Peasants, Proletarians and Prostitutes: A Preliminary Investigation into the Work of Chinese Women in Colonial Malaya 9789814345989

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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 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang Singapore 0511 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 [or facts and opinions expressed in this publication rests exclusively with the author and his interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the Institute or its 11Upporters.

Cataloguing in Publication Data LaiAhEng 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 .. Malaya. II. Title. III. Series. 05501 I596 no. 59 1986 ISBN 9971-988-38-0 ISSN 0129-8828 Printed in Singapore by General Printing & Publishing Services Pte Ltd

CONTENTS

PREFACE NOTES ON TERMINOLOGY AND CURRENCY

v

viii

INTRODUCTION

1

A Brief Theoretical Discussion The Colonial Context and Chinese Female Immigration to Malaya The Social Background of Women Immigrants from Southern China

1

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

11

VII

MANUFACTURING

90

VIII

OTHER ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES

97

VIX

97

Hawking Construction Services

101 103

CONCLUSION

105

BIBUOGRAPHY

110

PREFACE

In the Malaysian context in which class and ethnic relations are dominant and sensitive in social life, a study of the position of Chinese women may seem irrelevant, secondary or even divisive.

It

is my argument, however, that as members of a gender, women's social experiences differ from those of men, and it is through an understanding of the dynamic interplay between class, ethnic and gender relations at various levels that we can come to closer grips with the complexities of social life in Malaysia. This study, however, does not attempt to undertake such a major

and

complicated

project;

instead,

it

is

a preliminary

investigation into one gender category and its members' particular experiences at work.

By focusing on the origins and conditions of

Chinese women's work,

using

a socio-historical

approach,

this

study hopes to contribute towards understanding the complexities of Malaysian life and Malaysian women.

The choice of focus is

based simply on personal considerations of its suitability as a starting point. This paper is a revised but close version of my thesis submitted to the Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, in partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies in 1981. As the research was v

covered within a very short period of four months, there are inevitably huge gaps of information. The nature of preliminary investigation also accounts for this study's somewhat unbalanced contents as only some aspects are relatively well covered while others are incomplete or missing, and for the incompleteness of analysis. Certain gaps are also inevitable due to the severe lack of studies into the position of Malaysian women, which resulted in much time consumed in gleaning between lines to obtain facts or mere hints, often without success. Where materials do make direct or indirect references to women, they tend to be fragmentary and vague. have relied heavily on some of the most commonly used and well-known sources in English for my references. There is a fair amount of reliance on government reports and colonial sources as well as books written by colonial administrators. The biases and limitations of such sources ought to be borne in mind. The androcentrism of some writers is also readily apparent. The resulting failure to consider the social relations in which women are involved means that certain social relations are misrecognized or ignored. I have attempted to keep my own pair of spectacles on while gleaning through the various sources. Some of the richest sources of information are personal recollections of people who belong to the groups covered in this study and who have directly experienced the social phenomena discussed. Their recollections were written and sent to me from Kuala Lumpur on my request. also fell back on some personal observations and knowledge having grown up in an urban squatter community set up by Chinese and Indian immigrants in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur. The introductory chapter sets the theoretical and historical context 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 iTTJiligrants from southern China. Chapters II to VIII examine Chinese women's work: in prostitution and domestic servitude for those who were trafficked; and in tin mining, rubber estate production, domestic service, manufacturing, hawking, construction and services for other categories of women workers. Some implications on women's position and studies on Malaysian life are drawn in the concluding chapter. Many people and institutions have contributed to the research. In particular, I would like to express my thanks to the following: the Leverhulme Foundation in 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 and comments on parts of the draft; the 1ibraries of the Institute of Development Studies and the University of Sussex for helping me obtain valuable material; and friends in Britain and Malaysia for discussions, material and letters of encouragement. I would also like to thank Pauline Khng of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for her editorial comments and Betty Kwan for typing the final manuscript. Most of a 11, I thank the peop 1e of Sentu 1 for providing me with the inspiration to carry out thts study through their experiences some of which are captured in this study. The responsibility for statements and views expressed in this study remains solely mine. lai Ah Eng

vii

NOTES ON TERMINOLOGY AND CURRENCY

Prior to World War II, the political structure of the Malay Peni nsu 1a consisted of three entities under direct and indirect British rule: 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), and the Unfederated Malay States consisting of Johore, Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan and Trengganu. Together, they were commonly known as Ma 1aya, and obtai ned i nd~pendence from British rule in 1957. Unless otherwise specified, the term "Malaya" or the "colony" is used in 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 in Borneo. Singapore subsequently broke away to form a separate political entity as the Republic of Singapore in 1965. The terms "Malay", "Indian" and "Chinese" are ethnic categories and "Europeans" as used in Malaya usually refers to the British. Currency specified.

used

is

the

Malayan

viii

dollar

unless

otherwise

INTRODUCTION

A Brief Theoretical Discussion Social transformation entails changes in social relations which include changes in the relations between men and women, and their gender roles and experiences at various levels and in 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, social changes bear specific impact and consequences on gender relations and the position of women. Across societies and cultures, such changes bear striking similarities in some aspects and vast differences in others. But whatever these may be, it has been consistently shown that in most cases, women's position and status in societies undergoing social changes become or continue to be subordinate to those of men. Our understanding of the position and subordination of women can benefit from the many studies of social changes taking place in various parts of the world which are undergoing profound social transformation. These studies have been mainly carried out within the framework of either modernization or capital accumulation. They offer valuable empirical and analytical insights into social changes in general and those related to gender relations and women's position in particular. 1

The modernization approach perceives changes as occurring in a unilinear movement along a scale from simple traditionalism to comp 1ex, specialized structures.

In the case of women,

it is

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 officials, further reinforce

the

women's

exclusion

from

modernization's

benefits

(Rogers 1980). Perceiving

social

changes

in

the

context

of

capitalist

accumulation offers an analytically different understanding of the phenomena.

It rejects the notion that all societies move along

simi 1ar stages of development and instead, allows for historical and

social

specificities

in

the

dynamic

interplay

of

re 1at ions and forces i nterna 1 and extern a 1 to a society.

social Gender

relations and women's position are set within such a context of social change.

In these aspects, it appears that such an approach

offers an analytically superior perception of social changes over the former, despite limitations of its own. Within the capital accumulation approach one common attempt locates the source of women's subordination in their exclusion from the main spheres of economic production in the capitalist development process. i so 1ated

in

the

Basic to this argument is that women are family

where

they

perform

backward

and

unproductive housework,

and this serves capital by reproducing

labour power for free.

The variant of this in the predominantly

rural

subsistence systems of the Third World economies is that

women

are

relegated

to

backward

productive

and

reproductive

subsistence activities, and this lowers the value of the labour power of male migrant workers.l subordinated

within

class

In either case, women and men are

relations 2

by capital.

The

sexual

division of labour in which women are located in reproductive work in the family and men in productive work is seen functionally as a construction by capital to serve its needs. However, locating the subordination of women in one single source ignores the multi p1e forms of work women do within the complexities of change in different types and phases of capital The model of the male worker and the female accumulation. reproducer holds only in some contexts; in others, it is young migrant women who work as factory workers, domestic servants, prostitutes, and so forth. Nor are the kinds of work available to Underlying women (and men) defined by capital's needs alone. gender relations also affect women as women at work and in various The multiplicity of work and social other social spheres. situations in which women are found may be seen as the outcomes of an already existing set of gender relations responding to and interacting with class and other social relations within the In the process of interaction, capitalist development process. gender relations are themselves subject to change. The "women in reproduction, men in production" sexual division of labour is one such outcome common to many societies. The main problem of the subordination of women is thus the particular ways in which the position of women is structured by gender, class and other social relations and their interaction within the overall process of capitalist development and social change. Gender relations and the sexual division of labour often tend to be taken as given and constant throughout history and treated as natural sets of relations between men and women. In this study however, gender relations means a socially constructed set of relations between men and women as social categories, and the sexual division of labour means a gender differentiation in specific social activities. By the subordination of women in 3

gender relations is meant their confinement to certain activities and their exclusion from others in the sexual division of labour, in which the latter is considered as public and overtly social and the former is considered private and solely individual in nature. Associ ated with the 1atter and those who dominate them, that is, men, is social power, and with women in the former -- social powerlessness. The sexual division of labour also tends to acquire a powerful ideology that renders non-comparable the different tasks done by men and women, with a non-valuation or This ideology also tends to lower valuation of women's tasks. represent the division as different and complementary, harmonious and non-conflicting (Edholm, Harris and Young 1977). The subordination of women as a gender may be directly expressed in the form of ma 1e authority over women, but it a1so implies that the social position of women are defined and determined by gender relations. It has also been argued that the ultimate locus of women's subordination 1ies in the traffic in women as women rather than as commodities (Rubin 1975). Furthermore, relations which may not necessarily be intrinsically constructed in terms of the gender of the persons concerned can also become bearers of gender (Whitehead 1979, p. 11). For example, in the sexual division of labour within the capitalist labour process, the capital-labour relation although not gender ascriptive, that is, based on gender intrinsically, is nevertheless a bearer of gender in 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 in which capital feeds upon women's gender to exploit them as women workers in capitalist society. In the context of the vast changes taking place under various 4

types and phases of capitalist development in the Third World, the pre-existing social relations, specifically gender relations and the sexua 1 division of 1abour, are subject to change as they respond to and interact with other social relations such as class Various tendencies in the gender subordination of relations. women may be identified as gender re 1at ions undergo changes: a tendency to intensify, to decompose and to recompose into new forms. For example, rather than dissolve gender subordination, entry into wage work and other forms of income-earning activity tend to transform it. New forms of subordination take shape both through the recompos it ion of gender re 1at ions and through other social relations such as class relations becoming bearers of gender (Elson and Pearson 1980). The forms of women's subordination are located in both interested spheres of production and reproduction. In reproduction, the questions arise as to how women's labour is controlled and allocated in the overall conditions of social reproduction, the reproduction of the labour force daily and over time, and the biological reproduction of labour power. In the reproduction of the 1abour force under capita 1ism, for ex amp 1e, one source of women's subordination lies in the inability of capital to reproduce the labour power it requires within the direct capital-labour relation and relies on women's domestic reproductive labour to do so. The domestic labour of women stretches the wages of the family to cover its entire reproductive costs. The effect is that not only does this structure of the family and women's domestic role within it make women dependent on men, it also subordinates women to capital by providing it with free reproductive labour. This, however, does not explain why it is women and not men who carry out domestic reproductive tasks. To say that the sexual division of labour within the family is a creation by capital to serve its needs is functionalist. Rather, 5

it is a historical form of labour allocation arising from the struggles between capital and the responses of men and women, the outcome being women's dominance in reproductive tasks and the social stress on such tasks in their position as wives, mothers and daughters rather than as workers in production. However, women are not entirely excluded from production. In production, the worker in theory earns a family wage but in reality wages are constant points of contention between capitalists and workers and tends to be less than family wages. The family is therefore left to find its own means to subsist and reproduce itself in alternative income-earning activities. For women who seek to do so, their opportunities are largely determined by the gender system and the emphasis on their reproductive tasks as their primary responsibilities. In some contexts, their opportunities can be extremely limited by social ideologies. Thus, in the wage labour market for example, this has direct impact on women's participation and opportunities in terms of the kinds of jobs, level of wages, status and security of employment. The gender system has the effect of rendering women a semi-worker status in which they move between home and workplace. They serve as a reserve army of 1abour, recruited and dismissed easily depending on the vicissitudes of capital accumulation. This secondary status also means that they tend to be superexploited, as wages paid to them are below the value of their labour power, that is, total reproductive costs of their labour power, on grounds that they are only dependents earning supplementary wages. For single women, a simi 1ar assumption that they are destined for marriage and the home lies behind their lower wages compared to men's wages for the same work and their insecurity of employment. At the same time, unlike men, a double burden of work arises for women as they become both domestic

6

workers in the home and workers in the labour market or in some income-generating activity. The defined dependent status of women also means that they tend to be allocated certain jobs which are considered unskilled or semi-skilled, and often these forms of work are extensions of their domestic work

in the home.

The definitions of what are

skills and non-skills are not determined solely in an objective way by technical requirements but are also socially determined. Jobs

which

are

considered

or

identified

as

women's work

are

considered unskilled or semi-skilled but those done by men tend to be classified as skilled (Phillips and Taylor 1980).

In other

words, the skills 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

labour

(Elson

and

Pearson 1980, p. 94). This differentiation between male and female labour is to be located in the socialization of men and women within a gender system in which women acquire skills and training appropriate to their social roles, such as manual dexterity and the qualities of docility, obedience and patience.

Domestic labour and the skills

derived from it tend to be socially invisible and privatized, so that

they

recognition. skills,

are

attributable

to

nature

and

socially

lack

This is extended to jobs which make use of such

thus their classification as

unskilled or semi-skilled

work. The

conditions

of

social

production

and

reproduction

in

general and the forms of women's subordination in particular, are themse 1ves rna i ntai ned, produced and reproduced by various forces and

structures,

state.

which

The state can

include act as

ideological

mechanisms

and

the

a direct mechanism or mediating 7

structure to ensure the over a 11 and specific conditions for the production and reproduction of the system at various levels.

It

also sets to mollify and diffuse as well as to deal with some of the problems change,

and contradictions generated by the processes of

such

as

unemployment,

labour

displacements,

conditions, health conditions, and so forth.

work

In doing so,

its

policies may affect women indirectly and directly 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 and its variant of pluralism to take account of its multi-ethnic aspects.

A few other studies

have been made within a crude class perspective according to the capital expansion perspective.

More recent studies rectify the

1atter and attempt to comprehend such phenomena in terms of the dynamic

interplay between class and ethnic relations within

a

historical context.2 Not only can our understanding of the position of women and gender

relations

benefit

from

these

contribute to their explanatory power.

studies;

it

can

also

It has been argued, for

example, that the implementation of the New Economic Policy is reducing the identification of ethnicity with class and occupation especially among the unskilled ranks of the working class, and that the integration of Malays into the wage labour force has many important implications for the future of ethnic as well as class relations.3

However, this fails to recognize that a large section

of the unskilled Malay working class consists of women from rural backgrounds

who

are

interacting with

non-Malay workers

factory and urban settings for the first time.

within

In one study of

women workers in Penang (Lim 1979), the vague point is made that "womanhood" may have brought about a low level of ethnic and class 8

consciousness. The study also points out that female participation in socialized production has implications on gender relationships and consciousness but does not explore these implications or the impact of gender relations on class and ethnicity. Studies on the position of women in Malaysia are recent and focus mainly on female participation in the export-oriented industries set up under the post-1969 New Economic Policy. These industries employ almost exclusively female labour, underlying which is the exploitation and manipulation of women's "traditional" subordinate gender position and their attributes of docility, patience and manual dexterity, making them cheaper than male workers and easier to control. Furthermore, in these processes of exploitation and manipulation, "traditional" or already existing forms of gender subordination are intensified, decomposed or/and recomposed into new forms.4 However, little is concretely known about these "traditional" or already existing forms of subordination. Studies done so far simply assume, implicitly or explicitly, that the subordination of women already existed and that they were subordinated in largely the same way within "traditional" society, that is, under male authority in the family. The assumption is that in the society prior to the penetration of multinational capital, women were located within traditional social positions as wives, mothers and daughters with certain attributes associated with such roles. But this ignores the multiplicity of positions and roles of various categories of women in different social contexts. These studies also ignore the fact that changes in which gender relations and women were affected had or were already taking place prior to the penetration of multinational capital in the post-1969 period. Specifically, the whole period of changes 9

during colonial rule and the effects on women's position have been missed out. This study is a preliminary investigation of some forms of women's subordination during the colonial period. Using a soc i o-h i star i ca 1 approach, it examines some aspects of women's work situations outside their homes, focusing on Chinese women in particular. It examines their social background, their position within each work process and the social forms both inside and outside of the work sphere which allows that process of subordination to be produced and reproduced. Specifically, it examines work conditions and processes, the recruitment and allocation of 1abour, the forms of 1abour contra 1, the 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 inevitable; rather, they are the social and historical outcomes of responses, conflicts and struggles. This study briefly identifies some of the contradictions and problems generated in the work processes and outlines some of the ways in which women have historically responded and struggled. However, their participation in political and labour activities in trade union organizations have been left out, given the limited scope of this study. It is hoped that by providing some insights into the "traditional" or "existing" forms of subordination among Chinese women, this study will further our understanding of the continuities and changes in Malaysian women's position. The position of Chinese women in colonial Malaya cannot be understood as being essentially the same as in China, but is to be located within specific social relations in the Malayan colonial context. Such an understanding also necessarily means a focus on 10

the irrmigrant generation of Chinese women most of whom came to Malaya during decades

of

settlement social

the colonial

the

twentieth

in Malaya is

period,

mainly

century.

in

Their

also significant

characteristics and "traditions" of

the first relatively

in

three recent

that some of

the

immigrant-generation

women still exist among those still alive and are continued in modified ways by subsequent generations through socialization and influence.

