新加坡华族之多元性国际会议 Diversity and Singapore Ethnic Chinese Communities International Conference

新加坡华族之多元新加坡性国际华族之多元性会议论国际会议论文集文集 ETHNIC CHINESE COMMUNITIES DIVERSITY AND SINGAPORE DIVERSITY AND SINGAPORE ETHNIC CHINESE COMMUNITIES INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Edited by Koh Khee Heong Ong Chang Woei Phua Chiew Pheng Chong Ja Ian Yang Yan ISBN 978-981-14-5149-2 新加坡华族之多元性国际会议论文集 DIVERSITY AND SINGAPORE ETHNIC CHINESE COMMUNITIES INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Edited by Koh Khee Heong Ong Chang Woei Phua Chiew Pheng Chong Ja Ian Yang Yan Copyright © Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre and Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore, 2020 Published by City Book Room 420 North Bridge Road #03-10 North Bridge Centre Singapore 188727 Email: [email protected] ISBN: 978-981-14-4998-7 (paper) ISBN: 978-981-14-5149-2 (e-book) All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book. Cover design and layout by Ho Siew Yuen Printed by Ho Printing, Singapore National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data Name(s): Diversity and Singapore Ethnic Chinese Communities International Conference (1st: 2019: Singapore) | Koh, Khee Heong, editor. | Ong, Chang Woei, 1970- editor. | Phua, Chiew Pheng, editor. | Chong, Ja Ian, editor. | Yang, Yan, editor. Title: Diversity and Singapore ethnic Chinese Communities International Conference = Xinjiapo hua zu zhi duo yuan xing guo ji hui yi lun wen ji / edited by Koh Khee Heong, Ong Chang Woei, Phua Chiew Pheng, Chong Ja Ian, Yang Yan. Other title(s): Xinjiapo hua zu zhi duo yuan xing guo ji hui yi lun wen ji Description: Singapore: City Book Room, [2020] Identifier(s): OCN 1141815634 | ISBN 978-981-14-4998-7 (paperback) Subject(s): LCSH: Chinese--Singapore--Congresses. | Chinese--Singapore--Ethnic identity-- Congresses. | Chinese--Singapore--Religion--Congresses. | Chinese literature--Singapore-- Congresses. | Chinese--Singapore--Languages--Congresses. | Chinese language--Singapore- -Congresses. | Chinese--Singapore--Social life and customs--Congresses. Classification: DDC 305.895105957--dc23 Foreword Understanding Chinese Singaporean Culture LOW Sze Wee CEO, Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre With globalisation, multi-culturalism and other cosmopolitan influences in Singapore today, how do we go beyond an ethnic definition to examine Chinese Singaporean identity in a meaningful way? How does our evolving culture also challenge this identity? These questions underscored the spirited discussions at the Diversity and Singapore Ethnic Chinese Communities International Conference organised by the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre and National University of Singapore’s Department of Chinese Studies. During the two-day event, 24 respected academics from local and overseas institutions explored different aspects of the Singapore Chinese community — identity, religion, literature, language, and even popular culture. The discussions were thought-provoking, and never more relevant at a time when we see increasing ethnocentrism in some parts of the world, despite greater global interconnections. Personally, the definition of a Chinese Singaporean has to go beyond nationality and race. I like the metaphor of trees. Chinese communities around the world are rooted to the same ground, and yet they grow in different ways, depending on their specific contexts. So, whether you are a Chinese in China, Indonesia or Canada, some cultural change is inevitable. In the case of Singapore, our identity is very much influenced by our past (ancestral cultures, colonial legacies) and present (located in Southeast Asia with a multi-ethnic iii 新加坡华族之多元性国际会议 Diversity and Singapore Ethnic Chinese Communities International Conference population, reliant on international connectivity for economic survival, and shaped by various national policies). That is what makes us distinctive. And just as different communities adapt to their specific environments, cultures will also change and evolve. If we are keen to ‘preserve’ certain traditions (be they food, language, customs or artistic forms) for future generations, then we should acknowledge that such traditions will also need to evolve to maintain relevance to their contemporary audiences. The fastest way to ensure the extinction of a tradition is to render it immune to change. At the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, we have the opportunity to work directly with many arts and cultural groups. Passionate in celebrating their sense of belonging and identity as part of the Chinese Singaporean community, many are keen to express their artistic traditions in bold and creative ways. For example, Memoirs of Nanyang by Siong Leng Musical Association, one of Singapore’s most