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BABAS & NYONYAS – THE PERANAKAN CHINESE HOUSEHOLD

 

The Peranakan Chinese of Southeast Asia (largely Thailand, Malaya, Singapore, and Indonesia) have been a source of fascination for decades. The rise of Peranakan cultural museums, societies, clubs, and events, over the past 100-odd years, have done much to try and preserve the culture, customs, and practices of the people, and explain and display what once was, how life was lived, and how families of a Peranakan background operated during their cultural heyday.

Peranakan culture was at its height in the roughly 200 years between the late 1700s through to the first half of the 20th century, even if the Peranakan had existed in Southeast Asia since as far back as the 15th and even 14th centuries. It was around this time that many staples of Peranakan culture were established, and propagated within the Peranakan community, which flourished under the growing influence of European colonial powers such as the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, who were colonising areas such as Malaya, Singapore, and Indonesia between the 1600s to the early 1800s.

THE PERANAKAN HOUSEHOLD

In the Straits Settlements of the 1800s and 1900s, before the Second World War, the Peranakan or Straits-Born Chinese, occupied a unique position in the colonial-era social structure of the times.

The Peranakan saw themselves as being above the status of “regular Chinese people” – the migrants from mainland China who had arrived in the Settlements in the 19th century, escaping war, famine and civil unrest in their homeland, people whom the Peranakan derisively called the Sinkeh Chinese (“Sin Kay“, from the Chinese “Xin Ke“, or “New Visitors”).

By-and-large, Peranakan families, most of whom were well-off, with family businesses or professional careers, typically lived in large, long, terraced townhouses, or, if they could afford it, enormous mansions built in cities like Georgetown, Malacca, and Singapore.

These houses were long and narrow, with living spaces, dining rooms, kitchens, bathrooms etc, on the ground floors, and bedrooms and boudoirs up above, usually set out in a linear arrangement, and with a mix of European and Chinese architectural and decorative elements.

It was extremely common for entire extended families to live together – with multiple branches and generations all residing under one roof – or under one row of roofs, as the family expanded, and purchased adjoining townhouses next door.

Intermarriage within the extended family was encouraged, to keep heirlooms, jewelry, and generational wealth within the household.

Peranakan families, like most Chinese families, were notoriously hierarchical, and everybody was expected to know their place, and most of such families operated under a similar structure.

THE PERANAKAN FAMILY

At the top of the family structure was the “towkay“, or “Master of the House”. Literally, towkay meant ‘Boss’ or ‘Master’, in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect often spoken by the Peranakan.

Below him was the “Bibik” – the family matriarch – usually the oldest, highest-ranking female, which might or might not be a grandmother, or a senior aunt (literally “bibik” means “aunt” in Malay, another language commonly spoken by the Peranakan). The Bibik might be (but was not necessarily) the towkay’s wife.

A “Bibik” might also be known as a “taitai”, meaning the most senior female or wife of a large, extended household or family. These days, “taitai” has rather negative connotations, and might even be used as an insult! Senior housewives, and other elderly Pernakan women or ‘nyonyas’ did not work, as a rule, and calling them “taitai” suggested a life of leisure, and luxury, but also one of unearned pleasure and laziness!

Below the Bibik came all the “nyonyas” – the young women of the household – younger sisters of the Bibik, daughters, daughters-in-law, granddaughters, and nieces. “Nyonya” is also the generic term for any Peranakan woman.

By tradition, nyonyas did NOT LEAVE THE FAMILY HOME until marriage – or at least, not except on very special occasions. Not that most nyonyas had long to wait – marriage was extremely young in those days – fifteen was a common wedding age, and any nyonya unmarried into her twenties was considered an old maid!

A typical Peranakan Chinese family…mine! Included in this photograph are four generations! Shown here are my grandparents, uncles, aunts, great-grandparents, great-great-grandmother, and my father. As you can see, Peranakan families were never small!

Below the nyonyas came the “amajie”, which was either called an “amah”, or a “majie”, as a shortened title. “Majie” were paid domestic servants or housemaids – always women – who were known for their uniforms of black trousers and white tunics. Usually from poor families, majie migrated from southern China to the Straits Settlements to work as domestic servants for wealthy Peranakan and European expatriate families. They used their wages to support each other, fund boarding houses for their collective welfare, and even took a strict vow of celibacy, refusing marriage and childbirth. Despite this, they were often hired as nannies.

Every Peranakan household had majie, if they could afford them. If you were rich, you had several, if you were poor, you only had one, which was the equivalent of the European “Maid of all Work” – or, in Cantonese, another language spoken by the Peranakan – “Yat Kiok Tek!” – “One Leg Kicking” – meaning a person engaged in an impossible task – a single maid to look after an ENORMOUS household which could consist of over a dozen family members.

But what about these children in the Peranakan household, then? What happened to them?

As a rule, boys were taken into the family business, or were sent to school, mostly learning English, and might even have traveled to the UK to study at university. Nyonyas, almost exclusively, stayed home and learned cooking, beading, sewing, embroidery, dressmaking, shoemaking, and other cultural and household chores and customs. Before the late 1800s, nyonyas never went to school – they stayed home and completed household tasks or other “feminine duties” until they were married off. The idea of nyonyas leaving the family home before marriage to get an education was a revolutionary idea in the late 1800s, when the first schools for nyonyas were opened by Christian missionaries in places like Singapore. A nyonya was judged on her suitability for marriage based on her beading, sewing, cooking, and other such intricate, detailed activities. With so much time to kill, they had literally all the time in the world to master these crafts, and their skills could reach incredible levels of beauty and talent.

Between steaming kueh, beading slippers, embroidering kebayas and sewing sarongs, nyonyas killed time between chores by eating, chewing betel nuts, and playing games with family and friends. They learned card-games like Cherki (invented in Malacca in the 1800s), played five-stones, Chongkat, or mahjong, to pass the hours away. Gambling was said to be endemic among nyonyas, who could win, lose, or pawn the family jewels at the mahjong table all within the space of an afternoon’s gaming and socialising with neighours and relations!

THE PERANAKAN TOWNHOUSE

The vast majority of Peranakan families lived in beautifully-appointed Peranakan-style terraced townhouses, usually of 2-3 storeys in height, and stretching back several hundred feet! Layouts from house to house were virtually identical, and very little changed from house to house.