Many Chinese households still have among their members

immigrant generation women who are now in their fifties or older. "Chinese women" refer to a broad category; in reality they are far from homogeneous, with differences in dialects, customs and practices, between major groups and subgroups based 1arge ly on territorial origin in China.

One fundamental distinction is

tied to the class structure among the Chinese which consists of wage and non-wage workers; agricultural smallholders; shopkeepers, merchants

and

artisans;

and capitalists of mines,

banks and other major businesses. existed

in the early years

1930s, its lines were clear. wage

Chinese women workers

Chinese

women

in

colonial

plantations,

This class structure already

of Chinese

immigration

and by the

This study focuses on wage and nonin

the major forms

Malaya,

namely,

of work

prostitution

domestic servitude among those "unfree" or trafficked,

among and

and tin

mining, rubber estate production, domestic service, manufacturing, hawking and construction among "free" women.

The Colonial Context and Chinese Female Immigration to Malaya It was during the British colonial period that immigrant labour

flowed

into Malaya in large numbers and historically developed

under capitalist expansion.

The need to ensure a steady, adequate

11

and cheap

labour supply for

economic expansion was

early by state and various capitalist interests.

recognized

Throughout the

colonial period the question of labour was their central concern. External sources of labour, mainly from China, India and Indonesia (Java)

were

relied

agricultural rubber),

on

to

plantations

meet

the

(initially

labour

requirements

spices

and

of

subsequently

expanding tin mines and public works as well

as the

accompanying expansion of trade and service activities.

By the

early decades of the twentieth century, there emerged a c 1ear division of labour in which the Chinese were concentrated heavily in the mining and service sectors and to a lesser extent in rubber plantations, the Indians and Javanese in plantations while the indigeneous Malays remained in subsistence activities.5 labour

was

initially recruited

for

spice plantations

Chinese and for

services in the Straits Settlements (SS) and parts of the Malay peninsula.

The discovery of rich tin ore deposits and the opening

of mines in the Malay States in the second half of the nineteenth century

greatly

increased

the

inflow of Chinese

labour which

continued into the early decades of the twentieth century. expansion

The

of rubber cultivation from 1900s required even more

Chinese labour in the Federated Malay States (FMS) and by 1931, Chinese labour made up the second largest work force after Indian workers in the rubber plantations.

The bulk of Chinese workers,

however, was found mainly in the tin mines. The

vast

majority

of

colonial period were men.

Chinese

immigrants

throughout

the

They came mainly from southern China

where poverty, famine and political upheaval forced many of them to leave their fami 1 ies for the Nanyang (South Seas) and other parts of the world to seek their livelihood. the merchant, three

trader,

categories

peasant

forming

Drawn mostly from

and artisan classes

the

big

majority)

most

(the latter of

these

immigrants came to Malaya as transient workers who intended to

12

return to China after acqu1r1ng some money. However, indebtedness forced many to remain and to settle in Malaya subsequently. In the nineteenth century, they were mostly recruited through a traffic system in which they were subjected to the controls of procurers, recruiting agents, 1odgi ng house owners, brokers and employers at various points of recruitment, despatch, allocation and production. Life in the mines, estates and towns within an indenture work system was harsh. The men lived under conditions of poverty and indebtedness, with sickness and death often occurring from exposure to disease, ill-treatment and poor working and living conditions. Outside their work, gambling, opium smoking, brothel visiting and secret society activities were the dominant and interconnected aspects of the men's social life. These were activities largely organized by Triad secret societies which together with brokers, traffickers and employers constituted the most powerful forces among the Chinese population in colonial Malaya. While some of these aspects of social life already existed among men in southern China, they found new bases of expression at a highly intensified level in the Malayan context of an almost entirely single male immigrant labour force. This dominance of a male population and of male activities in tightly organized and controlled communities had various implications on the position of the few Chinese women there, as we shall see. Unlike Chinese women were few in early colonial Malaya. Chinese men, the vast majority of 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 within the feud a1-patri arch a 1 Chinese soc i a1 structure and social conditions of the times (Chin 1980).

13

In

feudal-patriarchal

Chinese

society,

women

subordinated to men in various spheres of 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

of

family

members

reproductive tasks.

and

for

household

productive

and

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 living.

Even in

times of poverty, famine and extreme exploitation by landlords, the resort to migration to seek a living was for men, not women. For women and their families, the means of survival were sought in their

transfer

and

sale

into

prostitution,

concubinage

and

domestic servitude. Women, therefore, were hardly found in the outflow of labour from China to Malaya and elsewhere in search of livelihood in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Furthermore, migration by

men was intended to be temporary and as such, their families 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.

The only women

immigrants from

China in early colonial 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 ratio which persisted until the 1930s.

In 1850, the sex ratio was one woman

to twelve men on the average and in the mining districts of Larut and lower Perak where the Chinese were concentrated, the ratio was as high as one to eighteen in 1888 (Purcell 1967, PP· 86-87; cited

14

in Chin 1980). Even with massive female immigration in the 1930s, the ratio was still imbalanced at one to five on the average and even more imbalanced within each dialect group.6 As we shall see, the scarcity of women led to a heavy traffic in them. The major influx of female immigrants from China into Malaya occurred only in the 1ate 1920s and the 1930s. It consisted mainly of widows and single women who were forced to leave southern China because of economic depression, worsening conditions of famine and impending war with Japan. These women were able to escape the quotas restricting immigration under the Aliens Ordinance 1933 passed by the Malayan colonial government to cope with unemployment as the quotas applied only to males.? As a result, the single largest inflow of women into Malaya from China took place during the worst period of the depression (Del Tufo 1949, p. 43). It has been estimated that between 1933 and 1938, Malaya received more than 190,000 female deck passengers between the ages of 18 and 40 (Blythe 1947, p. 103). The inflow continued until 1938 when continuing severe unemployment led to the imposition of quota restrictions on female immigration as well. The last 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 to Malaya with their families under certain citizenship arrangements. Two categories of Chinese women who came to Malaya can be distinguished under the common reference "immigrant". The first category came on a more or less voluntary and free basis without being indebted. It consisted mainly of wives and relatives who came throughout the period of Chinese male immigration but especially in the early decades of the twentieth century, and single women who came mainly in the 1920s and 1930s. Wives and relatives came to join men who were mostly merchants, traders,

15

employers and occasionally, the exceptional worker who, over time, saved enough to return to China to marry or to remit bride money to relatives for a wife to be sent to him. Among the single women who immigrated in the 1930s were 1arge numbers of women workers from Kwangtung's silk and textile industries which had been badly hit by the economic depression. Many of these women belonged to an anti-marriage movement and they decided to migrate to Malaya to earn a living when they lost their jobs, rather than lose the independence they had experienced in the movement and as workers. In the tradition of the movement, most of them migrated in pairs or groups and gave support to each other throughout. The other category of women who came to Malaya throughout the colonial period consisted of prostitutes and mui tsai (child domestic workers) imported in a traffic in women. As noted earlier, the means of seeking a livelihood outside the household for Chinese women in China were extremely limited by their social position. Many poor women were forced into prostitution in order to survive under the harsh economic conditions in southern China as from the nineteenth century onwards, and during this period, the forced sale and transfer of women became highly intensified. At the same time, this sale and transfer assumed a new form and significance in an international commercial traffic in women between southern China and Southeast Asia. For wh i1 e southern China was facing strife and famine, Southeast Asia was being penetrated by various colonial powers for various economic interests in which labour supplies were required (Lasker 1942; Thompson 1947). The traffic in women between southern China and Malaya was part of the wider traffic in women in the entire region for their 1abour and for prostitution, the 1atter based on the specific demand for Chinese women by Chinese male immigrants for sexual servicing (Lasker 1942). This traffic in 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 male leisure activities became more established. Central to the traffic'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 sold to brothel keepers, pimps, individuals and families as prostitutes, mistresses or mui tsai for domestic servitude. Some mui tsai were acquired directly in China and brought to Malaya by wealthy Chinese families. The SS government's overall policy towards the immigration of Chinese women was one of non-restriction and encouragement, although in reality, policies towards the two categories of women differed to some extent. The pol icy towards wives and single women was one of encouragement and had underlying justifications. Individual colonial administrators such as Vaughan held the view that the inflow of women should be encouraged by the government to • . • prevent, if for no other reason, the fearful crimes that prevail amongst the Chinese in the consequences of the paucity of fema 1es... the introduction of women would materially conduce to the peacefulness of the colony. The Chinese are materially domesticated, and would, surrounded by their wives and children, seek to maintain order and peace, and wou 1d not be easily aroused as they are now with no ties to restrain them (Vaughan 1971, p. 33).

The "crimes" that Vaughan referred to were evidently those of

17

the secret societies and his solution to them lay in the emotional and sexual services of wives and mothers, in 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 labour supply. Not only would female immigration rectify the sex ratio imbalance and reduce what was considered the "immorality that prevails", it would promote local family formation for the biological and social reproduction of local supply of labour; as well as provide a source of labour in itself. 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 labour when it became evident that the existing supply of labour for the rapidly expanding rubber estates was insufficient and uncertain. Furthermore, the indenture system's abolition was imminent.8 Employers also recognized that 1abour cou 1d be secured and costs kept down by hiring a male worker's wife and children as his dependants at lower wages than pay the male worker a family wage. 9 It was further recognized that the socialization of Chinese women into the roles of wife and mother in filial obedience to male authority made them develop qualities of docility and passivity which made for easy contro 1 of fema 1e 1abour, and at the same time ensured James Birch, high productivity at cheaper dependents' wages. Resident of Perak commented in 1909 that Chinese female workers in the mines were "amongst the most industrious, most cheerfu 1 and most law-abiding of our citizens". 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 in Chin 1980). The

colonial

state encouraged 18

the

growth

of the female

population through immigration even during periods of economic depression.

The quotas and repatriation schemes during the 1930s

applied only to male workers.

In fact, the most important effect

of the A1i ens Ordinance 1933 was to a 11 ow for and encourage a massive influx of females.

Repatriation of the unemployed during

the Great Depression was refused to fema 1es and the only women emigrants from Ma 1aya were the wives of repatriated men and o 1d women.

The government's policy was to retain as many women as

possible

in the country

and

the

increasing number of Chinese

fami 1 ies in the 1930s was noted with satisfaction (Parmer 1960, pp. 242, 252).

The over a 11 result was a sharp increase in the

number of Chinese working class families and a more stable supply of labour by the 1940s. The colonial state's policy towards trafficked women was part of its wider attempt to centro 1 the secret societies and their activities.

Despite the Girls Protection Ordinance 1896 under

which the Chinese

Protectorate

(an

institution

set up by the

colonial authorities to control the Chinese) attempted to prevent the abusive aspects of the traffic in women, the state

~ould

not

and did not impose restrictions on the importation of women for prostitution

so long as they did so of "their own free will"

(Purcell 1967, p. 174).

Brothels were also legal.

the

various

late 1920s due to

pressures,

It was only in

that the government

d i sa 11 owed avowed prostitutes to enter Ma 1aya and brothe 1s were closed.

A similar policy of non-entry of avowed mui tsai was

pursued after 1932 and in both cases, checks at immigration points by Protectorate offici a 1s were enforced. persisted

in

disguise

depression

and

the

despite

whatever

towards

this

and,

in

fact,

immediate post-war

attempted

controls

category of women fell

The traffic however, increased

period.

over

the

during

On the whole, traffic,

policy

into conformity with the

overall laissez faire position towards female immigration. 19

the

The Social Background of Women Immigrants from Southern China Female immigrants from southern China in the early decades of the twentieth century formed

the bulk

of

the first

generation of

Chinese women in Malaya.

They came bearing with them a certain

social background which affected and influenced their position and 1 ives in Malaya. In feudal-patriarchal

society in China, the class structure

was based on the ownership of property, chiefly land, inherited through the male line in the family.

Males were, therefore, very

important to ensure family descent and they were regarded as heads of households, wielding power and authority.

Men also dominated

economic, political and intellectual power in agriculture, trades, artisanship, scholarship and political and state affairs.

Women

were

Their

subordinated

to men

in

various

spheres

of

life.

rightful place was in the home as daughters, wives and mothers, and they observed three filial obediences to father, husband and son and four virtues of propriety in behaviour, speech, demeanour and household duties.

The sexual division of labour was clearcut,

with women bearing the tasks of producing and rearing children, especially males for the continuation of the family line. violation

and

deviation

from

such

ideals

of

womanhood

Any meant

punishment, social discrimination and sanctions. The few alternatives to marriage for women were occupations connected with sex and procreation.

Women in these occupations

included

concubines,

midwives,

matchmakers,

songstresses,

prostitutes, mu i tsa i in domestic servitude and generally those who did not 1 ive and work at home. immoral society.

