Creating this series of videos, I am well aware that there would be instances of discrepancies, errors in facts, errors in general opinion, distortions and misleading information. Despite all that, I endeavor to bring you the history based on what I have researched, according to the information I have at hand, and also based on my understand and interpretation of what I have. I do apologize for any error that appears. I will add these to the description text when these are pointed out to be and can be substantiated. Consider each video as work in progress as we continue to expand on our knowledge. What is important is that these videos help us ignite conversations of our past, which others may not have stated. If you discover an error, please inform me in the common in the most courteous way. Any discourteous comment will be removed. It is not in my habit of responding to rude comments, my usual action is to scrub the comment section of any discourtesy, so that others enjoy a pleasant reading of one another's comments. Anyone who is rude may also be muted, so think twice before penning something offensive. It may result in your not being able to comment in the future. As a general rule, I address all as sir, unless I know you as a woman, then I will address you as madam. I will not be calling you brother, bro, sis, sister, miss, ms or mister. By this, you will have a good idea of the general tone of this platform.
I like the analogy of the Coffee, Milk and Ice to describe the groups. You first explained how "Peranakan" came about, and then the "Baba Nyonyas" as descendants of the former group. However, I defer in opinion. It is difficult to pin point when exactly the terms "Baba" and "Nyonya" came into existence and used to describe a community. Probably in the late Dutch colonial period of Melaka. This is because the same terms were also used in the Dutch East Indies. Anyway, before Baba-Nyonyas called themselves Baba-Nyonyas, they did not call themselves "Peranakan", they simply called themselves "Chinese". Even when "Baba" and "Nyonya" became terms to refer to the community, they still called themselves "Chinese". It became more distinct during the British era when the Brits were categorising the racial groups and classified those born in the Straits Settlements (Straits-born) vs the foreign Chinese. This impacted the social lives of the Baba-Nyonyas as they were now recognised by the Crown, and they proudly proclaimed their new status. There are distinction between Straits-born vs Straits Chinese: 1. Straits-born Chinese - refers to someone born in the Straits Settlement and has Chinese Origin. This includes both Baba-Nyonyas and even Chinese who are not of the Baba-Nyonya community, but born in the Straits Settlement. 2. Straits Chinese - refers to someone of Chinese Origin, living in the Straits Settlement. It includes those born in Straits Settlement and born else where, incl. China. In the past, the Baba-Nyonyas hardly referred themselves as "Peranakan", not until 1960s when the Straits Settlements were dissolved and the British left Malaya and Singapore. It then did not make sense to call themselves "Straits Chinese" because, there were no Straits Settlements, hence, adopting the term "Peranakan" was a better fit to describe the community because they still saw themselves different from the Sinkek. In its truest core, "Peranakan" was a term used by the Malays to describe someone (who isn't of native ancestry) born in the Nusantara region i.e. Malay world. It was initially more associated with the Jawi Peranakan and Bugis Peranakan communities. However, today, as these communities dwindled in numbers and the lack of any established associations, their descendants get subsumed into the wider "Malay" racial group. On the contrary, the Baba Nyonya communities are still very much known because of the presence of the Straits Chinese Associations (mostly headed by Baba Nyonya descendants). And because these associations substituted "Straits Chinese" with "Peranakan" in the 60s, the term has now became synonymous with them instead. Of course, in more recent times there have been interest to revive the other Peranakan-type communities. With this regard, I do not agree with your argument that there were waves of terminologies. I agree there were waves of migration, but it did not impact the use of the terms mentioned. It was more of socio-political and socio-economic factors that added complexity to the terms, and especially so for "Peranakan".
Oh ya, I totally agree with you that they call themselves Chinese, or even possible, they call themselves Hokkien! I think I mentioned that in another video, the one on Peranakan, Baba Nyonya and Straits Chinese. Thank you so much for sharing your opinion. Actually we are more in agreement than you thought we are!
I am a jaffna Tamil. My grandparents were working in Malaysia , Survey department of Malaysia. My grandma told me many stories of the difficult life of Chinese people. Many Chinese tin miners used to come to my grandparents home asking for permit for tin mining. My grandfather , an honest man, never get bribe from the miners. He helped many she said. Also the very sad stories during the Japanese occupation. Hiding pregnant Chinese ladies in the house to protect from the Japanese army. Very hard working of old Chinese people. Growing ducks,pigs etc. Also i heard some rich Chinese people wear a kind of shoes to their daughters so that their feet do not grow big. My grandparents return to Jaffna in 1950 after retirement. My grandfather was awarded a medal for preserving the Malaysian maps falling the hand of Japanese army. Also played a major role in completing the survey of Malaysia and the prepare the map. They always call Malaya. I remembered the cities they lived ipoh.seramban, Taiping, kulalampur etc.
My grandmother been inherited lands - land with orchards and land with my Indian tenants. I didnt ask if the tenants were the r es Tamils, Punjabis or Hindus bu😮 I think they were mainly. Tamils. Thank you for saving the Chinesen from the Japs😮 genocide My grandfather was Taken from his house by the Japs and never. Returned.
The Chinese who arrived during the Sin3khaek3 period had a truly hard life, forced to live their motherland through famine, flood and wars, and now penniless in the new land. Through sheer hard work, they crawled out of hardship, and now today, most of their descendants are living largely middle class lives.
@@thiruchelvamselvaratnam2252 Yes, I hear stories like that of people like yr grandfather. Brother, if I may, as a Malaysian Chinese, I want to say a sincere Thank You to yr grandparents. And best wishes to u and yours. Thank You
@@thiruchelvamselvaratnam2252 I salute your grandparents for their bravery, kindness and contribution to the Malayan society. Btw my great grandmother had lotus feet and wore that special tiny shoes. She removed her foot binding when she migrated to Malaya. Unfortunately, her foot were crippled by the binding and she cannot walk fast.
It's my pleasure! We dearly need to know our own history, so that we can appreciate our identity, why we, the Chinese of West Malaysia and Singapore, are here, so far from our original homeland, what got us here, why are we speaking the Chinese languages such as Penang Hokkien, Singapore Hokkien, Cantonese, etc. Those are questions which many of us may have wanted to ask, but in the past, there wasn't anybody with the researched answers.
Thank you so much. Yes indeed, I am on a quest to undercover history, for I consider it part of my identity, and I will question all existing knowledge that has already been put in front of us.
We very much appreciate your efforts, Mr Timothy Tye. There is so much that we do not know about our history. You have opened our eyes to our rich story. Thank you
You are most welcome. Of course this is not the end of the research. It will continue on and on. Meanwhile, there will be more videos touching on different aspects of Chinese history as it relates to the history of the Chinese in West Malaysia and Singapore.
A very detailed and excellent presentation of the subject. Very good show. Thanks. I am a first gerneration Singapore Chinese Hokkien from Quangzhou (Chuanchew), from the county of Nan-an.👍👍
First generation? If you are young, that means you migrated from communist China. If you are old- above 75, YOU 1:03:46 had migrated from ROC. Singapore stopped immigration from China from 1958. In the 1990s it was resumed. Now alot of Communist Chinese people come to Singapore to work,set up shops The yellow locasts have arrived.
It's so interesting to see your video Timothy and to read all the comments. Thank you for making the videos. I understand a lot more from your knowledge.
Thank you for watching. You certainly do not need to be a Chinese to gain knowledge about the Chinese. In my case, I am Cantonese (Taishanese Cantonese, to be exact), but this research is focused mainly on the Hokkien, our neighbouring subethnic Chinese group.
😊🙏 My late mother was borned in Ipoh , Perak , Malaya during the 1920s into a Tin Mining family ... Her father helped a lot of village people to survive during WWII in Ipoh , Perak! A lot of my school mates of Indonesian , Pakistani & Arab descendant Malaysians were borned in the 1960s & after their parents migrated to Malaysia in the 1960s & 1970s ... So many Non-Malay Malaysians actually borned in Malaysia earlier than many Malay Malaysians of today! Anyway , the ancient history of India & China , Hinduism , Taoism are 5,500 years old , while Buddhism is around 2,600 years old as can be traced back with the many old Hindu , Taoist & Buddhist Temples in South East Asia , way before Christianity , Judaism & Islam reached Malaya some 1447H or 2024 Gregorian years ago! 😊🙏 Thank You So Much for these detailed & history facts based mini documentaries of the early settlers in Malaya! 🙏🕯🌷🌿🌎✌💜🕊🇲🇾🇸🇬
Thank you for the video, brings back nostalgia of our past ancestry. I am 4th gen hakka chinese living in Penang. My great grandfather & grandfather migrated from Guang Dong (梅州丰顺) to Ipoh Perak.
That is incredibly interesting, sir. As you can see, the majority of the Chinese in the peninsula (and for the same purpose, in the whole of Southeast Asia) are traced to two provinces: Fujian and Guangdong. From these two provinces came not only the Hokkiens and the Cantonese, but also the Hakka, Teochew and Hokchew, among others, and even my ancestors, the Taishanese.
Thanks 👍👍👍and appreciate very much your sharing. I'm a 71 year old 3rd generation Singaporean Chinese Hokkien, descended from the 4th and latest wave of Sin3khaek3. From : Singapore 🇸🇬
Well, I am also a 71 year old Chinese Singaporean. But I am only second generation. My father came to Singapore in 1930s. My mother came just before China fell to Communists. If she had came at the same time as my fatherส, my son would be third generation.,🙂
Nowadays, RUclips is the swiftest way to reach out to people, and takes less effort on the part of the recipient of the information, as no reading is needed. More videos covering other aspects of our history will be produced.
Appreciate the clarity and comprehensive information given regarding the peranakan and Baba Nyonya histories. We have been using both of these terms interchangeably without knowing the historical connotations or connections.
Because there is no one to properly explain this, the terms have all become mixed up and are used loosely. But when the "new" migrants arrived in the mid 19th century, the existing Chinese population did differentiate these newcomers from themselves.
I have to admit that prior to watching this short film, I always had mixed generalisation about the Chinese background in the British Settlements and Malay states. Your explanation helped me a lot in understanding the historical context much further.
This research is on-going, and I continue to find information, which I will then use to create videos. In future, I might even create videos that update on what I share today, if I come across new information that sheds new light, or confirmed to contradict what I presently know.
Thanks, Mr Tye, for your research. I didn't even know about the laukhek. From what I gather, my background is sinkhek but mercantile. Just one quibble, I wish you had elaborated more on the laukhek and sinkhek. I hope there'll be more about them in your subsequent videos.
