claudine_c

My interest in family history actually began with the mystery of my surname’s origin. Through my parents’ and my paternal grandmother’s recollections I was able to trace the Chionh line to my great-grandfather. I was told (in my dreaded childhood Chinese lessons) that the Chinese character for my surname was Jiang. (I can write the character but I don’t know how to input it into Ubuntu/Logjam.) But no one could say how Jiang became Chionh.

Three previously unknown Chionhs have contacted me after finding my public family history web page. One of these is a second cousin -- we have the same great-grandfather -- now living in Australia. She was able to provide some details on my great-great-grandfather. The other two were Singaporean Chionhs for whom we have not been able to establish definite links. While in Singapore my parents and I met with them and their families. One of these men knew of my great-grandfather but wasn’t sure how they were related. The other came up with names that were completely new to me and we couldn’t find a connection, but I took a photo of him and my father side-by-side, and there seems to be a physical resemblance. So the mystery continues.

The main Tan reunion events were a dinner last Saturday and a tour of historic sites on Sunday. The Chinese in general have strong migratory tendencies. While most of the reunion attendees lived in Singapore, there were also English, American and Australian visitors. This was my first opportunity to meet Lawrence Tan, one of my English third cousins, who has overseen the compilation of a genealogical database numbering over 900 individuals. I began trying to compile my own family history about four years ago and, while searching Rootsweb for a different branch, stumbled on Lawrence’s data. I was able to reconcile my mother’s stories and recollections with the hard data that Lawrence had collected.

We were encouraged to wear traditional Peranakan dress to the dinner. I’d seen older women like my grandmother wear the sarong kebaya (tight-fitting sarong and jacket) but neither my mother or I had ever worn this. The authentic outfit requires brooches and a belt (silver, to be really authentic) and small slippers. My grandmother’s jewellery was in Melbourne (oops!) and the sarong and slippers did not seem intended for serious walking or standing. So we compromised and wore kebaya and trousers.

I’d met or been told about many of my mother’s relatives when I was younger but had trouble remembering where they fit into the grand scheme. Lawrence brought along an eight-foot printout of the Tan Tock Seng family tree. The reunion organiser, Roney Tan, presented a talk on Tan Tock Seng and his sons and grandsons, and screened a documentary about Tan Tock Seng. TTS is most famous in Singapore for the hospital that bears his name. My mother has said that when she was young she would tell people that she was one of his descendants and would sometimes be rebuked for being too proud. In Australia I’ve sometimes been accused of crypto-aristocratic behaviour -- and this was before I was fully aware of how much of an impact Tan Tock Seng made on Singapore. But while the reunion might have been mostly about celebrating our ancestors, I also learned that many of my relatives are continuing his example of good works (as well as making money).

On the tour the following day, we visited: Tan Tock Seng’s grave; a temple partly established by him, the Thian Hock Keng; a temple partly established by one of his sons, the Po Chiak Keng Tan Si Chong Su; a huge house built by one of his grandsons; and of course the hospital. The CEO of the hospital took us on a tour of some of the wards and the main building. The Tan Si Chong Su and the hospital treated us like stars, which helped with the ego-swelling.

Overall the weekend was packed with meeting relatives and hearing lots of different people praise Tan Tock Seng. I don’t cope with large groups of people very well, and it would have been easier on my nerves to have had all this in smaller doses; but still it felt good to be part of a great and continuing family tradition.

I’ve recently returned from eleven days in Singapore. One of the main reasons for going this time was to attend a reunion of descendants of Tan Tock Seng, a pioneering Singaporean businessman and philanthropist. Tan Tock Seng was born in Malacca, moved to Singapore soon after the colony’s establishment in 1819, made a lot of money and helped build a hospital and a Chinese temple in Singapore.

Some of Singapore’s old families (such as the Tans) identify as Peranakan or “Straits Chinese”, used to distinguish the Chinese who settled in the colonies around the Straits of Malacca from those who have arrived from China more recently. The Straits Chinese have a distinctive culture which borrows from our Malay and European contacts as well as Chinese tradition. It can be easy to identify Peranakan architecture, traditional costume and food, and while they may speak the Queen’s English when it suits them, Straits Chinese tend to casually drop some Malay or Hokkien into their conversation.

My parents both speak English and Malay and only limited Hokkien or other Chinese dialects. When I was at school, twenty years ago, children were required to learn, in addition to English, the language that belonged to their official ethnic background -- Chinese, Malay or Indian. There was no acknowledgement of the kind of cultural subtlety and mixture that characterises the Straits Chinese. I was forced to learn Mandarin, effectively a foreign language to my family, but it never sunk in.

Peranakan culture may have been neglected but is now being recognised by younger Singaporeans. Singaporean builders are a bit demolition-crazy but a few Peranakan buildings are being earmarked for heritage protection. There is a Peranakan museum which seems to have a lot of support. And on flicking through a Rough Guide to Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei I found an entry on the Straits Chinese in the “People” section, so hopefully we’re not about to be written off as a dying culture yet.