Such women were considered

or were held in contempt and had very low statuses in The only acceptable and honourable form of rejection of

marriage was entry into the religious order, and of protest, was

20

suicide. Footbinding, prostitution, female concubinage, infanticide and sale of females were all institutionalized and reinforced by powerful ideological mechanisms. In times of economic adversity, practices such as the sale of females for prostitution, domestic servitude and concubinage were intensified among poor families (Davin 1975; Diamond 1975; Topley 1975; Croll 1978). Variations and differences of the above ideals, however, existed between classes, regions and dialect groups, and women in southern China bore certain such differences (Davin 1975; 1979). Women from peasant and economically poor class background in contrast to women of upper c 1asses, had re 1at i ve ly more economic and social independence mainly because they had to work to maintain their households. Women of the rice-growing and silkrearing districts of southern China, especially Kwantung and Fukien provinces from where most of the female immigrants to Malaya originated, were mainly of peasant or poor backgrounds and worked in both productive and reproductive work. Within the household, they were responsible for cooking, cleaning, childcare, food preparation and processing, weaving, sewing and the preparation and processing of grain, tobacco, tea and other agriculture produce. As agriculturalists, they worked at sowing, weeding, harvesting and processing of grains and other food produce as well as at raising livestock. In the sericulture areas of the Canton delta, women reared silkworms and tended mulberry trees, spun silkthreads and wove. Hakka women were mostly agriculturalists and were well-known for their physical strength and independence in work (Davin 1975, p. 258). Hainanese women tapped rubber, picked cotton and fished.lO Women of southern China also performed heavy manual tasks which were usually associated with the tasks of men. They were manual workers in the villages, transporting agricultural produce in fields and 21

processing mills. In the towns, they also worked as manual workers. It is, therefore, not surprising that the practice of footbinding was less common among working women compared with upper class women, for it severely impeded mobility and work ability. Hakka women, women of the boat population of Canton and Hainanese women, for example, did not have bound feet. Footbinding was also practised far less in southern China, in contrast with northern China .11 This economic independence of women from southern China was strengthened during the period of male emigration in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Without their menfolk, many women were effectively the heads of households who took over entire economic responsibilities of maintaining their families. Historically, some women of southern China also distinguished themselves from the traditional ideals of womanhood. In the antiManchu Taiping Rebellion which originated in southern China in the mid-nineteenth century, Hakka women were among its co-founders and fighters. They influenced the Taiping platforms, including the equality of the sexes and the prohibition of footbinding (Croll Some Cantonese women of the 1978, p. 39; Davin 1979, p. 7). Shen-te, Nan-hai and P'an Yu districts in the sericulture area of Kwangtung province formed an anti-marriage movement in the nineteenth and early twentieth century (Topley 1975). These women rejected the subordinate position of Chinese women in marriage by refusing to marry or, having gone through the ceremonies of marriage, refused to live with their husbands and in-laws. Fear of marriage was the principal reason for their anti-marriage stance. Some stressed the fear of becoming a "slave of man", of being a "human machine of propagation" and of marrying the "wrong type of man". Other reasons given were the friendship at work and economic independence of an unmarried woman as against the "loneliness" in marriage and economic dependence on her husband.l2 22

Their resistance to marriage was expressed in various forms. Typically, they organized themselves into "sworn" sisterhoods in which they took vows to remain spinsters and to live together as tsae mui ("sworn" sisters) or to be "wedded" to each other. Others were the pu-lo-chia who were formally married but refused to live with their husbands and in-laws. The women gave each other support and often lived in sisterhood houses away from their own families. Some even paid for a concubine to replace them while other sisterhoods banded together to stop their husbands from taking concubines. The specific conditions in the Canton delta area provided these women with an economic basis for their anti-marriage position. The geographical environment favoured sericulture and for centuries it was a labour-intensive activity with a Women considerable proportion of work performed by women. cultivated mulberry trees and picked leaves, reared silkworms, reeled and spun silk threads. The setting up of filatures and industries in the mid-nineteenth century saw women, mainly those who were single, being employed in cash-earning occupations in these factories as they already possessed the skills required for silkwork. This economic power was strengthened in the early twentieth century by massive male migration with the decline of the domestic agricultural economy, the elimination of male labour from the silkworks as a result of mechanization and the continued employment of women in the labour-intensive processes of the sericulture industry. During this time, it was observed that thousands of peasant homes depended for the entire or a large part of their livelihood on the earnings of a wife or daughter (Tapley The women's anti-marriage movement became 1975, p. 21). acceptable even to their parents. Anti-marriage women gave each other sustained support. 23

As

young girls, they had developed team spirit and the principles of friendship, solidarity, independence and mutual support through the local practices of group living and group activities, while the religious influences of nunneries, temples and chai tang In (vegetarian halls) justified the rejection of marriage.l3 their working lives, they shared premises and developed elaborate forms of saving money and mutual support systems which were both In old age, some of them used their financial and emotional. savings to pay for residence in special ku po mu (spinsters' house) or tsu mei wu (sisters' house). Such houses usually had land for communal cultivation, and some of the women even adopted daughters whom they brought up in their "faith". Others retired to religious worship or to their own houses or chai tang. The economic basis of the women's independence was, however, removed in the late 1920s by outside competition to the silk industry and by economic depression. Filatures and factories were forced to close, putting many women out of work and their earnings While some retired dropped drastically (Top ley 1975, p. 84). early to spinsters' houses and vegetarian ha 11 s, others sought alternative means of livelihood. Those who were young migrated to the cities to seek work as domestic servants while others made individual or joint decisions to migrate to the Nanyang. It was this latter category that made up the shiploads of Cantonese women who arrived in Malaya between 1933 and 1938. It is against this complex background of the general forms and ideal standards and actual class and regional variations of women's position in southern China that the position of Chinese Their women in colonial Malaya can be better understood. integration into its economic and social life as wives, mothers and single women on the one hand and as prostitutes, domestic servants, mui tsai, workers and hawkers on the other hand, called 24

into interplay these characteristics and background with other social relations. In this interplay, some aspects of their gender position were intensified while others were decomposed and recomposed into new forms.

NOTES 1

Saffioti (1977) and Deere (1979). See Boaerup (1971) and Rogers (1960) for the same argument within a modernization perspective.

2

For examples of these three approaches, see the following respectively: (a) Ratnam (1965); (b) Haji Embong Abdul Rahman (1974); and (c) Stenson (1960); and Mullard and Brennan (1976).

3

See Sundaram (1960). The New Economic Policy aims at restructuring Malaysian society by eradicating poverty and the identification of ethnicity with occupation.

4

See for example Cardosa-Khoo and Khoo (1978); (1980); Heyzer (1960); Elson and Pearson (1981).

5

This division along ethnic linea was the outcome of 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. In the areas from which labour supplies were drawn, i t was a combination of economic and political factors which forced vast sections of their population to emigrate in search of livelihood.

6

For example, there were far leas Hainaneae women compared to Hainaneae men and as late as 1931, the sex ratio among the Hainaneae was one to seven in favour of the men. Until 1924, 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 of tickets and to compensate for the reduced traffic. Women could, however, obtain non-quota tickets at a comparatively cheaper rate. They were, in fact, encouraged to migrate on such cheap tickets by traffic agents and lodging housekeepers who were sold quota tickets by brokers only if they bought three or four non-quota tickets each time.

B

Indenture labour was increasingly discredited as the abuses of the system became well known and Chinese nationalistic opinion in 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

Linda Lim (1976); Ariffin

9

While this strategy applied to Indian women in the rubber plantations in the main, it also encouraged Chinese female immigration. For details see Parmer (1960), pp. 197-98.

10

This contradicted the usual strictly male preserve in fishing as women were regarded as polluting agents. See Ahern (1975).

11

In north China, women rarely worked in the fields but in peak periods when their labour was required, footbound women worked on their knees.

12

Yet others stressed domestic disharmony with mothers-in-law and children of different families within the household, fear of physical pain and the polluting effects of child-birth, distaste for heterosexual relations and satisfaction with close friendships with girls.

13

Nubile girls already formed a separate group who lived in girls' houses or girls' rooms for reasons of luck -- if they married out of their own homes directly, they made the house "empty" and brought bad luck. Such girls' houses were found in many parts of Kwangtung. Older girls were also fond of visiting temples and other religious establishments such as vegetarian halls and Buddhist nunneries, as well as attending theatrical performances in large numbers. Religious teachings stressed sexual equality and religious literature contained biographies of model women who broke with tradition, for example, the Goddess Kuan Yin, who rejected marriage and attained salvation through religion. Religious practices also stressed celibacy against sexual pollution.

26

II

PROSTITUTION

While prostitution already existed as a social relation between men and women in China, it was highly intensified and assumed a new basis and new forms in the Malaya. Chinese women who were prostitutes were imported into Malaya for the brothel market. They were distinguished from other female immigrants and formed a distinct category of working women in their situation as women sold or transferred in a traffic in women, their involvement in prostitution as their sole or main source of work, and their tight control by male trafficking agencies and by colonial state policies specifically directed at them. The traffic in women, the agencies involved and the male domains of mining camps and towns largely set the context of the prostitutes' working conditions and 1ives.

Prostitution and Control

by

Secret Societies

The traffic in Chinese women for prostitution in Malaya began around the mid-nineteenth century, at the same time as tin mining expanded. Traffickers went to villages in southern China and by various means ranging from contacts, cajoles, deceptions, purchase or kidnap, acquired young girls and women. They were then shipped 27

to the Straits Settlements (55) and other parts of Southeast Asia. The Chinese emigration authorities were suspicious of female emigrants whom they assumed went abroad for "immoral" activities but there was no official 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 will" (Purcell 1967, p. 174) and brothels were While some prostitutes were allocated to legal until 1927. brothels in the SS, others were sold or delivered to brothel keepers and secret societies in the mining camps and towns in the Yet others were bought by Federated Malay States (FMS). individual men who had left their wives in China or who wanted concubines. It is estimated that 80 per cent of all young girls who came to Singapore in the 1870s were sold to brothels. At their destinations, the young girls were "disposed of like slaves in the open market" (Song 1923, pp. 125-26), most of them under the control of secret societies. In 1863, 500 young girls were ordered from China by secret societies and their prices on the It was market in Singapore ranged from $100 to $400 each. estimated that in the same year, there were no less than 2,000 to 2,500 of these girls out of a total Chinese female population of not more than 4,000 in Singapore. In 1884, at least 2,000 out of 6,600 Chinese women in Singapore were prostitutes. Most of these girls were between the ages of 13 and 16 (Song 1925; Purcell 1967; Comber 1959; Turnbull 1977). Trafficking agents formed a closely connected and highly organized chain and included procurers, brokers, shipping agents, secret society members, brothel keepers and employers at various points of recruitment, despatch, resale or allocation, and work. In many cases, these agents were members of the same organization, 28

usually a secret society, or were at least under its control. Brothel keepers, for example, were also secret society members or had a tax imposed on them by such societies in centro 1 of the local area, while others hired samseng (thugs who usually belonged to a secret society) to procure and contra 1 prostitutes. Some employers were also secret society members who owned brothels and other revenue farms.1 As the main social organization of the Chinese in early colonial Malaya, the secret societies undertook the provision and organization of social activities for their male members (only) and male workers. In the context of the predominantly single male corrmunit i es in the mines and towns, the activities and needs of men were defined as "public" and the provision of women was seen as a "public" service. Prostitution was organized alongside gambling, opium smoking and drinking, and together these activities formed the men's dominant leisure activities held in "public" houses or similar premises (Gullick 1955; cited in Jackson 1961, pp. 5-7). The provision of women and the control of brothels not only enhanced the lucrativeness of such "public" houses as revenue farms, but were themselves a source of funds for their owners. For the c1i ents, the women provided company and sexual servicing. These crucial roles of prostitution and prostitutes in the male-dominated contexts of mining camps and towns were reflected in the constant struggles between rival gangs of men and between secret societies for the ownership and control of brothels and women. Three main categories of prostitutes existed "sold", "pawned" and "voluntary" -- all of whom came under varying forms and degrees of control of the brothel keepers and secret society men.2 "Sold" prostitutes were those bought from traffickers and were virtually slaves owned by brothel keepers who kept them 29

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. In some cases, they were also domestic servants of brothel keepers. Related to this category are the young pi-pa-chai ("singsong" girls), some of whom were b1i nd (Song 1923, pp. 252-53, 432). These gi r 1s, purchased in China, were trained to be musicians and singers in streets or in 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 their debts (Purcell 1967, p. 175). However, the latter situation was highly unlikely, as the women's share was usually taken by other men such as the secret society samseng as payment for "protection" from other gangs of men who might kidnap them. Prostitutes who operated independently were very few in the early period. Given the pervasive power of the secret societies, any prostitute who attempted to 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 (Purcell 1967). Prostitutes' c1i ents inc 1uded men from the working c 1ass as well as the capitalist and managerial classes. They also entertained by singing, provided company in gambling sessions 30

and prepared opium for the men (Jackson 1961).

Over the years, a

distinction gradually evolved in the brothel system in which the brothels were graded into classes.

The 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 males.

"Lower class" brothels were situated in

clearly known areas while the others tended to be more discreetly patronized "sly" brothels.3 While the paternalistic view that lower class prostitutes are defenceless

and helpless

victims

is

not

held here (there are

indications of rebellious women who went against the control of brothel keepers and of the reaction of prostitutes to subsequent state legislation against them [quoted in Lim 1980, p. 104]), it is nevertheless true that Chinese prostitutes in colonial Malaya were severely constrained by the tight control of keepers and secret society men.

In this highly organized system of controls,

they were bought and sold like commodities and had very little control over their lives themselves. watchful

eyes

of

the

brothel

They were always under the

keepers

and

older

or

former

prostitutes 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 and to "protect" them from being snatched by other gangs.

Some of the rebe 11 i ous girls were put to shame and raped

by gangsters 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 filial 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 on the part of the women themselves that further reinforced their keepers' controls. The interplay between class and gender relations emerges clearly in the organization of prostitution. The organization of 1ei sure activities by the interconnected agents of the emp 1oyer, secret society 1eader and creditor kept the rna 1e workers and the women indebted and was, in effect, an indirect form of control over the men and a direct one over the women. Within this direct form of control, the women's role was the servicing of male workers', leisure for the reproduction of their labour power and for the profit and revenue of owners.

Prostitution and Colonial Policies Colonial state policies also set the context of Chinese prostitutes' working conditions and lives. Policies towards the traffic in women and prostitution varied over periods, depending on various pressure and considerations and ranged from nonintervention to attempts to bring prostitution under its direct control. In the early years of colonial rule, the state did not intervene in the traffic. However, from the 1870s onwards, the state was pressured to intervene and check activit·ies of the secret societies which were considered threatening to the general conditions of trade and investment in the Malay states. The monopoly of public activities of which prostitution was a part, was one of the two major areas of conflict between the colonial state and the secret societies, the other being the latter's control of the traffic in labour supply. The colonial government's attempts to control these activities met with varying 32

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 held a monopoly of public gambling which was farmed out to tax farmers in the FMS. Revenue was further derived from the licensing of brothels although there are no concrete figures to show. Together, the activities of opium smoking, gambling, drinking and prostitution became the major sources of revenue for the government. The colonial state thus played a major role in setting up and maintaining a system from which it benefited directed but which its colonial members were so fond of attributing solely to the Chinese as their "four well known evils". Where the state was not entirely able to control the activities of the secret societies because of their power but yet stood to benefit from them, it resorted to a policy of nonintervention and general tolerance. Hence, in the struggles between the state and the secret societies over the traffic and control of women, the state's aim was not to abolish the traffic or prostitution, but to regularize and control the inflow of females and to check the worst abuses of the traffic. (The latter contributed to what was considered the secret societies "riotous" activities threatening "peace and order" in the colony.) The colonial government also felt it was unrealistic to ban prostitution, given the highly unbalanced sex ratio. In Singapore in 1884, for example, there were 60,000 Chinese men compared with 6,600 women of whom at least 2,000 were prostitutes. Even Raffles (1819-26) who founded Singapore appreciated that it would be unrealistic to ban prostitution in a predominantly male immigrant society and he only forbade men living off the earnings of prostitutes. A ban would also encourage homosexual prostitution which was fostered for many years by the importation of Hainanese 33

boys reputed to have fair skins and good looks. Both features are highly valued by the Chinese in their perception of beauty. Thus, on the whole, state policies towards the traffic and prostitution before the 1920s was characterized by tolerance, 1imited controls and a reluctance to take action other than to curb abuses such as forced prostitution. To curb abuses, brothels were 1ega 1i zed and registered under the Contagious Diseases Act passed in 1870, despite great opposition from brothe 1 keepers. The features of this act are probably the same as those in the Contagious Diseases Acts passed in Britain at about the same time to register and examine "prostitutes" for venereal diseases as a means of checking their spread among the soldiers and sailors in southern England. Under these acts, women thought of being prostitutes were registered, subjected to a periodic examination, and if found suffering from venereal disease, were incarcerated in a certified locked hospital for a period (Walkowitz and Walkowitz 1976). In Malaya, the Contagious Diseases Act and the Women and Girls Act of 1896 were meant to check the worst excesses of the traffic such as slavery in prostitution and venereal diseases. Both acts provided for the incarceration of women for treatment of venereal diseases and 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). The Contagious Diseases Act also gave power to the protectorate system in which the colonial "Protector of the Chinese" assumed paternalistic responsibility for regulating prostitution and for offering protection to prostitutes, assisted by a committee of local wealthy and middle-class Chinese men and colonial officers. Vaughan, in speaking of the protection offered by the colonial government to Chinese prostitutes under the act, spoke of the "untiring exertions of the gentlemen appointed by the Government to carry out the provisions of that ordinance into effect, to get 34

these women free and encourage them to 1ead pure and virtuous lives; many have, through their influence, left the brothels and married, and are happy and contented" (Vaughan 1971, p. 8). Prostitution, however, continued to generate problems of contagious venereal diseases among the male workers and the prostitutes. While there is no concrete evidence to show the rate of venerea 1 diseases, their presence among the rna 1e workers and prostitutes which if unchecked, clearly threatened to result in a diseased labour force which would be detrimental to the condition of production in the mines, plantations and towns. This consideration assumed a particular seriousness in the face of increased 1abour requirements for the rapidly expanding rubber plantations. Furthermore, treatment for 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 women. Purcell for example, in his visit to a Po Leung Kuk in Singapore in 1931 noted that of 266 girls in 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 venerea 1 disease and prostitution throughout the 1ate nineteenth and early twentieth century. It came from various quarters ranging from eminent individuals to organized groups and were expressed mainly in terms of prostitution's "dangers" to health and morality. As early as the 1880s, a local Chinese municipal councillor in Singapore, Tan Jiak Kim, spoke of "the absence of any regulation for checking the spread of certain contagious diseases, arising from the dangerous trade or practice of 35

prostitution, [whi ch] i s proving injurio us to t he he alth of th e publ i c of th i s place ... " and called f or r egu l ation s t o protec t pub l ic health (quoted i n Song 1923, p. 253). At t he turn of the century, colonial admini s trator s and middle-class Chr i stia nized Chinese members of social club s and representatives of the Po Leung Kuk committee, i n press i ng for act i on, spoke of "much immor ality and the ruin of very many of the gi rls" (Song 1923, p. 432). The Advisory Committee on Social Hygiene in the 1920s made recol11llendations on various grounds of health and of protecting European morality against what it considered were the "Chinese social evils". Their recol11llendations, among others, included the gradual closure of known brothels, the prevention of the procurement of recruits, the prevention of the exploitation of women and girls and the suppression of brothels frequented by Europeans (cited in Lim 1980, pp. 103-4). By the late 1920s, the government was forced to take concrete steps to deal with the problems generated by prostitution. In 1927, the colonial government adopted an anti-prostitution strategy. Part of this strategy was the control of female immigration for the purposes of prostitution. While there was no restr i ction on the i nflow of females, the Protectorate undertoo k to check all female immig r ants at the point of en try to ens ure th at the r e were no "avowed" pro st it ute s . The oth er part of the st rategy i nvol ved the co nt rol of brothel ope ra t i ons . Broth e l s we r e allowe d on a selecti ve li cens i ng system in whic h th e "higher c l as s " brothe l s f requented by wealt hy Ch i ne se rna l es and Eur opeans were permitted while "lower class " brothe l s had t heir lice nses wi thdrawn an d we r e forced to close. The women of thes e "l ower c l as s" br ot hel s were t old to get married or f i nd some other occu pat i on and only th os e who were unabl e t o do so were t ransferred to the "hi gh clas s" ones (Lim 1980 ) .

