Ethnoculture exists within an historical stream, a human confluence of social change in the world. It is defined from without in interrelationship with a wider world as much as it is generated and defined from within by the people who compose and continuously reconfigure its patterning. The possibilities for development of this patterning always exists across time and space in a wider field of relations.

We search for a so-called base-line called "Nonya culture"--some normative or ideal sense of a conventional, traditional center, and find only a continuous stream of variation upon a few basic themes--themes that are defined as much by the exceptions as by the rule. We then arrive at the conclusion that such a base-line conceptioning of an ideal cultural orientation possessing some kind of "center" is at best a statistical statement of averages, likelihood, and central tendencies, and at worst someone's reified, factitious fiction--a projection of our own superficial sense of reality.

In searching for the external outlines of Peranakan social reality, there are four sets of variables which appear salient, and which may be upon a more general level of understanding somehow interrelated with one another in rendering the conception of Peranakan social reality significant within a larger world. These four variables include social patterning, religious orientation, language, and, finally, what has become known as ethnicity.

In a more general sense, the convergence of these four salient aspects of peranakan culture is upon what has been referred to as the social construction of reality. It is a glimpse into the daily dynamics of the Peranakan world, and how its members interact to produce, individually and collectively, a socially constructed reality. Part of this process has to do with social praxis and performance, with the sense of 'presentation of self' in the everyday world. Part of it has to do with the process of social production. "Externalization" and "objectification" of a shared stock of knowledge, symbolisms and values, and part deals with the dialectically complementary process of social reproduction, with the problem of socio-cultural transmission of these externalized forms, and their internalizations, or subjectification, into the individual personality.

These processes can be seen to be 'functioning' dialectically at several levels. These are the infra-structural levels of economic adaptation, the social structural level of social interaction and integration, and the super-structural level of ideology. These three levels themselves constitute a sort of parallel-processing dialectical system, a 'complex' self-organizing system with a robust sense of historical structure that involves numerous interacting and mutually limiting variables.

It is important to see that this set of social processes is also occurring and impinging upon a larger stream of social reality. The social construction of human reality is also, concomitantly, the psychological construction of human reality. Social definition of self and the psychological definition of society are also part of larger processes of human civilization, processes which involve boundary identification, projection, psycho-social reference, accommodation, acculturation, assimilation, etc. Both self and society are defined in mutual interrelation with one another, and with a larger world of "otherness" that has both psychological and sociological components.

Peranakan society, wherever it had taken root and flourished, wherever it had spread its seed, always had its own sense of order, organization, purpose and outlook upon the world. It has always had some kind of class structure within which each member's status-role identity has been shaped and measured. It has long had its hopes for the future espoused in its own way of bringing up its youngest generation, and a sense of present importance with the generation that has come of age in the world, and an orientation toward the past that is passing away with the oldest. If we look closely, we find that Peranakan society has always been composed of a seamless web of people caught up in the trials and tribulations of daily living, in the throes of larger events that shape the world around them, and in the fortunes and misfortunes of the grand game of life. This web of people stretches in time through many periods as well as across many places, and each person has some sense of what it means to be Peranakan in the world, each person carries a part of the Peranakan present, past and future, upon their shoulders.

As a social phenomenon, Peranakan society stretches across many boundaries and zones, social and ecological, and includes many different habitats and niches. Its centers can be found in different cityscapes, and its tendrils can be found stretching out into the remotest of countrysides. Peranakan society may be a finite phenomenon, but its finiteness is too vast to calculate, too confusingly complex to neatly separate.

If we take as our prototypical representative of Peranakan Society, the wealthy, spoiled, elderly Nyonya who has an incurable passion for gambling, chewing sireh, and hen-pecking her son-in-law, then we are leaving out too much of other peranakan social realities--too much of its range of human variation and historical possibility. The Babas of the seventeenth century were clearly not the same as those of the nineteenth century, and these were not the same as those who claim to be so today. If the urban elite of the Baba pyramid was only the somewhat ostentatious pinnacle of a larger social base, then what of its more anonymous social base? No History is purely a Great Man narrative--of Towkays, Kapitans, Bankers and Prime Ministers--but social history is also told of the many whose names are now forgotten, seldom remembered, but without whose combined efforts history would not have been made at all, Great or small--not even Chinese history.

