Genealogy and Tradition among the Chinese of Malaysia and Singapore[1]

 

 

P. Lim Pui Huen

 

 

The concept of genealogy is closely intertwined with Chinese ideas of family, kinship, lineage, and ancestor veneration. The migrant Chinese took these ideas with them when they went overseas and subsequently built up social institutions that gave them concrete expression. Today, the ethnic Chinese are no longer sojourners but settled communities committed to the countries of their birth. That the genealogy is still important can be seen in the fact that it is still being compiled by individuals and lineage organizations in Malaysia and Singapore.

The genealogy is one of the oldest historical records and has been produced by different people all over the world at different times and for different purposes. The composition of genealogies among the Chinese dates back to the Zhou Dynasty (Lo 1972b:53) and had settled to an accepted format by the Song Dynasty when the scholar Ouyang Xiu established what is called the Ouyang style of composition (Lo 1972a:14). He said that a genealogy should begin with the progenitor who first settled in a locality and end with the contemporary generation which draws up the genealogy, with the intermediate generations enumerated in between. The genealogy is a record of the common descent group or lineage (zu), which is defined as the group descended from this common ancestor (Hu 1964:18). Among the Chinese, descent is patrilineal and kin relationships refer to agnatic relationships.

The genealogy contains a wealth of information for the study of Chinese society although scholars caution that such information is to be used with discretion (Meskill 1970:160). Probably the only subject for which it has very little value is research on women and the incomplete data on women in fact detract from its usefulness as a research source to some extent.

 

 

Genealogies in Malaysia and Singapore

 

The genealogies that I have examined can be divided into three categories:

 

1. Jiapu or genealogy of a family

These are essentially private documents compiled by a family, the basic social unit. The genealogical information is a linear record of the descent line and ends with the immediate family of the compiler.

 

2. Zupu or genealogy of a zu or lineage

The term zu can be translated as ‘lineage’ or ‘clan’ and I shall use the term ‘lineage’ to refer to zu in a more specific sense and the term ‘clan’ to refer to zu in a larger sense. The zupu I have consist of genealogies compiled by the Huang and Lin ancestral villages in Guangdong and Fujian and contain genealogies of various families in the lineage up to contemporary generations. The zupu is therefore a genealogy of localized lineages and contains lateral information about the various sub-lineages in the same descent line.

 

3. Zongpu or genealogy of all lineages of the same surname

These are genealogies compiled by lineage associations and fall into two types. Firstly, there are genealogies published in commemorative volumes of the association. These generally reproduce only the ancestral segment relating to the founding ancestor, namely, the segment so far back in lineage history that it is acknowledged by all members, what may be referred to as the gongpu or ‘public pu’ (Meskill 1970:155). Secondly, lineage associations sometimes adopt a more ambitious undertaking and aggregate known genealogies of the same surname into one large volume. The genealogy published by the Nanyang Huang Shi Chung Huay (Federation of Huang Lineage Associations) in Singapore, which I shall refer to as the Singapore Genealogy, is such an aggregate Huang genealogy (Lim P.P.H. 1998a:11). The Linshi Dazongpu is the aggregate genealogy of Lin lineages published by the Quanguo Linxing Zongmiao (National Lin Surname Ancestral Temple) in Taiwan, which I shall refer to as the Taiwan Genealogy. Since the latter reproduces genealogies of Lin lineages which claim descent from lineages in Fujian, the information it contains is also useful to Malaysia and Singapore lineages because most of them originate from Fujian. The zongpu is therefore the genealogy of the larger non-localized kinship grouping.

 

To reiterate, the jiapu is the genealogy of a family; the zupu is the genealogy of the aggregate of a number of families; and the zongpu is the aggregate of a number of zupu.. The documents vary in length and detail but contain the same message: the importance of the lineage and genealogy in the social and value system. As a river has its source and a tree has its roots, they say, so a man must have his genealogy. The river and the tree or branch is the most common metaphor for the genealogy.

This is the third paper in a series of studies on Chinese genealogies in Malaysia and Singapore which I have undertaken as a means of gaining an understanding of the importance of genealogies to the ethnic Chinese. In the first paper, Myth and Reality: Researching the Huang Genealogies (1998a), I examine a number of Huang surname genealogies as a case study of what these documents contain. Hidden within the texts are the myths and legends of Chinese history and narratives of the rise and fall of dynasties and war and invasion seen through the record of ordinary people’s lives. The theme that stands out most clearly in the texts is the theme of a movement of people from North China to South China. A map of the migration route of the Huang lineages has been compiled by the Nanyang Huang Shi Chung Huay (Nanyang 1976, E10).

In the second paper, ‘Myth into Reality: Genealogies in the Cultural Landscape of the Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore’ (1998b), I advance the discussion by analysing the myths buried in the genealogies to show how they are transformed into reality in the Malaysian and Singaporean context. Here, while using the Huang genealogies as the base, I also draw on the genealogies of the Lin surname.

