The Peranakan Chinese Home

pieces of celebratory calligraphy underscores the power of the written word in Chinese culture and gives evidence of the high regard the Chinese community in pre-and post-Independence Malaysia held for both of them. The floors in Main Halls are generally covered with handmade reddish clay tiles, roughly 15 sq in (100 sq cm) set in a lime mortar and arranged in a side-by- side or triangular pattern. While commonly referred to as “Malacca tiles,” which were sold widely, all did not originate from that port town. By the beginning of the twentieth century, mass-produced encaustic floor tiles imported especially from the famous tileries in Stoke-on-Trent in England were readily available in Southeast Asia. Generally with geometric patterns, they gradually found their way into many Peranakan Chinese homes as a replacement for the duller “old- fashioned” terra cotta tiles. This chien-nab, a self-contained altar piece with a box-like cover in which to store the gilded offering tray, was fashioned in Fujian province early in the twentieth century. © Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore.

The storage box for the chien-nab, which has scenes from Chinese stories painted on it, becomes

a base on which to elevate the highly decorative carved altar piece. Alvin Yapp residence, The Intan, Joo Chiat, Singapore.

Looking across the generous first courtyard in the Tjong A Fie Mansion, one is drawn to both Chinese and European features: an ornamented cinnabar-and-gold filigreed screen from China and four cast-iron columns that were forged in Scotland. Jalan Kesawan Square, Medan, Indonesia.

Open spaces, often loosely referred to as “courtyards,” are an important category in the spatial layout of a fully formed residence anywhere in China. Found in seemingly endless variations in relatively tiny houses as well as in complicated, expansive ones, open spaces are as significant in Chinese architecture as the spaces enclosed with walls and covered with a roof. Archaeological evidence shows that courtyards, a negative space, were elements of Chinese structures as early as 3,000 years ago, and continued to be a fundamental design principle of temples and palaces in addition to houses down through the ages.

This soaring skywell is ringed with shuttered panels that kept the residence airy and bright in what was once the home of Seah Song Seah, one of the sons of the immigrant gambier king Seah Eu Chin. Since the 1930s, the home has been transformed into the headquarters of the Nanyang Sacred Union, which commemorates Confucius in the central hall with Lao Zi and Guan Yin in adjacent halls. River Valley Road, Singapore. The Dao De Jing, a fourth-century bce work attributed to Laozi, anticipated the significance of voids, of apparent emptiness: “We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheel depends. We turn clay to make a vessel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends. We pierce doors and windows to make a house; And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends. Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what is not” (Waley, 1958: 155). The common English term “courtyard” itself, or even its many Chinese language equivalents, are insufficient in differentiating the many types of open spaces seen from place to place in China. While the quintessential quadrangular dwellings in the northern regions of China, called siheyuan, have an expansive courtyard that can exceed 40 percent of the dwelling’s total area, the proportion of open space to enclosed space is significantly less in southeast China as it is also in Southeast Asia where migrants from Fujian and Guangdong moved. The Chinese term tianjing, which translates as “skywell” and “heavenly well,” catches the meaning of constricted southern “courtyards,” especially in twoor

three-storey dwellings where their verticality accentuates their diminished horizontal dimensions even as the size, shape, and number vary according to the scale of the residence. Skywells in the subtropical and tropical areas where Chinese have built their homes rarely exceed 20 percent of the total floor space. In Southeast Asia, “skywells” are sometimes referred to in English as “airwells.” The presence of one or more condensed skywells or tianjing is a hallmark of Peranakan Chinese residences, whether in a terrace residence, a shophouse, or even a rambling Chinese-style mansion. Skywells, of course, are absent as a structural component in detached bungalows that often use broad verandas instead to help cool the rooms. Tianjing as small open spaces—shafts of various sizes—that cut into solid structures thus become utilitarian outside “rooms” in which family members can enjoy a visual connection with the sky and fresh air, including the presence often of birds, butterflies, and insects that fly in and out. Without a skywell, shophouses and terrace houses, especially, would have very dark interiors. Now glassed over, this atrium-like skywell is ornamented with painted plaster flowering plants set just beneath a series of louvered windows. Emerald Hill, Singapore. Tianjing are especially suitable in the hot and humid conditions of tropical and equatorial Southeast Asia, just as is the case in much of subtropical southern China, where they function to evacuate interior heat, catch passing breezes, and