First, you entered the veranda area, in front of the house. This was either the Five Foot Way, or a private veranda area, directly in front of the front door. The front door usually had a pair of gates in front of it, and then the door-proper, behind it.

If you rang the doorbell or knocked on the door, then you’d best watch your head, because directly above you is the overhang of the front room of the upper floor/s. Typically, a peephole was installed here so that anybody upstairs could observe visitors to the house, or communicate with passing tradesmen or door-to-door salesmen. A block of wood could be removed from the floor, and money could be dropped down to pay for things like fast-food deliveries…or even the house-keys might be dropped down here, so that you could unlock the door yourself, and come inside!

The layout of a typical Peranakan townhouse. Size and number of rooms varied according to the wealth of the family, but they almost all followed this basic design


Entering the house typically had you stepping into the Ancestral Hall. This was where shrines to departed relations were situated, accompanied by portraits, or photographs.

Beyond this space was the first large interior room of the house, which was typically a living room or front parlour. This is where you might socialise or entertain guests.

Beyond this was, usually, a set of stairs, leading to the upper levels, and next to that, the lightwell.

Every Peranakan house had a lightwell or airwell in the middle of the house – especially large houses had two! In long, dark, narrow houses like these, airwells were essential for ventilation, cooling, and light penetration. They were also a holdover from the Chinese courtyard houses of old, or the “Siheyuan”. The lightwell pierced the house right up to the roofline.

Beyond the airwell came more reception rooms such as a back parlour, and/or a dining room. Large Peranakan houses might have a formal, and informal dining room, as well as a formal, and informal parlour. For special events like birthdays, wedding anniversaries, marriages, or the Chinese New Year, a Peranakan family would host a special dinner known as a “Tok Panjang” (literally “Long Table” in Malay), in imitation of European formal dinner settings, similar to those held by the British. For this reason, larger Peranakan households had an everyday dining room, with a circular or square Chinese table, and a more formal dining room, with a rectangular European-style dining table.

Past this was the kitchen (which may or may not be separated into “Wet” and “Dry” kitchens), the scullery, laundry, toilets, and bathroom.

Returning to the airwell – here is where rain would pour into the house during the rainy season. Rain was symbolic of wealth pouring into the house, since, like money, water was essential for life, and had to be collected. Water was stored in cisterns, or large porcelain jars called “kamcheng”. Some Peranakan houses had wells sunk inside their airwells, hooked up to underground springs. A pump allowed them access to fresh water whenever they wanted it. In houses without running water, this was often how water was collected, accessed, and stored.

Now let’s go upstairs.

Peranakan houses were almost always two or three storeys. The upper floors held spaces like studies, bedrooms, boudoirs, maybe a more private, upstairs sitting-room (usually the frontmost room, with loads of light!) for private activities, as well as space for storage, etc. A typical Peranakan family could be enormous – my grandmother was the eldest of FIVE children, and that was considered pretty middling, when it came to Peranakan family sizes!

The Peranakan family unit, housed in a residence such as this, existed in this way, for the better part of 150-200 years, until the start of the Second World War…

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1930s SOLID SILVER TABLE LIGHTER

 

Cigarette lighters are infinitely collectible. Dunhill, Zippo, Ronson, Parker, and S.T. Dupont, to name but a few, are all big names in the world of antique and vintage cigarette lighters, which dominated the fashion accessories scene during the first half of the 20th century.

Along with all these big names were countless smaller names, makers and dealers, which produced cigarette lighters, both great and small, for every possible consumer. Men, women, for at-home, for out-and-about, for travel, for commemoration, graduation, and celebration.

One of the more common types of lighters were table-lighters.

Table-lighters were larger, heavier cigarette lighters, not designed for portability, but rather, to sit or stand on a coffee-table, a counter, or a desk, and serve as a convenience for guests and visitors who needed a ready flame to light their cigars, cigarettes, pipes, and candles.

Table-lighters varied from the mundane, and even the homemade, all the way to flashy examples in gilt brass, cut glass, and even solid silver.

An Antique Silver Table-Lighter

I picked up this lovely antique example of a silver table-lighter about a month ago, on eBay. I’ve always wanted a table-lighter, especially a silver one, to add to my modest collection of antique lighters. Some lighters, especially those made by famous names like Dunhill, Cartier, and S.T. Dupont, can cost an absolute fortune, but there are also a lot of table-lighters…even quite fancy ones…which can be picked up for a surprisingly small amount of money. And this lighter is the perfect example of that.


Don’t forget that lighters of all kinds used to be extremely common not that long ago, and that lighters of all styles and price-points were manufactured. People like to collect lighters because they are small, portable, easily stored, easily displayed, they have FIIIIIRE!! (always cool, right??) and they’re…usually…a lot cheaper than most other types of collectibles out there.

Of course, this isn’t true of all lighters, or all collectibles, prices fluctuate all the time, but the great thing about the enormous variety is that you can usually – if you’re very patient – find what should probably be quite expensive pieces – for relatively modest outlay.

Such was the case with the lighter in this post.

Where Did the Lighter Come From?

The lighter is made of what’s called Yogya silver, which is the style of silverware manufactured in Indonesia in the early to mid 20th century. Thanks to the Great Depression, traditional Indonesian silversmithing crafts were in danger of dying out, when the Dutch realised that there could be an enormous market for traditional style Indonesian silverware in Europe. All kinds of things – tea-sets, cigarette lighters, trays, plates, platters, bowls, canisters, cigarette-cases, and so much more, were manufactured in Indonesia during this time, between the late 1920s through to after WWII, and shipped to the Netherlands for sale.

It gave the Dutch a new area of merchandise to purchase, and it gave the Indonesians a new market for their products – it was a win-win!

This lighter would’ve been made in Indonesia in the early 1900s, where it was hallmarked, and then either sold locally to people living in Malaya, Singapore, or Indonesia, or else shipped to the Netherlands for sale in Europe.

What is the Lighter Made Of?

The lighter is manufactured from 800 silver – which is a more common silver standard than you might expect, if all you’ve ever seen is sterling. 800 silver was stronger, having a higher concentration of copper, without also sacrificing the beautiful shimmer that silver is capable of producing when polished.

