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English Pages 115 [127] Year 1986
PEASANTS, ~PROLETAriANS AND PROSTITUTES A Preliminary Investigation into the Work of Chinese Women in Colonial Malaya Lai Ah Eng
Research Notes and Discussions Paper No. 59 INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES 1986
Published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Hens Mui Kang Terrace Pasir Padang lllllllllll
Singapore 051 I All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored iN a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. © 1986 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies The responsibility for facts and opinions expressed in this publication rests exclusively with the author and his fnterpretatzbns do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the Institute or its supporters.
Cataloguing in Publication Data
Lai Ah Eng Peasants, proletarians and prostitutes: a preliminary investigation into the work of Chinese women in colonial Malaya. (Research notes and discussions paper/Institute of Southeast Asian Studies: no. 59)
I.
-
Women, Chinese Employment II. Title. III. Series. $5501 1596 no. 59 1986
-- Malaya.
ISBN 9971-988-38-0 ISSN 0129-8828 :l
Printed in Singapore by General Printing & Publishing Services Pre Ltd
CONTENTS
PREFACE NOTES ON TERMINOLOGY AND CURRENCY
I
v
viii
INTRODUCTION
1
A Brief Theoretical Discussion The Colonial Context and Chinese Female
1
Immigration to Malaya
11
The Social Background of Women Immigrants from Southern China
20
PROSTITUTION
27
Prostitution and Control by Secret Societies Prostitution and Colonial Policies Stigmatization of Prostitution
27 32 41
III
MUI TSAI IN DOMESTIC SERVITUDE
45
IV
TIN MINING
56
V
RUBBER ESTATE PRODUCTION
68
VI
AMAH IN PAID DOMESTIC SERVICE
77
II
VII
MANUFACTURING
90
VIII
OTHER ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
97
Hawking
I
_
Construction
Services
VIX
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
97 101 103 105
110
PREFACE
In the Malaysian context i n which class and ethnic relations are dominant and s e n s i t i v e i n social l i f e , a study of the position of
Chinese women may seem irreievarit, secondary or even divisive. is
my argument,
however, that
as members of
a gender,
social experiences differ from those of men, and i t
It
women's
i s through an
understanding of the dynamic interplay between class, ethnic and
gender relations
at various Ieveis
that we can come to closer
grips with the complexities of social l i f e i n Malaysia. This study, however, does not major
and
complicated
investigation
attempt to undertake
instead,
it
is
such a
a preliminary
into one gender category and its members' particular
experiences at work.
Chinese
project;
By focusing on the origins and conditions
women's work,
using
a socio-historical
approach,
of
this
study hopes to contribute towards understanding the complexities of Malaysian l i f e and Malaysian women. based simply on personal considerations
The choice of focus i s of its
suitability as a
starting point.
This paper submitted
to
is
a revised but
close
version of
my thesis
the Institute of Deveiopmerat Studies, Brighton, i n
partial fuifiiment of requirements
for
the degree of Master of
Philosophy i n Development Studies i n 1981.
v
As the research was
covered within inevitably
a very
short
period
of
huge gaps of information.
investigation
also accounts for
four
months, there
The nature of preliminary
this study's somewhat unbalanced
contents as only s one aspects are relatively others
are
we11 covered while
are incomplete or missing, and for the incompleteness of
Certain gaps are also inevitable due to the severe lack
analysis.
of studies into the position of Malaysian women, which resulted i n
much time consumed in gleaning between lines to obtain f acts or mere hints, often without success.
Where materials do make direct
or indirect references to women, they tend to be fragmentary
and
vague.
I have relied heavily on some of the most commonly used and well-known sources i n English for my references.
There i s a fair
amount of reliance on government reports and colon al sources as well as books written by colonial
limitations of androcentrisrn resulting
such sources of
some writers
failure to consider
administrators.
ought to is
also
readily
apparent.
The The
the social relations in which women
are involved means that certain social relations
or ignored.
The biases and
be borne in mind.
are misrecognized
I have attempted to keep my own pair of spectacles on
while gleaning through the various sources. sources of information
Some of the richest
are personal recollections
of people who
belong to the groups covered in this study and who have directly experienced the social
phenomena discussed.
Their recol lections
were written and sent to me from Kuala Lumpur on my request. also f e l l back on some personal
observations
I
and knowledge having
grown up in an urban squatter community set up by Chinese and Indian immigrants i n Sentul, Kuala Lumpur. The introductory context
chapter sets the theoretical and historical
with a brief discussion on gender relations and women's
subordination,
the colonial
setting and Chinese female immigration
vi
into Malaya, and the social background of women immigrants from
southern China. in
Chapters II
prostitution
and
to VIII examine Chinese women's work'
domestic
servitude
for
those
who
trafficked; and i n t i n mining, rubber estate production,
service,
manuf acturing,
hawking,
construction
other categories of women workers. position
were
domestic
and services for
Some implications
on women's
and studies on Malaysian l i f e are drawn i n the concluding
chapter. Many
people
and
institutions
have
contributed
to
the
research.
In particular, I would l i k e to express my thanks t o the
following:
the Leverhulme Foundation i n Britain for providing me
with
a scholarship
to
study
at
the
Institute of
Development
Studies; Kate Young and Christine White at the Institute for their valuable guidance, criticisms
the 1ibraries
of
and comments on parts of the draft;
the Institute of Development Studies and the
University of Sussex for helping me obtain valuable material; and
friends
in Britain
and Malaysia for
letters of encouragement.
of
discussions, material
the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for
her editorial
comments and Betty Kwan for typing the final manuscript. all,
I
thank
the
and
I would also l i k e to thank Pauline Khng
people of
Sentul
for
providing
Most of
me with the
inspiration t o carry out this study through their experiences
some
of which are captured in this study. The responsibility for statements and views expressed i n this study remains solely mine. Lai Ah Eng
vii
NOTES ON TERMINOLOBY AND CURRENCY II
Prior
to
World War I I ,
a l
the political
Peninsula consisted of three entities British rule:
structure of
the Malay
under direct and indirect
the Straits Settlements (SS) of Penang and Province
Wellesley, Malacca and Singapore, the Federated Malay States (FMS) of Selangor, Perak, Pahang and Negri Sembilan (known as the Malay States),
Perlis,
and the Unfederated
Ked ah,
Kelantan
Malay States
and Trengganu.
consisting
Together,
of
Johore,
they
were
commonly known as Malaya, and obtained independence from British rule i n 1957.
Unless otherwise specified,
the term "Malaya" or
the "colony" i s used i n this study in the same sense.
The term
"Malaysia" is used to apply to the period since its formation in 1963, incorporating
Malaya and the British colonies of Sabah and
Sarawak i n Borneo.
Singapore subsequently broke away to form a
separate p o l i t i c a l entity as the Republic of Singapore in 1965. The terms "Malay",
"Indian" and "Chinese" are ethnic
categories
and "Europeans" as used i n Malaya usually refers to the B r i t i s h .
Currency
used
is
the
Malayan
specified.
viii
doUar
unless
otherwise
I
INTRODUCTION
A Brief Theoretical Discussion Social
transformation
entails
changes i n social
include changes i n the relations gender r o l e s
relations which
between men and women, and their
and experiences at various l e v e l s and i n different
spheres of a society.
Depending on the forms of organization and
relations within that society as well as the nature of the social transformation, consequences Across
on
social
changes
gender
relations
and
and
cultures,
such
societies
bear
specific the
changes
similarities i n some aspects and vast differences
whatever these may be, i t has been consistently
and
impact
position bear
of
women. striking
i n others.
But
shown that in most
cases, women's position and status in societies undergoing social
changes become or continue to be subordinate t o those of men. Our understanding of the position and subordination of women
can benefit from the many studies of social i n various
transformation.
the framework of in
profound
social
These studies have been mainly carried out within
either modernization or capital
They offer valuable empirical changes
changes taking place
parts of the world which are undergoing
general
and analytical
and those related
women's position i n particular.
1
to
accumulation.
insights into social gender relations
and
The modernization approach perceives changes as occurring i n a unilinear movement along a scale from simple traditionalism
to
the case of women, i t
is
complex,
specialized
structures.
In
argued that their static nature, passivity
or resistance to change
accounts for their backwardness and confinement in the traditional sectors. Other obstacles within the modern development planning
processes, such as the male biases of planning o f f i c i a l s ,
reinforce
the
women's exclusion
further
from modernization's benefits
(Rogers 19801.
Perceiving
changes
social
in
the
context
of
capitalist
accumulation offers an analytically different understanding phenomena.
It
rejects the notion that all
similar stages of development and instead,
and social relations
specificities
in
the
societies
move along
allows for
historical
interplay
dynamic
of
and forces internal and external to a society.
relations and women's position social change.
of the
social Gender
are set within such a context of
In these aspects, i t appears that such an approach
offers
an analytically superior perception of social changes over the former, de sp ite limitations of i t s own. Within the capital
accumulation approach one common attempt
locates the source of women's subordination i n their exclusion from
the main spheres of economic production in the capitalist
development process.
isolated
in
unproductive
the
women
subsistence
are
subsistence
f amity
where
housework, and this
labour power for rural
Basic to this argument i s that
free. to
backward
backward
and
serves capital by reproducing i n the predominantly
the Third World economies i s productive
and
that
reproductive
a c t i v i t i e s , and this Towers the value of the iabour
In either case, women and men are
power of make migrant workers ,1
subordinated
perform
The variant of this
systems of
relegated
they
women are
within
class
relations
2
by
capital.
The
sexual
division of labour i n which women are located i n reproductive work i n the f amity and men i n productive work i s seen functionally as a construction by c a p i t a l t o serve i t s
needs.
However, locating the subordination source ignores the multiple complexities
forms of
of
work women do within
the
of change i n different types and phases of capital
accumulation.
The model
of
the ma1 e worker
reproducer holds only i n some contexts; migrant
women i n one single
women who work defined
i n others, i t
i s young
as factory
workers, domestic servants, Nor are the kinds of work a v a i l a b l e to
prostitutes, and so forth.
women (and men)
and the female
by c a p i t a l ' s
needs alone.
Underlying
gender relations also affect women as women at work and i n various other
social
spheres.
The m u l t i p l i c i t y
of
work
and
social
situations i n which women are found may be seen as the outcomes of
an already existing interacting with
set of
class
gender r e ations responding to and
and other
c a p i t a l i s t development process.
gender relations reproduction,
social
are themselves subject to change.
men i n production"
the
The "women i n
sexual division of labour
i s one
The main problem of the
of women i s thus the particular ways i n which the
position of women i s structured
relations
within
In the process of interaction,
such outcome common to many societies. subordination
relations
and their
by gender, c l a s s and other social
interaction within
the overall process of
c a p i t a l i s t development and social change. Gender relations
and the sexual d i v i s i o n of lab our of ten tend
to be taken as given and constant
as natural sets of relations
however, gender relations relations sexual specific
throughout
between men and women.
means a socially
between men and women as social
division social
of
lab our
activities,
history
means By
3
a the
gender
and treated
In t h i s study
constructed categories,
set of and the
differentiation
subordination
of
in
women in
gender relations
i s meant their confinement to certain activities
and their exclusion from others i n the sexual division of iabour, i n which the latter i s considered as public
the former i s considered private
and overtly social
and solely individual
and
i n nature.
Associated with the latter and those who dominate them, that i s ,
men, i s
social
power, and with women i n the former
powerlessness. acquire
a
The sexual
powerful
division
of
that
renders
ideology
1about
--
sociai
at so tends to
non-comparabie
the
different tasks done by men and women, with a non-vaiuation lower valuation represent
of
women's tasks.
the d i v i s i o n
as different and complementary, harmonious
subordination
of
women
as
a gender may be directly
expressed i n the form of male authority over women, but i t
implies
that
the
social
position
determined by gender relations.
ultimate women
locus of
as
women
Furthermore,
or
also tends to
(Edhoim, Harris and Young 1977).
and non-confiicting
The
This ideology
It
of
women
rather
than
de fin ed
and
has also been argued that the
women's subordination
relations
are
also
as
lies
in the t r a f f i c in
commodities
(Rubin
1975).
which may not necessarily be intrinsically
constructed in terms of the gender of the persons concerned can a l s o . become bearers
of
gender
(Whitehead 1979,
example, in the sexual division labor
of labour
p.
11).
process, the capital-labour relation although not
ascriptive,
that
is,
based
on
For
within the c a p i t a l i s t
gender
gender
intrinsically,
is
nevertheless a bearer of gender i n which women are allocated to what
is
considered
as
unskilled
or
semi-skilled
work.
This
example also manifests well the direct interaction and fusion of
gender
and class relations
and the parasitic
manner i n which
capital feeds upon women's gender to e x p l o i t them as women workers
in capitalist society. In the context of the vast changes taking place under various 4
types and phases of c a p i t a l i s t devel opment i n the Third World, the
pre-existing
social relations,
the sexual division of
specifically gender relations
lab our, are subject to change as they
respond to and interact with other social relations relations.
Various
tendencies
in
the
to
forms. entry
intensify,
to
such as class
gender subordination
women may be i d e n t i f i e d as gender relations
tendency
and
decompose and to recompose into
For example, rather
of
undergo changes'
a
new
than dissolve gender subordination,
into wage work and other forms of income-earning activity
tend to transform i t .
New forms of subordination take shape both
through the recomposition of
social
relations
such as
gender relations and through other
class relations
becoming bearers of
gender (Elson and Pearson 1980).
forms
The interested
reproduction, controlled
of
subordination
production
and allocated
in
the
the reproduction
source
capital
direct
to
of of
the labour women's
reproduce
capital-labour
reproductive labour
force
overall
conditions
of
iabour
in
both In
of
social
lies
power
it
and relies
do so.
power.
under capitalism,
lab our
relation
to
located
reproduction.
of the lab our force daily and over
subordination the
are
and
as to how women's lab our i s
and the biological reproduction
reproduction one
women's
the questions arise
reproduction, time,
of
spheres
in
the
In
for
the
example,
i n a b i l i t y of
requires within
the
on women's domestic
The domestic labour
of
women
stretches the wages of the family to cover i t s entire reproductive
costs.
The effect
i s that not only does this structure
of the
family and women's domestic role within i t make women dependent on men, i t
also subordinates
free reproductive
labour.
women to capital
by providing
it
with
T h i s , however, does not explain why i t
i s women and. not men who carry
out domestic reproductive
To say that the sexual d i v i s i o n
of labour
creation by capital
needs i s f u n c t i o n a l i s t .
to serve i t s
5
tasks.
w i t h i n the family
is a
Rather,
it
is
a historical
form of
outcome being
iabour
allocation
arising
from the
and the responses of men and women, the
struggles between capital
women's dominance i n reproductive
tasks
and the
social stress on such tasks i n their position as wives, mothers and daughters rather than as workers i n production. However, women are not entirely excluded from production. production, reality
the worker
wages
capitalists
are
in
earns
theory
points
constant
a family of
wage but
contention
In in
between
and workers and tends to be less than family wages.
The family i s therefore l e f t to find i t s own means to subsist and reproduce i t s e l f
in
women
to
seek
who
determined
of
gender
opp or tunities
their
system
and
the
are
emphasis
For
la rg el y on their
responsibilities.
In some by social
tasks as their primary
ideologies.
direct
so,
do
activities.
their opp or tunities can be extremely limited
reproductive contexts,
the
by
alternative income-earning
Thus, i n the wage l a b our market for example, t h i s has
impact on women's par ticipation
the kinds
employment.
of
jobs,
level
of
and opp or tunities i n terms
wages, status
and security
of
The gender system has the effect of rendering women a
semi-worker status i n which they move between home and workplace. They serve as a reserve army of lab our, recruited and dismissed easily
This
depending
secondary
on the
vicissitudes
of
status
$1 so
that
means
capital
accumulation.
they
tend
to
be
superexploited, as wages paid to them are below the value of their labour power,
power, that on
is,
grounds
supplementary wages. they
are destined for
total reproductive
that
are
they
costs of 'their l a b our
only
dependents
For single women, a similar
assumption that
marriage and the home l i e s
lower wages compared t o men's wages for insecurity
of employment.
burden of
work
arises for
earning
behind their
the same work and their
At the same time, unlike men, a double
women as they
6
become both domestic
workers in the home and workers i n the 1about market or in some income-generating a c t i v i t y . The defined dependent status of women also means that tend to be allocated certain
they
jobs which are considered u n s k i l l e d
or semi-skilled, and of ten these forms of work are extensions of their domestic work in
skills
and non-skills
way by technical
the home.
The definitions of what are
are not determined solely i n an objective
requirements but
Jobs which are considered
or
are also socially
identified
determined.
as women's work
are
considered u n s k i l l e d or semi-skilled but those done by men tend to
be c l a s s i f i e d as skilled words, the s k i l l s
(Phillips
and Taylor 1980).
In other
categories may not be a result of women being
bearers of inferior labour but because they are already considered
and
pre-determined
as
inferior
bearers
of
lab our
(Elson
and
Pearson 1980, p . 9 4 ) . This differentiation between male and female l a b o r i s to be located i n the socialization
of men and women within
system i n which women acquire s k i l l s their social roles,
that
from i t
they
recognition. skills,
thus
and training appropriate to
such as manual dexterity and the q u a l i t i e s of Domestic lab our and the s k i l l s
d o c i l i t y , obedience and patience. derived
a gender
tend to be s o c i a l l y i n v i s i b l e and p r i v a t i z e d , so
attributable
are
This i s their
to
nature
and
socially
lack
extended to jobs which make use of such
classification
as unskilled
or
semi-skilled
work.
The
conditions
of
social
production
and reproduction
general and the forms of women:'s subordination
themselves maintained, and
structures,
state.
which
The state
can
in
i n par t i c u i a r , are
produced and reproduced by various forces include act
ideological
mechanisms
and
the
as a direct mechanism or mediating
7
and specific conditions for
the
of the system at various Ieveis.
It
structure to ensure the overall production
and reproduction
also sets to mollify the probl ems change,
and contradictions
such
conditions,
and diffuse as well as to deal with some of
as
generated by the processes of iabour
unemployment,
health conditions,
displacements,
and so forth.
work
In doing so, i t s
p o l i c i e s may affect women indirectly and d i r e c t l y through specific
legislation
aimed
at
them,
thus
defining,
controlling
and
structuring their social positions. In Malaysia,
social
changes have been studied mainly within
the framework of modernization take account of
and i t s
i t s multi-ethnic
variant
aspects. More recent
pluralism
A few other
have been made within a crude c1 ass perspective capital expansion perspective.
of
to
studies
according to the
studies r e c t i f y the
latter and attempt to comprehend such phenomena i n terms of the dynamic
interplay between c1 ass and ethnic
relations
within
a
historical context.2 Not only can our understanding of the position of women and gender
relations
contribute
benefit
from
to their explanatory
example, that
these power.
the impiementatidn
of
studies; It
it
can
also
has been argued, for
the New Economic P01 icy
is
reducing the ideNtification of ethnicity with class and occupation
especially among the unskilled ranks of the working class, and that the integration important
of Malays into the wage iabour force has many
impiicatiorzs
reiations.3
for the future of ethnic as well as class
However, t h i s f a i l s to recognize that a large section
of the unskilled maiay working class consists of women from mura] backgrounds
factory
who
are
interacting
and urban settings for
with
non-Malay
the f i r s t time.
workers
within
In one study of
women workers i n Penang (Lim 1979), the vague point
i s made that
"womanhood" may have brought about a 1 ow l e v e l of ethnic and c l a s s
8
consciousness. pation
in
The study also points out that female partici-
socialized
relationships
and
implications
production
consciousness
the impact of
or
has
implications
but
does
gender
not
on
gender
explore
relations
these
on class
and
ethnicity. Studies on the position of women i n Malaysia are recent and focus
mainly
on
female . participation
in
the
export-oriented
industries
set up under the p0st-1969 New Economic Policy.
industries
employ
which
is
the
almost
exclusively
exploitation
These
female lab our, underlying
and
manipulation
of
women's
"traditional" subordinate gender position and their attributes of d o c i l i t y , patience and manual dexterity, male
workers
processes
of
and
easier
to
exploitation
making them cheaper than
control.
and
Furthermore,
manipulation,
in
these
"traditional"
or
already existing forms of gender subordination are intensified, decomposed or/and recomposed into new forms.4 However,
little
is
known
concretely
about
these
"traditional" or already existing forms of subordination.
done so far
simply
subordination subordinated
of
assume, implicitly or e x p l i c i t l y ,
women
already
existed
and
that
in
that they
the were
the society
prior
to the penetration
The assumption i s of multinational
women were located within traditional social positions as
wives, mothers and daughters with certain
with such roles. and roles contexts.
that
i n largely the same way within "traditional" society,
that i s , under male authority i n the family. capital,
Studies
of
attributes associated
But this ignores the m u l t i p l i c i t y of positions
various
categories
These studies
which gender relations
of
also ignore
women in the
f act
different that
social
changes i n
and women were affected had or were already
t a k i n g place prior to the penetration of multinational capital in
the p0st-1969 period.