Sir, I will be happy to elaborate more in future videos, because these terms will appear again. The Lau33khaek3 tend to call themselves "Chinese", hence the term is much less popular than "Sin3khaek3" which is what the Lau33khaek3 call them.
Thank you for the very detailed explaination of the 4 groups. Just some questions: 1. Does Peranakan have Chinese Surname? 2. When does the Peranakan trace back to? Cheng Ho/ Zheng He (Ming Dynasty Yong Le period?)? 3. I heard story passed down that the Peranakan wave of traders are active in diplomacy and politics with the Sultanate, Colonist and Royalties (i.e. of Ayutaya Kingdom), will like to learn if those are stories or there are some evidents to trace back to history of the region.
What I say, I may contradict myself in future, but this is what I believe so far: 1. Yes, they are Hokkien people who are unable to speak Hokkien. They are like Chinese people who have migrated to Australia and are unable to speak Chinese, but still consider themselves Chinese. 2. Despite all the attention given to Zhenghe, the maritime trade of the Hokkien seafarers have been going on before and after Zhenghe. Only now do we appreciate their contribution to history, for we now call their activity the Maritime Silk Road. Zhenghe's voyages are government sponsored whereas much of the seafaring trades of the merchants were private enterprises. 3. There are certainly accounts of these seafaring merchants who became local chieftains in various towns in Siam, and even the Thai royalty may have Chinese (Teochew) blood in their lineage.
Thank you, pretty informative, mine is a small group, a minority both in Penang & Singapore the Taishanese, Siyip that headed to 金山 America that era of railway & 金山 fortunes ... 😉
Oh, although I do extensive research into Hokkien, my father is Taishanese! I mentioned it in this video: ruclips.net/video/mzh4uPDGUyA/видео.html In fact, I listened to this video again, and realised I mentioned it in this video too, at minute 6:10. I said that I am Sinning. Sinning is another word for Taishanese.
"xie xie" Timonthy Tye for teaching us our lost overseas chinese history in Malaysia and Singapore. Could you please in future show the locations which you mentioned by showing the maps so that we could better grasp the places. With warmest regards from Singapore 🇸🇬 .
Thanks very much. So far, I have described the distribution of the Hokkiens in words rather than by using map, to avoid generalizing the distribution by map. It is often not the most accurate to show on map because there is no way to be pinpoint accurate, but by showing on map, I might introduce generalization to the information.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and research Mr. Tye. It's such an eye opener! I've been trying to find answers to people claiming the chinese are kuli and workers that the Brits brought to Malaya to work in Tin mines. But my finding into Kedah and Bujang Valley proved that the Chinese were here before that. Now your have filled in all the gaps that I couldn't find. Now I know, my great grandfathers are the 4th waves of settlers. But apart from workers there are also merchants as my granduncle, the Hakka side, had a herbs and medicine shop in Jawi. My maternal side of the family are Sinning that settled in Teluk Intan. I often hear some stories about wuihiong, Guangzhou and Seiyap. She can speaks fluent Sinning but since the family adopted Cantonese, Sinning is hardly ever spoken.
The Chinese were indeed coolies and labourers brought in, but mostly by their own Chinese agents, to work in the tin mines. This is from the mid 19th century onwards, particularly in the 1870s and 80s. The British colonial government even appointed a Protector to look after their interest. These Chinese are called the Sin3khaek3 in my explanation. I am also Sinning, or Taishanese Cantonese, but alas, I can speak neither Taishanese nor Cantonese.
The word dialect refers specifically to a particular variant of one language. The variants being Guangdong Cantonese, Fujian Hokkien, Hainanese Hainan, etc. A language, on the other hand, includes the written form of communication, while dialect is used specifically to refer only to a spoken variety of a language. In today's context, the Chinese language used worldwide is Mandarin with its classical pictographic scripts.
I held this same opinion too, until I discovered, through the course of my research, that the word dialect has two meanings, and i explained that in my video explaining Chinese languages Take a look: ruclips.net/video/eq2sXV74UdU/видео.htmlsi=LXIaeKg7YnEwAjtI
Thank you so much to do this and share with us. I have learned so much about my history as I am the second generation born in this peninsula. That puts my grandfather in the last group of migrant that came here.
Borneo which include Kalimantan, Sarawak and Sabah have more Chinese than Peninsula, mostly Teo Chew and Hakka although there are Hokkien too. Those in Sarawak and Sabah were spillover from "mangkuk merah" incident around Singkawang and Samba.
You are most welcome! As you know, there is a Peranakan Museum in Singapore, housed in the former Tao Nan School building at Armenian Street. When the British systematically attempted to erase Malacca, many of the Peranakans relocated to either Singapore or Penang. But when I say "Peranakan" here, I mean the group that includes the Baba Nyonya, but together, they are referred to generally as Peranakan. Today, they are like "coffee" having mixed with "sugar", but still called "coffee".
Ya, more is coming, because there is so much to share. But they will be video by video, so that we can get to know different aspects of our history and heritage.
I generally agree with your explanation of the history of the Chinese in West Malaysia and Singapore, except for the part about bringing women and children during the Baba Nyonya period. In those days, people traveled by junk, which was cramped and unsanitary. It would have been very inconvenient to bring women and children on such a journey. Women and children came later, during the Singkhek period, when the Allies forced open ports in Southern China and there was a need for workers to staff the newly opened plantations and tin mines. Why the baba speak Hokkien in Penang not because of the family but because they have no choice if they want to trade. Chinese women were so rare in SEA in the 18th century when there was one they became an object of attraction and were invited to the governor-general's home. One such case in Batavia was recorded in history. In the Tianjin treaty, China was forced to legalize immigration and open the port for trading. One such port is Amoy(Xiamen) and Swatow(Shantou) which become the gateway for immigration. Then the British opened the steam line from those ports to Melacca, Spore, and Penang it is now possible for families to travel. But I do agree with your assessment that the story of Baba and Nyonya cannot be separated from Laukhek and Singkhek without them we will be absorbed into Malay. It is the influx of new recruits that made it possible for Baba to exist until today
My next video will shed more light on the arrival of the women and children. The availability of women and children are crucial for language to take root. Otherwise, the Peranakan generation will speak Malay, and all seafaring merchants will learn to communicate with the locals in the language of the host port, be it Malay, Vietnamese, Siamese or Filipino. They fled not only on mercantile junks, they also fled on fishing boats, and contraption that could carry them. Possibly less than half of them arrived on shore, the rest of them were claimed by the choppy sea. This is not smooth sailing. This is fleeing in fright.
First of all I want to appreciate your hard work doing this research. I am Hakka born in West Borneo. I recalled my father told me when I was still a child, our ancestor were the one those fled Manchu. The left their home land together with the family, live stock etc as you said. Could you please identified where was my ancestor's home land?
The fleeing from the Manchus happened so long ago, and remained largely undocumented. In order for us to understand what happened, we have to piece together documentations during that period, because the refugees themselves were illiterate and left no documentation. The high likelihood is that your ancestors possibly fled from either Fujian or Guangdong provinces. Despite being Hakka, alas, the Hakkas did not have a province in their name, and because "guests" in other people's provinces, which is why Hakka means "guest people".
I definitely will, and considering this is something on-going, in future, I may uncover new details which might help to shed further light, or even modify my present understanding. In my earlier documentation, some years back, I split them into 3 "waves". That's because I lumped the Peranakans with the Baba Nyonyas. Now, I am splitting them into two separate groups based on their station in history and their characteristics.
Hokkiens go outside of Fujian also migrated to Canton. To take advantage of the Canton system to trade with foreigners. They got assimilated into Lingnan culture and lost the language. Howqua the richest merchant in China was one such Hokkien. But there is little written research about hokkien clans in Canton except maybe they cornered the tea trade as one of the 13 Hongs.
Thank you for these facts. I am right after all. 40 years ago, when I was a teenager, one Singaporean young man insisted that the babas and nyonyas are peranakans, one and the same. They are definitely 2 very different groups of people.
Based on my research, they are two distinct groups of people, and if you search among us, you will note the two distinct groups. The reason they are mistaken as one is, as I described in the video, "the coffee mixed with the sugar" a long, long time ago.
Thank you for the very informative video. Grandparents from Fujian, My Parents and myself were born in Malaysia. And now, my children are born in Australia. Do you know the statistics of the Peranakan and Baba/Nyonya? Are we talking 100s or 1000s ? Just curious. Thanks again for the time spent researching and putting all of them into a video. Keep it up !
We do not have the statistics. If one day, I come across details that I can accept, I will share on it. Among the Peranakan and Baba Nyonya, I don't think they know, as they lived lives of blissful illiteracy under the Sultanate, Portuguese and Dutch. It's only with the arrival of the Lau33khaek3 that literacy arrived, in the form of Literary Chinese, and with the British, in the form of English education.
Hi Thimothy. I am 80 years old and am a 3rd generation Malaysian Chinese. My late father was born in the early 1900s. My grandfather migrated to Malaya I think around 1920 where my father was still a child. I also know that my grandfather was a Fuchou and surnamed Lau. As my grandmother remarried after my grandfather passed away, my father adopted the surname Wong. Now I wish to trace the full name of my grandfather.
From what I know you can go to the "association", they track family there. Like the Hakka association etc. I was told my family can be track back more than 24 generations to the time my ancestors were family associated with the Mongolian-China emperor. My understanding is the Chinese started and encourage all settlers to register their family to their association. So there will have some written record for future families looking for them. My dad would go to other parts of Malaysia and go to the association and find distant cousins. I believe there were record of family lines in China as my grandad and father's generation when back to China in the early 1990s to trace family lines. It's hard to believe but the China government gave back some of our family land to us. I assume through the book of family tree etc.
Good work. This gives an all round coverage of this history of Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore particularly. It also laid a good framework for the understanding of Chinese history in Southeast Asia in general. Thank you. I learned a lot. Much appreciated.
Very nicely explained! Thanks. How about Foochow (hockchew)? Fuzhou is the capital of the Hokkien prefecture…. How does this group fit into the picture?
We will look into Fuzhou in future, and how it fits in. I need to re-visit my knowledge on Fuzhou before I do a video about it. But for now, watch this video, where I mentioned Fuzhou: ruclips.net/video/mzh4uPDGUyA/видео.html
Fujian Province has 3 major Min dialects, South has Quanxhou, Xiamen, etc. East has Fuzhou (Hokchiu= Hiujiu) provincial capital. North Fujian has various local subdialects.
