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东南亚的华人社区 Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia: Review Article Author(s): Maurice Freedman Reviewed work(s): Source: Pacific Affairs, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Sep., 1958), pp. 300-304 Published by: Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia Stable URL: http://www.jstor.or...

东南亚的华人社区
Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia: Review Article Author(s): Maurice Freedman Reviewed work(s): Source: Pacific Affairs, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Sep., 1958), pp. 300-304 Published by: Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2752924 . Accessed: 20/02/2013 21:29 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Pacific Affairs. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:29:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia: Review Article S INCE THE SECOND WORLD WAR, the Chinese in Southeast Asia have become an academic "subject" largely because of two massive political events: the disintegration of most colonial regimes in the region, and the emergence of China as a great power. Each of these events by itself would have been enough to attract attention to the Chinese minorities scattered from Burma to the Philippines; together they have caused a light to play on the Chinese in Southeast Asia (the Nan-yang) which must sometimes be less flattering than inconvenient. The region is now studied because the Chinese there form a crucial element, because they have (or may have) economic and po- litical ties with a Communist homeland, and because for some social scientists prevented from working in China they provide a substitute area for field investigation. Before the War no sociologist or anthropologist had studied the Nan-yang Chinese in any detail; one could put together some interesting facts gathered by administrators, missionaries, historians, political analysts, and travelers, but no clear picture of Overseas Chinese society could be drawn from the material available. In I948 Dr. Victor Purcell published his historical study, The Chinese in Malaya, and three years later his broader survey, The Chinese in South- east Asia. These two books appeared at a time when the Nan-yang was be- coming a field of sociological study-a study which they helped to encour- age. Three social anthropologists from the London School of Economics were at work in Singapore and Sarawak in the years I948-5i. In ig9o Dr. G. W. Skinner, an anthropologist from Cornell University, having been forced to abandon his research in West China, began what was to prove to be an ex- tended study of Chinese settlements in the Nan-yang. A little later other scholars set to work in Singapore, Malaya, Thailand, Indonesia, and North Borneo. Singapore has so far attracted most attention, and this is in a sense a pity, because its Chinese population, in its dominance of the local scene and in its complexity, represents only certain extreme features of the Nan-yang. None of the studies made of Singapore has given a picture of its total structure. 1 See A. J. A. Elliott, Chinese Spirit-Medium Cults in Singapore, London School of Eco- nomics Monographs on Social Anthropology, London, i955; Marjorie Topley, "Chinese Women's Vegetarian Houses," Journal of the Malayan Branch Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. xxv, part I, i952, "Chinese Religion and Religious Institutions in Singapore," ibid., Vol. xxix, part I, 1956, and other papers; Maurice Freedman, Chinese Family and Marriage in Singapore, H. M. Sta- tionery Office, London, I957, and "Colonial Law and Chinese Society," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. lxxx, i950. 300 This content downloaded on Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:29:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia The Sarawak study, concentrated on associations and economic life, has pro- vided us with an account of another variant of the Nan-yang Chinese settle- ment-one in which we can grasp the total network of relations binding the Chinese in a relatively small and simple community.2 There have been sev- eral papers resulting from research elsewhere, but until Dr. Skinner's two re- cent books" appeared, no settlements other than those in Singapore and Sara- wak had been described in any detail. Dr. Skinner began his study of the Nan-yang Chinese with a general sur- vey which he carried out in I950.4 In the three publications under review here' we can follow his subsequent work, first in Thailand and later in Java. Over the years he has built up a superb knowledge of the Overseas Chinese and of the social and cultural milieux in which they live. His first book, Chinese Society in Thailand, is a pioneering work of scholarship. Nobody before him had written the history of any Chinese settlement in Southeast Asia from the point of view of someone who knew what sociological analysis meant. There are enough facts in the book to satisfy the most exacting his- torian, but they are classed and interpreted in such a way as to make us un- derstand how Chinese relations among themselves and with the Thai have developed from one kind of situation to another. We cannot fully compre- hend a minority unless we know the society into which it fits, and this fact is of special importance in Thailand, where the line between Thai and Chin- ese has tended to sway with contrary movements of encouragement and re- pression, attraction and repulsion. Chinese Society in Thailand, described as "an analytical history," fits the analysis of Chinese social organization and Sino-Thai relations into a chronological framework. ITe book opens with an account of the general situation of the Chinese in Thailand up to the early part of the nineteenth century; it shows, among other things, how trade with China was bound up with the Siamese tribute missions. In his second chapter Dr. Skinner deals with the immigration of the Chinese and their population growth up to I9T7, providing an excellent sketch of emigration from southeast China which should be read by everybody interested in the Nan-yang. Chapter 3 examines the role of the Chinese in the Thai economy up to the early twentieth cen- 2 T'ien Ju-k'ang, The Chinese of Sarawak: a Study of Social Structure, London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology, London, I953. 