert heterosexism. In the article, the reassurance that homosexual citizens are normal is quickly followed by a demand for them to assume their “responsibilities,” a key part of which is to refrain from attracting public attention to issues of sexual orientation. The article, then, seeks to at once reassure and silence, tolerate and regulate, acknowledge and erase. These paradoxical tensions derive from its attempt to subsume homosexuality to a heterosexist discourse: Its argument against pathologizing homosexual people and its acknowledgement of different sexual orientations can only exist on the basis of the supremacy of heterosexuality. Being a good Chinese citizen, therefore, means conforming to a heterosexist system regardless of your sexuality (and in spite of your sexuality if you are part of the LGBTQ community). Indeed, despite apparent relaxation of state control over private lives and cultural production, recent years have witnessed the rise of a prominent heterosexist discursive regime that regulates queerness through the establishment of notions of normality and morality. As Chun (2017) suggests, the cultivation of the normal and the moral is an integral part of political power in a disciplinary regime. Under President Xi Jinping’s rule, the normal and the moral are redefined vis-à-vis a rehabilitated Confucianism labeled as “a national force, the deep roots of Chinese culture, and the

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grounds for a Chinese future” (Ambrogio 2017, p. 130). This state-endorsed Confucianism promotes a morality centered on heterosexual familialism. As a result, any forms of non-heterosexual, non-familial, and non-monogamous sex are considered abnormal and morally unacceptable (Ho et al. 2018). Through this official discourse, being Chinese becomes synonymous with being able to conform to heteronormative expectations. The political implications of this heterosexist discursive regime soon played out in the ban of boys’ love novels. In November 2018, a female BL writer Tianyi was sentenced to a 10-and-a-half-year jail term for self-publishing a homoerotic novel Occupy, which sold around 7,000 copies. The court found the writer guilty of “producing and selling pornographic materials” as the novel contained explicit descriptions of male homosexual sex scenes (Gan 2018, para. 2). The harsh prison sentence sparked off major controversy, with many pointing out that the sentence is too extreme especially when compared with other more serious cases such as rape, violence, and manslaughter, all of which carried a lower sentence (Gan 2018). Despite widespread outcry in support of Tianyi, her appeal was rejected and the original ruling was sustained. Tianyi’s case is one of the many examples of rigorous censorship on homoerotic contents in China. As Mark McLelland (2015) observes, obscenity legislation is interpreted broadly in China to include various forms of sexualities that fall outside the normative, familial rhetoric purveyed by the state, such as homosexual contents and incestuous relationships. Under this structure of censorship, mainstream media culture in China remains a sanctioned heterosexist domain where queer representations are unlikely to emerge. And when they do, they are, to a large extent, misrepresentations. A fitting example is the 2015 crime thriller film The Dead End (Lie Ri Zhuo Xin), which famously claimed to include rare, explicit homosexual scenes during its promotion, and even released a tantalizing trailer featuring two male protagonists apparently making out. Only after the movie went in theaters was it revealed that what was marketed as “homosexual scenes” were diegetically a criminal’s strategy to dispel his suspicions in a female rape case. Besides obvious queerbaiting tendencies, the film’s representations of homosexuality are most problematic because they reflect how, as one of the very few channels of public visibility, voyeuristic portrayals of LGBTQ people as laughable, perverted, and criminal continue to dominate public and media discourses in China. Setting out from a heterosexist point of view, these portrayals instigate negative perceptions of, and response to, homosexuality on an emotive plane. In tandem with heavy-handed censorship on homosexual contents is a growingly masculinist national discourse. While linking national image with hegemonic masculinity is not new, in the Chinese context, the connections between the two are further consolidated by top-down structures of propaganda and censorship. In January 2019, Chinese viewers noticed that the earlobes of male stars wearing earrings have been blurred across various TV and online shows. As part of the Chinese government’s continuous efforts to promote mainstream state-sanctioned values and minimize “foreign influences,” the peculiar earring ban, which remains effective at the time of writing (January 2020), is believed to be a response to the immense popularity of Korean pop idols in China, and with it the currency of soft masculinities (Zhou

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2019). Earlier in 2018, the CCP already voiced its concern over the country’s male image in an editorial published by the state-run Xinhua news agency. Entitled “The Sissy Pants Culture Should Stop,” the article mocked “smooth-skinned, slim-figured, and gender ambiguous” “effeminate” young male idols as unfortunate products of the entertainment industry’s unbridled lust for money (Xin 2018). The article bemoaned that this “sick fixation” of delicate male beauty would intoxicate China’s youths. “To nurture a new generation that could help our nation reach its renaissance,” it claimed, “we need to shield them from undesirable culture” (Xin 2018). These extensive official concerns over the country’s masculinity have motivated not only harsh criticisms and meticulous censorship, but also the attempt to create China’s own masculinity ideals. The propaganda blockbuster series Wolf Warrior, co-produced by Chinese state-owned enterprises China Film Group Corporation and Bona Films, offers a perfect example of the new state-endorsed model of patriotic masculinity. The series, with two films by far, focuses on the Special Forces soldier Leng Feng’s heroic battles on foreign soil, where he has to defeat deadly foreign mercenaries and evacuate Chinese nationals caught in crossfires in Africa. Stylized as a Hollywood blockbuster, the films offer a Chinese version of the “White Savior” image (Liu 2018), complete with hyper-masculine traits such as extraordinary combat skills and an aggressive personality. Shi and Liu (2019) point out that in the Wolf Warrior series, individual heroic acts are sublimated in the pride of the nation. Leng’s conquests and victories and the version of masculinity he embodies thus redefines what it means to be a Chinese man. As the films’ tagline puts it, “anyone who offends China will be killed, no matter how far the target is.” The palpable patriotic and militant implications characterize Chinese manhood as very much the opposite of delicate, soft male idols. As a matter of fact, the director and lead actor Wu Jing himself, who plays Leng Feng in the films, also led a high-profile media presence where he openly attacked the “flower boys” for their lack of masculinity. Assuming a “tough man spokesperson” identity, Wu claimed that the Wolf Warrior series was meant to “inspire men to become real men” and it achieved exactly that: a revolution in China’s sexual culture to rehabilitate Chinese notions of masculinity (Liu 2018). With the Wolf Warrior series topping the list of highest-grossing domestic films, tough, militant, and patriotic male images circulate widely on Chinese screens. These images are defined and officially endorsed as the antithesis of emerging soft masculinities in Chinese popular culture, perceived as the cause of a masculinity crisis in the country and a formula for waning national power. This state-initiated top-down project of censoring gender expressions and establishing new masculinity ideals is not directly homophobic insofar as it does not elicit emotional or physical violence against queer people. Yet if we connect the dots in these seemingly isolated and sometimes self-contradictory incidents of censorship and control in cultural production, we may delineate a larger picture of an unapologetically heterosexist system within which queer representations and queer issues are marginalized and silenced to make way for normative expressions of gender and sexuality. With the support of

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state power, this heterosexist system functions as a discursive regime through which cultural and sexual citizenships are regulated. In the following section, I shall further unpack the implications of these practices of censorship and silencing based on a narrow definition of the Chineseness of a “good Chinese citizen.”

