美国和印度的海外华人

Overseas Chinese in America and Indonesia: A Review Article Author(s): Stanford Lyman Reviewed work(s): Source: Pacific Affairs, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Winter, 1961-1962), pp. 380-389 Published by: Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2752630 . Accessed: 20/02/2013 21:07 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Pacific Affairs. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:07:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Pacific Affairs biographies of some of the older nationalists, even though partisan in spirit, would be welcome. A careful study of one city, say Qui Nhon, during the war years might throw light upon later political and economic attitudes. What lifelong opinions are embodied in this remark of a Qui Nhon resident: "When I returned to my city after service, all I could recognize was the cathe- dral and the mountain"? And among the many tasks still to be done there remains the important work of reviewing the transfer of authority, carried out by improvisation more than by plan during almost a year from June I954 to June I955. In the meantime, these two works are a useful contribution to the history of the guerre scale and the end of colonial rule in French Indo- China. St. Louis University, October 196A FRANCIS J. CORLEY, S.J. Overseas Chinese in America and Indonesia: A Review Article THE STUDY OF OVERSEAS CHINESE has come into its own in the last decade. The flow of publications since the appearance of Purcell's monumental work in i95i is impressive. Since that date monographs have appeared on the Chinese in Malaya, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Sarawak, New Zea- land, and the Philippines. In i958 the Institute of Pacific Relations published the proceedings of a Colloquium on Overseas Chinese. Two valuable spe- cialized studies have recently been issued, one on Chinese spirit-medium cults in Singapore, the other on Chinese secret societies in Malaya. The two books' under review here add to this store of knowledge and hasten the day when comparative analysis may be undertaken. Professor Lee attempts to analyze the present position and problems of Chinese throughout the United States. More modest in scope, more scholarly in approach, Dr. Willmott's study examines a single Chinese community in a large Indonesian city. The contrast between the styles of these two books is striking. Dr. Will- mott has approached Semarang's Chinese community with a detachment not usually exhibited even by social scientists in the study of ethnic relations. Professor Lee, on the other hand, writes with missionary fervor about the 1Donald Earl Willmott, The Chinese of Semarang: A Changing Minority Community in Indonesia, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Published under the auspices of the Modern Indo- nesia Project, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University. 1960. 374 pp. $6.oo. Rose Hum Lee, The Chinese in the United States of America. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Uni- versity Press. New York: Oxford University Press. i960. 465 pp. $7.25. 380 This content downloaded on Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:07:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Overseas Chinese in America and Indonesia possibility and desirability of unreserved assimilation for America's Chinese. Not committed to championing the further integration of Indonesia's Chi- nese, Dr. Willmott dispassionately describes the present social, economic, political, religious, and familial life of his subjects in standard ethnological and sociological form. Motivated by the conviction that her fellow Chinese ought to unshackle the institutional chains of their Asian past, Professor Lee vigorously attacks those persons and associations which retard the "accul- turation, assimilation, and integration" of the Chinese into American society. Dr. Willmott is least effective when he tries to fit his rather limited case study on to the Procrustean bed of a general theory of "sociocultural change." Professor Lee is never able to balance the sociological superstructure of her book against the "message" which she seeks to convey and the policies she advocates. Semarang's Chinese have resided there for at least three centuries and perhaps more. The earlier Chinese came unaccompanied by wives and not infrequently took wives from among the native Indonesian women. As a result several generations of Peranakan Chinese have grown up with a mixed heritage. Newer immigrants and those who remain culturally Chinese are known as Totoks. But both Peranakans and Totoks are regarded as Chinese and in that sense distinguishable from the Indonesian and Dutch residents. More and more women have found it possible to emigrate from China in the last half century, and, as a result, endogamy has been more firmly re- established among Semarang's Chinese. Indonesia is a tri-cultural nation. Dutch, native, and Chinese influences have inter-penetrated one another so that no single ethnic group has been untouched by the culture of its neighbours. The Chinese have changed in response to their economic position vis-a-vis, the local population and in ac- cordance with the subtle but effective consequences of intermarriage with Indonesian women. The practices, prejudices, and political power of the Dutch rulers affected the Chinese greatly: they admired the advanced ways of the Dutch and resented the measures directed at restricting their oppor- tunities to acquire the benefits of Western life. In addition, Indonesia's Chi- nese have been persistently responsive to China's changing political fortunes. The anti-Manchu revolt had its counterpart (with local issues in the fore- ground, to be sure) in Indonesia. Chinese schools, chambers of commerce, Nationalist organizations, consular officials, and visitors from China, all played important roles in the development of Semarang's Chinese community. More recently, Communist China has also made itself felt. Publications, travel and exchanges, and schools express interest in the Peking regime. The emotional loyalties of Indonesia's Chinese are divided: many admire the new strength of the erstwhile "paper tiger" though they are not ideologically committed to it. As they have done elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Semarang's Chinese have 38I This content downloaded on Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:07:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Pacific Affairs made their greatest economic gains in commercial activities. In i955 "the Semarang Chinese owned and