In this paper, I intend to discuss the role of the genealogy in connecting the past (the ancestral village) and the present (the Malaysia and Singapore Chinese). I shall show how the genealogy relates to the cultural life and identity of the ethnic Chinese.

 

 

Genealogy and Family

 

As mentioned at the beginning of the paper, the genealogy is a very old type of historical document and is important in many societies and is compiled for different purposes. The Arabs, for example, take great care to maintain accurate bloodlines of the descendants of the Prophet as they are privileged to the title ‘Syed’ and to the special respect of the community.

However, in modern times, the genealogy has gained importance as a family tree. Regardless of their cultural background, people are interested in their roots and their past. Tracing one’s family history is a very popular hobby in many countries and there are many books and a number of computer programmes on the subject. Many family histories begin or end with a genealogy of the family. Frank Ching’s well-known book Ancestors: 900 Years in the Life of a Chinese Family is one such example. My forthcoming volume tentatively entitled Wong Ah Fook: The History of an Immigrant Experience is another.

There are many genealogies that are not published but kept in the family as private documents. Lim Hu Hup, for example, has compiled such a document, ‘The Genealogy of the Lims.’ In this genealogy, he has traced the history of his family from the origins of the Lin in the legendary period of Chinese history to its settlement in the town of Tapah in Malaysia.

The family tree connects the family to the recent past, in most cases it is the past dating from grandfather or great-grandfather who first settled in Nanyang. But when a family has access to a genealogy of its lineage, the genealogy will connect family memory further back in time, not only to the ancestral village but also as in the case of the Lim Ho Hup genealogy, to the dawn of Chinese history.

 

 

 

 

Genealogy and Lineage Associations

 

When the Chinese first migrated to Malaysia and Singapore, they were strangers in a strange land and needed to find ways of establishing mutual assistance and co-operation. They therefore established social organizations which provided for their social, welfare, and religious needs. Various scholars have studied these social organizations and there is in fact a considerable literature on the subject (see Tan C.B. 1989). Briefly, these can be divided up as follows:

 

1. Lineage associations

These are associations based on the principle of kinship and consist of members having the same surname. Some scholars have used the term ‘clan association’ in describing these organizations (Yen 1995:33), but in Singapore, the term ‘clan association’ is used officially to refer to all Chinese social organizations and I shall therefore refer to the surname organizations as lineage associations.

 

2. Geographical associations

These refer to organizations based on the principle of geography, that is, the place of origin which could range from a large geographical unit such as a province to a small village.

 

3. Dialect associations

These organizations are based on the principle of speech. Dialect-based associations used to be important at the time when immigrants came from different parts of China and could not communicate with each other. Today, these dialect associations have now come to represent sub-ethnic interests among the ethnic Chinese.

 

4. Guilds

These comprise trade and occupational associations and are sometimes further divided up by geographical or dialect requirements, e.g. Fuzhou Kafeishang Gonghui (Fuzhou Coffee Traders’ Association).

 

5. Others

This is an open category of social organizations that do not use kinship, geography, speech, or occupation as a criterion of membership. These are organizations which are open to all ethnic Chinese such as chambers of commerce, old boys’ associations, music associations, martial arts clubs and the like.

Generally speaking, Chinese social organizations are those which are based on Chinese customs and practices and have a Chinese outlook, and therefore differ from modern organizations such as trade unions for example. Each of these types of organization plays its own roles but I shall only focus on the lineage associations as they have a special significance with respect to the genealogy.

The lineage association is based on the concept of descent and kinship among the Chinese. It is based on the belief that all persons bearing the same surname are descended from a common ancestor and have a kinship relationship with each other. It is kinship not based on a known kin relationship but on an assumed kin relationship. This belief in common descent is deeply entrenched in Chinese culture and provides the basis for the formation of the lineage association.

Most of the immigrant Chinese came from villages in southern China with strong family and kinship ties. These ties were transported in the migration process and continued in the new country to which the remittances sent home to support family members and relatives and in the kinship pattern of migration bear witness. The lineage association was therefore one of the first social organizations to be established. The Boon San Tong (Wen Shan Tang) founded in 1816 was the earliest lineage association established in Penang (Soh 1990:69) while the Ts’ao Clan House (Cao Jia Guan), founded in 1919, is generally regarded as the earliest lineage association established in Singapore. Yen Ching-hwang’s list of ‘Early Clan Organizations in Singapore and Malaya, 1819-1911’ contains thirty-eight such associations (Yen 1995:66).