shade adjacent spaces as the sun moves. With the sun high in the sky most of the year throughout Southeast Asia, the sun’s intense rays generally only reach the floor of the skywell during midday. At other times, there is ambient light but little in the way of direct rays. By reducing the accumulation of heat inside the dwelling, the interior thus is kept cool because of the continuous circulation of air via a flue-like condition where heat rises and is conveyed outside the building. Open to the sky, a skywell, moreover, acts as a conduit for rainwater to fall into the home, some of which is channeled from the sloping tiled roof via drainpipes into vats, often large earthenware jars, at the base. Live plants often thrive within skywells. Overall, skywells provide a comfortable place to relax in or even work in, a quiet refuge that brings many elements of what is outside the home to the inside of it. With water falling into the dwelling, a skywell functions much like a Roman atrium, an open central court with a sunken impluvium, but instead of the rainwater being led into an underground cistern it sometimes fills a pond stocked with golden carp. As mentioned in Chapter 2, Chinese traditionally attributed flowing and accumulating water within their homes as being auspicious, a condition that enhances a family’s prosperity. Referred to as si shui gui tang 四水 归堂 (also si shui dao tang 四水 倒堂) (“the four waters return to the hall”), this is a fengshui maxim that metaphorically expresses the notion that water represents wealth and prosperity, which should accumulate and not be permitted to flow away quickly. A tianjing, in fact, can be viewed as a tall container, a three- dimensional vessel capable of storing precious water, the family’s wealth. TERRACE HOUSES AND SHOPHOUSES In Malacca, Penang, and Singapore, there are many outstanding examples of terrace houses and shophouses that recede to great depth in which the presence of one or more airy skywells opens up what would have otherwise been a dark interior. The extent of these skywell voids appear as black shapes in Google satellite images of Southeast Asian towns. The skywell in the headquarters of the Persatuan Peranakan Cina Melaka (Peranakan Chinese Association of Malacca) is framed on one side by a party wall that has attached to it a water fountain and shelves for plants. The front skywell in the Tan Cheng Lock ancestral residence in Malacca is a bright space filled with pots of large ornamental palms of various sizes. Rolled shades made of split bamboo help deflect falling rainwater from splashing on the nearby antique furniture and wall hangings. An informal and inviting setting of a table with four light chairs nearby contrasts with the rows of formal hardwood

chairs and cabinets aligned along the wall. An additional skywell and a rear courtyard, which are located deeper into the residence, are landscaped with abundant greenery. Louvered windows on the second level can be opened to catch the breeze or closed to offer shade. Just below the louvered panels is a geometric ornamental panel with duplicated representations of the running wan 卍 character, an inverted swastika, meaning “longevity.” Unlike the deeper Tan Cheng Lock terrace residence in Malacca, with its multiplicity of rooms with specific functions and two skywells, as well as a rear courtyard, the Wee family residence in Singapore has only a single skywell and a small rear courtyard. This single skywell, however, reaches up through three storeys and forms an integral component of an active living space surrounded on three sides by covered areas. Each of these adjacent covered areas serves an important function: a grand staircase leading to the second floor, a rectangular walkway lined with photographs and ancestral portraits, and an area containing both a long table with accompanying chairs and an imposing ancestral altar. Along the back side of the skywell are ceramic tiles in a variety of designs, including Art Nouveau patterns. The gallery on the second floor is lined with louvered windows.

At the base of the skywell in the home shown opposite, a stepped water feature with plantings takes advantage of the good light.

Along one wall at the base of the skywell in the terrace house occupied today by the Persatuan Peranakan Cina Melaka (Peranakan Chinese Association of Malacca) is a lush planting of ferns. Adjacent to the skywell is a spiral staircase leading to the second level. Heeren Street, Malacca, Malaysia.

With the Main Hall behind and the Ancestral Hall beyond in Tan Cheng Lock’s ancestral residence, this photograph focuses on the adjacent furnishings that surround the first skywell, a shaft that reaches up through the second storey. The bright space at the base of the skywell is replete with potted ornamental palms, with hanging rolled shades that can be manipulated to regulate sunlight and precipitation. Heeren Street, Malacca, Malaysia.

The second skywell in Tan Cheng Lock’s ancestral residence is ringed by plain wooden shutters, with an ornamental panel beneath made up of conjoined wan characters that symbolize longevity. MANSIONS As with expansive traditional dwellings in southeastern China, larger homes in Southeast Asia usually have multiple skywells of different sizes, including some large open spaces that can be considered true courtyards, that punctuate the building’s mass. In these homes, skywells vary from being long and narrow slivers running the breadth of the dwelling to others that are reminiscent of the nearly square skywells found in shophouses and terrace homes. Still others are no larger than a mere shaft or well, only a meter or two across, near a kitchen or bathroom. In most cases, there are connections between exterior spaces and interior spaces, which are, of course, rooms, which are mediated by ornate paneled doors that can be swiveled open or kept closed. Many of these doors are elegantly ornamented, with the lower panels carved in bas-relief while the upper portions are perforated in order to maximize ventilation. A century ago, there were large residences built by Chinese throughout Southeast Asia that were essentially the same as those found in their home counties in China. Today, only a handful remain. Of the four Chaozhou, also called Teochew, immigrant tycoons who built stately Chinese-style mansions between 1872 and 1885 in Singapore, only one was constructed by a Peranakan

Chinese, Tan Seng Poh (1830–79), a wealthy opium syndicate member who dominated the gambier and pepper trade with Tan Yeok Nee and other towkays. However, since there are no surviving records of Tan Seng Poh’s mansion, it is impossible to state with any certainty the nature of its skywells or courtyards. Nonetheless, since the mansion of Tan Yeok Nee, who was not a Peranakan, survives, it may be used as a possible surrogate for the mansion of Tan Seng Poh, whose grand mansion subsequently came to house the consulate of the Qing dynasty in Singapore during the late nineteenth century. It is not known when his mansion was demolished. Tan Yeok Nee’s residence has three hierarchically arranged front-to-back halls separated by two large courtyards, with adjoined side buildings that are then flanked by a series of slender skywells. This is a common pattern found throughout eastern Guangdong province from where Tan Yeok Nee and the forbears of Tan Seng Poh came. Standing in the center of the first courtyard of Tan Yeok Nee’s home, one is able to see a variety of rooflines as well as an assortment of applied auspicious ornamentation, including birds, dragons, and horses arrayed along a frieze, because of how expansive the courtyard is. Pockets of greenery are found in the two elongated side skywells, which also serve as corridors linking nearby rooms. The second courtyard, which is behind the main hall, once was most likely a very busy area since it was adjacent to bedrooms and kitchens, but today it is a place of quiet contemplation with limited seating and abundant vegetation.

