Cantonese: the miners and merchants of Kuala Lumpur and Perak

Imagine Kuala Lumpur in the 1860s. It is a muddy meeting of two rivers, with a few shops and many mining camps. Among the people arriving are Cantonese (廣府, Guangfu, from the Pearl River area of Guangdong), looking for a start.

The story

At first, the Cantonese were a small group in a Chinese world led by others. In Negeri Sembilan and Selangor, Hakka mining leaders were strong. In Perak, Hokkien merchants from Penang had great influence over the mines. The Cantonese began as newcomers who worked inside this system.

In the 1860s a first small wave of Cantonese followed a Hakka leader to Kuala Lumpur. In the 1870s Cantonese took part in the tin mines of Larut in Perak, with leaders such as Loke Yew and Chan Sow Lin. Between 1880 and 1883 a group of about 100 to 150 of them moved from Perak to the Klang Valley. A second wave came in the first decade of the 1900s, including Straits-born Cantonese such as Eu Tong Sen from the Kinta Valley.

In those years, Kuala Lumpur grew fast. It became the largest town in the Malay States and, in 1896, the capital of the Federated Malay States. The richest tin deposits were found in the Kinta Valley in the 1870s.

The Cantonese used their chances well. Tin mining began to decline in 1914, but Cantonese business families moved into banking and property. They kept the Chinese economy of the Klang Valley steady in the 1910s and 1920s. Researchers say that by the early 1900s the Cantonese became the leading Chinese group in Kuala Lumpur, until the 1930s. Later, Hokkien leaders also rose, as the Chinese dialect groups worked more closely together.

Cantonese and Hakka also ran many of the pawnshops in the Malay States, because pawnbroking grew up around the tin-mining workforce.

Where you can still see it today

Dialect associations, such as the Selangor Kwong Siew Association (雪隆廣肇會館), whose members came from Guangzhou and Zhaoqing, a hall for Cantonese members and their families.
Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh, towns built with tin money, where Cantonese is still widely spoken.
Cantonese words in daily life: "yum cha" (飲茶, to drink tea) and "dim sum" (點心, small dishes that "touch the heart").
Cantonese greeting: "Nei hou" (你好, hello).

What DNA can tell, and what it cannot

A mother line or father line can show deep roots in East Asia. A region estimate may point toward southern China, where Cantonese families began. But DNA cannot tell your dialect group, and a Hakka and a Cantonese family may look the same in a test. Also, many Cantonese families here have Hakka, Hokkien or Malay ancestors too.

DNA does not decide race, religion or bumiputera status.