Before we seek to explain Peranakan society in jargonistic terms like "political economy," "social structure," "ethnicity," "pluralism," "acculturation," "assimilation," it is important to highlight several dimensions of their world that seem problematic and interesting from the standpoint of social science. First is the amazing apparent capacity for the Peranakans to adapt to their local environment, and to take full advantage of the opportunities within this setting. Secondly, there is the Chinese standpoint, the somewhat exceptional openness and syncretic orientation of the Peranakan culture which made of itself a curious amalgamation of different, and often contradictory, cultural models. Finally, related to the first two points, is the somewhat ambiguous and indeterminate status of Peranakan society within a larger pluralistic world.

Peranakan society, fit within a larger framework, must be seen as both a "transitional culture" in a larger stream of cultural assimilation, and a "culture of transition" that emerged as a self-sustaining social pattern in the interstitial regions between different cultural orientations. Peranakan culture and character emerged as a distinctive configuration wherever and whenever the processes of assimilation that were occurring in the passing of Chinese into Malay or Indonesian society was systematically arrested. Incorporation into the larger, predominant host society remained incomplete and partial and was, for the most part, a relatively gradual process.

It is likely that this happened more than once, in more than one place, and that therefore the reasons for its happening were not a matter of historical happenstance. The patterns were more structurally basic and therefore stable, such that when circumstances were ripe, the emergence of a Peranakan orientation was a little more than likely. "The whole process must, moreover, have varied greatly between different areas in Malaya, and it is theoretically possible that in some areas, depending on such factors as the supply of land, type of crop, and relative geographical isolation, some Chinese may have assimilated Malay women to their community."

With its repeated occurrence, it was more than likely that these people would form distinctive communities with their own separate orientation, and that these separate communities would eventually become inter-linked and interrelated to form a larger region-wide socio-cultural phenomena.

G. William Skinner; speaks of a socio-historical continuum in which different Chinese communities of Indonesia; "can be ranged along a gradient according to the degree of indigenous influence in their synthesized culture." (1963:104) Position along this continuum is held to have been a function of the length of time that elapsed between the social formation of the community and the "arrival of significant numbers of immigrant China-born women. Among the many other relevant factors one must note the comparative cultural level of the indigenous population. The Chinese found much that was attractive and valuable in a highly differentiated, rich, complex and literate culture such as that of the Javanese, considerably less in the simpler local culture of the Bangaka...and still less in the relatively impoverished, non-literate cultures of the Borneo aborigines." (Ibid. 105)

According to Skinner, this process began in the sixteenth century in Java, the culture of which was stabilized by the eighteenth century. In Borneo and Bangka it began later in the Eighteenth Century and a culturally distinctive local society was formed only by the mid-1800's. In other communities, such as Bagan Siapi-api, the process began "as late as the last decade of the nineteenth century and cultural stability is only now being achieved." (Pg. 104)

In another study, Skinner compared the differential rates of assimilation between the Chinese of Thailand and Java, who have been in both countries for similar lengths of time and who came from similar regions in China. In Thailand the rate of assimilation was three times more rapid than in Java, and Chinese in Thailand were incorporated fully into the Thai social world by the second or third generation, and it is uncommon to find a Chinese who can trace their lineage for more than four generations, while it was not uncommon in Java to find Chinese going back twelve generations. Skinner isolated six factors contributing to such a differential in rates of assimilation: cultural vigor, in which the unconquered Thai did not share the same "cultural inferiority" complex, as did the Javanese.

The Thai defined themselves by culture, whereas the Javanese defined themselves by race and descent. The Thai elite was indigenous and local, the elite of Java were outsiders and the Javanese upper class was deprived of any real power. There was much less ethnic stratification in Thailand than in Java, in which Dutch policies ethnically stereotyped occupational categories that put the Chinese above the Javanese in socio-economic status. In Thailand the Chinese were relatively unrestricted in their activities, while in Java the Dutch put restrictions on their residence and mobility. Finally, in Thailand there was a recognized mechanism available to Chinese for passing from Chinese to Thai identities, in which a person, coming of age, would declare himself either under Chinese or Thai administrative control. No such mechanism for passing was available to the Chinese in Java.