established performing groups, fused traditional Nanyin (southern Chinese traditional music) with Malay music and Mandarin pop. The group has also previously experimented with Indian instruments like the tablah, which breathed new life into their Chinese musical form that has over 2,000 years of history. I also like local young hip-hop artist Shigga Shay’s hyper-local songs, which showcase his cultural roots despite his strong interest in Western pop music genres. Apart from local references, he also cleverly mixes different languages and dialects in his lyrics. For example, Lion City Kia features English, Hokkien, Malay and Tamil, while his more recent Paiseh includes Mandarin, Hokkien, and his trademark penchant for Singlish. Local bak kwa (barbecued pork) retailer Xi Shi also marries tradition with innovation. Despite the pressures to switch to more efficient mechanised cooking methods, the young owner held onto the traditional way of making them in a charcoal smokehouse, as taught by his mentor. However, to appeal to a wider audience, he experiments with new and unconventional flavours such as homemade red yeast rice wine, roasted sesame and Japanese seaweed. Today, Chinese Singaporean identity and culture have integrated into a larger, multi-ethnic whole, and is therefore very much different from Chinese communities in other parts of the world. Yet this distinctive identity should not be perceived as a dilution. Quoting Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during iv Foreword Understanding Chinese Singaporean Culture the opening of the Cultural Centre in 2017, this has “never been a matter of subtraction, but of addition; not of becoming less, but more; not of limitation and contraction, but of openness and expansion.” With the increasing confluence of cultures in an open society, we should embrace this continuous evolution of our identity with open hearts and minds. v Preface Kenneth DEAN Raffles Professor of Humanities, FASS, Head, Department of Chinese Studies, NUS The compelling and provocative papers presented at the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre conference and published in this volume are all by Singaporean scholars. They share an intense and vibrant critical engagement with the rapidly transforming nature of everyday life and traditional anchors of identity - ethnicity, nationalism, shared language. All these identifiers are placed under interrogation in these papers. Flows of migrants transform every aspect of everyday life, down to the domestic sphere, where new intimacies lead to both conflict and new understandings. “New (Chinese) migrants” mingle and interact with Singaporean Chinese who have lived abroad most of their lives. Accelerating life trajectories put increasing strain on notions of home and origins. Several papers explore these issues in personal as well as academic terms. These concerns with representations of ethnicity and identity arise in the discussions of Singaporean Chinese literature, Singlish, Singaporean Mandarin, and Singaporean pop culture and its knowing play with ethnic representation in contemporary media. Even xinyao is shown to have a critical edge, as a close reading of the lyrics challenges efforts to re-appropriate these songs for nationalistic purposes. The essays on transnational religious movements, roadside shrines, and ambivalent sites such as Haw Par Villa bring out the complexity and the living hybridity of alternative spaces and collective movements beyond the secular homogenous space of modernity. A vii 新加坡华族之多元性国际会议 Diversity and Singapore Ethnic Chinese Communities International Conference key question raised in these essays is what does the image want? How can engaged scholars help us better understand the effects of representations of race, nation, creed and culture? The essays collected in this volume explore these profound issues with courage and compassion. These essays show that Singapore Studies continues to evolve in new and critical directions. Scholarship in an earlier phase often took CMIO categories and the 4 Ms (multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious) + meritocracy for granted, and focused on Singapore as a self-enclosed unit described primarily in terms of a narrative of nation-building. In contrast, these papers challenge the essentialisms of these categories, move beyond binary accounts of resistance or conformity to state-centrist ideologies, and critique mainstream neo-liberal understandings of Singapore as a “global city”. These papers show the impact of the papers published in the 2016 Mobilities 5.2 special issue on “Mobile City Singapore” (edited by Natalie Oswin and Brenda Yeoh), which marked an important turning point in Singapore Studies. The focus in many of the papers

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