The Chinese Of Sukabumi

Study of the Chinese minority in Indonesia has formed a considerable part in the work of the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project since its establishment in 1954. The results of the valuable research undertaken by Donald E. Willmott in this field have already seen publication. Miss Giok-Lan Tan’s study of the Chinese of Sukabumi (centering on the Peranakan section of the community) represents a significant addition to the published material on this subject and an important contribution to the continuing work of the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project. This study of the Chinese community in West Java complements that of Dr. Willmott on the Chinese of Semarang, Central Java, published three years ago, and the forthcoming M.I.T. sponsored study by Edward J. Ryan of the Modjokerto Chinese of East Java. Having this amount of published material available, we can begin to comprehend the range of variation, and the same time the underlying unity, of the Peranakan culture in Java. With the publication during the next few years of professor G. William Skinner’s research (sponsored by the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project in 1956–1958), the picture will undoubtedly become even fuller and clearer. Miss Tan, a Peranakan who lived briefly in Sukabumi during the Second World War, undertook this study in 1956–1957 while a student at the Sinological Institute of the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. Her research war carried out under the direction of Professor Skinner, who was then in Indonesia. After completing her research in Indonesia, and following completion of her study at the Sinological Institute, Miss Tan came to Cornell University to do graduate work in anthropology. She was awarded her M.A. degree in 1961. Following her return to Indonesia, Miss Tan has undertaken further field research among the Chinese. She has designed and directed a project which studied a number of desa in the Tangerang area (West Java) with special emphasis on the social interaction between Peranakan and indigenous farmers. Currently Miss Tan is an instructor in sociology at the Catholic University in Jakarta, and beginning in May 1963 was appointed research assistant in the National Economic and Social Research Institute of the Council for Sciences of Indonesia.  George McT. Kahin, Foreword.

The bibliographical essays on the studies of the ethnic Chinese in the ASEAN states will be extremely useful as it is the first monograph of its kind and also up-to-date. It begins with a general overview on the studies of the ethnic Chinese in the ASEAN states, and is followed by five country studies and two essays on specific topics. All essays in this volume were written by specialists.

In June 1985, a symposium, "Changing Identities of the Southeast Asian Chinese since World War II" was held at the Australian National University in Canberra. This volume includes many of the papers from that symposium presented by ANU scholars and those from universities elsewhere in Australia, North America and Southeast Asia. Participants looked at the current thinking about the parameters of identity and shared their own research into the complex issues that overlapping categories of identity raise. Identity was chosen as the focus of the, symposium because perceptions of self - whether by others or by the individual Chinese concerned - appear to lie at the heart ' of the present-day Chinese experience in Southeast Asia, It is also evident that identity wears many guises and that we cannot talk about a single Chinese identity when identity can be determined by the different political, social, economic or religious circumstances an individual faces at any given time. One of the distinctive characteristics of all the essays in this volume is that they are written from an historical perspective. While the papers forcus on how recent developments in Southeast Asian society have shaped Chinese identity, they also discuss those changes in terms of the historical matrix from which they developed. Because many of the essays in this volume combine an historical overview with more recent statistical data, it should serve as a useful companion to the increasingly popular case studies in which much of the writing about the Chinese in Southeast Asia is now cast.

The Chinese overseas now number 25 to 30 million, yet the 2,000-year history of Chinese attempts to venture abroad and the underlying values affecting that migration have never before been presented in a broad overview. Despite centuries of prohibition against leaving the land and traveling and settling overseas, the earthbound Chinese--first traders, then peasants and workers--eventually found new sources of livelihood abroad. The practice of sojourning, being always temporarily away from home, was the answer the Chinese overseas found to deal with imperial and orthodox concerns. Today their challenge is to find an alternative to either returning or assimilating by seeking a new kind of autonomy in a world that will come to acknowledge the ideal of multicultural states. In pursuing this story, international scholar Wang Gungwu uncovers some major themes of global history: the coming together of Asian and European civilizations, the ambiguities of ethnicity and diasporic consciousness, and the tension between maintaining one's culture and assimilation.

With around 40 million people worldwide, the ethnic Chinese and the Chinese in diaspora form the largest diaspora in the world. The economic reform of China which began in the late 1970s marked a huge phase of migration from China, and the new migrants, many of whom were well educated, have had a major impact on the local societies and on China. This is the first interdisciplinary Handbook to examine the Chinese diaspora, and provides a comprehensive analysis of the processes and effects of Chinese migration under the headings of: Population and distribution Mainland China and Taiwan’s policies on the Chinese overseas Migration: past and present Economic and political involvement Localization, transnational networks and identity Education, literature and media The Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Diaspora brings together a significant number of specialists from a number of diverse disciplines and covers the major areas of the study of Chinese overseas. This Handbook is therefore an important and valuable reference work for students, scholars and policy makers worldwide who wish to understand the global phenomena of Chinese migration, transnational connections and their cultural and identity transformation.