SUNDAY VIBES
Once all the necessities have been dispensed with, some Peranakan families head off to their favourite photo studio to have group portraits taken before visiting relatives and friends. At this juncture, my interest is piqued as a section of the Amek Gambar exhibition highlights several interesting family portraits and traces the change in styles, as preferences changed over 160 years.
It all started when itinerant Chinese portrait painters began appearing in Malaya together with scores of immigrants in the 1850s and catered to the needs of all segments of the population. With the increasing popularity of photography just a decade later, many of these painters wholeheartedly embraced this new technology and offered services both as artists and photographers.
In the 1860s, Japanese photographers began arriving in Malaya by the droves. With no place to call as one’s permanent home, the men from the Land of the Rising Sun travelled from town to town, staying as long as there was a demand for their services. Photo studios remained popular for the next 100 years. Their decline in the late 1970s was marked by the introduction of cheap and easy-to-use compact cameras.
Just after the section displaying an array of early cameras, I come across a small photograph showing a group of people in their New Year finery posing by a tomb. Despite its inferior size and slightly off-focus nature, the image serves as a pertinent reminder of a unique practice still observed by some Peranakan families in Melaka to this day.
Historians believe that this tradition of visiting ancestral tombs on the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year was adopted from the Malays who offer prayers, flowers and scented water to their deceased loved ones at cemeteries on the morning of Hari Raya. During these visits, the Melaka Peranakans would honour their ancestors with fruits and burn incense.
When it comes to Lunar New Year visitations, the Melaka Peranakans usually start off with a visit to the 350-yearold Cheng Hoon Teng temple, a place which they fondly refer to as Kebun Datuk, to pay homage and seek divine blessings from Hood Chor (Goddess of Mercy Guan Yin) and their ancestors.
After that, relatives would be visited in order of seniority. The exchange of good wishes and pleasantries are timeconsuming and go on until late into the night. During this period, it’s the norm for elders to dudok rumah (remain in their homes) and wait for the younger relatives to drop by and pay respects.
Only those in mourning are exempted from visiting relatives during the Lunar New Year. At the same time, their homes do not feature as stopovers in any visitation list. However, it remains the duty of close relatives to present gifts of kueh bakol (a type of sticky glutinous rice cake) to their unfortunate kinsmen who are customarily disallowed to bake this essential Lunar New Year delicacy.
“These photographs are really marvellous, aren’t they?” remarks my friend the moment he catches sight of me at the tail end of the exhibition. His arrival makes me realise that the past few hours have flown by in a flash.
Walking past the last few photographs, I confide to my friend how this photographic exhibition and the museum, as a whole, have opened my eyes to the unique culture of the Peranakans who have retained most of their ethnic and religious origins, including ancestral worship, and yet, have assimilated so seamlessly with the language and culture of the Malays.
With Peranakan culture slowing losing its appeal in our modern world, I find it extremely heartening to hear from my friend that there have been concrete efforts made to stem the tide of decline. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Photographers occasionally visited Peranakan homes to take family portraits; Chinese Lunar New Year is a time for friends to get together and renew ties; People used to sew their clothes at home. Young people from both Peranakan and non-Peranakan family backgrounds are starting to show an interest in learning and speaking the Baba language while the shapely kebaya and sparkling intan jewellery, especially the kerongsang, are slowly making a comeback. These signs certainly bode well for all of us as the Peranakans are, and will always remain, an important link in the social fabric that holds each member of our multi-racial society together as one.