Looking from a corner toward the front of the Wee family residence, now Baba House Museum, the rising skywell merges imperceptively with interior seating areas and a stairway to the second floor. Neil Road, Singapore.

This view looking up through the skywell to the open sky reveals that the third floor of the Wee family residence is a less ornamented and later addition. The expansive first courtyard of this sprawling Chinese-style country mansion, one of several homes built by Tan Yeok Nee. Although little is known of his families that occupied these homes, each residence was furnished and ornamented with a mixture of European and Chinese elements au courant at the time. Clemenceau Avenue, Singapore.

This is one of several elongated skywells that separate the central structure from the family residential wings on each side of the Tan Yeok Nee dwelling. Among the Peranakans in Phuket in Thailand (then Siam), who maintained close relations with other Peranakan Chinese of Hokkien descent within a network of other coastal ports, such as Penang in Malaya, Medan in Sumatra, and Rangoon in Burma, some built grand manors at the beginning of the twentieth century. A residence constructed by Tan Ma Siang (Prapitak Chyn Pracha), whose father, Tan Niaw Yee (Luang Bamroongjeenprated), had migrated from Fujian to Phuket in 1854, incorporates a large tianjing. While this tianjing functions much like those found traditionally in southern Chinese homes, it appears more like a Roman atrium not only because of its ornamented arches and fluted columns but also because of the water-filled impluvium with goldfish and flowers. As mentioned earlier, one of the finest multi-storey Peranakan-style Chinese mansions still standing is a residence on the island of Sumatra in Medan,

Indonesia, which is across the Straits of Malacca from the more cosmopolitan Straits Settlement of Penang. Completed in 1900, the Tjong A Fie Mansion is an excellent example of cultural eclecticism in a building style that is fundamentally Chinese yet evokes other influences. Although Tjong A Fie, a Hakka, was born in Meixian in northeastern Guangdong province, he began a Peranakan household in his new home. Built at the end of the nineteenth century at a time of great wealth in the Tjong family, the residence incorporates centuries-old styles of Chinese furniture and ornamentation with the latest European-style furnishings, fine arts, and inventions. When taken together, they represent a striking confluence of material modernity in what was arguably at the time a remote area of the world. Because of the large scale of the dwelling, the Tjong home includes true courtyards as well as smaller skywells. The principal courtyard lies just beyond a sumptuous Entry Hall and is separated from the courtyard by an ornate carved wooden screen with clever passageways on the left and right. Brilliant cinnabar panels and a striking amount of gold accents brighten the dark brown color on both sides of the hardwood screen. On the back side of the removable hardwood screen, which faces the courtyard, the lower panels are carved in low relief and the upper ones with in-the-round carvings, while the middle register is filled with slatted openings that facilitate ventilation. Only one skywell is found in the residence of a Peranakan Chinese named Tan Ma Xiang, also

known by his Thai name, Chyn Pracha. Constructed by a prominent builder from Penang, the residence is known for its cosmopolitan character that combines Chinese, Thai, and European furnishings and ornamentation. The sunken fish pond, with a display of potted plants, is surrounded by four pairs of classical columns and arches. Krabi Road, Phuket, Thailand. With a sunken surface covered with dressed granite pavers and surrounding arcades and pivoting shutters on the second floor, the open courtyard looks much like those found in large residences in southeastern China. When the home was built, rainwater fell directly into the courtyard from the sloped roofs above and then was drained by only a single outlet. This followed from the common fengshui belief that water, representing wealth, should only drain slowly from the home. Yet, because of Medan’s copious rainfall, which averages seven inches (177 mm) each month, this single drain proved insufficient, so downspouts were added later. Four cast-iron columns, which were imported from England and differ visually from straight Chinese wooden columns, support the second-floor galleries. Two long wing structures, which run perpendicular on each side of the core building, provided four separate apartments for each of the related family units living in the house. Between the residential quarters and the core building are four rectangular courtyards that help ventilate the house and provide space for indoor/ outdoor plantings. In appearance and function, they are much like the central courtyard, just smaller. While there are some similarities between the equally grand Cheong Fatt Tze Blue Mansion in Penang, Malaysia, and Tjong A Fie’s Mansion in Medan, Cheong’s restored Blue Mansion is not discussed here since he is not considered a Peranakan Chinese. The overall layout is similar and the ornamentation as rich, which underscores the fact that Peranakan Chinese and those who considered themselves pure Chinese built in similar fashion even as their lifestyles differed.

This grand hall in Tan Cheng Lock’s ancestral home venerates the ancestral tablets of three generations. Above the altar is the ancestral portrait of Lee Chye Neo, the wife of the progenitor Tan Hay Kwan. On the left wall are portraits of Tan Cheng Lock’s grandparents. The low table, chairs, and settee, which mix traditional Chinese forms with Western elements, were purchased in Hong Kong in 1935 at the time of the marriage of daughter Lily. Heeren Street, Malacca, Malaysia.

