A history of peranakan museum exhibitions in singapore 1985 2008

1 Chapter 1: Introduction To a considerable extent, 2008 has marked a “Peranakan Renaissance” of sorts in Singapore. Throughout the year, there were several large-scale initiatives, showcasing Peranakan cultural heritage, particularly through exhibitions. In this “golden year” two institutions devoted to Peranakan heritage were opened: the Peranakan Museum (TPM), managed by the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM), and the Baba House, operated by the National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum.1 Response to the two institutions has been very positive. The Singapore interest for all things Peranakan hit fever pitch in December with the broadcasting of “The Little Nyonya”, a Mandarin-language period drama series centered on a Baba family, during the prime-time slot. As a result, interest in Baba material culture noticeably increased. There was a significant jump in the number of customers at Peranakan restaurants, antique shops and the Peranakan Museum. Yet barely half a century ago, when Singapore gained independence in 1965, the future of the Baba community seemed bleak. Due to a combination of unfavourable government policies, pressures of modernization and community fragmentation, the community’s economic and political power and sense of identity were seriously compromised. Consequently, the cultural heritage of the Baba community was deemed by many Babas and general Singaporeans alike to be largely irrelevant and worthless. Many Baba cultural practices were modified and downscaled, and Babas were selling off cheaply or discarding traditional material objects in huge quantities. Demand for these items was low and there was no museum which collected these objects. An explanation of this disparity in national, public and community interest in related exhibitions, and valuation of culture and heritage of the Baba community cannot be divorced from the larger historical context. “Telling Baba Story Differently”, ST 4/9/2008. In his seminal study on the history of Babas in Singapore, Jurgen Rudolph has convincingly made the argument that the public identity of the Babas after the late 1970s changed slowly in emphasis from the political to cultural aspect. However, there has been no comprehensive study on how this Peranakan cultural identity was conceived, the nature of this identity and how it has evolved over the years since then. This thesis examines Baba exhibitions in post-independence Singapore as an appropriate lens through which to study the changing value of Peranakan heritage as perceived by the state; the evolving idea of Peranakan cultural identity by Babas and the general public, and how this in turn sheds light on wider cultural policies in Singapore, larger market and global forces on the Singapore museum industry, and the relationship between the Baba community and the state. 1.1 Who are the Babas? As mentioned, Rudolph’s thesis that Baba identity before the war was political and gradually switched to cultural after independence, is illuminating. By blood, the Babas are descendents of inter-marriages between indigenous women and Chinese traders who settled in Malacca and the Dutch East Indies since the seventeenth century.2 Singapore Babas trace their ancestral roots to Malacca. However, a mixed-blood/genetic definition of the Babas is shunned by academics because many Baba descendents married Chinese immigrants thereafter, and these Chinese immigrants were assimilated into the Baba community through cultural practice. Tan Chee Beng has argued convincingly that the emergence of a hybrid Baba culture occurred even before British colonialism;3 but he agrees with John Clammer that British colonialism and the creation of the political unit of the Straits Settlements (comprising Malacca, Penang and Singapore) in the nineteenth century saw the significant rise in political, Jurgen Rudolph, Reconstructing Identities : A Social History of the Babas in Singapore, (Aldershot, Hants : Ashgate, 1998), p. 63. Tan Chee Beng, The Baba of Melaka: Culture and Identity of a Chinese Peranakan Community in Malaysia (Petaling Jaya, Selangor : Pelanduk Publications, 1988), p. 42. economic and social status of the Babas.4 Many became influential and affluent business and political leaders from the nineteenth century up until the war, and the material culture of the Babas flourished in this period in the private realm, reaching its peak in the early decades of the twentieth century. Another political characteristic to the Baba identity