Chinese tradition, ceremony,culture

Not all peranakan are wealthy and some of them are quite poor actually in the 60's How did they live and where did they live Here is a glimpse of live in the 60's They live in Kampong(village) mostly rumah atap( Corrugated steel roof home) Not that many left in Singapore . Even thought they are poor they live in Harmony with their neighbor in multi race setting Now there is nostalgia about slow living in very hectic modern life




Goodbye My Kampong! Potong Pasir, 1966 to 1975
$18.60 SGD
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by Josephine Chia



Synopsis

Sequel to Josephine Chia’s 2014 Singapore Literature prize-winning book, Kampong Spirit - Gotong Royong: Life in Potong Pasir, 1955 to 1965.

Kampong life in Singapore did not end in 1965 with her independence.

In Josephine Chia’s new collection of non-fiction stories, the phasing out of attap-thatched villages, the largest mass movement in Singapore, is set against the backdrop of significant national events.

Weaving personal tribulations—her teenage angst—and the experiences of villagers from her kampong, Josephine skilfully parallels the hopes and challenges of a toddling nation going through the throes of industrialisation and rapid changes from 1966 to 1975.

These delightful, real-life stories, sprinkled with snippets of her Peranakan culture, reveal the joie-de-vivre of gotong royong or community spirit, despite impoverished conditions, in the last days of kampong life.

About the author

Josephine Chia is proud of her Peranakan heritage. She is internationally published in both adult fiction and non-fiction. Goodbye My Kampong! Potong Pasir, 1966 to 1975 is her tenth book. She is happiest when she is in the dreamtime flow of creative writing.

The impoverished years of her life in Kampong Potong Pasir had taught her to be resilient, to share and to find joy in everyday living. Josephine’s love for stories and story-telling developed from her gotong royong community in kampong life and story-telling evenings.

Josephine spent half her life in Singapore and half in UK but now lives in Singapore. She currently nurtures aspiring writers and is Creative Writing mentor to students as well as adults on various MOE, NAC and NBDCS programmes. She has won several literary awards, both in UK and Singapore.

Her books have been translated into Bahasa Indonesia and Malay.

I grew up reading his novel the legend of condor hero Jin Yong the author just passed away. He will sadly missed
Unfortunately i never watch the movies version which is badly made another costume movie

China's most celebrated martial arts novelist Louis Cha Leung-yung, who is better known by his pen name Jin Yong, passed away in Hong Kong Tuesday. He is considered the grandfather of Chinese martial arts fiction. His famous works of fiction enjoy wide popularity among Chinese-speaking countries. He is one of the best-selling Chinese authors with more than 300 million copies of his works sold worldwide.

I don't see anything wrong with Hanfu of course it si not practical to wear it every day. But on special occasion why not. It is statement of identity and not nationalism

A Retro Fashion Statement in 1,000-Year-Old Gowns, With Nationalist Fringe

A woman in Hanfu-style attire posing for photographers this month in the Summer Palace in Beijing.CreditYan Cong for The New York Times

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A woman in Hanfu-style attire posing for photographers this month in the Summer Palace in Beijing.CreditCreditYan Cong for The New York Times


By and Katrina Northrop
Nov. 22, 2018


BEIJING — They flocked together in silky, flowing gowns, arms draped in billowing sleeves, with many wearing high black hats or intricate floral headpieces as a flourish.

If they resembled time travelers teleported from a Chinese imperial ritual of a thousand years ago, that was just the desired effect.

These hundreds of retro-style dressers, gathered on a university campus in Beijing this past weekend, are devotees of the “Hanfu” movement. They are dedicated to reviving the clothes they believe China’s Han ethnic majority wore before their country succumbed to centuries of foreign domination — and to taking pride in the past they evoke.

“Hanfu is a social scene, and that’s why I’m into it, but it also has deeper levels of national feeling too,” said Yin Zhuo, 29, a computer programmer, who joined the day of activities in a long blue gown and red cape with a fake fur fringe.
While the Chinese government bans countless social activities, the nationalist leader, , has promoted , making this a golden time for fans of Hanfu — which means Han clothing — and giving it official cachet and permission to grow.
, mostly female, and mostly in their teens and 20s.

