Eurasians in Singapore

Eurasians in Singapore
Total population
(15,581[1])
Regions with significant populations
 Singapore
Languages

Mainly English

Also: Kristang, Chinese, Malay, Tamil and other Indian languages
Religion

Mainly Christianity

Also: Sunni Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and no religion
Related ethnic groups
British people, Portuguese people, Kristang people, Macanese people, Dutch people

Individuals of mixed European and Asian descent in Singapore are known as Eurasians. Eurasians have been viewed with mixed fascination and disdain by the European and Asian communities.[2] Their European ancestry traces to emigrants of countries that span the length and breadth of Europe, although Eurasian migrants to Singapore in the 19th century came largely from other colonies in Asia, such as British Malaya in particular Malacca and Penang, India including Chittagong (today in Bangladesh) and Goa, the former Portuguese colony in India; the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina. When the European maritime powers colonised Asian countries, such as India, Ceylon, Malaya, Singapore, Indonesia and Indochina, from the 16th to 20th centuries, they brought into being a new race of people known historically and generally as the Eurasians. [3] The early Western colonisers were not accompanied by their womenfolk on the perilous journey to Asia. Consequently, many married the local women of these lands, or formed liaisons with them. Initially the offspring of such a union were brought up as an appendage of the ruling class and enjoyed advantages not generally accorded the rest of the local Asian population.[4] In time, as colonial attitudes hardened due to the 1915 Singapore Mutiny and growing independence movement, Eurasians were largely cast aside by the colonial masters and treated much like the rest of the local population. Eurasians or Kristang Eurasians who generally have some Kristang-speaking ancestry form a sub-group distinct from those who are the offspring of more recent immigrants and expatriates of European and Asian origin and who are also called "Eurasians" in Singapore. The same or similar distinction exists between on the one hand multi-generation Eurasians (who typically have some Kristang-speaking ancestry) and many of whom would associate with some Kristang or Portuguese-origin cultural practices (e.g. Kristang songs and Portuguese-origin dances like Jinkli Nona) and dine on Kristang Eurasian dishes like Devil's curry or curry debal in Kristang. However, first- or second-generation Eurasians typically do not have any Kristang-speaking ancestry, do not speak Kristang, generally do not adopt Kristang or Portuguese-origin cultural practices, and are less familiar with Kristang Eurasian cuisine. First-generation Eurasians are people whose parents are not Eurasians. Multi-generation Eurasians are people whose parents or forefathers are Eurasians.

European ancestry

Of Portuguese and Spanish descent

Before the arrival of the Dutch, British and French in Asia, the first Europeans to land and seize territory in Asia were the Portuguese, followed by the Spanish who claimed the Philippines. Portuguese spice-traders first sailed to Malacca in 1509, having already established settlements in Goa and other parts of India. Portuguese explorers and conquerors were accompanied by the first Jesuit priests to South-east Asia via Goa in Portuguese India. Afonso de Albuquerque, the viceroy of India, conquered Malacca (today just a few hours' drive from Singapore) in 1511, while Jesuit Francis Xavier, (a Basque Spaniard serving the Portuguese Crown) arrived in Malacca in 1545. Descendants of Portuguese and Spanish colonialists who lived in Malacca and are of mixed Portuguese/Spanish and mostly Malay, but also Indian or Chinese descent, are collectively known as the Gente Kristang. This group is characterised by having its own distinctive Portuguese creole, the Kristang language, although it is now only spoken by a few, older members of the community. Many are descended from individuals who lived in Malacca or other parts of Malaysia. Others have ancestors who lived in Java or other parts of Indonesia as a result of being expelled from Malacca after the Portuguese were forcibly ejected from Malacca by the Johore-Dutch alliance in 1641. A few Macanese people of Chinese-Portuguese ancestry from Macau are also living in Singapore.

Of Dutch descent

In 1602, a Dutch trading company called the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC (literally "United East Indies Company" but better known in English as the Dutch East India Company) was created to conduct trade in the area east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan. In establishing their numerous trade stations spanning across Asia, the Dutch created independent settler societies in each of their colonies, where Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) became the administrative centre and rendezvous point for the company's Asian shipping traffic.

Between 1602 and 1795, the VOC fitted out some 4,700 ships which carried almost a million Europeans to the Far East. Almost 70 percent of the one million of the passengers never actually returned to Europe, making Asia their new home.[5] These early seafarers were not only made up of Dutch, but also included British, Germans, French Huguenots, Italians, Scandinavians and other Europeans who were employed by the VOC. In time, many were assimilated into Dutch colonies situated throughout Asia (though primarily in modern Indonesia) where they were stationed and became part of the respective communities.