Specifieal $y,
g
the
whole period of
changes
during colonial »r'ul e and the effects on women's position have been missed out. This study i s women's
subordination
socio-historical
work situations
particular. within
a preliminary during
approach,
investigation
the
it
color:ial
examines
examines
work
sphere
which
forms both inside
allows
that
to be produced and reproduced.
work
at location
a
women's
examines their social background, their position
the
subordination
Using
outside their homes, focusing on Chinese women i n
It
of
period.
some aspects of
each work process and the social
outside
of some forms of
conditions
of
and
labour,
the
processes, forms
of
and
process
of
Specifically,
it
the
recruitment
and
control,
the
labour
distribution of labour's products and the other social mechanisms and institutions which reproduce each process, including those of
the colonial state.
The processes of production and reproduction
are, however, not necessarily social
and
historical
inevitable,
outcomes
of
are the
responses,
conflicts
and
identifies
some
the
struggles.
This
contradictions
and problems generated in the work processes and
outlines
of
responded
some
and
briefly
rather, they
study the
ways
in
struggled.
which .women
However,
their
have
of
historically
participation
p o l i t i c a l and lab our a c t i v i t i e s in trade union organizations been l e f t out, given the limited scope of this study. that
by
"existing" will
providing
some
insights
into
the
in have
It i s hoped
"traditional"
or
forms of subordination among Chinese women, this study
further our understanding of the continuities and changes in
Malaysian women's position. The position
of
Chinese women i n colonial
Malaya cannot be
understood as being essentially
the same as in China, but i s to be
Tocated within
relations
context.
specific
social
Such an understanding
i n the Malayan colonial
also necessarily
10
means a focus on
the immigrant generation
of Chinese women most of whom came to
Malaya during the colonial
decades
of
settlement social
the
twentieth
i n Malaya i s
characteristics
women s t i l l
period,
exist
mainly
century.
Their
also significant
and "traditions"
among those s t i l l
the
first
three
relatively
i n that of
recent
some of
the
immigrant-generation
a l i v e and are continued i n
modified ways by subsequent generations
influence.
in
through socialization
and
Many Chinese households s t i l l have among their members
immigrant generation women who are now i n their f i f t i e s or older. "Chinese women" refer are far
to a broad category,
from homogeneous, with differences
and practices,
between major
on t e r r i t o r i a l
origin i n China.
tied to the class structure and artisans;
in
One fundamental distinction i s
19305, i t s lines were clear. wage Chinese women workers Chinese
women
in
domestic
servitude
smallholders; shopkeepers,
and c a p i t a l i s t s
the early years
colonial
customs
among the Chinese which consists of
banks and other major businesses. existed
i n dialects,
groups and subgroups based largely
wage and non-wage workers; agricultural merchants
i n reality they
of
of mines, plantations,
This class structure already
Chinese immigration
and by the
This study focuses on wage and nonin
the
major
Malaya,
among those
forms
namely,
"unfree" or
of
work
among
prostitution
trafficked,
and
and t i n
mining, rubber estate production, domestic service, manufacturing, hawking and construction
among "free" women.
The Colonial Context and Chinese Female Immigration to May eye It
was during
the B r i t i s h colonial
flowed into Malaya i n
large
under c a p i t a l i s t expansion.
period that immigrant
Iabour
numbers and h i s t o r i c a l l y devel oped The need to ensure a steady, adequate
11
and cheap lab our supply
for
economic expansion was recognized
early by state and various capitalist interests.
Throughout the
colonial period the question of labour was their central concern. External sources of labour, mainly from China, India and Indonesia
were
(Java)
agricultural rubber),
on
relied
to
plantations
expanding tin
meet
(initially
requirements
Tabour
the
spices
mines and public
subsequently
and
works as well
as the
accompanying expansion of trade and service a c t i v i t i e s . decades of
early
the
century, there
twentieth
of
By the
emerged a clear
division of labour in which the Chinese were concentrated heavily i n the mining and service sectors and t o a lesser extent i n rubber plantations,
the
Indians
and Javanese i n plantations
while the
indigeneous Malays remained i n subsistence a c t i v i t i e s . 5 Tabour
initially
was
recruited
services i n the Straits peninsula.
for
Settlements
spice
Chinese
plantations
(SS) and parts
and for
of the Malay
The discovery of r i c h t i n ore deposits and the opening
of mines in the Malay States in the second half of the nineteenth greatly
century
increased
continued into the early expansion
of
rubber
the
inf}ow
of
Chinese labour
decades of the twentieth
The
century.
from 1900s required
cultivation
which
even more
Chinese lab our in the Federated Malay States (FMS) and by 1931, Chinese lab our made up the second largest work force after Indian workers in the rubber
plantations.
The bulk Of Chinese workers,
however, was found mainly i n the tin mines. The
vast
majority
of
co1onia1 period were men.
Chinese
immigrants
throughout
the
They came mainly from southern China
where poverty, f amine and p o l i t i c a l upheaval forced many of them to
leave their f amities
for
the
Nanyang (South Seas)
parts of the world to seek their livelihood.
the
merchant,
three
trader, peasant
categories
immigrants
came to
forming
and artisan
the
big
Drawn mostly from classes
majority)
Malaya as transient workers
12
and other
most
(the
latter
of
these
who intended to
return to China after acquiring some money. forced many to remain and to settle the
nineteenth
century,
they
However, indebtedness
in Malaya subsequently.
were mostly
recruited
In
through
t r a f f i c system i n which they were subjected to the controls procurers,
recruiting agents,
poverty
and
des patch, allocation
L i f e i n the mines , estates and towns within an
indenture work system was harsh. of
of
lodging house owners, brokers and
employers at various points of recruitment,
and production.
a
The men lived under conditions with
indebtedness,
sickness
and
death
of ten
occurring from exposure to disease, iii-treatment and poor working and j i v i n g conditions.
Outside their work, gambling, opium smoking, brothel
visiting
and secret society a c t i v i t i e s were the dominant and interconnected
aspects of the men's social l i f e .
These were activities
organized by Triad secret societies traffickers
and employers constituted
among the Chinese population
Target
which together with brokers, the most powerful
i n colonial
Malaya.
forces
While some of
these aspects of social l i f e already existed among men i n southern
China, they found new bases of expression at a highly intensified
level
i n the Malayan context of an almost entirely single make
immigrant
Tabour force.
This dominance of a male population and
of male a c t i v i t i e s i n t i g h t l y organized
and coritroiied communities
had various implications ore the position of the few Chinese women there, as we shall see. Chinese
women were few
in
early
Chinese men, the vast majority of
colonial
Malaya.
Unlike
Chinese women came to Malaya
only during the second half of the colonial period, in the early decades of the twentieth century.
This pattern of Chinese female
immigration can be traced fundamentally
to the position of men and
women w i t h i n the feuda1-patriarcha1 Chinese social
social conditions of the times (Chin 1980). 13
structure arid
In
feudal-patriarchal
Chinese
subordinated to men i n various
society,
spheres of
women
social
were
life.
Their
roles were that of daughter, wife and mother and their work was restricted to the household where they were responsible for
the
care
and
of
family
members
reproductive tasks.
and
for
household
productive
The home was defined as their only rightful
place and the furthest a woman moved was from her own family home
to that of her in-laws upon marriage.
It
was considered highly
immoral for women to venture from home to seek a l i v i n g . times of poverty,
the resort
f amine and extreme exploitation
Even i n
by landlords,
to migration t o seek a l i v i n g was for men, not women.
For women _and their f amities, the means of survival were sought i n their
transfer
and
sale
into
prostitution,
concubinage
and
domestic servitude.
Women, therefore,
were hardly found i n the outflow of labour
from China to Malaya and elsewhere i n search of livelihood in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Furthermore, migration by
men was intended t o be temporary and as such, their f amities did not follow them.
Even when they subsequently remained overseas,
many remained single, as they could not afford to marry or to send
for
their wives and children.
China i n early
colonial
The only
women immigrants from
Malaya were the wives and relatives
of
those few men who could afford to send for them, and those who were trafficked.
Their numbers are unknown but are insignificant
compared with the number of male migrants.
One outcome of
the pattern of male and female immigration
from China into Malaya was an extremely unbalanced sex r a t i o which
persisted
u n t i l the l930s.
Ire 1850, the sex r a t i o was one woman
t o twelve men on the average and i n the mining d i s t r i c t s of Larut and lower Perak where the Chinese were concentrated, the r a t i o was as high as one t o eighteen i n 1888 ( P u r c e l l 1967, pp. 86-87; c i t e d
14
in Chin 1980).
Even with massive fernande immigration in the 1930s,
the ratio was s t i l l imbalanced at one to f i v e on the average and
even more imbalanced within each dialect group.5
As we shall see,
the scarcity of women red to a heavy t r a f f i c i n them. The major influx of female immigrants from China into Malaya
occurred only mainly
southern
in
the late
widows
of
China
1920s and the 1930s.
and single because
women who were
of
economic
It
forced
depression,
conditions of famine and impending war with Japan.
consisted to
leave
worsening
These women
were able to escape the quotas r e s t r i c t i n g immigration
under the
Aliens Ordinance 1933 passed by the Malayan colonial government to
cope with unemployment as the quotas applied only to males.7
As a
r e s u l t , the single largest inflow of women into Malaya from China took place during
the worst period
1949, p. 4 3 ) .
has been estimated that between 1933 and 1938,
It
of
the depression (Dei Tufo
Malaya received more than 190,000 female deck passengers between the ages of 18 and 40 (Blythe 1947, p. 103).
until
1938
imposition
The last
when
continuing
severe
The inflow continued
unemployment
led
to
the
of quota restrictions on female immigration
as w e l l .
small group of women immigrants came after
the war,
mainly as the wives of those who had returned to China and who were
entitled
to
return
certain citizenship
Two categories distinguished
to
Malaya
with
their
f amities
under
arrangements.
of Chinese women who came t o Malaya can be
under the common reference
"immigrant".
The f i r s t
category came on a more or 1ess voluntary and free basis without being indebted. came
It
throughout
especially
in
consisted mainly of wives and relatives who
the
period
of
Chinese
the early decades of
ma1e
immigration
the twentieth
single women who came mainly i n the 1920s and 1930s. relatives
came to
join
men who were mostly
15
but
century, and
merchants,
Wives and traders,
employers and occasionally, the exceptional worker who, over time, saved enough to return to China to marry or to remit bride money t 0 relatives for a wife to be sent t o him.
Among the single women
who immigrated i n the 1930s were large numbers of women workers from Kwangtung' s s i l k and t e x t i l e industries which had been badly h i t by the economic depression.
Many of these women belonged to
an anti-marriage movement and they decided to migrate to Malaya to
earn a l i v i n g
when they lost
their jobs, rather
than 1use the
independence they had experienced in the movement and as workers. In the tradition of the movement, most of them migrated i n pairs or groups and gave support to each other throughout.
The other category of women who came to Malaya throughout the colonial
period
consisted
domestic
workers)
of
imported
prostitutes
in
and mui
a traffic
in
e a r l i e r , the means of seeking a livelihood
Tsai
women.
outside
(child
As
noted
the household
for Chinese women in China were extremely Timited by their social position.
Many poor women were forced into p r o s t i t u t i o n i n order
to survive under the harsh economic conditions i n southern China as from the nineteenth century the forced safe and transfer At the same time, significance
in
this an
onwards, and during this period,
of women became highly intensified.
sale and transfer assumed a new form and
international
cofnmercia1
between southern China and Southeast Asia. China
was
penetrated
interests
f acing by
strife
various
and
f amine,
coiorliai
traffic
Southeast
powers
for
Asia various
i n which 1 about supplies were required
Thompson 1947}.
in
women
For while southern was being economic
(Lasker
The t r a f f i c i n women between southern
1942;
Ehina and
Malaya was part of the wider t r a f f i c i n women i n the entire region for
their iabour and for
prostitution, the latter based on the
specific demand for Chinese women by Chinese male immigrants for sexual
servicing
(Lasker
1942).
This t r a f f i c
i n women between
China and Malaya was prevalent throughout the colonial period but
16
was especially
heavy as from the latter half
of the nineteenth
century onwards, as more male immigrants were recruited to work in
the SS and FMS and as male-dominated mining communities and make leisure a c t i v i t i e s became more established. Central
to the t r a f f i c ' s
organization
and control
were the
secret societies and their connected agents of procurers, brokers, pimps and brothel
keepers.
The women acquired were allocated or
said
keepers,
pimps,
to
brothel
prostitutes,
individuals
and
families
mistresses or mui tsai for domestic servitude.
as
Some
mui Tsai were acquired d i r e c t l y in China and brought to Malaya by wealthy Chinese families.
The SS goverrlment'5 overall policy towards the immigration of Chinese
women
was
one
of
non~restriction
and
encouragement,
although i n r e a l i t y , policies towards the two categories of women differed
to some extent.
The policy
towards wives and single
women was one of encouragement and had underlying j u s t i f i c a t i o n s . Individual
colonial
administrators
such as Vaughan had
the view
that the inflow of women should be encouraged by the government t o
prevent, crimes
that
introduction materially
for
prevail
consequences peacefulness
if of
the
no other amongst
paucity
reason, the fearful the
Chinese
of
in
the
females...
the
of women would materially of
the
colony.
domesticated,
their wives and children,
and
The would,
conduce to the Chinese surrounded
are by
seek to maintain order and
peace, and would not be easily
aroused as they are
now with no ties
them (Vaughan 1971,
to restrain
p. 33). The "crimes"
that Vaughan referred to were evidently those of
17
the secret societies and h i s solution to them lay i n the emotional and sexual services of wives and mothers, i n accordance with his
Victorian male conception of women's roles.
However, colonial
state policy towards this category of female immigrants was more concerned with the constant issue of ensuring adequate and cheap lab our supply. ratio that
Not only would female immigration rectify the sex
imbalance and reduce what was considered the "immorality prevai i s " ,
biological
it
would promote local family
and social
reproduction
formation for
the
of local supply of labour; as
well as provide a source of labour i n i t s e l f . Local family formation and reproduction of labour supply were increasingly
recognized as a more secure means of ensuring a more
permanent yet cheap supply of lab our when i t the existing estates
indenture
was
supply of
lab our for
insufficient
system's
recognized that
and
abolition
became evident that
the rapidly expanding rubber
uncertain.
was
Furthermore,
the
Employers
also
imminent.8
labour could be secured and costs kept down by
hiring a male worker's wife
and children as h i s dependants at
lower wages than pay the male worker a family wage.9 further recognized that the socialization
It
was
of Chinese women into
the r o l e s of wif e and mother i n f i l i a l obedience to male authority made them develop qualities of d o c i l i t y and passivity
which made
for easy control of female labour, and at the same time ensured high
productivity
at
cheaper
dependents'
James Birch,
wages.
Resident of Perak commented in 1909 that Chinese femal e workers in the mines were "amongst the most industrious,
most cheerful
and
most law-abiding of our c i t i z e n s " .
He also proposed that with
these qualities, female immigrants
should be encouraged in large
numbers to boost the labour supply, particularly in rubber estates (quoted i n Chin 1980). The
colonial
state
encouraged
18
the
growth
of
the
femal e
population through immigration depression.
applied only to male workers.
of
even during periods of
The quotas and repatriation In f act,
the most important
the Aliens Ordinance 1933 was to allow for
massive i n f l u x of females.
economic
schemes during the 1930s effect
and encourage a
Repatriation of the unemployed during
the Great Depression was refused to females and the only women emigrants from Malaya were the wives of repatriated
women.
men and old
The government's policy was to retain as many women as
possible
in
the
country
and the
increasing number of
f amities i n the 1930s was noted with satisfaction
pp. 242 , 252).
The overall
result
Chinese 1960,
(Parmer
was a sharp increase in the
number of Chinese working class f amities and a more stable supply of labour by the 19405.
The colonial s t a t e ' s policy towards trafficked women was part of i t s
wider attempt
activities.
the secret
Despite the Girls Protection
which the colonial
t o control
Chinese Protectorate
(an
societies
and their
Ordinance 1896 under
institution
set
up by the
authorities to control the Chinese) attempted to prevent
the abusive aspects of the t r a f f i c i n women, the state could not
and did not impose restrictions prostitution
so long as they
(Purcell 1967, p. 174).
the
late 1920s due t o
of women for
"their owri free w i l l "
Brothels were also legal.
It was only i n
various pressures, that
the government
disallowed avowed prostitutes closed.
on the importation did so of
A similar policy
to enter Malaya and brothels were
of
non-entry of
avowed mui tsai was
pursued after 1932 and i n both cases, checks at immigration points
by Protectorate persisted
in
depression
officials disguise
and the
despite
whatever
towards
this
were enforced. and,
in
f act,
immediate post-war
attempted
category
of
controls women f e l l
The t r a f f i c increased
period. over
during
the
Un the
whole,
the t r a f f i c ,
policy
into conformity
o v e r a l l l a i s s e z f a i r e position towards female immigration.
19
however,
with
the
The Social Background of Women Inlnigrants from Southern China Female immigrants from southern China in the early decades of the twentieth
century
formed the bulk
Chinese women i n Malaya.
of
the f i r s t
generation of
They came bearing w i t h them a certain
social background which affected and influenced their position and l i v e s i n Malaya.
In feudal-patriarchal WaS
society i n China, the class structure
based on the ownership of property, chiefly
through the male l i n e in the f amity.
land, inherited
Males were, therefore, very
important to ensure family descent and they were regarded as heads of households, wielding power and authority. economic, p o l i t i c a l and intellectual artisanship,
scholarship
were subordinated
power i n agriculture, trades,
and p o l i t i c a l
to men
in
Men also dominated
various
and state
spheres of
affairs.
Women
life.
Their
rightful place was i n the home as daughters, wives and mothers, and the y observed three f i l i a l obediences to father, husband and
son and four virtues of propriety and household duties.
i n behaviour, speech, demean our
The sexual d i v i s i o n of lab our was clearcut,
w i t h women bearing the tasks of producing and rearing children, especial l y males for violation
and
the continuation
deviation
from
such
of
the family l i n e .
ideals
of
Any
womanhood meant
punishment, social discrimination and sanctions. The few alternatives
to marriage For women were occupations
connected with sex and procreation. midwives ,
included
p r o s t i t u t e s , mui tsai
who did not l i v e immoral
or
Women i n these occupations
matchmakers,
concubines,
i n domestic servitude
and work at home.
were held in
contempt
songstresses,
and generally
those
Such women were considered
and had very low statuses in
society.
The only acceptable and honourabie form of rejection of
marriage
was entry i n t o the r e l i g i o u s order, and of p r o t e s t , was
20
suicide.
Footbinding,
i n f anticide
reinforced
and sale of
powerful
by
economic adversity,
concubinage,
prostitution,
females were all
ideological
practices
female
i n s t i t u t i o n a l i z e d and
mechanisms.
In
such as the sale of
times
of
females for
prostitution, domestic servitude and concubinage were intensified among poor families
(Davin 1975; Diamond 19?5; Topley 1975; Croll
19?8)_
Variations
and differences
of
the
above
existed between classes, regions and dialect southern China bore certain Women
from peasant
contrast
and
and
however,
groups, and women i n
such differences (Davin 1975; 1919).
economically poor
class
background i n
to women of upper classes, had r e l a t i v e l y more economic
social
independence mainly
maintain their households. rearing Fukien
ideal s ,
districts provinces
both
southern
China,
from where most
Malaya originated, worked i n
of
because
they
had
to
work
to
Women of the rice-growing and s i l k of
especially the
female
Kwantung
and
immigrants
to
were mainly of peasant or poor backgrounds and
productive
and reproductive
work.
within
the
household, they were responsible for cooking, cleaning, childcare, food
preparation
preparation
and
and
processing
agriculture produce.
weeding,
processing,
harvesting
of
weaving,
grain,
tobacco,
tea
and
and
the other
As agriculturalists, they worked at sowing,
and
processing
of
grains
produce as well as at raising livestock. of
sewing
and other
food
In the sericulture areas
the Canton delta, women reared silkworms and tended mulberry
trees,
spun
silkthreads
and wove.
Hakka
agriculturali s t s and were well-known for
women
their physical strength
and independence in work (Davin 1915, p . 258).
tapped rubber, China
also
picked cotton
performed
heavy
and fished.10 manual
associated with the tasks of men. villages,
transporting
tasks
Hainanese women
Women of which
were
southern usually
They were manual workers i n the
agricultural
21
were mostl.y
produce
in
fields
and
processing m i l l s . workers.
It
footbindirig upper
is, was
class
ability.
the
towns,
also
they
therefore, not surprising less
women,
Hainanese
women,
that the practice
of
common among working women compared with
for
it
impeded mobility
severely
for
example,
did
was also practised far
w i t h northern
and work
China.11
not
in
have
bound
feet.
less i n southern China, i n
This economic independence of
women from southern China was strengthened male emigration century.
worked as manual
Hakka women, women of the boat population of Canton and
Footbinding contrast
In
the nineteenth
during the period of
century
and early
twentieth
Without their menfolk, many women were effectively the
heads of households who took over entire economic r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s of maintaining their f a m i t i e s . Historically, some women of southern China a l s o distinguished themselves from the traditional ideals of womanhood.