How does the Lighter Work?


The lighter is broadly made of three components: The base, or body, the lighter and reservoir, and finally, the lid or cap on top.

It functions the same as most lighters of the era will do:

The base and the reservoir are filled with cotton wool, and then soaked in lighter fluid. The lighter is slid over the top, and the wick is left to soak up the fluid in the cotton-balls through capillary action.

Then the cap is removed from the top of the lighter, and the flint-wheel is rotated at speed. This generates sparks which, under ideal circumstances, will spark the flint, and ignite the fuel-soaked wick housed inside the silver wick-chimney, which exists to protect the flame and the wick from outside influences (mostly wind).

When you’re done, you simply extinguish the flame by sliding the cap back over the top of the lighter to snuff the flame. You can of course, blow it out, too, but using the cap is a lot easier.

I Want One! Are they Hard to Find?

Yes…and…no.

They’re actually fairly common (remember, they were basically mass-produced in silver, for export), but they were also so common that they weren’t exactly treated very well. I’ve seen loads of them (just in the time when I was searching, I saw at least four or five of them on eBay!!), but they’re often in really rough shape. The snuffer-caps are cracked, the wick-chimneys are broken off, they’re covered in dents… they have all manner of issues!!

By comparison, the one I have is all-intact and all complete and correct. There were one or two minor dents, easily removed, but no other serious damage. If you do decide to go after something like this, and end up buying a damaged one, make sure you know a decent jeweler or silversmith who can repair it for you. Prices for these types of lighters vary enormously, from north of $1,000 to under $200, and everywhere in between.

Closing Remarks

Antique lighters are fun to collect, and there’s an infinite variety of them out there, of all shapes, sizes, operation methods, and price-points. You can find some truly weird and wonderful types, if you have the patience to search, and know how to repair them. Most repairs are pretty easy to make (they’re not complicated machines, for the most part) and you can find lighters almost anywhere, from charity shops to flea-markets, antiques shops to an endless variety from online sellers.



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HISTORY BITS #9 – TIME FOR SALE

 

In the 1700s and 1800s, clocks and pocketwatches were not the most reliable machines in the world. The problem was that there were very few reliable time-standards that existed in those days, against which to correctly adjust your timepieces.

Your watch isn’t telling the right time. But the problem is, you don’t know if the clock in the living room is telling the right time, either! How do you set the right time, when you don’t know what it is?

The only way to be sure of the right time was by celestial observation – tracking the movement of the stars was the only surefire way of knowing that a clock was EXACTLY on time. The problem is, to do this, you need an observatory! And obviously, not everybody can have a full-on observatory in their living room.

In 1836, John Henry Belville, who worked at the famous Royal Observatory at Greenwich, near London, got the idea to “sell” time.

Using his highly-accurate chronometer pocketwatch, Mr. Belville would wind it up, set it to the correct time, as dictated by the Observatory master-clock, and head into London. He would then visit the people who had paid to subscribe to his service, and they could borrow his watch to adjust their own timepieces.

Ruth Belville, the Greenwich Time Lady, at the Royal Observatory, at Greenwich.

The Belvilles continued this service for over 100 years, until 1940!! By that time, the service had been taken over by John’s daughter, Ruth Belville, using the exact same pocketwatch that her father had used.

Every morning, Ruth would check her father’s watch, and head into town.

Ruth finally retired in 1940, and died three years later in 1943, at the age of 89!!

The pocketwatch used by the Belville family was a keywind model manufactured by watchmaker John Arnold in 1794!

Arnold the pocketwatch

Originally crafted with a solid gold case in 18kt, Mr. Belville changed it out to a sterling-silver case, fearing that a solid gold watch-case would make him a target of muggings and robbery as he walked around London.

Upon her retirement as the “Greenwich Time-Lady” in 1940, Ruth donated her father’s antique pocketwatch to London’s Worshipful Company of Clockmakers – the city’s official guild for watchmakers and clockmakers.

The watch – nicknamed “Arnold” after John Arnold, the man who created it, has remained with the Clockmakers’ Company ever since!

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CHASING THE DRAGON: An Antique Brass Opium Lamp

 

For most of the 19th century, and well into the 20th, the majority of Asia, and a good number of countries outside of Asia, were brought low by the scourge of opium! Even today, decorative, touristy opium-pipes can still be purchased in places like China, and Hong Kong, and antique opium paraphernalia can sell for hot bucks on the internet. But a casual look around online would suggest that a good number of people don’t have a solid grasp on what opium is, how it was used, or what was used with it. It’s been so romanticised and mythologised that in the 21st century, most people are largely clueless about this drug, which has had a presence in the human story for the past several hundred years.

In this posting, we’ll be looking at what opium is, where it comes from, what it was used for, how it was smoked, and what kinds of equipment were used in its recreational enjoyment. So lay back, relax, and breathe deeply, now…

What IS Opium?

Opium is an addictive, pain-killing drug, extracted from the bulbs of the poppy flower. Yes, the same poppy flower that gives you those black seeds you put on your bagels and bread-rolls. Slicing open the bulbs of the poppy causes the opium sap to seep out from the plant. Collected, concentrated and dried until it turns into a dark, cohesive, gunky mass, this is raw or ‘crude’ opium – opium which has not been refined, processed or otherwise altered in any way, apart from the natural processes required to extract and collect it.

Opium in this state is collected from the opium poppies, and when you have enough of it, it slowly dries out and turns into a dark-brown hard, sticky, gummy substance, which can be rolled and formed into blocks, pucks or “cakes”, as they used to call them, back in the old days. Opium in this state can be used for all kinds of things, such as mixing it into medicines for pain-relief, it can be refined into morphine or heroin, or it can be smoked.

Opium and China

Opium has had a long association with the Middle-and-Far-East, as well as being one of the main exports to Europe. Its main use was as a medicine, to relieve various types of bodily pains, from muscle-cramps to toothaches, fevers to gout inflammation. But opium in its raw form could also be smoked recreationally – a practice heavily associated with China in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Restrictions on the types of trade that China would permit with the West, largely the UK and the countries of Western Europe, led to them (again, mostly the British) importing large quantities of raw opium into China. The inability of European powers to pay for Chinese exports with silver (the only currency the Chinese government would accept) led to an enormous opium epidemic across the land as literal tons of opium were shipped in through ports like Canton, and later Shanghai and Tientsin.