Intermarriages between VOC employees and locals were encouraged, which lead to the creation of communities of Dutch descendants.[6] Today, there are only five surviving coherent and large communities who are descended from those early intermarriages. They are the Cape Coloureds (South Africa), Basters and Oorlam (Namibia), Burghers (Sri Lanka), and Indos (Indonesia). Other Dutch groups have persisted as a strain among the Anglo-Burmese and Kristang. The Dutch Eurasians of Malacca are of Dutch and largely Malay but also Indian or Chinese descent. The Dutch transferred Malacca to the British in 1825 in exchange for territory in Sumatra. The British sought to depopulate Malacca and as a result many Eurasians and other people moved north to thriving Penang (where other Eurasians fleeing Phuket or moving from Kedah also settled) and later south to Singapore as it grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dutch descendants in Malaysia and Singapore are primarily made up of Eurasians originating from Malacca, as well as others who emigrated from the East Indies, India and Sri Lanka. Leo and Hilda Campbell were Dutch Burghers who arrived in Singapore from Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in 1910. The couple planned to migrate to Australia like many Eurasians but due to Hilda suffering a stroke, they remained in Singapore.[7]

Of British and Irish descent

The British were the most important Europeans in colonial Singapore, as they were the colonial rulers of the island. A number of British settlers arrived after its colonial status changed in 1867. Interracial marriage was very common in colonial days. Even men who had European wives sometimes had 'a bit of curry on the side'. European women transplanted to South-east Asia tended to die young. British men took Asian partners and their offspring would be Eurasian. Some who had British nationality preferred to settle in Britain or other parts of the Commonwealth, especially Australia. Many British and other European men of retirement age, instead of going back to cold Europe, would settle in Australia with their Asian women, with fewer staying on in Singapore. Apart from being warmer than Europe, Australia was less judgemental than Europe or colonial Singapore to mixed marriages and mixed offspring.[8] Independent Singapore's second President, Benjamin Sheares, was a Eurasian of English lineage. E. W. Barker, the former Law Minister, was of mixed- Portuguese, Irish, Japanese, Scottish, Malay and German descent. National swimmer Joseph Schooling is a third-generation Singaporean, and is of Eurasian ethnicity. His parents are Colin and May Schooling. May is a Chinese Malaysian and a Singapore permanent resident; while Colin, a businessman, was born in Singapore. Colin's grandfather was a British military officer who married a local Portuguese-Eurasian in Singapore.

Of other European descent

Other Eurasians in Singapore have parents or are descended from individuals who originated from Europe, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa or elsewhere. Former Nominated Member of Parliament Eunice Olsen's father is of Swedish and Portuguese descent. Tour guide Geraldene Lowe's father’s side is Russian. His grandfather married a Chinese woman in Shanghai and brought her to Singapore. Geraldene Lowe's mother’s family was called Luth and came from Schleswig-Holstein, then part of Denmark. During Bismarck’s unification of Germany, they headed to Asia and Australia and married people from various nationalities.[9]

Asian ancestry

Of Chinese and East Asian descent

National swimmer Joseph Schooling is an Eurasian, as is his father Colin Schooling. His mother May Schooling is a Chinese Malaysian Former Nominated Member of Parliament Eunice Olsen's mother is Chinese while her father is of Swedish and Portuguese descent.

Of Japanese and Korean descent

Other Eurasians in Singapore have parents or are descended from individuals who originated from Japan, South Korea or other parts of East Asia. An example is TV personality and presenter Stephanie Carrington, who is half Caucasian (American) and half Korean.

Double-barrelled race classification in official documents

Since January 2010, the Government in Singapore has allowed the double-barrelling of race classification by parents of different races when they register their children. The first of the two races should be the child's dominant race. So an European father and Chinese mother might register their son as "European-Chinese" instead of "Eurasian". A Malay father and European mother might register their daughter as "Malay-European" instead of "Eurasian". If these two children grow up and as adults marry each other and have a child of their own, that child (the grandchild of the two couples) could be registered by its parents as "European-Malay" taking the dominant race of the classifications of both parents "European-Chinese" and "Malay-European". As another example, a child with an Indian father and Eurasian mother would previously have been registered as "Indian". With the new system, the child can be identified officially as "Indian-Eurasian" or "Eurasian-Indian" depending on what the parents choose. The new form of race classification will be reflected in National Registration Identity Cards. The double-barrelling of race will give parents in mixed-race marriages even more flexibility when deciding their child's race, said Assistant Professor Ho Peng Kee, the junior minister who announced the change in Parliament. He explained the need for flexibility stemmed from the increasing diversity of Singapore's demographics, with the inflow of immigrants and more locals marrying foreigners. On the need to identify a dominant race, Ho said: "Societal trends suggest that a child of mixed parentage tends to identify more closely with one of the two races."[10]

Culture and traditions

Languages and Kristang patois

Shepherd's pie, a common Eurasian dish.

