Living TRAVEL - SINGAPORE 2012
 
Peranakan Folk Museum
Artefacts mostly from 1890 - 1910 approx.
 

Full Bridal Costume - silk cotton and gold thread




Bridal jewellery - gold
 

Bridal head-dress - silver and gold
 

 Peranakan Wedding Bed from Penang
 

Wardrobe with gold decoration
 

Chair and table
 

Pottery


 

 

 



Hok, Lock and Siew - the 3 star gods representing happiness, prosperity and longevity
- enamelled porcelain, mid 20th century

MORE SINGAPORE

Peranakan Chinese and Baba-Nyonya are terms used for the descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants to the Indonesian archipelago of Nusantara during the Colonial era.
Members of this community in Melaka address themselves as "Nyonya Baba" instead of "Baba-Nyonya". Nyonya is the term for the ladies and Baba for the gentlemen. It applies especially to the ethnic Chinese populations of the British Straits Settlements of Malaya and the Dutch-controlled island of Java and other locations, who have adopted to Nusantara customs -- partially or in full -- to be somewhat assimilated into the local communities. Many were the elites of Singapore, more loyal to the British than to China.

Most have lived for generations along the straits of Malacca and not all intermarried with the local Native Indonesians and Malays. They were usually traders, the middleman of the British and the Chinese, or the Chinese and Malays, or vice versa because they were mostly English educated. Because of this, they almost always had the ability to speak two or more languages. In later generations, some lost the ability to speak Chinese as they became assimilated to the Malay Peninsula's culture and started to speak Malay fluently as a first or second language.

While the term Peranakan is most commonly used among the ethnic Chinese for those of Chinese descent also known as Straits Chinese (土生華人; named after the Straits Settlements), there are also other, comparatively small Peranakan communities, such as Indian Hindu Peranakans (Chitty), Indian Muslim Peranakans (Jawi Pekan) (Jawi being the Javanised Arabic script, Pekan a colloquial contraction of Peranakan) and Eurasian Peranakans (Kristang) (Kristang = Christians). The group has parallels to the Cambodian Hokkien, who are descendants of Hoklo Chinese. They maintained their culture partially despite their native language gradually disappearing a few generations after settlement.
[Wikipedia]

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