Sino-Kadazan: a Chinese and Kadazan family

At a Kaamatan (the Kadazandusun harvest festival) in Penampang, a family sits down to a long meal. The grandmother has a Kadazan name. The grandfather's father was Hakka. Their grandchildren speak Malay, English, and some Kadazan, and a little Chinese at school.

The story

Sabah has many peoples, and mixing between them has gone on for generations. One of the best-known mixes is between the Kadazan (a Kadazandusun people of the west coast, famous for rice farming) and the Chinese. Families who carry both are often called Sino-Kadazan ("Sino" means Chinese).

Chinese traders had long visited Sabah, but large numbers came after 1881, when the British North Borneo Company began to rule. The Company needed workers, so it brought many Chinese, especially Hakka families. Some Chinese men who came to Sabah married local women. According to one history, northern Chinese migrants married into the local people readily, especially the Dusun, while Hakka Christians did so mostly when no Chinese women were available.

In Penampang, near Kota Kinabalu, Chinese communities grew in places such as Petagas, Putatan and Donggongon. The Chinese there are a mix of Hainanese, Hokkien and Hakka people. No census counts how many mixed Kadazan-Chinese people there are, but local people estimate that half or more of the Kadazans of Penampang have some Chinese heritage.

Many ways to belong. Researcher Trixie Tangit, who is Kadazan and Chinese herself, found that families choose different labels in different settings. Some like "Sino-Kadazan", which they find attractive, because it shows both sides of the family. Others prefer "Kadazandusun" in public life, or "Dusun". Some families keep Chinese surnames, and others use Kadazan names. This page respects each choice. It does not tell any family what to call itself, and says nothing about what any label means in law.

Table talk. Food shows the mix. Hakka noodles such as konlaumee are on many Sabah menus, next to the foods of the harvest festival.

Where you can still see it today

Penampang, with Kadazan and Chinese neighbourhoods side by side.
Kaamatan in May, the Kadazandusun harvest festival, where you can hear "Kotobian Tadau Kaamatan" (Happy Harvest Festival).
Chinese New Year and Kaamatan, celebrated in the same families.
Names: a Kadazan first name with a Chinese surname, or the reverse.
Hakka dishes such as konlaumee on Sabah menus.

What DNA can tell, and what it cannot

A mother line and father line in a Sino-Kadazan family may point in different directions: one toward East Asia (China) and one toward Borneo and the islands of Southeast Asia. A region estimate may show a blend of both. That fits the story, but each family is different, and a result may show only one side.

DNA cannot tell you whether you are Kadazan, Dusun, Chinese or Sino-Kadazan. Those labels come from family, language and personal choice. DNA does not decide race, religion or bumiputera status.