English is generally spoken as a first language by almost all Eurasians in Singapore. A number of Eurasians speak Asian languages like Malay, Chinese (Mandarin or dialect) or Tamil as a second or third language. Like many Singaporeans, Eurasians will commonly speak Singlish. Some of the elder generation of Kristang Eurasians, typically those who have a Portuguese surname or are of Kristang-speaking descent, speak the Portuguese creole known as Cristão or Papia Kristang (Speaking Kristang) – the Kristang language at home and within their small community. Kristang is a dying patois and is only spoken by a small minority of Eurasians.

Religion and education

The Eurasian community in Singapore includes people that belong to different religions and to no religion, but majority of them are Christians, mostly Catholic. Many Eurasians in Singapore have been educated in Catholic mission schools like St Joseph's Institution. Protestant Eurasians in Singapore include Anglicans (Episcopals), Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and Evangelicals. Eurasians looked upon an English education as a passport to a better life in colonial Singapore and so their children were among the first to enrol in the earliest English language schools when they were set up. They attained the highest literacy rate among the local groups here. This enabled them to secure comfortable employment, in both public and private sectors, following in the footsteps of their fathers and as a family tradition for the future generations.[11]

Eurasian cuisine

Eurasian culinary traditions include Eurasian smore (a beef stew), mulligatawny soup (mulligatani in Kristang), shepherd's pie and vindaloo (vin d'arlo in Kristang). Sugee cake made with semolina is also associated with the Eurasians, but also with the Peranakan Chinese.

Prominence in the media, entertainment and fashion industries

Eurasians are prominent in the media, entertainment and fashion industry.

In media and entertainment, father and son Brian and Mark Richmond, Vernetta Lopez and Jean Danker are well-known radio personalities.[12]

Eurasian models are sometimes called 'Pan-Asians' for their mixed appearance but this term is a misnomer. 'Pan-Asian' in this context does not mean 'across Asia' but is synonymous with 'Eurasian'. A common belief amongst those in the advertising industry in Singapore and Malaysia is that Eurasian models who appear in advertisements can represent different ethnicities both European and Asian and so there would be no need to create two separate sets of advertisements one targeting consumers of European origin and another targeting consumers of Asian origin. Eurasian actors who appear in television series and movies can also represent roles of different ethnicities both European and Asian.

Eurasians in Singapore have also made their mark in the artistic and cultural domains. Jeremy Monteiro is a renowned jazz musician and Cultural Medallion winner. Rex Shelly was an award-winning writer known for his novels that feature the Eurasian community in Singapore and Malaysia.[13]

'Eurasiana - A Musical Tribute'

In June 2009, 'Eurasiana - A Musical Tribute' marking the 90th anniversary of the Eurasian Association was performed at the Esplanade Concert Hall. It was a showcase of Eurasian music, dance and culture in Singapore.[14] Also performing was the 50-piece Singapore Pop Orchestra led by Maestro Iskandar Ismail.

Places associated with Eurasians

Soon after the founding of Singapore by Stamford Raffles in 1819, people from other trading centres in Asia including Eurasians came to Singapore. Wealthy Eurasians set up home along Waterloo Street and Queen Street in the area between Bras Basah Road and Middle Road, not far from today's Singapore Management University. The types of houses that they lived in included shophouses, two-storey houses, terrace houses and bungalows. These were typically owned by well-to-do merchants and traders. The houses on Queen Street also consisted of shophouses that were occupied by non-Eurasian coolies. The living conditions in these shophouses were poor but at least the coolies could live close to where they worked. These houses on Queen Street were owned by the more well-to-do Eurasians. Nearby were Catholic schools like St Joseph's Institution and the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus as well as other well-known schools that used to be located in the vicinity. A number of buildings and churches of the period in the vicinity still stand today. Today, few Eurasians can be found residing in the Waterloo Street and Queen Street area.

Eurasian families moved out from the enclaves to other locations such as the government quarters in Bukit Timah, the countryside areas in Serangoon and Upper Serangoon, and the then coastal region of Tanjong Katong. There were even kampongs (Malay for “villages”) along Haig Road and Siglap Road that had a concentration of Eurasian families. Another Eurasian enclave known as Little England was located in the area bounded by Farrer Park, Norfolk Road and Rangoon Road. The roads in the area were all named after English counties and towns. Eurasians today can now be found spread thinly across the island in both private and public housing. In past times, many Eurasians lived in the Katong area, as did prominent tour guide Geraldene Lowe in her youth.[15] Katong is commonly considered Singapore's main Eurasian enclave because of some history, modern Eurasian literature and the present location of the Eurasian Association, it is more of a Peranakan Chinese enclave.