Internet commerce has spread the trend, making it easy for shops to reach devotees even in small towns.

“Numbers are certainly growing, and fast,” said Wang Jiawen, who under the pen name Jia Lin has been a in southern China.

The Hanfu enthusiasts who met this past Saturday were celebrating the 15 years since Wang Letian, a power utility worker, strolled through Zhengzhou, a city in central China, wearing old-style robes, an event recorded on t.

The movement claims, with some poetic exaggeration, that Mr. Wang’s walk was a milestone in its modern rebirth.

“Reviving Hanfu had great significance for raising Han ethnic identity and pride,” Mr. Wang said by telephone.

Chinese officials have as part of the Communist Party’s idea of tradition. Schools now often parade students in traditional scholar gowns for fancifully reimagined versions of coming-of-age ceremonies.

When Mr. Xi

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last year, they watched traditional Chinese musicians dressed in Hanfu.

“Hanfu is maturing, and the country and government are giving more support,” said Jiang Xue, a manager at a mobile app company in Beijing, who was wearing a pink gown modeled on Ming dynasty dresses of centuries ago. The hand embroidered rabbits and flowers were her own touch.

“Xi has always promoted reviving traditional culture, and naturally that includes clothing,” she said.


of the country’s population — should show their pride by wearing clothes like those worn before Manchu armies from the north occupied China and ruled it as the Qing dynasty from 1644.

The Manchu emperors, and then waves of Western and Japanese imperialists, imposed their own styles and Han culture fell into eclipse, according to Hanfu proponents.

“Most people in the Hanfu movement that I met were nationalists looking for the thrill of wearing traditional clothing,” said Kevin Carrico, a lecturer in Chinese studies at Macquarie University in Australia who has written a .

Despite the movement’s growing popularity and official acceptance, walking down a Chinese street in a traditional gown requires a dash of boldness. Most Hanfu followers step out in their outfits only on special occasions.

A few of the most committed wear their Hanfu clothes almost every day, including at work.

In a Hanfu store in east Beijing on a recent weekend, newcomers and longtime customers fingered through racks of gowns, scarves, sashes and headdresses. When a man in his 20s pulled on a long black gown and a gold-colored belt, the store broke out in admiring oohs and ahs.


Hanfu devotees. Clockwise from top left: Yan Zhenzhen, 23; Deng Xiaofan, 21; Chen Yue, 21; Wang Xin, 25; Xu Gangyu, 23; Yue Qiwu, 24.CreditYan Cong for The New York Times

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Hanfu devotees. Clockwise from top left: Yan Zhenzhen, 23; Deng Xiaofan, 21; Chen Yue, 21; Wang Xin, 25; Xu Gangyu, 23; Yue Qiwu, 24.CreditYan Cong for The New York Times
“When we first opened, people would often ask if we were filming a show or holding a costume party,” said Yue Huaiyu, the owner of the store, who said she has sold Hanfu clothes for over a decade. “They didn’t get it.”

Now, in terms of customers, “There are more and more.”

Yet as Hanfu has spread, it has also become more fractious. Hanfu websites are loud with debate about what counts as authentic clothing.

“Much of the history and traditions that the movement cites are invented,” said Mr. Carrico, the author. “They are creating this history for themselves.”

People also fight about how much modification to fit modern tastes is acceptable.

Gu Meng, a financial manager in Beijing, who sometimes wears Hanfu to work, said he was disgruntled with “Hanfu fundamentalists” who resisted altering their clothes to suit modern needs.

“I’ve asked the store many times why can’t they add a pocket at the back for my phone and cigarettes,” he said, referring to a Hanfu boutique he frequents. “They think I’m a heretic.”

(cont)

Above all, followers differ over whether Hanfu is primarily about ethnic assertion, instilling ancient values, or simply making a bold fashion statement in a gown embroidered with dragons or flowers.

