Dear Nyonyas and Babas,
LETTING GO
I was driving home after our 33rd Baba Nyonya International Convention on 20 November 2021. Baba Alvin Tan of The Necessary Stage was in the car. It was cloudy outside and threatening to rain. But we talked excitedly about keeping our Peranakan culture alive. We were on the same tangent on many levels.
Before I dropped Alvin off, I asked him to share his thoughts and feelings with us in a quick summary while they were still fresh and immediate in his mind, and before the morning’s impact on our perspectives faded over time. These are the first few lines of his insightful and heartfelt summary:
“From the panel sharing, I feel strongly that we are ready to bring Peranakan culture forward. We should inherit the perspective of contemporising Peranakan culture rather than solely preserving it. In other words, the way to preserve it is to modernise it. To do that, we need to make it relevant to the Peranakan community and to be inclusive of the others who are keen and invested to relate to the community.
From the directing process of “The Matriarchs”, I had the opportunity to deeply experience that we are ready to find new connections, make innovative work, connect people in new ways to the richness of the culture. Surely the purists will feel the compromise, or the dilution of what they were used to.
But if we submit to their criteria, I assure you we will stagnate, and we will continue to whine about the culture diminishing and dying. The only way to not experience the pessimism is to accept the evolution or change that the Peranakan culture has to undergo in order to remain relevant. The purists must step aside and open up the space to include explorations, be compassionate to failures so these experimentations can lead to how the culture can evolve.
In other words, let go.”
NO OTHER WAY BUT TO REIMAGINE AND REINVENT
There is no other way.
How do we keep this unique Peranakan culture alive? Should we preserve it as if its golden years are still with us? Or dare we reimagine and reshape our culture?
Our community’s most serious challenge is: How do we secure the future of our culture? More importantly, how can we get our young to proudly embrace their heritage and be secure in their Peranakan identity?
Yes, it is not wrong for anyone in our community to want to practise our culture as our forefathers have. But, at the same time, we must view our traditions as an anchor not as a tether, as Baba Christopher Tan so succinctly states in his essay for the convention’s digital magazine, the Suara Baba.
If our culture is to survive us in these fast-changing times, we must keep telling stories about our culture, our history, and our identity to our young and those interested enough to want to hear us, asserts author Nyonya Josephine Chia in her essay. Phine is so right. Stories are the memories that form and sustain our culture.
Essays written by many of our symposium’s panellists for the Suara Baba are burning fiercely with hope and promise. There are storm clouds but there are also silver linings beckoning. See https://www.peranakan.org.sg/…/33rd-baba-nyonya…/…
Historian and scholar Kwa Chong Guan, in his keynote address on “Change & the Cultural Resilience of the Peranakan Chinese”, observed that “..the future of Peranakan culture may be more about its reinvention and commodification for creation of a distinct local Singapore culture in a globalised world.” His mention of a bigger stage embraces a larger vision for Peranakan culture than we have ever imagined.
And legendary historian Professor Wang Gungwu in his essay throws up the hope that Baba culture could “inspire the creative younger generations to take on the universalising of Baba and Nyonya cultures.”
ORGANIC EVOLUTION
Even as a cultural association we cannot presume to be arbiters of our culture. Nor should we be. Who are we to say what is right and what is wrong? Our culture has evolved over the past 600 years to where it is today without an association dictating what is acceptable and what is not. Culture cannot and should not be the sole dictate of any small group of cultural policemen even if they are well-intentioned.
Culture needs to be shaped and reshaped by the whole community for generations. Organically. This applies to all communities since time immemorial.
We must resist the temptation to set rules, standards and edicts that dictate what our culture must be. We should let experiments thrive and ideas bloom. They will eventually find their own flowering and place in the sun, or wither by the wayside. What bears fruit will eventually embellish our heritage and be a living part of us.
A NEW DIRECTION
We cannot let our rich culture die. The Peranakan Association Singapore (TPAS) is constituted to promote Peranakan culture, as has been done these past 121 years.
However, we need to do more than just faithfully document our heritage, its stories and bring greater public awareness.
We must also be actively engaged to help our culture adapt and evolve to be always relevant to the times. Not as arbiters, referees or rule setters. But more as a compass, a mentor, an encourager of every new generation of Babas and Nyonyas. And to do so with humility, wisdom and an open, inclusive mindset.
I take heart in Gungwu’s observation as he writes in his essay: “For a historian, I was attracted not so much by that hybridity as by the Baba community’s willingness to change over time. Here the community showed considerable adaptability …..”
The community must want to keep the culture alive by contemporising it. TPAS will come alongside hopefully with Babas and Nyonyas around the world and especially hand-in-hand with our sister Peranakan associations in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Australia – all members of the Federation of Peranakan Associations. We should also welcome and be receptive to the ideas of non-Peranakans who have a passion for our culture.
FEELING THANKFUL
This first-ever hybrid Baba Nyonya Convention was a great success in more ways than one.
For the first time, it had a global reach of more than 660 participants at its peak when the play was presented. The virtual convention was very well delivered globally. The play, The Matriarchs, quite clearly manifested the possibilities of “reinvention” of a beloved classic – a fitting analogy for the re-invention of our culture. And the symposium, themed Keeping the Culture Alive, has breathed hope into the survivability of Peranakan culture.
We all owe much to a very special team which has been working closely with me, some for almost three years, on this adventure – Gwen Ong (my very mindful co-organiser); Philip Yeo (our convention’s stoic administrator); our tremendous technology team – Tony Tan, Theresa Tan (also the convention’s co-emcee), and Josephine Tan (who also gave the convention its stunning brand design); Ngiam May Ling (who provided legal overview); Yip Wai Kuan (who took care of our admin nitty gritty); and Sylvia Peh (who is still staring at our accounts). Also, the rest of the General Committee who came together on show day to ensure the physical convention “ran like clockwork”, as someone said.
In addition, TPAS had an excellent production and technical community of service providers and volunteers. It included Audrey Wan and her team from the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre; Lee Yen Miin, at first stage caller and stage production manager, who then became part event-organiser; Tuck Hong who filmed and edited the play and recorded and livestreamed the convention; Bernard Heng who ensured all the technical interfaces were covered; and volunteers Steven Lim, Benedict Khoo, Anastasia Zenia, Elizabeth Ong, Carlos Monforte and Victoria Seto. Not to forget Jackie Sam who gifted our guest-of-honour, Madam Halimah Yacob, President of Singapore, a beautifully beaded embroidery, and Chan Eng Thai for his welcome panton and as the Baba Malay-speaking co-emcee.
I am also deeply indebted to my wife, Linda Chee, for her wise counsel and for stepping up when we need her expertise, and Emeric Lau who is always there for us when we need his help.
All said and done, we were able to uphold 33 years of tradition in 2021 by the grace of God.
Colin Chee
President
Keeping the Culture Alive
30 Nov 2021
Note: Selected event photographs can be viewed from our Facebook https://tinyurl.com/33BNIC