The opium supply that the British relied on largely came from India and Burma, where it was harvested, processed, and then shipped through the Strait of Malacca to China where the addicted Chinese traded spices, porcelain, silks and other precious commodities for it.

Opium Equipment & Paraphernalia

As time passed, the Chinese started designing and manufacturing more and more elaborate opium-smoking equipment and paraphernalia, out of everything from bone, or brass, to ivory, from paktong, to solid silver. By the late 1800s, a full opium-smoking setup could be extensive, elaborately decorated, and made from some of the finest materials available.

A typical opium-smoking setup included a tray, at least one pipe, the associated pipe-bowls, a bowl-stand, a container to store the opium cakes, a spoon, a ‘needle’ or ‘staff’, and possibly just as important as the opium pipe and bowl – the opium lamp.

How to Smoke Opium?

So, you’ve got all this fancy stuff – pipes, trays, needles, spoons, opium caddies, cutesy little lamps…but how do you use all this stuff? You’ve seen it in TV shows, in movies, you’ve read about it in books, you’ve heard about it in stories from family-members (or at least, I did, when I was a child!), but how do you actually smoke opium? What’s the whole process behind this thing?

Smoking opium was a very involved process. It’s for this reason that all this paraphernalia and equipment was required. Smoking opium wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing like lighting a cigarette, or even filling up a pipe with tobacco. So how do you do it?

Step 1 – Preparing the Opium

Opium is the sap or latex which is extracted from the opium poppy, by slicing the bulb open, and collecting the liquid which seeps out from within. Once enough of the sap is collected, it’s dried in the open air. As the latex dries, it darkens and solidifies. This is raw opium. It’s compressed or molded into blocks or “cakes”, and then sold as-is.

To smoke this stuff, you first need to scrape off a small amount of opium using a pin, needle or “staff”. The amount removed isn’t very much – about the size of a pea. It’s rolled up into a little ball or “pill”, and then placed on a spoon.

Step 2 – Preparing the Opium Lamp

In many ways, the opium lamp is more important than the opium pipe. Without the lamp (or some other heat-source) you simply cannot smoke opium – so no lamp = no high!

You remove the wick-holder from the lamp and fill the reservoir with oil. Then you put the wick-holder (and the wick) back into the lamp and light it. Once the lamp-wick is burning properly, you put the glass lamp-chimney back over the base. The chimney of an opium lamp is low, squat, circular, and dome-shaped, with a small opening at the top.

The point of the lamp is to provide heat, rather than light, so you don’t need to expose a large amount of wick to the air. Instead, only 1-2mm of wick poking up above the wick-holder is really necessary.

Step 3 – “Cooking the Pill”

Once the lamp is lit and the chimney is replaced, you hold the spoon with the opium “pill” over the lamp-chimney. The heat from the flame warms the spoon, and the opium pill begins to melt and liquefy. Using the opium staff, you stir and stretch the mass as it melts, mixing it into a cohesive mass.

Step 4 – Filling the Pipe

After heating and ‘cooking’ the opium pill, it’s rolled back into a ball and then the cooled opium pill is poked into the bowl of the opium pipe. The natural stickiness of the opium will ensure it doesn’t fall out.

Step 5 – Chasing the Dragon

The fifth, and final step, is to actually “smoke” the opium.

In reality, you don’t “smoke” opium in the same way that you’d smoke tobacco, or marijuana or anything else like that, since there isn’t any actual ‘smoke’ involved. To ‘smoke’ a pipe of opium, you held the pipe over the chimney of the opium lamp, and oriented it so that the pipe-bowl is over the chimney-mouth. The heat from the lamp warms the pipe-bowl, which liquefies and boils off the opium sap. The vapour produced from this process is what you “smoke”. It’s inhaled down the pipe and into the smoker. You keep dragging on the pipe until the pill inside the bowl has been completely boiled away, and all the resultant opium vapour has been inhaled.

The Necessity of the Lamp

As you can see from this extensive, five-step process, smoking opium is no walk in the park! In fact, it was impossible to walk, or even move at all, while smoking opium. The need to liquefy and vapourise the opium mass within the pipe-bowl meant that a constant heat-source was required while smoking opium. And since you can’t “light” opium like you do with tobacco, it needed to be an indirect source of heat that was consistent and steady.

This is why in every depiction of opium smoking you’ve probably ever seen, opium smokers would lie down to smoke. It was easier to lay back on a bed or couch, and to recline on your side, holding the pipe outwards and over the lamp, with one hand holding the pipe by the mouth, and the other hand grasping the pipe by the end of the pipe-stem

The Lamp – A Physical Description

I bought the opium lamp featured in this posting from my local flea-market about a week ago, from a dealer in Asian antiques. It’s shape and overall style is very typical of the types of opium lamps used in the 1800s and early 1900s, until the crackdowns on opium began in the middle-and-later 20th century.

The lamp has an engraved and enameled body, made of brass, with hexagonal sides, and a flat base. There’s a decorative, circular, pierced brass grill around the top of the lamp, and a circular hole for the wick-holder. Seated on top is the etched glass lamp-chimney. Since the lamp is designed to provide heat, instead of light, there’s no way to mechanically adjust the wick – it’s simply held in place by a basic, tubular wick-holder. To make the flame larger or smaller, you have to push or twist the wick up or down inside the holder to adjust the height. Oil for the lamp is stored in the brass lamp-base, and as with all lamps, is drawn up through the wick via capillary action, before being burned at the tip which is exposed above the mouth of the wick-holder. Simple!

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PERANAKAN CINA NICKEL-SILVER KEYHOLDER & CHAIN (ca. 1900)

 

The traditional outfits of the Peranakan Cina, or the Straits-Born Chinese, of Southeast Asia was often a “sarong” wrap-around skirt, and a “baju”, a shirt or blouse worn over the torso. Neither the sarong, and more often-than-not, not even the baju, ever came with pockets.

These factors in their clothing effected how the Peranakan carried important items with them while dressed. Men or babas who had pockets in their shirts could easily store stuff in them, or in the pockets of their trousers, if they decided to adapt to European styles of dressing – which many did in the late-1800s.