3 Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N. Y., 1957, 459 pp. $6.50. Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand, Cornell University Press, I958, 364 pp. $6.50. 4 Report on the Chinese in Southeast Asia, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, i95I, mimeographed. 5 The two books by Skinner, and Morton H. Fried, ed., Colloquium on Overseas Chinese, International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, New York, i958; pp. 8o, $i.5o, mimeo- graphed. 301 This content downloaded on Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:29:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Pacific Affairs tury, while the next chapter is concerned with the social and political position of the Chinese during the nineteenth century. With chapter 5 we cross into the field of "the Chinese Problem" as it has developed in our own times; the chapter is suitably entitled "Into a New Era: Transition to Nationalism and Cohesion." Chapter 6 brings the demographic history down to i955, while the last three chapters deal with successive phases in Sino-Thai relations and Chinese social organization from i9io to i955. The argument of the book is clearly set out and fully documented. In most parts of Southeast Asia the Chinese have had to adapt themselves to colonial social systems, with the result that they have generally become groups intermediate between "natives" and alien rulers. For reasons, which are at least clear in outline, they have made admirable use of economic oppor- tunities which were neglected by the local peoples. Many Chinese grew pros- perous in the Nan-yang. As they rose economically, their social ambitions could take them some of the way towards the culture and status of the Euro- peans standing at the head of colonial societies; but the Chinese could not enter the European elites, and there was little point in their merging with the "natives." In his contribution to the Colloquium on Overseas Chinese Dr. Skinner shows how the Chinese in Java moved in part towards the Dutch and in part towards the local peoples, lacking the incentives to assimilate to the latter and the opportunities to become one with the former. The logic of the situation has brought the Chinese in independent Indonesia into the posi- ion of an economically strong but politically weak minority on which the Indonesian nationalists look with suspicion and disfavor. One could add that if an exactly similar state of affairs has not come about in Malaya, it is be- cause the Chinese there are relatively too numerous to be pressed hard. In Indonesia and Malaya intermarriage and acculturation in the past have produced Chinese groups culturally close to the indigenous peoples but po- litically encased within the Chinese minorities. Thailand has been different. There the movement by the Chinese towards Thai culture has been part of a social system in which for a long time the Chinese were able to assimilate freely and completely. The rise of both Thai and Chinese nationalism in the twentieth century, along with other factors, has modified the system by strengthening the resistance of the Chinese and decreasing the tolerance of the Thai. The Chinese who now wish to continue as a more or less self-con- tained minority are in much the same difficult position as their congeners in other parts of the, Nan-yang, but in fact the road to assimilation is still open to those who wish to travel it. In real life many Chinese move between Thai society and the Chinese minority according to the context of their interests and the state of the pressure being exerted on the minority. In his second book, Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community 302 This content downloaded on Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:29:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia in Thailand, Dr. Skinner turns to the narrower problem of defining the cen- ters of power from which those who take part in the Chinese sector of Thai- land society are controlled. As far as the essential subject-matter is concerned, we are on familiar ground here; the story of how the Nan-yang Chinese organize themselves around their economic interests and on the basis of vol- untary associations is an old one. What is novel in Dr. Skinner's book is the method of the enquiry, which yields an abundance of facts systematically collected. These facts are brought together in an illuminating and highly original account of Chinese leaders. In his first book Dr. Skinner was an anthropologist writing history; in his second book he is an anthropologist writing a special kind of sociology. If one is to criticize his work at all, one must say that the anthropologist writing anthropology is not well enough to the fore. One misses a sharpness in the material on family and kinship and detects an impatience with religious matters. (I am surprised that in his paper on Java Dr. Skinner should offer us as evidence that the younger generation of Chinese "is a strikingly irrelig- ious crew" the results of an enquiry into what "high-school seniors" state their religious views to be. Again, he says of the Bangkok leaders he studied that most of them "refrain from formal religious activity, and when ques- tioned about religion cite Confucian virtues . . . or less