In the anti-
Manchu Taipirig Rebellion which originated in southern China i n the mid-nineteenth century, Hakka women were among i t s co-founders and fighters.
equality
They influenced
the
Taiping platforms, including
of the sexes and the prohibition of footbinding
1978, p. 39; Davin 1979, p. 7 ) .
the
(Croli
Some Cantonese women of
the
Shen-te, Nan-hai and P'an Yu d i s t r i c t s in the sericulture
area of
Kwarrgtung
in
province
formed
an
anti-marriage
movement
nineteenth and early twentieth century (Topley 1975).
the
These women
rejected the subordinate position of Chinese women i n marriage by refusing
to marry
marriage,
refused to l i v e with their husbands and in-1aws.
of
marriage
stance.
was
or, the
having principal
gone through reason
ceremonies of
their
Fear
anti-marriage
Some stressed the fear of becoming a "slave of man", of
being a "human machine of propagation" type of man". economic
for
the
Other reasons given were the friendship
independence
"loneliness"
and of marrying the "wrong
of
an
unmarried
woman
as
at work and against
the
i n marriage and economic dependence on her husband.12
22
Their
resistance
Typically,
to
was expressed
marriage
in
various
forms.
they organized themselves into "sworn" sisterhoods in
which they took vows to remain spinsters and to l i v e together as tsae ennui
or
sisters)
("sworn"
to
be "wedded"
to
each other.
Others were the pu-lo-chia who were formally married but refused t o l i v e with their husbands and in-laws.
The women gave each
other support and of ten lived i n sisterhood houses away from their own f amities. while
other
Some even paid for
sisterhoods
a concubine to replace them
banded together to
stop their
husbands
from taking concubines.
The specific these
women
position. for
conditions
with
an
The geographical
centuries
considerable
it
was
a
proportion
of
cultivated mulberry reeled
trees
and spun s i l k
industries
in the Canton delta area provided
economic
basis
their
anti-marriage
environment f avoured sericulture and lab our-intensive work
performed
activity by
threads.
The setting up of
This
silkworms,
filatures and
occupations in
these factories as they already possessed the s k i l l s
silkwork.
a
Women
saw women, mainly those
being employed i n cash-earning economic power was strengthened
twentieth century
with
women.
and picked leaves, reared
i n the mid-nineteenth century
who were single,
for
by massive male migration with
required for
in
the early
the decline
the domestic agricultural economy, the elimination
of
of male labour
from the s i l k works as a result of mechanization and the continued employment
of
women
in
sericulture industry.
the
lab our-intensive processes
During
this
time,
it
of
was observed
the that
thousands of peasant homes depended for the entire or a large part
of their livelihood
on the earnings of a wife or daughter (Topley
1975,
The
p.
21).
women's
anti-marriage
movement
became
acceptable even to their parents.
Anti-marriage
women gave each other sustained support.
23
As
young g i r l s , they had developed team s p i r i t and the principles friendship,
solidarity,
the local practices the
religious
(vegetarian
independence and mutual
support
of
through
of group l i v i n g and group a c t i v i t i e s , while
influences
halls)
their working l i v e s ,
of
nunneries,
temples
and char
tang
justified the rejection of marriage.13
In
they shared premises and developed elaborate
forms of saving money and mutual support systems which were both
financial
and emotional.
savings to pay for house) or tsu me
In old age, some of them used their
residence
in
wu ( s i s t e r s '
special
ku Po mu (spinsters' Such houses usually had
house).
land for communal c u l t i v a t i o n , and some of the women even adopted daughters
whom they brought
up i n their " f a i t h " .
Others r e t i r e d
to religious worship or to their own houses or char tang. The economic basis of the women's independence was, however, removed i n
the
late
19205 by outside
industry and by economic depression,
competition
Filatures
to
the
sick
and factories
were
forced to close, putting many women out of work and their earnings dropped drastically
(Topiary 1975,
early to
houses and vegetarian
spinsters'
alternative means of livelihood. the c i t i e s
p.
While some retired
84).
hails,
others
sought
Those who were young migrated to
to seek work as domestic servants while others made
iridividuai or joint decisions to migrate
to the Nanyang.
It
was
this latter category that made up the shiploads of Cantonese women who arrived i n Malaya between 1933 and 1938. It
is
and ideal
against t h i s complex background
standards
women's position women
in
the
class and regional
general forms
variations
of
i n southern China that the position of Chinese
colonial
integration into i t s
and single
and actual
of
Malaya
can
be
better
understood.
Their
economic and social l i f e as wives, mothers
women on the one hand and as prostitutes,
domestic
servants, mud t s a i , workers and hawkers on the other hand, c a l l e d
24
into interplay these characteristics social relations. position
were
and background with other
In this interplay, some aspects of their gender intensified
while
others
were
decomposed
and
recomposed into new forms. l
nanas l
Saffioti (1977) and Deere (1979). See Boeerup (1971) and Rogers (1980) for the same argument within a modernization perspective.
2
For examples of` these three approaches, see the following respectively:
(a) (b)
Cc) 3
Ret ram (1965); Hajj Embnng Abdul Rah ran (1974); and Stenson (1980); d Mullard and Brennan (1978).
~m (1980). The New Economic Policy aims at restructuring Malaysian See Sunday society by eradicating poverty and the identification o f ethnicity with occupation.
4
5
See for example Cardosa-Khao and Khan (1978); (1980); Heyzer (1980); Elson and Pearson (1981).
Linda Lim
(1978);
Ariffin
This division along ethnic lines was the outcome o f the interplay between the
requirements of various expanding capitals, the colonial governments including those of China, India and Indonesia, and the responses of the various ethnic populations.
the areas from
In
which labour supplies were
drawn, it was a combination of` economic and political factors which Forced vast sections o f their population to emigrste in search o f livelihood. 6
For
___
example, there were far
Hainanese women compared to Hairranese
50
and as late as 1931, the sex
favour of the men.
Until
r
.'um » J r
n
men
among the Hainanese was one to seven in
Hainanese women were not allowed to emigrate
from Hainan. 7
The quota system also had the immediate effect of raising passage Fares due to
the
limited number
Women could, however, rate. They were, in
of tickets and to compensate For
the reduced
traffic.
obtain non-quota tickets at a comparatively cheaper Fact, encouraged W migrate on such cheap tickets b y
traffic agents and lodging housekeepers .....- were sold quota tickets by brokers only if they bought t or four non-quota tickets each time.
am
B
Indenture labour was increasingly discredited as the abuses of became well known and Chinese nationalistic opinion in
the system
China was much opposed
to the system of indenture emigration. In 1914, the Labour Contracts Ordinance was passed making labour illegal, despite the keen demand For labour in the rubber estates.
25
9
While this strategy applied to Indian women in the rubber plantetio B in the main, it also encouraged Chinese female immigration. For details e e Palmer (1960), pp. 197-98.
1D
This contradicted the usual strictly male preserve regarded as polluting agents. See Ahem (1975).
II
In north China, women rarely worked in the fields but in peak periods when their labour was required, foot bound women worked on their k i s .
12
Yet others stressed domestic disharmony with mothers-in-law and children of different Families within the household, fear of physical pain and the
in
fishing as women were
polluting effects o f child-birth, distaste for heterosexu l satisfaction with close friendships with girls.
13
relations and
Nubile girls already formed a separate group who lived in girls' houses or h m girls' rooms f r l` s f I k -- i f they m r i d ut f th ` r
directly, they made the house "empty" and brought bad luck. Such girls' houses were found in many parts o f Kwangtung. Older girls were a s fond of visiting temples and other religious establishments such as vegetarian
halls
and B ddhi t r`s, w l l s t t n d l g t h t i l p F i l r g . . numbers. Religious teachings;.... _s_tressed sexual equality reli_gious literature contained biographies of model women who broke with tradition, f`or example, the Goddess Kuan Yin, who rejected marriage and attained alvation through religion. Religious practices also stressed celibacy again t sexual pollution. . . .
26
II in
. i i
PROSTITUTION
While prostitution already
existed as a social relation between
men and women i n China, i t
was highly
intensified
new basis and new forms i n the Malaya. prostitutes
were
imported
into
and assumed a
Chinese women who were
Malaya for
the
brothel
market.
They were distinguished from other female immigrants and formed a
distinct category of working women i n their situation
said or transferred
as women
i n a t r a f f i c i n women, their involvement i n
prostitution as their sole or main source of work, and their tight control
by
ma1 e
trafficking
agencies
policies specifically directed at them.
and
by
colonial
state
The t r a f f i c in women, the
agencies involved and the male domains of mining camps and towns largely set the context of the prostitutes'
working conditions and
lives.
Prostitution and Control by Secret Societies The t r a f f i c
in
Chinese women for
around the mid-nineteenth
expanded.
Traffickers
prostitution i n Malaya began
century, at the same time as t i n mining
went to v i l l a g e s i n southern China and by
various means ranging from contacts, cajoles, deceptions, purchase or kidnap, acquired young g i r l s and women.
27
They were then shipped
to the Straits Settlements (SS) and other parts of Southeast Asia. The
Chinese
emigration
emigrants whom they
authorities
were
suspicious
of
female
assumed went abroad for "immoral" a c t i v i t i e s
but there was no o f f i c i a l restriction
on female emigration (Chen
Ta 1939). At
the
SS
ports,
there
were
no
restrictions
on
the
immigration of prostitutes as long as they entered prostitution of their "own free
legal
until
brothels
in
will"
1927.
While
the
others
SS,
1967,
(Purcell
p . 174)
some prostitutes were sold or
and b r o t h e l s w e r e
were allocated delivered
to
to
brothel
keepers and secret societies i n the mining camps and towns i n the Federated
Malay
individual
men who had l e f t their wives in China or who wanted
concubines.
It
States
(FMS).
Yet
others
were
bought
by
i s estimated that 80 per cent of all young g i r l s
who came to Singapore i n the 1870s were sold to brothels.
At
their destinations, the young g i r l s were "disposed of l i k e slaves
i n the open market" (Song 1923, pp. 125-26), most of them under the control
of secret societies.
In 1863, 500 young g i r l s were
ordered from China by secret societies and their prices on the market
in
Singapore
ranged from $100 to
$400 each.
It
was
estimated that i n the same year, there were no less than 2,000 to 2,500 of these g i r l s
out of a total Chinese female population of
not more than 4,000 i n Singapore.
In 1884, at least 2,000 out Of
6,600 Chinese women i n Singapore were p r o s t i t u t e s .
most of these
girls were between the ages of 13 and 16 (Song 1925; Purcell 1967; Comber 1959; Turnbull 1977).
Trafficking
agents fo'rmed a closely
connected and highly
organized chain and included procurers, brokers, shipping agents, secret society points of
members, brothel keepers and employers at various
recruitment, despatch,
resale or
a l l o c a t i o n , and w o r k .
In many cases, these agents were members of the same organization,
28
usually
a secret
society,
or were at least under i t s
control.
Brothel
keepers, for example, were also secret society members or i n control of the
had a tax imposed on them by such societies
local area, while others hired samseng (thugs who usually belonged to a secret society)
to procure and control
prostitutes.
Some
employers were also secret society members who owned brothels and other revenue f arms.1 As the
colonial
main social
organization
of
the
Chinese i n
early
Malaya, the secret societies undertook the provision and
organization
of
social
and male workers.
a c t i v i t i e s for
their male members (only)
In the context of the predominantly single male
communities i n the mines and towns, the a c t i v i t i e s and needs of
men were defined as "public" as
a "public"
service.
and the provision of women was seen
Prostitution was
activities
formed the men's dominant leisure activities held in houses
or
similar
Jackson 1961, pp. 5 - ? ) . brothels
not
and
drinking,
premises
and
alongside
opium
"public"
smoking
organized
gambling,
(Gullick
together 1955;
these
cited
in
The provision of women and th e control of
only enhanced the lucrativeness
of
such "public"
houses as revenue f arms, but were themselves a source of funds for their owners. sexual
For the c l i e n t s ,
servicing.
prostitutes
These
the women provided company and
crucial
roles
of
prostitution
and
i n the male-dominated contexts of mining camps and
towns were reflected in the constant struggles between r i v a l gangs of men and between secret societies
for the ownership and control
0? brothels and women.
Three main
categories
of
--
as T
"pawned" and "voluntary"
and degrees of control mer1.2
were
prostitutes
existed
--
"soid",
of whom came under varying forms
of the brothel keepers and secret society
" S o l d " prostitutes were those bought from t r a f f i c k e r s and
air tualiy
slaves
owned by brothel
29
keepers who kept
them
within the brothels
and determined their work conditions.
The
women's entire earnings were appropriated by their keepers as the clients paid the keepers directly.
The women received only the
bare necessities of food and lodging. also
domestic
servants
of
brothel
category are the young pi-pa-chai
In some cases, they were keepers.
Related
to
this
("singsong" g i r l s ) , some of whom
were blind (Song 1923, pp. 252-53, 432)-
These g i r l s , purchased
i n China, were trained to be musicians and singers in streets or i n clubs at nights, and were usually under the direct charge of an older woman.
Their earnings were taken by their owners and they
were generally badly treated and forced to become prostitutes
or
mistresses when they grew older.
"Pawned" prostitutes were those working off a debt on behalf
of their parents or guardians.
Half of their earnings went to the
brothel keeper for food and lodging and the other half was kept by the women themselves and which could be used to pay off
debts (Purcell
1967, p. l 7 5 ) -
highly unlikely,
their
However, the latter situation
was
as the women's share was usually taken by other
men such as the secret society samserlg as payment for "protection" from other gangs of men who might kidnap them. Prostitutes early period.
who operated indeperndentiy were very few i n the Given the pervasive power of the secret societies,
any prostitute who attempted t o do so probably came under their
harassment.
They had to pay "protection" money to society members
in order to operate on their own, while half their earnings went
to brothel keepers in return for food, lodging, the use of brothel premises and the supply of clients Prostitutes' well
as
the
entertained
clients
capitalist by
singing,
(Purcell 196?).
included men from the working class as and
manager~ia1
provided
30
company
classes. in
gambling
They
also
sessions
and prepared opium for the men (Jackson 1961). distinction
gradually
Over the years, a
evolved i n the brothel system in which the
brothels were graded into classes.
7he younger and prettier women
worked in "high class" ones where they serviced wealthy men, both
Chinese and European.
Those in "lower class" brothels serviced
poor working class makes.
"Lower class" brothels were situated in
clearly known areas while the others tended to be more discreetly patronized "say" brothels.3 While the paternalistic view that lower c l a s s prostitutes is
are
and helpless
victims
indications
of rebellious
women who went against the control of
brothel keepers and of the reaction
not
he ld here (there are
defenceless
of prostitutes
to subsequent
state legislation against them Equoted i n Lim 1980, p. 1041),
i s neverthel ess true that Chinese prostitutes were severely
constrained by the
secret society men.
in colonial
tight control of
it
Malaya
keepers and
In this highly organized system of control s,
they were bought and sold l i k e commodities and had very l i t t l e
control
over their lives themselves.
watchful
eyes
prostitutes
of
the
brothel
They were always under the
keepers
and
older
or
former
who trained them and took charge of them, but who were
themselves also controlled by men.
There were few means of escape
and some brothel keepers hired samseng to intimidate and terrorize the girls gangs.
and to "protect"
Some of
by gangsters
them from being snatched by other
the rebellious g i r l s were put to shame and raped
to intimidate
them into
submission and obedience.
Some others were whipped, punished or made to do housework (Lim
1980, p. 104).
This intimidation
was further reinforced by the
traditional Confucian sense of f i l i a l obedience held by the girls
themselves (Purcell
1967, p. 177).
In varying degrees, most of
these women who were without their families regarded their keepers as having parental authority over them, and did not dare rebel or defy them for fear of punishment.
31
It
was thus a mixture of
fear,
intimidation
and
filial
obedience
themselves that further reinforced
the
on
part
their keepers' controls.
The interplay between class
and gender relations
clearly i n the organization of prostitution. leisure
activities
the women
of
by the interconnected
emerges
The organization
of
agents of the employer,
secret society leader and creditor kept the male workers and the
women indebted and was, i n effect, an indirect
form of control
over the men and a direct one over the women.
Within this direct
form of
servicing
workers',
control,
the women's role
leisure for
was the
the reproduction of
of male
their lab our power and
for the p r o f i t and revenue of owners.
Prostitution and Colonial Policies Colonial
state
policies
also
prostitutes' working conditions
set
the
and l i v e s .
context
of
Policies
towards the
t r a f f i c i n women and prostitution varied over periods,
on
various
intervention
control.
pressure
and
societies
conditions
However, from the 1870s onwards, the intervene
and check activities of in the Malay states.
of trade and investment
was one o
colonial
state
8a'»;ter's
control
the
which were considered threatening to the general
The monopoly of publ ic a c t i v i t i e s par t,
direct
In the early years of colonial rule, the state did not
was pressured to
secret
depending
and ranged from non-
to attempts to bring prostitution under i t s
intervene in the traffic. state
considerations
Chinese
of which prostfiution was a
the two major areas of r:onf1 j c t
and the
secret
societies,
of the t r a f f i c in labour
government's attempts
the
between the
other
supply.
being the
The coloni as
t o control these a c t i v i t i e s met w i t h varying
39
degrees of success.
It maintained a strong hold over opium farms
and opium sales and managed to wrest a monopoly of opium farms and smoke houses as from 1910.4
It
also head a monopoly of public
gambling whi ch was f armed out to tax f armers in the FMS.
Revenue
was further derived from the iioensing of brothels although there are no concrete figures opium smoking,
to
gambling,
show.
Together,
drinking
the
activities
and prostitution became the
major sources of revenue for the government.
The colonial
thus played a major role i n setting up and maintaining from which i t
benefited
directed
of
state
a system
but which i t s colonial
members
were so fond of attributing solely to the Chinese as their "four well known e v i l s " . Where
the
state
was
not
entirely
able
to
control
the
a c t i v i t i e s of the secret societies because of their power but yet stood
to
benefit
from them,
it
resorted
to
a policy
of
non-
Hence, in the struggles and general tolerance. between the state and the secret societies over the traffic and intervention
control or
of women, the s t a t e ' s aim was not to abolish the t r a f f i c
prostitution, but
to
regularize
and control the
females and to check the worst abuses of the t r a f f i c .
inflow
of
(The latter
contributed to what was considered the secret societies "riotous" a c t i v i t i e s threatening "peace and order" i n the colony.)
The colonial
government also f e l t i t
was unreal i s t i c to ban
prostitution, given the highly unbalanced sex r a t i o .
In Singapore
i n 1884, for example, there were 60,000 Chinese men compared with
6,600 women of whom at least 2,000 were prostitutes.
Every
Raffles
{1819-25) who founded Singapore appreciated that i t would be unrealistic to ban prostitution i n a predominantly male immigrant society
and
prostitutes.
he
only
forbade
men
living
off
the
earnings
of'
A ban would a l s o encourage homosexual prostitution
which was fostered
for many years by the importation of Hainanese
33
boys reputed to have f air skins and good Tooks.
Both features are
highly valued by the Chinese i n their perception of beauty. Thus, on the whole, state $01 i c e s
prostitution
before
limited controls
towards the t r a f f i c and
the 19205 was characterized
and a reluctance
by tolerance,
t0 take action other
curb abuses such as forced prostitution.
than to
To curb abuses, brothels
were legalized and registered under the Contagious Diseases Act passed i n 18?0, despite great opposition from brothel The features
of
this
keepers.
act are probably the same as those in the
Contagious Diseases Acts passed in Britain
at about the same time
t o register
venereal diseases as a
and examine "prostitutes" for
means of checking their spread among the soldiers
southern
England.
Under
these
prostitutes were registered,
acts,
women
and sailors
thought
subjected to a periodic
of
in
being
examination,
and i f found suffering from verlereai disease, were incarcerated i n a certified locked hospital
for a period (Waikowitz and lialkowitz
In Malaya, the Contagious Diseases Act and the Women and
1976).
G i r l s Act of 1896 were meant to check the worst excesses of the
traffic
such as slavery i n prostitution and venereal diseases.
Both acts provided for the incarceration
venereal
diseases
and
of women for treatment of
rehabilitation
for
"proper"
roles
as
respectable wives or workers in the Po Leung Kuk, an institution
set up for the "protection
of the good" (of Chinese women).
Contagious Diseases Act also gave power t o the protectorate
in
which
the
paternalistic offering local
colonial
of
the
responsibility for regulating
protection
wealthy
Vaughan, i n
"Protector
to prostitutes,
and middle-class speaking of
government to
of
system
assumed
prostitution and for
assisted by a committee of
Chinese men and colonial o f f i c e r s .
the protection offered
Chinese prostitutes under
"untiring exertions
Chinese"
The
the
by the colonial
act,
spoke of
the
the gentlemen appointed by the Government
t o carry out the provisions
of that ordinance
34
into e f f e c t , to get
these women free
and encourage them t o 1ead pure and virtuous
l i v e s ; many have, through their influence,
l e f t the brothel s and
married, and are happy and contented" (Vaughan 1971, p. 8 ) . Prostitution,
contagious prostitutes.
of
however,
venereal
continued
diseases
among
to
the
generate
male
and
of
the
While there i s no concrete evidence to show the rate
venereal diseases, their presence among the male workers and
prostitutes
which i f
unchecked, clearly
threatened to result
diseased labour forc e which would be detrimental of
problems
workers
production
consideration
in
mines,
plantations
assumed a particular
increased labour pi antations.
the
requirements
Furthermore,
for
and
seriousness the
rapidly
treatment for
in a
to the condition towns. in
This
the f ace of
expanding rubber
such diseases would incur
considerable costs for the colonial authorities and the employers, a point well illustrated by the fact that in the early 1900s when some medical benefits were being extended to mine workers, the
treatment
for venereal disease was not included.