, but many Han Chinese see themselves as generous protectors of minorities.

“Our nationalism is a positive energy,” said Mr. Wang, the Hanfu researcher. “In ethnic policy, the Han should, to put it simply, be the big brother, and only then can we properly guide and protect the little brother and sister ethnic minorities.”



For many Hanfu followers, building up an impressive wardrobe ultimately seems more important than building a nationalist movement. And China’s long history allows for plenty of fashion creativity across all body types.

Zheng Qi, a 39-year old garment designer from southwest China, said she had given up wearing Hanfu gowns after she become a mother a few years ago and found that few were designed for fuller-bodied women.

this year after posting photos of herself inspired by pictures from the Tang dynasty, whose rule of China ended over 1,100 years ago.

“I thought of the Tang dynasty look because that was maybe the only dynasty in Chinese history that was relatively accepting of a plump or fuller look,” she said.

For her, being a Hanfu devotee was something of a paradox.

“On the one hand, we love our own culture, but our personalities are very modern,” Ms. Zheng said. “If our personalities were very traditional, I don’t think we would hit the street wearing Hanfu because it’s nonconformist.”

Hair accessories are an important component of many Hanfu outfits.CreditYan Cong for The New York Times

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Hair accessories are an important component of many Hanfu outfits.CreditYan Cong for The New York Times

This author is dis ingenious by bringing politic in cultural phenomena By the time the communist come to power Hanfu is nowhere to bee seen It has nothing to do with the CCP But economist as usual can't help it
China should standardized the Hanfu clothing and make it real and modern traditional clothing like Kimono in Japan. Give them real sense of belonging and identity and not the fake one
The communist should stop playing politic and let people who they be

Why young Chinese are sporting 1,800-year-old fashions
Thoughts on the craze for ethnic robes

Print edition | China
Jan 10th 2019


The teenager developed his passion at high school in Pingliang, perched in the hills of Gansu, an inland province. Though a rather small, sleepy spot, Pingliang is home to a Han culture association. Such clubs are spreading fast. They celebrate the Han ethnic group to which more than nine out of ten people in China belong.

Enthusiasts claim that a million Chinese, mostly youngsters, regularly wear Hanfu, or robes inspired by traditional Han dress. The unplanned emergence of any social movement in China presents Communist bosses with a choice: scramble to the front of the parade and claim to lead it, or ban it. For now, the parade continues. State media hail Hanfu as a welcome complement to calls from President Xi Jinping to revive traditional culture and values. In April 2018 the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, a recruitment channel for party members, declared a first “Traditional Chinese Garment Day”. The league urged young Chinese to don ancient finery to demonstrate “cultural confidence” to the world. There was a caveat, however. The league’s commemorative day honours what it calls Huafu, or “Chinese dress”. That encompasses not only Han traditions but those of China’s 55 official ethnic minorities, from such places as Tibet, Inner Mongolia or the restive Muslim region of Xinjiang. The league’s caution reflects wariness about overt Han chauvinism, which threatens official narratives about a unified, multi-ethnic China.

In truth, clumsy Communist propaganda extolling national unity arguably helped create a hunger for Han traditions. At big party events, ethnic-minority delegates typically attend in brightly coloured folk costumes trimmed with silks, furs or jangling silver jewellery, even as Han delegates appear in Western suits and ties. This both patronises minorities and renders the Han an invisible nationality—representatives of a sort of generic modernity.

As Mr Chen shares his story, the slight, bespectacled teenager is wearing robes of lilac and white, embroidered with blue clouds, an outfit he says is Jin-dynasty day-wear. All around are thousands of fellow enthusiasts attending a Hanfu cultural festival held annually in Xitang, a quaint, canal-side town near Shanghai.

Hanfu wearers vary in their devotion to historical accuracy. Mr Chen has brought along a classmate whose look combines a black-and-white military uniform, 21st-century sneakers and an air of faint embarrassment. “I think this is Han dynasty,” the classmate mumbles, when asked. The colours are more Ming, says Mr Chen, gently correcting his friend’s dates by about 1,100 years.