According to D. E. Brown, (1976) differential rates of Chinese assimilation varied directly with rates of upward social mobility--such vertical mobility was relatively open and available to the Chinese in Thailand, making the incentive to assimilate into Thai society much greater, while in Java the ethnic hierarchy was relatively closed and fixed. He combines this with the promotion of "false ethnic origin stories" which perpetuate ethnic pluralism and difference, to create a general proposition that "Ethnic diversity varies with the hereditary closure of ranking systems."

More generally, in the structural processes of Southeast Asian civilization the formation of ethnic diversity and the establishment of a fixed hierarchy were complementary and dialectical processes. "If enhancing ethnic differences promotes the stability of the radically plural society, why couldn't Southeast Asia's indigenous radically plural societies have been created by fabricating 'ethnic' differentiation to complement a hierarchy which was established among essentially homogenous peoples?" (D. E. Brown, 1976:94)

Another study by Juliet Edmunds (1968) of the relationship between Islam, intermarriage and rates of assimilation between the Chinese and the Malays, notes that though Islam has been widely regarded as a significant barrier to the assimilation of the Chinese, as compared, say to Theravada Buddhism in Thailand, conversion to Islam was a process which varied historically and socially "according to the state of relations between the two groups concerned as to any theological dictates," (1968, pg. 57) as well as to the degree to which such conversion imposed other conditions of assimilation upon the convert.

Intermarriage is the key element of the process of assimilation. "The effects of intermarriage on the relationships between the communities depend not only on how frequently it occurs, but also on the type of relationship and how the children of the unions are defined." (Ibid. page 58) Formal marriage institutionalizes the "movement of individuals from one group to another. Alternatively, they can result in the growth of some intermediate category of persons. In general it must be the host society which imposes the rules on this as well as other spheres of social life, though this does not mean that the minority, in this case the Chinese, have been entirely without a say in the process." (Ibid. pg. 58) In sociological jargon, intermarriage is known as the process of "amalgamation," a part of the more general processes of acculturation and social/structural assimilation. From this standpoint, Peranakan society, constituting both a transitional category in the assimilation process as well as a pariah culture of transition, may be fittingly referred to as a "culture of amalgamation." Historically, intermarriage between Buddhist Chinese and Muslim Malays has always been infrequent, though the demographic pattern of such intermarriage has been difficult to reconstruct for a number of reasons.

Somewhat paradoxically, Peranakan society, as a culture of amalgamation, has been centrally defined by such intermarriage. "In every case, the formative period for the locally rooted society began when immigrants settled on the land, formed alliances with indigenous women--Chinese women almost never immigrated over-seas prior to this century--and reared children who were taught to identify themselves as Chinese.

Marriage among these mixed-blood descendants of immigrants led eventually to the development of a fairly stable society." (G. William Skinner, 1963: pg. 104) Edmunds notes that with the coming of European colonial administration, and especially with the rise of new ethnic nationalisms, the Islamic proscriptions became enforced in counter-reference to the predominantly Christian conquerors, and, combined with the emergence of strongly Nanyang immigrant Chinese communities, as well as policies promoted by both British and Dutch administrators, the barrier to intermarriage and thus assimilation of the two communities became more rigid. Thus a new pariah "peranakan" identity became established that was less 'transitional' in status.

Not every scholar unanimously supports this thesis of intermarriage as being the principle basis in the formation of Peranakan society and social identity in the Straits. John Clammer notes that lack of evidence for such intermarriage; in the small pre-colonial Chinese community such as Malacca, which were internally self-sufficient and infra-communally balanced in terms of its sex ratios. "In fact, there is no evidence at all that peranakan culture emerged from a process of biological syncretism; rather, it is the result of cultural assimilation and adaptation to the host country, a process which did not begin in a systematic way until the nineteenth century..."(John Clammer, 1980:46)

Clammer cites the near absolute negativity of the Islamic religion which presented a strong barrier to such intermarriage, as well as the shallowness of peranakan lineages which do not extend back before the nineteenth century. He claims that peranakan culture did not become a cohesive, internally coherent, phenomenon until this time, and attributes the principal basis for its emergence as being the British colonial system that promoted their marginal "pariah" status.