16.4 Silence Speaks Louder Than Words In their essay “Reticent Poetics, Queer Politics,” Liu and Ding (2005) point out that reticence, manifested in the form of non-articulation and indirect expression, functions as a central power mechanism in regulating sexualities in Chinese culture. Literally meaning “holding back” and “storing up,” reticence (hanxu) constitutes a key Confucian poetics that privileges gently and indirectly working the persuasive powers of literature to foster moral and political proprieties (Liu and Ding 2005, p. 34). As Confucianism gained socio-political weight, this poetics evolved into “strategies of personal and communal self-preservation [… and] self-discipline,” a two-pronged mechanism for maintaining an orthodox order. Within this system, those who feel and act in line with the given socio-familial order are expected to keep on with their conformity by practicing reticence in self-discipline, whereas those who fail to befit their place and role in the received order are commanded to a self-discipline reticence. Importantly, Liu and Ding distinguish this politics of reticence from a romanticized notion of “silent tolerance.” While the latter assumes a utopian non-homophobic time and space, reticence politics reveals how silence in fact functions as a speech act that reinforces the restraining power of existing heteronormative social order, thus keeping LGBTQ people out of place vis-à-vis the socio-familial continuum (Liu and Ding 2005). As they write: [R]eticence […] allows for the reigning proper order in speech and action (at work, at home, in the socius) to sustain the notion of an untouched, unsullied, harmonious whole. Nothing as it should be has been changed or disturbed; at least not on the surface. […] The order of things whereby some things are more speakable than others and therefore allow those unspeakable things to remain in the shadow ‘where they belong’—this order is what is preserved. (Liu and Ding 2005, p. 49)

Liu and Ding’s theorization of reticence sheds light on the implicit power dynamics in regulating genders and sexualities by way of granting/withholding visibility and speakability. Together with Boellstorff’s concept of “political homophobia,” it affords an analytical lens through which we can understand the effects of censorship and the systemic workings of state power. While the Chinese government seldom directly wields homophobia as a weapon against the LGBTQ population, and even occasionally takes the initiative to reassure the LGBTQ communities of their legal status in response to public outcries, the heterosexist system it builds through censorship and legal and political intervention renders non-normative genders and sexualities unspeakable and invisible. This system exerts far-reaching influence on how queer issues are perceived in the society at large, especially when this rigid heterosexism gets translated into homophobia on personal levels.

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In June 2016, news broke out that a 22-year-old female university student was denied access to her diploma upon graduation at the prestigious Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GDUFS) in China’s southern city of Guangzhou. The cause of the university’s action was the student’s public proposal on campus to her girlfriend, who was also a student at the university. Although public proposals among straight couples were very common and were seen as a part of the local graduation celebration culture, the display of love and commitment between this lesbian couple triggered wide concerns among university authorities. The student was summoned to the office of her school’s party committee vice secretary, who claimed that her actions had “a negative impact” on the school and had violated the university’s student regulations related to “disseminating obscenity” and “disorderly conduct in a public place” (Churchill 2016, paras. 4–5). Not only was the student subjected to disciplinary investigations and was unable to collect her diploma, the school supervisor also contacted her parents and disclosed her sexual orientation without her consent, leading to furious actions on the part of the devastated parents, who broke into her apartment together with university officials in the name of collecting evidence. Though the student was eventually allowed to collect her diploma in the company of her parents, her demands for the university to publicly apologize for the damage done to her and her family and to establish a supervisory committee to prevent similar incidents in the future were never addressed. The GDUFS incident shows how familial and societal powers work together to keep gender and sexual non-conforming people in their places—within a rigid heterosexist system, these are “shadowy ghostly” positions that demand queer people to maintain the system at the expense of their own visibility and well-being (Liu and Ding 2005, p. 32). Being a good subject, and a good student in this case, requires silencing oneself and refraining from attracting public attention. More significantly, the incident also demonstrates how this heterosexist system creates homophobia by soliciting irrational discomfort and fear of queerness on a personal level among the non-queer public. This is evident from the labeling of the lesbian proposal as “obscene” and as provoking “public disorder” when its straight counterparts were tolerated if not celebrated. As the party secretary stated, she did not have any issue with gay people, as long as they do not “pester or disturb the lives of others” (Churchill 2016, para. 5). The expectation for gay people to practice reticence and to remain silent about queer issues means that any attempt to lift them from the realm of the unspeakable is considered outrageous and unacceptable. Individual homophobic responses emerge when censorship of queer-related contents becomes a routine— when queer people’s reticence is no longer seen as a personal choice, but is mandated by the heterosexist system in the name of the upkeep of its own integrity. In many ways, then, we observe in this incident the very same logic that underlies the People’s Daily opinion article cited early on, although the latter is often remembered as a victory for the LGBTQ community. The core message from the university authorities in GDUFS and from the opinion article is consistent despite their apparently divergent attitudes: In spite of/because of/regardless of LGBTQ people’s legal status in the society, they must learn to conform to heterosexist social conventions and refrain from disrupting established social harmony, even if it means forfeiting their own

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rights and entitlements. Behind such a heterosexist system are the implicit workings of homophobia, which does not often manifest itself through verbal and physical gay-bashing, but is executed through a politics of reticence: the demand of silence, the discomfort when the silence is broken, and the constant threat of silencing. Let us now return to the 798 beating incident in May 2018, which happened shortly after the publication of the People’s Daily article. The question behind the dismay and disappointment among LGBTQ-supportive communities in China is: how could this have happened? This question further encompasses two interconnected levels: First, how could security guards of the art district, who have no legal authority, prohibit people from entering a public space using violence? Second, why did this homophobic moment occur following apparently encouraging signs of tolerance and progress? I set out to address these questions at the beginning of this chapter, and let me now offer some insights drawing on the foregoing discussions. First, the security guards’ resort to violence can be seen as an extension of a heterosexist system of censorship and control. It is a physical manifestation of the routine removal of queer images, representations, and topics in media portrayal and public discussion. The security guards’ confession that they were “terrified” of homosexual people because of their “distorted sexual orientation” betrays the close link between heterosexism and political homophobia: Top-down political interventions inevitably translate into emotional responses at individual levels. The 798 incident hence signifies the emergence of a systemic homophobia. Combining institutionalized heterosexism and individual homophobic responses, this systemic homophobia is motioned by a persistent mechanism of censorship and reticence politics in China’s nonliberal political and media cultures. Second, the logic of this systemic homophobia—that it is premised upon a heterosexist system that does not seek to eliminate, but instead acknowledges and requires the complicity of, queerness—also determines that the parameters of an imagined linear, progressive, and liberationist politics are not sufficient in understanding contemporary Chinese queerness. As multiple examples in this chapter have shown, LGBTQ politics in China, more often than not, appears nonlinear and illogical. A framework focusing only on individual agency, monumentalist events, and the progress of social tolerance, therefore, fails to afford a comprehensive understanding of how LGBTQ politics plays out in China. On top of studies of queer representations, grass-root activism, and potentialities (all of which are important topics), we also need a sustained focus on the interactions between LGBTQ politics and state power, in order to make sense of how institutionalized forces do not merely serve as a backdrop, but constitute the very conditions of queer existence and survival in China today.