36

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, although prostitution remained legal. additional girls

responsibilities for the

rescued

brothels.

The Protectorate aided by the pol ice assumed

At

from

prostitution

immigration

points

incarceration of women and

and all

for

the

female

suppression immigrants

of were

subjected to c 1ose scrutiny to ensure they did not enter for the purposes of prostitution or domestic servitude (state action was at the same time being taken against the traffic in young girls

37

for domestic servitude as mui tsai). In cases where the women or girls were believed to be victims of the traffic, they were detained and sent to the Po Leung Kuk in Penang, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. Contrary to its aim of eliminating prostitution however, the closure of brothels reinforced it and drove the majority of prostitutes "underground" into "sly" prostitution. For the prostitutes from the "lower class" brothels who were told to get married or find some other occupation when such brothe 1s were closed in 1927, such opportunities were extremely 1 imited. Hostility and social stigma attached to prostitutes as immoral, samseng women prevented many from marriage. There were few opportunities for alternative work as most of the work in the mines and trades in the towns were dominated by men. Those cases transferred to "high class" brothels must have been relatively few and limited to women who had the advantage of youth and beauty. Many women therefore resorted to "sly" 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 the prostitutes' dependence on gangsters and brothel keepers for c 1 i ents and protection from po 1ice raids and Protectorate officials. While such raids broke up some of the organization of the brothel-secret society chains and cut off a large amount of the funds of the samseng, they quickly reorganized themse 1ves. The number of touts employed on the streets to solicit customers for clandestine prostitutes increased considerably (Purcell 1967, pp. 176-97). State legislation also forced prostitution to assume new 38

forms.

Prostitutes moved their operations from open brothe 1s to

"sly" brothels, coffee-shops, lodging houses, hotels, dance-halls, cabarets and premises where rooms were let out.5

Some prostitutes

assumed disguises as cashiers, "singsong" girls, taxi-dancers and waitresses in dance-halls and cabarets in amusement parks which had became a feature of the 1930s, representing a new form of male leisure activity in which the pleasure of dancing, listening to songs and the company of escort girls could be sought by paying a fee.6 However, not all cashiers, "singsong" girls, taxi-dancers and bar

waitresses

were

prostitutes

as

commonly

misconceived.

Professional dancers and singers employed in the cabarets received fixed salaries according to their popularity and dance partners in addition, received a share of the proceeds of the sale of dance tickets.

In this way, they could usually earn enough as a dancer

to support themselves without having to resort to prostitution as an

additional

means

of

income.

In the 1930s the numbers of

taxi-dancers increased with the proliferation of dance-halls and "singsong" girls were in great demand (Purcell 1967, p. 176; Lim 1980, p. 104).

During the years of economic boom (1952-53) when

dance-halls and cabarets reached the peak of prosperity, salaries of the singers reached $1,200 or more. dropped to as

After the boom, salaries

low as $300-$500 a month

(Straits Times Annual

1954-55). That cashiers

women and

as

turned

to

taxi-dancing,

"singsong"

girls

has

waitressing,

to be

seen

work

against

as the

severely limited alternatives to earn self-supporting incomes for women

in

general

alternatives

to

and

for

ex-prostitutes

prostitution

tended

to

in be

particular. structured

Any

by the

conception that women's work was in servicing, an extension of their traditional

roles as wives and mothers at home. 39

Older

prostitutes had even fewer alternatives than young prostitutes. Some became servants in brothels or brothel keepers and acquired young girls for training as prostitutes. These girls would then support them as their "walking sticks" with their incomes. Tapley's study (1958) of the single women who lived in the chai tang (vegetarian halls) in Singapore in the immediate post-war period found ex-prostitutes and ex-dancers among the residents. These were women who were unab 1e to marry when young and in o1d age had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. They thus turned to the vegetarian halls which were virtually the only form of social organization that catered for single aged women. Here, they found material support while religious practices in these halls offered them salvation from their past stigmatized life as prostitutes and dancers. Prostitutes arrested in police raids were incarcerated in the Po Leung Kuk for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation meant a return to traditional roles and included the teaching of the traditional skills of cooking and sewing as well as basic reading, writing and arithmetic for general competence. Unless adopted, the girls stayed in the Po Leung Kuk unti 1 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 girls. The Po Leung Kuk system of rehabilitation removed women from one extreme form of subordination which was regarded as inmoral and trained them to be workers and wives which were regarded as respectful and rightful roles for women. Where they previously came under the tight control of owners, the girls now found themselves in a relatively better position as workers and wives,

40

in so far as they now had some possibility of exercising more control

over their

1ives.

Purcell,

a Protectorate official,

claimed that most of the arranged marriages at the Po Leung Kuk were successfu 1; if not, it was 1arge ly due to poverty (Puree 11

1967, pp. 178-79). World War

II

in Malaya saw an even greater

increase in

prostitution, partly out of deliberate pol icy and partly due to the conditions of war.

The colonial state machinery which dealt

with prostitution collapsed and brothels re-emerged, together with gamb 1 i ng farms and amusement houses opened for revenue by the Japanese administration.

After 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 brothels to

service

Japanese

soldiers

and

such

brothels

were

wherever a garrison was stationed (Chin 1976, p. 16). were forced occupation. prostitutes karayukisan.7

set

up

Other women

into prostitution by economic hardship during the The as

Japanese "rest

and

also

imported

recreation"

Japanese girls

or

Korean

(ianfu)

or

By the end of the occupation, prostitution was very

much worse than it had been at any time during the hi story 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 legislation and by the

41

control of secret societies. This isolation was further reinforced by moral ideas against prostitution and any form of non-conforming behaviour of women which bore stigmatizing and negative connotations of immorality, "badness", degradation, helplessness, wretchedness, a craving for men and a preference for se 11 i ng sex for money over work. These ideas were embedded in such concepts as samseng por (female thug), hau (sexually loose or sexually enticing behaviour put on to attract men), tzo kai (become a prostitute), kun lo (follow men) and associated with it, the highly shameful and punishable act of kun lo 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 still non-conforming, generated quick responses to reimpose and reassert such conceptions and to re-establish the control and isolation of women. Thus, the creation of new jobs for women in servicing in the 1930s drew much objection. It was felt that female cashiers and waitresses would become a source of trouble with the samseng and secret societies. The President of the Hock Chu i Coffeeshop Guild representing 230 shops, said that the guild was prepared not to engage women if other Chinese dialect groups would do the same (Lim 1980, pp. 104, 108). The cabarets were strongly criticized for encouraging girls to lead a "gay" 1ife. 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 "in the company of men" (Purcell 1967, p. 177). 42

The extreme subordination and stigmatization of prostitutes and non-conforming women also had the effect of reinforcing family socialization and control over female members as the family sought to enforce and maintain the women's "chastity", "moral uprightness" and to protect them from being deceived by the samseng. Stigmatizing concepts originating from prostitution or non-conforming behaviour were commonly used by working class parents to socialize and discipline female children into observing A girl might be codes of behaviour deemed proper for girls. ostracized or strictly reprimanded as being samseng por, hau or having the intention of tso kai or kun lo chou, depending on the nature of her non-conforming behaviour.8 Little is known about the position of women in prostitution in the immediate post-war and post-colonial periods. What is clear is that, far from being eradicated, prostitution is still in existence. Frequent newspaper reports of women rescued from brothels in police raids and of brothel keepers and pimps fined in court for 1i vi ng on the "immora 1" earnings of prostitutes suggest that prostitution is controlled by various agencies. State legislation regarding prostitution has remained largely unchanged and the systems of incarceration and rehabilitation follow closely those of the colonial Protectorate. However, this persistence of prostitution into the postcolonial period cannot be explained in terms of the commonly held view that it has always existed and will always exist as "the We have seen how the traffic and world's oldest profession". control of women in prostitution have their basis in the social conditions in China and Malaya. In the post-war and post-colonial periods, the existence of prostitution as a form of gender relations and the subordination of women must similarly be seen in terms of the social conditions and relations of the times. 43

NOTES

1

An outstanding example is the Chinese Captain Yap Ah Loy of Kuala LulllpUr. See Gullick (1955), Part 4; and Comber (1959), Chapter 14.

2

Purcell (1967), p. 175. Prostitutes until the 1920s also included wonen of East European origin, whose career brought them eastwards over the years, with Singapore as the "lowest point of degradation". See Turnbull (1977), p. 142.

3

First Report of the Advisory Committee on Social Hygiene, Straits 1925 (cited in Lebra and Paulson 1980), p. 33.

4

The revenue derived from opium amounted to about 50 per cent of the total revenue of the Straits Settlements between the years 1898 and 1906.

5

Report by the Secretary of Chinese Affairs of the Straits Settlententa on actions taken by the Department with reference to prostitution in 1927, in Secretary of Chinese Affaire File 65/28, (cited in lim 1980, p. 103).

6

Amusement parks remained a feature until the early 1960s. An example is the Bukit Bintang 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 War I, left Japan to sell sex in China, Siberia and especially Southeast Asia. The ianfu originate from the early karayukisan.

44

Settl~ents

III

MUI TSAI IN DOMESTIC SERVITUDE!

From the turn of the century onwards, the traffic in women and girls between southern China and Malaya included the importation of young girls for the purpose of domestic servitude as mui tsai. The mui tsai system reflected the position of poor women within the Chinese social structure. In times of economic hardship, young girls were sold or transferred as mui tsai for domestic servicing in return for food and shelter. When a mu i tsai grew up, she was either married off to a man usually of her employer's choice or remained in domestic servitude in the household. She could also be a san po chai (little daughter-in1aw) betrothed to a son of the househo 1d as his future wife or concubine. Until she reached a suitable age for marriage, her 1abour power cou 1d, in the meantime, be uti 1i zed in domestic servicing and other work. In Malaya, the mui tsai system is to be seen in the context of the shortage of adult women for reproductive servicing, particularly in wealthly Chinese households, and the conditions of poverty in China and Malaya. Some households hired male domestic servants based on a regular wage system but this was a relatively new and unfamiliar system. Hi red rna 1e domestic 1abour was more expensive because fixed wages had to be paid and conditions of 45

work negotiated with the male servants who were organized in secret societies or groups and thus were in a position to bargain with the employers.2 It also lacked some of the advantages gained from traditional forms of female domestic servitude, particularly those services required by female members of the household as well as the possibility of the mui tsai becoming a wife or concubine of a male member of the household.3 In contrast, the conditions for control by employers were greater under the traditional mui tsai system and the demand for domestic labour thus largely fell upon this system. The traffic in young girls that grew to meet this demand was largely fed by the conditions of poverty in southern China and Malaya. Mui tsai from China were acquired from traffickers or from the girls' parents by members of househo 1ds returning to China for visits or who came to join husbands and relatives in Malaya. Local-born mui tsai were acquired from impoverished families and single women including prostitutes (Woods 1937, p. 118).

The extent of the mui tsai system in Malaya is difficult to ascertain due to the mui tsai's isolation in private households. The number of mui tsai in Singapore was estimated to be 7,000 by the Chinese Protector and 10,000 by another source in 1922 (Woods 1937, p. 190) and there were several thousands more in the FMS. In the same year, it was estimated that mui tsai were arriving at a rate of sixty to seventy per month in the colony. The numbers probably increased with local family formation and the immigration of wives among the wealthy. The number of registered mui tsai after their regi~t¥'-atton was made compulsory in 1933 stood at 3,004 in that year and 2,109 in mid-1936. The largest concentrations of mui tsai were in the Straits Settlement (SS) particularly Singapore, and the main towns of the Federated Malay 46

States (FMS), where there were large Chinese settlements and wealthy Chinese households. Some information on the mui tsai's backgrounds can be found in the registration records of the colonial administration. In 1934, of the total number of 2,749 mui tsai recorded in Malaya (including Singapore), 32.4 per cent were born in Malaya and 54 per cent were born in China. The birth origin of 10 per cent of the total cases were unknown and 89 per cent of them were without parents. Thirty per cent were under ten years of age and nearly 60 per cent of them were between the ages of ten and fifteen. Among those born in Ma 1aya were girls acquired from impoverished A test families and single mothers, including prostitutes. examination of 100 mui tsai in Singapore in 1930 revealed that most of them were employed by Teochew shopkeepers and were acquired between the ages of six and thirteen. The money transaction involved in acquiring them ranged from $50 to $260. However, a large number of the girls were acquired in Chi !]_a 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 company for the female and sometimes male members of the household. Wages were rarely paid, with only food, clothing and shelter provided. In homes where they were treated more like adopted daughters, they were relatively better off but in homes where they were acquired rna in ly for their 1abour, they had to work 1ong hours and were often ill-treated. They were generally under the tight control of their owners in a system of traditional authority and filial piety. The

mui tsai system appears to have been intensified and the 47

Hui taai

The above was a typical bond signed between the colonial government and an adopted child's parents to guarantee that she would not be used for domestic servitude or prostitution, (Photograph by courtesy of the Ministry of Community Development, Singapore.)

