Rebuilding the Ancestral Village: Singaporeans in China

306 Pages·2011·4.49 MB·English

by  Khun Eng Kuaah-Pearce

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Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce is ‘Rebuilding the Ancestral Village breaks new ground in our understanding gabu This work illustrates the
p
an associate professor in the of Chinese religion, immigration, and the networks of relationships oil relationship between one group
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Department of Sociology at the that link communities together in Greater China. It extends the use of eai of Singaporean Chinese and their
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University of Hong Kong. ethnographic methods to study not just localized communities, but also s g ancestral village in Fujian, China.
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networks of communities. Its methods and insights have become more nt
Ch It explores the reasons why the
common among sociologists and anthropologists who study China. e
h
These ideas are worth pondering by a wide range of scholars, and this in A Singaporean Chinese continue to
an maintain ties with their ancestral
revised and expanded edition of the book is a service to the field of c
e village and how they reproduce
contemporary China studies.’ s
t
r Chinese culture through ancestor
—Richard Madsen, University of California, San Diego a
l V Singaporeans in China worship and religion in the
i ancestral village. In some cases, the
l
l
‘Chinese traditions pay a great deal of attention to people having to a Singaporeans feel morally obliged
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be memory correct. This book examines how the Chinese in Singapore e Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce to assist in village reconstruction
and their kinfolk in the county of Anxi in Fujian province confront
and infrastructure developments
different attitudes towards remembering. The author shows how they
such as new roads, bridges, schools
manage the necessary rituals and symbols, the genealogies, the reciprocal
and hospitals. Others help with
journeys and the cross-border connections. This is a valuable work of
small-scale industrial and retail
spatial ethnography.’
activities. Meanwhile, officials
—Wang Gungwu, National University of Singapore
and villagers in the ancestral
K
h
home utilize various strategies to
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‘Rebuilding the Ancestral Village constitutes the first effort by an anthropologist encourage the Singaporeans to
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to track a transnational lineage in the post-Mao era. This updated revisit their ancestral village, sustain
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edition will have wider influence in the rapidly growing field of Chinese K heritage ties, and help enhance the
u
diaspora studies.’ a moral economy. This ethnographic
h
—James L. Watson, Harvard University -P study examines two geographically
e
a distinct groups of Chinese
r
c
e coming together to re-establish
their lineage and identity through
cultural and economic activities.
Anthropology/Chinese Diaspora
ISBN 978-988-8028-81-8
Cover photos: Offerings of soul house
to the ancestors by individual families
(top); Kuitou Keshi Lineage Ancestral
House (bottom); both photos by Khun 9 789888 028818
Eng Kuah-Pearce Printed and bound in Hong Kong, China
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Singaporeans in China
Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce
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Hong Kong University Press
14/F Hing Wai Centre
7 Tin Wan Praya Road
Aberdeen
Hong Kong
www.hkupress.org
© Hong Kong University Press 2011
ISBN 978-988-8028-81-8
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
Printed and bound by Liang Yu Printing Factory Limited, Hong Kong, China
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Contents
Preface to the Second Edition vii
Acknowledgements to the Second Edition xi
Note on Romanization xiii
List of Illustrations xv
1 Introduction 1
2 Constructing a Singapore Chinese Cultural Identity 29
3 The Ancestral Village in Anxi County 55
4 Negotiating Collective Memories and Social Experiences 71
5 The Moral Economy of Rebuilding the Ancestral Village 101
6 The Bond of Ancestor Worship 131
7 Religious Revivalism 163
8 Rewriting Genealogy and Reclaiming One’s Cultural Roots 189
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vi Contents
9 Chinese Lineage as a Cultural Network: A Model 217
10 Conclusion: From Lineage to Transnational Chinese Network 241
Notes 251
Glossary 255
Bibliography 263
Index 275
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Preface to the Second Edition
Since the publication of the first edition of this book in 2000, the relationship
between the Chinese Diaspora and their qiaoxiang has intensified and the
transnational linkages have grown stronger. Such relationship has spread
to the north where new migrants from such places as Wenzhou, Hubei and
Hunan have also returned to their ancestral villages and helped with village
reconstruction. There is no doubt that Chinese lineage as a social organization
has progressed into a cultural network that encompasses members scattered
throughout the Diaspora in which some members are able to form a
community while others remain isolated individuals. Nevertheless, they
continue to look to their ancestral home as their source of origin.
The intensification of the transnational linkages is a result of the global
migration and return migration. It is also motivated by the migrants who want