16.5 Conclusion Taking the 798 beating incident as a starting point, this chapter has offered a systematic approach in making sense of the apparently isolated queer silencing and gay-bashing incidents in contemporary China. It argues that the seemingly abrupt

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outbreak of violence toward queer people is in fact deeply rooted in a top-down structure of heterosexism, censorship, and reticence politics, which gives rise to a systemic homophobia at both individual and institutional levels. By doing so, this chapter attempts to expand the scope of analysis in contemporary Chinese queer studies from optimistic, bottom-up interpretations of individual agency and social progress to include the practical aspects of the top-down reinforcement of state and other institutionalized powers. If the objective of earlier Chinese queer studies is to argue for the existence and significance of queer cultures in contemporary China, it is time now to inquire into Chinese queer subjects’ conditions of survival and the limits these conditions impose on the development of LGBTQ politics and queer cultures.

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Lin Song is a postdoctoral fellow in communication at the University of Macau. His research focuses on gender, sexual, and national identities in popular and digital cultures in contemporary China. He has published in journals including Feminist Media Studies and Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, as well as edited books such as Queering Paradigms VII: Contested Bodies and Spaces (Peter Lang 2018) and The Cosmopolitan Dream: Transnational Chinese Masculinities in a Global Age (Hong Kong University Press 2018).

Conclusion: Quo Vadis, Chineseness? Chang-Yau Hoon and Ying-kit Chan

Departing from the definition of Chineseness in cultural essentialist and ethnic nationalist terms imposed by the Sinocenter, the chapters in Contesting Chineseness have richly documented the contextually diverse nature of Chineseness in China and Southeast Asia. This volume is admittedly a large and ambitious undertaking, but it has not least contributed to a more comprehensive understanding of how Chineseness has moved across different spatial and temporal confines by unpacking the term “Chinese,” which is so often used as a label for culture, ethnicity, language, literature, nation, and society. As a concept and as a lived reality, Chineseness is diverse, even in the so-called Greater China (encompassing mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) where a population commonly identified as “Chinese” reside. We are reminded that, historically, the word “Chinese” is used to refer to only the Han majority, while the non-Han minorities are by definition not Chinese. The more inclusive concepts of the Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu 中華民族) and Chinese nationals (Zhongguoren 中國人) to incorporate other minorities within the country’s territories were created only after the republic was founded (Wang 2019). Chan and Koh (2018) note that, for many Chinese overseas, the term Zhongguoren is not a territorial bounded term but a cultural term, which refers to people who are culturally and/or historically connected to China and Chinese culture. The government of the People’s Republic of China further promoted a monolithic, biologized, racialized, and “blood-based” notion of Chineseness such as Yanhuang zisun 炎黃子孫 (Chinese descendants), Huangzhongren 黃種人 (the yellow race), and Huaxia minzu 華夏民族 (Huaxia nationality) to encompass the Chinese who live outside the political and geographical boundaries of mainland China (Huaqiao huaren 華僑華人) and to socially construct a united Greater China (Lin and Jackson 2020). As Chan argues, “From the perspectives of the state, Chinese overseas are always part of the ‘blood and cell’ of the national body, who are supposed to be willingly contributing to the strengthening of the nation” (2018, p. 214). The continued

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9

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efforts of China in maintaining its role as the Sinocenter is demonstrated in its nationalistic discourse on the Chinese overseas, portraying them as “by default, patriotic and nostalgic” toward their “motherland” (zuguo 祖國) (Chan 2018, p. 214). Such efforts are aimed at constructing an imaginary, unified, and monolithic Chineseness while ignoring the different histories, expressions, and multiplicity of Chineseness, not just among the Chinese overseas, but also among those within the so-called Greater China. Desinicization Nonetheless, the notion of a biological or racial Chineseness has not only been challenged among the Chinese overseas, but also vehemently contested in Hong Kong and Taiwan in recent decades. As Lin and Jackson (2020) argue, “although the majority of Hong Kong people are ethnic Chinese, other factors, such as political ideology, economics, birthplace, language, and lifestyle, are more vital to the formation of Hong Kong identity.” The years after the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 witnessed a rise in local identity politics and resistance against China’s increasing political intervention and a disidentification with the term “Chinese” among the younger generation ensued (Chan and Koh 2018). The identities of Hong Kong people are complex and flexible: Some prefer to identify as “Hongkongese” vis-àvis “mainland Chinese”; some express a colonial nostalgia for Britain; and some embrace their Chinese identity for pragmatic reasons such as economic and political benefits. But most of them choose a mixed identification such as “Hong Konger in China” and “Chinese in Hong Kong” (Lin and Jackson 2020). On the other hand, Chineseness in Taiwan is inextricably intertwined with its political history and complicated relationship with mainland China. From the Kuomintang’s (KMT) postwar “anticommunist literature and arts” (fangong wenyi 反共文 藝) principle to the forceful “Sinicization policy” promoted by the Cultural Renaissance Movement in the 1960s, to the process of indigenization (bentu hua 本土化) and democratization following the lifting of martial law in 1987, the cultural policy in Taiwan had shifted from a traditional Chinese to contemporary Taiwanese identity (Chang 2004). Such a shift was intensified under KMT Lee Teng-hui’s leadership in the 1990s, when he aggressively promoted Taiwanization, albeit still recognizing that the people in Taiwan are both Chinese and Taiwanese who remained culturally connected with China. To him, Chineseness in the sense of historical, linguistic, and cultural links could help Taiwan tap into the Chinese political, cultural, and economic world so that it will not be an alienated island (Hughes 2011). However, indigenization and Taiwanization took a different turn in 2000 under Chen Shui-bian from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who systematically eliminated Chinese influences in Taiwan through a process of desinicization (qu Zhongguo hua 去中國化). The effects of the DPP desinicization policy are felt two decades later as the recent Pew Research Polls show that about two-thirds of adults in Taiwan identify as just Taiwanese, about three-in-ten (28%) see themselves as both Taiwanese and Chinese, and only 4% see themselves as Chinese. A majority (83%) of those who identify as just Taiwanese are between 18 and 29 years old (Devlin and Huang 2020).

