The historical continuity o f Chinese interests in the Straits Settlements since the British established the settlement colonies o f Penang and Singapore as “free trade entrepots”, is important in understanding the flow o f Chinese female migration. The attraction o f trading ports with no tax or duties, the safety o f British rule, and plenty o f opportunities to harvest money on cheap land ensured a regular traffic o f immigrants betw een China and the Straits Settlements. The first commercial and labouring com m unities in the Straits Settlements were mainly Chinese and Indians. The Chinese dominated the cultivation o f agricultural crops such as pepper, gam bier,14 spice and sugar cane, although the cultivation and manufacturing o f sugar was later taken over by
and Relations, Shanghai The Commercial Press Ltd., 1933, pp. 70-3.
12Ibid., p. 176, n. 5. This Act did not apply to the diplomatic corps o f the Chinese government and their household members.
13Any Chinese non-labour immigrant, who contributed direct manual labour at any one occasion or temporarily, i.e. a restaurant proprietor who also acted as the restaurant cook was liable to be re classified as a labourer and thus, subjected to deportation under the Chinese Exclusion Act. For cases tried under this ruling, see ibid., pp. 180-2.
14Gambier was used for tanning leather, to dye silk and as a condiment accompanying the chewing o f betel.
71 European planters and Indian labourers. It was, however, the tin mining and rubber industries that attracted the largest numbers o f Chinese labour emigrants to Malaya.
M alaya, in the midst o f economic and infrastructure development in the nineteenth century, greatly benefited from the Chinese emigration in the form o f coolie traffic. Poor, illiterate and unskilled Chinese labour was imported to work in tin mines, rubber plantations and public works sectors such as roads, railways and trading ports.15 The inducem ent o f hundreds o f thousands o f Chinese coolies into the Malayan economy resulted in a vast preponderance o f males and very few females. The very small numbers o f Chinese women immigrants in Malaya comprised mainly o f wives and daughters o f the male immigrants, and single young women who were mostly prostitutes. In 1891, there were 100,446 Chinese males and 21,462 Chinese females with a ratio o f male to female about five to one.16 The main feature o f the Chinese emigrant community in Malaya was the unbalanced sex ratio that persisted throughout the late nineteenth century and the first decade o f this century.
The preponderance o f Chinese males and the highly transient nature o f the immigrant com m unity were believed to be the cause o f much social strife in society. The period between the 1860s and 1880s posed serious problems for law enforcement as many Chinese coolies absconded from employment sites, the practice o f crim ping17 became
'"These works were allocated to the Chinese labour emigrants primarily because the indigenous Malays were mainly occupied in the protected occupation o f farming nee fields, and the Indian labour emigrants were concentrated in European agricultural plantations. English-educated Indian emigrants and local-bom Chinese affluent m the English language, worked in subordinate positions in the colonial public service.
16Maurice Freedman, Chinese Family and Marriage in Singapore, London: HMSO, 1957, p. 25.
17The word “crimping” was first used in the 17th century and it referred to the practice o f entrapping adult males for service in the army or navy. See The Concise Oxford Dictionary. In the context o f immigrant labour, however, crimping referred to the practice whereby indentured labourers were lured mto abandoning their present contractual employment and took up employment elsewhere. The Crimping Ordinance (No. HI o f 1877) was introduced to protect the interests o f European planters. It imposed penalties on any person who induced any indentured labourer to leave his present employment for work elsewhere, and anyone who harboured or employed a deserter. This legislative measure was taken to curtail the number o f contracted Chinese labourers leaving the Straits Settlements for the tobacco plantations in Sumatra. Blythe, Historical Sketch, p 10.
widespread, and sporadic fights between rival secret societies escalated into civil wars on mining establishments. Individuals and government officials identified the absence o f wives and families as the leading cause o f Chinese socio-economic discontent. J.D. Vaughan, in the 1870s, believed that the very presence of Chinese women would help,
“... to prevent, if for no other reason, the fearful crimes that prevailed amongst the Chinese
in consequence o f paucity o f females ... the introduction o f women would materially
conduce to the peacefulness o f the colony. The Chinese are naturally domesticated, and
would, surrounded by their wives and children, seek to maintain order and peace; and would
not be easily roused as they are now with no ties to restrain them ...” 18
W omen were perceived to exercise some form o f moderating influence on the male community as the presence o f wives and children would influence the immigrant labour force to be more domiciled and less agitated.
The problem o f gender disparity in the Chinese immigrant community first received serious official attention when the Straits Settlements government established a Chinese Protectorate in Singapore in 1877. The main functions o f the Chinese Protectorate were to encourage the immigration of females from “respectable classes”, to prevent the abuse o f the immigration system and the suppression o f secret societies' control over new immigrants. The Chinese Protectorate was also empowered with greater jurisdiction over the protection and welfare o f female immigrants through the legislation o f "The Protection o f Women and Girls Ordinance" o f 1887. These legislative measures helped to promote a steady flow o f female immigrants as the figures for new female immigrants to the Straits Settlements increased from 3,146 in 1880 to 7,126 in 1891, and further to 12,329 in 1900.19
The very first few women who emigrated to Malaya were either wives or dependants o f mostly rich Hokkien immigrants from Amoy. The failure o f a civil uprising by Chinese rebels in Amoy in 1854 also resulted in many Hokkien immigrants' decision to bring their families to Malaya, out o f fear o f reprisals from the Chinese Imperial government for their roles in supporting the rebels. Cantonese female emigrants first arrived in Malaya via
18J. D. Vaughan, The Manners and Customs o f the Chinese o f the Straits Settlements, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 8 (first edition, 1879).
Hong Kong in the second half o f the nineteenth century. After Hong Kong was ceded to the British government in 1842, Cantonese women emigrated in large numbers to Hong Kong, partly because o f the close proximity o f Canton and the newly acquired British colony, and partly drawn by the flourishing Cantonese male labour immigrant communi ties. Cantonese women formed the largest female populace in Hong Kong, many reportedly involved in clandestine prostitution or domestic slavery.20 The migration pattem o f Cantonese women to Malaya followed closely that o f Hong Kong. The gender disparity in the Chinese immigrant communities together with the legalization o f brothels had lured voluntary Chinese prostitutes to Malaya. Other female immigrants were forced into prostitution.21 Some had been sold into debt-slavery. Most o f the female immigrants involved in the prostitution trade were Cantonese and Teochiu women. Other factors such as rapid economic growth and a pro-active female migration policy administered by the colonial government had immense consequences on the make-up and migratory flow o f Chinese females as well.