mui tsai's position deteriorated in Malaya compared with the case in China. In Malaya the mui tsai's position was more vulnerable In China, parents and to exploitation and ill-treatment. relatives of the mui tsai probably lived in some proximity to the household that had acquired her and could therefore exercise some amount of surveillance over her welfare. In Malaya, the imported gi r 1s were too far away from their parents or had 1os t contact with them and could not seek their support or protection in case Similarly, local girls some of whom were of ill-treatment. probably children of prostitutes and single women, had lost contact with their parents or mothers. Isolation in individual households made it extremely difficult for mui tsai to seek In China, some of them could return to their own support. families when their parents repaid their debts but those in Malaya were bound to the household indefinitely as they had nowhere to go t o. When they grew up, they either remained with the household or were married or sold off, depending on the choice of their employers . The conditions of the mui tsai led to various pressure on the colonial government, ma i nly from Christian quarters,4 to take action, and in 1933 a commission was set up to study the mui tsai system in Hong Kong and Malaya . The Majority Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the mui tsa i system in Malaya5 took an optimistic view of their conditions. It held that mui tsai were generally well treated6 and that the facilities of the protectorate system were sufficient to ensure against cruelty and ill-treatment. The Minority Report, however, conflicted with the Majority Report. In describing the conditions of the mui tsai, E. Picton Turberville, 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 i 11-treated, beaten and scolded and .•. many cases who had been terribly treated as mui tsai, some of whom still bore on their bodies the marks of their treatment. Ill-treatment also came in other forms such as overwork and overpunishment. She also cited results of medical examinations in the Po Leung Kuk, which revealed cases in which mui tsai had been raped or sexually assaulted by their owners or employers and sometimes by a son of the family (Wood 1937, p. 232). The ill-treatment of mui tsai was also cited by others. In a visit to the Po Leung Kuk in Singapore in 1938, Lasker (1972, p. 35) noted that about half of the girls had been sold by their parents or mothers and had been taken from their owner-mistresses by court order because of ill-treatment. Prior to 1932, the colonial authorities took the stand that while it did not recognize the mui tsai system, it was not illegal to keep a young girl as mui tsai. The mui tsai were covered under the Labour Ordinance and Labour Code as domestic servants and under the Women and Girls Protection Ordinance. 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 According to the Chinese deal with cases of ill-treatment. Protectorate, the inspection of women and girls was not directed against the mui tsai system but to deal with ill-treatment and slavery. The SS government began to take action against the mui tsai system in the late 1920s as a result of pressure from various In 1925, the Female quarters. largely on grounds of cruelty. 50

Domestic Servants Bi 11 was passed to deal with the ill-treatment of young servants by making it an offence to acquire or emp 1oy a mui tsai less than ten years old. However, this was ineffective because it was impossible to prove the age or the circumstances of a mui tsai's acquisition. Further pressure led to the Mui Tsai Bill in 1933 which provided for the compulsory registration of existing mui tsai between 1933 and 1935 and for the eventual abolition of the Under the bill, extensive powers were held by the system. Protectorate to deal with registration, acquisition and transfer of mui tsai, their wages and conditions of work, the detention of cases of ill-treatment, prosecution and the inspection of mui tsai's conditions at their places of work as well as at immigration points to check against their traffic. The Mui Tsai Bill was aimed at making the mui tsai "free" workers who would be paid wages for their domestic services and who could leave their employers if they wished. It set a compulsory wage of at least $1 per month to be paid to those less than ten years old, $2 for those between ten and fifteen years of age and $3 for those above fifteen. However, despite the bill's aim to make mui tsai free wage workers, the wage rates set were more of a token than a rea 1 living 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 cou 1d 1eave their employers if they wished. Most of them had lost contact with their parents and had nowhere to go, and their isolation within the household further prevented them from knowing of alternatives outside. Their conditions were, therefore, 1 ittle changed and most of them remained with their owners until they were married or sold off. 51

Registration and checks under the Mui Tsai Bill also had the effect of driving the system underground. Evasion of registration was widespread, with only a fraction of mui tsai registered (Woods 1937, p. 226). Owners took to disguising their mui tsai as adopted daughters. Checks against the mui tsai traffic at immigration points were circumvented by traffickers who claimed mui tsai were their adopted daughters. Only in clearly suspected cases were the mui tsai and their traffickers detained. The registration and checks thus had the unintended effect of perpetuating the system through the girls' disguise as daughters. Under the Mu i Tsa i Bill, the Protectorate a1so adopted a paternalistic system of protection of the girls where "in case of ill-treatment, they (the mui tsai) knew they had only to go to the protectorate for assistance" and the Commission of Enquiry stressed the Protector's "easy accessibility even to a mui tsai to appeal" (Woods 1937, p. 189). This overlooked the fact that the majority of the unregistered mui tsai, given their isolation, knew nothing of the existence of the Protectorate let a1one approach it. Furthermore, the mui tsai were generally closely controlled by their owners. The sense of fil i a 1 piety and fear among the girls worked strongly 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 officials on grounds of ill-treatment under the Mui Tsai Bill and the Women and Girls Protection Ordinance. Po Leung Kuk protection of mui tsai shifted the paternalism and authority of their owners to the colonial protector and Po Leung Kuk officials. In the Po Leung Kuk, the sytem of rehabilitation removed the mui tsai from one extreme form of subordination and prepared them for respectable traditional roles as women and workers. And unless they were 52

adopted, the ex-mui tsai remained in the Po Leung Kuk until they were eighteen when they left to work, usually as domestic servants, or to get married. As discussed earlier, the Po Leung Kuk also served as marriage centres where suitable men came to choose wives from. Thirteen per cent of those registered cases married over the 1933-36 period. Alternatives to marriage and the traditional forms of work in domestic service were very limited. Despite the above shortcomings of the bill, colonial state policies attempted to eradicate the system through legislation. The Minority Report's recorrmendations for the abolition of the legal status of mui tsai and the registration and protection of all girls under twelve who were transferred from their parents, were adopted. The SS Children's Ordinance passed in 1938-40 fixed the minimum age limit for domestic service at fourteen and prohbited child labour below that age. However, the ordinance was not enforced because of the outbreak of war. After the war in 1949, it was incorporated under the Young Persons Ordinance which consolidated and extended the laws protecting young persons. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, it was assumed that, given the above pieces of legislation, there was no further need to deal with the mui tsai system despite renewed traffic in young girls. The system was also fast being replaced by hired adult female service. The matter, therefore, became largely one of preventing the illegal irrmigration of mui tsai by the late 1940s. Of those cases appearing on the register, it was assumed that there were no more problems as they had reached the age of eighteen and had therefore passed into the general adult population. In so far as the poor economic background of girls were considered, the corrmission took the optimistic view that with an improved status in the life of Chinese women in Malaya, the system would die out in the course of time. Although some attention was given to the 53

welfare services offered by the state to impoverished families, such as social services, education and public assistance, the commission noted at the same time that these services were not entirely "feasible" for reasons of "cost and demand" (Woods 1937, p. 112).

Little is known about female child labour in the post-war and post-colonial period other than that it still exists. Although there is little recorded evidence, it is known that it is still a fairly common practice for poor families to send daughters to work as domestic servants in households in return for food, shelter and possibly a small wage. A recent study of child labour in smallscale industries pointed out poor economic background as a crucial factor leading to male and female child labour, although it did not examine any cases of girls in domestic service (Lai 1982). It is likely that this form of work for young girls is fast diminishing, given the expansion of alternative forms of employment as well as the recognition of a minimum primary school education for girls.

NOTES 1

for this chapter, most of the information has been drawn from W.W. Woods, Mui Tsai in Hongkong and Malays, Report of Commission, Colonial Office, colonial no. 125 (london: HMSO, 1937),

2

See Song (192J), pp. 238-39 for a brief account of the male domestic workers' strike.

3

furthermore, for some households, bride-money could be gained when disposing of the girls when they grew up.

4

See for example, Hsslewood and Has1ewood, Child Slavery in Hongkong: Tsai System (London: Sheldon Press, 1930).

5

The report (Woods 1937) contained a Majority Report and s Minority Report.

54

The Mui

6

Woods (1937), p. 197. Evidence was based on an examination of 100 selected cases. It was found that all but six were happy and there were no definite However, the comission itself admitted that the girls cases of cruelty. were taught by their employers what to say at the enquiry as news of it had spread.

55

IV

TIN MINING

It is difficult to establish when women first began to work in tin mining.1 Mining on a large scale began as an exclusively male occupation with the import of rna 1e Chinese 1abour in the midnineteenth century and since then, various methods of mining have been dominated by male workers. Mining work by Chinese women probably began with family formation and female immigration from the 1900s until World War II. 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 subsequently · married mine workers, greatly increased their numbers in mining (Blythe 1938, p. 103). The 1930s particularly saw an influx of women into mining as this was the period of significant immigration of single women into Malaya.2 Chinese women thus entered mining mainly after the indenture system was abo 1 i shed in 1914, and inc 1uded both married women whose husbands were also miners and single women working individually or in groups . A large number of the latter were Hakka and Samsui women associated with the anti-marriage groups in south China. The number of Chinese women i n mining can be inferred from the number of dulang (pan washing) passes issued since this method 56

Dulang w•hera

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 whom were Chinese. First issued by the colonial government in 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; Siew 1953, p. 406). By 1931, out of a total working population of 89,618 in mining and quarrying, 10,168 or 11.3 per cent were women most of whom were Chinese (Del Tufa 1949, p. 103). By the late 1940s, tin mining had become the third 1argest source of emp 1oyment for Chinese women after rubber cultivation and servicing activities, even though the industry remained predominantly a male occupation (Del Tufa 1949, pp. 532-33). However, their participation in mining fluctuated depending on economic and political situations. 57

Ouri ng the depression years ( 1914-18) their numbers varied from 14,000 to nearly 16,000 but fell to about 11,300 in the late 1930s, only to rise rapidly to more than 20,000 in the immediate post-war years (Jackson 1961, p. 146; Siew 1953, p. 406). Women workers in tin mining were either wage workers or self-operators. Official figures in 1947 showed that the majority of them were wage workers and the rest were "own account" workers (Del Tufo 1949, pp. 532-33). A distinct sexual division of labour existed in the various mining methods in 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; Siew 1953). Women's mining work was almost exclusively limited to dulang washing. Some women worked at ore-dressing (washing of ore) and lampan (sieve) extraction while manual work done by others included weeding, clearing, odd jobs, washing and what were known as kongsi kung (company work) and tsap kung (odd jobs). Such manual work and du lang washing were regarded as unskilled, marginal work. Women were not allowed to tend machines or work in underground mines under the Mines and Machines Enactment. And jobs at the managerial, supervisory, technical mining and apprenticeship levels, such as kepala (contractor), assistants, fitters, smiths and apprentices were all for men. Concomitant with their unskilled manual jobs, women workers were all found at the bottom level of the wage structure. Women workers were also paid lower wages than male workers for the same jobs. In kongsi kung and tsap kung, women workers were paid an average daily wage of $1.30 compared with $2.60 received by male general workers in the dredge mining areas in 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. Women workers received $0.25 and $1.98 in 1929-32 and 1950 respectively, while men workers received $1.46 in 1950 (Siew 1953, p. 427). However, only male workers were supplied food and accommodation under the kongsi contract system. If 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 fact, lower than that of the male workers. In Siew's study of male and female wages of thirty mines in the early 1950s, the same reason accounted for the discrepancy in money wages in favour of women workers. Furthermore, women workers, being irregular piece-rated workers, did not receive bonuses which were paid only if a number of hours of work had been done in a month on a regular daily or monthly paid basis (Siew 1953, pp. 422, 429). The differential wages paid to men and women workers in the mines arose partly from the different systems of employment which they came under. In the contract system of labour allocation,3 the gang of workers under a contractor depended on him to secure a contract for their work and earnings and came under his supervision. 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 houses). 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 such as ore dressing, residual ore recovery, engineering and technical works were all under this 59

contract system of labour allocation. Almost all male workers were regular monthly-salaried or daily-paid contract workers employed directly by the mine owner or contractors. However, female labour was mostly daily-paid or piece-rated casual and irregular labour and thus did not receive any of the benefits. The sexual division of labour was further reinforced and perpetuated through a system of ma 1e apprenticeship in the mines by owners and contractors on the one hand, and training of daughters and young women in the methods of du 1ang washing by o1der women on the other hand. It was a1 so perpetuated and reinforced by state legislation prohibiting women from tending machines or working in underground mines. Ideologically, it was sustained by a male belief system in which women were regarded as bearers of bad luck .. , a version of the traditional notion of women as polluting agents in Chinese culture. It was a belief that held much sway among the male workers working under dangerous In fact, before 1900, women were not conditions in the mines. allowed to approach the mines for fear they brought bad luck .. and caused accidents or even deaths (Siew 1953, p. 424). 11

11

The rigid sexual division of labour in tin mining activities thus largely has its roots in the historical development of mine labour which has been almost exclusively male from its very beginning and has remained so throughout. Women entered mining in relatively insignificant numbers only in the later phases of the industry's development and the first ones were mostly wives of mine workers. By the time immigrant women entered mining in large numbers in the late 1920s and 1930s, the practice of hiring male workers and male interests at various levels and processes of work in the different methods of mining were already deeply entrenched. Women could only enter what were regarded as marginal and unskilled work processes, mainly dulang washing in tailings and marginal mining land. 60

While there is some truth in saying that women's jobs in mining were of a peripheral and unskilled nature, it is also true that what constitutes skilled and unskilled labour and what women can or cannot work at is socially defined. Hence, dulang washing was defined as a woman's job and only women were allowed to do it. It was also regarded as only a method of recovery rather than mining. This definition of skill overlooks the fact that dulang washing demands skilful estimation of ore concentrations and skilful hard labour in separating ore from the soil and dressing ore. It also overlooks the special advantages of dulang washing over the other methods of mining. Although primitive, dulang washing is able to recover ore that cannot be profitably or technically recovered by any other method and which would otherwise be lost. It includes panning of ore which escapes concentration in tailings and of ore in marginal mines, rivers and streams. Despite its peripheral nature and small individual output, it accounted on the average for five per cent of the total annual output by all methods of production throughout the first half of the twentieth century.4 Equally significant is that what is regarded as the and peripheral work of women ignores the importance of washing to the requirements of mining capital in terms changing allocation of labour. This clearly showed up specific periods of economic and political crisis.

casual dulang of the during

The stability of employment and wages was highly dependent on the international tin market, and during the economic depression of the 1930s when male employment and wages in the mines fell drastically (Parmer 1960, p. 236), women and their families who were not repatriated or absorbed into re 1i ef work were 1eft to fend for themselves. Many of the women took to dulang washing and subsistence farming and the number of du 1ang washers increased 61

from less than 9 per cent of total number of tin mine employees in 1929 to 22 per cent in 1932 at the depth of the depression (Siew 1953, p. 405). (For old women unable to work, the Chinese mine owners argued for their repatriation to China under the repatriation scheme of the colonial government. The number of old women repatriated during the depression is not known.) Similarly, during the war when dulang passes were freely issued by the Japanese in an effort to raise tin production, dulang washing was taken up by thousands of women as an essential means of survival for their families. This was in the face of extreme economic hardship and the absence or death of many males of their households. In the immediate post-war years of unemployment and severe food shortages, women again took up dulang washing to earn essential incomes. The British administration re-issued dulang passes to provide employment to women and partly to keep tin output in 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; Siew 1953, p. 406). Dulang washing became the most important mining method after dredging and grave 1 pumping, its production accounting for 25.4 per cent of the total output in 1946 (Yip 19 69 ' p • 402 ) • The following years was a period of militant labour activity and severe economic hardship when 1arge sections of the Chinese population were relocated into "new villages" (Nyce 1962) under Emergency rule. This was to prevent them from giving support to corrrnunists who were engaged in armed conflict with the colonial government. During this period, women in these villages as well as in squatter and mining areas continued to bear the responsibilities of family and subsistence maintenance through dulang washing and various occupations. In other words, female 62

workers served as a reserve army of casu a1 1abour drawn into mining at critical periods of the industry to sustain the industry until it got back onto its feet. Casual labour is in general cheap and flexible as it does not involve bonuses, payments in kind and other benefits due to regular permanent workers, and can be easily hired and fired. While men and women both constituted part of this casual labour, female casual labour made up its majority in mining and bore specific characteristics especially attractive to mining capital. As women and wives, women workers carried with them soc i a1i zed attributes of docility, chastity and industriousness. These attributes were sustained in male-dominated mining communities and made women workers easy to control when extended from home and relations between husband and wife, to the workplace. While the men workers' social life focused around clan associations, kongsi, secret societies, gambling and opium smoking (as well as brothels especially in the early period), the activities of women living in mining and squatter communities were confined to home and work.5 As early as 1909, the Mines Department reported that there is no [more] pleasing sight to be seen in the Federated Malay States than the Chinese woman washing for the tin ore in a stream -- up to her waist in water -- with a sma 11 child strapped to her back above her waist. Of all the alien races who live in these States... there are none to be compared with these women, who for sobriety, morality and honesty are not to be beaten... (quoted in Jackson 1961, p. 146).