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The recent events of the anti-China protest in Hong Kong, re-election of DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen as president in Taiwan, global COVID-19 pandemic and its associated anti-Chinese racial sentiments have again brought to the fore the contested nature of Chineseness. The disidentification of being Chinese among youths in Hong Kong and Taiwan are reactions toward the continuing encroachment of mainland Chineseness into the Sinophone space of the periphery. On the other hand, the racialization of the pandemic as a “Chinese virus” in some countries has not only led to indiscriminate hate crime against Asians in the West, but also problematically conflated people of Chinese descent around the world with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that is deemed as the adversary of the West, particularly the USA. Woon (2020) conjectured that there will be a nationalist backlash, fueled by the memory of historical oppression and racial prejudice, in China, or what Rey Chow calls “the logic of the wound” (1998, p. 6). Dubbed as “wolf-warrior diplomacy” (Zhu 2020), the responses from an assertive, confrontational, and unyielding China show a shift in Chinese diplomacy from the defensive to the offensive. It is not immediately clear what the effects of such a shift will have on global Chineseness, but what is certain is that the Chinese state will continue to inform the “past and future imaginings” of the Chinese overseas (Reid 2009, p. 197). Resinicization The chapters in this volume have demonstrated how Chinese overseas can disentangle, albeit incompletely, with China in a range of social phenomena such as architecture, family relations, language use, and popular culture; and that being Chinese is not an a priori identification with China as a geopolitical concept. However, the momentous rise of China as a new global superpower has given rise to renewed interest in Chineseness among Chinese overseas. The impact of China’s rise has a tremendous influence on the ways in which Chinese culture is strategically reconstructed in Southeast Asia. While desinicization and a rejection of Chineseness have been observed in Hong Kong and Taiwan, a process of “resinicization” has manifested in many parts of Southeast Asia as a resurgence of Chinese culture and language among Southeast Asian Chinese; it has been dubbed as the “Chinese Fever” (Hoon and Kuntjara 2019; Koh et al. 2020). Ang argues that the resinicization process is driven by “a passionate identification with and reification of ‘Chineseness’ as a globally relevant marker for identity and difference, and for which ‘China’…can be culturally defined as much as geographically located, forms the centre” (2001, p. 84). Such a process has been strengthened with rising China’s dedicated efforts to “‘resinicize’ the Chinese overseas and strengthen their cultural ties with [the motherland] in the hope that they will serve China’s national interests” (Suryadinata 2017, p. 182). The new maritime silk route and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) provide an opportunity for Beijing to strategically build on the economic role played by diasporic Chinese entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia and vice versa as these entrepreneurs turn their cultural capital into fiscal capital. Jacques (2008) thus conjectures that as China continues to rise, and as global interests in rising China continue to grow exponentially, “the Chinese diaspora is likely to expand greatly; enjoy growing prestige as a result of China’s

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rising status; and feel an even closer affinity with China” (para. 9). On the other hand, Wang (2015) argues that China endeavors to create an environment where it is respected for its wealth and creativity, which are necessary conditions for a modern civilization, rather than feared as a great power; its diaspora can share its pride. While the influence of the Sinocentre would likely continue, or even intensify, with the new assertive China, the ways in which Chinese overseas exercise their agentic power in utilizing their cultural capital of Chineseness will likely be based on pragmatic economic calculation rather than emotive cultural affinity. Quo Vadis, Chineseness? The idea of Chineseness, or the production of Chinese identities, has been greatly contested in existing scholarship. While supporters contend that the concept has enabled the study of Chinese migrants’ interactions with host societies and their partial assimilation into modern, non-Chinese nations, detractors charge that it produces a fiction of common origins, presumes cultural affinities, essentializes ethnic categories, and exaggerates the differences between Chinese and native populations. Nevertheless, the scholarly consensus is that the concept of Chineseness is both imagined (individuals adopt the explanations of primordiality—of bloodline and descent—to identify themselves as Chinese) and fluid (the very same individuals who identify with being Chinese can strengthen or discard their ethnic links based on what they see as advantageous in a situation and can also express their ethnic identity differently in terms of education, language, and religion). So far, in studies of Southeast Asia, the concept of Chineseness has been deployed to analyze only the domestic construction of Chinese communities and the rise of identity politics after decolonization. In Southeast Asian nation-states where Chinese migrants and settler descendants constitute a substantial minority (except for Singapore where ethnic Chinese form the majority), Chineseness creates a sense of the “other” against which new national identities are defined by political elites. This may assume either an institutional form, as in Malaysia’s affirmative policies toward the Malay majority, or a cultural form, in which it is portrayed as an alien culture compared to the dominant or majority culture, as in countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam (Chan 2020, p. 490). Our contributors have challenged the uncritical deployment of Chineseness in, among other fields, politics, scholarship, and history writing. But has the issue of Chineseness been resolved once and for all? Given new geopolitical developments in the context of China’s phenomenal rise, and given the continuing relevance of new fields of inquiry such as Sinophone studies, in questioning China’s cultural hegemony, the answer is clearly no. Moving forward, we propose that future research on Chineseness will invariably need to consider factors beyond nation-states in light of the increased global connectivity related to China’s ambitious BRI (Feng 2020) and new Chinese migration geographies (Chan 2018), as well as the geopolitical dynamics between China and Southeast Asia, especially on the South China Sea. Chinese foreign direct investment and the presence of Chinese enterprises overseas have risen significantly since the launch of the “Going Out Policy” in 1999 by the Chinese government to promote Chinese investments abroad, which was accelerated by the announcement of the BRI

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in 2013. Besides the circulation of financial capital, the global presence of Chinese companies has also led to the “going out” of human capital or new Chinese migrants and transient workers. The increased multiplicity and contestations of Chineseness are observable from the interactions between new migrants from China and the older generation of Chinese overseas and from the “concurrent formation and disruption of new and existing Chinese networks” (Chan and Koh 2018, p. 4). Studies on such exchanges will provide important insights into the new modalities of Chineseness in the new world order. There has arguably been a disciplinary bias in the studies of Chineseness, which are mostly confined to history, literature, cultural studies, and anthropology; the role of political economy in defining Chineseness has often been overlooked. Conventionally, Chineseness has been studied as a cultural phenomenon rather than as an economic phenomenon. Questions such as how Chineseness is defined across different social class is thus rarely addressed. One notable exception is a recent study by Chong (2018) on the clandestine relationships between ethnic Chinese capitalists in Indonesia and politico-bureaucrats in the oligarchy. It is imperative for future studies to examine Chineseness not only as social or cultural capital but also as economic capital. Subsequent research should also explore how Chineseness is constructed in the context of political and business milieus. Finally, future studies must consider the geopolitical influences on Chineseness. In Greater China, the case of Hong Kong and Taiwan are obvious, as discussed above. In Southeast Asia, on the other hand, the construction of Chineseness depends largely on the bilateral relations between China and Southeast Asian countries. For the time being, Chineseness is embraced positively by many Southeast Asian Chinese as an economic asset, especially given the opportunities provided by the BRI. Amid the new geopolitical dynamics of rising China, however, the age-old question on the loyalty of Chinese overseas and the suspicion of them as a fifth column of China could resurface if the indigenous population is provoked. No one could predict the potential backlash faced by the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia should the economic competition between China and their host country intensify. In such a scenario, domestic interests threatened by growing Chinese power, as well as outstanding geopolitical disputes in the South China Sea, may contribute to deteriorating bilateral relations between China and Southeast Asia. Chineseness, whether a blessing or a curse, thus remains contingent upon the nation-state as the Chinese continue to negotiate their existence in their own host country. And, as lived cultures and living languages and peoples, the Sinophone is perpetually engaged with local revisions and reinventions of Chineseness, so books such as the present volume must continue to appear so as to update us on what we should know about Chineseness in an ever-changing world.