was that unlike the immigrant Chinese from China (i.e., sinkehs), who recognized China as their homeland, the Babas adopted Malaya as their homeland and pledged loyalty to both China and the British Crown. To protect their privileges, the Babas actively distinguished themselves from the sinkehs. The decline of the fortunes of the Babas can be traced to the Great Depression, the Japanese Occupation, the end of British colonialism and the victories of the Peoples’ Action Party in Singapore (PAP), when their political and economic advantages were eroded away.5 In the early decades of post-independence Singapore and Malaysia, the Babas receded dramatically from public consciousness. With political and public pressures against being Baba, there was less emphasis in asserting a distinctive identity and a significant number has assimilated into the larger Chinese community. Since the late 1970s, there have been attempts by the Babas to preserve their heritage, to remember their identity on cultural terms in the public sphere and to reverse the perceived decline of the community. Assessments of these attempts and the community’s future differ greatly. There are other terms that may refer to the Babas but I find the term “Baba” and “Peranakan” more suitable for the purposes of this thesis. Other terms include “Straits Chinese” and “Straits-born Chinese”. “Straits Chinese” and “Straits-born Chinese” have become misnomers with the replacement of the political entity of the Straits Settlement with John Clammer, Straits Chinese Society: Studies in the Sociology of the Baba Communities of Malaysia and Singapore (Singapore : Singapore University Press, 1980), p. 126. Jurgen Rudolph, Reconstructing Identities, p.3. the Federation of Malaya in 1948.6 It follows that these two terms are thus inherently inadequate for a study such as this, which examines exhibitions held in the post-independence period. The term “Peranakan” is probably the broadest label, a Malay term meaning literally the “local-born” from the second half of the nineteenth century. As an ethnic label, it refers specifically to the descendents of indigenous people who married foreigners. Hence, the term “Peranakan” also encompasses descendents of non-Chinese and indigenous people.7 The term “Baba” thus refers more specifically to the Chinese Peranakans. “Baba” also refers to the men of the community, while “Nyonya” refer to the women. All these terms were also used interchangeably by the Babas and non-Babas to refer to the community up to the Second World War. The tendency to strongly differentiate them, particularly by academics and older Babas, only occurred afterwards.8 Indeed, post-independence exhibitions on the Babas have also been named “Peranakan” and “Straits Chinese” exhibitions, and they will also be included in this study. 1.2 Museums and Heritage In the recent decades, there has been a burgeoning of scholarship on museums, particularly about those in North America and Europe. Much of this scholarship has focused on the history of museums and their collections, asserting that museum representations are formative and reflective of the political, social and economic milieu of the time they were created. In the introduction to Theorizing Museums, Sharon Macdonald emphasizes an important, common assumption shared among the collection of essays, which illustrates the evolving nature and contexts of Western museums: that of ‘context’. This common thread is Ibid. p. 43. Tan Chee Beng, The Baba of Melaka, p. 14-15. Jurgen Rudolph, Reconstructing Identities, p. 51. the view that “museums are socially and historically located…[and]inevitably bear the imprint of social relations beyond their walls and beyond the present”.9 Thus the analytical potential of the museum extends beyond its physical and immediate temporal confines and can give clues as to the historical context from which it sprang and vision of the future. Likewise, this study rests on the premise that museum exhibitions can serve as useful lens through which to perceive wider social and historical issues. One of the most debated issues in museological studies remains that of the relationship between ideology, politics and museums. Two definitive volumes on the issue emerged from two related conferences on the representation and reception of cultural diversity in museums, organized by the Smithsonian Institution and Rockefellar Foundation in 1988 and 1990 respectively. The first volume, Exhibiting Cultures, explores “how cultural diversity is collected, exhibited and managed” in museums and how these representations point to underlying perceptions of power, authority and social relations .