It's also easy to start by recognizing the one that came from The Great China for diplomatic and trading agenda, which back then, the economy of The Golden Silk Road are heavily relying on the connectivity from the southern part which is Tanah Melayu back then. And the other one is brought by The British as refugees and settlers. Both are very distinctively different, mainly because of the agenda, from different timeline, from different geopolitics of The Great China and, from different part of The Great China. From this basic, then we can move towards how both became integrated with each other, and of course, with all the pros and cons as well. Definitely they're MCA and DAP, who is more towards Taiwan/Hong Kong and who is more towards The Great China, and from it, we will easily grasped on why they're so differently unique. All this will make clear of both differences. The result, we be rightly informed and embracing the uniqueness will also results with awareness and respectful towards each other. As Malay Malaysian, i wonder why it's so hard to distinguish between the one before the invasion of Portuguese and, the one brought by The British. But what i do know well is, The British messing us up pretty damn well. It's our duty to straighten back the historical facts and from it, we know how to navigate through our future. Just like us Malay, some are Pro British and some are very much, rival against them. Who is the Pro British and who is the one that goes against them, this knowledge is a must for all to understand the why, how, where, when, what and who makes us to be as we are today, The Malay. May the force of positivity be with you sir, and thank you for your great effort. Nevertheless, you're the gems of our nation.
Thank you very much. Mr Timothy Tye. You have done an excellent and detail study of Chinese Hokkien in this part of the world. I enjoyed your video. I wonder why the Hokkien Chinese in Phuket, Malaysia as well as Singapore celebrate Nine Emperor God and not in Taiwan. I wish you can enlighten us on the history of this religion.
At the moment sir, I do not know why. I have to further research to understand this matter. I will continue to create videos based on my research into the history of the Chinese especially as it related to us who are living in West Malaysia and Singapore.
i am a malay singaporean. i like to learn languages like japanese, chinese , and vietnamese for now. maybe in the future i’ll touch a bit of hokkien or cantonese
I suppose this is an account of Hokkiens in the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. My family is Hokkien and we are from the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. I am the tenth generation born here. My great great great great great great grandmother was also born here and is featured in Munshi Abdullah's book Kisah Pelayaran Abdullah ke Kelantan. There are graves of my ancestors from the 17th century in the east coast states as well.
Although this explanation is with regards Hokkien migration to West Malaysia and Singapore, the same is true for both East and West coasts of the peninsula, as well as across Southeast Asia because the same pattern, be it seafarring trades or refugees, happened from the same sea ports of Zhangzhou, Quanzhou and Xiamen.
Mr Timothy, is the Zhangzhou (漳州) port you were referring to is, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhangzhou, correct ? What about the earlier port, is it Quanzhou (泉州), correct?
Yes please, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou. By the 19th century, Zhangzhou has gone into decline, its role taken over by Xiamen. I will one day do a video that describes the history of these three port cities, Zhangzhou, Quanzhou and Xiamen.
Recently got to know that the old royal thai kingdom in Ayuthaya had many Chinese residents too . However the Ayuthaya kingdom was destroyed by Burmese invasion in the middle of 18th century . If i remember , it was the Bagan kingdom that destroyed the Ayuthaya kingdom . Then their famous young general came down to the south to get help and managed to restore law and order . He was the famous Chakri founder .
Good historical timeline of the chinese in west msia. If only the peranakans and baba nyonya knew how to read and write. But less is also known about sabahan chinese. Any info on them?
Literacy has been the privilege of the elites for much of history, right up to the beginning of the 20th century. In the case of Penang, when the British established Penang Island, they did found schools, such as the Penang Free School, so that the locals have chance to education. But this represents only a small percentage of the population at that time, with the majority of the people remaining illiterate. The handicap presented by illiteracy prevented the Peranakans and Baba Nyonyas, and in fact, much of the local Chinese, from passing their history down to us. What we do know is based on what was left behind by the literate, that is to say, the elites who built clan associations. But these elites focused on their own history (but we couldn't blame them - they are merchants and priests, not journalists) so our documented history is skewed towards what they wrote down. Is there anybody in Sabah working to research and document the history of the Chinese in Sabah? That would make interesting exposition. Alas, my knowledge of it is scarce.
Thank you for your explanation. But one point which I think is worth considering. Since early Ming dynasty, the sea ban policy was implemented, restricting private maritime trading and coastal settlement during most of the Ming dynasty. So, how do we justify that the peranakans decent from these merchants when private trading is not allowed in the first place?
The doors to trade indeed swung open and close throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties, but not, as you mentioned, during "most of the Ming dynasty". According to what I understand, the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368-1398) did prohibit maritime trade. That was before the rise of the Malacca Sultanate. During the Yongle Emperor's reign (r. 1402-1424), maritime prohibition was somewhat relaxed, enabling seafaring merchants to arrive in Malacca at least until 1433, when state-sponsored voyages ceased. However, there is likelihood that private mercantile trade as well as Chinese piracy continued throughout this period. The ban on private mercantile trade was finally lifted by the Longqing Emperor (r. 1567-1572), prompted mainly by the rise of illegal smuggling and piracy. So, there was indeed private trading. On my other RUclips channel, I have a video showing the Straits & Oriental Museum, where items of trade were displayed: ruclips.net/video/rLAdkUMoOYs/видео.htmlsi=tjDsSFKWi9yBaoiB We can see that Chinese mercantile trade is one that is frequent interrupted by isolationist sentiments, which is why the off springs of these seafaring merchants were cut off and eventually lose ties with their merchant fathers.
Great work Timothy. Since you're a Xinning (Taishanese) like me, and born in Penang state, can you do research on tour Xinning people from Taishan in Penang (including Province Wellesley). Can you comment on the Taishanese Clan Association at King Street, Georgetown?
Aside from this RUclips channel, the bulk of my documentation is on my website, Penang Travel Tips. All the sights along King Street is documented, with map, on this page: www.penang-traveltips.com/king-street.htm I list there the various sights, including the Chong San Wooi Koon/Heong San Hoay Kuan. The information on my website is all that I have for now, until I have chance research deeper.
Hi Timothy... in your video u mentioned u are part Sinning/Toishan .... so am I. Perhaps you could do a video about Sinning people in Malaysia/Penang for our knowledge & understanding.. 😊thanks. Vincent Fong
One question: seems that the Peranakan settled specifically in Malacca, but then there are many Peranakan groups in Penang and Singapore. Are these groups confuse their own history by calling themselves the Peranakan? Shouldn't they call themselves only as baba nyonya? Or was it that the Peranakan in Malacca later moved to Penang and Singapore? What's your take?😊
My grandfather from Sabak Bernam went to be a developer in SG. The road in his development in Holland Kampong. Under the British there was freedom of movement
I can see your passion for this area of study radiating through your face, your eyes & your words… so wonderful to hear from a heart that is brimming with joy, enthusiasm & love… you are doing excellently, look forward to your future research… please keep it up 👍
You are so kind, sir, thank you very much. Yes indeed, I am passionate to get this information to the Chinese of West Malaysia and Singapore, so that finally, someone explains the history to them which up till this point, they only know it vaguely by terms such as "Peranakan", "Baba Nyonya" and so on, there is not clarity of why these terms, and when there is to clarity provided, distortions and misleading interpretations creep in.
I haven't done any research on the Chinese in Borneo, sir. If in future, I come across sufficient documentation that will improve my knowledge, then I could consider doing the same.
Can you explain what you mean by "the straits settlement has been around much longer than the Malay states for much of the 19th century"? Straits settlement was established in the 19th century, but the Malay kingdoms has been around far longer before the english came.
I do agree with you that the Malay states have been around far longer than before the English came, so, can you point to me the location in the video, so that I can hear again what I said? Thank you!
Thanks for pointing this out to me. I have listened to what I said, and again, I agree. The Malay states have been around much longer than the Straits Settlements. What I have meant to say is "Malaya", not "Malay states" (that the Straits Settlement has been around much longer than Malaya). I will put an erratum on the description to point this out at 51:25 of the video. Thanks for catching this. Often I don't even realize what rolled off my tongue.
Thanks for the video. It never occurred to me that being able to read and write was a privilege. It makes sense only the rich can have a tutor (still the same in poor areas). Both my mum and dad's side, my granddad and grandma both can read and write and do calculations. They ran many businesses. Mum mentioned to me her grandma used to have bounded feet. She never said they're rich but I know just by knowing how much land my great grandfather and my grandmother's generation accumulated. It's crazy large lands, farms and nearly 100 houses....
Yes indeed, your own family offers you a glimpse into how it was back then. As a whole, we have short memories. Pretty soon, people would have forgotten that there once was a tradition for women, particularly from well-to-do families, to have their feet bound. So, through this channel, I am trying to hang on to the information before it slips and disappears into the swampy fog of time.
@@learnpenanghokkien thank you for doing this, preserving the history for the generations to come. It's important work and you have shed light on many things and educated many on this channel 👍
My father used to tell me how my grandfather dared not cut off his Manchu ponytail till he had finally landed in Malaya. Then he settled in Ipoh as a miner as the roots spread to KL and Australia today.
That is fascinating sir. And do you know, the enforced wearing of the queue or ponytail was one of the reasons why Ming loyalist Chinese fled mainland China after the Manchu takeover?
Please search for a video on the Peranakan in Medan and their relationship to the big five families in Penang : Khoo etc It’s equally fascinating and I’m sure you can team up with the author. Medan Hokkien by Bernard Lokman.
Bernie Lokman is one of the members of my Learn Penang Hokkien Facebook Group. The group has close to 19 thousand members who are either Hokkien enthusiasts or learners, over here: facebook.com/groups/learnpenanghokkien I welcome you and all Hokkien enthusiasts to join this group. Mr Lokman has created many excellent videos on the history of the Chinese in Indonesia, and I learned tremendously from his research too.
Good to know! I’m a Hokkien speaker but the context to use the language is getting smaller and smaller. Back in Quanzhou I couldn’t understand much of what they were saying. It was fast and complicated. We say ‘Mai’ for don’t, like mai chiak. Instead they use ‘emh’… like emh chiak.
You can say that the Hokkien as spoken in Malaysia has received loanwords from surrounding languages such as Malay, English and since the mid 20th century, Mandarin. There is no such thing as a "pure" language, sir, as the Hokkien in Fujian Province is also receiving loanwords from surrounding languages such as Mandarin, Teochew, Hakka and Cantonese, to name some. Therefore, every living language is evolving as we speak, adding new words which are either created by the speakers of the language, or by borrowing from other languages.