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Index

A Académie Biloul, 214 Académie Colarossi, 214 Acupuncture massage, 185–189, 191–194, 196 Aesthetics, 203, 210, 211, 214, 215 African American Vernacular English (AAVE), 224, 230, 233, 234 Agency, 306–308, 312, 315, 316 Agora Society Malaysia, 141 Alibaba Literature (Ali Wenxue), 295 Amateur, 141 Ancestor-worship, 25–30, 32–37 Ancient-style (gufeng), Chinese-style (zhongguofeng/China Wind), 283, 289 Ang See, Teresita, 127 Anti-Chinese campaigns, 131 Anti-Chinese sentiments, 130 Arabs, 126 Architecture architectural symbolism, 63 Chinese style, 65 imperial Chinese architecture, 59, 60, 62, 65 Taiwanese architecture, 62, 66, 75, 78, 79 Art Council, The, 212 Art education, 201, 204, 210, 212 Art form, 211, 214, 217 Artistic institution, 217 Art Students Leagues, 214 Artwork, 202, 203, 215, 217 Asian International Friendship Foreign Language College. See STBA-PIA (Sekolah Tinggi Bahasa Asing Persahabatan Internasional Asia)

Asian themes, 202, 208, 214, 217 Assimilation, 2, 6, 167–169, 172, 175, 179 Assimilation policies, 129, 130, 132 Authenticity, 170, 174, 179 Awakening, The, 269, 272, 276, 277

B Bai Qiulian, 290, 291 Bandung Conference, 203, 206, 216 Basket, 211 Beating incident, 305, 315 Beauty Allure (Yao Yan Ling), 294 Beijing, 132, 136 Beijing Comics (Beijing Katong), 287 Belonging, 203, 207–210, 212, 216 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), 2, 131 Bicultural layered identity, 154 Billy Koh, 267, 271 Blossom of Twin Flowers (Liangsheng Huakai), 291 Bodily cultivation, 185, 188, 191–194, 196– 198 Body technique, 184, 191, 193, 195, 196 Boys’ comics, 298, 301 Boys’ love, 286, 293 Bras Basah Complex, 267, 268. See also "City of Books" British Burma; ethnic Chinese; Indian minority, 128 British Colonialism, 204 British Council, 213 British Malaya, 202, 216 British Malaya; ethnic Chinese, 127, 128 Brunei, 130, 132 Buddhism, 128, 130

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 C.-Y. Hoon and Y. Chan (eds.), Contesting Chineseness, Asia in Transition 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6096-9

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328 C Cai Zheng Xiong, 275 Cambodia; ethnic Chinese; Khmer Rouge; People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), 130 Canton, 127 Canton-Hong Kong Strike, 42, 45–47 Canvases, 211 Cartoon King (Katong Wang), 287 Censorship, 306–309, 311–316 Chancellor in Substitution, The (Daijia Chengxiang), 293 Chan Choon Siang, 277 Chang’an, 290, 292 Chang’an Magical Night (Changan Huanye), 288, 290–292 Changge’s Journey (Changge Xing), 290, 292, 300 Channel 8, 265, 266, 269, 272, 274, 275 Chaozhou, 127 Chen, Botao, 45, 54, 55 Chen Chong Swee, 202, 203, 214 Chendana, 207 Chenderawaseh, 207 Cheng Kai-shek, 74 Cheng Khay Community Space, 141 Chen Lüfan, 107, 112, 113 Chen Wen Hsi, 202, 203, 214 Cheong Soo Pieng, 202, 203 Chew Chor Meng, 272 Chia Yi Wei, 268 Chihua (becoming red), 49, 50 China, 125–129, 131, 132, 136–142 China dream, 284 China International Cartoon and Game (CCG) Expo, 298 China News Agency, 138 China Rich Girlfriend, 228 China threat, 2 Chinese American-born Chinese, 241, 255 Chinese dialects, 240, 241, 243–246, 248, 251–254, 257, 258 Chinese identity, 239, 253, 256, 258 Chinese immigrants, 240, 245, 256 Chineseness, 239, 240, 244, 248, 254, 258 Chinese Singaporean, 245, 251 Han Chinese, 239, 240 Malaysian Chinese, 252, 253, 256, 258 Peranakan Chinese, 245, 246 Straits Chinese, 245 Chinese/Malay films, 83–97

Index Chinese characteristics, 283, 285, 288, 292, 296, 298, 301 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 17, 19, 25, 26, 31, 35, 203, 206 Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement, 61, 62, 73, 74 Chinese culture, 151, 153, 156, 159, 161, 162 Chinese diaspora, 149, 153, 164, 202, 204, 213, 225, 227, 228 Chinese festivals, 154, 160–162 Chinese homosexual citizens, 306 Chinese identity, 95, 97, 150, 154, 157, 161, 162, 164 Chinese Indonesians, 168, 169, 175–179 Chinese LGBTQ groups, 310 Chinese nation, 25, 28–30, 35 Chinese nationalism, 31 Chineseness, 223–228, 230, 232, 234, 235, 283–285, 288–294, 296, 297, 299– 301 Chinese overseas, 149, 150, 152, 155, 161, 162, 164, 203–206 Chinese philosophy, 151 Chinese queerness, 306–308, 315 Chinese queer studies, 316 Chinese Talentine, 273 Chinese totem, 206 Chongqing Yuanman Cartoon Design (Yuanman Dongman), 294 Chow, Shou-son, 48 Chu, Jon M., 224 Citizenship, 11, 16, 17 Civilization, 202 Civil Rights Committee (CRC), Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH), 139 Civil War, The, 203 Clementi, Cecil, 43, 47–55 Code-mixing, 224, 233 Cold War, 126, 129, 141, 142, 202–205, 207, 208, 216, 217 Colin Goh, 267 Colonialism, 6, 9, 15 Colonial Shinto shrines production, 78, 79 re-appropriation, 72, 74, 78 Comic Fans (Manyou), 287 Comics Factory (Man Gongchang), 294 Communist China, 202, 206 Confucian, 313 Confucianism, 7, 19, 46, 49, 51, 52 Confucian temple, 30 Confucian values, 151, 152, 164