Enthusiasm counts for more than precision. On this sunny festival weekend a local Starbucks boasts baristas in toga-like robes, a warrior in chain-mail queuing for coffee, and outside, a Taoist priest in a tunic and cloak outfit he calls “a bit of messed-up fusion”. Luling Manman, an author invited to the festival as an expert on ancient etiquette, defines Hanfu as “all forms of clothes we Han people have worn over the course of 5,000 years”. Others take a narrower view, describing a tradition cut cruelly short when the last ethnic-Han dynasty, the Ming, was overthrown in 1644. In European terms, that is like wrangling over a school of fashion that supposedly began in Neolithic times and flowered in the Middle Ages, and may or may not have ended during the English civil war.

Since the Hanfu movement emerged in the early 2000s, some members have framed it as a way to restore Han customs suppressed by ethnic Manchu warriors who conquered China from the north and ruled as emperors of the Qing dynasty from 1644 until 1911. Han nationalists scorn such “Chinese” traditions as tightfitting qipao dresses or high-collared jackets precisely because they are derived from Manchu, Qing-era fashions.

The visible Hans
At the Xitang festival, it should be said, brooding nationalists are outnumbered by youngsters having uncool, goofy fun. Blushing students giggle their way through a lesson in ancient dancing. Earnest, robe-wearing young men take photographs of each other playing the flute or practising archery. Children take part in a fashion show, swishing perilously along a catwalk in too-long finery.

The festival organiser is Vincent Fang Wenshan, a Taiwanese lyricist behind some of the most famous Mandarin pop songs of recent times. A dapper 49-year-old in black embroidered robes, Mr Fang urges younger enthusiasts to eschew Han chauvinism and to be open to modernised Hanfu. He sighs that some purists will not tolerate any dress not found in ancient wall paintings, and draws a wistful comparison with Japan, where traditional customs and modern culture co-exist easily. Wearing a kimono on a Japanese bus causes no astonishment, notes Mr Fang, lamenting that a gap of several centuries separates Han traditional culture from the modern world. He would like to see Hanfu fans bridge that gap.

Historians might quibble with some of Mr Fang’s details. Plenty of Han traditions actually survived under the Qing. The country’s sharpest break with tradition came during the first decades of Communist rule, when leftist zealotry made it safest to wear blue and green Mao suits. But that is to take the Hanfu movement too literally, perhaps. Look past the invented costumes and the dodgy history, and something simpler and more poignant appears: a whole country yearning to know where it belongs.

Culture & Tradition are important elements of any Nation. Yes, we move with times with our dressing BUT on Special Occasions like CNY or other important occasions, it is good to be in one's National (Cultural) dress. I loved to see my wife in the traditional Chinese Cheongsam, when she was young - admired by many of my Western colleagues..... But I was ready with my hidden BIG stick just in case they were up to their "tricks" )))

Tracing the root is popular past time among overseas Chinese irrespective of their ideology It bug anglophile as well as sinophile In the 60s Chinese government encourage it by providing service to trace their root And in southern China the job is made easier by socalled one surname village As long as you know the village wher your ancestor come from all you have to do is travel to that village and people will help you locate your ancestor hall Most people contribute money to upkeep and maintenance of the ancestral hall
It is amazing the sense of kinship that transcend time and space Some of them never set a foot in hundred years Yet when they come to the village the villager will welcome them as they never left
LKY never went to his ancestral home No wonder because his great great grandfather left the family in SEA while he went back to his village remarried and life as a gentry by buying Qing aristocracy
Lee great grandmother a Nyonya refused to return to China and she stay in SEA bringing up Lee grandfather

• Pilgrimages by former Thai leaders Thaksin and Yingluck to Guangdong village where they have roots are no longer as celebrated
• Nearby village generates tourism from tenuous link to Singapore’s founding father Lee, who never visited it

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 19 January, 2019, 11:31am
UPDATED : Saturday, 19 January, 2019, 5:50pm






Everyone here knows about their ties to this place, for sure,” said Xie Yimin, a home supplies shop owner in Taxia village in Guangdong province, four hours’ drive from Guangzhou.