While their "sobriety" ensured hard work with high productivity, their primary responsibilities in the family as 63

wives and mothers enabled employers to regard their work in mining only as marginal or supplementary to the maintenance of the household, and could therefore be hired as casual workers in marginal and unskilled jobs at dependents' wages. While women workers were treated only as a reserve army of labour for the mining industry, the work opportunities available nevertheless constituted some of the few sources of income necessary for the maintenance of the women's families or househo 1ds. The 1atter is better understood in the context of poverty, indebtedness and unemployment within mining and squatter communities in which the poor mining family often came under the powerful grips of the monopsonistic (sole) kongsi miner, contractor, ore de a1er, creditor, company storekeeper who were often 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 dulang washing and casual work in the mines, odd jobs, vegetable growing and livestock farming for food subsistence, to rna i ntai n and reproduce the family. That women workers in the kongs i worked on average 7t hours per day while men worked a longer nine-hour day (Awberry and Dalley 1948, pp. 58-9; Siew 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 the women. While there are no estimates of women's contributions to household income, it is highly probable that in some families, the contribution of women's earnings to tot a1 family income was higher than that of the men some of whom squandered money on gamb 1i ng and other rna 1e 1ei sure activities. 64

Single women, many of whom were self-operating dulang washers, did not escape the grips of monopsonists and creditors and the general conditions of poverty. Many dulang washers and marginal miners operated on the basis of credit from the monopsonistic mine owner cum tin ore dealer/financier and were compe 11 ed to se 11 concentrates only to 1 i censed tin ore de a1ers under the terms of the credit. Marketing channels for tin concentrates were clearcut. The only alternative to the ore de a1er was the sme 1t i ng agency which tended not to accept small deliveries of concentrates at a time. In fact, to discourage small deliveries of concentrates, they charged a small "parcel" fee of $4 for every delivery of concentrates of less than one-ninth ton in weight (Yip 1969, pp. 29-30). Oulang washers had little choice but to sell to ore dealers.6 Furthermore, dulang washers were, under normal conditions, allowed to sell only a 1imi ted amount each month, the quota being imposed to regu 1ate production under various international tin control agreements. The amount of tin mined was a1so dependent on weather and soil conditions and quotas could well be reached within the first two weeks of the month (Yip 1969, pp. 303-5; Siew 1953, pp. 407-9). Dulang washers therefore had to turn to other sources of income to maintain themselves. These included tapping and weeding in nearby rubber estates, vegetab 1e growing and 1i vestock farming and odd jobs in mines as piece-rated casual workers. Some of the single women workers, who earlier belonged to the anti-marriage movement in China, fell back on its practices to ensure economic survival and support during their working 1 ives and in old age. They operated in small groups of six to ten, the 1eader among them bearing the task of securing work from mine owners. Work was distributed on a profit-sharing basis among the group members with the leader taking a commission for obtaining the contract and for her ski 11 at es tab 1ish i ng the amount of ore 65

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 also share in food and housing in female kongsi houses (Siew 1953, pp. 410-11). Security in old age was organized around collective living and the purchase or adoption of female children as daughters. These daughters were trained to work at dulang washing and socialized into traditional filial roles of daughters who would care and support their mothers especially in old age. The position of Chinese women in mining illustrates clearly they were the dynamic interaction between gender and class: as casual only but incorporated into the mining economy as workers workers in unskilled and lower paid jobs within a clear cut sexual division of 1abour. This subordinate work status was shaped by their social position as women, whether as singles or as wives or dependents. Caught in this dual position, women had to bear the consequences of poverty and the responsibilities of overcoming it which were heightened in times of depression and crisis in the industry and wider economy.

NOTES 1

The Malays were already involved in small-scale tin mining as a side activity to padi growing but it is unknown if Malay women were involved.

2

Blythe (1953). While there were only 3,829 women in the major mining areas of 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 46 per cent in 1947 (Ooi 1955 ).

3

This contrsct system is a development from the earlier indenture labour system. Despite the latter's abolition, few Chinese workers became free wage workers. They remained in gangs under a work contractor and obtained wages on a contract system. Wages varied from gang to gang and by industry.

4

As late as 1963, it still accounted for nearly 3 per cent of total output of Malaya. Ooi (1955), p. 350.

66

5

The only other prostitutes.

6

In Kamper in 1956 for example, 20 per cent of the concentrates purchased by the tin ore dealers carne from dulsng washing and the rest from marginal miners mostly operating on credit.

category

of

women

67

in

the

mining

communities

was

the

v

RUBBER ESTATE PRODUCTIONl

It was noted earlier that in the various strategies to obtain secure,

cheap

plantations,

ma 11 eab le

and

ethnicity

consideration.

and

Indian

sources

gender

labour

was

of

were

labour

two

recruited

focal

for

rubber

points

directly

of

by the

colonial government and came to constitute the majority of estate workers by the 1930s.

However, Chinese 1abour (as we 11 as Ma 1ay

and Javanese labour) was also recruited, to a lesser extent, by private emp 1oyers and through free immigration for estate work. Thus, in 1907 there were 5,348 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 in 1919, 25 per cent in 1929 and 24 per cent in 1935 (calculated from Parmer 1960, p. 273).

By

1947,

of

rubber

production

was

one

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 co 1oni a 1 government's attempts to contro 1 the overall supply of Chinese labour, it encouraged the free inflow of female Chinese labour. the

agricultural

This was part of the overall aim to expand

population

particularly

for

rubber

estates

through local family formation and to thus ensure a more stable and

permanent work

force.

By 1933, 68

female

and child

labour

constituted 34 per cent of the estate labour force, the proportion increasing to 45 per cent in 194 7 and 47 per cent in 1957. Chinese women made up the majority in these totals after Indian women, followed by Malay and Javanese women. Chinese women made up 5 per cent (5,267) of the total female workforce in 1921 and this proportion increased to 9 per cent (13,715) and 25.5 per cent (45,738) in 1931 and 1947 respectively (Del Tufo 1949, p. 113). The absence of restrictions of female immigration led to a steady growth in the number of Chinese women working and living in the estates, especially during the 1930s' influx of female immigrants. Blythe (1947) noted the extraordinary increase in the employment of Chinese women on estates as members of family labour living in family kongsi houses and as single women living in In the groups in all-female kongsi houses in the late 1930s. 1940s the increase in the Chinese female estate population was due to the proliferation of a squatter population from which female labour was recruited. By 1947, rubber cultivation had become the single largest source of employment for Chinese women in the entire agricultural sector (Del Tufo 1949, pp. 442-45). Chinese women made up 20 per cent of the total Chinese estate labour force by 1937 and this proportion increased to 33.5 per cent and 45.2 per cent in 1947 and 1952 respectively (Gamba 1962~, pp. 250-51). Chinese child 1abour constituted an average of 8 per cent of the total Chinese labour force over the same period. Female and child labour together formed nearly 54 per cent of the total Chinese 1abour force in the 1ate 1940s and early 1950s and constituted a family mode of employment similar to that of Indian family labour. However, while the Indian family lived within the estates and were directly employed by the estate, Chinese family labour tended to be drawn from the squatter population around the estates and to 69

be employed on a contract basis in which the female and child components served as a reserve army of casual labour. The squatter populations around estates and mines, as we noted earlier, had their origins in the tin and rubber slumps in the 1910s, 1930s and post-World War II dislocations. Chinese women were also involved in subsistence rubber smallholding production, some of which were carried out ill ega 11 y on rura 1 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. 332). Chinese labour in the estates mostly worked under a contract system in which the workers were paid and supervised by a contractor to whom work had been contracted out by an estate owner. In this system, male labour was mainly hired under regular contract while female and child labour were employed as casual contract workers. The other form of employment was direct employment by the estates and most Indians were employed under this system. Several methods of payment came under these two forms of emp 1oyment: checkro 11, task and result (Parmer 1960, p. 167). In the checkroll system, workers were paid a fixed daily wage provided a whole day's work was completed. Under the task method of wage payment, the labourer was assigned a certain amount of work, say nine hours, and paid by the number of tasks completed per month. The task of the rubber tapper was fixed at a certain number of trees, say 350. The figure varied according to terrain, distance from the factory and height of the tapping cut on the trees. 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 by result was the most common 70

method of renumerat i ng Chinese estate labourers under contract, while most Indians were employed under the standard checkroll wage Some Chinese, however, began to be employed on rate system. checkroll by the late 1930s (Parmer 1960). Women workers were found in all three major forms of work in the technical division of labour within estate work: factory work processing rubber, tree-tapping and field work chiefly weeding. Factory workers were engaged in the preparation of the latex or The rubber tappers were liquid rubber for in it i a1 marketing. The those who actually tapped the trees and collected latex. maintaining of jobs miscellaneous field workers were employed in the estate, chiefly in weeding. Generally, rubber tapping was regarded as skilled work while field work was considered unskilled. In 1947 out of the 50,068 women workers in the rubber industry, 40,524 or 81 per cent were tappers and the rest were weeders and factory workers on the estates (Del Tufo 1949, pp. In other words, women were found in both skilled and 442-45). unskilled jobs. However, rna l e workers tended to be concentrated in tapping, except for children and old workers who were weeders At the supervisory level, there were no and odd-job workers. women. A sex differential existed in the payment of wages.2 Chinese, Indian and Malay female labourers received less than male labourers when employed on checkroll. For example, in June 1946, the flat rate wage for a male Chinese field worker was 80-90 cents per day and 65-80 cents per day for a female Chinese field worker (Gamba 1962~, p. 12). Organized employers in the United Planning Association of Malaya in 1946 recommended its members pay the following rates to field workers: 55 cents per day basic rate to females and 70 cents to males for South Indian, Javanese and Malay workers, and 70 cents to Chinese females and 90 cents to Chinese 71

males.

The

workers.3

cost

of

living

allowance

was

40 cents

for

all

The sex differential, however, disappeared when female

1abourers were renumer a ted according to results rather than on checkroll (Parmer 1960, p. 168).

This clearly indicated that the

basis for the differential did not 1 ie in women doing less work than men, women.

as has often been argued to justify lower wages to

Instead, underlying the differential employment and wage

structures by sex were the constant calculations of labour costs 1962~)

and control (Gamba

and the manipulation of women's social

roles as wife and dependant of men to ensure a labour force that was cheap and malleable. In the debates among employers as to how to maximize surplus value, it was argued that "the tappers" wages were not adequate to cover his dependents' dependents

cost were

of

1 i ving.

employed

as

field

Ordinarily

the

workers.

To

require the rubber tapper to do additional work after tapping would deprive the dependants of field work. Either the tapper had to be paid enough to support his dependants or the dependants had to be employed. latter

The

course

was

The

cheaper.

non-tapping

labourers also constituted a reserve tapping force, needed to fi 11

in absences among the tappers.

To

reduce or do away with the non-tapping labour force would

make

difficult.

maintenance

of

a

full

tapping

force

Every field must be kept in production; a

day's wages saved by leaving latex in the trees due to

a vacancy in the

compensation

for

tapping force

the revenue

tapper's job is a skilled one.

lost.

is not enough Finally,

the

It is important to

maintain the distinction between the tapper and the field worker (Parmer 1960, pp. 197-98). 72

Women and children were thus hi red as dependants as a means of maximizing surplus value through reducing total wages. Lower wages could be paid to women and children as casual contract labourers on the justification 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 in the rubber estate economy continued into the post-war period. Among the Chinese workers specifically, the labour contract system and the casual contract employment of women and children persisted,6 the latter increasingly necessary to ensure the maintenance and reproduction of the family in the general absence of a single family wage.? Thus, Chinese female labour 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 in general, total female estate labour force increased from 26 per cent of total rubber estate labour force to 43.3 per cent in the same years (calculated from Gamba 1962~, pp. 250-51).* This also applied to those women who were not married. The conditions and position of women estate workers and their families were particularly borne out during crises periods in the rubber industry, in which employment and wages were closely affected by i nternat ion a1 trends. 4 During the boom periods of the 1900s and 1910s, 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 population. In a period of

*

However, in the post-colonial period particularly since the early 1970s, the family mode of employment has been affected by the di¥ersification of estate agriculture and structure, and technological changes in the rubber estate industry, through the displacement of estate workers especially women workers ( Heyzer 1981 ) •

73

slump. however. women workers and their families were severely affected by unemployment and drastic reductions in wages. During the depression of the 1930s, for example, some of the first workers to be affected were women. Estate maintenance work was restricted to the barest minimum and the practice of weed-clearing, a task done mostly by women, was abandoned. Wage cuts were severe and the rubber industry's ability to survive the Great Depression was possible only through the lowering of production costs, chiefly through cuts in the workers' wages.5 The central question for the workers during this period was how to Some unemployed Chinese occupied unused land to grow survive. vegetables and rear poultry for subsistence, and came to constitute the squatter populations around mines. plantations and urban areas. Other took up hawking. Women canst ituted a 1arge number of those in the squatter popu 1at ion who took up these activities. These forms of subsistence 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 is beyond the scope of this discussion. It suffices to note here that rubber smallholders posed serious competition to estates, smallholding production ranging from as high as 32 per cent to nearly 50 per cent of total rubber production in the 1930s (Lim 1967, p. 328). The colonial state's policies towards rubber smallholders were clearly influenced by organized estate capital, mainly European, and were discriminatory towards them in replanting, export taxation and output restrictions within the Malayan quotas imposed by the international rubber regulations and restriction schemes to control rubber prices between 1934 and 1942.8 These policies hit the Malay smallholders hardest for they constituted the majority, and the Chinese smallholders to a lesser extent. Neither did 74

smallholders escape the conditions of economic depression and most turned to subsistence food production for survival. In terms very similar to those of women in the mines, the position of Chinese women (as well as women of other ethnic backgrounds) in the estates illustrates clearly the dynamic interaction between gender and class relations. In this interaction, women were incorporated into the capitalist estate economy as workers on the one hand, and as married women, wives and children who were considered dependants of men in 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 s crucial component of labour in the state. By the same argument, s study of Malay women's work in smallholding rubber cultivation is also relevant.

2

There also existed a wage differential between'sdult labour and youth labour, particularly among the Indians within the family labour system. See Parmer (1960), p. 169.

3

Except for children who received half that of adults' (Gamba 1962£, p. 274). Another wage differential with implications on ethnic snd industrial relations wss along ethnic lines in which Chinese workers were paid more than Indian workers. The justi ficetion 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 ss required by law. The significantly differnt wage rates made possible the substitutability of one kind of labour for another at particular historical conjunctures when the cost of one form of labour employment was higher than another. See Parmer (1960), p. 169.

4

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 break strikes. Employers in the plantations insisted on a pool of unemployed, for profits and operations could only be obtained and maintained by replacing striking workers with low-paid workers who were either migrants or women and children. See Gamba (1962£}.

75

5

As has been pointed out, the chief instruments of colonial policy towards the unemployed during the slump period were repatriation, the setting up of camps and the creation of public works to absorb the unemployed at very low wages. In the 1930s depression, large numbers of Indians were repatriated. Assistance to unemployed Indians mostly helped the middle class and white collar workers. See Parmer (1960), pp. 238-39,

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 (1962~), p. 287.

7

A comparison of wage rates and cost of living showed that the wages of male Indian and Malay estate workers were inadequate to support an average family, and that when rubber prices were low, even the sum total of the wages of all working members was insufficient to maintain the family. See Gamba (1962~), p. 278.

a

For details of these discriminatory smallholders, see Bauer (1944).