Index Confucius classrooms. See Confucius Institutes Confucius Institute Headquarters. See Hanban Confucius institutes, 132–136, 140, 178 Confucius Temples in Taiwan, 74 Construction, 201, 208, 212, 216, 217 Cosmopolitan, 201, 208–210, 212, 214–216 COVID-19, 321 Crazy Rich Asians, 223–228, 232, 234, 235 Cultural impact, 217 Cultural interactions, 203 Cultural Medallion, 201 Cultural Medallion Winner, 215 Cultural practice, 202, 203, 208, 212, 214, 216, 217 Cultural production, 208, 215, 217, 310, 312 Cultural resource, 28, 32–34, 36, 37, 169, 177–179 Cultural revolution, 4, 8 Cultural significance, 211 Cultural sphere, 216 Cultural synthesis, 167, 169 Cultural translation, 12 Culture-bearing aspects, 150, 151

D Dai, 103, 106, 107, 113 Daily life, 211, 212, 214 Daughter of the Peasant, The (Nongnu Shuse), 295 David Marshall, 206 Dawn Gan, 274 Daxingdao Comics (Daxingdao Dongman), 295 Dialects, 150, 153, 155–157, 161–163 Diaspora, 201, 202, 204–206, 216, 239, 252, 255–258 Diaspora moment, 204–206, 216, 217 Diaspora time, 204–206, 216, 217 Diasporic Chineseness, 224, 227, 235 Digital comic platforms, 288 Ding Bing, 287, 292 Diplomacy, 16 Discrimination, 2, 11, 13 Diversity, 210 Dongman (animation and comics), 296 Dorothy Bordass, 214 Dreams in Loulan (Loulan Yimeng), 292 Dreams in the Garden (Youyuan Jingmeng), 288, 299 Dutch, 126, 127

329 Dutch East India Company (VOC), 126 Dutch East Indies, 127

E Eastern philosophy, 214 Ecological niches, 163 English accents, 233 English as a lingua franca, 223, 228 English dialects, 224, 228, 235 Erciyuan Comics (Erciyuan Dongman), 295 Eric Moo, 264, 267, 270, 275 Essentialism, 171, 175–177, 179 Ethnic identity, 150, 151, 153, 154, 157, 162, 164 Eugene Chen, 205, 207, 209 Europeans, 126, 140 Eva Tang, 263, 268 Evil King and Fairy Concubine (Xiewang Shenfei), 295 Exhibition, 201, 210, 212–215, 217

F Family obligations, 158, 159, 163, 164 Fan Gaolin, 28 Fang Guanghua, 28 Federation of Malaya, 202, 216 Female artists, 203, 209, 211, 212, 216 Fengshui, 64 Fifth column, 129, 142 Film distribution, 92 Forbidden City Beijing, 59, 60, 63, 64 Foreign Orientals, 126 Founder of Diabolism, The (Modao Zushi), 293 Fox Spirit Match Maker (Huyao Xiaohongniang), 299, 300 French Indochina, 127 Friendship, 209 Fujian, 127 Fuzhou, 127

G Gangtai, 266, 268 Garden city, 210 Ge Jianxiong, 29, 37 Gender blindness, 203 Gender transitioning (xingzhuan), 294 General Administration of Press and Publication (of China), 286 General American (GenAm), 224, 228–230, 233, 234

330 Georgette Chen Li Ying, 201 Girl in a Pinafore, The, 268 Girls’ comics, 284, 286, 295, 299 Global consequences, 217 Globalization, 168–170, 175, 203, 205, 283, 284, 293, 297, 301 Going Global strategy, 131 Golden Age Chinese Talentine, 273 Government Standard Two National Language Examination, The, 208 Grand design, 208 Great China complex, 126, 137, 138, 140– 142 Guoji Ribao (International Daily), 140

H Hainan, 127, 136 Hainanese, 126 Hakka, 126, 127 Hanban, 132, 133, 137 Han-centric, 26, 31, 32, 35, 37 Han Chinese culture, 31, 32 Han Chinese, Han ethnicity, 290–293, 296, 298 Han ethnicity, 2, 3, 6 Hanfu (traditional Han Chinese clothing), 298 Han Lu, 287, 288, 290, 291 Hanzi (Chinese characters), 31 Happy Trio, 270, 272, 274. See also Happy 123 Harian Nusantara. See Qiandao Ribao (The Archipelago Daily) Healing Fairy Baizhi, The (Baizhi Yixian), 295 Hegemonic, 3, 6, 16, 19 Hegemonic masculinity, 311 Heteronormativity, 306 Heterosexism, 308–310, 313, 315, 316 Heterosexist discursive regime, 310, 311 Heterosexist system, 310, 312–315 Hip-hop, 241–244, 246, 248, 250–253, 255 Historicity, 28–30 Hokkien, 126 Hollywood cinema, 223, 224, 231 Ho, Ming-sho, 141 Homophobia, 305, 306, 308–310, 313–316 Homosexual citizens, 310 Homosexual scenes, 311 Hong Kong colonialism, 43, 44, 46, 49, 51, 54, 55 dual identity, 41

Index paradox in time, 52, 55 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests, 138, 140 Hong Man Fatt, Joshua, 138 Hoon, Chang-Yau, 129, 136, 137 Ho Yung Chi, 201, 205 Huangdi (the Yellow Emperor), 25, 34, 35 Huangdi Zisun (The descendants of the Yellow Emperor), 26 Huang Gui Qin, 263 Huang Kun Zhang, 129 Huang Yuan Cheng, 267 Huan Niang, 290, 291 Huaqiao, 16 Huaren, 16, 17 Huaxia 華夏 (Central States or Central Plain), 31 Hu Rong, 287, 290 Hu Ronqin, 263 Hwa Chong Institution, 269 Hybridity, 168–173, 175–177, 179 Hybridization, 12, 13 I Identification, 202, 204, 206, 210, 216 Identity, 201–204, 206, 209–211, 214, 216, 217, 239–241, 243, 244, 247–251, 254–258 Identity transition process, 217 Ideological conflicts, 209 Illegal activity, 305 Imperial Palace Beijing, 60–65, 69, 71, 72, 74–76, 78, 79 Indians, 126, 128, 130, 131 Indigenism, 126, 129 Individual response, 217 Indonesia, 167–169, 171–179 Indonesia; ethnic Chinese; Presidential Decree No. 10, in 1959, 129 Infringement, 305 Institution, 212–214 Intellectual trajectories, 62, 71, 78–80 International affairs, 217 International political conflicts, 205 Intertextuality, 290 Islam, 127 Islamic Chineseness, 183, 194, 197, 198 Islamization, 172 J Japanese, 126 Japanese colonisation