[particularly] of what a nation should be or how citizens relate to one another”. 10 This volume concentrates on the power and production of representations by curators/museums and explores their motivations, assumptions and methods. Paralleling the increasing recognition in museum studies of the agency of the visitor, contributors to the volume are also aware that museums cannot be hegemonic sites of determining group identity. Museums are “contested terrain” and visitors are far from passive, being capable of interpreting museum representations in ways not always intended by museums. This theme is emphasized in the second volume, Museums and Communities. The agency of visitors is stressed and a key assumption to some extent is that a distinction can be made between institutions of civil society (e.g., museums) and government agencies of social control. In this sense, the volume also believes that Sharon Macdonald, “Introduction”, Theorizing Museums: Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World, eds Sharon MacDonald and Gordon Fyfe (Cambridge, Mass. : Blackwell, 1996), p. 4. 10 Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine, Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), p.1-2. museums can play a role, as part of civil society, in resisting state narratives, definitions and assumptions.11 Scholars have slowly applied the aforementioned theories to museums from nations beyond the main areas of museum development (i.e., Western Europe and the USA). Fiona Kerlogue’s edited volume, Performing Objects: Museums, Material Culture and Performance in Southeast Asia, is among the first surveys on museums and material culture in the region and is representative of growing interest in museums of this area. The key question addressed is how to reconcile the museum collections, whose creation was often influenced by colonial ideology and when cultures were defined in ethnic terms, with contemporary and urban audience in the post-colonial context. Recent scholarship has also identified several significant new forces that might affect the construction of identities in museums and impact the role of museums in modern societies. John Urry highlights the growing concern of museums about their competitiveness in an increasingly global and changing market-place and post-modern concerns and emphasis on undermining “authoritative traditions”.12 Kevin Robins expounds on the influence of globalization on the imagining of identity in museums. While it has driven some museums to embrace a transnational identity, others have chosen protectionist approaches and intensified their focus on exclusive tradition and a bounded identity.13 Jan Nederveen Pieterse argues that the impact of postcoloniality and multiculturalism on the redefinition of national identity cannot be underestimated. Museums can no longer be testimonies of colonial achievement, and some are at the forefront in replacing static and hegemonic identities with fluid, cross- 11 Ibid. p. 4. John Urry, “How Societies Remember the Past”, in Theorizing Museums, p. 62, John Gillis, “Introduction”, in Commemorations, p.19. 13 Kevin Robins, “Tradition and Translation: National Culture in its Global Context”, in Representing the Nation: A reader: Histories, Heritage and Museums, ed. Jessica Evans and David Boswell, (New York : Routledge, 1999), p. 28. 12 cultural and hybrid ones.14 Thus, optimism abounds in recent scholarship that these larger forces can increasingly influence museums in modern societies to redefine, blur and broaden traditional boundaries of ‘self’ and ‘others’, empower the previously marginalized and weaken grand narratives. The present study will illustrate how some of these forces played a role in increasing the perceived value of Peranakan heritage in Singapore to the state, public and Peranakan community in the last decade. Another common issue in museum studies is what ought to be collected, and this parallels the question of “What is heritage” in heritage studies. Both fields are gradually problematizing the popular understanding that collections/heritage are confined to the tangible and material, asserting that this focus usually reproduces consensual and unchallenging views of the past and present. Other alternatives are proposed, particularly oral history and memory.15 LauraJane Smith further proposes other themes such as performance, dissonance and place; and a perception of heritage as “a social process concerned with the creation and maintenance of certain social