The actual historical patterning and importance of such intermarriage has remained unresolved. There is a romantic facticity about the peranakan origin myth of low-status Malay women marrying higher status Chinese merchants and traders and becoming the famous Nyonyas who minded the store in their husbands' absence, cultivated strong domestic values and skills, nursed these values in their daughters, as well as lovingly cared for and commanded their baba and nyonya babies, and chewed sireh and gambled among themselves in their spare time, all the while unknowing that they were sowing the seeds for what would later develop into a full blown cultural configuration. Clammer refers to this argument, and to the Malay/Minangkabau origin of Matrilocality, as "folk arguments" which lack historical or social evidence. But this dilemma does point up the inherent ambiguity of identity of the Peranakans, of their inbetweenness, and of the possibilities, and impossibilities, of becoming either Chinese or Malay.

What remains rather certain is that at some point such intermarriage ceased fairly early, and from the standpoint of its Nyonya orientation, the Peranakan society became a closed one? Chinese men and women, as well as some Malays or others were later incorporated into its ethos, through capitalizing on the marriage market in the Straits, but the society remained otherwise separate and distinct.

Another social historical dimension of Peranakan society which may help to resolve this ambiguity of Peranakan identity is consideration of its regional/local variations and, especially, of a kind of rural-urban continuum. In the same work, John Clammer notes the hypothesis that the "frontier conditions" of Straits society inhibited the formation of deep lineages by requiring extensive cooperation between unrelated lineage fragments. Only where such frontier conditions do not exist does patrilineal ideology and lineage become predominant. Such lineages in the South of China are also correlated with wet-rice agriculture. According to Clammer, the urban orientation of the Peranakans as merchant men, and the frontier conditions of Peranakan society, discouraged the development of patrilineal/patri-focal identity, and encouraged the development of the distinctive matrilocal patterns which "bias was free to flourish" (1980:pg. 39).

A number of studies have been done of rural based Peranakan communities in both Indonesia and Malaysia, and these 'frontier' oriented societies must be taken into account in consideration of the origin and development of peranakan social identity. Central in such pioneering development of the hinterland regions was the Kong Si system within which the urban based Chinese settlements financed and provided the organization and labor reserve, as well as the middlemen function and markets for the interior pioneering communities which depended upon a 'slash and burn' method of shifting cultivation and which produced an expanding agricultural frontier.

Such a system depended upon establish trade and exchange relations and partnership based upon an ethnic Chinese ethos of reciprocal trust and the notion of "dependability." Crosscutting ties of dialect, lineage, village association, tended to reinforce these bonds, but even more importantly, kinship ties were the best available means of cementing a dependable network.

Networking is one of the most important aspects of seeing how history and culture painted with a large brush articulates with, and is moved by, the day-to-day interactions of individuals along their many pathways of practice.

We can see Straits societies as the pioneering forerunners of the later conglomerate Nanyang society, playing a pivotal role in the development of the Nanyang civilization in Southeast Asia. A Russian study of the Nanyang by Simoniya social structure reveals a vast financial-credit-market system that extends throughout Southeast Asia, with Chinese merchant-middlemen, within a colonial and neo-colonial framework, serving as the key articulators of the entire regional political economy. Within this system there emerges a resolute class structure in which plantation laborers and coolies are at the bottom, small petty merchants and planters range somewhere in the middle, and urban based professionals and financiers are at the apex.

As established "culture brokers" and as the first Chinese to settle in the Straits, the Babas emerged on top of this developing Nanyang social structure during the colonial era, and helped provide the impetus and direction for its further development. They provided the leadership and local models of adjustment and accommodation that allowed the system to work as effectively as it had.

