The Nanyang Chinese came to Southeast Asia (known in the past as Nanyang, or the Southern Seas) from Southern China. Nowadays we recognize this as part of the Chinese diaspora, the vast movement out of China in search of a better life that have been taking place for centuries.
Map of Zheng Ho's Voyages in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean
The largest sea in Southeast Asia has various names. In the C16th Portuguese sailors referred to it as the China Sea (Mar da China) although the need to differentiate it from the northern waters led to the use of the South China Sea. The International Hydrographic Organization recognizes the sea as "South China Sea" or Nan Hai. there are various names. The Vietnames Government refers to it as the Bien Dong or Eastern Seas. In mainland Southeast Asia the sea was referred to as the Champs Sea after the historic kingdom of the C15th.
Prejudices and Misconceptions
The Chinese who came south face many prejudices and misconceptions not just from in their new homes but worse from their own homeland. Often these views held by what I call the Chinese cultural hegemonista nd were prevalent in the 1940s and 1950s.
In writing of these I hope to show how unthinkingly divisive and destructive these cultural hegemonists were and still are. These prejudiced voices loudly proclaim the superiority of race, culture and language with no understanding or appreciation of the actual situation.
A list some of these more blatant distortions is given below though not in order of significance. I will point out the absurdities and spell out the actualities.
1. That the Nanyang Chinese are morally and physically weak because they fled the hardships of their homeland.
I have heard this expressed many times when young. However, I was surprised when across this same view by a friend recently.
Actuality
Actually, the immigrants must have been very tough - to decide to leave their homeland for inhospitable and unknown shores, to battle their way through the horrendous hardships of sea travel (whatever it was, the voyage to Nanyang was not a five star cruise), to live in the humid, sweltering heat of the tropics, to work as indentured coolies, tin miners and farm hands in slave labour conditions, to face dangers from snakes, crocodiles and tigers. to do with very little food and home comfort, to face the dangers of diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and cholera.
Photo of Chinese coolies at work.
So in truth, only those who were really tough survive, to make it into the next generation.
2, That the Nanyang Chinese are less patriotic than their compatriots in China.
This is what I call the emotional extortion view that permanently ensnares the Nanyang Chinese in an inferior position. This assertion goes thus: those who left their homeland were not patriotic because they turn their backs on the many struggles China was going through as it sought to be rid of Manchu dominance, external aggression and feudalism.
Actuality.
The facts speak otherwise. The Nanyang Chinese raised substantial (some accounts claim the largest) amount of money for the anti-Japanese struggle in China. Indeed, the Japanese were so angry with the contibutions that they identified and carried out systematic "sook ching", genocidal executions, of the Chinese community when their troops overran Southeast Asia.
Japanese troops capturing Kuala Lumpur on their way to Singapore.
From the start was also strong support of the anti-Manchu and republican movement among the Nanyang Chinese. In fact the triads in Nanyang were often started by anti-Manchu resistance fighters that fled to the Southern Seas to avoid persecution and death.
In addition. many overseas Chinese returned to China to take part in the anti-Japanese war. My grandfather was one. He was a volunteer in the war but was, unfortunately, killed soon after returning to China.
3. That you are not a Chinese unless you are fluent in the language.
According to this view, being a Chinese means, above all, the ability to speak and write the Chinese language. It argues that language is the carrier of culture, tradition and history - all that marks out the ethnic and racial identity of a group. So without a proper command of language a person loses identity and ethnicity.
To add to the harshness, those Chinese who could not speak proper Chinese but depended on a wesrern language like English were stigmatized as "yellow bananas". Looking like Chinese but really a westerner within.
Those were the days when globalization was still a far world away. Today, multiculturalism and the ability to move between cultures and languages are regarded as valuable qualities. In those days in the 40s and 50s when nationalism in China was often virulently inward looking and xenophobic, those who had broader views were often targets for attacks by cultural activists.
Actuality
Well if it is the case that language equals identity, then no one can call himself a Christian unless he or she is fluent in Hebrew or Greek because these are the languages of the Old and New Testaments respectively. Similarly a person would not be a Buddhist unless he or she is fluent in Maghadi or, at the very least, Pali.
Besides, while there is a Chinese written and spoken language, China has many different dialects. Would one say that a Shanghai inhabitant who felt more at home with the dialect is less of a Chinese? Or that a Henan peasant who is unable speak or write Chinese but spoke his dialect is not a Chinese. Indeed, Mr Yang, the farmer who is credited with the discovery of Qin Shih Huang's terracotta warriors could not write his name in Chinese until he was taught late in life. Is he not then a Chinese?
Today being Chinese comes into recognition and being on a more accommodating and larger platform.
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