and cultural values process”16 and experience, including that of the visitor visit and dialogue.17 Taken at its extremes, however, Smith’s definition of heritage might be too broad. Yet, this study is convinced of the importance of intangible heritage and will include these elements of the exhibition for analysis. As Ashworth and Tunbridge aptly stated, “There is no such thing as heritage”; there is nothing that intrinsically and naturally qualifies as heritage. Rather, for things to become heritage, they must go through the deliberate human process of selection and interpretation that confers them with meaning and value. This process must be motivated by and situated within the larger historical context; and it raises the relevant questions of what qualifies as 14 Jan Nederveen Pieterse, “Multiculturalism and Museums”, in Heritage, Museums and Galleries: An Introductory Reader ed Gerard Corsane, (London ; New York : Routledge, 2005), p. 164. 15 Susan Crane, Museums and Memory, (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 12; Gaynor Kavanagh, Dream Spaces: Memory and the Museum, (New York : Leicester University Press, 2000), p. 3. 16 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage, (London ; New York : Routledge, 2006), p. 11. 17 Ibid. p. 53. heritage, who defines heritage, why define heritage, how is heritage defined and when does heritage come about.18 These are certainly important questions and every exhibition featured in this study will be interrogated accordingly. In his influential book The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History, David Lowenthal argues for the redemption of heritage against its many criticisms, especially that of “real history” as opposed to “false heritage”. He asserts that we must recognize that heritage and history have different aims and are meant to appeal to different audiences in different ways, and “dynamic heritage yield dubious history…[and this is] both natural and harmless.”19 This study heeds Lowenthal’s warning against the usual oversimplified dichotomy of good history and bad heritage, and simply faulting representations because they are factually inaccurate. However, “bad history” sometimes does have political and social repercussions too, and such instances in the Baba exhibitions will be highlighted and discussed. 1.3 The Baba Community in Singapore There is a significant increase in scholarship on the Baba community of Singapore particularly from the late 1970s. However, there are only three general works studying the social history and evolving identities of the community.20 Among these, Jurgen Rudolph has suggested the useful periodization of three phases in the history of the Baba community. Apart from the Japanese Occupation as an important turning point signalling the decline of the economic, social and political powers of the community as agreed by other scholars, 18 J.E. Tunbridge and G.J. Ashworth, Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict , (Chichester ; New York : J. Wiley, 1996), p. 36. 19 David Lowenthal, The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History, (London : Viking, 1997), p. 168. 20 John Clammer, Straits Chinese Society; Tan Chee Beng, The Baba in Melaka; Jurgen Rudolph, Reconstructing Identities. Rudolph argues for 1959 as a second crucial turning point. The PAP rise to political power and dominance marked the beginning of concerted state efforts to openly marginalize the community and the sinification of the community.21 Baba identity was no longer a privileged one in this third phase, and John Clammer contends that the Babas suffered an “ambiguity of identity” as a result of the disappearance of the colonial environment that had sustained their culture.22 Paralleling the decline in the fortunes of the community and pride in their group identity, Baba (material) culture was not valued by the community, public and state in the early decades of independence. Academic studies of the (material) culture of the Babas have mushroomed since the 1980s.23 These studies usually focused on one dimension of Baba culture, attempting to link changes in this dimension (particularly food) to the larger question of the evolving identities of the Baba community. There has been no thorough study of Baba museum exhibitions, which arguably shaped the parameters of the post-independence/third phase of Peranakan cultural identity. Another common research issue of this third historical phase is the role the state and the Baba community itself played in the perceived decline and (cultural) revival of the community from the late 1970s. Numerous studies have illustrated the various ways in which the state has marginalized the Babas through education and social policies, how the Baba 21 Jurgen Rudolph, Reconstructing Identities, p.187, 408-410. John Clammer, Straits Chinese Society Society, p. 139. 