However, Peranakan men, and women, who chose to stick with their traditional attire (which some do, even today) often held onto their important possessions like purses, keys, pocketwatches, etc, by attaching these items to their belts.

Peranakan belts, usually fashioned from sterling silver or similar, or even solid gold, if you could afford it, were worn by both men, and women. Women’s belts were usually larger and more elaborate, and mens’ belts were thinner and far-less ornamented. Whether worn by men or women, these belts were often accessorized with attachments for holding personal possessions. These hooks, clasps, or holders, fastened in a similar way to European chatelaines, were made of the same materials as the belts themselves – sterling silver, or on rare occasions – solid gold – or as in this instance – nickel-silver, and sometimes even gilt brass, for those whose pockets weren’t as deep as some.

Peranakan Keyholders

Made of sterling silver, nickel-silver, or copper/brass, and sometimes gilt for extra decoration, keyholders or keyhooks were one of the more common Peranakan belt-accessories. They typically had a decorated front, with a ring for attaching a chain or keys, a hook at the back, and a thin strip of spring-shaped metal to hold everything in place.

Because Peranakan belts were typically quite flat and thin, it’s easy to slide the hook over the belt, and the weight of the keyholder and chain is enough to stop it from moving around. Any items such as a purse, keys, a pocketwatch, or any other similar accessory, is simply looped through the chain, or clipped to the end of it, and then left to hang freely.

Along with keys, items like chatelaines were also added to belts via hooks and holders similar to these. Such chatelains included items like toothpicks, pocketknives, ear-curettes and other such items, used for grooming or other types of personal maintenance.

Here, we see the keyholder in position. A sarong is wrapped and folded around the waist, and then rolled or tucked, usually 3-4 times, to tighten the folds and hold it in place. A silver Peranakan belt (in this case, comprised of chain-lengths, and a silver coin, to act as a buckle) is wrapped around the waist and secured in place, to hold the sarong in position. The keyholder is then hooked onto the belt and left to hang freely, with its chain attached, or looped through, whatever items are added to it – in this case, a set of keys.

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A Pair of Antique “Nyonyaware” Porcelain Bowls (ca. 1900)

 

There are many aspects of Straits-Chinese or “Peranakan” culture which have justly survived to modern times. The clothing, the footwear, the food, the ‘kueh’, the beautiful historic architecture, the silverware, jewelry, and furniture…but one area which is, perhaps, less-represented, is the type of ceramics used by the Peranakan – a style which became known as “nyonyaware”.

Nyonyaware ceramics were heavily used by the Peranakan or “baba-nyonya” – and these brightly painted, intricately decorated pieces of porcelain were to be found in almost every Peranakan home up and down the Malay Peninsula, in Singapore, and Indonesia. Today, they are rare, beautiful, and highly-collected antiques.

What is ‘Nyonyaware’?

‘Nyonyaware’ is the name given to the brightly-painted, pastel-coloured pieces of porcelain or ceramic-wares which were used by the Baba-Nyonya or Peranakan/Straits-Born Chinese in the 1800s and early 1900s. They were a major part of the culture, and most Peranakan households had at least some of these pieces in their home for use, or decoration.

They’re identified by their colour palette of soft greens, pinks, blues, yellows and occasionally darker colours like vermilion-red or a darker, royal blue, and decorative motifs taken from Chinese symbolism and mythology. Peranakan nyonyaware often had floral motifs on them, in particular – peony-flowers, and mythical Chinese animals, such as foo-dogs, and especially – phoenixes. Peonies and phoenixes were representative of Longevity (the immortal phoenix, king of birds) and Wealth (the bright and vibrant peony-flower), which made them popular decorative elements.

Despite their popular name, ‘nyonyaware’ porcelain was not manufactured in the Straits Settlements or the Dutch East Indies where the Peranakan lived. Instead, it was manufactured in China – a type of hard-paste, glazed porcelain which held little interest to the mainland Chinese. At the time, it was cheap exportware, produced for the foreign market, but the Peranakan-Chinese took a shine to this bright, overly-decorated style of ceramics, which matched their own sense of design and decoration, and started importing vast amounts of them to Southeast Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Pieces of Peranakan Nyonyaware

Peranakan nyonyaware ran the whole gamut of porcelain goods, from bowls to plates, condiment-dishes to serving platters, cups, candlesticks, teapots, tea-trays, spoons, decorative bowls and jars, pots and lidded vessels. From kamcheng to Kat Mau, from sauce-dishes to tea-services, and even stacked ceramic serving-containers (“tingkat mengkuk”, in Malay). Everything from the smallest spoon or saucer, to an entire porcelain dinner-service, with matching plates, bowls, side-dishes and serving-plates, could all be found in the distinctively bright and heavily-decorated Peranakan style.

Given this apparent abundance, one might assume that Peranakan-wares are easy to find, and cheap to collect. However, this is, for the most part, sadly not the case.

Much was destroyed or thrown out or simply lost during the Second World War, or else disposed-of, or sold-off by baba-nyonya families who no-longer had the space (or inclination) to store, or use, their ancestors’ extensive porcelain collections. Other pieces were simply just broken, chipped, damaged and disposed of.

These days, they’re valuable antiques, for display, or occasional-use, only, but 150 years ago, they were seen as nothing more than everyday, daily-use pieces of porcelain, of no more consequence or importance than the cereal bowl you might’ve used to eat breakfast from this morning. They were cheap to import, and cheap to buy, and as such, were not always treated with the greatest care. Only the fanciest, largest, or most delicate wares were housed and handled with any level of respect.

Because of this, nyonyaware is now relatively rare, and difficult to find. Pieces often cost hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, even for something relatively small. People who already own nyonyaware either inherited it from their ancestors (I have other Peranakan friends who have substantial collections of nyonyaware which were attained in this way – if they’re reading this – they know who they are!), or else, have deep, deep, DEEP pockets to purchase them on the Asian antiques market. What were once seen as frivolous, colourful, throwaway objects are now highly prized collectibles.

A Pair of Nyonyaware Bowls

Tracking down pieces of nyonyaware in good condition is not easy, especially for reasonable prices. As mentioned, a lot of them were damaged, lost, stolen, broken, or simply worn out through regular use – remember that they were not considered especially valuable pieces, and were cheap, when new – they were exportware, after all, from China.

