Around the Tok Panjang: Genesis & Reflections
A collaboration between the NUS Baba House and GEN, Around the Tok Panjang was a series of programmes that sought to spark conversations around gender relations and norms in the Straits Chinese culture in the past and today.
The Tok Panjang (long table in Baba Malay) in the Straits Chinese household is where food preparation, family meals, and ancestor offerings take place. It is an important symbol of celebration and everyday life in Peranakan culture, and perhaps reminds us of a quintessential element of Peranakan culture – its delectable food. Most of our knowledge around Peranakan women tends to revolve around their role as makers of gastronomical delights or perhaps as domineering and feisty matriarchs such as portrayed in the classic Little Nyonya drama series of the 2000s.
Why Talk About Gender?
With the guided tours on Women and the Baba House, we wanted to dig deeper into the lived experiences of Peranakan women beyond these popular representations. They were born of a desire to investigate unanswered questions that popped up as we observed the intricacies of the century-old heritage house sitting on 157 Neil Road – who are the women in these framed portraits and why do we know so little about them? Where are the female descendants of the Wee family today who once occupied this house and how are their experiences today different from that of the past?
In contrast to the portrayal of Peranakan households as matriarchs in popular culture, some academic discourses on the female Peranakan Chinese experience shed light on the oppressive patriarchal system women had to negotiate due to heavy influences from Chinese beliefs and values. It seemed that there were two contradictory narratives of the female Peranakan Chinese experience – empowered through their role as matriarch or robbed of agency by Chinese patriarchal norms.
We built the tour around these ideas and tied it closely to the physical space of the heritage home. Various elements and spaces of the home spoke to the different understandings of gendered relations and norms within Peranakan culture, revealing a much more nuanced set of ideas that go beyond the binary understanding of matriarchy versus patriarchy.
On the one hand, the kitchen can be interpreted as a space symbolising the relegation of women to the domestic sphere. On the other hand, it could also be interpreted as a space of empowerment where women had full and direct control over the preparation for important events such as ancestral rites, capable of directing and delegating work to servants. Even through Peranakan food itself we can infer the strong influence of women within Peranakan culture – local spices and flavours historically inherited from the female side of the family dominated the cuisine.
Hearing from our tour participants
Beyond telling the stories of people who once lived in this house, we wanted to hear the stories of our tour participants as well. We sat down with our participants on the third floor of the heritage home itself – a flexible gallery space housing contemporary Peranakan art, which was perfect for prompting discussions around gender relations in the context of modern-day Singapore.
Using statement cards from our conversation deck ‘Generally Speaking’, we had meaningful conversations with participants of different ages and nationalities. The stories from the tour about Peranakan girls traditionally not encouraged to receive education made our participants think about the evolution of gender expectations over time. While the conversations reflected intergenerational differences in thinking about gender norms and relations, we were warmed by the open-mindedness of our participants towards each other.
The theme of intersectionality was something that featured strongly in our post-tour conversations as well. This was sparked by thinking more deeply about the experience of the Wee family (original occupants of the NUS Baba House), an affluent family who placed a special emphasis for their daughters to receive education. Many of our participants noted the implications of class on female agency and drew this back to their own personal experiences in today’s context. Some shared that breaking free from gender roles and stereotypes is strongly connected to their ability to be financially independent.
While we may have left our participants with even more questions about the experiences of Peranakan women in the past, and thoughts about how much society has (not) changed, we hope that the tour was a first step towards making visible the stories and histories of Peranakan women, whom we still know so little about.
Written by Myra Koh