“Kamsiah very much” for sharing this colourful history. A big long winded but interesting for me to know where my roots came from. Would be good if you could do a video-topic on tin mining. For example - Yap Ah Loy started tin mining in Lukut before migrating to Kuala Lumpur and becoming a prominent Kapitan. I found this out from my reading of the Chinese miners. Again Kamsiah!
Maybe one day sir. Right now, there are a lot of other historical things I want to write about, based on the research that is still fresh. I will get those out first, before I embark on new research, into the tin mining history. I have however visited Lukut twice, but during that time, was unprepared for the amount of information to delve deep into it. Aside from that, I will also be sharing about the archaeological excavations in Lenggong and Lembah Bujang, but these will not be on the Learn Penang Hokkien channel, since it is not about Chinese history, but rather on my Discover With Timothy channel.
@@learnpenanghokkien Sir, I have a question for you. I'm considering learning Penang Hokkien as it has the most available instruction (great videos like yours, books, dictionaries etc) but I hear it may not be mutually intelligible with the Hokkien spoken outside of north Malaysia (like in Singapore, the Philippines, China and Taiwan) As you might know, Alice Guo is on trial in the Philippines for allegedly Spying for China but she has also gotten much attention for her ability to speak Hokkien among other languages too. This put this language in the international spotlight. Guo used her Hokkien ability to translate for another witness in her trial. How much of what she says in Hokkien can you understand? I have a link to the video below: ruclips.net/video/Mw140m0RaRE/видео.htmlsi=PEEK8h5n7nNNjFWA
How had the opium factor influenced the southern Chinese (Cantonese, the Hokkien, the Hakka, the Hainanese and the teochews) in the economic migration in the 19th and early 20th century. Why this opium factor did not result in the northern dialects in SEA?
The only "opium factor" that I can think of for now is the China loss the First Opium War (1839-1842), which resulted in the opening of Xiamen as one of the treaty port, and because of that, an influx of Hokkien settlers left Fujian Province for the Malay peninsula.
The term Peranakan comes from the Melayu. Peranakan simply mean someone born with mixed heritage. In Melayu, there are Peranakan India (mixed Indian and Melayu), Peranakan Cina (mixed Chinese and Melayu). Hence, Peranakan Cina cannot monopolise the word Peranakan.
Yo, banana descendant of a sin-khaek here! But me grandpa was literate tho. And I meself nearly became a sin-khaek in Australia lol. I grew up thr in Melbourne, but came back to good ol' Malaysia 15 yrs ago. Love Malaysia! Kamsiah lu! Ong, Huat, Soon ah!
I'm learning Hokkien here in Germany, which was the sino-chinese Standard for reading chinese in German universities in the 19th century. I don't care about Mandarin.
How lovely to learn that you are learning Hokkien. Are you German? Please feel free to ask me for help, if you have any questions. This whole channel was created to help people learn Penang Hokkien. Okay, it's Penang Hokkien, but if that helps, feel free to ask me.
@@learnpenanghokkienYes thank you for your help Sir, your channel introduced me to Penang Hokkien. Before, I had only contact to speakers of Taiwanese Hokkien. Since I am interested in Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore and the Bahasa Melayu I am fully convinced that Hokkien is very important. I lived all my life in Western Germany (Federal Republic, FRG) an I'm myself a German citizen with slavic migration background. I have studied linguistics and the Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian languages. Now I am collecting books for Hokkien, which are hard to come buy in Germany or too expensive to buy from Ebay. Local german-chinese people unfortunately don't care about Hokkien and Cantonese any more. So I have to self-study Hokkien and Cantonese.
What are the similarities and differences between the Hokkien migration & the waves of migration from Guangdong, Hainan & other Southern provinces & districts. For instance in Ipoh & KL there were many Guangdong & Hakka ppl. I understand Guangxi ppl also moved to distinct parts of the peninsula such as Bentong & Temerloh.
KL and Ipoh are populated by the 4th wave (aka the Sin3khaek3), who are mostly from Guangdong, and are Hakka and Cantonese). The cities were established as a result of tin mining, which was from the mid 19th century onwards, whereas the cities where Hokkien is spoken were established earlier.
As a Malay Sejarah teacher, Im always clueless when my chinese and non chinese at times, asked me about how the chinese managed to have a large settlement here. Now i can fluently explain it to them thanks to you, more videos like these pls.
The use of the term Peranakan and Baba Nyonya is used almost interchangeably, but if we want to be strict about it, then we will keep the term Peranakan for the exclusive use of Melaka. It is only during the Melaka period (when Melaka existed and no other present major towns of West Malaysia and Singapore existed) that the seafaring merchants of Fujian province visited. The merchants will head only to the entrepot, Melaka, to trade. So the history of the Chinese in Melaka is unique. The second wave (which created what I termed as Baba Nyonya) arrived and settled across the peninsula, including in Melaka. So, Melaka had one additional wave of Chinese migrants compared to elsewhere in the peninsula. Today, even if we find a Malaysian Peranakan Chinese anywhere in the country or elsewhere in the world, they would trace their roots to Melaka. However, we have to bear in mind that the same seafaring merchants also visited other places in the vast Malay archipelago, perhaps ports in Sumatra, Java and Borneo, where there would also be Indonesian Peranakans Chinese, who possibly speak the Indonesian language, which bears similarities to Malaysian Peranakan Chinese speaking Malay. I have not researched to there, and perhaps in future, will find out more about that.
I met a real peranakan from Malacca while working in Singapore . His surname is Khoo . His command of Malay was fantastic . Like a local Malay speaking .
Many of our grandparents and great grandparents wear such attire. We would see them dressed as such in those very old photographs that hang at our parents' house. But unless we have actual documentation (in most cases we don't), we can't say for sure whether they are Sinkhek (or Sin3khaek3 in Taiji Romanisation), Laukhek, Baba Nyonya or Peranakan.
@@learnpenanghokkiendocumentation? They couldn't even read or write. And worse, Hokkien not being traditionally a written language even the upper class couldn't read and write. And the fact is, the poor always outnumber the rich. And poor people don't keep genealogical records. Especially when they couldn't read them.
Nobody literate in my family. Both my parents were the first ones to go to school in their families. Half my family arrived quite recently, half much earlier. There is no certainty, but I'm guessing not laukhek. The new half is probably sinkhek. The other half is probably peranakan rather than baba/nyonya. As he explained in the video, there is a genetic difference. I have not taken an actual genetic test. Nobody in my family has. I'm just going off appearance. My dad was mistaken for Malay his whole life. 😅 And his mother (grandma) spoke both Hokkien and Malay fluently. She not only wear traditional peranakan clothing in old photos, she wore them every day. Those were the only things she had. She lived with us. Never saw her wearing anything else.
Creating this series of videos, I am well aware that there would be instances of discrepancies, errors in facts, errors in general opinion, distortions and misleading information. Despite all that, I endeavor to bring you the history based on what I have researched, according to the information I have at hand, and also based on my understand and interpretation of what I have.
I do apologize for any error that appears. I will add these to the description text when these are pointed out to be and can be substantiated. Consider each video as work in progress as we continue to expand on our knowledge. What is important is that these videos help us ignite conversations of our past, which others may not have stated.
If you discover an error, please inform me in the common in the most courteous way. Any discourteous comment will be removed. It is not in my habit of responding to rude comments, my usual action is to scrub the comment section of any discourtesy, so that others enjoy a pleasant reading of one another's comments. Anyone who is rude may also be muted, so think twice before penning something offensive. It may result in your not being able to comment in the future.
As a general rule, I address all as sir, unless I know you as a woman, then I will address you as madam. I will not be calling you brother, bro, sis, sister, miss, ms or mister. By this, you will have a good idea of the general tone of this platform.
I like the analogy of the Coffee, Milk and Ice to describe the groups. You first explained how "Peranakan" came about, and then the "Baba Nyonyas" as descendants of the former group. However, I defer in opinion.
It is difficult to pin point when exactly the terms "Baba" and "Nyonya" came into existence and used to describe a community. Probably in the late Dutch colonial period of Melaka. This is because the same terms were also used in the Dutch East Indies. Anyway, before Baba-Nyonyas called themselves Baba-Nyonyas, they did not call themselves "Peranakan", they simply called themselves "Chinese". Even when "Baba" and "Nyonya" became terms to refer to the community, they still called themselves "Chinese". It became more distinct during the British era when the Brits were categorising the racial groups and classified those born in the Straits Settlements (Straits-born) vs the foreign Chinese. This impacted the social lives of the Baba-Nyonyas as they were now recognised by the Crown, and they proudly proclaimed their new status.
There are distinction between Straits-born vs Straits Chinese:
1. Straits-born Chinese - refers to someone born in the Straits Settlement and has Chinese Origin. This includes both Baba-Nyonyas and even Chinese who are not of the Baba-Nyonya community, but born in the Straits Settlement.
2. Straits Chinese - refers to someone of Chinese Origin, living in the Straits Settlement. It includes those born in Straits Settlement and born else where, incl. China.
In the past, the Baba-Nyonyas hardly referred themselves as "Peranakan", not until 1960s when the Straits Settlements were dissolved and the British left Malaya and Singapore. It then did not make sense to call themselves "Straits Chinese" because, there were no Straits Settlements, hence, adopting the term "Peranakan" was a better fit to describe the community because they still saw themselves different from the Sinkek.
In its truest core, "Peranakan" was a term used by the Malays to describe someone (who isn't of native ancestry) born in the Nusantara region i.e. Malay world. It was initially more associated with the Jawi Peranakan and Bugis Peranakan communities. However, today, as these communities dwindled in numbers and the lack of any established associations, their descendants get subsumed into the wider "Malay" racial group. On the contrary, the Baba Nyonya communities are still very much known because of the presence of the Straits Chinese Associations (mostly headed by Baba Nyonya descendants). And because these associations substituted "Straits Chinese" with "Peranakan" in the 60s, the term has now became synonymous with them instead. Of course, in more recent times there have been interest to revive the other Peranakan-type communities.
With this regard, I do not agree with your argument that there were waves of terminologies. I agree there were waves of migration, but it did not impact the use of the terms mentioned. It was more of socio-political and socio-economic factors that added complexity to the terms, and especially so for "Peranakan".
Oh ya, I totally agree with you that they call themselves Chinese, or even possible, they call themselves Hokkien! I think I mentioned that in another video, the one on Peranakan, Baba Nyonya and Straits Chinese.