to help rebuild their ancestral homes irrespective of whether they are wealthy
or are primarily labouring in an overseas environment. There are many rural
villages that still experience abject poverty and migration continues to be
seen as a route out of poverty. Once out, these migrants, in addition to paying
their debts, are expected to send remittances back to their home villages, as
in the nineteenth century, and help to rebuild their family home. For those
who have made some fortune, it is expected that they contribute to village
reconstruction, help fund schools, clinics and hospitals as well as construct
roads, bridges and other infrastructure, in addition to create jobs for their
village kin. These new qiaoxiang, not unlike the old ones, have become
prosperous with new buildings dotting the rural landscape.
One key issue in my book is to explore the link between ancestor worship
and the creation of a moral economy that propels Chinese overseas to visit
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viii Preface to the Second Edition
their ancestral homes and help with reconstruction. Since the 1978 reform,
there has been a gradual relaxation of policies pertaining to religious activities
and ancestor worship. Ancestor worship is specifically listed as an integral
part of Chinese culture and hence divorced from religion. As such, it is not
subjected to the stringent control of the state. From the 1990s onwards, there
has been a proliferation of large-scale communal ancestor worship throughout
Guangdong and Fujian in South China. In Guangdong, wealthy Hong Kong
Chinese have provided funds to help rebuild their ancestral villages. They
also help revitalize the economy by relocating or setting up factories in key
townships where many of the ancestral villages are located. The villages
have become more urbanized as most of the agricultural lands are now being
appropriated for other uses. On the whole, Guangdong has become very
prosperous. The same is also true of Fujian. The process of urbanization has
encroached into the rural areas as well. In the qiaoxiang districts, agricultural
lands are being used for residential and economic purposes. The cultural
concession granted in the form of large-scale ancestor worship and other
religious celebrations has created a workable moral economy that enables these
villages to benefit from the flow of capital into the region. The money thus
helps rebuild the villages and transforms them into modern market towns. The
creation of a moral economy has now spread to other parts of China where
new migrants have rebuilt and revitalized their villages after they migrated
overseas in the 1970s.
The fluidity of migration, circulatory and return migration and settlement
in the Diaspora has impacted on how we look at the identity issue of these
Chinese. My argument that these Chinese continue to hold various sets of
identities is even more relevant today as they try to make sense of the rapidly
changing world and position themselves within different polities. While
Chinese individuals locate themselves in the Diaspora, they are confronted
with a set or sets of identities that they want and choose to align with. At the
same time, they are also confronted with the issue of home and where home is.
In this search for an identity and home, I argue that both home and identity lie
in a continuum where the source of origin locates in one pole and the nodes
on the other. Where one decides to locate oneself, either closer to the nodes, at
midpoint, or closer to the source, will enable us to understand how the person
views his/her status and identity. Such identity is not necessarily a fixed one,
but is shifting depending on context and situation.
This book thus aims to fill an important gap—an attempt to understand
the transnational relationship of a group of people who were separated by
time and space but have come together again as a result of shared memories,
sentiments and emotions, facilitated by the changing political climate in
China. In the process of reunion, these two groups of Chinese have renewed
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Preface to the Second Edition ix
their kinship and re-established their cultural identity. In so doing, they have
established the lineage as a transnational cultural network that binds members
of a lineage from various nodal points scattered throughout the world to the
source.
In the twenty-first century, this transnational cultural network will become
more crucial because it does not only bind and bring together those members
physically to their ancestral village, it also serves as a resource network for
all to communicate with one another through various forms without physical
contact. The cyberspace, twitterspace and telecommunicative space are all
new media that the Chinese in the Diaspora could use to communicate with
one another for different purposes. In this sense, the transnational cultural
network provides an imagined space for individuals to forage for information.
It is also a space for expressing their memories and sentiments to their
ancestral home and their present home, to their status as part of their ancestral
village community and that of a migrant, to their new identity and citizenship
of a new polity, and as a global citizen. All these open up new spaces and
challenges for us to understand the complexity of the relationship between the
ancestral home and the Diaspora home as well as the individuals within the
two places.
Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce
July 2010
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