About the Historical Photographs

Many of the historical photographs in Starry Island are studio portraits of Peranakan Chinese individuals dating from the early twentieth century. Difficult to define, the term Peranakan is generally used for the descendants of the ethnically mixed communities that developed on the Malaya Peninsula and Straits Islands from roughly the tenth to fourteenth centuries. At that time, a significant number of foreign traders—including Chinese, Indians, Dutch, and others—settled in Malaya and married into Malayan families. Over time, the cultures adapted and blended. Today, Peranakan usually refers to Chinese Peranakan. Their customs, cuisine, dress, and language (a mixture of Malay, Hokkien, and English) are different from those of mainland Chinese.

The honorific term for Chinese Peranakan women is Nonya; these portraits show elements of Nonya culture in Singapore and Penang (Malaysia). The women wear Malay-influenced dress, such as embroidered and beaded tunics over sarongs, large jeweled brooches , and hand-beaded slippers. Their hair is pulled into buns and held in place with silver or gold hairpins, some encrusted with jewels and decorated with flowers. Many of the women wear dangling earrings, anklets , bracelets, and rings, often of gold. Their wedding attire is particularly splendid and elaborate. Traditionally, richly dressed women displayed a family’s wealth and prosperity, whereas the men (honorifically called Baba) dressed more conservatively. In other photographs, the women are wearing modern dress: shoes with heels, less jewelry, and European-style blouses.

A resurgent interest in Peranakan culture has been encouraged by the Singaporean government and community. For example, a Pernanakan HeritageFest was inaugurated in 2004; the Singaporean Peranakan Museum, part of the Asian Civilization Museum, opened in 2008, as did The Baba House, managed by the National University of Singapore.

The historical photographs are courtesy of five collections:

• Kouo Shang Wei Collection, National Library Board. Kouo Shang Wei (1931–1988) belonged to a generation of pioneering professionals who came of age in the 1950s. In 2007, his family gave access to 7,000 items from his collection of photographs, slides, and artifacts. Kouo was especially well known for his strong architectural photographs.

• Lee Hin Ming Collection, National Archives of Singapore. The Lee Brothers Studio Collection consists of 2,775 studio portrait prints and 760 glass-plate negatives taken in the early twentieth century. The collection was donated by Lee Hin Ming, whose father, Lee Poh Yan, and uncle, Lee King Yan, were partners in Lee Brothers Studio, which opened in the early 1900s and closed on the eve of World War II. The photographs, donated to the National Archives in 1994, consist of original prints that were either rejected or never collected by the sitters, while the negatives seem to have been deliberately set aside because they were perceived to have historical importance.

• The Peranakan Association Collection, National Archives of Singapore. Consisting of 180 photographs, donated in 1999, the Peranakan Association Collection showcases Peranakan Chinese culture and daily life in Penang and Singapore in the early twentieth century. By the time these photographs were taken, the Peranakan style in dress, food, wedding customs, and interior décor was a blend of Chinese, British, and Malay elements.

• The Tan Tuan Khoon Collection, National Archives of Singapore. Photographs from the Tan Tuan Khoon Collection are of tiger hunting parties and their game in Singapore and the Straits Islands from the late 1920s and 1930s.

• The Mohd Amin Bin Kadarisman Collection, National Archives of Singapore. The eighteen-photograph Mohd Amin Bin Kadarisman Collection includes fifteen portraits of elaborately dressed and adorned Peranakan families and individuals, as well as three snapshots of Malay opera performances. The photographs all originate from around the year 1900.

Esplanade—Theatres on the Bay. Peter Marlow / Magnum, 2002.
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Studio photograph of a Peranakan couple. Lee Hin Ming Collection.
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Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore. ca. 1920.

Studio photograph of Chinese man. Lee Hin Ming Collection.
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Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore. ca. 1910.

Members of the Straits Hunting Party with...