Thank you so much for sharing your opinion. Actually we are more in agreement than you thought we are!
I am a jaffna Tamil.
My grandparents were working
in Malaysia , Survey department of Malaysia.
My grandma told me many stories of the difficult life of Chinese people.
Many Chinese tin miners used to come to my grandparents home asking for permit for tin mining. My grandfather , an honest man, never get bribe from the miners.
He helped many she said.
Also the very sad stories during the Japanese occupation.
Hiding pregnant Chinese ladies in the house to protect
from the Japanese army.
Very hard working of old Chinese people.
Growing ducks,pigs etc.
Also i heard some rich Chinese people wear a kind of shoes to their daughters so that their feet do not grow big.
My grandparents return to Jaffna in 1950 after retirement.
My grandfather was awarded a medal for preserving the Malaysian maps falling the hand of Japanese army.
Also played a major role in completing the survey of Malaysia and the prepare the map.
They always call Malaya.
I remembered the cities they lived ipoh.seramban, Taiping, kulalampur etc.
My grandmother been inherited lands - land with orchards and land with my Indian tenants.
I didnt ask if the tenants were the r es Tamils, Punjabis or Hindus bu😮 I think they were mainly. Tamils.
Thank you for saving the Chinesen from the Japs😮 genocide
My grandfather was
Taken from his house by the Japs and never. Returned.
The Chinese who arrived during the Sin3khaek3 period had a truly hard life, forced to live their motherland through famine, flood and wars, and now penniless in the new land. Through sheer hard work, they crawled out of hardship, and now today, most of their descendants are living largely middle class lives.
@@thiruchelvamselvaratnam2252 Yes, I hear stories like that of people like yr grandfather.
Brother, if I may, as a Malaysian Chinese, I want to say a sincere Thank You to yr grandparents. And best wishes to u and yours.
Thank You
@@thiruchelvamselvaratnam2252 I salute your grandparents for their bravery, kindness and contribution to the Malayan society. Btw my great grandmother had lotus feet and wore that special tiny shoes. She removed her foot binding when she migrated to Malaya. Unfortunately, her foot were crippled by the binding and she cannot walk fast.
😊🙏 May your Kind & Compassionate Grandparents & families be blessed by Gods & Goddesses for their Kindness & Wisdom! 🙏 ÖM ŠŘÏ MÅHÅ ĐÈVÅ ŠHÏVÅ 🙏 ÖM ŠŘÏ MÅHÅ ĐÈWÏ PÅŘVÅTÏ 🕯🌷🌿🍎🍊🌎✌💜🕊
Thank you for giving such a detailed account of the history of the Peranankans, the Baba-Nonyas, the Lau-Kek and the Sin-Kek.
It's my pleasure! We dearly need to know our own history, so that we can appreciate our identity, why we, the Chinese of West Malaysia and Singapore, are here, so far from our original homeland, what got us here, why are we speaking the Chinese languages such as Penang Hokkien, Singapore Hokkien, Cantonese, etc. Those are questions which many of us may have wanted to ask, but in the past, there wasn't anybody with the researched answers.
Wow! Thank you for your research. It shows your tireless effort. Hats off to you!
Thank you so much. Yes indeed, I am on a quest to undercover history, for I consider it part of my identity, and I will question all existing knowledge that has already been put in front of us.
We very much appreciate your efforts, Mr Timothy Tye. There is so much that we do not know about our history. You have opened our eyes to our rich story. Thank you
Kam1siah33 lu4 ce33-ce33!
Very interesting. Thank you so much for the passionate research, Timothy 😍
You are most welcome. Of course this is not the end of the research. It will continue on and on. Meanwhile, there will be more videos touching on different aspects of Chinese history as it relates to the history of the Chinese in West Malaysia and Singapore.
A very detailed and excellent presentation of the subject. Very good show. Thanks. I am a first gerneration Singapore Chinese Hokkien from Quangzhou (Chuanchew), from the county of Nan-an.👍👍
Thank you so much for watching my video!
First generation? If you are young, that means you migrated from communist China. If you are old- above 75, YOU 1:03:46 had migrated from ROC. Singapore stopped immigration from China from 1958.
In the 1990s it was resumed. Now alot of
Communist Chinese people come to Singapore to work,set up shops The yellow locasts have arrived.
It's so interesting to see your video Timothy and to read all the comments.
Thank you for making the videos.
I understand a lot more from your knowledge.
Thank you very much! I am glad that my series of videos has served as a door opener to this subject.
Well done Mr Timothy Tye. Really appreciated the information. You are a great storyteller and historian.
Thank you sir. You are so kind.
Tq Sir for such an interesting talk. I am not chinese but i have a deep appreciation and fascination of Peranakan Baba Nyonya culture
Thank you for watching. You certainly do not need to be a Chinese to gain knowledge about the Chinese. In my case, I am Cantonese (Taishanese Cantonese, to be exact), but this research is focused mainly on the Hokkien, our neighbouring subethnic Chinese group.
😊🙏 My late mother was borned in Ipoh , Perak , Malaya during the 1920s into a Tin Mining family ... Her father helped a lot of village people to survive during WWII in Ipoh , Perak! A lot of my school mates of Indonesian , Pakistani & Arab descendant Malaysians were borned in the 1960s & after their parents migrated to Malaysia in the 1960s & 1970s ... So many Non-Malay Malaysians actually borned in Malaysia earlier than many Malay Malaysians of today! Anyway , the ancient history of India & China , Hinduism , Taoism are 5,500 years old , while Buddhism is around 2,600 years old as can be traced back with the many old Hindu , Taoist & Buddhist Temples in South East Asia , way before Christianity , Judaism & Islam reached Malaya some 1447H or 2024 Gregorian years ago! 😊🙏 Thank You So Much for these detailed & history facts based mini documentaries of the early settlers in Malaya! 🙏🕯🌷🌿🌎✌💜🕊🇲🇾🇸🇬
Thank you so much for watching this history series!
Thank you for the video, brings back nostalgia of our past ancestry. I am 4th gen hakka chinese living in Penang. My great grandfather & grandfather migrated from Guang Dong (梅州丰顺) to Ipoh Perak.
That is incredibly interesting, sir. As you can see, the majority of the Chinese in the peninsula (and for the same purpose, in the whole of Southeast Asia) are traced to two provinces: Fujian and Guangdong. From these two provinces came not only the Hokkiens and the Cantonese, but also the Hakka, Teochew and Hokchew, among others, and even my ancestors, the Taishanese.
Hakka from Guangdong Province.
Thanks 👍👍👍and appreciate very much your sharing.
I'm a 71 year old 3rd generation Singaporean Chinese Hokkien, descended from the 4th and latest wave of Sin3khaek3.
From : Singapore 🇸🇬
You are most welcome.
Tq for putting together the chinese history of South East Asia, particularly the malay peninsular. I am a malay n find it v enlightening.
Thank you very much for sharing. Very much appreciated.
Well, I am also a 71 year old Chinese Singaporean. But I am only second generation. My father came to Singapore in 1930s. My mother came just before China fell to Communists. If she had came at the same time as my fatherส, my son would be third generation.,🙂
greatly appreciate your research. now i can understand which segment in time my ancestors arrived being a Peranakan.Once again Thank you.
Kam1siah33 lu4 ce33-ce33.
Fascinating and educational talk..! Puts many of us in context of our early history . I am a 3rd generation Singapore hokkien.. Kum sia! Chia
Great job, very informative! Please put these in writing and publish for wider circulation, and for reference by the future generation.
Nowadays, RUclips is the swiftest way to reach out to people, and takes less effort on the part of the recipient of the information, as no reading is needed. More videos covering other aspects of our history will be produced.
Appreciate the clarity and comprehensive information given regarding the peranakan and Baba Nyonya histories. We have been using both of these terms interchangeably without knowing the historical connotations or connections.
Because there is no one to properly explain this, the terms have all become mixed up and are used loosely. But when the "new" migrants arrived in the mid 19th century, the existing Chinese population did differentiate these newcomers from themselves.
I have to admit that prior to watching this short film, I always had mixed generalisation about the Chinese background in the British Settlements and Malay states.
Your explanation helped me a lot in understanding the historical context much further.
Excellent!
wow thank you so much. This is great work! Look forward to your future research of other major ethnicities in our region.
This research is on-going, and I continue to find information, which I will then use to create videos. In future, I might even create videos that update on what I share today, if I come across new information that sheds new light, or confirmed to contradict what I presently know.
Thank you for enlightenng us! Amazing work you have done 👋
Thank you so much, you are so kind.
Thanks, Mr Tye, for your research. I didn't even know about the laukhek. From what I gather, my background is sinkhek but mercantile. Just one quibble, I wish you had elaborated more on the laukhek and sinkhek. I hope there'll be more about them in your subsequent videos.
Sir, I will be happy to elaborate more in future videos, because these terms will appear again. The Lau33khaek3 tend to call themselves "Chinese", hence the term is much less popular than "Sin3khaek3" which is what the Lau33khaek3 call them.
Thank you for the very detailed explaination of the 4 groups. Just some questions:
1. Does Peranakan have Chinese Surname?
2. When does the Peranakan trace back to? Cheng Ho/ Zheng He (Ming Dynasty Yong Le period?)?
3. I heard story passed down that the Peranakan wave of traders are active in diplomacy and politics with the Sultanate, Colonist and Royalties (i.e. of Ayutaya Kingdom), will like to learn if those are stories or there are some evidents to trace back to history of the region.
What I say, I may contradict myself in future, but this is what I believe so far:
1. Yes, they are Hokkien people who are unable to speak Hokkien. They are like Chinese people who have migrated to Australia and are unable to speak Chinese, but still consider themselves Chinese.
2. Despite all the attention given to Zhenghe, the maritime trade of the Hokkien seafarers have been going on before and after Zhenghe. Only now do we appreciate their contribution to history, for we now call their activity the Maritime Silk Road. Zhenghe's voyages are government sponsored whereas much of the seafaring trades of the merchants were private enterprises.
3. There are certainly accounts of these seafaring merchants who became local chieftains in various towns in Siam, and even the Thai royalty may have Chinese (Teochew) blood in their lineage.
Kamsia che che. I learn more from your video. It is so informative. Thank you very much.
Kam1siah33 ce33-ce33!