No functional space within a Peranakan Chinese home is more important than the one housing the ancestral altar, which enshrines the tablets of ancestors, and is often stunningly ornate. The presence of an ancestral altar affirms the sociological construct of Confucian familism that subordinates individual interest to those of the family. According to orthodox Confucian beliefs, the answer to the question “Who am I?” leads directly to the response, “I am the child of my parents and the parent of my children” in a series of linkages that bind a lineage in an unbroken chain backward and forward from generation to generation over centuries. Following the discussion below of Ancestral Halls found within Peranakan Chinese homes, there will be brief mention of grand Ancestral Halls that serve lineages, such as Malaysia’s Khoo Kongsi and Kee Ancestral Hall as well as Indonesia’s Han Ancestral Hall. Whether simply a designated shelf on the wall, a formal altar with a shrine in its own room or one shared with other purposes, or in a highly structured lineage temple, the worship and veneration of ancestors at a specific place provides a powerful vehicle for affirming a family’s unity and continuity. It is in a family’s formal Ancestral Hall that members of the household perform routine rituals on a daily, semi-monthly, and seasonal basis. As in homes throughout the coastal area of southeastern China, simple daily offerings are usually little more than a few thimble-sized cups of tea and lighted joss sticks, which are supplemented from time to time with fruits, vegetables, and flowers. More elaborate ritual offerings occur on the first and fifteenth of every lunar month as well as on the birth and death dates of deceased parents and grandparents. Important events, such as weddings and funerals, as well as festivities at the New Year, are centered in the Ancestral Hall, with some ceremonies taking place in the more public Main Hall in front. While serving significant ritual purposes with profound symbolic meanings, the Ancestral Hall of Peranakan Chinese homes usually also serves routine needs as a multipurpose family space. In some of the homes illustrated in this chapter, the altar appears to be bereft of any meaningful activity. This should not be viewed as a lack of piety on the part of the family since their obligatory ritual may occur at a temple in which the family’s ancestral tablets have been transferred. To some degree, the Ancestral Hall mirrors the Main Hall in that both have an altar as their focus. As in the Main Hall, the furniture in an Ancestral Hall

typically follows a set of conventions, with variations that echo a family’s budget, taste, and status, reflecting to some degree the depth of the family’s filial piety. The back wall of the Ancestral Hall in many of the homes of the well-to- do is itself an ornamented feature made of wood, with carved panels and bright calligraphic phrases, sometimes even more elaborate than the similar zhao behind the deity altar in the Main Hall. As is true with some Main Halls, the back wall is sometimes plastered, yet ornamented with calligraphy and paintings hung on the wall. Doorways on both sides of the central panel lead through a passageway to the kitchen or bedrooms.

Khaw Bee Gek, the widow of Kee Lai Huat, celebrated her 90th birthday with a majestic ceremony in the expansive Kee Ancestral Hall. Hung behind this posed portrait of Khaw Bee Gek and her eleven sons and nine daughters, is an outsized piece of embroidery with auspicious imagery encircling it and text at its center, all emphasizing wishes for long life, health, and good fortune. A portion of the embroidery is shown in the photograph opposite. Photograph above courtesy of the family of Khaw Bee Gek. RITUAL FURNITURE Each standard Ancestral Hall has a requisite set of ritual furniture placed so that it faces the front of the home, although, as the illustrations below reveal, there are striking variations in their shapes, sizes, and ornamental detail. Dominating this set of furniture is an altar table, which is usually high, long, and narrow, with squared corners, often with carved aprons and spandrels. Less common are upturned or everted flanges at the ends of the table. The finest examples are made of dark hongmu, also called “blackwood,” or nanmu, a high quality wood with a smooth and shimmering surface, the characteristics of which were discussed in Chapter 3. Some of these tables are made of cheaper woods that are lacquered, inset with mother-of-pearl, or even gilded. It is on the altar table that one finds the ancestral shrine, an elaborately carved wooden structure called a kam/kum 龛, which resembles a miniature

traditional building or fancy cabinet. With or without doors that swivel open on wooden pivots, a kam/kum usually has two stepped shelves inside to hold individual ancestral tablets for at least two generations. The kam/kum on the altar table of the Baba House in the Wee family residence in Singapore is a fine example of a compact shrine. On the other hand, the ancestral altar in the So Posayanchinda home in Bangkok, which is accessed through a set of five pairs of stunning red-and-gold doors, is a grand glass-enclosed case as large as the altar table itself. In the absence of a shrine, individual ancestral tablets, which are also called spirit tablets 神主 shenzhu, are sometimes arrayed on the altar table or set on simple tiered shelves. Each shenzhu represents the soul of the deceased. Although some shenzhu are quite simple, others are elaborately carved units made of separate pieces of wood that fit together. On the visible outside surface and inside, names, relationships and natal home, in addition to birth and death information are recorded.