Brother and sister Thaksin and Yingluck are fourth-generation Chinese immigrants in Thailand and descended from a family of Hakkas. Their great-grandfather Seng Saekhu, like many others from the Guangdong cities of Meizhou and Chaozhou, left China in the late 19th century for what was then Siam, where he grew wealthy from trading and taxation businesses.

Before each went into self-imposed exile after being ousted as Thai leader by military governments in 2006 and 2014 respectively, Thaksin and Yingluck had become familiar to Taxia. With the help of the Chinese government during his term as leader, Thaksin was able to trace their ancestral roots to the village. He first visited it in 2005, before returning with his sister in 2014.

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The siblings’ portraits were placed in the centre of an array of photos of prominent descendants of the village with the clan surname Qiu.

“Being distant relatives [of the Shinawatras] was something people liked to talk about,” Xie said.

But not any more.



Thaksin – ranked 19th on US business magazine Forbes’ 2018 Thailand’s 50 Richest list, with a net worth of US$1.8 billion – was ousted as prime minister in a military coup in 2006, fleeing abroad to avoid a corruption charge. He was convicted in absentia in 2008 and sentenced to two years in jail.

Yingluck, who made her name as an executive in the telecoms and property businesses founded by her brother, was sentenced to five years in prison in absentia in 2017 for mishandling rice subsidies that resulted in huge losses to state coffers. She fled the country ahead of the verdict and said the case was politically motivated.



The siblings have made plenty of high-profile trips in the past year, including appearances in China, Singapore and Japan. But it was quiet in Taxia when they arrived for their latest ancestral visit on January 5. According to the Chinese media, the pair stopped at the shrine to pay their respects.

“This was nothing like their previous visit,” said Xie, whose shop is a minute’s walk from the shrine. “Ever since Yingluck’s scandal, we were asked to give the relations between them and our village a lower profile.

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“[Villagers] only found out they were coming half an hour beforehand because police started blocking the roads. We were informed a week in advance last time,” Xie said, adding that villagers were asked to stay away, with only government officials and some distant relatives being allowed near the visitors. She said they stayed for half an hour.

As much as China loves to play up the ancestral roots of prominent and successful overseas Chinese figures, the red carpet that was once rolled out for the Shinawatra siblings has been rolled away.



During their previous return to Taxia, photos in the ancestral hall show, the local government organised a feast for them and locals to enjoy against a giant display that read “Welcome back Thaksin and Yingluck”.

This time, Yingluck posted a short video on Instagram of her and her brother visiting Taxia, showing them getting out of a car and being greeted by eager and smiling Chinese locals. However, all relevant Chinese state media photos and articles about their visit were deleted within a day.

Their brief stop also missed out one of the ports of call on Thaksin’s previous two visits: the ancestral home of their mother, an hour’s drive from Taxia.

The house sits on a small hill in Meijiao village, where pomelo trees are a common sight. A 2012 plaque on an outside wall of the 200-year-old yellow concrete building identifies it as a protected heritage site, commemorating the place where the mother of Thaksin and Yingluck lived. She resided there for two years in her brief return to China during the second world war, according to Chinese state media.

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Five years ago, the siblings had a photo taken in front of the house with their oldest living relative, who state media reported was the wife of their mother’s cousin. Aged about 90, she still lives alone in the run-down abode, her neighbours said.

With its shattered windows, broken doors and stove, and a floor covered in leaves and chicken droppings, it is a world away from the affluent lives of Thaksin and Yingluck.

“When they visited last time, the local government did try to fix the house a bit, mend the walls and clean it,” said Li Dongling, who runs a pomelo business in the village.

“But they never came again. Sometimes I see the old lady and I feel sorry that she lives in such ruins – it looks like the house could collapse at any time,” said Li, who has lived in the village for over 20 years.

“But this [the association with the Shinawatras] doesn’t bring any benefit to us as a village. We rely on ourselves for our living.”