76

state

policies

towards

rubber

VI

AMAH IN PAID DOMESTIC SERVICE

Prior to the 1930s, paid domestic service was almost exclusively dominated by Hainanese men. In fact, paid domestic service was virtually synonymous with the Hai nanese "cook boy" or "houseboy" who served European and 1oca l wealthy Chinese househo 1ds .1 The other form of domestic service was unpaid domestic servitude by mui tsai. The massive entry of women into paid domestic service began in the 1930s with the large-scale immigration of single women from China into Malaya and coincided with the abolition of the mui tsai system. By 1947, an overwhelming 85 per cent of the total female labour force in the "personal services" sector were engaged in paid domestic service alone. Women quickly displaced men at paid domestic service, making up as much as 68 per cent of the total workforce in this form of employment in the same year, and domestic service become strongly identified as women's 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 resistance movement women in China. In Malaya, many of these women found work as domestic servants in wealthy Chinese and European colonial hosueholds, and became corrrnon 1y known as the Cantonese amah. They made up a sizeable proportion if not the majority of women domestic servants and, for many, domestic service was their only form of employment 77

throughout their working lives. 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 were from the anti-marriage resistance area in China. (While there is 1ittle documented evidence, it is known that Cantonese women from the same background and employed in paid domestic service were also found in the major towns of Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Penang where they worked for wealthy Chinese and European colonial households. Their organizations were similar to those studied by Topley. Thus, while the following account is drawn mainly from Topley's study of domestic servants in Singapore, it is believed that conditions were similar to the rest of Malaya.) These Cantonese immigrants constituted at least a significant proportion if not the majority of domestic servants since their arrival in the 1930s up to the 1960s and 1970s. While other categories of paid domestic servants existed, it is this category of amah domestic servants which is focused here. (The other category of women who entered paid domestic service in the 1930s and 1940s were Hainanese women. Most of them came to Malaya as the wives of Hainanese domestic servants and often, the couple worked as live-in servants in the same household. Thus, to the identification of paid domestic service with the Hainanese "cookboy" or "houseboy" was added the Hainanese husband and wife work team). Paid domestic service in private households was usually 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 labour in domestic service tended to be very clear cut with different amah being hired as cook amah or baby amah. Some amah worked singly or in 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, its status was high as a resu 1t of the abo 1it ion of the mui tsai system and restrictions on women immigrants in the post-war period. The latter had the effect of limiting the supply of amah who were generally preferred over married domestic servants. By the 1940s and 1950s, the domestic amah could command an income comparing favourably with that of an English-speaking clerk 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 family in Singapore in 1955 were paid about $140 to $180 for all household work including washing and cooking, and had lodgings but not food provided. In the case of work in a Chinese househo 1d, they were paid $80 to $120 for the same work but with food included (Wee 1954, p. 162; Tapley 1958, pp. 187-88). In Kuala Lumpur, a female domestic servant in an European household was paid about $130 per mqnth with accommodation but no food provided while a male cook earned about $150-$180 per month under the same conditions.2 Domestic service also provided social prestige derived largely from those who worked in households that paid them relatively higher wages and provided relatively better conditions of work and facilities such as accommodation and security of employment. It also enabled those in the anti-marriage movement to continue their practices as they could work in pairs as "sworn" sisters. Among employers, many preferred single immigrant women to local-born women who tended to be married or were likely to leave and get married. Domestic servants who were committed to remain single were prepared to live in, spend more time on their work and had less distractions outside. For most amah, the conflict between family life and work did not arise because of their choice of non-marriage and, in some cases, they were 79

Prior to the 1930s paid domestic service was almost exclusively a male task. The women largely responsible for 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. Any conflict between social life and the isolated nature of domestic service was largely resolved by their organizational arrangements around work and living conditions, which enabled them to break the isolation and to maximize the opportunities for interaction. Indeed, their ability to cope with their economic and social position as immigrant single women workers won them prestige as being "successfu 1" and capab 1e women, which in turn enhanced the prestige of domestic service as an occupation. The women's organizational arrangements to cope with work and living were focused on the kongsi fang and chai tang.3 The women kongsi fang, first opened in the 1930s with the immigration of 80

women workers to Malaya, were basically communal living quarters organized by women in similar occupations. There were, for example, domestic amah kongsi fong, sewing amah kongsi fong, construction kongsi fong and kongsi fong in mines and plantations as well as kongsi fong of mixed occupations. The majority of those who formed kongsi fong were originally members of sisterhoods in China and as such, the kongsi fong were commonly organized along sisterhood, dialect, village or even district lines. Most of them were Cantonese women, although the construction kongsi fong tended to be Samsui women. (Samsui is a sub-dialect of Cantonese.) The kongsi fong was set up by pooling wages together to rent quarters and for communal living, the number of members ranging from two to fifty. It ranged in size from a cubicle to a number of rooms and in function from a simple space to live and to keep belongings to an elaborate clubhouse with various sorts of benefits schemes and regular social activities. The level of development of the kongsi fong depended on the size of the group and the earnings of the women. A well organized kongsi fong 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 in 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 in general and of members in particular, were maintained. The well organized kongsi fong might also function as a recruitment centre for amah run by the women themselves, where potential jobs were made known to fellow members. Employment in domestic service was mainly found through such arrangements as well as through friendship and sisterhood 81

ties within the kongsi fang. Work conditions were also determined by the kongsi fang through discussions before an amah took up a job. Tapley cites the case of a thirty woman-strong kongsi fong started by two "sworn" sisters who lived together since the Japanese occupation. In another case, one Samsui association had a majority of women among its 800 members. Most of them were single and were employed as labourers or domestic servants. A third case was the Kwong Ngi Gui 1d, one of the earliest guilds registered in Singapore in 1939. It was an entirely Cantonese female organization with 167 members, the majority of whom were in domestic service. In its twenty-one member committee, twelve were amah, and the president was a sewing amah. The society undertook to find employment and other mutual benefits, such as costs of medical treatment, money for return or visits to China, and so forth. However, while a we 11 organized kongs i fang might act as an effective guild, such organizations were mostly limited to small groups. In general, there were no organizations between different kongsi fang to fix common regulations for conditions of work in domestic service.4 The other major form of organization was the chai tang (vegetarian halls) that many domestic servants joined. Topley, in her study of the chai tang in Singapore in the mid-1950s, found that domestic servants constituted a large majority of their membership. These were religious houses which women frequented for various social activities and retired to in old age. Chai tang were in existence among the early Chinese in Malaya, and they expanded in the 1930s when Cantonese women came to Malaya in large numbers. Their proliferation during the war arose out of the specific circumstances faced by single women. It is believed that the need for women to flee from the sexu~ exploitation of the Japanese soldiers, resulting in a southward movement of women into Johore and Singapore, partly led to their growth. In these 82

religious halls, the women were relatively safe from the sexual violence of Japanese soldiers who generally left religious establishments alone, being Buddhists themselves. Chai tang members also retained their anti-marriage position and sisterhood practices but unlike the kongsi fang, the chai tang's functions were not limited to economic provisions such as lodging. They also provided social supports for unattached women in a variety of ways both during their working lives and in their It was these social supports in addition to the retirement. economic ones that made them more attractive than kongs i fang which catered for women only during their working lives. Tapley's study found that most of the women frequenting and living in them were more than forty years of age and were mostly immigrant Cantonese women, the majority of whom were working or retired domestic servants who had lost contact with relatives and had nowhere to go.5 These halls were really homes for single immigrant women and women who lacked support in old age. The economic organization of the chai tang varied, depending on financial resources. Basic lodging facilities both while working and on retirement were provided for in return for a certain sum of money or services towards maintenance of the chai tang. The contributions depended on the financial position and physical abilities of the women. The old, weak and poor could live in the chai tang by contributing services such as cleaning and general maintenance, while those who could earn contributed cash regularly. In the chai tang, some women also earned income by sewing, making baskets, weaving and other economic activities that they could cope with in their old age. The more organized and financially stronger chai tang, in addition to the above facilities and arrangements, organized various mutual benefit schemes and social activities which reinforced mutual support. 83

Festivals provided the occasions for the women to socialize and organize activities. These were particularly significant for unattached women who worked in isolation in domestic service and for retired women. Some chai tang had their own plots of land for food cultivation and for the burial of members. Arrangements for funeral rites and a burial place were particularly significant for the immigrant women who had no relatives and who did not return to China. As has been aptly quoted by Tapley, vegetarian halls offered "care while alive and a funeral at death". It is significant that the vegetarian halls, as the only organization to cater for the needs of unattached immigrant women, were religious in character. The salvationist religions of the halls were a particular attraction for Chinese women who rejected the subordinate roles of women in marriage. The religious practices offered equal status with men in paradise, reincarnation on earth as a male, spiritual rewards in religious selfcultivation to maintain purity and chastity as well as justified rejection of marriage in their teaching and literature. The religious system in the halls also offered opportunities for status and authority. Other religious establishments such as the Buddhist nunneries which some of the women frequented also offered similar forms of salvation. It has been noted that in Canton, the girls who rejected marriage were fond of visiting religious establishments and vegetarian halls. In 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 to cope with their specific position as single women also involved the formation of all-female families and groups by adoption. These were modifications and substitutions of the traditional family system and support structure, based on

84

fil i a1 mother-daughter re 1at i onsh ips. Adoption was common among unattached working class women and many amah took up the practice of adopting girls as their daughters. Although fear of childbirth was a reason for joining the anti-marriage movement, many of them were fond of children, especially girls.6 They adopted girls rather than boys as daughters were felt to be more filial to parents and would look after them in their old age by earning a living and giving them company. This rested on the expectation and hope that like their mothers, they would not marry. The girls were obtained through traffickers, unmarried mothers or impoverished families, the price a girl ranging from a nominal US$5 to US$350 in 1954.7 Adoption took various forms8 either by individual women or by the chai tang or kongsi fong as a whole. In the chai tang or kongsi fong~ the adopted children were socialized into traditional roles of filial daughters and the activities of the group. While in principle, the children had the choice of remaining unmarried and living in the chai tang or kongsi fong or leaving, to working and marrying when they grew up, their mothers usually hoped that they would not marry but remain filial to provide them with support in their old age. Despite the conduciveness to marriage given the imba 1anced sex ratio and strong "traditional" values attached to it, the amah continued to retain their strong anti-marriage orientation. While this can be attributed to persisting fears of childbirth, men, the subordinate position of a traditional wife, and so forth, which they held originally in China, the fear of being a concubine or secondary wife instead of a first wife was a new and traditional reason in Malaya. It was conmon for a male immigrant who had a wife in China to acquire more wives in 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 families; for the wealthy rna 1es such as the merchants and

businessmen,

system.

it

was

part

of

the

traditional

concubinage

Many of the women did not find this position secure.

Furthermore,

many of

the spinsters

remarked

marries and her husband becomes wealthy,

that "if a woman

he takes a secondary

wife; if poor, he sends his wife out to work" (quoted in Tapley

1958, p. 192). Their ability to maintain economic independence through earning and contro 11 i ng 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

they felt,

and

substitute

institutions

families, was a more reliable form of security and protection for old age than marriage. The reputation of the amah as capable and successful women thus appears to stem from their organizational abilities both as women and as workers. social

support were to

The forms developed for interaction and a large extent feminist

in character,

organized around the rejection of marriage and based on principles of

sisterhood,

solidarity

and

support.

Although

these

organization abilities and forms originated in China, the ability to work and earn an income in Ma 1aya 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 with no one to care for them and nowhere to go to in old age gave further impetus and new meaning to their deve 1opment of these organizational forms and ability. It

is,

however,

misleading

to

think

that

all

domestic

servants and single immigrant women were well organized in kongsi fong and chai tang, or that these institutions were all highly

86

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 kongsi or chai tang which provided elaborate mutual aid and benefit schemes were probably an exception and their flourishing days were limited to when their members were working and cou 1d contribute financially. Generally kongsi fang and chai tang provided the most basic needs-- a physical space to store one's belongings and to live in. A chief drawback of the kongsi fang was that it provided living quarters and support only during the women's working lives; when they grew too old to work and could not support their stay in the kongsi fang financially, they had to While a few kongsi fang did make provisions for the leave. retired to live in them permanently, their facilities were generally inadequate due to the limited financial resources of the women. It must be borne in mind that most immigrant women worked at low paying and unskilled jobs with little or no social security in old age when they retired. For live-in domestic servants, they usually had quarters provided by employers but only during employment. Access to vegetarian halls to secure a place of retirement depended to a large extent on the women's financial standing and ability to save. This was largely 1imited 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 the amah and single women in general -- a constant factor in their lives -became particularly acute in old age when they were no longer able to earn incomes. The ability and success of banding together for support appear to decline with retirement. Kaye's (1960) study of Upper Nankin Street, Singapore provides some useful insights into the position of the immigrant amah and other single working class women in their old age. The majority lived in cubicles, their 87

whole lives bound by the poor conditions in which they lived as they had nowhere else to go.9 await death.

Others stayed in "death houses" to

Many of the women belonging to the kongsi fong in

Tapley'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 its inmates who were largely single immigrants living in poverty and loneliness.

Most of them had been abandoned or had

lost all contact with their relatives (Sri Ranjini et al., 1978). Questions about economic and social support systems for the poor,

aged

relevant

and

today

single as

women

retired

in amah

particular and

other

are

all

single

the

more

immigrant

generation women are now in their sixties 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 but the number was exceedingly small. Blythe (1947), pp. 90-l,

2

Informant Soon Yoke Lin was a Hainanese domestic servant who teamed up with a male cook to work in a European household for five years.

3

Much of the information on the kongsi fang and chai tang is obtained from Top ley's study in Singapore. The areas of Chinese immigrant settlement in the major towns of Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Penang reflect similar patterns of female immigration and their housing patterns. In Singapore for example, some streets consisted almost entirely of kongsi fang inhabited by Cantonese female immigrants and 1110st of them were Slllsh ~·

4

For example, a younger amah might not become a cook or general amah until she had worked in a subordinate capacity, such as an "apprentice" under a 110re experienced amah.

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 of them preferred to be baby amah rather than do other domestic work.

7

During the period 1930-60, it was common for unwed mothers and impoverished families to sell or give away their children, especially girls.

8

Another form of adoption was the chi -- a bond between a child and a woman or man with the consent of the child's parents. In this form of adoption, both girls and boys were adopted.

9

In Kaye's (1960, p. 32), study, it was found that 39 per cent of total households were single person households and another 4 per cent were kongsi fong in which a group of more or less unrelated persons of the same sex formed the household. Sixty-six per cent of the single person households were women end the female kongsi households consisted of two or three persons. More than 90 per cent of the women in such households were more than forty years old: 45 per cent of the women were spinsters, 25 per cent were widows. Among the spinsters, most of them came between 1935 and 1944 during that period of 11ass immigration of women and those who were widows came 11ostly between 1915 and 1944. House ameh and baby amah were among the occupations of the women, others being cooks, dressmakers and seamstresses, factory workers, construction workers (mostly Samsui women), hawkers and odd job labourers.