The seriousness
of the problem was also highlighted by the prevalence of venereal disease among incarcerated
visit
women.
Purcell
for
example, i n his
to a Po Leung Kuk in Singapore in 1931 noted that of 266
g i r l s i n the institution, 159 of them were suffering from venereal disease (Purcell 1967, p. 178). Pressure was put on the colonial government to take action on venereal disease and p r o s t i t u t i o n throughout
and early ranging
twentieth
century.
from eminent
expressed mainly
and morality.
It
individuals
to
the r a t e nineteenth
came from
various
quarters
organized
groups
and were
in terms of prostitution's "dangers" to health
As early as the 1880s, a local Chinese rnunicipai
councilor i n Singapore, Tan Jiak Kim, spoke of "the absence of any
regulation
diseases,
for
arising
checking
from
the
the
spread
dangerous 35
of
trade
certain contagious
or
practice
of
prostitution, [which] publ ic
of
this
i s proving injurious t o the health of the
place..."
and called
for
regulations
public health (quoted i n Song 1923, p. 253). century, colonial
administrators
Chinese members of
social in
to protect
At the turn of the
and middle-class Christianized
clubs
and representatives of the Po
Leung Kuk
committee,
immorality
and the ruin of very many of the g i r l s " (Song 1923, p.
pressing
for
action,
spoke of
"much
The Advisory Committee on Social Hygiene i n the 1920s made
432).
recommendations on various European morality
grounds of what i t
health
and of
considered
protecting
were the "Chinese
Their recommendations, among others, included the
social e v i l s " . gradual
against
closure
procurement of
of
known
brothels,
the
recruits, the prevention
women and g i r l s
and the
suppression
of
prevention
of
the
of the exploitation
of
brothels
by
frequented
Europeans (cited in Lim 1980, pp. 103-4). By the late 1920s, the government was forced to tak e concrete
steps to deal with the problems generated by prostitution. 1927,
the
strategy.
colonial Part
of
government this
adopted
strategy
was
an the
anti-prostitution control
immigration for the purposes of prostitution. r e s t r i c t i o n on the inflow
t o check all
strategy involved
female
While there was no
of females, the Protectorate
the
control
of
undertook
The other part
brothel operations.
were allowed on a selective licensing Class" brothels
and
Brothels
system i n which the "higher
withdrawn and were forced to close.
brothels
of the
frequented by wealthy Chinese males and Europeans
were permitted while "lower class" brothels
occupation
of
female immigrants at the point of entry to ensure
that there were no "avowed" prostitutes.
class"
In
were told oily
those
to
had their licenses
The women of these
get married or
who
were
unable
transferred t o the "high c l a s s " ones (Lim 1980).
36
II
lower
find some other to
do
SO
were
Prostitutes Women in a public house entertaining a client with a "fingers" game. (By courtesy of Lim Kheng Chye.)
By 1930 however, due to further pressure on the government, brothels
were closed after much argument,
remained legal.
The Protectorate
additional responsibilities for girls
rescued
brothels.
At
from
immigration
subjected to close scrutiny
aided by the police
the
prostitution
although prostitution
incarceration of
and
points
for
all
the
assumed
women and
suppression
female immigrants
of
were
to ensure they did not enter for the
purposes of prostitution or domestic servitude (state action was at the same time being taken against
37
the traffic i n young girls
for domestic servitude as mud t s a i ) .
girl s were believed to
be victims
In cases where the women or
of
the t r a f f i c ,
they
were
detained and sent to the Po Leung Kuk in Penang, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. Contrary
closure
to i t s
of
brothels
prostitutes
aim of eliminating
reinforced
"underground"
it
into
prostitution however, the
and
"sly"
drove
the majority
prostitution.
For
of
the
prostitutes
from the "lower class" brothels who were t o l d to get
married
or
find
closed
in
1927,
Hostility
some other
such
occupation when such brothels
opportunities
were
extremely
and social stigma attached to prostitutes
samseng women prevented opp or unities
for
many
from marriage.
alternative
work as most of
were
limited.
as immoral,
There were few the work i n
mines and trades i n the towns were dominated by men.
the
Those cases
transferred
to "high c1 ass" brothels must have been r e l a t i v e l y few
and limited
to women who had the advantage of youth and beauty.
Many women therefore
resorted
to " s l y "
prostitution despite the
total ban on brothels and crackdown on prostitution by 1930.
The
economic depression of the 1930s saw even more women driven into prostitution
(Purcell
1967, p . 184).
"Sly" prostitution had the further effect of reinforcing
prostitutes' clients
dependence on gangsters and brothel keepers for
and
officials.
protection
from
funds
police
raids
and
Protectorate
While such raids broke up some of the organization of
the brothel-secret society the
the
of
chains and cut off
the samseng, they
quickly
reorganized
The number of touts employed on the streets
for clandestine prostitutes
a large
amount of themselves.
to s o l i c i t customers
increased considerably (Purcell 1967,
pp. 176-9Y)» State
Iegislation
as so
forced
38
prostitution
to
assume
new
form s.
Prostitutes moved their operations from open brothel s to
"sly" brothels, coffee»shops, lodging houses, hotels, dance-halls, cabarets and premises where rooms were set out.5
Some prostitutes
assumed disguises as cashiers, "singsong" g i r l s , taxi-dancers waitresses i n dance-haHs
and
arid cabarets i n amusement parks which
had became a feature of the 1930s, representing a new form of male 1 eisure a c t i v i t y i n which the p i easure of dancing, listening to songs and the company of escort g i r l s could be sought by paying a fee.5
However, not aH cashiers, "singsong" g i r l s , taxi-dancers and bar
waitresses
were
prostitutes
as
commonly
misconceived.
Professiorlal dancers and singers employed i n the cabarets received f i x e d say aries according t o their popularity and dance partners
in
addition,
received a share of the proceeds of the safe of dance
tickets.
In this way, they could usually earn enough as a dancer
to support themselves without having to resort t o prostitution an additional
means
of
income.
In
as
the 1930s the numbers of
taxi-dancers increased with the proliferation of dance~hai i s and "singsong" g i r l s were i n great demand (Purcell 1980, p . 104).
1967, p. 176; Lim
During the years of economic boom (1952-53) when
dance-haHs and cabarets reached the peak of prosperity, salaries of the singers reached $1,200 or more.
After the boom, salaries
as law as $300-$500 a month ( S t r a i t s
dropped to
Times Annual
1954_55). That cashiers
women
turned
to
and as "singsong"
taxi-dancing,
waitressing,
girls
be seen against
has to
work
as the
severely limited alternatives to earn self-supporting incomes for
women
in
general
alternatives conception their
to
and
for
ex-prostitutes
prostitution
tended
to
in
be
particular.
structured
that women's work was i n servicing,
traditional
roles
as
wives
39
and mothers
Any
by the
an extension of at
home.
Older
prostitutes had even fewer alternatives Some became servants i n brothels *young
g i r l s for
support
them
than young prostitutes.
or brothel keepers and acquired
training as prostitutes. as
their
"walking
These g i r l s would then
sticks"
with
their
incomes.
Topley's study (1958) of the single women who lived i n the c_hai tang (vegetarian h a l l s )
i n Singapore i n the immediate post-war
period found ex-prostitutes
and ex-dancers among the residents.
These were women who were unable to marry when young and in old age had nowhere to g0 and no one to turn to.
They thus turned t o
the vegetarian h a l l s which were virtually the only form of social organization material
that catered for single aged women.
support while religious
He re, they found
practices i n these halls offered
them salvation from their past stigmatized l i f e as prostitutes
and
dancers. Prostitutes
arrested i n police raids were incarcerated i n the
Po Leung Kuk for rehabilitation. traditional roles
and included
Rehabilitation the
meant a return to
teaching of
the traditional
s k i l l s of cooking and sewing as well as basic reading, writing and arithmetic
for
general
competence.
Unless adopted,
the
girls
stayed i n the Po Leung Kuk until they reached eighteen years of
age when they could leave to get a job or to get married.
The Po
Leung Kuk also served as a marriage centre where poor Chinese men
who could not afford the expenses of an arranged marriage chose their wives, subject to certain conditions
of suitability and the
consent of the g i r l s .
The Po Leung Kuk system of rehabilitation one extreme form of subordination
removed women from
which was regarded as immoral
and trained them to be workers and wives which were regarded as respectful and rightful roles for
women.
Where they previously
came under
owners,
the
thernseives
the
tight
control
of
girls
now found
i n a r e l a t i v e l y better position as workers and wives,
40
in so far control
as they now had some possibility of exercising more
over
their
lives.
Purcell,
a Protectorate
official,
claimed that most of the arranged marriages at the Po Leung Kuk were successful; if
not,
it
was largely due to poverty (Purcell
1967, pp. 178-79)World War
II
i n Malaya saw an even greater
prostitution, partly out of deliberate the conditions of war.
The colonial
increase in
policy and partly due to
state machinery which dealt
with prostitution collapsed and brothels re-emerged, together with gambling
f arms and amusement houses opened for
Japanese administration.
After
revenue by the
the initial waves of raping of
women by advancing Japanese soldiers (as well as local men), women were required to be offered as part of services demanded from the people by
Japanese military
officers.
The Japanese military
required villages to supply women for their troops.
In the larger
towns, young girls were rounded up and kept in military to
service
Japanese
soldiers
and
such brothels
brothels
were
se t up
wherever a garrison was stationed (Chin 1976, p. 16).
Other women
were forced
during
occupation.
prostitutes karayukisan.7
into prostitution by economic hardship The
Japanese
as
"rest
and
also
imported
recreation"
By the end of the occupation,
much worse than i t
Japanese
girls
or
the
Korean
(ianfu)
or
prostitution was very
had been at any time during the history of
Malaya.
Stigmatization of Prostitution
While prostitutes
had common origins
with other working women in
terms of class background, they were isolated from other women and from the general
working class by state
41 I
legislation and by the
control
of
reinforced
secret
non-conforming
negati ve
societies.
This
isolation
was
further
by moral ideas against prostitution and any form of behaviour
connotations
of
of
women which bore stigmatizing immorality,
"badness",
and
degradation,
helplessness, wretchedness, a craving for men and a preference for
selling sex for money over work. such concepts as sarnseng
sexually enticing
These ideas were embedded in
or (female thug), hau (sexually loose or
behaviour put on to
attract
men), t20 kai
(become a prostitute), kun t o (follow men) and associated with i t , the highly shameful and punishable
act of kun l o Chou (eloping
with men).
While some of these ideas were probably inherited from traditional Chinese conceptions of prostitutes and the
unconventional behaviour of women, other concepts such as samseng por and tzo kai were probably developed within the Malayan context
of women's position
as prostitutes
and their control
by secret
society men. The power and prevalence of these conceptions were so strong that any attempts by women to seek alternatives
to prostitution,
so long as such alternatives were held to be s t i l l non-conforming, generated conceptions
women.
quick and
responses to
to
reimpose
re-establish
the
and
control
reassert
and isolation
such of
Thus, the creation of new jobs for women in servicing in
the l930s drew much objection.
It was felt that female cashiers
and waitresses would become a source of trouble with the samseng and secret societies. Guild representing
The President of the Hock Chui Coffees fop
230 shops, said that the guild was prepared not
t o engage women i f other Chinese dialect groups would do the same (Lim 1980, pp. 104, 108).
for
encouraging
girls
to
The cabarets were strongly c r i t i c i z e d lead
a
"gay"
life.
Taxi-dancers,
waitresses and singsong girls were commonly seen as prostitutes or "loose" women who "went out and danced with men" or who liked to be " i n the company of men" (Purcell 1967, p . 1 7 7 ) .
42
The extreme subordination and stigmatization
of prostitutes
and non-conforming women also had the effect of reinforcing socialization
and control
to
and
enforce
uprightness" samseng.
and
maintain
to
family
over female members as the family sought the
protect
women's
"chastity",
them from being
"moral
deceived by the
Stigmatizing concepts originating from prostitution
non-conforming
behaviour
were
commonly
used by
working
or
class
parents to socialize and discipline female children into observing codes of
behaviour
ostracized
deemed proper
for
girls.
A g i r l might
or s t r i c t l y reprimanded as being samseng
having the intention
be
or, hau or
of tso k a i or kun 10 Chou, depending on the
nature of her non-conforming behaviour.8 L i t t l e i s known about the position of women i n prostitution in
the
immediate post-war
and post-coioniai
periods.
clear i s that, far from being eradicated, prostitution existence. brothels
Frequent
newspaper reports
of
What i s i s s t i l l in
women rescued from
in police raids and of brothel keepers and pimps fined i n
court
for
j i v i n g on the "immoral" earnings of prostitutes suggest
that
prostitution
is
legislation regarding
controlled
by
various
agencies.
State
prostitution has remained largely unchanged
and the systems of incarceration
and rehabilitation follow closely
those of the colonial Protectorate.
However, colonial
persistence
of
prostitution
into
the post-
period cannot be explained in terms of the cornmonly held
view that i t world's
this
oldest
control of
has always existed profession".
and w i l l
always exist
We have seen how the
women in prostitution have their basis
conditions i n China and Malaya.
existence
of
as "the
traffic
and
in the social
In the post-war and post-colonial
periods,
the
relations
and the subordination of women must similarly be seen i n
terms of the social conditions
prostitution
as
a form of
and relations of the times.
43
gender
HGTES
1
An outstanding example is the Chinese Captain Yap Ah Loy o f Kuala Lumpur. See Gullick (1955), Part A; and Comber (1959), Chapter l&.
2
Purcell (1967), p. 175. Prostitutes until the 19203 also included women of' European origin, whose career brought them eastwards over the years, Singapore as the "lowest point of` degradation". See Turnbull (1977),
p. laz. 3
First Report o f the Advisory Committee on Social Hygiene, Straits Settlements 1925 (cited in Lebra and Paulson 1980), p. 35.
-II
The revenue derived from opium amounted to about 50 per cent o f the revenue of the Straits Settlements between the years 1898 and 1906.
5
Report by the Secretary Enese Affairs o f the Straits Settlements on actions taken "__I - with reference to prostitution in 1927, in Secretary o f Chinese Affairs File 65/28, {cited in Lim 19B0, p. 103).
total
;___.._
6
Amusement parks remained a feature until the early l960s. An example is the Bukit Bin tang Amusement Park in Kuala Lumpur. It was and still is a well known brothel area.
7
The karayukisan are women who, from the nineteenth century onwards until the end of' World Her 1, left Japan to £ell sex in China, Siberia and especially Southeast Asia. The ianfu originate from the early karayukisan.
M
III 1
MUI TSAI IN DOMESTIC SERV1TU0E1
From the turn of
the century onwards, the t r a f f i c in women and
girl s between southern China and May eye included the importation
of young girl s for the purpose of domestic servitude as mui tsai. The mui tsai within
the
hardship,
system reflected
Chinese
social
the position
structure.
In
times
young g i r l s were sold or transferred
domestic servicing in return for
of poor women of
economic
as mui tsai
food and shelter.
for
When a ennui
tsai grew up, she was either married off to a man usually of her employer's
choice
or
remained
in
domestic
servitude
household.
She could also be a San p0 char ( l i t t l e daughter-in-
law) betrothed t0 a son of the household as his future
concubine. labour
Until
she reached a suitable
power could,
in
in
the
wife or
age for marriage, her
the meantime, be utilized
in
domestic
servicing and other work.
In Malaya, the mud .tsai system i s to be seen i n the context of
the
shortage
of
adult
women
for
reproductive
particularly i n weaithiy Chinese households,
poverty in China and Malaya.
servants based on a regular
new and unfamiliar system.
servicing,
and the conditions of
Some households hired make domestic wage system but this was a relatively Hired male domestic
lab our was more
expensive because fixed wages had to be paid and conditions
45
of
work negotiated
with
the make servants
who were organized i n
secret societies or groups and thus were in a position to bargain with the empIoyers.2
It
also jacked some of the advantages gained
from traditional forms of female domestic servitude,
particularly
those services required by female members of the household as w e ]
as the possibility
of the mui tsai becoming a wife or concubine of
a make member of the bouseho1d.3 control
In contrast,
the conditions for
by employers were greater under the traditional mui tsai
system and the demand for domestic lab our thus largely
f e l l upon
t h i s system.
The t r a f f i c i n young g i r l s that grew to meet this demand was largely fed by the conditions Malaya.
Mui tsai
from the
girls'
from China were acquired from traffickers
parents
by members of households returning
to
in
visits
Malaya.
Local-born and
or
or who came to join husbands and relatives
China for f amities
of poverty i n southern China and
single
mui
tsai
women
were
including
acquired
from
prostitutes
impoverished 1937,
(Woods
p . 118). The extent of the mui tsai
system i n Malaya i s d i f f i c u l t to
ascertain due to the mui t s a i ' s isolation
i n private households.
The number of mui tsai i n Singapore was estimated to be 7,000 by the Chinese Protector and 10,000 by another
1937, p . 190)
source in 1922 (Woods
and there were several thousands more i n the FMS.
In the same year, i t was estimated that mui tsai were arriving
a rate of sixty to seventy per month in the colony. probably
of
increased with l o c a l family formation
wives among the wealthy.
after 3,004
at
The numbers
and the immigration
The number of registered
mud tsai
their registration was made compulsory in 1933 stood at in
that
concentrations
year
and
of mui tsai
2,109
in
mid-1936.
The
largest
were i n the Straits Settlement
(SS)
particular t y Singapore, and the main towns of the Federated Malay
46
States
(FMS),
where there
were 1arge Chinese settl ements and
wealthy Chinese households. Some information i n the registration
on the mui t s a i ' s backgrounds can be found records of the colonial
administration.
In
1934, of the total number of 2,749 mui tsai recorded i n Malaya (irzciuding Singapore), 32.4 per cent were born i n Malaya and 54 per cent were born i n China.
The birth origin of 10 per cent of
the total cases were unknown and 89 per cent of them were without
parents. 60 per
Thirty per cent were under ten years of age and nearly cent of them were between the ages of ten and fifteen.
Among those born i n Malaya were g i r l s acquired from impoverished
f amities
and
single
mothers,
examination of 100 mui tsai
most
of
acquired
them were between
transaction
including
employed by Teochew
the
ages
prostitutes.
A test
i n Singapore in 1930 revealed that six
of
and
shopkeepers thirteen.
and were The money
involved i n acquiring them ranged from $50 to $260.
However, a large number of the g i r l s were acquired i n China and there was thus no evidence of payment.
The work of the mui tsai
in
a wealthy Chinese household
involved domestic servicing such as cleaning and washing, running of errands,
household production,
servicing
and providing
for the female and sometimes male members of the household. were rarely paid, w i t h only food, clothing
and shelter
company
Wages
provided.
In homes where they were treated more l i k e adopted daughters, they were relatively better off but i n homes where they were acquired
mainly for
their lab our , they had to work long hours and were
of ten ill-treated.
their
owners in
They were generally under the tight control of
a system of
traditional
authority and f i l i a l
piety.
The mud tsai
system appears to have been intensified and the
47
The above was a typical bond signed between the colonial government and an adopted child'e parents to guarantee that she would not be used for domestic servitude or prostitution. (Photograph by courtesy of the Ministry of` Community Development, Singapore.)
Hui tsai
1
I
mui t s a i ' s position deteriorated
in China. to
In Malaya the mui t s a i ' s position was more vulnerable
exploitation
relatives
in Malaya compared with the case
and
ill-treatment.
In
China,
and
pare-nts
of the mui tsai probably lived i n some proximity
to the
household that had acquired her and could therefore exercise some
amount of surveillance over her welfare. girls were t00 far
In Malaya, the imported
away from their parents or had lost
contact
with them and could not seek their support or protection in case of
ill-treatment.
probably contact
Similarly,
children
of
local
prostitutes
girls
and
with their parents or mothers.
households made
support.
In
it
extremely
China,
of
women,
whom were had lost
Isolation i n individual
difficult
some of
some
single for
mui
tsai
them could return to
to
seek
their
own
families when their parents repaid their debts but those in Malaya
were bound to the household indefinitely as they had nowhere to go to.
When they grew up, they ..either remained with the household or
were married
or
sold o f f ,
depending on the
choice
of
their
employers. The conditions colonial
of the mud tsai led to various pressure on the
government, mainly
from Christian quarters,4 to
take
action, and i n 1933 a commission was set up to study the mud tsai system in Hong Kong and May eye.
The Majority Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the mui tsai
system
conditions.
in It
Maiaya5
took
an
optimistic
view
head that mui tsai were generally
of
their
well treated
and that the f a c i i i t i e s of the protectorate system were sufficient to ensure against cruelty and i11~treatment.
The Minority Report,
however, conflicted with the Majority Report. In describing the conditions of the mui tsai, E. Picton Turberviiie, a member of the commission and signatory of the Minority Report, cited one witness of the cases sent to the Po Leung Kuk: 49
Sixty per cent of them were i11-treated, beaten and scolded
and
many cases who had been terribly
treated as mud Tsai, some of whom s t i l l bore on their bodies the marks of their treatment.
IN-treatment
also
overwork
came
in
other
forms
such
as
and
overpunishment.