The elaborately carved ancestral shrine that once held the tablets for deceased members of the Wee family rests on the altar table amongst bronze and porcelain vases and candlesticks, a bronze censer, and a pair of hanging couplets. In the past, a portrait of the progenitor Wee Bin occupied the space under the characters zhui yuan, which have the allusive meaning “To Honor

One’s Ancestors with Offerings.” Wee family residence, now Baba House Museum, Neil Road, Singapore. A lower square table of matched wood and ornamentation usually accompanies the elongated rectangular altar table. Sometimes one encounters a set of three tables, the intermediate one being a smaller long table set between the other two tables or a second square one. Depending on the family’s resources and taste, these subsidiary tables may be part of a matched set of high quality, elaborately carved hardwood, as can be seen in many of the photographs in this chapter, or even a mismatched collection of tables that are merely serviceable pieces of family furniture. Sometimes a pair of matching blackwood chairs is set on either side of the tables in front of the altar table. Although usually bare on a daily basis, the lower square table, which is referred to as a Baxian 八仙 or “Eight Immortals” table, is draped with an embroidered red panel called a zhuowei /tokwi 桌帷, also zhuoqun 桌裙, on important occasions. These are made of silk, with embroidered auspicious motifs such as dragons, the Eight Immortals, and the Stellar Triad given shape using gold thread. Offerings of cups of tea and fruit, together with lighted incense, traditionally were offered on a daily basis, a practice that still is observed by many Peranakan Chinese families throughout the region. At least three times a year, an extravagant spread of meats, cooked dishes, condiments, rice, fruit, wine, and tea was arrayed on the tables amongst burning incense and candles. While this is rare today, faded photographs provide glimpses of the extent of past offerings, including the fact that blue-and-white porcelain replaced more colorful ones during periods of mourning. The Baxian table is a versatile piece of furniture, with many mundane uses that go beyond ritual functions related to honoring ancestors. Carried to the middle of the room, it becomes an all-round surface suitable for family meals, making handicrafts, doing schoolwork, and playing games. In some Peranakan Chinese homes, the ancestral altar does not comprise a set of Chinese-style furniture, but is instead furniture of Western origin. Polychrome porcelain, molded brass, colored glass, and even complete sets of polished silver dishes, cups, and bowls, which are needed to provide offerings of food, are commonly arranged in a prescribed order on the tables. Other ritual paraphernalia, including vessels to hold incense, candles, and flowers, are always located on the altars as well. Moreover, it is common to see family treasures, trinkets, and plants on and about the ancestral tables. Sometimes there also are images or statutes of gods and goddesses, even when there is a separate altar table elsewhere in the house for them.

In the Peranakan Chinese home of Tan Ma Xiang, whose Thai name was Chyn Pracha, the hardwood altar assemblage has a photo of the progenitor dressed in a Chinese gown from the Qing period. Krabi Road, Phuket, Thailand.

Embroidered red altar skirts of this sort typically are placed along the front side of the square table, which normally fits beneath the high altar table and is usually only pulled out for ritual occasions, such as a wedding or funeral, or on a feast day. The four characters jin yu man tang evoke the wish “May gold and jade fill the hall.” Below are representations of the stellar triad Fu, Lu, and Shou.

Entry into the ancestral hall of the Peranakan Chinese Posayachinda family, who are descendants of Soa Hengtai who arrived in Thailand between 1824 and 1825. The ancestral tablet of Tan Tjien Gwan, great-grandfather of a Peranakan Chinese family, now rests on the ancestral altar in the Tan Tiong Ie residence, Semarang, Indonesia. The Ancestral Hall found in the Tjong A Fie Mansion in Medan, Indonesia, epitomizes the grandeur that connects the living with the dead in the homes of wealthy Chinese. The Ancestral Hall in this residence, which was completed in 1900, is located just beyond the first skywell. It will be recalled from Chapter 3

that this residence does not have a Main Hall on the ground floor with an altar to the family deity, but instead a large room serving this purpose is on the second floor directly above the Ancestral Hall. Four suspended lanterns, each with a tassel, are hung symmetrically in the room, which also has a Victorian molded glass chandelier hanging among them. The ceiling itself is stenciled with large floral sprays and birds around a dramatic painting of a red bat with a basket of flowers and fruits hanging from it, which is shown in Chapter 2. Called hong fu in Chinese, a red bat symbolizes abundant good fortune because of a homophonous relationship. All of the wooden components found in the Tjong Ancestral Hall, including a magnificent alcove-like ancestral cabinet, shelves, panels, tables, chairs, and screens, were made in China and shipped to Sumatra. Queeny Chang, the eldest daughter of Tjong A Fie, recalled in her 1931 memoir a “somber ceremony” in the Ancestral Hall that included the lighting of two enormous red candles as well as joss sticks inserted in an open container on the altar as part of the “house warming ceremony” (1981: 20). The interior of the encased ancestral altar is painted red and includes shelves for the tablets of ancestors, the parents of Tjong A Fie who died in China. While Queeny only recalled three tablets, there are today nearly a dozen newer ones. All around the altar table are carved panels of many shapes and types, each with auspicious narrative meanings. In front of the altar is a square table covered with a red satin cloth embroidered with a pair of dragons and images of Fu, Lu, and Shou, the three Stellar Gods representing Good Fortune, Emolument, and Longevity. The four Chinese characters jinyu mantang have the auspicious meaning “Gold and Jade Fill the Hall.” Ancestral portraits of Tjong A Fie’s mother and father face each other on opposite walls in the hall. Beneath the altar, on a carved marble plinth supporting the carved hardwood altar, is a modest, but necessary, shrine to Tudi Shen, also Tudi Gong, the Earth God. Today, old ancestral shrines are more common in Peranakan Chinese homes than in the originating village homes in southeastern China that sent migrants abroad a century ago. This is principally because of the depredation of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976 in China when filial piety came under attack. However, as is also true in China, in Southeast Asia today, it is more common to see collections of photographs of recently deceased relatives, especially parents and grandparents, or portraits of revered progenitors, than wooden tablets and shrines. Still, sometimes both tablets and photographs are found together, as in the Tan Tiong Ie home in Semarang, Indonesia, and the Chee Jin Siew home in Malacca, Malaysia. In rare instances, such as in the Ang