Winzler notes a distinction in the Kelantan region between peranakan "village Chinese" and "town Chinese" "who perceive themselves as possessing a 'purer' model of Chinese culture." The so-called village Chinese in general showed more Malay and Thai influences in their Chinese culture. "The womenfolk, for example, wear sarong although girls do wear all kinds of modern dress especially when they go to town. Like the Baba, the women also wear the Malay-style blouse called kebaya. The men-folk wear sarong most of the time and in the village they usually do not wear any shirt. When they go to town they put on shirt and trousers. It is common for both men and women to carry kain batik lepas....a long piece of cloth which women use as head scarf while men tie it around their waist or use it as head-cloth (semutar). As for food, the village Chinese eat both Malay and Thai food as well as food prepared in Chinese style. Eating with fingers is common among these Chinese. (Tan Chee Beng, "Peranakan Chinese in Northeast Kelantan" in Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 55, 1982:pg. 28)

These "village Chinese" do not identify themselves as such, and, while mostly rural, have spread into the local townships and, while retaining many Malay traits, have become more urban in orientation.

Tan notes at some length the difficulty in finding a suitable label for these "village Chinese" whose patterns of acculturation was not quite the same as for the "Babas" of Malacca. Finally, he opts for the term "PeranakE"....

Robert Winzeler (1983) emphasized the difference between the "rural Chinese" of Kelantan, whom he refers to as Peranakans on the basis of acculturation, and the Babas of the Straits and the Peranakans of Java. One important difference is the influence of Thai, and the intermarriage between Chinese men and Thai women. According to Tan, early Chinese accounts of the settlements in Kelantan mention that Chinese were not permitted to marry the locals, but when they did marry, took Siamese wives. "The descendants of those early Chinese settlers who married local women had close contact with Siamese and Malays who were the majority people. This eventually led to the acculturation of the Chinese and gave rise to the formation of Peranakan Chinese society. The Peranakan Chinese culture once formed perpetuated itself until today." (Tan Chee-Beng, 1981:32-3)

Another difference is linguistic--they do not speak the Baba-Malay of the Straits, but are basically bi-lingual or tri-lingual. Finally, in terms of kinship organization he notes that these communities tend to adhere toward a partilineal/patrilocal system, observing principals of adherence to surnames and surname exogamy--or 'avoidance of common surname marriage." Otherwise, there is little evidence to suggest "extra-familial patrilineal descent groups of a social, economic or even ritual nature." (Ibid. pg. 19) He notices that kin-groups establish themselves in proximity to one another, but do not form corporate, patrilineal organizations. There is a bias towards a more bilateral pattern.

Tan's conclusions were that "close interethnic interaction in northeast Kelantan is the main factor for good interethnic relationship and the acculturation of the Chinese. Interethnic socialization from childhood to adulthood has fostered a greater interethnic understanding and respect. As a result of such socialization, members of different ethnic groups have developed certain common values and "cultural taste". At the group level, he notes the persistence of '"structural" contradictions that tend to maintain group boundaries between the rural Chinese and the Malays. Overtly, the Peranakan Chinese appear more Malay than Chinese because of their dress and language, "which are exhibited everyday, are very much acculturated" (ibid. pg. 48), but on close scrutiny, they remain basically Chinese in orientation. Interestingly, it is in the area of religious differences, and syncretisms, that the strongest basis for difference and identity are to be found.

L. A. P. Gosling's study on the rural Chinese of Trengganu, (1964) whom he calls "Baba Chinese" ("used in recognition of the popular usage of the term to apply to all Chinese in Malaya displaying a significant level of cultural and biological assimilation" (pg. 203)) focuses upon the pattern of pioneering settlement in the region by rural Chinese. Those Chinese who remained behind in settlements and did not move on to greener pastures, or those settlements that proved unsuccessful, were fully incorporated by the Malays.

