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Malaysian Studies Assignment 1
Name : Teoh Ming Miin
Matric No.: 16020
Programme: Information Communication and Technology
Semester: May 2015
Lecturer’s Name : Encik Mohamad Kamal bin Kamarudin
Book Title: Histories, cultures, identities: studies in Malaysian
Chinese Worlds by Sharon A. Carstens
Book summary:
1.0 Introduction to Malaysian Chinese worlds
The cultural diversity of Malayan Chinese was observed by 19th-century colonial
observers when the Chinese ancetors immigrated to Malaya. There’re a huge
difference among the Malayan Chinese on their dialect group distinctions,
resources and connections they carried with them overseas, as well as the
diverse geographic regions they settled. For example, chinese men who came
with money to invest, and who arrived penniless, Chinese women who came as
wives of wealthy merchants or came to work as domestic servants or labourers,
prostitutes all have different prospects and experiences.
As of today, with chinese settlement in Malaysia for five or more generations, the
original forms of diversity haven expanded to include differences in education,
geographic regions with its distinctive ethnic mixes.
2.0 Story of Kapitan Yap Ah Loy
The author is trying to give the readers a picture of the model of 19 th-century
Malayan Chinese cultural formations through Yan Ah Loy’s life. A British civil
servant, S.M. Middlebrook constructed one of the most detailed biographies of
the Chinese Malayan leader in the 1930s, including a record of Yap Ah Loy’s life.
Yap Ah Loy travelled from his Hakka home to Malayan port of Melaka at the age
of 17. Yap’s first contacts in Melaka were with kinsmen who arranged for him to
work first in a nearby tin mine and then an assistant in a small shop. After
working for more than a year, Yap Ah Loy were advised by the shop’s proprietor
to return to China, after giving him sufficient money for his ticket home. What
happened in the end is that, Yap Ah Loy lost his ticket in a gambling game while
waiting for his ship to sail from Singapore. Since then, Yap Ah Loy stayed in
Melaka.
Yap Ah Loy went to Lukut, a flourishing mining settlement in southern Selangor.
After working for three years as mining coolie and cook in the tin mining kongsi,
Yap Ah Loy had saved enough money to start a pig trading business. Yap met
another two Huizhou Hakka (his hometown) in tin mining read of Sungei Ujong
and he was invited to serve as a bodyguard for the Kapitan Shin (Sheng Ming Li)
during that time.
Yap Ah Loy fought with Kapitan Shin’s group during a serious fingthing in Sungei
Ujong when Chinese miners rebelled against what they considered excessive
taxation by local Malay chiefs. The death of Kapitan Shin in the fight gave the
young Yap Ah Loy (aged 24) his first opportunity for leadership. Yap Ah Shak, a
weathy Huizhou Hakka merchant with connections were selected to take over
the late kapitan’s position but he passed this title to Yap Ah Loy. Nonetheless.
Yap Ah Loy put aside his kapitan position and jorney further north to Selangor in
1862.
After he went Kuala Lumpur and appointed by his old friend, Liu Ngim Kong as
his personal assistant, Yap Ah Loy began to profit considerably on his own
account. He was then get married with a Melaka Chinese woman, Kok Kang
keown. Yap Ah Loy’s increasing success in Kuala Lumpur paralleled the
flourishing growth of the wider area. Selangor wars which happened within two
different groups of Hakka: Jiayingzhou Hakka and Huizhou Hakka due to the
growing competition in the area. Other than the fight within chinese sub-dialect
division, secret society connections and divisions among the Selangor Malay
royalty also fought among each other. After various rounds of conflicts and
challenges, with the Selangor wars ended, Yap Ah Loy had became the kapitan
with supports from the Malay.
2.1 Kapitan in a New Era
In 1874, after the end of Selangor wars, British intervent in Malay States. Due to
the civil war that had destroyed most of the miens and buildings, Yap Ah Loy
faced economic crisis from 1873 to 1879. Nonetheless, on the verge of
bankruptcy in 1879, Yap was saved by a sudden dramatic increase in tin prices.
He was free of debt by 1880 and involved in new businesses by then.