That said, you can occasionally find nice pieces for sale at affordable prices, and over the years, I’ve managed to accumulate a small collection.

The most recent pieces I found are the subject of this post.

I found these two dishes online, originally one, and then the other – with both pieces identified by their sellers as Peranakan – and which certainly look like it. They match the accepted colour-palette of nyonyaware, and the usual types of decorations – yellow, pink, green, with peonies and phoenixes (yes, those creatures are phoenixes, not dragons!). They’re also of advanced age, as you can see from the wear and nibbling on the edges and sides.

The angled, octagonal shape, with the base and curved sides really give the bowls extra style and character – another thing which the Peranakan of old, enjoyed. Perankan-style trays platters from the same era, as well as bowls, and plates, often had decorative, curved edges, or elaborate scalloping, to add extra flair to a piece. Same goes for items such as stacking containers, which were also of a similar octagonal or hexagonal design.

While most Peranakan dishes were decorated inside, as well as out, this was not always the case, and examples with simple, single-colour glazes – such as the green shown here – were also common. In fact, green (and also white) were popular interior glaze colours.

The bowls are medium-sized, rectangular (or more specifically, octagonal), about 6.5 x 5.25 inches, and about 3 inches high. Overall, they’re in amazing condition, given their age. There is a bit of paint-loss and minor nibbling chips, which are the result of either manufacture (one bowl has a manufacture-induced crack on the base from the firing process), or just simply from old age and regular use.

Given that they’re about 130 years old, give-or-take, and being porcelain – naturally very fragile – they’ve survived remarkably intact, without anything more than light surface-wear.

Dishes like these were handpainted, a delicate and fiddly process, which resulted in the somewhat folk-arty appearance of the decorations, which was another distinctive feature of Peranakan porcelain. As mentioned, they were never designed to be expensive, and were used as everyday crockery when new, and the level of detail reflects that.

Yellow as a background colour is also a bit more unusual for Peranakan pieces. While it was certainly used, and there are plenty of examples of yellow-ground nyonyaware dishes, this is the first time I’ve owned pieces which features it so prominently. Pink, green, and pale blue tend to be a bit more common and popular.

The fact that they’re a pair, and so wonderfully reunited, is pretty amazing for any number of reasons, but they were clearly made to the same shape, style and decorations, and were obviously meant to go together as a set, which I’m glad to have.

Of course, as hand-drawn, handpainted items, they’ll never match fully-identically, unlike something which was, for example, transfer-printed, but the intent for them to match is certainly there – and adds to their folksy charm.

Modern Nyonyaware

Authentic nyonyaware porcelain dates from the 1800s through to the first half of the 20th century, at which point civil, political and military unrest in China, and Asia in-general, made it impossible to keep producing these pieces to sell them to the Peranakan market in Southeast Asia. Changing social, cultural and economic statuses eventually caused the market to dry up, and for decades, no new nyonyware pieces were being produced.

In the 21st century, with attempted revivals of Peranakan culture, crafts, and customs, nyonyaware is also on the rise again. It’s now possible to purchase reproductions of antique nyonyaware pieces, although these ones can be as (or even more) expensive as their antique counterparts, and can still be tricky to find, but are nonetheless beautiful and fascinating pieces.




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SARONG KEBAYA & BAJU CINA – Traditional Peranakan Attire

 

Since their settlement of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, and the Indonesian Islands in the 1400s, the Straits-Born Chinese, Peranakan, or “Baba-Nyonya” developed a culture and customs which were as unique and as different from those followed by their Mainland-Chinese ancestors as it was possible to be.

Over the passage of centuries, the Peranakan-Chinese developed a way of life, and a type of culture and series of customs which were similar to, but also markedly different from the practices that their ancestors would’ve been familiar with in China back in the 15th century.

These differences were numerous, and ranged from subtle, to significant.

For example, the Peranakan did not prepare the same dishes, speak the same languages, or wear the same clothes as their ancestors who had left China centuries before. They used ingredients which the Chinese were unfamiliar with, to prepare delicacies which the Chinese had no knowledge of, and wore articles of clothing which would’ve been completely alien to the Mainland Chinese. All these changes, alterations and variations, caused by having to adapt to their new homeland, resulted in the Peranakan developing their own unique culture in Southeast Asia. While there were several similarities between the Straits-Chinese, and the Mainland Chinese, the Peranakan also had practices and customs which made them noticeably different from the residents of mainland China.

On top of that, the Peranakan did not speak Mandarin-Chinese. Instead, many would’ve grown up speaking Chinese dialects – either Hokkien, or Cantonese, or a variant of the Malayan language known as “Baba Malay“, a creole-style language using elements of Malay, Hokkien, Cantonese, and also later, English, which had no relation to the languages spoken in China. In the 1800s, the Peranakan also started learning how to speak English properly. This was largely thanks to schools established in the second half of the 19th century, which allowed an increasing number of Peranakans to both speak, read, and write English with greater proficiency.

One of the main ways in which the Peranakan were different from the mainland Chinese was in what they wore.

Before the widespread influence of European fashions in the 1900s, Peranakan women (nyonyas) almost exclusively wore tubular wrap-around skirts called sarong. For the longest time, most Peranakan men (babas) also wore sarong. In the hot, humid, muggy climate of the South Pacific, it was the most practical thing to wear. Easy to put on, easy to take off, easy to wash, and easy to dry. By the 19th century, however, most babas had made the switch to more European styles of dressing (adapted for tropical climates), while nyonyas kept their traditional outfits.

A baba-nyonya wedding photograph, ca. 1910. The baba is dressed in a suit, while his bride wears traditional Peranakan wedding-attire, inspired by the wedding-traditions of their mainland Chinese ancestors from centuries ago.

Sarongs don’t have any fasteners – they’re simply wrapped around your body, then tucked and rolled like a towel. To hold it in place, an optional belt was added beneath the rolled upper hem, around the waist, although this was a practice mostly adopted by the women or ‘nyonyas’ rather than by the men. By the late 1800s, these belts were elaborately fashioned from sterling silver, or 22kt gold (if you could afford it), or silver-plate (if you could not!).