Eng Huat home in Padang in Indonesia, small statues of deceased family members are found in glass cases, each with a gilded tablet in front of it. In an eclectic Peranakan mansion in Phuket, Thailand, the central image above the altar is a painting of Chyn Pracha set amidst framed photographs. Although the antique pieces of furniture, ritual vessels, and calligraphy have been preserved, this altar no longer serves as the focus of periodic ritual. The two characters proclaim “Hall of Filiality” while the painting beneath evokes scenes of China. Semarang, Indonesia. The upper wall behind the altar table usually includes a two-or three- character horizontal board as well as a flanking pair or double pair of calligraphic couplets with classical phrases, which serve as reminders of filial piety as well as the aspirations of ancestors for their descendants. Sometimes the calligraphy surrounds a large portrait of a family patriarch or a painting that focuses on an auspicious theme. As several of the illustrations reveal, among the common short phrases are 孝思 xiaosi (“reflecting on filiality”); 追遠 zhuiyuan (“to honor one’s ancestors with rituals”); 追思 zhuisi (“to recollect the deceased”); 思孝遠 sixiaoyuan (“thinking of filiality of bygone years”); 孝思堂 Xiaosi Tang ; (“Hall of Filiality”); and 永思堂 Yongsi Tang (“Always Thinking [of one’s ancestors] Hall”). These phrases all express respect for those who have died, pine for their guidance, and affirm their continuing relevance to the living.

One or two pairs of classical couplets are usually hung vertically alongside the character board. One variation can be seen in the ancestral altar in the Chee Jin Siew home in Malacca, which is enshrined within an ornate early twentieth- century sideboard that has an openwork canopy and a symmetrical set of cupboards and associated shelves. While no longer serving a religious purpose, a similar gilded teak altar sideboard in the Peranakan Museum is a former traditional altar that was converted to serve as an altar for Catholic veneration and worship. Featuring a brilliant devotional image of the Holy Family comprising the Virgin Mary, Joseph, and a young Jesus at its center, its crest and side rails incongruously display ornate carvings of the three stellar gods Fu, Lu, and Shou in addition to auspicious phoenixes, dragons, and qilin figures, all tied together with fluid floral patterns.



Various views above and below the grand ancestral altar in the Tjong A Fie Mansion include a tiered alcove-like cabinet and a rectangular and a matching square altar table, each with elaborately carved panels. This assemblage was crafted in China and shipped to Sumatra where it was installed in the new home when it was finished in 1900. Below the altar is a small, but significant shrine to the Earth God, Tudi Gong. Jalan Kesawan Square, Medan, Indonesia.

This antique brown-and-gold tiered Peranakan sideboard was repurposed at some point as the

family’s ancestral shrine and placed along a side wall rather than at the head of the room. In addition to the central portrait of Chee Eng Cheng, photographs of other family members are arrayed on the nearby walls. Chee Jin Siew residence, Jonker Street, Malacca, Malaysia.

A rare example of a Peranakan sideboard that was adapted from use to worship Daoist deities

and venerate ancestors when the family converted to Roman Catholicism. Here, with the Holy Family of Joseph, Mary, and the young Jesus at its center, this rich piece of furniture served as the focus of the family’s devotion. © Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore. Purchased with funds from Friends of ACM through Gala Dinner 2005. Porcelain polychrome altar vessels, such as the offering plate and candlestick shown below, usually included also common cups and bowls to hold tea, prepared food, and fruit. Offering plate: © Peranakan Museum, Singapore. Gift of Sunny Chan Hean Kee. Candlestick: © Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore.

This composite triptych reveals an altar that is no longer functioning as a site of devotion. Instead, the room and the vestibule behind provide a collection of antique pieces of fine furniture and calligraphy. Tjiong family residence, Parakan, Indonesia. In the Peranakan Museum in Singapore, there is a beautiful ancestral plaque with two characters 衛荊 Wei Jing emblazoned in black lacquer on a namwood panel that has been gilded (Ee et al., 2008: 38–9). This represents an abstruse allusion to an historical figure named Gongzi Jing, an honorable man who was the son of an official and lived in the state of Wei during the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 bc). The two characters remind a classically educated person of a pithy sentence in the Lunyu (Analects of Confucius) that records how Jing adjusted to his changing circumstances as he accumulated wealth. He never had a sense of acquisitiveness, but instead was contented with his life as it developed. As an aspirational allusion suggesting the value of “contentment,” the two characters offer a positive message for Peranakan Chinese entrepreneurs that they should curb avarice and acquisitiveness. As mentioned above and glimpsed in several illustrations, facing sets of elaborately carved and solidly constructed blackwood furniture, some with mother-of-pearl and marble inlays, are usually placed along the side walls of the Ancestral Hall just as they are in the Main Hall. Normally aligned with their backs against the wall, they are separated by small tables to hold tea cups and snacks. In some homes, matching settees are placed along the walls as well, as can be seen in the Tjiong home in Parakan, Indonesia. Above the sets of furniture are hung large mirrors and framed portraits. In some cases, carved and gilded wall cabinets inset into the wall complete the surrounding objects. In the home of Tan Cheng Lock in Malacca, there is a mixture of traditional Chinese furniture with Western pieces, including low-back armchairs and settees made of