23 Ho Wing Meng, Straits Chinese Beadwork and Embroidery (Singapore : Times Books International, 1987), Straits Chinese Porcelain (Singapore : Time Books International , 1983), Straits Chinese Silver (Singapore : Times Books International, 1984), Straits Chinese Furniture (Singapore : Times Books International, 1994); Jean Yeow Oon Ling, Peranakan cuisine as a projection of the Peranakan Identity (Unpublished Academic Exercise submitted to the Department of History, National University of Singapore, 1999), Shawna Tang Ser Wei, Consuming Peranakan food, (Unpublished Academic Exercise submitted to the Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, 1998); Wendy Lim Li Ching, Retailing of Peranakan Culture in Singapore : A Case-study of Peranakan Food Outlets, (Unpublished Academic Exercise submitted to the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, 1993), Ivy Lee Gek Kim, Literary Representations of Peranakan culture, (Unpublished Academic Exercise submitted to the Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore, 1994); Khoo Joo Ee, The Straits Chinese: A Cultural History (Amsterdam : Pepin Press, 1996). 22 10 associations have become ineffective in protecting the interests of the Babas, and how they have been choosing to assimilate into the larger Chinese community.24 Since the 1980s, studies have documented how, due to both internal reasons of nation-building and international and economic reasons of tourism and international relations, the Singapore state has been encouraging and constructing particular representations of Baba culture and identity. They argue that the state is appropriating Baba heritage, and that the identities and stories projected in museum, press and media representations are reflective of wider state agenda. These studies are of limited coverage, spanning only one or two museum exhibitions in the 1980s or 1990s.25 The present study will have a more extensive coverage, analysing all state exhibitions on Baba history and culture since independence. Such coverage can allow for a more effective comparison of the motivations and constructions of Baba representations and Baba cultural identity through the decades. 1.4 Cultural Policies and Museums in Singapore There is an extensive literature on the practice of the Singapore government’s concept of multiculturalism. A key weakness highlighted is the neglect of hybrid and minority groups. To scholars, the state ideology of multiculturalism is very much a governmental instrument of social control and this idea of separate-but-equal races is very pervasive in Singaporean life. The population is officially divided into four groups, or CMIO (Chinese-Malay-IndianOthers), and these strict racial boundaries are espoused in several policies. As a result, “hyphenated citizens” are created whereby each race is associated with a particular language, 24 John Clammer, Straits Chinese society; Tan Chee Beng, The Baba in Melaka; Jurgen Rudolph, Reconstructing Identities. 25 Joan Henderson, “Exhibiting Cultures: Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum”; Emily Stokes-Rees, “‘We Need Something of Our Own’: Representing Ethnicity, Diversity and ‘ National Heritage’ in Singapore”,; Helena Bezzina, “Community, Government, and Museum – the Peranakan of Singapore”. 118 Figure 3.15 The same bridal bed as work of art (Peranakan Museum A-Z Guide, Singapore : Asian Civilisations Museum for the Peranakan Museum, 2008) Figure 3.16 Pending Belt display (Lionel Soo Yuen Long, Evolving Identities: A socio-historical study of the Babas in Singapore, unpublished academic exercise, NUS, 2001/2002) 119 Figure 3.17 Batik Sarongs display (Lionel Soo Yuen Long, Evolving Identities: A socio-historical study of the Babas in Singapore, unpublished academic exercise, NUS, 2001/2002) Figure 3.18 Ancestral Altar Display (Lionel Soo Yuen Long, Evolving Identities: A sociohistorical study of the Babas in Singapore, unpublished academic exercise, NUS, 2001/2002) 120 Figure 3.19 Kamchengs display (Lionel Soo Yuen Long, Evolving Identities: A socio-historical study of the Babas in Singapore, unpublished academic exercise, NUS, 2001/2002) Appendix: Chapter Pictures of The Peranakan Museum Figure 4.1. Introductory Gallery (Source: Author’s own) 121 Figure 4.2. Chiu Thau Ceremony in context of Main Hall (Source: Author’s own) Figure 4.3. The same wedding bed in context of wedding bedroom. (Source: Author’s own) 122 Figure 4.4 Recreated House Front of a “Baba House” (Source: Author’s own) Figure 4.5 Evolution of kebaya styles. (Source: Author’s own) 123 Figure 4.6 Tok panjang/ Long Table feast in context of Inner Hall of a “Baba house” (Source: Author’s own). Figure 4.6. Public Life Gallery (Source: Author’s own) 124 Figure 4.7 Showcase of finest kamchengs (Source: Author’s own). Figure 4.8 Evolution of Nyonyaware styles (Source: Author’s own). 