She also cited results
of medical examinations i n the Po Leung
Kuk, which revealed cases in which mui tsai had been raped or sexually assaulted by their owners or empl overs and sometimes by a son of the family (Wood 1937, p. 232). t _sai was also cited by others.
The ill-treatment of mud
In a v i s i t t o the Po Leung Kuk i n
Singapore i n 1938, Lasker (1972, p . 35) noted that about half of the g i r l s had been sold by their parents
taken
from
their
owner-mistresses
by
or mothers and had been
court
order
because of
ill-treatment. Prior t o 1932, the colonial authorities took the stand that
while i t did not recognize the mui tsai_~ system, i t was not i l l e g a l t o keep a young girl as mui t s a i . the
Labour
Ordinance
The mui tsai were covered under
and Labour Code as domestic
under the Women and G i r l s Protection Ordinance.
servants
and
Under the Labour
Ordinance, the master or mistress of the mui tsai were regarded as
her lawful guardian, while the Protection Ordinance was invoked to deal
with
cases
Protectorate, against
of
ill-treatment.
According
to
the
Chinese
the inspection of women and g i r l s was not directed
the mui tsai
system but
to d e ]
with iii-treatment and
slavery.
The SS government began to take action against the mud tsai
system i n the 1ate 1920s as a result of pressure from various quarters,
Targely on grounds of cruelty.
50
In 1925, the Femal e
Domestic Servants B i l i was passed to deal with the iii-treatment of young servants by making i t
an offence to acquire or employ a
mui t s a i less than ten .years 01d.
However, this was ineffective
because i t was impossible to prove the age or the circumstances of a mui t s a i ' s acquisition. Further
pressure
Jed to
the Mui Tsai B i l l
provided for
the compulsory registration
between 1933
and 1935
Under
system.
Protectorate
the
and
bill,
for
the
extensive
of
i n 1933 which
existing mui tsai ab ol iti on
eventual
powers
of
the
were head by
the
to deal with registration, acquisition
and transfer
of mui t s a i , their wages and conditions of work, the detention of cases of tsai's
iii-treatment,
conditions
at
prosecution
their
places
and the
of
inspection
work
as
well
of
mui
as
at
immigration points to check against their t r a f f i c .
The Mui Tsai B111 was aimed at making the mud tsai workers who would be paid wages for
who
could
1 eave their
employers
"free"
their domestic services and
if
they
wished.
It
set
a
compul sort wage of at Teast $1 per month to be paid to those Tess than ten years old, $2 for those between ten and fifteen years of age and $3 for those above f i f t e e n .
However, despite the b i l l ' s aim to make mui tsai free wage workers,
the wage rates
set were more of
a token than a real
l i v i n g wage on which the mui tsai could survive without depending
on the employing household for the provision
of her other needs.
Nor could they be considered free workers who could leave their employers i f
they wished.
Most of them had lost
contact
their parents and had nowhere t o go, and their isolation
with
within
the household further prevented them from knowing of alternatives outside.
Their
conditions
were, therefore, l i t t l e
changed and
most of them remained with their owners u n t i l they were married or
sold o f f .
51
and checks under the Mui Tsai B111 also had the
Registration
effect of driving the system underground.
Evasion of registration
was widespread, with only a fraction of mui tsai registered 1937,
p.
adopted
Owners
226).
daughters.
immigration
took
Checks
to
disguising
against
the
their mui
mui
tsai
(Woods
tsai
as
traffic
at
points were circumverated by traffickers who claimed
mui tsai were their adopted daughters.
Only in clearly suspected
cases were the mui tsai
and their traffickers detained.
registration
thus
and
checks
had
the
unintended
effect
The of
perpetuating the system through the g i r l s ' disguise as daughters. Under the Mud Tsai B i l l ,
the Protectorate
also adopted a
paternalistic system of protection
of the girls where " i n case of
ill-treatment, they ( t h e mui t s a i )
knew they had only to go to the
protectorate
for
assistance"
and
the
Commission
stressed the Protector's "easy accessibility appeal" (Woods 1937, p. 189).
of
Enquiry
even to a mui tsai to
This overlooked the f act that the
majority of the unregistered mui t s a i , given their isolation, nothing of the existence of the Protectorate l e t it.
Furthermore,
the mui tsai
by their owners.
were generally
alone approach
closely controlled
7he sense of f i l i a l piety and fear
g i r l s worked strongly
knew
among the
against whatever wish they had to complain
against their owners.
Nevertheless, mui tsai could be detained and incarcerated in the Po Leung Kuk by Protectorate
and Po Leung Kuk o f f i c i a l s on
grounds of iii-treatment under the Mui Tsai B i l l and the Women and Girls
Protection
Ordinance.
shifted
the
colonial
protector
paternalism
Po Leung Kuk protection of mui tsai
and authority of
their
and Po Leung Kuk o f f i c i a l s .
owners to
Kuk, the system of rehabilitation removed the mui tsai extreme form of subordination traditional roles
and prepared them for
as women and workers.
52
the
In the Po Leung from one
respectable
And unless they
were
adopted, the ex-mui _tsai remained in the Po Leung Kuk until they were
eighteen
when
they
left
servants, or to get married.
to
work,
usually
as
domestic
As discussed earlier, the Po Leung
Kuk also served as marriage c e r t e s where suitable men came to choose wives from.
Thirteen per cent of those registered
married over the 1933-36 period.
Alternatives
cases
to marriage and the
traditional forms of work i n domestic service were very limited. Despite the above shortcomings of the bi11, colonial state $01 i c e s
attempted
to eradicate the system through
The Minority Report's recommendations for legal
as I
status of mui tsai
the
and the registration and protection
g i r l s under twelve who were transferred
were adopted.
ss
The
minimum age
legislation.
the abolition of
the of
from their parents,
Children's Ordinance passed i n 1938-40 fixed
limit
for
domestic
p r o f i t e d c h i l d labour below that age. not enforced because of
the outbreak
service
at
fourteen
and
However, the ordinance was of war.
After the war in
1949, i t was incorporated under the Young Persons Ordinance which consolidated and extended the laws protecting young persons. By the l a t e 1940s and early 1950s, i t was assumed that, given
the above pieces of legislation, there was no further need to deal with the mui tsai system despite renewed t r a f f i c in young g i r l s .
The system was also fast being replaced by hired adult female service.
The matter, therefore, became largely one of preventing
the illegal immigration of mui tsai by the late 1940s. cases appearing on the register, i t
Of those
was assumed that there were no
more problems as they had reached the age of eighteen arid had therefore passed into the general adult population.
the
poor
economic
background
commission took the optimistic
of
girls
were
In so far as
considered,
the
view that w i t h an improved status
in the l i f e of Chinese women in Malaya, the system would die out i n the course of time.
Although some attention was given to the 53
welfare services offered such as
social
by the state to impoverished f amities,
services,
education
and public
commission noted at the same time that entirely "feasible"
assistance,
the
these services were not
for reasons of "cost and demand" (Woods 1937,
p . 112).
L i t t l e i s known about female child labour in the post-war and
post-colonial
period other than that i t
there i s l i t t l e recorded evidence, i t
s t i l l exists.
Although
i s known that i t i s s t i l l a
fairly common practice for poor f amities to send daughters to work as domestic servants i n households in return for food, shelter and possibly
a small wage.
scale industries
A recent study of child labour
i n small-
pointed out poor economic background as a crucial
f actor leading to male and female child labour, although
it
did
not examine any cases of g i r l s in domestic service (La i 1982).
It
is
likely
diminishing,
that
this
given
.
form the
of
work
expansion
for of
young
girls
alternative
is
fast
forms
of
employment as well as the recognition of a minimum primary school education for g i r l s .
NOTES
1
For this chapter, most of the information has been drawn from H.H. Woods, Mud Tsai in Honqkorlq and Malaya, Report o f Commission, no. 125 (London: HMSO, 1937).
2
Colonial Office, colonial
See Sung (1923), pp. 238-39 For a brief account o f the male domestic workers' strike.
3
Furthermore, For some households, bride-money could be gained when disposing o f the girls when they grew up.
a
S F ampl , H 1 d d H BI d, Child S1 Tsai Qystem (London: Sheldon Press, 1930).
5
The report (Woods 1937) contained a Majority Report and a Minority Report.
54
y i
H
gku q:
Th
Mui
. .. . ...
6
Hoods (1937), p. 197. Evidence was based on are examination of' 101] selected cases. It was found that all but six were happy and there were no definite cases o f cruelty. However, the commission itself" admitted that the girls were taught by their employers what to say at the enquiry as news of` it had spread.
55
IV
TIN MINING
It
i s d i f f i c u l t to establish when women f i r s t began to work i n t i n
mining.1
Mining on a large scale began as are exclusively male
occupation
with
nineteenth
century and since then, various methods of mining have
the
import of
male Chinese labour
been dominated by male workers. probably began with family
the mid-
Mining work by Chinese women
formation
the 1900s until World War I t .
in
and female immigration
from
The process of family formation had
already begun by the turn of the century
when some mine workers
returned to China to fetch their wives or sent for
them.
The
immigration of relatively large numbers of females, some of whom went to the mining areas to work or workers, greatly p.
subsequently married mine
increased their numbers i n mining (Blythe 1938,
The 1930s particularly saw an i n f l u x
103).
of women into
mining as this was the period of significant immigration Of single women into
Malaya.2
after the indenture
Chinese women thus entered mining mainly
system was abolished in 1914,
and included
both married women whose husbands were also miners and single women working individually or i n groups.
A large number of the
latter
associated
were
anti-marriage
Hakka
and
Samsui
women
with
the
groups in south China.
The number of Chinese women in mining can be inferred from the number of duTang (pan washing) passes issued since t h i s method
56
Dulang washers The vast majority of` women in tin mining work were dulang washers. They were employed in mines owned by big companies or were self'-employed in marginal mines and rivers. (Photograph by courtesy of the National Archives, Malaysia.)
was used only by women, the overwhelming number of Chinese.
whom were
First issued by the colonial government i n 1907, the
number of dulang passes increased from 8,278 in 1909 to 12,867 in 1920 and 11,809 in 1936 (Jackson 1961, p. 146; Sieve 1953, p. 406). By 1931, out of a total working population of 89,618 i n mining and
quarrying, 10,168 or 11.3 per cent were women most of whom were Chinese (Del Tufo 1949, p. 103).
had become the third largest women after rubber though (Del
the
industry
Tufo 1949,
pp.
By the late 1940s, tin mining
source of
cultivation
employment for
and servicing
remained predominantly 532-33).
Chinese
activities, even a male occupation
However, their participation in
mining fluctuated depending on economic and p o l i t i c a l situations.
57
During the depression years (1914-18)
their numbers varied from
14,000
about 11,300
t o nearly
16,000 but
fe11 to
i n the late
1930s, only to r i s e rapidly to more than 20,000 i n the immediate post-war years (Jackson 1961, p. 146; Slew 1953, p. 406).
Women
workers i n t i n mining were either wage workers or self-operators. O f f i c i a l figures
in 1947 showed that the majority of them were
wage workers and the rest were "own account" workers (Dei Tufo 1949, pp. 532-33).
A distinct
sexual division of 1about existed i n the various
mining methods i n which men dominated at the various levels
and
parts of each labour process while women's work were confined to what was considered as general
unskilled mining and manual work
(Awberry and Dalley 1948, pp. 58-59; Slew 1953).
Women's mining
work was almost exclusively limited to dulang washing. worked
at
ore-dressing
extraction
(washing
of
and
ore)
w h i l e manual work done by others
clearing,
lampan
included
(sieve)
weeding,
odd jobs, washing and what were known as kongsi kung
(company work) and tsap kung (odd jobs). dulang washing were regarded as unskilled, were not
under
Some women
Such manual work and marginal work.
Women
allowed t o tend machines or work i n underground mines
the
managerial,
Mines
and Machines
supervisory,
Enactment.
technical
l e v e l s , such as kepala (contractor),
mining
And and
jobs
at
the
apprenticeship
assistants, f i t t e r s , smiths
and apprentices were all for men. Concomitant with their unskilled manual jobs,
women workers
were a t ] found at the bottom Ievei of the wage structure. workers were also paid lower wages than male workers for jobs.
Women the same
In kongsi kung and tsap kung, women workers were paid an
average d a i l y wage of $1.30 compared w i t h $2.60 received by ma1 e
general
workers
in
the
dredge mining areas i n 1947.
In
the
hydraulic mining areas, women general workers were paid an average
58
daily wage of $1.05, while male general workers received $1.28 (Awberry and Dalley 1948).
In the annual reports
of the Mines
Department, the wages per kung (daily average rate per eight hours
of work) of women workers in the selected years 1929-32 and 1950 appear to be higher than male wages. and $1.98
Women workers received $0.25
i n 1929-32 and 1950 respectively,
received $1.46 i n 1950 (Slew 1953, p. 42?).
while men workers However, only male
workers were supplied food and accommodation under the kongsi_ contract
If
system.
the daily cost of
food and accommodation
allowance of $0.13-0.17 and $1.20 for the two periods respectively were subtracted from female average wages, then their real wages were, in f act,
lower than that of the male workers.
In Slew's
study of male and female wages of thirty mines i n the early 1950s, the same reason accounted for favour
of
women
workers.
the discrepancy Furthermore,
in money wages i n
women
workers,
being
irregular piece-rated workers, did not receive bonuses which were
pa id only if a number of hours of work had been done i n a month on a regular daily or monthly paid basis (Slew 1953, pp. 422, 429). The differential wages paid to men and women workers i n the mines arose partly from the different systems of employment which
they came under.
In the contract
system of lab our allocation,3
the gang of workers under a contractor depended on him to secure a
contract
their
for
supervision.
work
and
earnings
and came under
his
They entered into agreement with him on a daily rate
of so much per kung while the contractor himself obtained a cut from the sum agreed upon with the mine owner on the contract. Regular workers were usually provided food and male workers were given accommodation at
the kongsi
houses (company mine h o u s e s ) .
In most Chinese and European-owned mines, other than the work of the administrative staff directly employed by the owner, various aspects
of
the
mining process
ore recovery, engineering
such as ore dressing, residual
and technical works were a l l
59
under t h i s
contract were
system of
regul
1 about allocatiorl.
monthly-salaried
at
or
Almost aH may e workers
daily-paid
empl eyed d*Erectly by the
mine owner or
female labour
daily-paid
was mostly
contract
contractors.
or piece-rated
workers However,
casual
and
irregular 1lab our and thus did not receive any of the benefits.
The sexual
division
of
labour
was further reinforced
perpetuated through a system of male apprenticeship by
owners
daughters
older
and contractors
and young women i n
women on the
reinforced
on
the methods of
other hand.
by state
one hand,
the
legislation
It
was
women as polluting
training
of
duiang washing by
also perpetuated
and
Ideologically,
it
was
system i n which women were regarded as
"bad Tuck", a version of
bearers of
and
prohibiting women from tending
machines or working in underground mines.
sustained by a make belief
and
i n the mines
the traditional notion of
agents in Chinese culture.
It
was a belief
that held much sway among the rnale workers working under dangerous conditions
i n the mines.
In
f a c t , before 1900, women were not
allowed to approach the mines for fear they brought "bad luck" and
caused accidents or even deaths (Slew 1953, p. 4 2 4 ) . The r i g i d sexual d i v i s i o n of lab our i n t i n mining a c t i v i t i e s
thus largely has i t s roots in the historical development of mine which has been almost exclusively male from i t s very
labour
beginning and has remained so throughout.
Women entered mining i n
r e l a t i v e l y insignificant numbers only i n the later phases of the
industry's
development and the
mine workers.
first
ones were mostly
wives of
By the time immigrant women entered mining i n large
numbers i n the l a t e 1920s and 1930s, the practice
workers and male interests
of hiring male
at various levels and processes of work
i n the different methods of mining were already deeply entrenched. Women
could
only
u n s k i l l e d work
enter
processes,
what
were
regarded
mainly dulang
marginal mining land. 60
washing
as in
marginal tailings
and and
While there i s some truth in saying that women's jobs in mining were of a peripheral that what constitutes
and unskilled nature, i t i s also true
s k i l l e d and unskilled 1abour and what women
can or cannot work at i s socially defined.
Hence, dulang washing
was defined as a woman's job and only women were allowed to do i t . It
was also regarded
as only
a method of recovery rather than
mining.
This definition of s k i l l overlooks the fact that dulang
washing
demands
skilful
estimation
of
ore
concentrations
s k i l f u l hard lab our i n separating ore from the soil ore.
It
over
the
and
and dressing
also overlooks the special advantages of dulang washing other
washing i s technically
methods of
mining.
able to recover recovered
otherwise be l o s t .
by
It
Although primitive, dulang
ore that any
other
cannot be profitably method
incl odes panning of
and
which
ore which escapes
concentration in t a i l i n g s and of ore in marginal mines, r i v e r s
streams.
Despite
its
peripheral
nature
or
would
and small
and
individual
output, i t accounted on the average for f i v e per cent of the total
annual output by all methods of production throughout the f i r s t half of the twentieth century.4 Equally significant and peripheral
work of
i s that what i s regarded as the casual women ignores the importance of dulang
washing t o the requirements of mining capital i n terms of the changing allocation of iabour. This clearly showed up during
specific periods of economic and political c r i s i s . The s t a b i l i t y of employment and wages was highly dependent on the international t i n market
of
and during the
economic depression
the 19305 when make employment and wages i n the mines f e w ]
drastically (Palmer
1960, p . 2 3 6 ) , women and their f amities who
were not repatriated or fend for themselves. subsistence
f arming
absorbed into
r e l i e f work were l e f t
to
Many of the women took to duiang washing and and the number of
61
duiang
washers increased
from less than 9 per cent of total number of t i n mine employees in 1929 to 22 per cent i n 1932 at the depth of the depression (Slew
1953, p. 405).
(For old women unable to work, the Chinese mine
owners
for
argued
their
repatriation
repatriation scheme of the colonial
to
government.
China
women repatriated during the depression i s not known.) during
the
war
under
the
The number of old
when dulang passes were freely
Similarly,
issued by
the
Japanese i n an effort to raise tin production, dulang washing was taken up by thousands of women as an essential means of survival for
their f amities.
hardship
and
This was in the f ace of extreme economic
the
households.
absence
or
death
of
many males
of
their
In the immediate post-war years of unemployment and
severe food shortages, women again took up dulang washing to earn essential
incomes.
passes to provide
The B r i t i s h administration re-issued
dulang
employment to women and partly to keep t i n
output i n the country as high as possible before the mines could resume operations.
By the end of 1946, their numbers had almost
doubled from 12,000 in 1936 to nearly 23,000 and during the next three years, the number stood at around 20,000 (Yip 1969, p. 305, Sieve 1953,
p.
Duiang washing became the most important
406).
mining method after dredging and gravel accounting for
production
the total output i n 1946 ( Y i p
of
25.4 per cent
pumping, i t s
1969, p. 402).
The foHowing years was a period of militant and severe economic hardship population
were relocated
Emergency rule.
when large sections
into "new villages"
This was to prevent
iabour activity of the Chinese
(Nyce 1962)
under
them from giving support to
communists who were engaged i n armed conflict with the colonial government.
as
in
During this period, women in these villages
squatter
responsibilities
and of
mining
areas
continued
to
as well
bear
the
family and subsistence maintenance through
duiang washing and various
occupations.
62
In other words, female
workers
served
as a reserve
army of
casual
Tabour drawn into
mining at c r i t i c a l periods of the industry to sustain the industry
until i t got back onto i t s feet. Casual labour 'is i n general cheap and flexible as i t does not involve
bonuses,
payments
regular
permanent
workers,
in
kind
While men and women both constituted female casual specific
lab our made up i t s
characteristics
and other
and can be easily
especially
benefits
due to
hired and f i r e d .
part of t h i s casual lab our, majority i n mining
and bore
attractive to mining capital.
As women and wives, women workers carried with them socialized attributes
attributes
of
docility,
chastity
and industriousness.
These
were sustained in male-dominated mining communities and
made women workers easy to control
when extended from home and
between husband and wife, to the workplace.
relations
While the
men workers' social l i f e focused around clan associations,
secret societies, especially
kongsi,
gambling and opium smoking (as well as brothels
i n the early period),
the activities of women l i v i n g in
mining and squatter communities were confined to home and work.5 As early as 1909, the Mines Department reported that there i s no [more] pleasing sight to be seen i n the Federated Malay States than the Chinese woman washing for the t i n ore i n a stream -- up to her waist in
water
--
with a small child strapped to her back
above her waist. these States...
Of a t ] the alien races who j i v e in there
these women, who For are
not
to
are none to be compared with sobriety, morality and honesty
be beaten...
(quoted
"sobriety"
ensured
in
Jackson 1961,
p , 146). While
their
productivity,
their
hard
primary responsibilities
63
work in
the
with family
high as
wives and mothers enabled employers to regard their work in mining only as marginal or supplementary to the maintenance of the household,
and could
rnarginai
therefore be hired
and unskilled
as casual
workers
in
jobs at dependents' wages.