frequently Buddhist precepts as the basis for their lives." Anthropologists have a reputation for being observers rather than simply reporters of what people say they do and think.) The limitations of the method used in the second study mean, fur- thermore, that it is really about leaders and not so much about leadership. While the origins, activities, roles, and interconnexions of the leaders are set out in impressive detail, there is no corresponding depth in the treatment of leaders in relation to their followers. In other words, the community of the led is not fully analysed. As far as the organized social life of the Chinese is concerned, Thailand can be conveniently reduced to Bangkok. Here Dr. Skinner began his study by compiling a list of Chinese occupying the highest positions in business and associations. In I952 he himself personally interviewed all but a handful of the I35 men whom his previous researches had shown to be at the top of the Chinese community. Supplemented by other enquiries, the interviews provided data from which the structure of the group of Chinese leaders could be inferred. The leaders turned out to be, as one might expect, predom- inantly China-born and for the most part the sons of business men. (Ten per cent of the fathers are said to have been of the "scholar-gentry class." I won- der whether Dr. Skinner has any independent evidence to support this find- ing.) Although over three-fifths of the leaders were self-made men, only one-fifth had themselves travelled the whole road from the status of penni- 303 This content downloaded on Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:29:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Pacific Afairs less immigrant. After setting out these and many other important charac- teristics, Dr. Skinner examines the prestige, power, and influence of the group of leaders, widening his sample when he thinks it necessary. In one chapter, for example, he analyses the structure of power under the title of "Control and the Inner Circle." Here he shows how businesses and associa- tions are tied together through their common officers and how (on the basis of "five-man interlock clusters") a set of power blocs can be isolated from the total web of interrelations, all under the ultimate leadership of one man. Happily, Dr. Skiner was able to extend his study, carrying it through to 1955 when he examined a second sample of leaders. In the three years cov- ered by the total study the group of leaders can be shown to have been fairly stable, while there was a high degree of continuity in the structure of the power blocs. "Even during three years of intense political controversy within the Chinese community," Dr. Skinner comments, "its 'governmental' struc- ture has if anything grown stronger and more all embracing." The final chap- ter of the book discusses the political alignments of leaders and the relations between Chinese leaders and the Thai elite. Despite all the political and eco- nomic badgering to which the Chinese in modern times have been subjected, their leaders are likely to be creamed off if present trends continue. "Follow- ing the example of their leaders, and weakened by their defection, the entire Chinese community will inevitably move more rapidly toward complete assimilation to Thai society." The Colloquium on Overseas Chinese suffers greatly by comparison with Dr. Skinner's painstaking and considered Thailand studies. It is a rather poorly mimeographed collection of seven brief papers discussed at a special session of the American Anthropological Association meetings in i957. The papers are followed by a twenty-page "edited version of the three hours of speech and conversation that comprised the Colloquium." It is dismaying to see how little people can say in long discussions and how badly they are apt to say it; one wonders why they choose to expose themselves to the cold eye of the reader. Two papers, apart from Dr. Skinner's on Java, deal with the Nan-yang: Mr. David Fortier's on North Borneo and Professor Stanley Spector's on Singapore. They both suffer from compression but are extremely useful as guides. Indeed, the stated purpose of the Colloquium was not primarily to add to our knowledge, but rather to! map out the field of current research on the Overseas Chinese. The editor reports that he is acting as tem- porary chairman of "a slowly coalescing Committee for Overseas Chinese studies." One wishes it well and hopes that its future publications will consist of more carefully prepared papers, better written than some in the present collection. London School of Economics MAURICE FREEDMAN 304 This content downloaded on Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:29:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Article Contents p. 300 p. 301 p. 302 p. 303 p. 304 Issue Table of Contents Pacific Affairs, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Sep., 1958), pp. 219-320 Front Matter [pp. ] Foreign Policy Issues in Japan's 1958 Elections [pp. 219-240] South Viet-Nam's Internal Problems [pp. 241-260] New Sources of Industrial Finance in India [pp. 261-274] Urbanization and Population Pressure in Japan [pp. 275-285] Notes and Comment The Curriculum in Chinese Socialist Education: An Official Bibliography of "Maoism" [pp. 286-299] Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia: Review Article [pp. 300-304] Book Reviews Review: untitled [pp. 305-306] Review: untitled [pp. 306-307] Review: untitled [pp. 307-308] Review: untitled [pp. 308] Review: untitled [pp. 309-311] Review: untitled [pp. 311-312] Review: untitled [pp. 312-314] Review: untitled [pp. 314-315] Review: untitled [pp. 315-317] Review: untitled [pp. 317-318] Review: untitled [pp. 318-319] Review: untitled [pp. 319-320] Back Matter [pp. ]
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