On their feet, nyonyas traditionally wore “kasut manek” – Beaded Slippers. These were outdoor slippers, worn for everyday use. Intricately handmade, one pair of such slippers took weeks, or even months to produce. Men also wore kasut manek, but almost always as house-slippers, and never outside.

Up-top, Peranakan men wore traditional Chinese shirts or jackets known as “shan” or “changshan” (also known as “baju cina” or “Chinese Clothes”).

Originally, women wore a similar garment known as a panjang or “baju panjang” (literally “long blouse” or “long tunic”) – a long-cut, loose-fitting, long-sleeved tunic.

By the early 1900s, the baju panjang was seen as a very Victorian-era holdover – overly formal, and old-fashioned. This was when the much shorter, lighter blouse or “Kebaya” started taking over. By the end of the Edwardian era, it had pretty much replaced the older Baju-Panjang (although some older “bibiks” kept wearing them) in popularity.

A Peranakan family from the early 1900s. Notice the mix of traditional Peranakan, and more modern European styles of clothing

Just like the sarong, the kebaya (and the panjang) did not have any fasteners. No buttons or zippers or clips. To hold them shut, a nyonya used a “kerongsang” (also spelled ‘kerosang’) – three brooches on a chain, fastened at the bust, the torso, and the waist. Again, like the belt which held up the sarong, the kerongsang was almost always made of either high-grade silver or high-karat gold, sometimes studded with diamonds.

Whether they were sarong (for the nyonyas) or shirts or tunics (for the babas), many Peranakan-style clothes were batik-printed. This hot-wax printing and dyeing process was invented centuries ago in Indonesia (specifically Java) and the style became very popular among the Indonesian Peranakans, and spread to those residing further afield in Sumatra, Singapore, and further up the Malay Peninsula.

Today, nyonyas still wear traditional sarong-kebaya outfits during special occasions, and men will wear sarong (usually at home, but not in public) or batik-print shirts to connect with their past and heritage.

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A Personal Touch – An Antique Silver Spoon (ca. 1698)

 

The things you find at the flea-market, eh? Secondhand jeans, old books, records, kids’ toys, jewelry, furniture, household kitsch, 17th century silverware!…

Wait what?

Mmmhmm!!

Pay attention, kids, and you really can find just about anything!

I picked up this, at-first, extremely unassuming spoon at the flea-market for slightly-more than mere pocket-change. The dealer knew little-enough about it, and a lot of that was sheer guesswork on his part. He believed it could be extremely old, made of silver, likely English…and…that…was really the fullest extent of his knowledge. And because of that, he let me have it cheap!

Looking for more information, I sought the opinion of other antiques dealers at the market, and they were all of the opinion that the shape, style, condition of the silver, and other indicators (I’ll get to those in a minute, I promise!) all pointed to this being a very, very, very old – likely English – solid silver spoon, dating to the last decade of the 17th century – something which I more-or-less confirmed from subsequent research when I got home. That being the case, I dated this spoon to around 1698. Of course, I don’t know this for absolute-certainty (nobody can, it’s impossible!) but the clues to its age are there, if you know where, and how to look.

That officially (or unofficially) makes this humble, battered, worn-out old spoon – of unknown history and provenance – to be the oldest piece of silver in my collection, and the oldest antique I’ve ever personally held! And in this posting, we’ll explore how that conclusion was reached.

Building a Backstory for the Spoon

Researching this spoon was unlike anything I’d ever done before when it comes to a piece of antique silverware, and that’s all due to the condition of the spoon itself.

By laws passed centuries ago – all the way back in 1300 – all English silver MUST be sterling-standard (that’s 925 parts per 1,000, or 92.5% purity of silver by weight). And, by law, all English (and later, British) silver MUST be hallmarked before it may be sold to the public.

To hallmark silver, you – as the silversmith or goldsmith – had to take your piece of silver (like…I dunno…a spoon!) to the Goldsmith’s Hall in London, where it would be assayed (tested), marked (certified) and then returned to the silversmith.

Because of this, every single piece of English silver or gold has a set of hallmarks on it. Typically four: A fineness mark (to prove that it’s sterling silver), a date-mark (to prove when it was made), an assay mark (to prove which assay-hall tested the silver) and finally – a maker’s mark (to prove who made it). These marks changed over time, but it’s almost always these four marks.

Here you can see the hallmarks on another piece of silver from my collection. From left to right:

The maker’s mark, fineness mark, assay mark, and date-letter.

Because of this, almost every piece of English silver may be cross-referenced with the records of hallmarks, to determine who made it, when it was made, where, and what of.

Unfortunately, in 1681, the Goldsmiths’ Hall in London burned to the ground…which took thousands of hallmark-records along with it…whoops!

Fortunately, such a calamity has never happened since, but that does mean that you can’t accurately date a piece of English silver before the 1680s.

That aside, you’d think that finding out how old this spoon was, would be easy! Right?

Well, ordinarily – yes. A spoon like this would absolutely have to have been marked and assayed by the office before it was legal to sell.

And it was.

But, 320+ years of holding, touching, rubbing, polishing, washing and cleaning have completely obliterated the hallmarks which would originally have been stamped firmly into the back of the handle, using four steel punches and a hammer! Which means that those marks would’ve been punched DEEP into the silver. But the march of Old Father Time has completely erased all the marks, wearing down the silver so much that only the merest ghosts of what were once hallmarks, are visible today.

Well – that’s unfortunate. But the fact that you can tell that the marks were once there – even if they can’t be read – is good news – because it means that this truly is a piece of silverware, and not just a tin can someone cut into the shape of a spoon. Also – rubbed-out hallmarks are not uncommon. It happens when the marks are either poorly struck to begin with, or were simply rubbed out from overzealous cleaning over a long period of time.

The Power of Deduction

It was Sherlock Holmes who said that it was “a capital mistake to theorise in advance of the facts. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, rather than theories to suit facts!”

And the man was right. So, with no hallmarks to speak of (or at least, none which were useful to us), how to determine the age of the spoon?

Well, we had to go with what we could see, and deduce from that, the age.

The first major clue to the spoon’s age was it’s mere condition. The business-end was very, very thin – the result of centuries of scraping, cleaning, polishing and washing. The left edge of the spoon (which would contact the plate or bowl, if you were using it in your right hand) was very worn, and had significantly less silver on it than the right side of the spoon. This imbalance in the shape of the bowl tells us that it has seen a very hard, long and heavily-used life – something that only happens from centuries of wear and tear.