Gosling cited that among the rural Malays, there were few if any significant barriers of Islam to intermarriage. "Malay marriage partners were not difficult to obtain. The details of Islamic law were not well known to the rural Malays, and prohibition on marriage between Muslim Malay women and pagan Baba Chinese males does not seem to have been strictly applied." (Pg. 215) While most such intermarriage involved the incorporation of females into the Baba community, there was also a lesser reverse flow of Chinese into the Malay community, as households remained behind in the advance of the Chinese settlements, and became incorporated by the local Malays who were more sedentary in orientation. Babas could easily assimilate into the Malay communities because they were already partly acculturated "in physical appearance, language, costume, and behaviour." (Pg. 217)

Furthermore, a premium may have been placed upon lighter complexioned Chinese Babas. In terms of physical appearance, which Gosling takes as primary evidence for such biological assimilation, the Baba Chinese varied over a wide range between Malay and Chinese. Older generation individuals looked more Malay in appearance. He advanced the hypothesis that areas most visible to external contact are the most acculturated, while the least visible areas show least evidence of acculturation. Acculturation seems also to have been a function of the relative isolation of the Chinese communities and members from other Chinese--attenuated contacts in rural areas promoted more contact with the local, host society. On the other, the onward resettlement of some Chinese tended to isolate these communities from contact with the Malays, thus reducing the amount of assimilation.

Gosling divided the history of these settlements into three periods. The first, from 1820 until 1890, was a period of growth, "and the process of acculturation and biological assimilation proceeded rapidly" (pg. 215). The second period, between 1890 and 1920, was one marked by declining population, during which Babas were increasingly assimilated into surrounding Malay communities. From 1920 until the present, assimilation into the Malay communities has been all but completely arrested, and the size of the Baba community, identified as distinctly peranakan, has stabilized. There is recent evidence to suggest a more recent trend of resinification by a larger Chinese community.

Social stratification exists within, defines, and is defined by, a continuum of social interaction, enduring relations and interpersonal experience that exist throughout time and across space. Social stratification is transmitted through the generations and between different groupings and sub-groupings. It delimits group boundaries and asymmetries of power, and, in the sense of transcending the lived experience of any single individual, must be considered to be corporate in structure.

Social stratification; can be seen to underlie ethnic stratification, boundaries, groups and identities. Just as social stratification varies through time and across space, so too do ethnic differences vary continuously in a corresponding way. Such continuous variation is the basis for speaking of an ethno-cultural continuum of human experience. It sometimes happens, as in the cases of radically plural societies, that ethnic stratification becomes the defining principle of social stratification, with the resulting ethos of ethnos. In such cases, ethnic differences and ethnic identities come to take on a social significance, and a real potency, which they might not otherwise have had. Also, defining social ethos in primarily in terms of ethnos tends to constrain and shape its patterning in ways that it might not have otherwise been shaped.

Though perhaps inextricably interrelated, the two kinds of phenomena--social stratification and ethnic stratification--are yet separable and potentially independent processes. Socio-cultural homogeneity within a society may preclude some of the organizational problems which heterogeneity causes, and ethno-cultural differences also entail its own kinds of dilemmas. Yet stratification occurs in either case, and in neither case does such homogeneity or heterogeneity preclude the potential for competition and conflict on the one hand, or cooperation and social integration on the other.

Within the colonial framework of a plural society, immigrant Chinese communities were divided along sub-ethnic lines in both cooperation and competition--sub-ethnic identity delimited the field of opportunities and actions open to the immigrant. Although internal class distinctions existed, these were of far less significance in daily life than ethnic solidarity. "In sum, cleavages and alliances within Chinese immigrant society were both complex and of daily significance, whereas for all but the elite, contacts between Malays and with Europeans were few and relatively unimportant." (Ibid. pg. 242)

In a landmark study in reference group theory, Alvin Rabushka's work Race and Politics in Urban Malaya (1973) reveals some of the fundamental differences between Chinese and Malay. Chinese tend to be more culturally ethnocentric than the Malay. More cosmopolitan contexts, inducing social extroversion, hence greater interracial social interaction, reduces such ethnocentrism, while social introverts tend to be much more ethnocentric in orientation. In terms of relative social distance, and the degree of tolerance between these groups, "Penang Malays are more tolerant of the Chinese than their Kuala Lumpur counterparts, but they are less tolerant on the question of interracial marriage. But omitting eating and marriage, the two associations affected by religion, we find (with one exception) that two-thirds of all Malay respondents are not opposed to crossing racial boundaries in employment, social activity or neighborhood of residence." (Ibid. pg. 62)

In regard to Chinese attitudes, no religious obstacles interfere with Chinese eating with Malays in the same eating-houses. "Chinese in both Kuala Lumpur and Penang are more tolerant of Malays than Malays are tolerant of them. In greater degree, they are willing to eat, work, join and live with members of the Malay race." The study holds that racial stereotypes have little or not role in promoting social or political harmony, and that positive or negative attitudes are relatively independent of such stereotypes.