Qiu Mingqian, a Taxia village committee member of the Communist Party, said plans to preserve the Shinawatras’ family history had been put on hold indefinitely.

“The government wanted to preserve some heritage related to them and revitalise the ancestor temple,” Qiu said. “Somehow the plan never went ahead, for political reasons.”

While China’s reception for the Shinawatras has cooled, the reverse has been true for the family heritage of another Southeast Asian leader, whose ancestral home is 80km (50 miles) away.

By the junction leading to Tangqi village in Dapu county, also in Meizhou, stands a large sign that reads “Lee Kuan Yew’s Homeplace Tourist Area” – referring to Singapore’s first prime minister, known as its founding father and a fourth-generation Straits Chinese.

(cont)

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In the village itself, newly paved roads, an artificial lake, security cameras and an automatic lighting system can be found alongside hundred-year-old traditional Chinese terraced houses with grey tilted roofs.

A new two-storey Lee Kuan Yew memorial hall and a tourist centre stand in the middle of the village, while a house described as Lee’s ancestral home is marked by two plaques about the architecture.

These form part of a 30 million yuan (US$4.5 million) project launched by the local government in 2014 to turn the tiny village of about 300 residents into a rural tourist site honouring the man who governed Singapore for three decades and oversaw its 1965 separation from Malaysia.



Lee, who died in 2015, had said that his great-grandfather Li Muwen came from Tangqi village and moved to Singapore to do business. Li later left his family – Lee’s ancestors – in Singapore to return to China in 1884, building the house and starting another family there.

Despite the efforts to tie Lee’s name to Tangqi, Lee and his descendants – including current Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong – have never set foot in the place.

“This [entire project] was a Chinese initiative; the Singapore government never acknowledged it,” said He Yaohong, a member of museum staff who is also a village cadre. “The Lee family is already head of state of another country and would never want to be called Chinese.”

She said visitors to Tangqi, numbering a few hundred to a thousand per month, were mostly Chinese or Singaporean Chinese.

There was a rumour that Lee Kuan Yew’s younger brother had visited in 2005, but no visits were expected from the more powerful members of the family, she said.

“The government did inform Singapore about building this tourist spot, because we are using Lee’s name and image,” He said.

“We are just using his name for our own purpose, and as long as both sides are all right with this, everything is fine.”

It is a historical fact since 15th Century Adm Zeng He's 7 Voyages, and even before, that Chinese ventured into South East Asia and beyond for work opportunities and business. Majority of them were very successful. The modern Overseas Chinese are exposed to the modern world - East & West, but majority have never forgotten their ancestry. However, though they have links with their ancestral Chinese villages, the Overseas Chinese of various Asean countries remained loyal to their respective countries for obvious reasons - Deng Tsao Ping agreed with LKY's request when he first visited Singapore that China should stop supporting the local Communist Parties in Malaysia, Singapore & Indonesia i.e. thru' China's propaganda/ideological radio broadcasts then. Soon after Deng's visit to Singapore, China ceased such broadcasts. Personally, I think that China continues with such policy of non-interference. China, even as a Super-power will hopefully avoid being like the past Colonials - Dutch (East Indies/Indonesia), French (Indo-China), Americans (Commonwealth of the Philippines). Where the British were concerned, though they were Colonials, they prepared the Singapore leaders/civil service, and introduced an excellent education system. LKY was called a "Yellow" banana by late PM Chou En Lai ---- however, I am sure LKY and many others were very grateful for the British scholarships' awards. LKY remained Chinese, spoke Queen's English, studied Mandarin in his adult life (He also spoke fluent Malay better than some Malay leaders in Malaysia then). As a multi-cultural Singaporean I respect ALL cultures i.e. race or religious beliefs. I now take the opportunity to wish all my Chinese friends in this chat group: "Gong Xi Fa Cai" ..... enjoy your reunion dinner. My family and I will enjoy ours..... not forgetting to give ang-pows to the young children and elderly relatives ..... a Singaporean Chinese custom.

Sin Choon Kionghi thiam hok thiam soe
Chinese new year peranakan style