Peranakan Chinese in northeast Kelantan, with special reference to Chinese religion
Tan Chee-Beng’s 1982 ethnographic study, based on two field trips to northeast Kelantan (July 1977 and November 1980), examines the Peranakan Chinese of the Kelantan River corridor and argues that Chinese religion is the single most important institution preserving Chinese cultural identity among a community otherwise heavily acculturated by Malay and Thai neighbours. The article situates these rural Chinese within the multi-ethnic social landscape of Kelantan and demonstrates how religious practice draws a firm ethnic boundary with the Malay majority while remaining permeable to Thai Buddhist influence.
Summary
The article addresses a gap in the anthropological literature on Kelantan, where Malay and Thai communities had attracted considerable scholarly attention but the Chinese population remained understudied. Tan identifies the acculturated rural Chinese—whom he terms “Peranakan” by analogy with the Baba of Melaka and the Peranakan of Indonesia—as a distinct cultural type that resists easy classification. They wear Malay dress, speak Kelantan Malay and often Thai, eat with their fingers, and attend Malay-medium schools, yet they remain fundamentally Chinese in their religious life, domestic architecture, and communal ritual organisation. Tan argues that the label “village Chinese” (Cina Kampong) used by Malays is spatially reductive, and that “Baba” is inappropriate because these people do not use the term and it carries connotations specific to Melaka.
The historical narrative draws on early Chinese sources to establish the antiquity of Chinese settlement in Kelantan. Zao Rugua’s Zhufanzhi (1225) mentions Kelantan as a dependency of Srivijaya, while Xie Qinggao’s Hailu (recorded 1820, describing his 1782–1795 sojourn) provides the first detailed account of Chinese settlement, noting that natives did not permit their women to marry Chinese and that those who did married Siamese women. Tan supplements this with oral histories of migration from southern Thailand (particularly Petani) during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and with the grave-stone of Peh Wan Cho (Lin Boxian), erected in 1905–1906, which he interprets as evidence of a settlement founded in the early nineteenth century. The author also highlights the importance of studying Chinese migration from Thailand to Kelantan as a distinct migratory stream.
The core analytical contribution concerns the function of Chinese religion in maintaining ethnic boundaries. Tan documents how each Peranakan settlement maintains a patron deity (Siong Tek Kong, the Ong Yahs, Mazu) whose birthday celebration is the community’s most important communal event. Unlike Chinese elsewhere in Malaysia who stage Chinese operas for such occasions, the Peranakan hire menora troupes, wayang kulit, or wayang gedek—performances in Kelantan Malay and Thai that their community can understand. The ritual of chiap-sin (welcoming the deities at Chinese New Year) is performed communally at a shared sacred site rather than individually at home, reinforcing collective identity. Tan’s central argument is that because Malay culture is fundamentally Islamic, a Chinese person cannot become culturally Malay without abandoning Chinese religion; conversely, as long as Peranakan Chinese observe their religious practices, they remain Chinese. Thai Buddhism, by contrast, is non-exclusive and individualistic, allowing the Peranakan to participate in Thai temple life without compromising their Chinese religious identity, which explains the deeper Thai cultural penetration into Peranakan life.
Key Findings
- The 1970 census recorded 36,668 Chinese in Kelantan (5.34% of the total population of 686,266), of whom 57.76% were Hokkien speakers; the 1980 preliminary field count placed the state’s total population at 877,575 (pp. 27–28).
- Shengchun Gong in Kg. Tokong, the oldest Chinese temple in northeast Kelantan, was already in existence by 1871 and was renovated in 1932; Zhenxing Gong in Kg. China, Kota Bharu, was renovated in 1918 and houses a drum presented by the Sultan of Kelantan in 1879 as thanks for Mazu’s divination revealing the safe return of a royal envoy to Thailand (pp. 45–46).
- The grave-stone of Peh Wan Cho (Lin Boxian), believed to be the founder of the Kg. Tanah Merah Chinese settlement, was erected by Yan Chunshui during the Guangxu Yisi year (February 1905 to January 1906), suggesting the settlement dates to the early nineteenth century (pp. 39–40).
- Kg. Mata Ayer had 62 Chinese houses with a population of 332 (Peranakan Chinese forming the majority, with 233 Malays and 2 Thai); Kg. Kasar had a population of 443 in 1980, all Hokkien except two Hailam, two Cantonese, and two Thai married into the village (pp. 30, 34).
- The temple in Pasir Panji (Xuantiangong Miao), opened in March 1979, was managed in 1980/81 by a 14-member executive committee and a 17-member ordinary committee (including four women); its Death Benefit Society drew members from six surrounding settlements and collected one dollar per member upon a member’s death (p. 46).
- Xie Qinggao’s Hailu, describing his fourteen years in Southeast Asia (1782–1795), records that the natives of Kelantan did not allow their women to marry Chinese, that those who did married Siamese women, and that Fujian Chinese lived at the port while Guangdong Chinese lived in the hills mining gold (pp. 27–28).
Conclusion
Tan’s definitive takeaway is that Chinese religion functions as the structural boundary that prevents the full assimilation of the Peranakan Chinese into Malay culture, while the non-exclusive, individualistic character of both Chinese religion and Thai Buddhism permits a degree of religious and cultural interpenetration between the Chinese and Thai that is impossible between the Chinese and the Muslim Malay majority. This asymmetry explains why Thai influence penetrates more deeply into Peranakan life than Malay influence, and why the Peranakan of Kelantan maintain a stable, distinct identity rather than being absorbed into either the mainstream Chinese or the Malay population.
Context
- The study is based on two short field trips (two weeks in July 1977, one week in November 1980) rather than extended residence, and draws on oral histories, temple inscriptions, and a small number of earlier theses (Hanapi 1978; Chia Ai Yet 1981; Carstens 1980) as secondary ethnographic sources.
- Historiographically, the article is one of the first dedicated monographic treatments of the Peranakan Chinese in Kelantan and explicitly calls for further research on religion, kinship, marriage, funeral customs, and the impact of the New Economic Policy on this community.