Peranakan Chinese (Baba Nyonya): a Chinese and Malay way of life

Peranakan Chinese (Baba Nyonya): a Chinese and Malay way of life

A table is laid for a family feast. A grandmother in a sarong kebaya (a Malay-style blouse and wrap, embroidered by hand) lifts a lid, and the smell of spice and coconut fills the room. The meal is called a tok panjang, a "long table", where everyone sits together.

The story

Peranakan (Malay for "locally born") describes people whose families settled here and mixed with the local world. The Peranakan Chinese are called Baba (men) and Nyonya (women). Their history starts with traders from Fujian and Guangdong in southern China, who sailed the Straits and settled in Melaka, Penang and Singapore. Historians trace the first families to as early as the 12th century. Many of these traders married local women, and a new community grew.

A well-known legend tells of Hang Li Poh (漢麗寶), a Chinese princess sent to Melaka's sultan. Historians debate it. Some call it a legend, and no Chinese record of her has been found. One scholar thinks it may be based on a real event. It points to a very old Chinese settlement on Bukit Cina (Chinese Hill) in Melaka.

Language. In Melaka, the Peranakan speak a Malay-based speech with Hokkien words mixed in. In Penang, they speak Hokkien with Malay words mixed in. Both show how the families blended.

A culture of its own. Over generations the Baba and Nyonya built a way of life that mixed Chinese customs, the Malay language and local beliefs, with touches from the Portuguese, Dutch and English. You see it in their houses, clothes, ceremonies and above all in their cooking. In colonial times they were often called "the King's Chinese" because many worked closely with British and Dutch officials.

"Peranakan" is wider than one community. Tan Ta Sen notes that it covers all locally born people of foreign roots: Chinese Peranakans (Baba and Nyonya), Indian Peranakans (the Chitty), Portuguese Peranakans, and more. You can read these stories in this shelf.

Where you can still see it today

• Melaka and Penang shophouses, with tiled floors and carved doors.
• Sarong kebaya, a style given new attention by the Nyonya kebaya book and exhibition of 2004.
• Beaded slippers (kasut manik, shoes sewn with tiny glass beads), made by hand.
• Nyonya restaurants and festive tables, the tok panjang.
• Museums: the Baba and Nyonya heritage houses of Melaka and Penang.

What DNA can tell, and what it cannot

A Peranakan family's mother line and father line may tell two stories. The father line may point to southern China and the mother line to a local, Malay-world mother, or the other way around, as the history has both. A region estimate may show a blend of East Asian and Southeast Asian ancestry.

But Peranakan is a culture that people live in, not a result on a screen. DNA cannot say that you are Peranakan. It does not decide race, religion or bumiputera status.