125 Figure 4.9 Concluding Gallery i.e. Conversations (Source: Author’s own). Pictures of From Junk to Jewels: The things that Peranakans Value Figure 4.10 Furniture, Porcelain, Silver and Lacquer section (Source: Peter Lee, Junk to Jewels catalogue, (Singapore: Peranakan Museum, NHB, 2008)). 126 Figure 4.11 Clothes and shoes section (Source: Peter Lee, Junk to Jewels catalogue, (Singapore: Peranakan Museum, NHB, 2008)). Figure 4.12 Clothes and shoes section – Juxtaposition of 1930s wedding gown and contemporary kebaya(Source: Peter Lee, Junk to Jewels catalogue, (Singapore: Peranakan Museum, NHB, 2008)). 127 Pictures of NUS Baba House Figure 4.13 NUS Baba House Front view (Source: Author’s own). Figure 4.14 NUS Baba House Front Official Opening - (From left) NUS President (outgoing) Prof Shih Choon Fong; President of the Peranakan Association Mr Lee Kip Lee; Singapore President and NUS Chancellor Mr S R Nathan; Miss Agnes Tan; Chairman of National Research Foundation Dr Tony Tan; and Acting President Prof Tan Chorh Chuan. (Source: CFA Magazine, “Newly restored Baba House showcases a rich heritage”, 5/9/2008). 128 Figure 4.15 2nd floor corridor and pictures of the Tan Cheng Lock family (Source: Deepika Shetty, “Telling Baba Story Differently”, ST 4/9/2008). Figure 4.16 2nd floor Victorian-styled bedroom. (Source: Deepika Shetty, “Telling Baba Story Differently”, ST 4/9/2008). 129 Pictures of A Pyschotaxonomy of Home Figure 4.17 White-washed modern gallery, 3rd floor of Baba House (Source: Author’s own). Figure 4.18 “An Almost Natural History of Social Relations” (Source: Author’s Own). 130 Figure 4.19 “Will the Real Phoenix please stand up?” (Source: Author’s Own). Figure 4.20 “The Big Sweep” (Source: Author’s Own). 131 Figure 4.21 Front view of “Mirror mirror on the wall: Who is the fairest of them all?” (Source: Author’s Own). Figure 4.22 Back view of “Mirror mirror on the wall: Who is the fairest of them all?” (Source: Author’s Own). 132 Pictures of Objects of Desire Figure 4.23 Victoria Cattoni “Whose Kebaya anyway?”; digital print – video still (Source: Karen Lim, Objects of Desire, (Singapore: NUS Museum, 2007)). Figure 4.24 Andrea Teo in collaboration with Fal Allen, brews of Traveller’s Wheat (2006), Trader’s Brown Ale (2006), Ming (2007) (Source: Karen Lim, Objects of Desire, (Singapore: NUS Museum, 2007)). 133 Table 1: List of eleven exhibitions analysed from 1985-2008. Name of Exhibition Straits Chinese Gallery Duration 1985-1995 The Show Place Museum 1/6/19851988 6th-16th October 1988 Venue of Exhibition Straits Chinese Gallery, National Museum of Singapore Peranakan Place Organizers National Museum of Singapore Lungyamen and Temasek room, National Museum of Singapore Peranakan Place Complex Pte Ltd Friends of the Museum, National Museum of Singapore 5th April -31st September 1993 17 November 1996 - (1998) 2003 26th December 2000 - 2005 National Museum of Singapore National Museum of Singapore National Museum of Singapore National Museum of Singapore Tao Nan Building, Asian Civilisations Museum I Asian Civilisations Museum The Peranakan Museum 26th April 2008 present The Peranakan Museum/ Asian Civilisations Museum From Junk to Jewels: The things that Peranakans Value (temporary) 26th April 2008 – 23rd November 2008 15th September 2008 present 15th September 2008 – April 2009 31st January to 30th April 2007 The Peranakan Museum (Tao Nan Building, formerly Asian Civilisations Museum I) The Peranakan Museum (Tao Nan Building, formerly Asian Civilisations Museum I) NUS Baba House, 157 Neil Road NUS Baba House, 157 Neil Road NUS Museum NUS Museum NUS Museum Peranakan Heritage (Temporary) Gilding the phoenix: The Straits Chinese and their Jewellery (Temporary) Rumah Baba - Life in a Straits Chinese House The Peranakan Legacy NUS Baba House A Pyschotaxonomy of Home Objects of Desire The Peranakan Museum/ Asian Civilisations Museum NUS Museum [...]