hongmu. Each of the settees, which date to the 1930s, has three marble inserts in the shape of a peach, a symbol of longevity. Above the furniture on the side walls are elaborately framed mirrors, photographs of family members, paintings, and four horizontal commendation plaques presented to his son, Tan Siew Sin, with celebratory phrases such as, “Benefit the Country and Workers”; “Carrying a Heavy Responsibility over a Long Period”; “Pillar of the Nation”; and “Merit is in Educating the Young.” FREESTANDING ANCESTRAL HALLS Just as in southern China, Peranakan Chinese Ancestral Halls are sometimes freestanding buildings, separate from individual residences, where they represent the collective strength of a particular lineage or branch of a lineage. Ancestral Halls of this type vary in size and complexity. Like the compilation of a written genealogy for the family or lineage, called jiapu 家谱 or zupu 族谱, a freestanding Ancestral Hall serves as a public declaration of identity, relationships, and status. While Ancestral Halls in China may be a thousand years old and are thus a repository of the history of lineages of some renown, those constructed by Peranakan Chinese in Southeast Asia are of more recent vintage They usually celebrate the immigrant forbear of greatest prominence, with references to antecedents and descendants. Some, like the magnificent Khoo Kongsi 邱公司 in Penang, Malaysia, represent an extensive lineage that includes both Peranakan Chinese who settled in Southeast Asia from the fifteenth century onward and who married local Malay women, as well as other immigrants who only married Chinese immigrants from their home villages in Fujian. The Khoo Kongsi is situated within an enclosed complex of shophouses and residences with only three narrow entrances that lead to the seven-bay-wide ancestral temple called Leong San Tong 龍山堂 (“Dragon Mountain Hall.”). Constructed at the end of the nineteenth century, the building complex follows Fujian construction principles, with an elaborate wooden framework that includes refined wood carvings and complex supporting bracket sets throughout. Stone, wood, and brick carvings, as well as decorative treatments along the ridgelines, all incorporate Chinese auspicious motifs and historical tales. The use of wrought-iron balustrades, plaster moldings, and louvered windows represents some foreign architectural influences. Ancestral worship in the Khoo Kongsi takes place in the Eee Kok Tong 詒穀堂, where the tablets of twenty generations of the Khoo lineage who originated in Sin Kang village near Xiamen in Fujian province, are placed. The freestanding Kee Ancestral Hall in Sungai Bakap, Malaysia, is part of

the expansive nineteenth-century Kee walled manor, which includes also six attached row houses. The compound was built by Kee Lai Huat, a pioneering nineteenth-century sugar baron who came from a village in Chenghai county in the Chaozhou area of eastern Guangdong province. The Kee Ancestral Hall, which is spatially organized much like a temple, is a three-bay structure. It appears quite modest when viewed from the front but is made up of two large horizontal buildings with a courtyard between them. The front building, which comes alive on festival days, is lower and narrower than the much larger structure in the back, which houses the ancestral altars in three separate bays. Between the front and back halls, as discussed in Chapter 2, there is a magnificent set of eight door panels with more than 500 Chinese characters written in gold on a vermilion background. The fifty-three maxims, which range from the practical to the obscure in fostering a harmonious family, are written in a literary style without punctuation. They comprise a moralistic tract popularized among Peranakan Chinese at the end of the nineteenth century (Knapp, 2010: 120–7). Rarely seen on family altars are statues of ancestors, such as these on an altar embellished with mother-of-pearl chips, that occupies one corner of the parlor of the Ang Eng Hoat residence, Padang, Indonesia. Once these vermilion panels are pivoted open, one can see ahead across the skywell three recessed areas that hold three separate ancestral altars. While each

of the three blackwood ancestral altars is magnificent, having been made back in Chaozhou in Guangdong province by craftsmen whose woodworking skill was renowned, the central one not only is larger in terms of size and the elaborate nature of its ornamentation, but it rests within a separate wooden cabinet with carved and painted door panels. This central altar venerates Kee Lai Huat, the focal Kee ancestor, and his six sons, who represent the first and second generations of Kees in what was then Malaya. Inside the tiered altar, Lai Huat’s ancestral tablet rests on a step above the tablets of his six sons. There are no tablets on this altar for his two daughters. Behind them is a wall with 100 representations of the character fu 福, which are invocations for good fortune. Above the bay holding the seven tablets of Kee Lai Huat and his sons is an inscribed horizontal board with the characters Yong Si Tang or “Hall of Eternal Remembrance,” a common name used throughout southern China for Ancestral Halls. In front of the altar are miniature clay statues of the parents of Kee Lai Huat.