Index D¯oka (assimilation), 66 K¯ominka (imperialisation), 66 Seiz¯o Kobayashi, 68 JJ Lin, 268, 271 Joanna Dong, 268 Joy Luck Club, The, 224 K Ke Xin, 287 King Rama VI. See King Vajiravudh King Vajiravudh; “The Jews of the Orient”, 128 Kit Chan, 268 Koh Nam Seng, 267, 271 Kopi-O, 264, 270, 275, 276 Korean Crisis, 205 Kotewall, Robert, H., 45–47, 49 Kriangsak Chamanan, 112 Kukrit Pramoj, 106, 112 Kuntjara, Esther, 136, 137 Kuomintang in Taiwan, 60–62, 65, 72–79 Kuomintang (KMT), 203 Kwan, Kevin, 224, 229 L Lai, Tsi-hsi, 51 Laos; ethnic Chinese; Pathet Lao, 130 Lee Hsien Loong, 265, 268, 273 Legacy, 208, 212, 215, 217 Legal protection, 306 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT), 293, 294 LGBT movements, 310 LGBTQ rights, 305 LGBTQ-supportive communities, 305, 315 Liang Li Ren, 277 Liang Wern Fook (Liang Wen Fu), 267, 269, 274 Lianhuanhua (sequential picture books), 286 Li Boqian, 30 Lifeng Animation and Comics (Lifeng Dongman), 291 Lim Hak Tai, 212, 213 Lim Lian Geok, 141 Lim Lian Geok Cultural Development Centre (LLG Cultural Development Centre), 141 Lin Xi, 287, 290 Lin Ying, 287, 288 Li Shun Yuan, 263 Liu Fangbin, 136

331 Liu Kang, 202, 203, 214, 215 Liu Qingzhu, 30 Liu, Xiaobo, 139 Li Xueqin, 28, 29, 33 Li, Yin-tsun, 48 Li, Zhengxian, 137, 138 Local art style, 202 Local consciousness, 210, 216 Local consequences, 217 Local feature, 212, 214 Local forces, 217 Local identity, 212 Localization, 203, 207 Localness, 210 Lohanda, Mona, 126 Lu, Xun, 53

M Malayan culture, 84, 85, 94–97 Malayan Union, 203 Malaysia-China Chamber of Commerce (MCCC), 140 Malaysia; ethnic Chinese; May 13, 1969 interethnic riots; New Economic Policy (NEP); United Malays National Organization (UMNO), 129 Malaysiakini, 138, 140 Male-dominated artistic system, 216 Male homosexuality, 306, 307, 309 Mandao Culture (Mandao Wenhua), 294 Mandarin, 169, 174, 176, 178 Muar Mandarin, 253, 254, 258 Speak Mandarin Campaign, 245 Manga (Japanese comics), Sh¯ojo manga (Japanese girls’ comics), 283–289, 293, 295, 297, 299–301 Manhua (Chinese comics), Shaonu manhua (Chinese girls’ comics), 283–301 Mao Tse-tung, 201 Martyrs’ Shrines Hualien Martyrs’ Shrines, 59, 60, 72, 73, 75 National Revolution Martyrs’ Shrine Taipei, 59, 61, 74–77 Martyrs’ Shrines in Taiwan, 60, 62, 63, 72, 76 Masculinist national discourse, 311 Masculinity, 311, 312 Materiality, 78 Maurice Utrillo, 214 Mavis Hee, 268 May Fourth Movement, 42

332 Mei Lanfang, 288 Michel de Certeau, 210 Migration, 240, 245 Minister of Education of Singapore, 210 Min Yao, 264, 278 Modern art, 214, 216 Modernity, 3, 205, 210, 216 Monkey King: Hero Is Back (Dasheng Guilai), 297 Morality, 310, 311 Morris Minor, 210, 216 Motif, 207, 209, 211, 214, 216, 217 Multi-cultural, 208, 212 Multicultural perspectives, 202, 210 Multi-ethnic, 208–210, 216 Multiple Chineseness, 153 Multi-racial, 207, 212, 215 Multi-racialism, 244, 246, 248 Mu Zi, 277

N Nanchao, 102, 103, 106, 112–114 Nanyang, 202–204, 207, 210, 212, 215, 216 Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), 202, 212–215, 217 Nanyang Art, 201, 203, 208, 212–217 Nanyang style, 201, 202, 204, 208, 210–215, 217 Nanyang trade, 149, 155 Nanyang University, 125, 131 Nanyang University (Nantah), 264, 266, 278 Nathan Hartono, 268 National agenda, 215 National ancestor, 25, 26, 28, 30, 33, 35 National art, 210, 212 National Art Gallery, 212 National comics (guoman), 283, 285, 296– 301 National Heritage Board, 269 National identity, 203, 208, 217 National independence, 204, 205 Nationalism, 3, 8, 10, 11, 16, 17, 85, 89, 97, 204, 212 Nationalism, Consumer nationalism, 283, 300, 301 Nationality, 206, 208 National People’s Congress (of China), 298 National Theatre, 270 National University of Singapore, 125, 131 Nation building, 18 Necropolitics, 61, 65, 72, 76, 78, 79 Neo-Confucianism, 151

Index New homeland, 202, 212 New Territories, 49, 50 Ne Zha, 297 Ng Guan Seng, 271 Nobody Knows (Zi Buyu), 288, 291 Normality, 307, 310 North Borneo; ethnic Chinese, 127, 128 North Sumatra Chinese Community Social and Education Association (MITSUPSP), 132 Nostalgia, 202, 206 O Obscene, 314 Ocean Butterflies, 267, 271 Oriental Daily, 140 Orthodoxy, 26 Otherworldliness, 293, 296 Overseas Chinese, 201–203, 206, 212, 216, 217 Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, 137 P Parian, 127 Patrick Cheng, 273 Paul Cézanne, 214 Pedagogical strategy, 215 Penang, 201, 206 Peninsular Malaya, 204 Pen name, 207, 216 Pennycook, Alastair, 243, 252, 253 People’s Action Party (PAP), 125 People’s Republic of China, The, 202, 203, 206, 216 Peranakan, 167, 171–175, 177, 179 Peranakan Chinese, 224 Perspectives, 308 Philippines; ethnic Chinese, 125, 127, 130, 135 Pioneering generation of artists, 204 Political status, 205 Political transitional period, 204, 205 Political turbulence, 205 Portuguese Timor; ethnic Chinese, 127, 128 Post-impressionist, 214 Postmodern, 170 Post-structuralist, 12 Post-war Singapore and Malaya, 204, 216, 217 Post-war Southeast Asia, 217 Post-war Taiwan, 65, 79 Power symbolism, 63, 66

