Revival of Peranakan Culture

The notion of the Peranakan has slowly but surely been raised to a national level. Where it was once a rapidly vanishing figure, it is now very much a revived character in the Singapore story. Since the 1970s, with the use of the Sarong Kebaya as the uniform for Singapore Airlines’ air-stewardesses and the inception of “Peranakan Heritage” exhibitions in the Singapore National Museum, aspects of Peranakan culture have been slowly incorporated in valorized representations of Singapore’s history.

This revival of interest in all things Peranakan has not stopped. Instead, we have witnessed in the past few years, a Peranakan Craze hitting Singapore. This comes in the form of both State-sanctioned heritage-management activities and in the popular media. Both the Peranakan Museum and the Baba House were officially opened by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and President Nathan respectively in the year 2008. Peranakan restaurants are sprouting up all over the country and this is accompanied by the relentless interest in how to make Peranakan dishes like Babi Ponteh amongst other delicacies. Perhaps what is most significant is the promotion of the Peranakan community as the fourth ethnic group in official tourist marketing design. The term “Peranakan” has become a “selling point” for Singapore and aspects of Peranakan culture are accordingly appropriated to showcase something that is uniquely Singaporean. This raises questions regarding Singaporean identity and nation-building project.

The use of ethnicity and of race has always been salient in Singapore’s nation-building project and aspirations in carving out a Singaporean identity. This is done both ideologically and practically in the articulation of State policies that reserve for ethnic identity a central place in the makeup of national identity. Ethnicity in Singapore is institutionalized in oversimplified and rigid categories of Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others (CMIO). One’s affinity to the nation is predicated on one’s identification to his/her race; thus, one is Chinese-Singaporean, Malay-Singaporean, Indian-Singaporean or Other-Singaporean. The oversimplified CMIO scheme leaves no room for ethnic nuances and the subtleties of ethnic backgrounds. Assumptions of one’s vernacular language and religion are based upon one’s racial category. The Peranakan, on surface, has no place in this scheme but has the support of the State in its cultural conservation. In fact, its re-emergence seems to be, surprisingly, an unproblematic one. It is, therefore, interesting to see what aspects of Peranakan culture are selected and emphasized upon.

The popularity of “The Little Nyonya” is most emblematic of this revival of Peranakan culture and heritage. “The Little Nyonya” garnered a lot of attention and popularity on Mediacorp Television Channel 8 and was the most watched drama serial in the last 15 years. In fact, many people have attributed the current Peranakan craze as being kick-started by this drama serial. The production cost of the serial was also the highest ever for Mediacorp and included many popular Singapore-based actors.

The drama serial traces the lives of female protagonists, encompassing a span of 70 years since the 1930s onwards. Like most other Mediacorp drama serials, the plot focuses heavily on family conflict and carried moral overtones of filial piety, respect for the family and so on. Thus, if one strips the show down to its plot; there is nothing different about it from the typical chinese historical dramas that have been shown already. What makes the drama serial Peranakan is the more decorative aspects to the story. This can be categorized in terms of food, the kebaya and nyonya dress.

Food
Dishes and Kuehs were a permanent feature in the drama and the protagonists were excellent cooks. Sometimes, an entire episode can be made out of a cooking competition or rivalry between characters. This emphasis on the variety of Peranakan dishes churned out by characters in the show became an integral aspect of the show.

Kebaya and Nyonya Dress
What makes this show definitely a Peranakan one is arguably the fact that most of the female characters in the show are dressed in the Sarong Kebaya. Battles between characters in beadwork and embroidery formed mini-plots in the episodes. The emphasis on what the little Nyonya wears is pretty much evident in the opening sequence where the theme song is played. Scenes of flower motifs, accessories and head-dress were important in distinguishing the drama serial as articulating Peranakan culture.

Jeanette Aw, in donning the Sarong Kebaya, is instantly transformed into a Nyonya. She speaks in Mandarin and in all other instances, is the typical character off a Chinese historical drama. However, through the imagery of her dressed in a Kebaya, making Kueh, she becomes the Peranakan very easily.

Episode 1 featured lingering aesthetic shots of the kebaya, the gold accessories as well as many other material aspects of Peranakan culture.

Other potential aspects of Peranakan culture (which can include anything from religion, kinship ties and relations, language and other aspects of Peranakan social life) have not really been selected as aspects which are to be put on the pedestal. In fact, language (Baba Malay) was effectively de-emphasized with the show airing in Mandarin and was relegated to a redundant corner of existence in the show- appearing only to seemingly exoticise certain practices like "Tok Panjang" (meaning Long Table Feast) and give items a Peranakan character.

The Peranakan seems to only exist in material, corporeal items like the sarong kebaya and not in the experience of a community. The revival of Peranakan culture and heritage, through various channels have become systemised and packaged in a way that becomes unproblematic for viewers to comprehend. It is presented in standardized formats that allows for easy consumption. Because the culture has been so reduced to its material products, the Peranakan does not pose a threat to Singapore's rigid CMIO scheme and multiracial policy. Instead, it acquires its relevance through this scheme and is celebrated as a symbol for racial harmony. Thus, any potential adverse political implications of Peranakans acquiring the status of a "fourth ethnic group" are negated.

The revival of Peranakan culture, though impactful commercially, does not entail changes in Singapore's CMIO administrative scheme. Baba Malay is not considered a vernacular language worth teaching. Peranakans, being Straits-born, do not enjoy rights on the basis of this apparent ethnicity. Its significance seems to be restricted to the realm of commodities and consumerism. Peranakan culture attains so much support from the State not because it is recognised officially as an ethnic community, but because by packaging it, it draws crowds and attains commercial value. Stirring up nostalgic sentiments, predicated on a sense of loss, the revival of interest in Peranakan culture is useful in promoting Singapore to the world. It is also testament to Singapore's multiracial situation which has not been undiscovered by engineers of Singapore's nation-building project.

It can be seen, then, that Peranakans are not considered an ethnic community in the official, administrative sense but a symbolic one that can only come alive through the machinery of nostalgia and the fetishization of its material products . It has acquired a symbolic inclusiveness because it can be so unabashedly consumed- by the tourist, by the mother learning to cook Peranakan dishes, by the little girls that don the Sarong Kebaya and so on.