In a study of lineage associations in Penang, a city with more than 200 years of Chinese settlement, Soh Wei Nee divides them into eight different types which, using her terminology, are as follows:

 

1. Same surname associations comprise all persons bearing the same surname.

2. Lineage associations comprise members of a particular lineage.

3. Sub-lineage associations comprise members of a particular sub-lineage.

4. Provincial surname associations comprise persons of the same surname originating from a specific province.

5. County surname associations comprise persons of the same surname originating from a specific county.

6. Dialect surname associations comprise persons of the same surname speaking a particular dialect.

7. Joint surname associations are formed when a number of surnames combine to form one association. The most interesting of these is the Gucheng Huiguan, which is formed by lineages of the Liu, Guan, and Zhang, the surnames of the heroes of the te Romance of the Three Kingdoms’ who were said to have confirmed their friendship in Gucheng in Henan. Several Gucheng Huiguan can be found in Malaysia and Singapore.

8. General clan associations, by which she is referring to federations which bring together all lineage associations of the same surname under one umbrella body. The Nanyang Huang Shi Chung Hui already mentioned is a federation of eleven Huang lineage associations in Singapore. Its Malaysian counterpart is the Federation of Huang Associations of Malaysia in which there are twenty-seven member associations (Lim P.P.H. 1998a:3).

 

Soh Wei Nee’s analysis illustrates several features of ethnic Chinese society. Firstly, it confirms that the general pattern of social organization is formed by stressing place of origin and by dialect. Secondly, the many types of lineage associations formed show the divisive tendency in ethnic Chinese society, since many associations exist for every surname. Each serves the same purpose, only the clientele varies. Thirdly and most importantly, the number of lineage associations demonstrates the strength and importance of the concept of descent and kinship.

These lineage organizations display some common characteristics. Their organization and history can be studied through the commem­orative volumes a lineage association may publish from time to time. A genealogy is usually included as an integral part of such a publication. Normally, only the historical segment of the genealogy, which is the portion relating to the progenitor of the surname, the founder of the lineage, and other distinguished ancestors, is published. These personalities are included not only because they show that the lineage has an illustrious ancestry and glorious past, but also because they form the focus of its lineage memory and hence of its religious rituals.

The genealogy and the portraits are clues to the identity of the lineage. For example, a genealogy naming Huang Juzheng, a Song Dynasty scholar and official, as Ancestor of the first Generation would indicate that the text is a Cantonese genealogy as he is acknowledged to have led the Huang clan into Guangdong. Similarly, prominence given to Huang Qiaoshan, another Song Dynasty scholar and soldier, would indicate a Fujian lineage as he settled down in Quanzhou and is the ancestor of several Fujian lineages.

Many genealogies include a clan poem. The function of the poem is to identify the clan and to enable clan members to identify each other through reciting the words of the poem. Certainly this is part of the Huang Qiaoshan legend to be found in the genealogy of the Heping lineage of the Huang clan, one of the genealogies published in the Singapore Genealogy. Huang Qiaoshan is said to have had three wives each of whom had seven sons. Presumably because he was unable to provide for such a large family, he commanded his sons, with the exception of one son of each wife, to leave home to seek their fortunes elsewhere. He then commanded them to memorize a poem he had written and to teach it to their children as a means of identifying one another. This legend is particularly relevant to the Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese as it provides a justification for migration. A filial son is released from the obligation to care for his parents when economic circumstances warrant such a step.

In the premises of the lineage associations, the portraits of the founder and other illustrious ancestors are hung in the place of honour above the altar. The clan poem and the genealogy are often displayed as well. The ancestral portraits, the ancestral altar, the clan poem, and the genealogy are the distinguishing marks of a lineage association. They provide the visible evidence of common descent and enable the concept of lineage to have a real and functional reality.

In this context, the genealogy becomes a social document as it provides the basis for the formation of one type of social organization among the ethnic Chinese. The genealogy has become an instrument of group cohesion and group solidarity. This sense of group cohesion expresses itself in two ways, locally and internationally.

Local groupings can be seen in the establishment of lineage communities. Since many of the immigrant Chinese came from small, single surname villages, they endeavour to reproduce the same kinship communities in their new environment. Today, despite the transformation of the urban space in the wake of rapid urbanization, remnants of such lineage communities still survive. For example, there is a Phua Village (Pan Jia Cun) in Singapore (Lim H.S. 1991), and in Malaysia, there are people who still live in surname groups in the waterfront houses at Weld Quay in Penang. There is a Tan (Chen) Jetty, a Lim (Lin) Jetty, a Chew (Zhao) Jetty, and Yeoh (Yang) Jetty (Ng and Ng 1998).

At a supra-national level, lineage organizations have developed international networks. In the trend towards globalization, lineage associations and other social organizations have begun internationali­zing themselves (Lim P.P.H. 1996). World conferences of the Gans, the Guos, the Lins, and the Shuns have been reported in Singapore newspapers. These world conferences illustrate the fact that world networks of lineage organizations exist, they keep in contact and interact with each other, and what is more, they show that lineage connections are still relevant.

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