Spatial history is usually thought of as being focused around a geographic space, such as a city, country or household. However, concepts such as cultures can also constitute spaces within history. Like cities or countries, they are characterised by their diversity, the inter-relations between many different groups, and the ability for these relationships to change over time. This post uses an interview on the communities of Singapore to highlight this point, with regards to culture in Malaysia. The interviewee is Kenneth Kim Ban Cheo, a teacher and expert on Baba culture, an ethnic group comprised of the first Chinese immigrants to South East Asia. In the interview, he discusses Baba ethnicity, the ways it differs from the multitude of ethnicities in Singapore and Malaysia, and how this ethnic diversity has varied in recognition between 1940 and 1995, the year of the interview.
In the interview, Mr Cheo describes the Baba culture less in terms of its own characteristics, and more as the ways it relates to other communities in the region. For example, he notes how the Baba culture speak a specific dialect of Malay, which enables them to recognise different ethnic groups who do not use the same words, phrases or pronunciation when speaking. In addition, he argues that the attitude of the Baba to the region they live in separates them from other groups, like later Chinese immigrants. He says of national attitudes that, “to the Babas this is where their roots are, and this is where they belong’”. Overall, his choice on defining culture in this way highlights how many in the region viewed ethnicity in relation to others, a hallmark of a cultural space.
Important to the idea of Baba culture being defined in relation to other ethnicities, is the fact that Mr. Cheo characterises Malaysia in his interview as being very diverse. Within Chinese immigrant communities alone he differentiates between the Baba ethnic group, the wider group of Peranakan and those he describes as Straits born. However, this is a small number of ethnicities present in the region, painting a picture of a diverse space of interaction and relations, a hallmark of a distinct cultural space.
The interview suggests that the ways in which the Baba distinguish themselves has changed over the 20th century. Cheo says that the current differences he identifies only became identified following the Second World War. Before this, he argues that the multiple types of Chinese immigrants would all be referred to as a single ethnic group, Peranakans. However, after the war the Baba began to separate themselves from the wider Peranakan ethnicity, which Cheo described as being “too wide a term” to use precisely. Similarly, Cheo also mentions how the younger generation of Baba are reducing the emphasis on a separate Baba culture, wearing clothing more associated with Indonesia, as opposed to the more specifically Baba clothes described earlier by Cheo. An important characteristic of any space is the ability for relations within it to change over time. It is clear that Cheo’s descriptions of the Baba show a culture which has shifted in terms of its definition since the beginning of the 20th century, and show little signs of stabilising.
Overall, Cheo’s description of the Baba ethnic group shows how culture in Malaysia can be given its own space. Like other spaces, it is defined by its relations with others in the same space – in this case the Baba define themselves in relation to other ethnic groups in South East Asia. Furthermore, culture in South East Asia is extraordinarily diverse, with numerous ethnicities being mentioned by Cheo as interacting with each other in the same region. Finally, the relations within this cultural space interact with each other over time, with the Baba ethnic group in particular becoming more and less distinguished over generations. Therefore, while not often being viewed as such, culture in South East Asia is clearly a space in itself, and the interactions between ethnic groups over the 20th century can be described as part of spatial history.
Source
Cheo, K., 1987. Interview with D. Chew. [Online]. Available from: https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/oral_history_interviews/interview/000770 [Accessed 26 September 2022] pp. 1-10.