Index Primordial affinities, 153 Primordialism, 168, 175 Princess Is a Man, The (Gongzhu Shi Nanren), 294 5155 Project, 286, 287 Propaganda, 208, 311, 312 Prosthetic memory, 256–258 Psychic Concubine, The (Tongling Fei), 290 Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, 286 Public visibility, 311 Q Qiandao Ribao(The Archipelago Daily), 139, 140 Qiaoban.See Overseas Chinese Affairs Office Qigong, 191–193 Qiman Culture (Qiman Wenhua), 295 Qing dynasty, 3, 7, 9 Qing loyalism, 43, 47, 51, 52, 54, 55 Qi (vital energy), 185–187, 191, 192 Quanzhou, 127 Queer images, 315 Queer theory, 306 R Race relations, 97 Radio Free Asia, 139 Rainbow badges, 305 Ramadan, 185, 186, 189–191, 193 Rambutan, 211 Rap, 241–244, 246–254, 257 Received Pronunciation (RP), 224, 226, 228–231 Record of Nanyanzhai, The (Nanyanzhai Bilu), 291 Reform and opening-up, 286 Representation, 223–225, 234, 235 Republic of Singapore, The, 212, 216 Resinicization, 169, 177, 179 Reticence, 313–315 Reticence politics, 306, 308, 313, 315, 316 Rigg, Jonathan, 125 Rise of China, 168, 169, 177–179 Rites, 152, 159–161, 163 Ritual ablution (wudu), 185, 187, 188 Ritual discourse, 183, 185, 194–198 Ritual fast, 185, 189–191, 198 Romance of the Ghost Maiden Nie Xiaoqian (Qiannv Youhun), 287

333 Romantic comedy, 223–225, 229, 235 Rose, Tricia, 241 Rou Rou, 290

S Safran, William, 257 Saigon, 130 Salat (Islamic prayer), 183, 186, 195 Sangkhomsat Parithat, 104, 105, 109 Second World War, 129 Sekolah Tinggi Bahasa Asing Persahabatan Internasional Asia (STBA-PIA), 132 Self-discipline, 313 Selfhood, 203 Self-portrait, 209, 216 Sentiments, 203, 204, 207 Settlement, 216 Sexual citizenship, 313 Sexuality, 307–313 Sexual non-conforming, 314 Sexual orientation, 305, 310, 314, 315 Shanghai Animation Film Studio, 287 Shen Hui Zheng, 139 Shih, Shu-Mei, 239, 240, 247, 251, 257 Silencing, 306, 313–315 Sin Chew Jit Poh, 140 Sin Chew Media Corporation Berhad, 132 Singapore, 201–204, 206–217, 263–278 Singapore Academy of Arts, 212 Singapore Art Society, 213 Singapore; bilingualism; ethnic Chinese; “official mother tongue”, 131 Singapore Broadcasting Corporation, 265, 271–273, 275, 277 Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) or Singlish, 224, 229, 231–234 Speak Good English Movement, 247 Singapore National Gallery, 215 Singapore River, 211 Singapore’s first generation of artists, 213, 215 Singapore’s pioneer artists, 201–204, 208, 214, 215, 217 Singapore Teacher’s Art, Craft and Photography Exhibition, 210 Singapore University, 125, 131 Sinicization, 72, 73 Sinitic languages, 240, 241, 247, 248, 251, 253 Sinlapawatthanatham, 110, 113, 114, 116, 117 Sino-centric, 202, 213

334 Sino-centrism, 3 Sino-Malay, 173, 174 Sinophone, 4, 15, 16, 18, 240, 251, 252, 255–258 Social equality, 306 Social media, 305, 309, 310 Songs We Sang, The, 263, 264, 267–270 Southeast Asia, 202, 204, 209, 216 Southeast Asia; ethnic Chinese, 125, 126, 129, 131–133, 136–142 Spanish, 127 Sparrow With Twigs, 267 Spatial design, spatiality, 62, 67, 74, 78 Speak Mandarin Campaign, 266, 268, 277, 278 Spirit of tropics, 202, 210 Standard Singapore English (SSE), 224, 231–234 Star Search, 272 State-level worship, 28, 29, 32 State power, 306, 307, 313, 315 Stephanie Sun, 268 Still life, 211, 214, 216 Story of Hua Yan (Hua Yan Ce), 291 Straits Settlements, 86, 88–91 Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai Zhiyi), 287 Straw, The, 271 Stretching exercises, 183, 185, 186, 188, 189, 191–193, 196, 198 Stubbs, Reginald Edward, 45–48 Subjectivity, 203, 209, 210, 212, 216 Suharto, 129, 132, 136, 139, 167–169, 175, 177–179 Sujit Wongthes, 110, 113, 114 Sunkist Ng, 271 Sun Yat-sen, 128 Super Comics (Shangman), 298 Superpowers, 203, 205 Suppression, 2 Syncretism, 168, 169 Systemic, 306–308, 313, 315, 316 T Taiwan, 141 Tale of Zhen Huan :Xu Hua Lie, The (Zhen Huan Zhuan:Xu Hua Lie), 293 Tang China, Tang dynasty, 290–292 Tang Nan Fa.See Hong Man Fatt, Joshua Tanya Chua, 268 Taoism, 293 Tencent Animation and Comics (Tengxun Dongman), 284, 288

Index Teo Kay Kiong, 267 Thailand; ethnic Chinese; Kasetsart University; Last Name Law in 1913, 128 Than, Mya, 128, 132 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, 138, 139 Tiaoman (strip comics), Webtoon, 286, 289, 293, 296, 299, 300 Timor-Leste, 132 Totok, 167, 168, 171, 174, 175 Traditional Chinese values, 150, 151, 156, 157, 162 Traditions, 152–157, 161–164 Transformation, 202, 203, 216 Transnational framework, 202, 216, 217 Trans-regional, 207 Trauma, 205, 207, 209 Tropical character, 202, 212 Tropical elements, 214 Tropical newfound homeland, 208 Ts’o, Seen-wan, 48 Tuen Mun, 53, 54 Tung Wah Hospital, 44 Turbulent moment, 205 Twelve Five-Year Plan, 298

U Uncertainty, 204, 212, 216 Under the Singapore Skies, 268

V Victor Podgorsky, 214 Vietnam; ethnic Chinese; Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), 131 VOC.See Dutch East India Company (VOC)

W Wang Bangji, 263 Wang Gungwu, 201, 202 Water flows finely and slowly over long periods of time, 269 Weibo, 305, 309, 310 Wei Ying, 293 Weng Su Yin, 275 Western techniques, 202, 211, 214, 216 West Java, 129 What the Master Would Not Discuss (Zi Buyu), 291 Wijayakusuma, Hembing (張鑫銘), 184– 191, 193, 194, 196–198 Winston Koh, 271 World Trade Organization (WTO), 131

Index World War II, 202–204, 213 Wu Jiaming, 273, 275, 276 Wuxia (martial arts), 293

X Xia Da, 287, 288, 290, 291, 299 Xianghai mingshan (Fragrant Sea and Famed Mountain), 53, 54 Xiao Xin, 299 Xinhai Revolution, 60 Xinhua News Agency, 138 Xinmanhua (new comics), 286, 287 Xinyao, 263–278 Xinzheng, 26–29, 32–34, 36 Xu Jialu, 27, 29

335 Xu Lin, 140

Y Yan’an, 25, 26, 28, 30, 33, 35 Yayun Band, 263 Young generation of artists, 213 Young Songwriters’ Society, 267 Youth Comics (Shaonian Manhua), 287

Z Zhang Ailing, 209 Zhou Enlai, 206 Zoning and pass systems, 127 Zuo Xiao Ling, 293