While women workers were treated only as a reserve army of labour for
the mining industry, the work opportunities
nevertheless necessary
for
households. poverty,
constituted the
some
of
maintenance
The 1after
the of
few
the
sources
women's
available
of
income
f amities
or
i s better understood in the context of
indebtedness and unemployment within mining and squatter
communities in which the poor mining family of ten came under the
powerful
grips
contractor,
of
the
ore dealer,
monopsonistic creditor,
(sole)
kongsi
company storekeeper
miner, who were
of ten one and the same person or were closely interconnected agents (Yip 1969, pp. 92-3). Various family members had to seek
incomes towards maintaining the entire family household.
For the
women not only did they have to see to household reproductive labour,
they also had to earn incomes through various means, such as through dulan_g washing and casual work in the mines, odd jobs, vegetable growing and livestock
maintain
f arming for food subsistence, to
and reproduce the family.
That
women workers i n
the
kongsi worked on average 7% hours per day while men worked a longer nine-hour day
(Awberry
and Dalley
1948,
pp.
58-9; Slew
1953, pp. 431-32) overlooks the fact that women also worked at household reproductive work and other income-generating activities which when added to kongsi work hours, could amount to fourteen or sixteen hours of work per day for
estimates
of
women s contributions
the women.
While there are no
to household income
it
is
highly probable that in some f amities, the contribution of women's earnings
to total family
income was higher
than that of the men
some of whom squandered money on gambling and other male leisure activities. 6»1
Single
women,
many
of
whom
were
self-operating
dulang
washers, did not escape the grips of monopsonists and creditors and the general
marginal
conditions
miners
moriopsonistic
the
on
Many dularig washers and
basis ore
credit
the
from
dealer/financier
terms of
the
credit.
and were
Marketing channels
The only
alternative
for
to
tin
the ore
was the smelting agency which tended not to accept small
deliveries of concentrates at a time. small deliveries
of concentrates,
fee
every
of
of
concentrates only to licensed t i n ore dealers
concentrates were clearcut. dealer
the
mine owner cum t i n
compelled to sell
under
of poverty.
operated
$4 for
of
delivery
In fact,
concentrates
one-ninth ton i n weight (Yip 1969, pp. 29-30).
l i t t l e choice but to sell washers were, under
to ore dealers.6
normal
to discourage
they charged a small "parcel"
conditions,
of
less
than
Dulang washers had
Furthermore, dulang
allowed to s e l l
only
a
limited amount each month, the quota being imposed to regulate production
under various
international
tin
control
agreements.
The amount of tin mined was also dependent on weather and soil conditions
and quotas could well be reached within the f i r s t two
weeks of the month (Y ip 1969, pp, 303-5; Sieve 1953, pp. 407-9).
Dulang washers therefore had to turn to other sources of income to maintain themselves.
rubber estates,
These included tapping and weeding i n nearby
vegetable growing and livestock
farming and odd
jobs i n mines as piece-rated casual workers. Some of the single women workers, who earlier belonged to the anti-marriage
movement i n China, f e w ] back on i t s
ensure economic survival and i n o`ld age. leader
owners.
and support during
practices
to
their working j i v e s
They operated i n small groups of s i x to ten, the
among them bearing
the
task
of
securing
work
from mine
Work was distributed on a profit-sharing basis among the
group members w i t h the leader the contract
taking
a commission for
obtaining
and for her s k i l l at estabiishirzg the amount of ore
55
recoverable.
Should the actual output be below estimation,
they
were able to bargain for a change in the terms of the contract as
an organized group.
They might
as so
share in food and housing in
fernande k_ongsi houses (Sieve 1953, pp. 410-11). was
organized
around
collective
adoption of female children
living
Security in 01d age
and
as daughters.
the
purchase
or
These daughters were
trained to work at duiang washing and socialized
into traditional
f i l i a l roles of daughters who would care and support their mothers especially
in old age.
The position
the
of Chinese women in mining illustrates clearly
dynamic interaction
incorporated
between gender and class:
they
were
into the mining economy as workers but only as casual
workers in unskilled and lower paid jobs within a clear cut sexual division
of lab our.
This subordinate
their social position
work status
was shaped by
as women, whether as singles or as wives or
women had to bear the consequences of poverty and the responsibilities of overcoming i t dependents.
Caught in this dual position,
which were heightened in times of depression and c r i s i s
in the
industry and wider economy.
H0755
1
The Malaya were already involv d in small-scale tin mining as a side activity
to pad growing but it is u r n wn if' Malay amen w r 2
Blythe (1953).
While there were only 3,829 women in
i v Iv d. the major mining areas
o f Kinta, Perak in 1879, their numbers had increased to 19,503 or 16 per cent of the total production in 1901, 36 per cent in 1931 and 11-6 per cent in 1947 (Doi 1955). 3
This contract
system
is
a
development
From
the earlier indenture labour
system. Despite the latter's bolition, few Chinese workers became free wage workers. They remained in go gs under a work contractor and obtained wages ore a contract system.
a
As late as 1963, it Malaya.
Wages v tied from gang to gang and by industry.
still acc unfed for nearly 3 per cent of` total output of
Boi (1955), p.
350.
66
5
mi iulng ut her
category
of`
women
in
the
mining
communities
was
the
prostitutes. 6
In Kantar in 1956 For example,
20 per cent o f the concentrates purchased by from marginal
the tin ore dealers came from dulanq washing and the rest miners mostly operating on credit.
67
V
RUBBER ESTATE PR0DUCTI0N1
It
was noted earlier that
secure,
cheap
plantations,
and
colonial
the
malleable
ethnicity
consideration.
in
and
Indian
sources
gender
labor
various strategies
was
of
were
and Javanese labour)
for
focal
recruited
government and came to constitute
workers by the 1930s.
labour
two
to obtain
rubber
points
directly
by
of
the
the majority of estate
However, Chinese labour
(as well as Malay
was also recruited, to a lesser
private employers and through free immigration
for
extent,
by
estate work.
Thus, in 1907 there were 5,388 Chinese making up 9 per cent of the total estate workforce of 58,073 and this proportion increased to
19 per cent in 1911, 26 per cent i n 1919, 25 per cent i n 1929 and
24 per cent in 1935 (calculated from Parmer 1960, p. 273).
By
1947,
of
rubber
production
was
ore
of
the
largest
sources
employment among the Chinese after mining and services.
Within
the estate workforce, Chinese workers comprised the second largest group after the Indians.
Despite the colonial
government's attempts
to control
the
overall supply of Chinese `Iabour, i t encouraged the free inflow of female Chinese iabour., the
agricultural
This was part of the overall aim t o expand
population
particularly
for
rubber
through l o c a l f amity formation and to thus ensure
and permanent work f o r c e ,
By 1933,
68
female
estates
a more stable
and c h i l d
lab our
constituted 34 per cent of the estate labour force, the proportion increasing
to
45 per
cent
in
1947 and 47 per
Chinese women made up the majority
cent
i n 1957.
i n these total s after Indian
women, for lowed by May ay and Javanese women.
Chinese women made
up 5 per cent
(5,267) of the total female workforce i n 1921 and
this proportion
increased to 9 per cent (13,715) and 25.5 per cent
(45,738) i n 1931 and 194? respectively (Dei Tufo 1949, p. 113). The absence of r e s t r i c t i o n s of female immigration
led to a
steady growth i n the number of Chinese women working and l i v i n g i n the
estates,
immigrants.
especially
the
during
1930s'
influx
of
female
Blythe (1947) noted the extraordinary increase i n the
employment of Chinese women on estates as members of family lab our
l i v i n g in
family kongsi
groups i n all-female
houses and as single
women l i v i n g
kongsi houses in the late 1930s.
in
In the
1940s the increase in the Chinese female estate population was due to the proliferation of a squatter labour was recruited.
single
largest
population from which female
By 1947, rubber c u l t i v a t i o n had become the
source of
entire agricultural sector
employment for (Del
Chinese women i n
Tufo 1949, pp. 442-45).
the
Chinese.
women made up 20 per cent of the total Chinese estate lab our force by 1937 and this
proportion
increased to 33.5 per cent and 45.2
per cent i n 1947 and 1952 respectively Chinese c h i l d labour constituted
(Gamba l962a, pp. 250-51).
an average of 8 per cent of the
total Chinese labour forc e over the same period. lab our together
Female and child
formed nearly 54 per cent of the total Chinese
labour force in the late 1940s and early 19505 and constituted a
family
mode
of
employment
similar
to
that
of
Indian
family
labour. However, while the Indian f amity lived within the estates and were directly employed by the estate, Chinese family iabour tended
to be drawn from the squatter
population
69
around the estates and to
be employed on a contract components squatter
served
as
i n which the female and c h i l d
basis
a reserve
populations
around
army
estates
e a r l i e r , had their origins i n the t i n 1910s, 19305 and post-world
War II
of
casual
and
mines,
1abour. as
we
The noted
and rubber slumps i n the
dislocations.
Chinese women
were also involved i n subsistence rubber smallholding production,
some of which were carried out i l l e g a l l y on rural squatter land.
In 1953, Chinese smallholders worked 40.1 per cent of total rubber smallholding acreage while Malays, the other single large category of rubber smallholders, worked 47.3 per cent of total smallholding acreage (Lim 1967, p. 3 3 2 ) .
Chinese iabour i n the estates mostly worked under a contract system
in
which
contractor owner.
the
were paid
workers
and
supervised
by
a
t o whom work had been contracted out by an estate
In t h i s system, make iabour was mainly hired under regular
contract
while female and c h i l d
contract
workers.
The
other
employment by the estates
labour were employed as casual form
of
employment
was
direct
and most Indians were employed under
this system. Several employment:
methods of checkroii,
the checkroii
payment came under' these two forms of task and result
(Parmer 1960, p . 167).
system, workers were paid a fixed daily wage
provided a whole day's work was completed. of
In
wage payment, the iabourer
Under the task method
was assigned a certain
amount of
work, say nine hours, and paid by the number of tasks completed
The task of the rubber tapper was fixed at a certain
per month.
number of trees, say 350. distance from the factory
trees.
The figure varied according to terrain, and height
of the tapping cut on the
Under the method of payment by results, the tapper was
also given a task but was paid at so much per pound of dry rubber contained
in
the
latex.
Payment
70
by result was the most common
method of renumeratirzg Chinese estate
Tabourers under contract,
w h i l e most Indians were employed under the standard checkrow wage
rate
system.
Some Chinese, however, began to be employed on
checkroll by the 1ate 1930s (Partner 1960). Women workers were found i n a t ] three major forms of work in the technical division of iabour within estate work: processing rubber, tree-tapping and f i e l d
factory work
work chiefly
weeding.
Factory workers were engaged i n the preparation of the latex or l i q u i d rubber
for
initial
those who actually field the
marketing.
tapped the trees
The rubber
tappers
were
latex.
The
and collected
workers were employed in miscellaneous jobs of maintaining estate,
regarded
chiefly
as
unskilled.
in
skilled
weeding.
work
Generally,
while
field
rubber tapping
work
was
was
considered
In 1947 out of the 50,068 women workers i n the rubber
industry, 40,524 or 81 per cent were tappers and the rest were weeders and factory workers on the estates (Dei Tufo 1949, pp.
In other
442-45}.
unskilled jobs. i n tapping,
words, women were found i n both s k i l l e d arid
However, make workers tended to be concentrated
except for
and odd-job workers.
children
and old workers who were weeders
At the supervisory
level,
there
were no
women. A
sex
differential
existed
in
the
payment
of
wages.2
Chinese, Indian and Malay female iabourers received less than make iabourers when employed on checkroli.
For example, i n June 1946,
the f i a t rate wage for a may e Chinese f i e l d worker was 80-90 cents per day and 65-80 cents per day for a female Chinese f i e l d worker (Gamba 1962a, p. 12). Association
of
Organized employers i n the United Planning
Malaya i n 1946 recommended i t s
following rates to f i e l d workers:
members pay the
55 cents per day basic rate to
females and 70 cents to ma1 es for South Indian, Javanese and May ay
workers, and 70 cents to Chinese females and 90 cents to Chinese
71
males.
The cost
workers.3
of
living
allowance was 40 cents
for
all
The sex d i f f e r e n t i a l , however, disappeared when female
Tabourers were remunerated according to results
rather
than on
checkroii
(Parmer 1960, p. 168).
basis for
the d i f f e r e n t i a l d i d not Tie i n women doing Tess work
than men,
as has of ten been argued to justify Tower wages to
women.
This clearly indicated that the
the differential employment and wage
Instead, underlying
structures by sex were the constant calculations of Tabour costs and control
and the manipulation of women's social
(Gamba 1962a)
roles as w i f e and dependant of men to ensure a Tabour forc e that was cheap and malleable. In the debates among employers as to how to maximize surplus value, i t was argued that "the
tappers"
dependentsI
dependents
wages were not adequate to cover h i s cost
of
living.
were employed as
Ordinarily
the
workers.
To
field
require the rubber tapper to do additional work after tapping would deprive the dependants of f i e l d work. Either the
tapper
had to be paid enough to support
h i s dependants or the dependants had to be employed. The
latter
course
was
cheaper.
The non-tapping
l a b o r e r s also constituted a reserve tapping force, needed t o f i l l
in
absences among the tappers.
To
reduce or do away w i t h the non-tapping labour force
would make maintenance
difficult.
of
a
full
d a y ' s wages saved by leaving latex
to
tapping
force
Every field must be kept in production; a
a vacancy i n
compensation for
the
tapping
i n the trees due
force
is
the revenue l o s t . It
not
tapper's
job i s a s k i l l e d one.
maintain
i s important
the d i s t i n c t i o n between the tapper
f i e l d worker (Parmer 1960, pp. 197-98).
72
enough
Finally,
the to
and the
Women and children were thus hired as dependants as a means of maximizing surplus value through reducing total wages. wages could be paid to women and children
as casual
Lower
contract
Tabourers on the j u s t i f i c a t i o n that they were merely dependants of the male workers and need not be given the status of standard wage regular employees.
The
family
mode
of
employment
among the
various
ethnic
categories of labour i n the rubber estate economy continued into
the post-war period.
Among the Chinese workers specifically,
the
1about contract system and the casual contract employment of women and children
persisted,5
the
latter
increasingly
ensure the maintenance and reproduction general
labour
absence of
a single
family
wage.7
of
necessary to
the family
i n the
Thus, Chinese female
force increased from about 20 per cent of total Chinese
rubber estate labour force in the 1930s to 45.5 per cent by 1953, while i n general, total female estate 1 about forc e increased from
26 per cent of total rubber estate labour force to 43.3 per cent in the same years (calculated from Gamba 1962b, pp. 250-51).* This at so applied to those women who were not married. conditions
were particularly borne out during crises
industry,
The
and position of women estate workers and their families periods
in the rubber
in which employment and wages were closely affected by
international trends.4
During the boom periods of the 1900s and
19105, the inflow of women as workers and reproducers of labour power was strongly encouraged to meet the acute demands for labour
supplies to expand the agricultural
*
However,
population.
In a period of
in the post-colonial period particularly since the early 19705, the
Family mode of` employment has been affected by the diversification o f estate agriculture structure, . . Pkchnological changes in the rubber estate industry, through the displacement o f estate workers especially women workers (Hazer 19a1). my w
anni
. w w w
73
slump, however, women workers and their families
were severely
affected by unemployment and drastic reductions i n wages. the depression
of
the
1930s,
for
example,
workers to be affected were women. restricted
to
the
barest
some of
During
the f i r s t
Estate maintenance work was
minimum
and
the
practice
weed-clearing, a task done mostly by women, was abandoned. cuts were severe and the rubber industry's
Great
Depression
was
possible
only
of Wage
a b i l i t y to survive the
through
the
lowering
of
production
costs, chiefly through cuts
The central
question for the workers during this period was how to
survive.
in the workers' wages.5
Some unemployed Chinese occupied unused 1and to grow
vegetables
and
rear
poultry
for
subsistence,
constitute the squatter populations
urban areas. number of activities.
in
the
These
Women constituted
squatter population
forms
of
came
to
around mines, plantations and
Other took up hawking.
those
and
subsistence
a large
who took
up these
activities
expanded
greatly and became some of the major forms of work among Chinese
women in the post-depression and post-war years until the present. The position
of Chinese women in subsistence production on
rubber smallholdings i s beyond the scope of this discussion, suffices
to
competition
high
note
to
here
that
estates,
as 32 per
cent
rubber
smallholding
to
nearly
smallholders
serious
production ranging
from as
50 per cent of
production in the 1930s (Lim 1967, p. 328). policies
towards rubber
It
posed
total
rubber
The colonial s t a t e ' s
smallholders were clearly influenced by
organized estate capital, mainly European, and were discriminatory
towards
them
restrictions
in
within
replanting,
export
the
quotas
Malayan
national rubber regulations rubber
prices
the
Chinese
and restriction
between 1934 and 1942.8
Malay smallholders
hardest for
smallholders
taxation imposed
to
and by
the
output inter-
schemes to control
These policies hit
the
they constituted the majority, and
a
74
lesser
extent.
Neither
did
smallholders escape the conditions of economic depression and most turned to subsistence food production for survival.
In terms very similar position
of
backgrounds)
to those of women in the mines, the
Chinese women (as in
the
estates gender
well
as women of
illustrates
interaction
between
interaction,
women were incorporated
and
class
clearly relations.
other
ethnic
the
dynamic In
into the capitalist
this
estate
economy as workers on the one hand, and as married women, wives
and children who were considered dependants of men i n the family, on the other hand.
NOTES 1
This section discusses the position of Chinese women only. A study of the position of` Indian women in the plantations is highly relevant as they constitute the majority of Female workers and a crucial component of` labour in the state. By the same argument, a study of` Malay women's work in smallholding rubber cultivation is also relevant.
2
There also existed a wage differential between adult labour and youth labour, particularly among the Indians within the family l a b o r system. See Palmer (1960), p. 169.
3
Except for children who received half` that of' adults' (Gamba 1962P_, p. 27-fu). Another wage differential with implications on ethnic and industrial relations was along ethnic lines in which Chinese workers were paid more than
Indian workers. The justification was that the Chinese workers were not employed directly by the estates and the higher wages were to cover housing and other costs of living otherwise provided to live-in workers as required by e t significantly diflflernt oe rates made possible the substitutability Iof` one kind of labour for another at particular historical con8ur1ctures the cost of one form of labour employment was higher than another. See Palmer (1960), p. 169.
a
This discussion Focuses on economic crises only. During labour disputes such as those which occurred in 1946, casual female labour appear to be used to in the plantations insisted on a pool o f break strikes. Employers a only be obtained and maintained unemployed, for profits and operations by replacing striking works low-paid workers who were either migrants or women and children. See Gamba (1962Q)-
75
5
As has been pointed out, the chief instruments o f colonial policy tow rds the iodwerptz~itlo,the t t l g p f up unemployed duri g t h e s l p p and the creation Iii public works to absorb the unemployed at very low wages. In the 1930s depression, large numbers lane were repstriated. Assistance to unemployed Nndians mostly helped the middle class and white collar workers.l See Farmer (1960); pp. 238-39.
was
6
As late as 1956, 62 per cent of the Chinese estate labour force were still under the contract system and the rest under direct employment. Calculated from Gamba (l962b), p. 287.
7
wages W male A comparison of rates cost of living showed that . Indian and Malay estate workers were inadequate to support an average family, and that when rubber prices e low, even the sum total of` the wages Hf all working members was insufficient to maintain the f'amily. See Gamba (1962b), p . 278.
8
For details of` these y discriminator smallholders, see Bauer (1944).
ii
\.\,,"
Y6
state
policies
towards
rubber
VI I.
AMAH IN PAID DOMESTIC SERVICE
Prior to the 1930s, paid domestic service was almost exclusively
dominated by Hainarlese men. virtually
synonymous with the Hainanese "cookbook" or
who served European and local
other
In f act, paid domestic service was "houseboy"
wealthy Chinese househoids.l
The
form of domestic service was unpaid domestic servitude by
mui t s a i . began i n
The massive entry of women into paid domestic service the 1930s with the iarge-scale immigration
0? single
women from China into Malaya and coincided with the abolition the mui tsai system.
of
By 1947, an overwhelming 85 per cent of the
total female iabour force i n the "personal services" sector were engaged i n p a i d domestic service alone.
Women quickly
displaced
men at paid domestic service, making up as much as 68 per cent of
the total workforce in t h i s form of employment in the same year,
and domestic service become strongly identified as women'5 work
.
The women largely responsible for the identification of paid domestic service as women's work were the Cantonese immigrants, many of whom were formerly anti-marriage i n China.
resistance movement women
In Malaya. many of these women found work as domestic
servants i n wealthy Chinese and European colonial
hosueholds, and
became commonly known as the Cantonese amah.
They made up a
sizeable proportion i f not the majority of women domestic servants and, for many, domestic service was their only form of employment
77
throughout
their working l i v e s .
A study of women in the clan
associations and vegetarian halls of Singapore in the mid-1950s (Topley 1958) confirmed that a large number of single women who entered
paid
domestic
service
resistance
area i n China.
evidence,
it
is
known
were
there
(While
that
from
the
is
Cantonese
anti-marriage
little
women
documented
from
the
same
background and employed i n paid domestic service were also found
in the major towns of Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Penang where they worked Their
for
wealthy
organizations
Chinese were
similar
Thus, while the following
study of
domestic
conditions
and European colonial to
those
households.
studied
by Topley.
account i s drawn mainly from Topley's
servants
in
Singapore,
it
were similar to the rest of Malaya.)
immigrants constituted at least a significant
is
believed that These Cantonese
proportion if
not
the majority of domestic servants since their arrival i n the 19305 up to the 1960s and l970s. While other categories of paid domestic servants existed,
it
i s this
category of amah domestic
servants which i s focused here.