89

VII

MANUFACTURING

The integration of the Malayan colonial economy into the world capita 1 i st sys tern was such that it served as a producer of raw materials, specifically tin and rubber, for the metropolitan capitalist centres of Europe and especially the industries of Britain. The exchange between these centres and the Malayan economy took the classic form in which manufactured goods were imported into Malaya in return for its primary exports. As such, the Malayan economy had little industrial basis of its own and little manufacturing production within a factory system. Any activities resembling such a production system were limited to the processing of raw materials and to conmodity production which included food processing, clothing and footwear and light industries such as brick making, saw milling, cement production, foundries and engineering works. The Blythe Report (1938) revealed that industries such as saw milling, rubber processing and production of watches were already in existence in the 1930s. A key feature in the factories manufacturing goods such as matches, rubber items, cigars and aerated water in the 1930s was the employment of many Chinese women (Blythe 1938). Massive female immigration in the 1920s and 1930s accounted for this feature, and included anti-marriage women displaced from silk filatures in China. Women from the Tung Kun county of China, for 90

example, usually ended up in factory work which they were already familiar with when they were in China. During World War II, the local substitution of simple consumer items such as paper, shoes, food and cloth, and the manufacture of products in small industrial and commercial enterprises were set up to replace goods which had become scarce For the first time, a majority of (Purcell 1967, p. 256). consumption goods were produced locally to substitute for imported items and, a1though of a makeshift nature, some of these manufacturing activities became the basis for permanent industries in the post-war period (Purcell 1967). It is probable that Chinese women played an important role in the invention and manufacture of many such items, as many men were recruited by the Japanese for forced labour in road and railway construction, land colonization farming and various schemes in the Japanese army. The ,Restriction of Male Employment Ordinance passed in December 1944 to bolster up male recruitment for various forms of forced labour had the effect of further replacing male labour in manufacturing and various services and trades with that of women and girls. For example, the manufacture of ropes and twine, a new industry to meet trade and transport needs during the war, provided employment for tens of thousands of women and girls as well as men and boys (Purcell 1967). The overall extent to which female labour replaced male labour in manufacturing during the war is unknown, but it is clear that the large-scale participation of women in manufacturing and other commercial activities was strongly established during the war period. Overall, immediately after the war in 1947, manufacturing provided the largest source of employment for women outside agriculture, personal services, mining and hawking, accounting for 0.76 per cent of total female working population in 91

1931 and 1.25 per cent in 1947. In Singapore, it was the second largest employment sector after personal services. However, despite women's inroads into the manufacturing sector before and after World War II, it remained heavily male-dominated in terms of its overall working population and in certain industries . In 1931, women on the who 1e constituted 11 per cent (12, 017) of the total workforce in manufacturing, and 19 per cent (28,319) in 1947 (Del Tufo 1949, p. 103). In the sexual division of labour in this sector, women workers were mostly 1 imited to those activities which involved women's traditional skills in cloth making, tailoring and dress making, rubber and tobacco processing and, in ear 1i er days prior to the abolition of opium smoking, the processing of opium in opium farms, factories and dens. According to the 1947 Census Report, there were nearly 2, 000 Chinese women in each of the industries manufacturing clothing and processing food, drinks, tobacco and raw materials. In the processing of raw materials, nearly half of the women were involved in rubber works alone, such as vulcanizing, grading and stripping rubber, making rubber goods and packing rubber sheets. Those women i nvo 1 ved in the manufacture of clothing were mostly tailors and dressmakers. About 1,000 women were employed in the manufacture of tobacco and cigars. There were another 600-odd women in the manufacture of goods using wood and cane, such as in basketry. There were also cases where women were found in traditionally male tasks. They included 160 women employed in the manufacture of bricks, pottery and glass, 426 women in the manufacture and repairing of metals and machines and in smelting, founding, engineering and electrical works (out of a total Chinese working population of 25,765 in these industries), and some 640 women in woodwork and basketry (Del Tufo 1949, p. 103). On the whole manufacturing work in the male-dominated industries such' as light engineering work and 92

Rubber graders and packers A key feat~re in the factories in the 1930s was the employment of 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 of 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". Little else is known about the conditions of work of Chinese women in factories and in the manufacturing sector as a whole during the colonial period. This is partly because many of the factories and manufacturing establishments were small-scale enterprises which employed only a few workers or were family concerns, often under the supervision of a male. Women's participation in such enterprises was either as part of unpaid family labour or as part-time, full-time or irregular wage workers. Of the tot a1 7, 758 Chinese women in the manufacturing sector in 194 7, 73 per cent were wage workers wh i1 e 20 per cent were self-employed workers and the rest were unpaid family workers. (These figures should be viewed with caution as they i nvo 1ve only cases covered by the census.) Work conditions were not standardized in the small-scale enterprises but were determined either by each enterprise or by kongsi organized along clan, dialect and trade lines. The labour code did not cover factory work until the 1950s. Any further understanding of the origins and conditions of female labour in manufacturing would require much more research into both factory forms and family or petty commodity forms of production many of which still exist. Relatively more is known about the position of Chinese and other women in manufacturing in the post-colonial period.* In

*

The post-1969 years in particular have seen vast social and economic changes under the New Economic Policy. One 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 for Chinese women but for Malay and Indian women aa well, and in particular

94

industrial manufacturing, a large proportion of women workers are employed by multinational firms in labour-intensive production processes producing mainly textiles, precision equipment, electronics components and various consumer items. These firms employ almost exclusively young women workers for their labourintensive processes because of the skills, cheapness and high productivity of the women. By now, various studies have firmly established that underlying the firms' profitability calculations is their ability to manipulate and control female labour through their gender roles, and which result in the relative cheapness and productivity of female labour compared with male labour (see Chapter 1, note 4). The multinational companies in incorporating gender roles and attributes of women into its relation with 1abour, become gender-bearing re 1at ions which subordinate women both as workers and as women at the same time.** It appears that throughout Chinese women's history in manufacturing work from the co 1oni a1 period up to the present, their position has been continuously and consistently defined by two primary factors: class and gender. These factors tend to

for 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 reproductive work.

**

As subordinated workers, the women are concentrated in low-paying, dead-end jobs involving the extension of their traditional skills and attributes which are considered low or non-skilled in the sexual division of labour. In their subordination as a gender, some of the forms of patriarchal 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 recomposition process in which the authority of the male boss replaces, undermines or adds to the male authority of, for example, the father (South East Asia Chronicle 66 [1979]; Elson and Pearson 1980).

95

subordinate them as workers and women simultaneously. However, at the same time, work in the factory provides income crucial for their survival and that of their families. It also provides economic independence and relative freedom from "traditional" family controls. Both economic and social freedoms are well appreciatea by the women, during the colonial period in particular by those who remained single. But much sti 11 remains to be researched and understood on the complex and contradictory effects of factory-based work on women's lives inside and outside of work, during the colonial period as well· as in the post-1969 period of industrialization.

96

VIII

OTHER ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES

Apart from the above forms of economic activity in which most Chinese women were found, other sectors and industries increasingly provided employment for women. These include hawking, construction and services.

Hawking Hawking provided the fourth largest source of employment of Chinese women after mining, agriculture and private domestic service in 1947, accounting for nearly 6,000 women vendors, pedlars, hawkers and sales women (Del Tufa 1949, p. 103). This figure, however, is probably an underestimation as it excludes those women who were involved in the production and preparation of foodstuffs and various items but who were not directly involved in the actual hawking of these goods. Although hawking on the whole was a heavily male-dominated activity, women hawkers and traders had a reputation for being capable businesswomen. Hawking activities were usually on a small-scale individual or family basis, and goods hawked included food and non-durable items such as cooked food, vegetables, fruits 97

Hallker

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 -an

Self-initiated activities based on traditionally women's skills such as sewing represent response and strategies to survive in the face of unemployment, economic hardship and lack of social support in old age. (Photograph by courtesy of the National Archives, Singapore.)

98

Construction workers Women workers (c. 1950) in the construction sector were identified with the Samsui women who worked individually lived and in groups or together in female kongsi (Photographs by houses. courtesy of Kouo Shang Wei).

99

and flowers

(largely self-grown),

as well

as durables such as

cooking utensils and toys. Goods were hawked cheaply in town centres, streets and markets as well as within local residential areas such as squatter settlements. Women hawkers came most 1y 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

activities

and services in general and women's participation in them are to be seen in the context of the pauperization and dislocation of working class individuals and families, apart from their natural growth to service growing popu 1at ions.

These phenomena first began on a large-scale in the economic depressions of 1g12-14 and the 1930s and resulted in the growth of poor squatter popu 1at ions around towns, mines and estates.

The situation was further accentuated

in the post-war period of unemployment and dislocation. In the 1a tter, one mi 11 ion peop 1e were regrouped and resett 1ed 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 left to fend for themselves economically. They mostly

took to the cultivation of vegetables and fruits and rearing of livestock for subsistence and for sale, as well as to hawking, and odd jobs. For the marginalized populations, hawking provided a means of income for subsistence. For women hawkers, this often involved

100

the extension of their traditional skills such as food preparation and sewing. Hawking also provid'ed the flexibility necessary for women to cope with household reproductive work, as it could be done for only part of the day or could be combined with household tasks. It was not uncommon for market women, for example, to bring their young children along with them to hawk their foodstuffs and for older children to help them sell 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 debate about the marginal economy and the role of the i nforma 1 sector in serving the needs of capital accumulation with its cheapness (Quijano 1974). However, seen from the perspective of the marginalized and poor populations, particularly of women, such self-initiated income-generating activities represent responses and strategies to survive in the face of unemployment, economic hardship and the lack of economic alternatives in addition to coping with house work and childcare.

Construction The construction industry was also among the industries in which women immigrants sought work. Many of these women were single, with similar backgrounds. The Samsui women in particular mostly worked at construction sites and, in fact, women in construction work were identified with the Samsui women. They worked individually or in groups and lived together in female kongsi houses, very much like the dulang washers in the mining areas. The number and proportion of women in the construction workforce prior to the influx of women into Malaya in the 1930s is 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 men. The figure is, however, probably an underestimation as women workers in 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 Women were also involved in moving exclusively a female task. earth. In my own observation of women construction workers under the contract system in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a clear sexual division of labour was also noted. Women were limited to li sui kung (cement and earth works) which involved digging, moving earth, wood, cement and bricks, mixing cement, sand and stones, picking wood and manual odd jobs such as sweeping and cleaning on the completion of a building. Male workers dominated all forms of construction work such as carpentry, the fixing of wooden and iron structures, cementing, bricklaying, painting, electrification work and fixing of doors and windows. These were, in fact, strictly male tasks which were considered skilled work earning higher incomes, compared with the tasks performed by women which were considered as tsap kung (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 li sui kung could earn about $6-$8 per day while women workers in the same ~ earned between $4 and $6 per day. Ma 1e workers tended to be hi red on a regular contract basis while women were casual contract or daily contract workers.

but

Little else is known about women in the construction industry again, it is suggested here that their participation in

102

Barbers

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, and included mainly services of a "personal" nature such as domestic servicing 103

in private households and various forms of servicing such as waitressing and laundry. In this "personal" services sector, private domestic service alone accounted for 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, 1ittle is known about women workers in the other trades within the services sector. However, it is common knowledge that in the hairdressing trade, young women are preferred and are trained under an apprenticeship system with long working hours, food and lodgings provided and with or without cash payments. The hairdressing saloon is usually headed by an o1der woman who has risen in the trade through years of experience and has accumulated sufficient capital to start her own business. In genera 1, women's work in this sector may be seen as one of the few income-earning sources for poor women and as extensions of their traditional skills of servicing.

*

Del Tufo (1949), pp. 442-45, 477-82. 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 is certainly not new to Chinese women. Early Chinese women were found in a diversity of work situations of which prostitution, domestic servitude, paid domestic service, mining, rubber estate work, hawking and manufacturing were the first major forms. Other major work activities included personal servicing as cashiers, waitresses and cleaners in restaurants, hotels and bars, hairdressing in saloons, laundry work, construction work, and vegetable gardening and 1i ves tock rearing. In some of these work situations, Chinese women's skills and tradition of economic independence originating from their peasant and working c1ass origins in southern China were continued and further developed in Malaya. The subordinate position of Chinese women in colonial Malaya was largely the outcome of the dynamic interaction between gender and class relations in which they were both members of a class an~ a gender at the same time, the two being not mutually exclusive. As members of a class, they did not own the means of production and sold their labour power or their sexuality to ensure the conditions for their own and their families' maintenance and reproduction. At the same time, they entered the labour market or were sold and traded in a traffic in women as women in subordinate roles defined by gender relations, such as wives, mothers, mui 105

tsai and prostitutes. Some of these gender roles were already in existence in China; in Malaya, they were intensified, decomposed and recomposed into new forms with a new basis and significance. Capital-labour relations such as in the mines and estates fed on these gender defined roles to subordinate women as dependants, supp 1ementary, inferior or marginal workers. In other contexts such as in prostitution, gender relations were clearly dominant in determining women's position within the male-dominated mines and pioneer towns. State policies and ideologies further reinforced and structured women's position and options, particularly in the case of prostitutes and mui tsai. The common generalization and assumption that women in Malaysia traditionally have been subordinated thus requires much careful qualification. While such a generalization holds at the broadest level, the multiplicity of work and social situations in which Chinese women were found during the colonial period reveals a complex and contradictory picture in which some categories of women were far less and far from subordinated compared with others. For example, compared with prostitutes for whom the controls were extremely tight and their abilities to determine their conditions were highly constrained, the amah's economic independence and feminism enabled them to maintain a much greater degree of self-determination over their conditions. The forms and extent of subordination experienced by each category thus depended on the particular conjunctures of forces shaping the women's lives in each work and social situation. In linking the changes in the position of Chinese women in the colonial and post-colonial periods, a similarly complex picture emerges. 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 hand, their subordination appears to have remained even if in different forms, being constantly shaped and reshaped in changing contexts. Such a comp 1ex i ty thus does not suggest a one-dimensional conclusion that the position of women has worsened or improved. Rather, the strategic possibilities facing women for control over their own lives vary, depending on their specific situations. In the case of factory women for example, the extensive massing together for the first time of women of various ethnic and social backgrounds to work in the factories in the post-1969 period provide the potential basis for them to struggle both as a gender and as a class and to be abstracted out of their particularized gender ascriptive relations (Elson and Pearson 1980). What is also clear from the above cases is that despite the existence and persistence of subordination and the constraints on alternatives and possibilities for change, the picture of women's responses is not one of passive victims in their "natural" state of helplessness as the "traditional" attributes of docility and obedience to authority would seem to suggest. The ability of women to respond actively and with initiative 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 themse 1ves clearly shows that women are capable of taking action for selfdetermination of various conditions affecting them. Women and their families in the mines and plantations were able to respond actively to the conditions of survival and reproduction, both in daily life and during crisis situations. It is also well known that women were active members of trade unions and were involved in strikes in estates and factories, although the position of women workers in trade union activities is unclear and remains to be researched. According to Wee (1954), in Singapore, where there 107

was a union in an industry which employed women workers, there were always women members and they participated actively in strikes.* Other forms of organization around which women have massed together over their specific conditions have taken clearly feminist lines, as the amah's activities around the kongsi fong and chai tang show. At the same time, these forms of organization were able to cope with the economic demands of their position. The capacity of women to organize themselves around their interests also include that category of women so often stigmatized by society and portrayed as helpless -- the dance hostesses. The dance hostesses' trade union in Singapore organized mutual aid schemes (it was initially set up as a mutual aid society before World War II) and support for each other on economic issues directly related to their working conditions such as wages and allowances for clothing and make-up (Wee 1954, p. 163). Nevertheless, the subordination of women has persisted. This persistence in whatever forms dispels the common criticism that issues regarding the subordination of women are irrelevant or are secondary to other forms of subordination for women. The cases

*

Wee noted that in the more conventional activities of the trade unions, women did not seem to be "enthusiastic" and it was not possible to trace any women active in the central committee or council of trade unions in Singapore. While the moat obvious possibilities for action, response or struggle as workers are around issues such es wages and working conditions, there elao exist shortcomings and limitations of factory-based struggles end trade union organizations. Among others, they fail to take up the specific problems of gender subordination faced by women workers which, for many women may, in fact, be primary and class exploitation is only secondary and derivative in their concrete situations. The forms which workers' organizations have traditionally assumed are often inadequate for this reason, and women's participation in trade union activities may be found wanting but not because wonoen are "backward" in their understanding of struggle as is often believed. This is, however, only a general point. Much research into the structures and activities of various trade unions during the colonial period is required to establish the concrete situation of w~en's participation in th~m.

108

examined above clearly show that Chinese Malaysian women have historically experienced specific forms of subordination as a gender besides that of a class, and that the social relations of gender are as significant as class relations. In specific context such as that of prostitution, gender relations are immediately more significant than class relations. 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 in dynamic interaction with them.

109

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115

Kuala

THE AUTHOR Lai Ah Eng is currently a researcher in Singapore. works include "The Little Workers: Scale

Industries

of

Penang,

Coming to Grips with Sexual "Family

Lifestyles

Among

HDB

Her published

Child Labour in the Small-

Malaysia"

(1982),

Labour

Pains:

Inequalities (co-author, 1984) Residents"

(1985).

and

Her current

research interests include community, ethnic and gender relations in Malaysia and Singapore.