Malay stereotypes of the Chinese; are that they are intelligent, ambitious, active, honest, thrifty, industrious and hardworking, yet ritually unclean and impure. The Chinese tend to see the Malays as clean, and yet lacking ambition, while "Intelligence, thrift, activity, and honesty are given approximately equal point values... and fall significantly below the scores registered for cleanliness and (lack of) ambition." (Alvin Rabushka, 1973: 67)

Rabushka considers such stereotypes as economical means for storing large amounts of information, which might otherwise be costly. Stereotypes do not vary in relation with social introversion/extroversion; and are not correlated with expressed attitudes of willingness to interact. ".... The holding of narrow stereotyped views in Malaya has no visible impact on either social interchange or political unity."(Ibid. pg. 67)

From these findings, a conclusion is drawn, among others, that "multi-racial living experiences do not necessarily promote racial tolerance or political unity" (ibid. pg. 101) The data tended to support a "transaction hypothesis" that higher levels of daily social interaction tended to promote higher levels of positive effect. On the other hand, evidence points out that social integration does not necessarily correlate with "democratic political stability"--"the transaction model does not clearly distinguish the political and nonpolitical aspects of "integration". Living in multiracial neighborhoods increases affect, whereas ethnic enclaves reduce it. Education enhances interethnic interaction, while age, religious and sexual differences have little impact "on the extent of racial integration."(Ibid. pg. 124-5)

Non-Baba Chinese look down upon Babas because they do not speak well the Chinese language--they are perceived "as not quite Chinese," and as "like Malay", which for the Non-Baba Chinese, is a counter-reference group. Those who speak English, the language of an ascendant reference group, are more acceptable. This category crosscuts the Baba/Non-baba distinction. Outside of the Baba areas, there is not a great deal of understanding of their ethnic culture--when seen buying pork in the market; they are frequently mistaken for being Malay. (Tan Chee Beng, 1979:21) Non-Baba Chinese may call them "Baba siau"--a derogatory name meaning "Baba semen" (crazy baba)--and "Baba kia" meaning "Baba kids." Babas often experience direct insults by Non-Babas in many social contexts. Babas complain that they are looked down upon by the Non-Babas.

Baba Chinese, on the other hand, have traditionally looked down upon the Singkehs, or 'newcomers', who in an earlier period were generally poor coolie laborers. "Cinageh" is heard among Babas when they talk unfavorably of non-Baba Chinese.

Nevertheless, in reference to a host Malay community, both Babas and non-Baba's share a common sense of Chineseness, a common Chinese cultural core, a common religious orientation, and a common ethnic and existential context of structural and social discrimination. "Now the common perception of discrimination unites the Babas and the non-Baba Chinese in a common political sentiment." (Tan Chee Beng 1979:22)

They also share as certain degree of social relatedness--marriage across these sub-ethnic boundaries is quite common and normally unconstrained, in which extended kinship alliances can be cultivated. Such kinship linkages extend to "ritual kinship"--adoption of a child by a Godmother or Godfather. My wife took me to see her God-mum, whom she called "Lau Mak" which means "old Mom", an old Cantonese woman who was her amah as a child--she was the only person who gave us ang pao and ritual offerings for our wedding. Religious ceremonies and rituals are an important means and locus of such sub-ethnic interaction that helps to define and reinforce a common "Chinese" identity.