Thank you, pretty informative, mine is a small group, a minority both in Penang & Singapore the Taishanese, Siyip that headed to 金山 America that era of railway & 金山 fortunes ... 😉
Oh, although I do extensive research into Hokkien, my father is Taishanese! I mentioned it in this video:
ruclips.net/video/mzh4uPDGUyA/видео.html
In fact, I listened to this video again, and realised I mentioned it in this video too, at minute 6:10. I said that I am Sinning. Sinning is another word for Taishanese.
Seiyap / Hoisan is also something that fascinates me. A pity there is almost no information or material on Hoisan in the world.
This is awesome. I'm sharing it with my relatives. We are a mix of at least 2 of the waves - Babanonya and Sinkhek
Thank you for sharing!
"xie xie" Timonthy Tye for teaching us our lost overseas chinese history in Malaysia and Singapore.
Could you please in future show the locations which you mentioned by showing the maps so that we could better grasp the places.
With warmest regards from Singapore 🇸🇬 .
Thanks very much. So far, I have described the distribution of the Hokkiens in words rather than by using map, to avoid generalizing the distribution by map. It is often not the most accurate to show on map because there is no way to be pinpoint accurate, but by showing on map, I might introduce generalization to the information.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and research Mr. Tye. It's such an eye opener! I've been trying to find answers to people claiming the chinese are kuli and workers that the Brits brought to Malaya to work in Tin mines. But my finding into Kedah and Bujang Valley proved that the Chinese were here before that. Now your have filled in all the gaps that I couldn't find.
Now I know, my great grandfathers are the 4th waves of settlers. But apart from workers there are also merchants as my granduncle, the Hakka side, had a herbs and medicine shop in Jawi.
My maternal side of the family are Sinning that settled in Teluk Intan. I often hear some stories about wuihiong, Guangzhou and Seiyap. She can speaks fluent Sinning but since the family adopted Cantonese, Sinning is hardly ever spoken.
The Chinese were indeed coolies and labourers brought in, but mostly by their own Chinese agents, to work in the tin mines. This is from the mid 19th century onwards, particularly in the 1870s and 80s. The British colonial government even appointed a Protector to look after their interest. These Chinese are called the Sin3khaek3 in my explanation.
I am also Sinning, or Taishanese Cantonese, but alas, I can speak neither Taishanese nor Cantonese.
Very good explanation of the Chinese languages in Malaysia and Singpaore. Well done. Enjoy your presentation.👍👍
Thank you very much!
The word dialect refers specifically to a particular variant of one language. The variants being Guangdong Cantonese, Fujian Hokkien, Hainanese Hainan, etc. A language, on the other hand, includes the written form of communication, while dialect is used specifically to refer only to a spoken variety of a language.
In today's context, the Chinese language used worldwide is Mandarin with its classical pictographic scripts.
I held this same opinion too, until I discovered, through the course of my research, that the word dialect has two meanings, and i explained that in my video explaining Chinese languages Take a look: ruclips.net/video/eq2sXV74UdU/видео.htmlsi=LXIaeKg7YnEwAjtI
Thank you so much to do this and share with us. I have learned so much about my history as I am the second generation born in this peninsula. That puts my grandfather in the last group of migrant that came here.
In the grand scheme of things, that put you within the Sinkhek group, which the majority of us are.
Thank you very much for sharing with us so much of history concerning us.
Borneo which include Kalimantan, Sarawak and Sabah have more Chinese than Peninsula, mostly Teo Chew and Hakka although there are Hokkien too. Those in Sarawak and Sabah were spillover from "mangkuk merah" incident around Singkawang and Samba.
That's an area which I have not researched on. Interesting to know.
Very informative and educational! Thank you so much! I really enjoyed it!
Thanks very much!
Thank you so much for sharing your research. Very encouraging for all asians in south east asia. I am from singapore.
You are most welcome! As you know, there is a Peranakan Museum in Singapore, housed in the former Tao Nan School building at Armenian Street.
When the British systematically attempted to erase Malacca, many of the Peranakans relocated to either Singapore or Penang. But when I say "Peranakan" here, I mean the group that includes the Baba Nyonya, but together, they are referred to generally as Peranakan. Today, they are like "coffee" having mixed with "sugar", but still called "coffee".
Kam siah loo cheche Timothy 😘 look forward to your outcome of new discoveries ❣️❣️
Ya, more is coming, because there is so much to share. But they will be video by video, so that we can get to know different aspects of our history and heritage.
@@learnpenanghokkien Great 👍 keen to know more and learn proper Penang hokkien, it’s real fun 😃
I generally agree with your explanation of the history of the Chinese in West Malaysia and Singapore, except for the part about bringing women and children during the Baba Nyonya period. In those days, people traveled by junk, which was cramped and unsanitary. It would have been very inconvenient to bring women and children on such a journey. Women and children came later, during the Singkhek period, when the Allies forced open ports in Southern China and there was a need for workers to staff the newly opened plantations and tin mines. Why the baba speak Hokkien in Penang not because of the family but because they have no choice if they want to trade. Chinese women were so rare in SEA in the 18th century when there was one they became an object of attraction and were invited to the governor-general's home. One such case in Batavia was recorded in history. In the Tianjin treaty, China was forced to legalize immigration and open the port for trading. One such port is Amoy(Xiamen) and Swatow(Shantou) which become the gateway for immigration. Then the British opened the steam line from those ports to Melacca, Spore, and Penang it is now possible for families to travel. But I do agree with your assessment that the story of Baba and Nyonya cannot be separated from Laukhek and Singkhek without them we will be absorbed into Malay. It is the influx of new recruits that made it possible for Baba to exist until today
My next video will shed more light on the arrival of the women and children.
The availability of women and children are crucial for language to take root. Otherwise, the Peranakan generation will speak Malay, and all seafaring merchants will learn to communicate with the locals in the language of the host port, be it Malay, Vietnamese, Siamese or Filipino.
They fled not only on mercantile junks, they also fled on fishing boats, and contraption that could carry them. Possibly less than half of them arrived on shore, the rest of them were claimed by the choppy sea. This is not smooth sailing. This is fleeing in fright.
Thank you for an enriching history of Chinese in West Malaya
First of all I want to appreciate your hard work doing this research. I am Hakka born in West Borneo. I recalled my father told me when I was still a child, our ancestor were the one those fled Manchu. The left their home land together with the family, live stock etc as you said. Could you please identified where was my ancestor's home land?
The fleeing from the Manchus happened so long ago, and remained largely undocumented. In order for us to understand what happened, we have to piece together documentations during that period, because the refugees themselves were illiterate and left no documentation. The high likelihood is that your ancestors possibly fled from either Fujian or Guangdong provinces. Despite being Hakka, alas, the Hakkas did not have a province in their name, and because "guests" in other people's provinces, which is why Hakka means "guest people".
Fantastic. Please continue to do more research. Thank you.
I definitely will, and considering this is something on-going, in future, I may uncover new details which might help to shed further light, or even modify my present understanding.
In my earlier documentation, some years back, I split them into 3 "waves". That's because I lumped the Peranakans with the Baba Nyonyas. Now, I am splitting them into two separate groups based on their station in history and their characteristics.
Excellent research thank you please share more stories my father is Penang Chinese so I appreciate the history
Thank you for such important part of Chinese history
Thank you very much for this informative video based on your extensive research!
Very good and informative video.
Like your explanation. Thank you. Please provide the beginnings and history of the Chinese clans and major surnames in Penang.
Will try to do that, for a few major clans, in future videos, after I have covered other main topics which I like people to understand first.
Hokkiens go outside of Fujian also migrated to Canton. To take advantage of the Canton system to trade with foreigners. They got assimilated into Lingnan culture and lost the language. Howqua the richest merchant in China was one such Hokkien. But there is little written research about hokkien clans in Canton except maybe they cornered the tea trade as one of the 13 Hongs.
Interesting!
Thank you for these facts. I am right after all. 40 years ago, when I was a teenager, one Singaporean young man insisted that the babas and nyonyas are peranakans, one and the same. They are definitely 2 very different groups of people.
Based on my research, they are two distinct groups of people, and if you search among us, you will note the two distinct groups. The reason they are mistaken as one is, as I described in the video, "the coffee mixed with the sugar" a long, long time ago.
Thank you for the very informative video.
Grandparents from Fujian, My Parents and myself were born in Malaysia. And now, my children are born in Australia.
Do you know the statistics of the Peranakan and Baba/Nyonya? Are we talking 100s or 1000s ? Just curious.
Thanks again for the time spent researching and putting all of them into a video. Keep it up !
We do not have the statistics. If one day, I come across details that I can accept, I will share on it. Among the Peranakan and Baba Nyonya, I don't think they know, as they lived lives of blissful illiteracy under the Sultanate, Portuguese and Dutch. It's only with the arrival of the Lau33khaek3 that literacy arrived, in the form of Literary Chinese, and with the British, in the form of English education.
Thanks to uncle Pak Heng for sharing this informative video with me!
That's great of him!
Thank you for the wonderful history, Sir. Learn a lot.
Kam1siah33 lu4 ce33-ce33!
Hi Thimothy. I am 80 years old and am a 3rd generation Malaysian Chinese. My late father was born in the early 1900s. My grandfather migrated to Malaya I think around 1920 where my father was still a child. I also know that my grandfather was a Fuchou and surnamed Lau. As my grandmother remarried after my grandfather passed away, my father adopted the surname Wong. Now I wish to trace the full name of my grandfather.
Sir, I do not know the names of all four of my grandparents either. They were deceased by the time I was born.
From what I know you can go to the "association", they track family there. Like the Hakka association etc. I was told my family can be track back more than 24 generations to the time my ancestors were family associated with the Mongolian-China emperor. My understanding is the Chinese started and encourage all settlers to register their family to their association. So there will have some written record for future families looking for them. My dad would go to other parts of Malaysia and go to the association and find distant cousins. I believe there were record of family lines in China as my grandad and father's generation when back to China in the early 1990s to trace family lines. It's hard to believe but the China government gave back some of our family land to us. I assume through the book of family tree etc.
Good work. This gives an all round coverage of this history of Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore particularly. It also laid a good framework for the understanding of Chinese history in Southeast Asia in general. Thank you. I learned a lot. Much appreciated.
Kam1siah33 lu4 ce33-ce33.
Very nicely explained! Thanks. How about Foochow (hockchew)? Fuzhou is the capital of the Hokkien prefecture…. How does this group fit into the picture?
We will look into Fuzhou in future, and how it fits in. I need to re-visit my knowledge on Fuzhou before I do a video about it. But for now, watch this video, where I mentioned Fuzhou:
ruclips.net/video/mzh4uPDGUyA/видео.html
Fujian Province has 3 major Min
dialects, South has Quanxhou, Xiamen, etc.