... a national culture, to form the basis of a common Singaporean identity above the separate groups The Baba culture has been cited as an example of a “genuinely Singaporean culture” that could be a useful starting point to imagine a national culture.28 Paralleling this academic interest in a national culture and the state’s increasing emphasis from the late 1980s on the importance of a historical awareness,... exhibitions and how Baba history and heritage are being appropriated for larger nation-building and international reasons 15 Chapter 2 From Forgetting to Remembering the Baba and Inventing the Peranakan Cultural Category: 1965-1980s The 1980s marked the beginning of a new imagining of Peranakan identity in Singapore, chiefly in national museum exhibitions These exhibitions established the cornerstones of the... adulthood”, Peranakan Heritage, p 14 104 Exhibition layout plan, Peranakan Heritage Exhibition file 105 Peranakan Heritage, Preface 106 William Gwee, “Taboos and Rituals surrounding a birth in the Perankan family”, Peranakan Heritage, p 3 107 Kenneth Cheo, “The traditional Peranakan funeral”, Perankana Heritage 108 Peranakan Heritage Exhibition file 29 was voiced by a member of the curatorial team that “we are... “To enhance the awareness of [the Babas’] unique, fascinating culture and simultaneously to record the disappearing aspects of the Peranakan way of life with special reference to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.”98 It was of a small scale and held only for ten days This exhibition added the aspect of intangible heritage to the Peranakan cultural identity NM director explained that this was because... suggestions include the importance of allowing multiple voices in the construction of heritage and history, the inadequacy of the current model of multiculturalism to create a racially integrated and relevant national identity, and the advocation of embracing cultural hybridity as part of a genuine Singapore culture and identity The potential of the museum in imagining a national identity is recognized in the... the inclusion of their culture within the official walls of the museum, and were “unhappy” when the gallery was closed in 1995 Postwar public dissatisfaction with the Babas had seemingly dissipated, as museum files also indicate that the exhibition had a broad appeal, being popular with “school teachers, tour agents, academics, and collectors.”73 2.3 Peranakan Place Also in 1985, The Peranakan Place at... exhibitions of the 1980s 2.5 Analysis and Contextualization of the Exhibitions 2.5.1 Establishing the (problematic) stereotypes of the Peranakan cultural identity A comparison of the 1980s Baba exhibitions and the way they established fundamental ideas of Peranakan cultural identity, indicate that they can be charged with many of the typical abuses of history and heritage as raised by museum and heritage studies... international level, operating as tourist attractions.33 The recent proliferation of Baba exhibitions in Singapore has also prompted some papers on Peranakan exhibitions, the issue 31 , Selvaraj J Velayutham, Responding to Globalization: Nation, Culture and Identity in Singapore, (Singapore: ISEAS, 2007) P 206 32 Lily Kong, "Cultural policy in Singapore: Negotiating Economic and Socio-Cultural Agendas", Geoforum,... in interest in Baba culture and Baba things within the community and the public There were several private fairs displaying Baba things organized by Baba-owned institutions, the successful revival of Baba plays with nostalgic themes, a series of television broadcasts on Baba culture, and an explosion of books and theses about Baba (material) culture.133 This increased appreciation of Baba material... that it was now expedient to consider that Singapore had a “unique heritage” that could “play a vital part in nationbuilding”, particularly through helping “younger Singaporeans to understand their roots so that they can balance Asian values and western values” and “what binds [Singaporeans] together The economic benefits of heritage were also highlighted; heritage was said to have “monetary value as . slot. As a result, interest in Baba material culture noticeably increased. There was a significant jump in the number of customers at Peranakan restaurants, antique shops and the Peranakan Museum. . 1980s marked the beginning of a new imagining of Peranakan identity in Singapore, chiefly in national museum exhibitions. These exhibitions established the cornerstones of the postwar Peranakan. furniture and porcelain were stacked up in junk stores “going for a song”, and that there was no museum in Singapore and Malaysia actively collecting them. 44 In fact, the National Museum of Singapore