The stationing of the British resident in KL in March 1880 meant a further
diminishing of Yap’s power as an administrator but he continued to serve as
magistrate for the settlement of Chinese disputes. He played an important role
of economist and philanthroist during this period. Yap was routinely praised by
British administrators for his perseverance in developing the Kuala Lumpur area
despite great adversity but as British control expanded, they could find the
kapitan’s attitude about the extent of his power quite exasperating. Yap Ah Loy
in the middle of Aprial 1885 at the relatively young age of 48.
From the events described above, the constantly shifting events and
relationships in Yap Ah Loy’s life illustrate the dynamic interplay between the
economic, political and ideological contexts of particular periods and the
possibilities of individual choice, influenced and shaped by cultural values. Yap
Ah Loy’s behaviour served to change both culture and context, affecting the
choices available to individuals who followed.
2.2 Economic domain
Tin mining was the dominant economic enterprise for Yap Ah Loy and the other
Chinese working in the Malayan interior after the mid-19th century. Many
systems of payment, and several strategies from the workers in defending
themselves were practiced by the workers and financiers. The general economic
strategy practiced by workers and mine owners are alike, founded on hard work,
savings and investment, known as the Chiense entrepreneurial etnic. The
Chinese could indeed work his way up the ladder, as assumed by the European
observers. Yap Ah Loy is an example for this. Other than that, the diversification
of investments as one’s capital increased is also a related component in this
strategy as we can see Yap Ah Loy investing and expanding many different
enterprises. Ceremonial and ritualistic activities such as feasting, burning joss
sticks, shooting firecrackers on a “lucky day” chosen to open a new mine and etc.
are embedded in the daily activities of the miners, reflected Chinese folk beliefs
in the important of staying in harmony with symbolic activities associated with
the natural and cosmic orders. We can also see Chinese ideas and beliefs about
luck and fate that could provide powerful spurs for enterprising coolies and for
mining workers to have little control over their conditions of employments.
2.3 The Sociopolitical Domain
Most of the sociopolitical context described includes major changes in both
population demographics and the identity of the central political authorities.
Both the Malay rulers and British during the earlier stages of their intervention
in the 1870s, chose to govern Chiense communities by principles of indirect rule,
through kapitans or local headmen who were in turn responsible for the
behaviour of their compatriots. Some Malay royalty turned to Chinese kapitans
for political and military support in local struggles, as happened with Yap Ah Loy.
Nevertheless, during the last decades of the century, British began to take over
both central administrative and policing functions, leaving the kapitans with
largely advisory and ceremonial roles. The various types of social ties formed by
Yap Ah Loy during his life illustrate well the mix of possible social relations and
the appropriate strategies for their use. We can see that actual blood relatives
with the same surname had the strongest obligation to aid an individual, as
reflected from the case when young Yap was assisted by his relatives when he
first came to Malaya. Social relations among individuals such as Chong Chong,
Chow Yoke and Yap Ah Loy who some times became enemy, sometimes friends
and allies were always subject to challenge by those who possessed the most
primary bonds of kinship. Within Chinese society, there is a range of alternative
social and political relations including both inherited and achieved statuses,
which fluctuated between rather rigid hierachies and the more fluid egalitarian
relations of blood brotherhood. Power and social status are the ideas in
structuring relations among Chinese.
Other than relations among people, leadership positions also displayed different
models of leadership in the Straits Settlements and the Malayan interior. Chinese
leaders in the Straits Settlements were wealthy merchants from dominant dialect
groups who were recognized for their philanthropic contributions while the
second type of leadership position is not based on contributions but direct
support by a group of followers and a political title that increase one’s economic
or political power.
2.4 Ideology and power
The most central arenas for ideological production and communications in China
included educational and literary institutions, religious rituals and forms of
popular entertainment such as story telling and thetrical productions and each of
these arena comes from different sets of cultural values. The adaptation of these
and other ideological formations to the Malayan situation depended largely on
contextual factors that varied in terms of location and time period. From the
author’s research on Yap Ah Loy’s activities in early Kuala Lumpur, his
sponsopship of temples and theatrical performances showed that he was an
active manipulator of ideological symbols. His style of leadership still resembled
much more closely to the honourary and paternalistic styles of the wealthy
merchant leaders of the Straits Settlements, acting as honourary officials,
deserving of the recognition conveyed in the mandarin attire.
In short, this chapter explored the way Yap Ah Loy and other Malayan Chiense
leaders drew on different and contrasting ideas about leadership prevalent in
Chinese society of this period.