East has Fuzhou (Hokchiu= Hiujiu)
provincial capital.
North Fujian has various local subdialects.
It's also easy to start by recognizing the one that came from The Great China for diplomatic and trading agenda, which back then, the economy of The Golden Silk Road are heavily relying on the connectivity from the southern part which is Tanah Melayu back then.
And the other one is brought by The British as refugees and settlers.
Both are very distinctively different, mainly because of the agenda, from different timeline, from different geopolitics of The Great China and, from different part of The Great China.
From this basic, then we can move towards how both became integrated with each other, and of course, with all the pros and cons as well. Definitely they're MCA and DAP, who is more towards Taiwan/Hong Kong and who is more towards The Great China, and from it, we will easily grasped on why they're so differently unique.
All this will make clear of both differences. The result, we be rightly informed and embracing the uniqueness will also results with awareness and respectful towards each other. As Malay Malaysian, i wonder why it's so hard to distinguish between the one before the invasion of Portuguese and, the one brought by The British. But what i do know well is, The British messing us up pretty damn well. It's our duty to straighten back the historical facts and from it, we know how to navigate through our future.
Just like us Malay, some are Pro British and some are very much, rival against them. Who is the Pro British and who is the one that goes against them, this knowledge is a must for all to understand the why, how, where, when, what and who makes us to be as we are today, The Malay.
May the force of positivity be with you sir, and thank you for your great effort. Nevertheless, you're the gems of our nation.
Thank you sir for your kindness, and for taking the time to write and to share.
Thank you very much. Mr Timothy Tye. You have done an excellent and detail study of Chinese Hokkien in this part of the world. I enjoyed your video. I wonder why the Hokkien Chinese in Phuket, Malaysia as well as Singapore celebrate Nine Emperor God and not in Taiwan. I wish you can enlighten us on the history of this religion.
At the moment sir, I do not know why. I have to further research to understand this matter.
I will continue to create videos based on my research into the history of the Chinese especially as it related to us who are living in West Malaysia and Singapore.
Thank you so much. So much info to know and digest. Now I know my grandfathers were laukheh
As a Malay, this is fascinating. I used to think that Peranakan is the official, academic term while baba Nyonya is an unofficial, slang term
i am a malay singaporean. i like to learn languages like japanese, chinese , and vietnamese for now. maybe in the future i’ll touch a bit of hokkien or cantonese
Fabulous! You can learn Penang Hokkien here, all the tools are available.
Thank you. Very interesting. Would be even better if you included a few maps and photos in your post. 😊
Yeah, I am such a lazy person LOL, only sit there and talk!
I suppose this is an account of Hokkiens in the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. My family is Hokkien and we are from the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. I am the tenth generation born here. My great great great great great great grandmother was also born here and is featured in Munshi Abdullah's book Kisah Pelayaran Abdullah ke Kelantan. There are graves of my ancestors from the 17th century in the east coast states as well.
Although this explanation is with regards Hokkien migration to West Malaysia and Singapore, the same is true for both East and West coasts of the peninsula, as well as across Southeast Asia because the same pattern, be it seafarring trades or refugees, happened from the same sea ports of Zhangzhou, Quanzhou and Xiamen.
Interesting. Are you still fully Chinese blood after this many generations?
@@steph4922 yes. I'm still fully Chinese and Hokkien blooded, as are all of my many first cousins.
Mr Timothy, is the Zhangzhou (漳州) port you were referring to is, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhangzhou, correct ? What about the earlier port, is it Quanzhou (泉州), correct?
Yes please, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou. By the 19th century, Zhangzhou has gone into decline, its role taken over by Xiamen. I will one day do a video that describes the history of these three port cities, Zhangzhou, Quanzhou and Xiamen.
Wow, thank you so much for this video
You are so welcome!
Bravo. Love your information
Kam1siah33 lu4 ce33-ce33.
@@learnpenanghokkien WOW reply in Hokkien.
Thank you for this. Very informative.
Kam1siah33 lu4 ce33-ce33!
Excellent research, how do I contact you for transcript?
I am sorry, sir, but i don't know how to get you the transcript.
Thanks for shedding more info and lights for us, descendants of sin kheak,,,,,
Kam1siah33 lu4 ce33-ce33!
The majority of us are descendants of the Sin3khaek3, unless we can truly prove otherwise.
Me too. I'm a Singapore Hokkien and I believe a descendant of the Sin3khaek3.
Recently got to know that the old royal thai kingdom in Ayuthaya had many Chinese residents too . However the Ayuthaya kingdom was destroyed by Burmese invasion in the middle of 18th century . If i remember , it was the Bagan kingdom that destroyed the Ayuthaya kingdom . Then their famous young general came down to the south to get help and managed to restore law and order . He was the famous Chakri founder .
King Thaksin of the shortlived Thonburi dynasty of Siam is Teochew
Good historical timeline of the chinese in west msia. If only the peranakans and baba nyonya knew how to read and write. But less is also known about sabahan chinese. Any info on them?
Literacy has been the privilege of the elites for much of history, right up to the beginning of the 20th century. In the case of Penang, when the British established Penang Island, they did found schools, such as the Penang Free School, so that the locals have chance to education. But this represents only a small percentage of the population at that time, with the majority of the people remaining illiterate. The handicap presented by illiteracy prevented the Peranakans and Baba Nyonyas, and in fact, much of the local Chinese, from passing their history down to us. What we do know is based on what was left behind by the literate, that is to say, the elites who built clan associations. But these elites focused on their own history (but we couldn't blame them - they are merchants and priests, not journalists) so our documented history is skewed towards what they wrote down.
Is there anybody in Sabah working to research and document the history of the Chinese in Sabah? That would make interesting exposition. Alas, my knowledge of it is scarce.
Thank you for your explanation. But one point which I think is worth considering. Since early Ming dynasty, the sea ban policy was implemented, restricting private maritime trading and coastal settlement during most of the Ming dynasty. So, how do we justify that the peranakans decent from these merchants when private trading is not allowed in the first place?
The doors to trade indeed swung open and close throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties, but not, as you mentioned, during "most of the Ming dynasty". According to what I understand, the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368-1398) did prohibit maritime trade. That was before the rise of the Malacca Sultanate. During the Yongle Emperor's reign (r. 1402-1424), maritime prohibition was somewhat relaxed, enabling seafaring merchants to arrive in Malacca at least until 1433, when state-sponsored voyages ceased. However, there is likelihood that private mercantile trade as well as Chinese piracy continued throughout this period.
The ban on private mercantile trade was finally lifted by the Longqing Emperor (r. 1567-1572), prompted mainly by the rise of illegal smuggling and piracy. So, there was indeed private trading. On my other RUclips channel, I have a video showing the Straits & Oriental Museum, where items of trade were displayed:
ruclips.net/video/rLAdkUMoOYs/видео.htmlsi=tjDsSFKWi9yBaoiB
We can see that Chinese mercantile trade is one that is frequent interrupted by isolationist sentiments, which is why the off springs of these seafaring merchants were cut off and eventually lose ties with their merchant fathers.
Great work Timothy. Since you're a Xinning (Taishanese) like me, and born in Penang state, can you do research on tour Xinning people from Taishan in Penang (including Province Wellesley). Can you comment on the Taishanese Clan Association at King Street, Georgetown?
Aside from this RUclips channel, the bulk of my documentation is on my website, Penang Travel Tips. All the sights along King Street is documented, with map, on this page: www.penang-traveltips.com/king-street.htm
I list there the various sights, including the Chong San Wooi Koon/Heong San Hoay Kuan. The information on my website is all that I have for now, until I have chance research deeper.
Thank you very much. I appreciate your sharing.
Thanks for watching! I hope that through my videos, Chinese people in West Malaysia and Singapore can learn a bit about their history.
Hi Timothy... in your video u mentioned u are part Sinning/Toishan .... so am I. Perhaps you could do a video about Sinning people in Malaysia/Penang for our knowledge & understanding.. 😊thanks. Vincent Fong
For now I don't have enough information on that.
One question: seems that the Peranakan settled specifically in Malacca, but then there are many Peranakan groups in Penang and Singapore. Are these groups confuse their own history by calling themselves the Peranakan? Shouldn't they call themselves only as baba nyonya? Or was it that the Peranakan in Malacca later moved to Penang and Singapore?
What's your take?😊
That's a very good question, ha ha ha. Perhaps one day I'll do a video, and then you'll hear my thoughts on that.
My grandfather from Sabak Bernam went to be a developer in SG. The road in his development in Holland Kampong. Under the British there was freedom of movement
I can see your passion for this area of study radiating through your face, your eyes & your words… so wonderful to hear from a heart that is brimming with joy, enthusiasm & love… you are doing excellently, look forward to your future research… please keep it up 👍
You are so kind, sir, thank you very much. Yes indeed, I am passionate to get this information to the Chinese of West Malaysia and Singapore, so that finally, someone explains the history to them which up till this point, they only know it vaguely by terms such as "Peranakan", "Baba Nyonya" and so on, there is not clarity of why these terms, and when there is to clarity provided, distortions and misleading interpretations creep in.
Thank you for your excellent work Mr. Tye. Would you be doing the same thing with the Chinese of Borneo ?
I haven't done any research on the Chinese in Borneo, sir. If in future, I come across sufficient documentation that will improve my knowledge, then I could consider doing the same.
Can you explain what you mean by "the straits settlement has been around much longer than the Malay states for much of the 19th century"? Straits settlement was established in the 19th century, but the Malay kingdoms has been around far longer before the english came.
I do agree with you that the Malay states have been around far longer than before the English came, so, can you point to me the location in the video, so that I can hear again what I said? Thank you!
@@learnpenanghokkien 51:25 onwards
Thanks sir, I go watch now.
Thanks for pointing this out to me. I have listened to what I said, and again, I agree. The Malay states have been around much longer than the Straits Settlements. What I have meant to say is "Malaya", not "Malay states" (that the Straits Settlement has been around much longer than Malaya). I will put an erratum on the description to point this out at 51:25 of the video. Thanks for catching this. Often I don't even realize what rolled off my tongue.
Thanks for the video. It never occurred to me that being able to read and write was a privilege. It makes sense only the rich can have a tutor (still the same in poor areas). Both my mum and dad's side, my granddad and grandma both can read and write and do calculations. They ran many businesses. Mum mentioned to me her grandma used to have bounded feet. She never said they're rich but I know just by knowing how much land my great grandfather and my grandmother's generation accumulated. It's crazy large lands, farms and nearly 100 houses....