The next thing to look at was the construction of the spoon.

The underside of the bowl has a long tang which stretches from the end of the handle, under the bowl and almost to the end of it. Early spoons could suffer from structural issues, due to poor soldering, etc. To reinforce the joint between the bowl, and the handle, more silver was added in this area, resulting in that tang, better known in collecting circles as a “rat’s tail”.

The ‘rat’s tail’ on the back side of the spoon

The presence of the “rat-tail” proved that this spoon was very old – rattail spoons were a very old style, and would’ve largely disappeared by the late Georgian, and certainly by the Victorian era. Some spoons did still have them at that time, but by then, the rat’s tail was for decorative, rather than structural purposes. This tail, because of its size and thickness, was clearly meant to be a practical feature, rather than decorative, making the spoon an older, early 1700s or late 1600s piece.

Reading the Clues

The next indicator of the spoon’s age was the presence (on the back of the ‘terminal’, or end of the handle) of initials which had been engraved into the metal – “A.H.” – clearly those of the original owner’s. On their own, their significance doesn’t mean much – we’ll never know who “A.H.” was. But the fact that they were included on the spoon is another indicator of how old they are.

These days, if someone gave you a silver spoon, you would hardly think of engraving your initials on it, would you? I mean, why would you bother? Spoons are so common nowadays.

But that was not the case 300, 400 and 500 (and more) years ago.

In medieval times, it was common for people to eat food with a knife, and their hands. Spoons were rare, and difficult to make (remember the rat’s tail reinforcement to stop the spoon from snapping in half?). Cheap spoons were made of wood. You could also get a spoon made of copper (poisonous), pewter (poisonous), or silver (expensive!). Since spoons were so expensive and hard to make, you were only ever likely to own one – and because of this, it became the custom for a family to gift a newborn child their own personal spoon upon the occasion of their birth, or baptism, since it signified the most important operation required for life – eating!

This is the origin of the expression of being “born with a silver spoon in your mouth”.

As silver spoons were the most expensive, they were considered enormous status-symbols. A person who was gifted a silver spoon carried it for their entire lives, and to prevent theft and aid in identification, the spoons were often engraved with their initials, and sometimes, another identifier (like their date of birth, or something).

This practice of carrying your personal silver spoon everywhere you went (you never expected somebody else to just…give you a spoon!) lasted for centuries, and didn’t die out until the 1700s, when forks started becoming more commonplace after their on-again-off-again use in the 1600s.

The fact that this spoon has been engraved with someone’s initials would suggest that it came from a time when personal-use spoons were still a big part of dining culture, which would further point to the fact that it came from an earlier time.

The End of it All

Yet another indicator of the spoon’s age comes from yet another stylistic choice used in its construction:

The terminal.

The ‘terminal’ is the name given for that fancy thing at the end of the handle. It’s the decorative part that makes the spoon stand out. Some common terminals are King’s Pattern, Hannoverian, Fiddleback, etc.

This terminal is known, rather cutely, as a “dog’s nose”. I mean, you can kind of see the resemblance.


Dog-nose terminals did not last very long. From the last decade of the 17th century through to the first decade of the 18th century. A period of, at most, maybe 25 years, which really narrows down just how old this spoon might be.

Hmmm…Yes? No? Maybe?

Rule Britannia

The last final, possible, nugget of information that tells us how old the spoon is, comes from the ghosts of hallmarks left behind on the back of the handle.

As I said earlier – All English silver HAS to be hallmarked with FOUR hallmarks:

The date-letter, the assay mark, fineness mark, and maker’s mark.

Of these four marks, only two of them are half-visible. The only two which would help in dating would be the date-letter, and the fineness mark. The date-letter is nowhere to be seen (or at least, not in its entirety), but one other mark is (just) visible – and it may well be the fineness mark.

The traditional fineness mark on British silverware is the “Lion Passant” – or “Passing Lion” – specifically, a lion passing to the left. If you see this mark, it means that the metal is 925 sterling silver.

However, this was not always the case.

In the late 1600s and very early 1700s, for a very short period of time, law was changed, and silversmiths had to make their wares out of what was known as “Britannia Silver”. Britannia Silver is 95.8% purity – higher than Sterling. This might sound great, except that the more pure silver is, the weaker it gets – so weak that it can’t be used to make anything, since the metal would never hold its shape. It’s because of this that the silversmiths of London protested until the law was abolished, and silversmiths could go back to making sterling silver wares again, with Britannia as an “optional extra”, if they wished.

This law lasted from 1697 – 1720, a period of just 23 years.

Britannia silver, unlike Sterling, was indicated, not by a Lion Passant, but rather, with a Lion’s Head, or alternatively, with the figure of a seated lady – Lady Britannia!

The hallmark which is still (partially) visible is large – nearly 1cm from end to end – which would suggest it was the most important one – the fineness mark.

One way to be absolutely sure about the spoon’s date would be to have it independently assayed again. If it is 95% silver, then that would almost certainly mean that it’s from the late 1600s, or at worst, the first 20 years of the 18th century, which would still make it at least 300 years old!

Concluding Remarks

So, there you have it! An antique, 325-year-old (+/- a few years) Britannia-standard solid silver spoon!

There are loads of websites and books about identifying and studying antique British silver, but the dates and information I used in my research came from the very appropriately-named…

https://www.antiquesilverspoons.co.uk/

Update – 25th September, 2023

As I mentioned in my posting, further up, the only way to definitively prove the spoon’s age was to get it assayed. And the only way to assay the silver to find out its EXACT composition is to expose it to x-rays.

To this end, last week, I took the spoon to a gold-and-silver buyer in town who performs XRF-testing – that’s X-Ray Flourescent testing. Using an x-ray florescent machine, the tester very graciously agreed to test my spoon for me.

“95%”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely. 9-5. 95%”.

A spoon of this age, in this condition, made of 95% silver means that it was almost certainly made between 1697 (when Britannia standard was introduced) and 1720 (when it was made “optional”).

Given the styling of the spoon, its construction, the wear and the personalisation, I think we can finally, almost-definitively say that it is from the end of the 17th century.