Talking up approximately half of the rectangular reception room of this century-old home in Padang, Indonesia, is the Ang family’s ancestral altar, with side chairs and tables for vases clustered around it. Portraits of Ang Eng Hoat and his two wives are accompanied on the altar by glass-encased statues of them. The closeup is of Ang Eng Hoat and his ancestral tablet.





The magnificently ornamented stone entry to the Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi, also called the Khoo Kongsi for short, leads to a seven-bay timberwork structure with splendid carvings. As an expansive hall dedicated to the Khoo lineage, it is divided into three parts for veneration of ancestors who are represented by their tablets arranged according to hierarchy, as well as enshrined deities worshipped by the Khoo lineage. Cannon Square, Penang, Malaysia. The three-character phrase yong si tang (“Hall of Eternal Remembrance”) declares the purpose of this large hall, which includes three altars aligned against the back wall. On the table are miniature clay statues of the parents of Kee Lai Huat. Kee Ancestral Hall, Sungai Bakap, Malaysia.

Richly carved and broader than the adjacent two, the central altar cabinet venerates the focal ancestor, Kee Lai Huat, a sugarcane planter and entrepreneur who established this Peranakan lineage in Malaya with his marriage to Khaw Bee Gek in 1855. Kee Lai Huat’s tablet is placed on a step above the tablets of his six sons. The side altars commemorate family members of the third, fourth, and fifth generations. A carved and ornamented oblong high altar table sits in front of each ancestral altar. On the side walls adjacent to the altars are two pairs of ancestral portraits. Looking toward the altars, the pair hanging on the right is of Kee Lai Huat in an ornately carved European-style frame and his father Kee Cheoe Im in a simpler rectangular frame. On the opposite wall, in frames like those of their spouses, are Lai Huat’s wife Khaw Bee Gek and his mother, whose name is not given, perhaps because in traditional China a woman was known as “the wife of a particular person” rather than having an identity of her own. Commemorative portraiture of this type, which has a long history in China, was often carried out posthumously, not only to memorialize parents and grandparents but also to create objects that go beyond ancestral tablets to facilitate the veneration of ancestors. In Kee Lai Huat’s will, which was prepared in the months before he died, he detailed how specific properties were to generate an income to support rituals

that were to be carried out in the Ancestral Hall by his sons in rotation, beginning with the eldest. His intention was that these annual rituals would be carried out by all succeeding generations. More than a century after his death, the Kee family continues to assemble several times a year to commemorate Kee Lai Huat and other forbears. By its scale and ornamentation, the Ancestral Hall of the Han lineage in Surabaya, Indonesia, proclaims the accumulated status of one of Java’s oldest and most prominent Peranakan families. In the Malay dialect spoken by Peranakan Chinese, an Ancestral Hall is usually referred to as a rumah abu or “ash house” to recognize the ash that accumulates in the censer on the ancestral altar, which is referred to as a meja abu or “table of ashes.” The front elevation of the Han family Ancestral Hall presents an amalgamation of Chinese with other influences. The swallowtail ridgeline, the red clay tiles on the roof, a recessed entryway on the front wall, and a pair of carved circular ventilation ports are all distinctively Chinese. The building has a public space in front for family members to congregate. The ancestral altar hall is in the rear, a climax of a long spatial sequence marked by closed, open, and then closed spaces.

This cabinet, with the tiered placement of ancestral tablets, like its twin on the other side of the main altar, venerates succeeding generations of the Kee lineage. The ancestral altar itself includes a carved open shrine on a table to hold the elevated rows of ancestral tablets. A long table in front is accompanied by two smaller square tables with lighted candles that are today electrified, incense burners, statues, and recent offerings of fruit and tea on them. The lowest table is draped with a bright red cloth covering that depicts the Eight Immortals, the Baxian, as well as the Three Stellar Gods, Fu, Lu, and Shou. Large portraits of Han Bwee Kong, the son of the immigrant Han Siong Kong, and his wife, each dressed in formal Qing-dynasty finery, face each other on opposite walls in front of the altar. Auspicious patterns are carved on all of the woodwork associated with the altar. Above the doorways leading to the back portion of the hall is a pair of double-character phrases, guangqian 光前 and yuhou 裕后, meaning “glorious beginnings” and “later abundance”; these four characters sometimes appear in Ancestral Halls as guangqian yuhou 光前裕后, meaning “Honor the Ancestors, Abundance for Future Generations.” The four-character phrase above the altar, chunqiu feixie 春秋匪懈, is a reminder to posterity to “never slacken throughout the year.” A dramatic large-scale circular genealogical chart with descendants arranged along concentric circles around the pivotal ancestor Han Siong Kong, as well as portraits of deceased Han family members, and old photographs of past family celebrations are hung on the walls. One deteriorating photograph captures the bountifully laden tables in front of the ancestral altar during a major commemoration ceremony (Knapp, 2010: 204–9). Ancestral portraits of Kee Lai Huat within an ornate frame and his father Kee Cheoe Im in a simple frame face from across the hall the portraits of their wives, Khaw Bee Gek and the father’s unnamed wife.

This photograph, taken in 1918 on the occasion of the 90th birthday of Khaw Bee Gek, reveals the extent of additional ornamentation to celebrate such an auspicious occasion. Photograph courtesy of the family of Khaw Bee Gek.