(The other category of women who
entered
in
paid
domestic
Hainanese women.
Hainanese domestic live-in
servants
service
the
1930s
and
1940s
were
Most of them came to Malaya as the wives of
servants in
the
and same
of ten,
the
household.
couple Thus,
worked
as
to
the
identification of paid domestic service with the Hainanese "cookbook" or "housebo.y" was added the Hainanese husband and wife work team). Paid domestic service in private households was usua'iy done by a single
amah or by two or three amah each with her task of
cooking, cleaning, childcare or general housekeeping.
In European
households, the division of iabour i n domestic service tended to be very clear cut with different amah being hired as cook amah or baby amah.
Some amah worked singly or i n pairs as sworn sisters,
while a third arrangement
was joint work with a male cook who was
often a Hainanese. 78
Domestic service had a special attraction for these immigrant single women.
Besides being one of the few economic opportunities
opened to them, i t s status was high as a result of the abolition of the mui tsai system and restrictions on women immigrants in the
post-war period.
of
amah
who
servants.
The latter had the effect of limiting the supply
were
generally
preferred
married
domestic
By the 1940s and 1950s, the domestic amah could command
an income comparing favourabiy clerk
over
with that
of an English-speaking
and better wages than the other few jobs opened to women
such as those of waitresses, cashiers, cleaners and hairdressers. Domestic servants working for
a Western f arniiy i n Singapore i n
1955 were paid about $140 t o $180 for ai1 household work including washing and cooking, and had lodgings but not food provided.
In
the case of work in a Chinese household, they were paid $80 t o $120 for the same work but with food included (Wee 1954, p. 162; Topiey 1958, pp. 187-88). servant
In Kual a Lumpur, a female domestic
i n an European household was paid about $ 1 0 per month
with accommodation but no food provided while a make cook earned about $150-$180 per month under the same conditions.2
Domestic
largely
service
also
provided
from those who worked
in
social
prestige
households
that
derived
paid them
re atively higher wages and provided re atively better conditions of
work
and f a c i d i t i e s
employment.
It
such as accommodation and security of
also enabl ed those in the anti-marriage movement
t o continue their practices as they could work i n pairs as "sworn" sisters. to
Among employers,
local-born
many preferred single
women who tended to be married
leave and get married.
immigrant
women
or were l i k e l y t o
Domestic servants who were committed to
remain single were prepared to l i v e in, spend more time on their work and had less distractions conflict between family their
choice
of
outside.
For most amah, the
l i f e and work did not arise because of
non-marriage
and, 79
in
some
cases,
they
were
Ann Prior to the 1930s paid domestic service was almost exclusively
a male task.
The
women largely responsible f`or the identification of` paid domestic service as women's work were the Cantonese immigrant women many of whom remained unmarried. (Photograph by courtesy of the National Archives, Singapore;)
considered a member of the family they worked for.
between social
Any conflict
l i f e and the isolated nature of domestic service
was largely resolved by their organizational
arrangements around
work
them to
and living
isolation Indeed, position
and to
their
conditions,
maximize
ability to
as immigrant
which enabled
the
opportunities
for
break
the
interaction.
cope with their economic and social
single women workers won them prestige as
being "successful" and capable women, which in turn enhanced the prestige of domestic service as an occupation.
The women's organizational
arrangements to cope with work and
l i v i n g were focused on the kongsi fong and char tang.3
The women
kongsi fong, f i r s t opened in the 1930s with the immigration of
80
women workers to Malaya, were basically communal living quarters organized by example,
construction
as well those
women
domestic
in
similar
occupations.
amah kongsi
Fong,
There were,
sewing amah kongsi
for
Fong,
kongsi Fong and kongsi Fong in mines and plantations
as kongsi Fong of mixed occupations. who
formed
kongsi
Fong
were
The majority
originally
members
of of
sisterhoods i n China and as such, the kongsi Fong were commonly organized
along sisterhood,
lines.
Most
of
them
dialect,
were
village
Cantonese
or
women,
construction kongsi fong tended to be Samsui women. sub-dialect
even d i s t r i c t although
(Samsui i s a
of Cantonese.)
The kongsi Fong was set up by pooling wages together quarters
the
and for
to rent
communal l i v i n g , the number of members ranging
from two to f i f t y .
It ranged i n size from a cubicle to a number
of rooms and i n function from a simple space to l i v e and to keep belongings
to
an
elaborate
clubhouse
with
various
sorts
of
benefits schemes and regular social a c t i v i t i e s .
The level of development of the kongsi fong depended on the s i z e of the group and the earnings of the women.
A well organized
kongsi forrg also functioned as kind of trade guild with a woman leader
having some degree of authority, usually
on the basis of
her seniority and experience, and who played a leading role i n the
organization of the kongsi Fong.
She took care of the welfare and
employment conditions of the kongsi Fong members, such as ensuring
that
the
terms
of
employment
were
appropriate
so
that
the
standards of employment i n general and of members i n particular, were maintained. function
as
themselves,
members.
The well
a recruitment where
organized centre
potential
jobs
kongsi
for
Fong might
amah run
were
made
by
known
the to
at so
women fellow
Employment in domestic service was mainly found through
such arrangements as well
as through
81
friendship
and sisterhood
ties within the kongsi Fong.
Work conditions were also determined
by the kongsi Fong through discussions before an amah took up a
job.
Topley cites the case of a thirty woman-strong kongsi Fong
started
by two "sworn"
Japanese occupation.
sisters
lived
together- since the
In another case, one Samsui association had
a majority of women among i t s single
who
800 members.
and were employed as labourers
Most of
them were
or domestic servants.
third case was the Kwong Ngi Guild, one of the earliest registered
i n Singapore i n 1939.
It
A
guilds
was an entirely Cantonese
female organization with 167 members, the majority of whom were i n domestic service.
In i t s twenty-one member committee, twelve were
amah, and the president was a sewing amah.
t o find
The society undertook
employment and other mutual benefits,
medical treatment, forth.
money for return
such as costs of
or v i s i t s
to China, and so
However, while a well organized kongsi Fong might act as
an effective
small groups.
guild,
such organizations
In general,
there
were mostly
limited
to
were no organizations between
different kongsi Fong to f i x common regulations
for conditions of
work i n domestic service.4 The
other major
form of
organization
was
the
(vegetarian h a l l s ) that many domestic servants joined.
char
tang
Topley, i n
her study of the char tang i n Singapore i n the mid-1950s, found that
domestic
membership.
for
servants
constituted
a 1a r e
majority
of
their
These were religious houses which women frequented
various social
activities
and retired to i n old age.
Thai
tang were in existence among the early Chinese in Malaya, and they expanded in the 1930s when Cantonese women came to Malaya i n larg e numbers. Their proliferation during the war arose out of the
specific circumstances f aced by single women. the need for
women to flee
Japanese s o l d i e r s , Johore
and
It
i s believed that
from the sexual exploitation of
the
r e s u l t i n g i n a southward movement of women i n t o
Singapore,
partly
1ed
82
to
their
growth.
In
these
religious
halls, the women were relatively
violence
of
Japanese
soldiers
who
safe from the sexual
generally
left
religious
establishments alone, being Buddhists themselves. Chai tang members also retained their anti-marriage and sisterhood
practices
tang's functions
lodging.
but
unlike
the
position the char
I.I
were not limited to econ
provisions such as
They also provided social supports for unattached women
i n a variety of ways both during their working l i v e s and i n their
retirement.
It
was these social
economic ones that
supports
in
addition
made them more attractive
than kongsi Fong
which catered for women only during their working l i v e s . study found that most of the women frequenting
were more than forty years
of
Cantonese women, the majority domestic nowhere
of
tO
These
go.5
Topley's
and l i v i n g i n them
age and were mostly
servants who had lost
to the
immigrant
whom were working or retired
contact with relatives
haTls
were really
homes
and had
for
single
immigrant women and women who lacked support in old age. The economic organization on financial
resources.
of the char tang varied, depending
Basic
working and on retirement
lodging f a c i l i t i e s
were provided for
both while
in return
for
a
certain
sum of money or services towards maintenance of the char
tang.
The contributions depended on the financial position and
physical
abilities of the women.
The old, weak and poor could
l i v e in the char tang by contributing
services such as cleaning
and general maintenance, while those who could earn contributed cash regularly.
In the char tang, some women at so earned income
by sewing, making baskets,
weaving and other economic a c t i v i t i e s
that they could cope with i n their o l d age.
and financially
stronger
facilities
arrangements,
and
schemes and social
char
activities
tang,
in
organized
The more organized
addition various
which reinforced
83
to the mutual
mutual
above
benefit
support.
Festivals provided the occasions for organize
activities.
the women to socialize
These were particularly
unattached women who worked i n isolation
for retired women. food cultivation
and
significant
for
i n domestic service and
Some char tang had their own plots of hand for
and for the burial
of members.
Arrangements for
funeral r i t e s and a burial place were particularly significant the immigrant women who had no relatives China.
As has been a p t l y
and who did not return to
quoted by Topiary, vegetarian h a l l s
offered "care while a l i v e and a funeral It
is
significant
for
that
the
at death".
vegetarian h a l l s ,
as the only
organization to cater for the needs of unattached immigrant women, were religious i n character.
The Salvationist
religions of the
halls were a particular attraction for Chinese women who rejected the
subordinate
practices on
roles
of
women
in
marriage.
The religious
offered equal status with men i n paradise, reincarnation
earth
as
cultivation
a
male,
spiritual
rewards
in
to maintain purity and chastity
rejection
of
marriage
religious
system
in
in the
status and authority.
their halls
and l i t e r a t u r e .
offered
Other religious
self-
as well as justified
teaching also
religious
The
opportunities
for
establishments such as the
Buddhist nunneries which some of the women frequented also offered similar forms of salvation. girls
who
rejected
establishments
It has been noted that i n Canton, the
marriage
and
vegetarian
were
fond
of
halls.
visiting
In
religious
Singapore,
these
establishments were set up by single women in continuation of that practice
and
were
extremely
popular
among
Chinese
women,
especially among the domestic servants. The strategies women
also
involved
groups by adoption. the
to cope with their specific position
traditional
the
formation
of
all-femaie
These were modifications
family
system
and
84
support
as single
f amities
and substitutions structure,
and of
based on
f i l i a l mother-daughter
relationships.
Adoption was common among
unattached working class women and many amah took up the practice
Although fear of childbirth
of adopting g i r l s as their daughters.
was a reason for joining the anti-marriage movement, many of them were fond of
rather
children,
especially
girls.5
They adopted g i r l s
than boys as daughters were f e l t to be more f i l i a l
to
parents and would look after them in their old age by earning a l i v i n g and giving them company.
This rested on the expectation
and hope that l i k e their mothers, they would not marry.
were
obtained
through
impoverished f amities,
traffickers,
the price
unmarried
The g i r l s
mothers
or
a girl ranging from a nominal
US$5 to us$350 i n 1954.7 Adoption took various forms the char tang or"'aj'"'"""""°"""
:i..1u|mu|-
either by individual
as a whole.
women or by
In the char tang
OY'
kongsi Fong, the adopted children were socialized into traditional roles of f i l i a l daughters and the a c t i v i t i e s of the group.
While
in principle, the chiidrerz had the choice of remaining unmarried and j i v i n g i n the char tang or ko ng o Fong or leaving, to working and marrying when they grew up, their mothers usually hoped that they
would not
marry
but
remain f i i i a l
support i n their old age.
to
provide
them with
.
Despite the conduciveness to marriage given the imbalanced
sex ratio and strong "traditional" values attached to i t , continued to retain their strong anti-marriage
the amah
orientation.
While
this can be attributed to persisting fears of childbirth, men, the subordinate position of a traditional wife, and so forth, which
the y held originally i n China, the fear of being a concubine or secondary wife instead of a f i r s t wife was a new and traditional reason i n Malaya.
It
was common for
a male immigrant
who had a
w i f e in China to acquire more wives i n Malaya (Wee 1954).
Among
the working class males, this was largely because they could not
85
afford to send for their wives from China or had long lost contact with their f amities; for the wealthy males such as the merchants and businessmen,
it
Many of
system.
Furthermore,
marries
part
of
the
traditional
the women did not find
many of
and her
wife; i f
was the
spinsters
this
remarked
husband becomes wealthy,
concubinage
position
secure.
that " i f
a woman
he takes a secondary
poor, he sends his wife out to work" (quoted i n Topley
1958, p. 192).
Their ability to maintain economic independence
through earning and controlling their own incomes, rather than being subject to the authority of a husband, figured predominantly in
their
together
calculation
to
with
sisterhood
their
remain
unmarried.
This
institutions
they
and
felt,
substitute
f amities, was a more r e l i a b l e form of security and protection
for
o l d age than marriage.
The reputation
of the amah as capable and successful women
thus appears to stem from their organizational women and as workers. social
support
a b i l i t i e s both as
The forms developed for
were to
a large
extent
interaction
feminist
and
in character,
organized around the rejection of marriage and based on principles of
sisterhood,
organization
solidarity
and
support.
Although
these
a b i l i t i e s and forms originated in China, the ability
to work and earn an income in Malaya provided the economic basis
for
the women to maintain their independence as single women.
Their immigrant status, the isolating nature of housework (Jelin 1977), the lack of family connections and their unattached status w i t h no one t o care for them and nowhere to go to in o l d age gave further
impetus
organizational
It
is,
and new meaning to
however,
misleading
servants and single immigrant Fong and char
their development of
these
forms and a b i l i t y .
tang, or
to
think
that
aH
domestic
women were well organized i n ko ng o
that these
86
i n s t i t u t i o n s were a l l
highly
developed.
Whether or not the women could band together
for
economic and social support depended crucially on their financial
resources and employment status.
The highly organized kong
or
char tang which provided elaborate mutual aid and benefit schemes were probably an exception and their flourishing days were limited
to
when
their
financially.
members
in.
provided
working
and
could
contribute
Generally kongsi fong and char tang provided the
--
most basic needs to live
were
a physical space t o store one's belongings and
A chief
living
working l i v e s ;
drawback of the kongsi fong was that
quarters
and
when they
support their stay
leave.
While
retired
to
in
only
grew too o l d to
i n the kongsi
a few kongsi
live
support
them
during
work
the
women's
and could not
fong f i n a n c i a l l y , they
fong did make provisions
permanently,
their
it
had to
for
f acilities
the
were
generally inadequate due to the limited financial resources of the women. It must be borne i n mind that most immigrant women worked at low paying and unskilled
jobs with l i t t l e or no social security
in old age when they retired. usually
had
employment. retirement
quarters
For live-in domestic servants, they
provided
Access to
by
vegetarian
employers halls
but
only
during
to secure a place of
depended to a large extent on the women's financial
standing and a b i l i t y to save.
This was largely limited to that
category of domestic servants who earned relatively high incomes
in wealthy local and European households. The question of economic and social support for
single women in general
~- a constant f actor
the amah and
i n their l i v e s
--
became particular t y acute i n o l d age when the y were no longer able to earn incomes.
The a b i l i t y and success of banding together for
support appear to decline with retirement.
Kaye's (1960) study of
Upper fan kin Street, Singapore provides some useful insights
the position of the immigrant women i n their o l d age.
into
amah and other single working class
The majority l i v e d
8?
i n cubicles,
their
whole g i v e s bound by the poor conditions i n which they l i v e d as they had nowhere else to g0.9 await death.
Others stayed in "death houses" to
Many of the women belonging to the kongsi Fong in
Topley's study expressed the fear of ending their days in a "dying house".
A recent study of three old people's homes in Penang in
1979 found i t s
inmates who were largely
i n poverty and loneliness.
single immigrants j i v i n g
Most of them had been abandoned or had
10st ail contact with their relatives (Sri Ranjini et a t . , 1978). Questions about economic and social support systems for
poor,
aged and
relevant
today
single as
women
retired
in amah
particular and
are
other
generation women are now i n their s i x t i e s
all
single
the
the
m re
immigrant
and seventies.
It
is
doubtful that they are as organized and active as when they were
younger, given the above considerations.
NOTES 1
Domestic service did exist under the indenture system
.
exceedingly small.
2
Informant Soon Yoke Lin was a Hainanese domestic servant who teamed up with a male cook t o work in
3
but the number was
Blythe (1947), pp. 90-1
Much of
the
a European household for Five years.
information an the _igpngsi _Fong and char tang is obtained from
Topley'.s stL in the major towns
Singapore.
the
areas of Chinese immigrant settlement in Kuala Lumpur and Penang reflect similar patterns of` female immigration ghd their housing patterns. In Singapore for example, some streets consisted almost entirely of konqsi Fang inhabited by Cantonese female immigrants and most o f them were amah konqsi. Singapore,
4
For example, a younger .amah might not become a cook or general alanah until she had worked in a subordinate capacity, such as an "apprentice" under a more experienced Hmah-
5
Other women who frequented these halls included war widows, old retired women, married women and concubines deserted by their husbands or separated from them, and actresses, prostitutes and dance girls who, unable to marry while young, found themselves alone and without support in old age.
88
6
Many o f them preferred t o be baby amah math r than do other domestic work.
7
D i g t h p r i d l 9 3 D - 6 D , i t
s
f
Families to sell or give away their c h i l d e
--
,
d m t h r
n d i p v r i h d
especially girls.
8
Another Farm o f adoption was the Chi a bond between a child and a woman or man with the consent o f the child's parent In this form of adoption, both girls and buys were adopted.
9
In Kaye's (1960, p. 32), study, it was found that 39 per cent o f total households were single person households a d another 4 per cent were koruqsi
.
_Fong
in which a group of` more or less unrelated persons o f the same sex formed the household. Sixty-six per cent of the single person households were women and the Female korlqsi households consisted of` two or three
per
.
Gareth
9Dp
t f
th
m
i
s ch h u
holds
e
m
than forty years old: as per cent o f the omen were spinsters, 25 per cent were widows. Among the spinsters, most of them came between 1935 and 1944 during that period of mass immigration o f women and those Hrs widows came mostly between 1915 and 1944. House amah and baby amah were among the occupations t women, ers being cooks, dressmakers and seamstresses r Factory workers, construction workers (mostly Samsui women), hawkers and odd job labourers.
mr
89
YII
MANUFACTURING
The integration of
the Malayan colonial
capitalist system was such that i t materials,
specifically
economy into
the world
served as a producer of raw
t i n and rubber, for the metropolitan Europe and especially the industries of
capitalist
cert res of
Britain.
The exchange between these centres
and the Malayan
economy took the classic form i n which manufactured goods were
imported into Malaya in return for its primary exports. the Malayan economy had l i t t l e industrial basis of l i t t l e manufacturing
production
within
a c t i v i t i e s resembling such a production processing
included
of
raw materials
and to
food
processing,
clothing
As such,
its
own and
a factory system.
Any
system were limited to the commodity
and
production
footwear
which
and
light
industries
such as brick making, saw milling, cement production,
foundries
and
revealed that
engineering industries
works.
The
Blythe
Report
such as saw m i l l i n g , rubber
(1938)
processing
and production of watches were already i n existence i n the 1930s.
A key feature
i n the factories manufacturing goods such as
matches, rubber items, the
employment
of
female immigration feature,
and
and aerated water
many Chinese women
in
included
f i l a t u r e s i n China.
cigars
the l920s
(Blythe
in the 1930s was 1938).
Massive
and 19305 accounted for
anti-marriage women
displaced
from
this sick
Women from the Tung Kun county of China, for
90
exampl e, usually
ended up i n factory
as ready
work which they were
familiar with when they were i n China. During
World
consumer items manufacture
War
II,
the
such as paper,
of
products
in
local
substitution
foo d and cloth,
shoes 3 small
simple
of
industrial
and
and the
commercial
enterprises were set up t o replace goods which had become scarce
1967,
(Purcell
p.
the
For
256).
first
time,
a majority of
consumption goods were produced l o c a l l y to substitute for
items
and,
although
of
a
makeshift
nature,
s one
imported
of
these
manuf acturing a c t i v i t i e s became the basis for permanent industries
in
the
post-war
Chinese
period
women played
(Purcell
It
1967).
an important
role
in
is
probable
that
the
invention
and
manufacture of many such items, as many men were recruited by the Japanese for forced 1abour i n road and railway construction, colonization f arming arid various
schemes i n
the
land
Japanese army.
The Restriction of Male Employment Ordinance passed i n December
1944 to bolster labour
had
the
manuf acturing
effect
of
for
further
various forms of forced
replacing
male
labour
in
and various services and trades with that of women
For example, the manufacture of ropes and twine, a new
and g i r l s .
industry
up male recruitment
to
meet
trade
provided employment
and
transport
for tens of
needs
thousands
of
during
the
war,
women and g i r l s
as
well as men and boys (Purcell 1967). The
overall
extent
to
which
femal e 1 about
Tambour in manuf acturing during the war i s unknown, but i t that the large-scaie
other war
period.
outside
Uveraii, provided
agriculture,
i s clear
participation of women in manufacturing
commercial a c t i v i t i e s was strongly established
manufacturing
male
replaced
immediately
the largest
personal
after
the
and
during
war
in
the
1947,
source of employment for women
services,
mining
and
hawking,
accounting for 0.76 per cent of total Female working population in
91
1931 and 1.25 per cent i n 1947.
largest
employment
sector
In Singapore,
after
personal
it
was the second
services.