Non-Baba Chinese frequently disdain Malays, and completely avoid them. They are seen as untrustworthy and are not extended credit. They feel Malays "are decidedly different from themselves in ways of thinking and feeling--xinli butong--and the assumption seems to be that the differences are irreconcilable."(Judith Strauch, 1981:254)

Chinese tend to see Malay behavior in the local context as childlike, with a lack of ambition--"traits that can be smiled on with some condescension." (Ibid. pg. 254) These attitudes are somewhat separate from feelings of structural discrimination as "second class citizens." "Government officials, by contrast, may be viewed as heavy-handed tyrants spoon-feeding the Malay peasant on the one hand and constricting natural Chinese rights on the other." (Ibid. pg. 254)

According to Judith Nagata, though there is a great deal of irregular subethnic diversity, the most salient element of Malay ethnic identity; is cultural--a Malay is a Muslim, habitually speaks the Malay language, and follows Malay adat, or customary law. (Nagata, 1974:335) Malay Muslims, whether Malay, Arabic or Indian, situationally define themselves according to different reference groups varying along three dimensions: simple comparison of social distance and solidarity; immediate expediency; and normative statements regarding comparative values of social status. (Nagata, 1974:340, in Judith Strauch, 1979:256) Individuals may oscillate flexibly between identities without negative psychological or social consequences--such oscillation may be both personally and socially adaptive.

In terms of interaction between Babas and Malays, the same perceptual categories of inferiority do not hold--rather stereotypes are common which contain negative and positive attributes. From the standpoint of Non-Baba Chinese, both Babas who are "like Malays", and Malays, are often seen as less hard working or industrious as the Chinese--a core value of Chineseness. Neither were Malays seen as trustworthy--such trust in business interaction being another central tenet in the economic underpinnings of ethnic Chinese identity. For the Baba community, if they identify more strongly with the Chinese, then they are apt to view the Malay in similar terms--if they identify more with a separate Baba identity, they are apt to distinguish themselves from the Chinese and identify more strongly with the Malays. (Tan Chee Beng, 1979:25) "Malays, when questioned about their perception of the identity of the Babas, will often reply that "They are just like us." (John Clammer, 1980:133) Babas interact more closely and frequently with Malays, than do other Chinese, and yet they are separate in the spheres of kinship and religion from the Malay--spheres which they share with other Chinese. Malays perceive the Babas as easier to interact with than the Non-Baba Chinese.

On the other hand, many Peranakans have picked up many values and views that can be considered traditionally Malay, such as the distinction between refined, "alus" or "halus" and rough or crude, or "kasar." This is a distinction that is brought out in the way that a peranakan may speak to another depending upon the social category that the peranakan identifies the person with. Also, Nonyas have picked up many of the superstitions that were Malay. I have frequently heard my wife say under her breath "I 'pantang' that" only to learn later that it meant a strong "dislike," and specifically, an omen of ill-fortune.

In spite of the structural differences between the two communities, there still exist many interethnic social ties between them. People were customarily invited to and attend friends' weddings, parties, and ceremonies as a token of interethnic solidarity. In such situations, discussion of issues of structural discrimination or difference may be avoided or else joked about. "This points to the fact that where there is structural conflict between two ethnic groups in a multi-ethnic country, the interaction between individuals of the two ethnic groups need not necessarily manifest conflict." (Tan Chee Beng, 1979:27) In such multi-ethnic conflicts, certain norms, of avoidance, of not offering pork for instance, are mutually worked out to smooth interpersonal social interaction in the wake of structural difference and inequality. To some extent, personal identity is separate and independent of ethnic-group identity.

We are left to consider ethnos as a function of reference and as such subject to an intrinsic kind of psychological and social relativity of our self-awareness in relation to others. Identity is built up from enduring social interrelation and frequent social interaction. In this sense, the psychological awareness of the self and the social perception of others are inextricably entangled, and overlap in an intermediate region that is not quite internal and not completely external. In this sense, relative deprivation, cognitive dissonance, social difference and distance, are all phenomena that have both psychological and sociological facets in experience. In this regard, status-role ascription, identification, projection of collective representations--all symbolic processes--and labeling serve to reinforce and articulate this region of interethnic, psychosocial consciousness.

Peranakan Ethnoculture: An Introduction to the Straits Chinese