The relatively gentle pitch of the roofs was governed by the spacing ratio between the beams and struts that supported the roof purlins. Arcuate roof tiles, which appear like sections of bamboo, were used to cover the roofs. Today, the roof of one of the outer wing structures is undergoing renovation and currently only has a tar paper surface, which is held in place by bricks. What once was its symmetrical double on the other end of the house has been altered significantly with the removal of the original second floor and its replacement by a “modern” higher structure with a flat roof.
Traditional residences such as this have significantly declined in number over the past half-century, not only because of the disinterest of descendants and lack of maintenance but also because of deterioration due to age, dilapidation, and abuse. After 1949, especially during the class struggles associated with Land Reform, both land and housing were confiscated from landlords and merchants before they were redistributed to poor peasants. As a result, many grand residences, which represented the patrimony of Chinese living abroad, came to be occupied by destitute local families whose interest was more in shelter than preservation. While the 1950 Land Reform Law stated that ancestral shrines, temples, and landlords’ residences “should not be damaged,” and together with the “surplus houses of landlords... not suitable for the use of peasants” be transformed into facilities for “public use” by local governments, most began a process of corrosive decline that was accelerated during the transition to communes, which began in 1958. During this period, in which there was a craze for collectivized living, stately structures representative of China’s glorious architectural traditions—residences, ancestral halls, and temples—were transformed into dining halls, workshops, administrative headquarters, and dormitories, among other group-centered uses for the masses (Knapp and Shen, 1992: 47–55). Moreover, during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution a decade later, there was frenzied activity throughout the country that brought about the smashing and burning of ancestral altars and tablets, including substantial amounts of applied ornamentation handed down from the past. Ornamental and ritual elements made of wood, clay, and porcelain suffered the greatest loss, while those made of stone and brick managed to survive in significant numbers.
During what is known as the Reform and Opening-up Period in the decade after 1979, Overseas Chinese as well as local families, whose property in China had been confiscated during “the high tide of socialism” after 1949, were invited to apply for its return. Descendants from all over the world, including Southeast Asia, some of them generations removed from those who built the old homes, traveled to China in search of their family legacy. Families thus were able to assess what had been lost and what remained, while contemplating what to do with the property they once thought had been lost. Many stately old residences were quickly cleared of non-family members who occupied them, were cleaned of grime, and were repaired. In some cases, where furnishings had been removed and stored, they were returned, but in most cases furniture was not recoverable. Some families were able to reclaim their material links to their past, passing the structures on to family members still living in China. In other instances, overseas families provided funds for the restoration of a grand home with the title transferred to a governmental body or organization that promised to open the home as an historic site. The Chen Cihong manor shown on pages 262–7 is an example of this type of effort.
When the ancestral home of Tan Tek Kee was fully returned to the family, it had been stripped of all of its furniture and had suffered badly from lack of maintenance. The ritual heart of the residence in the main hall was derelict, with all of the tangible material elements long gone, and only faded memories remain. What once had been exquisite compositions of fine furnishings, ritual paraphernalia, paintings, and other art works, all had been lost. In recent years, the collapse of the central ridgepole above the altar opened the heart of the dwelling to water damage, which has accelerated its deterioration since resources have not been expended to make necessary repairs. The residence today is owned by descendants of Tan Tek Kee, who now must struggle with decisions about its preservation. While most of them today live comfortably beyond Fujian in the Philippines and Hong Kong, they have put forth substantial funds in an effort to both maintain and restore the patrimony of their forebear. Making decisions within an extended family about allocating resources and how the burden should be shared is not easy. Without the daily life and periodic ritual of the family that once occupied this fine home, and who gave it life, the structure today is a melancholy shell of its former splendor. Today, only a caretaker and his family now occupy the rambling old dwelling in order to keep it clean and protect it from vandalism while distant family members ponder its future.
New Homelands in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, like other major realms of the world, as discussed above, is diverse and fragmented in terms of its physical and cultural geographies. The region can be divided fundamentally into two contrasting subdivisions: an Asian mainland that extends south from China, and an array of large and small islands that includes the world’s most extensive archipelago. Volcanic peaks, mountain spines, rugged coastlines, long rivers, short rivers, deltas, mangrove swamps, rich soils, and virgin forests are but some of the line-up of physical features that indigenous people and immigrants have adapted to.
It is likely that the Tan Cheng Lock residence on the right and the narrower residence on the left, which share an architectural style, were built at the same time in Malacca, Malaysia. Perhaps they were originally owned by a single family who later sold the units to different families.
Much of what we know of Chinese migration in Southeast Asia is fragmentary, with ebbs and flows guided both by imperial policy and individual decisions made by resourceful seaborne traders. During the Song dynasty in the twelfth century, the Ming dynasty in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and throughout the Qing dynasty, which began in 1644, Chinese trading communities of various sizes and compositions emerged at scattered port locations throughout the islands and peninsulas in the Nanyang. Over time, what once were scattered and isolated became tied into commercial networks. The arrival of Europeans, first as traders and then as colonialists, as well as Japanese, brought about competition and rivalries even as Chinese traders flourished and arriving Chinese settlers increased in number. Enterprising Chinese immigrants, as later chapters of this book will reveal, commercially exploited the profuse variety of flora and fauna as well as minerals and metals, resources providing work and a modest livelihood for countless contract laborers and bountiful wealth to a smaller number of migrants from China. The plantation cultivation of rubber, coffee, sugar, and spices, in addition to the collection of birds’ nests from caves in the wild and exotic flora and fauna from the biodiversity-rich ecosystems, played key roles in these transformations. The sections that follow will examine the dispersal of Chinese migrants, emphasizing the disparate character of history and geography of various settlement sites, as a prelude to the featured residences in Part Two.
Malacca
In the area clutched between the Malacca River and the Strait of Malacca, a casual visitor sees old buildings lining the narrow streets that appear on the exterior to be quintessentially Chinese. Indeed, Chinese characters arrayed above the lintels and windows and on the door and shutter panels, as well as the bulbous red lanterns hanging beneath the eaves, all seem to proclaim that this neighborhood has deep roots as a place of settlement by Chinese immigrants and their descendants, perhaps even to the earliest days of Malacca. Looking more closely at the exteriors, however, one also observes Dutch-period architectural features, Victorian glazed tiles, eclectic façades of uncertain age and origin, Chinese protective amulets, rooflines that span East and West, among other elements that confound the observer’s judgment. Glimpses through the doorways of hotels, restaurants, shops, even residences, seem to affirm that the occupants are principally Chinese in origin.
Those fortunate to be invited into homes along the lanes see that many are quite similar to the shophouses and terrace homes found in towns in southern China in that they have prominent skywells—small courtyards—that open up the interiors to light and air.