Yes indeed, your own family offers you a glimpse into how it was back then. As a whole, we have short memories. Pretty soon, people would have forgotten that there once was a tradition for women, particularly from well-to-do families, to have their feet bound. So, through this channel, I am trying to hang on to the information before it slips and disappears into the swampy fog of time.
@@learnpenanghokkien thank you for doing this, preserving the history for the generations to come. It's important work and you have shed light on many things and educated many on this channel 👍
My father used to tell me how my grandfather dared not cut off his Manchu ponytail till he had finally landed in Malaya. Then he settled in Ipoh as a miner as the roots spread to KL and Australia today.
That is fascinating sir. And do you know, the enforced wearing of the queue or ponytail was one of the reasons why Ming loyalist Chinese fled mainland China after the Manchu takeover?
Thank you @learnpenanghokkien. It is sad we cannot trace our ancestors for an altar to worship.
Fantastic narration of on the subject matter. Bravo
Thank you sir.
Thanks for a historical insight of Chinese Settlers.
Thank You so much> Now I know how my grand dad who married a Peranakan and speak Hokkien while he is a Teochew
Please search for a video on the Peranakan in Medan and their relationship to the big five families in Penang : Khoo etc It’s equally fascinating and I’m sure you can team up with the author. Medan Hokkien by Bernard Lokman.
Bernie Lokman is one of the members of my Learn Penang Hokkien Facebook Group. The group has close to 19 thousand members who are either Hokkien enthusiasts or learners, over here:
facebook.com/groups/learnpenanghokkien
I welcome you and all Hokkien enthusiasts to join this group.
Mr Lokman has created many excellent videos on the history of the Chinese in Indonesia, and I learned tremendously from his research too.
Good to know! I’m a Hokkien speaker but the context to use the language is getting smaller and smaller. Back in Quanzhou I couldn’t understand much of what they were saying. It was fast and complicated. We say ‘Mai’ for don’t, like mai chiak. Instead they use ‘emh’… like emh chiak.
what about ' pure ' Hokkein like the version spoken back in Fujian ? Does that exist in Malaysia.
You can say that the Hokkien as spoken in Malaysia has received loanwords from surrounding languages such as Malay, English and since the mid 20th century, Mandarin. There is no such thing as a "pure" language, sir, as the Hokkien in Fujian Province is also receiving loanwords from surrounding languages such as Mandarin, Teochew, Hakka and Cantonese, to name some. Therefore, every living language is evolving as we speak, adding new words which are either created by the speakers of the language, or by borrowing from other languages.
@@learnpenanghokkien Any link for the podcast
“Kamsiah very much” for sharing this colourful history. A big long winded but interesting for me to know where my roots came from. Would be good if you could do a video-topic on tin mining. For example - Yap Ah Loy started tin mining in Lukut before migrating to Kuala Lumpur and becoming a prominent Kapitan. I found this out from my reading of the Chinese miners. Again Kamsiah!
Maybe one day sir. Right now, there are a lot of other historical things I want to write about, based on the research that is still fresh. I will get those out first, before I embark on new research, into the tin mining history.
I have however visited Lukut twice, but during that time, was unprepared for the amount of information to delve deep into it.
Aside from that, I will also be sharing about the archaeological excavations in Lenggong and Lembah Bujang, but these will not be on the Learn Penang Hokkien channel, since it is not about Chinese history, but rather on my Discover With Timothy channel.
@@learnpenanghokkien Sir, I have a question for you. I'm considering learning Penang Hokkien as it has the most available instruction (great videos like yours, books, dictionaries etc) but I hear it may not be mutually intelligible with the Hokkien spoken outside of north Malaysia (like in Singapore, the Philippines, China and Taiwan)
As you might know, Alice Guo is on trial in the Philippines for allegedly Spying for China but she has also gotten much attention for her ability to speak Hokkien among other languages too. This put this language in the international spotlight. Guo used her Hokkien ability to translate for another witness in her trial. How much of what she says in Hokkien can you understand? I have a link to the video below: ruclips.net/video/Mw140m0RaRE/видео.htmlsi=PEEK8h5n7nNNjFWA
How had the opium factor influenced the southern Chinese (Cantonese, the Hokkien, the Hakka, the Hainanese and the teochews) in the economic migration in the 19th and early 20th century. Why this opium factor did not result in the northern dialects in SEA?
The only "opium factor" that I can think of for now is the China loss the First Opium War (1839-1842), which resulted in the opening of Xiamen as one of the treaty port, and because of that, an influx of Hokkien settlers left Fujian Province for the Malay peninsula.
Thank you Timothh Tye
The term Peranakan comes from the Melayu. Peranakan simply mean someone born with mixed heritage. In Melayu, there are Peranakan India (mixed Indian and Melayu), Peranakan Cina (mixed Chinese and Melayu). Hence, Peranakan Cina cannot monopolise the word Peranakan.
Yes.
Yo, banana descendant of a sin-khaek here! But me grandpa was literate tho. And I meself nearly became a sin-khaek in Australia lol. I grew up thr in Melbourne, but came back to good ol' Malaysia 15 yrs ago. Love Malaysia!
Kamsiah lu! Ong, Huat, Soon ah!
Fabulous my friend!
Please research on the Kelantan and Terengganu Chinese who have been around for more than 400 years, if I'm not mistaken.
Yes please. Somewhere in the future. I will research and then share.
I'm learning Hokkien here in Germany, which was the sino-chinese Standard for reading chinese in German universities in the 19th century. I don't care about Mandarin.
How lovely to learn that you are learning Hokkien. Are you German? Please feel free to ask me for help, if you have any questions. This whole channel was created to help people learn Penang Hokkien. Okay, it's Penang Hokkien, but if that helps, feel free to ask me.
@@learnpenanghokkienYes thank you for your help Sir, your channel introduced me to Penang Hokkien. Before, I had only contact to speakers of Taiwanese Hokkien. Since I am interested in Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore and the Bahasa Melayu I am fully convinced that Hokkien is very important.
I lived all my life in Western Germany (Federal Republic, FRG) an I'm myself a German citizen with slavic migration background. I have studied linguistics and the Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian languages. Now I am collecting books for Hokkien, which are hard to come buy in Germany or too expensive to buy from Ebay. Local german-chinese people unfortunately don't care about Hokkien and Cantonese any more. So I have to self-study Hokkien and Cantonese.
1st Chinese that came here were guest based on the invitation by the Sultan-sultan. I think they were peranakan Jawi.
Sir, Peranakan Jawi are the issue of Malay Muslim women with foreign Muslim traders, particularly those from South Asia and the Arab world.
What are the similarities and differences between the Hokkien migration & the waves of migration from Guangdong, Hainan & other Southern provinces & districts. For instance in Ipoh & KL there were many Guangdong & Hakka ppl. I understand Guangxi ppl also moved to distinct parts of the peninsula such as Bentong & Temerloh.
KL and Ipoh are populated by the 4th wave (aka the Sin3khaek3), who are mostly from Guangdong, and are Hakka and Cantonese). The cities were established as a result of tin mining, which was from the mid 19th century onwards, whereas the cities where Hokkien is spoken were established earlier.
As a Malay Sejarah teacher, Im always clueless when my chinese and non chinese at times, asked me about how the chinese managed to have a large settlement here. Now i can fluently explain it to them thanks to you, more videos like these pls.
There are still gaps in my explanation, sir, which I will fill in my upcoming videos, so stay tuned.
Singapore, parts of Sumatra, Riau islands and almost half of the Malay Peninsula was Melaka. Melaka was not the same as the Melaka now.
More compact presentation will greatly improve the learning
I agree sir. When I reviewed my video, I saw that I am repetitive. Will attempt to improve for future videos!
My father's family can trace about 5-7 generation backwards (from my grandmother)
Fantastic!
Good explanation, explains why only melaka 'baba nyonya' speaks in malay and don't know hokkien.. great stuff
The use of the term Peranakan and Baba Nyonya is used almost interchangeably, but if we want to be strict about it, then we will keep the term Peranakan for the exclusive use of Melaka. It is only during the Melaka period (when Melaka existed and no other present major towns of West Malaysia and Singapore existed) that the seafaring merchants of Fujian province visited. The merchants will head only to the entrepot, Melaka, to trade. So the history of the Chinese in Melaka is unique. The second wave (which created what I termed as Baba Nyonya) arrived and settled across the peninsula, including in Melaka.
So, Melaka had one additional wave of Chinese migrants compared to elsewhere in the peninsula. Today, even if we find a Malaysian Peranakan Chinese anywhere in the country or elsewhere in the world, they would trace their roots to Melaka.
However, we have to bear in mind that the same seafaring merchants also visited other places in the vast Malay archipelago, perhaps ports in Sumatra, Java and Borneo, where there would also be Indonesian Peranakans Chinese, who possibly speak the Indonesian language, which bears similarities to Malaysian Peranakan Chinese speaking Malay. I have not researched to there, and perhaps in future, will find out more about that.
I met a real peranakan from Malacca while working in Singapore . His surname is Khoo . His command of Malay was fantastic . Like a local Malay speaking .
My grandma wears Malay dressing but speaks Hokkien . Her family name is Ang .
Many of our grandparents and great grandparents wear such attire. We would see them dressed as such in those very old photographs that hang at our parents' house. But unless we have actual documentation (in most cases we don't), we can't say for sure whether they are Sinkhek (or Sin3khaek3 in Taiji Romanisation), Laukhek, Baba Nyonya or Peranakan.
@@learnpenanghokkiendocumentation? They couldn't even read or write. And worse, Hokkien not being traditionally a written language even the upper class couldn't read and write. And the fact is, the poor always outnumber the rich. And poor people don't keep genealogical records. Especially when they couldn't read them.
Nobody literate in my family. Both my parents were the first ones to go to school in their families. Half my family arrived quite recently, half much earlier. There is no certainty, but I'm guessing not laukhek.
The new half is probably sinkhek. The other half is probably peranakan rather than baba/nyonya.
As he explained in the video, there is a genetic difference. I have not taken an actual genetic test. Nobody in my family has. I'm just going off appearance. My dad was mistaken for Malay his whole life. 😅 And his mother (grandma) spoke both Hokkien and Malay fluently. She not only wear traditional peranakan clothing in old photos, she wore them every day. Those were the only things she had. She lived with us. Never saw her wearing anything else.
Hi, your grandma definately a Peranakan.