However,
despite women's inroads into the manufacturing sector before and
after World War II, its
overall
i t remained heavily male-dominated i n terms of
working population
and i n certain industries.
1931, women on the whole constituted
In
11 per cent (12,017) of the
total workforce i n manusacturing, and 19 per cent (28,319) in 1947 (oei Tufo 1949, p. 103)»
In
the
sexual
division
workers were mostly
women I s
of
limited to
traditional
skills
lab our
in
in
cloth
sector,
th is
those a c t i v i t i e s
making,
women
which involved
tailoring
and
dress making, rubber and tobacco processing and, i n earlier days prior to the abolition
of opium smoking, the processing of opium
in opium f arms 5 factories and dens. Report,
there
industries
were nearly
manus acturing
According to the 1947 census
2,000 Chinese women i n each of clothing
tobacco and raw materials.
and processing food,
the
drinks,
In the processing of raw materials,
nearly half of the women were involved in rubber works alone, such as vulcanizing,
and
packing
manufacture
grading and stripping rubber, making rubber goods
rubber of
sheets.
clothing
Those
were
mostly
women tailors
involved and
in
the
dressmakers.
About 1,000 women were employed in the manufacture of tobacco and cigars. There were another 600-odd women i n the manufacture of goods using wood and cane, such as i n basketry.
There were also
cases where women were found i n t r a d i t i o n a l l y male tasks.
included 160 women employed i n the manufacture of bricks, and glass, 426 women i n the manufacture and machines and i n smelting, works
(out
of
a total
these industries),
founding, engineering
Chinese working
population
pottery
of metals
and electrical of
25,765 i n
and some 640 women i n woodwork and basketry
(Del Tufo 1949, p . 103). male-dominated
and repairing
They
industries
On the whole manuf acturing work in the such` as
92
light
engineering
work
and
Rubber graders and packers
A key festgre in the Factories in the 1930s was the employment o f many Chinese women. Women factory workers were mostly limited to those activities which involved women's traditional skills, such as the processing, sorting and packing o f rubber. (Photographs by courtesy of` the National Archives, Singapore.)
93
woodwork tended to be defined
as skilled work, while those in
which women were concentrated such as the grading, stripping and packing of rubber and the manufacture of cloth and garments tended
to be viewed as unskilled or semi-skilled
"women's work".
L i t t l e else i s known about the conditions of work of Chinese women in factories
and in the manufacturing
during the colonial period. factories
and
manuf acturing
often
under
as a whole
This i s partly because many of the establishments
enterprises which employed only
concerns,
sector
the
were
small-scale
a few workers or
supervision
of
were family
a male.
Women's
participation in such enterprises was either as part of unpaid
family
labour
workers.
or
as
part-time,
full-time
or
irregular
wage
Of the total 7,758 Chinese women in the manufacturing
sector in 1947, 73 per cent were wage workers while 20 per cent were
self-employed
workers.
workers
and
the
rest
standardized
determined
clan,
unpaid
(These figures should be viewed with caution
involve only cases covered by the census.)
not
were
in
the
small-scale
family
as they
Work conditions
enterprises
were
but
were
either by each enterprise or by kongsi organized along
dialect and trade lines.
factory work until the 1950s.
The labour
code did not cover
Any further understanding
in manufacturing
of
the
origins and conditions of
female labour
require much more research
into both factory forms and family or
would
petty commodity forms of production many of which s t i l l exist. Red atively more i s known about the position of Chinese and
other women in manuf acturing
*
The post-1969 years in
in the post-coioniai
period.*
In
particular have seen vast social and economic changes
under the New Economic Policy. Une major change affecting women has been their massive recruitment into the vastly expanded sector of industrial manufacturing (Hirschman and Aghajanian, 1980). This is significant not only f`or Chinese women but for Malay and Indian women as well, and in particular
94
industrial manufacturing,
a large proportion of women workers are
employed by multinational processes
producing
electronics
in
lab our-intensive
textiles,
precision
These firms
young women workers for
processes because of
productivity of the women. established that underlying
the s k i l l s ,
production equipment,
components and various consumer items.
employ almost exclusively
intensive
firms
mainly
their labour-
cheapness and high
By now, various studies have firmly the firms' profitability calculations
i s their a b i l i t y to manipulate and control
female 1 about through
their gender roles, and which result in the relative cheapness and productivity
of
female
Chapter 1, note 4 ) . gender roles
and
labour
compared with
male
labour
(see
The multinational companies in incorporating attributes
of
women into
lab our, become gender-bearing relations
its
relation with
which subordinate women
both as workers and as women at the same time.** It
appears
manufacturing their position
that
throughout
Chinese
work from the colonial has been continuously
two primary f actors:
women's
period
in
up to the present,
and consistently
class and gender.
history
defined b.y
These factors
tend to
f`or those who are young and single. For Chinese women, those from both urban and rural backgrounds are involved; for Malay and Indian women their entry into manufacturing represents a shift from agricultural work and household reproductiv
**
work.
As subordinated workers, the women are concert ated in
low-paying, dead-end
jobs involving the extension o f their traditional skills and attributes which are conside ed low or non-skilled in the sexual division o f labour. In their brdi t s a g d r , o f`thef s F p t i h l power are preserved and utilized to manipulate them inside and outside the factory floor, such as the male authority of bosses in the Factory and managementorganized "family" leisure activities. For those women with families, this process of intensification of' gender subordination works simultaneously as a recompositi n process in which the authority of the male boss replaces, d r i add t th 1 the t y of`, f r ampl th f th (S nth East Asia Chronicle 66 [1979]; Elson and Pearson 1980).
,
95
subordinate them as workers and women simultaneously. the same time,
work in the factory
their survival
and that of their f amities.
economic family
independence
controls.
and relative
However, at
provides income crucial It
freedom from
Both economic and social
for
also provides "traditional"
freedoms are well
appreciated by the women, during the colonial period in particular by those who remained single.
But much s t i l l
remains to be
researched and understood on the complex and contradictory
effects
of f actory-based work on women's lives inside and outside of work,
during the colonial period as well as in the post-1959 period of industrialization.
96
VIII
OTHER ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
Apart from the above forms of economic activity i n which most
Chinese
women
increasingly
were
found,
provided
other
employment
sectors
for
and
women.
industries
These
include
hawking, construction and services.
Hawking Hawking provided Chinese women
service
in
the
after
1947,
fourth mining,
accounting
largest
source
of
employment
of
agriculture
and private
for
6,000 women vendors,
nearly
domestic
pedlars, hawkers and sales women (Del Tufo 1949, p. 103). This i s probably an underestimation as i t excludes
figure, however,
those women who were involved in the production and preparation of foodstuffs and various items but who were not directly involved i n
the actual hawking of these goods. Although hawking on the whole was a heavily male-dominated activity, women hawkers and traders capable
businesswomen.
small-scale
had a reputation
Hawking activities
for
were usually
being on
a
individual or family basis, and goods hawked included
food and non-durable items such as cooked food, vegetables, f r u i t s
97
Hawker Cigarette vendor. Women hawkers were well known For being capable businesswomen although hawking on the whole was a heavily male-dominated activity. (Photograph by courtesy of the National Archives, Singapore.)
Sewing woman Self-initiated activities ba~ed on traditionally women's skills such
as sewing represent response and strategies to survive in the f`ace of unemployment,
economic hardship
and lack of social support in old age. (Photograph by courtesy of the National Archives, Singapore.)
98
HUH up 1? 'fil 1
ALl
*
U*
'sir
- I I ! I v ! !
Construction workers Women workers (c. 1950) in the construction sector were
identified
with
the
Sansui
women who worked individually
or
in
together
houses.
groups in
and
female
lived konqsi
(Photographs
by
courtesy of Kouo Sheng Wei).
99
and flowers
(largely
self-grown),
as well as durables such as
cooking utensils
and toys.
centres,
and markets as well as within
streets
Goods were hawked cheaply in town local residential
areas such as squatter settlements. Women hawkers came mostly from squatter areas, new villages and generally poor urban populations.
Hawking was also one of the
few alternatives of livelihood for old people who could not afford to retire for economic reasons.
In the post-war period, hawking
has remained virtually the only economic activity opened to the
old who need to earn an income to survive. The proliferation
of
hawking
general
and women's participation
context
of
and services
in
i n them are to be seen i n the
the pauperization and dislocation of working class and f amities, apart from their natural growth to
individuals service
activities
growing populations.
large-scale
These phenomena f i r s t began on a
i n the economic depressions of 1912-14 and the 1930s
and resulted
in the growth of poor squatter populations around
towns, mines and estates.
The situation
was further accentuated
i n the post-war period of unemployment and dislocation. 1 after, one m i l l i o n people were regrouped and resettled
In the into new
villages, estates, mines and other settlements as a counterinsurgency measure by the colonial government under the Emergency
(1948-60), a period of intense military and industrial conflict between the colonial government and communists. Those relocated were largely mostly
took
left to
to
the
rearing of livestock
fend for
themselves economically.
cultivation
of
vegetables
for subsistence and for
and fruits
They
and
sale, as well as to
hawking, and odd jobs. For the marginalized populations,
income for
subsistence.
hawking provided a means of
For women hawkers, this often involved
100
the extension of their traditional s k i l l s such as food preparation and sewing.
Hawking also provided the flexibility necessary for
women to cope with household reproductive
work, as i t
could be
done for only part of the day or could be combined with household tasks.
It
bring
their
foodstuffs
was not uncommon for market women, for young
children
along
with
them
example, to
to
and for older children to help them sell
hawk
their
their wares.
Often, hawking took place close to the women's homes so that they could alternate between housework and hawking. In
recent
years,
there
has
been much
marginal economy and the r o l e of the informal the
needs of
1974).
poor
capita]
accumulation with
its
debate
about
the
sector in serving cheapness (0uijano
However, seen from the perspective of the marginalized and populations,
of
particularly
women,
such
self-initiated
income-generating a c t i v i t i e s represent responses and strategies survive i n the f ace of unemployment, economic hardship lack of economic alternatives
i n addition
to
and the
to coping with house
work and childcare.
Construction The construction
industry was also among the industries i n which
women immigrants sought work.
with similar backgrounds.
Many of these women were single,
The Samsui women in particular mostly
worked at construction
sites and, in f act, women in construction
work
with
were
identified
individually or
in
groups
houses, very much l i k e
the
Samsui
and lived
women.
together in
They
worked
female kongsi
the dulang washers i n the mining areas.
The number and proportion of women in the construction
workforce
prior to the i n f l u x of women into Malaya i n the 1930s i s unclear,
101
but the 1947 Census recorded the total Chinese working population
in the building
industry as consisting of 1,908 women and 4,987 The figure is, however, probably an underestimation as women
men.
workers i n construction
were mostly employed on a casual contract,
not regular, basis.
A sexual division of labour existed in construction work.
As
noted by Ann Wee (1954, p. 162) foundation diggings was almost exclusively earth.
a female task.
Women were also involved
the contract
system in the late 1950s and early 19605, a clear
sexual division of labour was also noted.
ii
Sui
i n moving
In my own observation of women construction workers under
k.un
(cement
and earth works)
Women were limited to
which involved
digging,
moving earth, wood, cement and bricks, mixing cement, sand and stones, picking
wood and manual odd jobs
cleaning on the completion of a building. all
forms of construction
wooden
and
iron
such as sweeping and Male workers dominated
work such as carpentry, the fixing of
structures,
cementing,
bricklaying,
electrification work and fixing of doors and windows.
painting,
These were,
i n f act, strictly male tasks which were considered skilled work earning higher incomes, compared with the tasks performed by women
which were considered as tsap_ _k_ung (general work) and unskilled.
There was also a discrepancy in male and female wages for the same kind of work done.
A male worker in I i
about $6-$8 per day while women workers between $4 and $6 per day.
in
Sui kung could earn the same kung earned
Male workers tended to be hired on a
regular contract basis while women were casual contract or daily contract workers.
L i t t l e else is known about women in the construction industry but
again,
it
is
suggested
here
102
that
their
participation in
Barbara The hairdressing saloon is usually headed by an older woman who has risen in the trade through experience and has accumulated sufficient capital to start her own business. (Photograph by courtesy of the National Archives, Singapore.)
construction
be seen as a survival
strategy of urban poor and
squatter women, both young and old}
Services The service sector was the second largest source of employment of
Chinese women workers after agriculture in 1947, mainly services
and incl oded
of a "personal" nature such as domestic
103
servicing
in
private
households and various
waitressing and laundry. private
In
this
forms of
servicing
"personal"
domestic service alone accounted for
such as
services sector, an overwhelming 85
per cent of the total female workforce in 1947.
The remaining 15
per cent of women workers were mostly employed in restaurants
and
hotels as cashiers, waitresses and cleaners, in laundries and in hairdressing saloons.*
Such "personal" services were concentrated
in the towns where the majority of the Chinese population settled, namely Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Taiping and Penang, and were usually run on a small-scale family or individual
basis except for
the larger hotels and restaurants.
Apart from domestic servants,
l i t t l e i s known about women
workers in the other trades within the services sector.
However,
i t i s common knowledge that in the hairdressing trade, young women are preferred and are trained under an apprenticeship system with long
working
hours,
without cash payments. by an older
food
and lodgings
provided
and
with
or
The hairdressing saloon i s usually headed
woman who has risen
i n the trade through years of
experience and has accumulated sufficient capital to start her own business.
one of
the
In general, women's work i n this sector may be seen as
few income-earning sources for
poor women and as
extensions of their traditional s k i l l s of servicing.
*
Del Tufo (1949), pp. M12-l&5, £177_82. While men were also involved in personal services in large numbers, they tended to be hotel, restaurant and lodge keepers, waiters and barmen.
104
VIX
CONCLUSION
The concept of going out of the home to work i s certainly not new to Chinese women.
Early Chinese women were found i n a diversity
of work situations of which prostitution, domestic servitude, paid domestic
service,
manu acturing
mining,
were the
rubber
first
estate
work,
forms.
major
hawking
Other
major
and work
a c t i v i t i e s included persons] servicing as cashiers, waitresses and
cleaners in restaurants, hotels and bars, hairdressing in saloons, laundry
work,
livestock
construction
rearing.
women's s k i l l s
work,
and
vegetable
gardening
In some of these work situations,
and
Chinese
and tradition of economic independence originating
from their peasant and working class origins
i n southern China
were continued and further developed i n Malaya.
The subordinate position of Chinese women in colonial Malaya was largely the outcome of the dynamic interaction and class relations
between gender
i n which they were both members of a class and
a gender at the same time, the
two being not mutually exclusive.
As members of a c l a s s , they did not own the means of production
and sold their 1about power or conditions
for
reproduction.
their
own
their
and their
sexuality f amities'
to ensure the maintenance
and
At the same time, they entered the labour market or
were sold and traded i n a t r a f f i c i n women as women i n subordinate roles
defined by
gender
relations,
105
such as w i v e s , mothers, mui
tsai
and prostitutes.
Some of these gender roles were already i n
existence i n China; i n Malaya, they were intensified,
decomposed
and recomposed into new forms with a new basis and significance. Capital-1 about relations
such as i n the mines and estates fed on
these gender defined roles supplementary,
to subordinate women as dependants,
inferior or marginal
workers.
such as i n prostitution, gender relations
In other contexts
were clearly dominant i n
determining women's position within the make-dominated mines and pioneer
towns.
State policies and ideologies
further reinforced
and structured women's position and options, particularly i n the case of prostitutes The
common
and mui tsai. generalization
and
assumption
that
women
in
Malaysia traditionally have been subordinated thus requires much careful
qualification.
broadest ievel,
While such a generalization
holds at the
the m u l t i p l i c i t y of work and social situations
in
which Chinese women were found during the colonial period reveals
a complex and contradictory women were far
others.
and
far
from
in which some categories of subordinated
For example, compared with prostitutes
controls
their
less
picture
were extremely
conditions
tight
were highly
and their
abilities
constrained,
the
independence and feminism enabled them to maintain degree of self-determination
extent of subordination on the particular
over their conditions.
compared with
for
whom the
to determine
amah's economic a much greater
The forms and
experienced by each category thus depended
conjunctures of forces shaping the women's l i v e s
in each work and social situation. In linking the changes in the position the
colonial
and
picture emerges.
post-colonial
periods,
of Chinese women i n a
similarly
eompiex
On the one hand, processes of decomposition of
subordination, such as through expanded educational
and employment
opportunities, provide the potential for freedom from controls and
106
for
change.
On the other
have remained even i f
hand, their subordination
i n different forms, being constantly
and reshaped i n changing contexts. not
suggest
women
has
a one-dimensional worsened
possibilities
or
shaped
Such a complexity thus does
concision
improved.
that the position
Rather,
the
of
strategic
f acing women for control over their own j i v e s vary,
depending on their specific women for
appears to
In the case of factory
situations.
example, the extensive massing together
for
the f i r s t
time of women of various ethnic and social backgrounds to work in the factories
for
i n the post-1969 period provide the potential basis
them t o struggle both as a gender and as a class and to be
abstracted out of their particularized
gender ascriptive relations
(Eison and Pearson 1980).
What i s also clear existence
from the above cases i s t h a t d e s p i t e
and persistence
of subordination
the
and the constraints
on
alternatives and p o s s i b i l i t i e s for change, the picture of women's
responses i s not one of passive victims i n their "natural"
state
of helplessness as the "traditional" attributes of d o c i l i t y and
obedience t o authority
would seem t o suggest.
The a b i l i t y of
women t o respond actively and with i n i t i a t i v e or to confront the sources of subordination with potential
protest and opposition are
the contradictory tendencies emerging out of their experiences as
subordinated women.
The amah's ability to organize themselves
clearly shows that women are capable of taking determination
of
various
conditions
their f amities i n the mines and plantations actively daily
to the conditions of survival
l i f e and during c r i s i s
action
affecting them.
se1f-
were able to respond
and reproduction,
situations.
for
Women and
It
both i n
i s also well known
that women were a c t i v e members of trade unions and were involved in
strikes
in
estates
and factories,
although
women workers i n trade union a c t i v i t i e s i s unclear be researched.
the p o s i t i o n
of
and remains t o
According to Wee (1954), i n Singapore, where there
107
was a union i n an industry which employed women workers, there were
always
strikes.*
women members
and
they
participated
massed together over their specific conditions
feminist
actively
in
Other forms of organization around which women have lines,
have taken clearly
as the amah's a c t i v i t i e s around the kongsi Fong
and char tang show.
At the same time, these forms of organization
were able to cope with the economic demands of their position.
The
capacity
interests
of
women
to
organize
themselves
around
their
also include that category of women so of ten stigmatized
dance hostesses'
schemes ( i t World War
trade
union
--
the dance hostesses.
The
in Singapore organized mutual
aid
by society and portrayed as helpless
was i n i t i a l l y set up as a mutual aid society before and
II)
directly related
support
to
for
each other
on economic
issues
their working conditions such as wages and
allowances for clothing and make-up (Wee 1954, p . 163). the subordination of women has persisted.
Nevertheless,
persistence
i n whatever forms dispels the common c r i t i c i s m
issues regarding
the subordination
secondary to other
*
Th is that
of women are irrelevant or are
forms of subordination
for
women.
The cases
Wee noted that in the more conventional activities o f the trade unions, women did not seem to be "enthusiastic" and it was not possible t o trace any women active in the central committee or council of trade unions in Singapore. most obvious possibilities for action, response H struggle as workers are around issues such as wages and working c-onditions, there also exist shortcomings and limitations o f Factory~based struggles and Erek union organizations. Among others, they fail to take up the specific problems of gender subordination faced b y women workers which, f`or many women may, in fact, be primary and class exploitation is only secondary a d derivative in their concrete situations. The forms which workers' organizations have traditi fly ii d r f`te i d q to F r th' r d ' par ticipation trade union activities may be found wanting but not because women are in their understanding oF struggle as is often believed. @d" is, however; a general Point. Much research into the structures and activities various trade ons during the colonial period is required to establish the concrete situation of women's participation in them. While the
,
am.
='=l=l
108
examined above clearly historically
show that Chinese Malaysian women have
experienced
specific
forms
of
subordination
as
gender besides that of a c1 ass, and that the social relations gender are as significant as class relations. such as that
of
more significant
prostitution,
than
In specific context
gender relations
class relations.
a
of
are immediately
Any attempt
to
fully
understand Malaysian women should, therefore, place gender at an
equally
important
level
as other
dimensions such as class and
ethnicity, and i n dynamic interaction with them.
109
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Kual a
THE AUTHOR Lai Ah Eng i s currently
works include Sca1 e "Family
"The L i t t l e Workers:
Industries
Coming t o
a researcher i n Singapore.
of
Penang,
Grips w i t h Sexual
Lifestyles
Among
research interests include in Ma1 aysia and Singapore.
HDB
Her published
Chi i d Labour i n the Sma11-
May aysia"
(1982),
Inequal cities Residents"
community, ethnic
Lab our
(co-author, (1985).
Pains:
1984) Her
and
current
and gender r e l a t i o n s