The leading association for Eurasians in Singapore is the Eurasian Association at 139 Ceylon Road in Katong. The Eurasian Association has played a major role in uniting the community and developing a stronger shared identity. It has expanded the definition of Eurasian to include any person of mixed European and Asian parentage. Previously, only persons whose fathers were of European origin or who had European surnames were considered Eurasian.[16]

The Singapore Recreation Club facing the Padang, Singapore near City Hall, founded by several Eurasian men, is considered to a social and sports club that is popular amongst the Eurasians in Singapore. E.W. Barker played sports like cricket and hockey for the Singapore Recreation Club (SRC) between 1934 to 1941, when the SRC was almost the strongest team in Singapore.[17]

Eurasians during the Japanese Occupation

From December 1943 to April 1944, due to overcrowding and food shortage in Japanese-occupied Singapore, some 2,000 Eurasians (about 300 Eurasian families), lured by the promise of a better life, relocated from their homes in Singapore with about 400 Roman Catholic Chinese families for a settlement two miles from the town of Bahau in Negeri Sembilan state in Malaya. The responsibility for administering the affairs of the settlement was bestowed upon the Roman Catholic Bishop, Monseigneur Adrian Devals. Dr C. J. P. Paglar, president of the Eurasian Welfare Association, also visited the settlement frequently and often bringing medicines and some entertainment and morale boosting shows. Most of the settlers had little knowledge of farming and found life very tough at the Bahau settlement. The soil was poor for farming and water was in short supply. After the crops failed, some resorted to eating snails, snakes and even their pets to survive.[18] Many suffered from malnutrition, as they were unable to make themselves more self-sufficient in food. In addition, they were plagued by malaria and other diseases. An estimated 500 people lost their lives there, including Bishop Devals. After the Japanese surrendered to the British in August 1945, the survivors returned to Singapore.[19]

Prominent Eurasians in Singapore

• Benett M Theseira, President of the Singapore Eurasian Association • Genevieve Theseira-Haese, entrepreneur; founder of BreathingSpace Inc.; the Lady Mayoress of Adelaide, capital city of South Australia; Australia's first Singaporean Eurasian-born Lady Mayoress

Further reading

General works

Academic

Family histories

Fiction

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Singapore Census of Population 2010 Statistical Release 1 Basic Demographic Characteristics (see T7)".
  2. ↑ Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs ,'Racial Categorization and Recognizing "Mixed Race" in Singapore', Z. Rocha (2011, Page 101)
  3. ↑ Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 24 (2), 'The postcolonial ambiguities of Eurasian pan-ethnicity in Singapore', J. Lowe and M. Mac an Ghaill (2015, Page 234); Indonesia and the Malay World 43 (126), 'Children of Decolonisation: Postcolonial (Indo) Eurasian Communities in Indonesia and the Netherlands', R. Hewett (2015, Page 192)
  4. ↑ Lam Pin Foo blog 'Singapore Eurasians - The Inheritors of Western and Asian Cultures' 31 March 2011
  5. ↑ Dutchmalaysia.net - The Easternization of the West: Children of the VOC by Dennis De Witt (2006)
  6. ↑ Dutchmalaysia.net - The Easternization of the West: Children of the VOC by Dennis De Witt (2006)
  7. ↑ Straits Times 'Orphan who became a houseboy has lived his life in service - picking up skills along the way' - 9 August 2015
  8. ↑ Expat Living Singapore 'Guide to Katong: Our colourful tour of Singapore's East Coast neighbourhood' 13 June 2014
  9. ↑ Expat Living Singapore 'Guide to Katong: Our colourful tour of Singapore's East Coast neighbourhood' 13 June 2014
  10. ↑ MyPaper 'Mixed-race S'poreans can have double barrelled IC category' by Dawn Tay 13 January 2010
  11. ↑ Lam Pin Foo blog 'Singapore Eurasians - The Inheritors of Western and Asian Cultures' 31 March 2011
  12. ↑ Singapore Infopedia Eurasian community - Stephanie Ho 2013
  13. ↑ Singapore Infopedia Eurasian community - Stephanie Ho 2013
  14. ↑ The Neweurasian 'What a wonderful show' July-September 2009 Pg 10-12
  15. ↑ Expat Living Singapore 'Guide to Katong: Our colourful tour of Singapore's East Coast neighbourhood' 13 June 2014
  16. ↑ Singapore Infopedia Eurasian community - Stephanie Ho 2013
  17. ↑ History Blog - E.W Barker - historyof07.blogspot.sg
  18. ↑ Straits Times 'New book tells of hardship in Malayan jungles for 3,000 from Singapore during Japanese Occupation' - Benson Ang 12 Oct 2014
  19. ↑ Singapore Infopedia 'Bahau settlement' - Joshua Chua
  20. ↑ Samantha De Silva
  21. ↑ Caroline Jane Smith
  22. ↑ Singapore Infopedia Lloyd Valberg - Joanna HS Tan 2010

External links

General

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