The Kong-Moon System in Larut: Chinese Social Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Perak

The Larut Wars for mining resources were among the most severe conflicts in Malaysian Chinese history. They also provide a window into how dialects, consciousness of ancestral land, and secret societies shaped Chinese society in the Malay Peninsula during the mid-nineteenth century. The tin production chain embedded both the society and industry in the kong-moon system, a socioeconomic unit that integrated political power, economic interests, and social concerns. Within the kong-moon system, the Chinese miners, tin ore dealers, smelters, traders, and coolies, became interlocking components. Together, they formed a considerable interest group, and since all of them reaped the benefits of mining, they engaged in a level of inter-cooperation that superseded any existing divisions between various ethnic groups or across different regions. The kong-moon system thus serves as a counterweight to arguments about irreconcilable relationships in Chinese society.