managed from three-quarters to four-fifths of Semarang's retail, transport, manufacturing, service, and wholesale enter- prises. They were less important in banking and finance, and their position in the import-export field, always secondary to the European firms, was being challenged by Indonesian or part-Indonesian companies." Familistic enter- prise is the characteristic Chinese business form, though exceptions to this are to be found in Semarang. Chinese businesses tend to be small enough for a single family to handle, but expand horizontally into newer lines of opera- tion. Though reputed to be successful, the Chinese suffer severe setbacks and business instability is endemic. Businesses are owned and staffed by family members and organized informally. Informal organization also is found in loan and credit facilities where mutual trust prevails over contractural rela- tions. Similarly (though this point is not emphasized by Willmott) Chinese settle business disputes by arbitration proceedings before the Chtung Hua Tsung Hui (Federation of the Chinese Associations) or the Sianghwee (Chinese Chamber of Commerce) but rarely by official court proceedings. It is fruitful to compare the manner in which Dr. Willmott and Pro- fessor Lee treat Chinese political structure. As a student of Southeast Asian colonial and post-colonial society, Dr. Willmott is neither surprised nor angered by the "extraterritorial" rights which Indonesian Chinese possess. The system of indirect rule by which European powers dominated their multi-ethnic colonies had as a natural consequence the establishment of a semblance of internal self-government by each minority group. Professor Lee, however, is dismayed by her discovery of an internal, and largely un- democratic, "government" among Chinese within the non-colonial United States. It reveals incomplete acculturation on the one hand and suggests self- serving corruption on the other. In Semarang's Chinese community power is today more diffusely spread than was once the case. At one time the day-to-day administration of the Chinese community, representation to the Chinese, Dutch, and Indonesian governments, business leadership, and community-wide organizational lead- ership were all in the hands of the several kapitans and majors China. From '900-1931 commercial and business leadership passed into the hands of the Sianghwee. Administrative leadership of the Chinese community has passed from the Chinese wiikmeesters (neighborhood heads) into the hands of the Indonesian lurah and other direct Indonesian administrations. The repre- sentation of the Chinese community is now a task of the Chung Hua Tsung Hul, though other political groups dispute this organization's claim to repre- sent the Chinese community. Clans, landsmannschaften, and secret societies appear to have declined in importance in Indonesia, though a fuller exam- ination of the structure of the Chung Huct Tsung Hui might have clarified their status. Secret societies have assumed a ritual place in Semarang's Chi- 382 This content downloaded on Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:07:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Overseas Chinese in America and Indonesia nese society-but not in America's-and apparently no longer play the revolu- tionary and criminal role they once did.2 The Chinese in the United States present an unusual instance of low acculturation. To the present day a great many Chinese are crowded into ghettos in America's largest cities where they live out their lives isolated and insulated from dominant American values and practices. Behind the invisible wall which separates Chinatown from the metropolis, an unofficial govern- ment legislates, executes, and adjudicates matters for its denizens. An inter- locking directorate of secret-society moguls, clan leaders, and merchants pos- sessing "face and favor," the power elite of Chinatown is the descendant (with many important changes, to be sure) of the once-powerful landsmann- schaften elite which ruled in China's pre-modern cities. The steadily increas- ing centralization of government has eroded the power of local elites in China's cities, but among the overseas Chinese this traditional form of gov- ernment has survived-a reminder of dynastic China's past transplanted overseas. Not every Chinese immigrant in America recognizes the sovereignty of Chinatown's ruling group or receives its protection. Students and intellectuals, separated in social origins, status, and aspirations from the mass of Chinese immigrants, have segregated themselves from their fellow Chinese. Living in close contact with academics, professionals, and Caucasians generally un- likely to be possessed of prejudices, this group of Chinese has had to face problems quite different from those of the peasants and artisans who jour- neyed to America to make a fortune. Since i949 many Chinese students have been stranded in the United States. Unwilling to return to mainland China, or to take up residence in Formosa, they have been forced to make an un- foreseen adjustment to American life. Not infrequently this has meant a reduction in social status, a deferment of aspirations, and the acceptance of menial occupations. In addition, many of the stranded were cut off from con- tact with wives and family in China. Unable to effect the entry of wives into the United States, some of the stranded students have entered into bigamous 2 Dr. Willmott's study is marred by an unnecessary and misleading amount of terminological confusion with respect to organizational designation. The fault is compounded because the reader is nowhere presented with a Chinese glossary to help him unscramble or check the English transliterations. For example, the Chinese term for organization or association is vari- ously rendered in different spellings (hui, Awe, hwee) and sometimes as a seperate term (Hwa Joe Hwee Kwan), other times as a suffix (Sianghwee). The Chinese term for "Chinese" is trans- literated Tiong Hoa, Tiong Hwa, and Chutng Hua. Other Chinese terms are also trans- literated in different ways in different parts of the book. Dr. Willmott explains in the preface that Chinese terms are rendered as is the current practice in Semarang. This seems, however, to obscure rather than clarify Chinese organizational structure. This point is more than semantical. Since Occidentals first began to study Chinese society they have been plagued by an inability to comprehend Chinese social organization. Part of this difficulty is due to the incorrect labeling of organizations and the identification of two or more different organizations as the same or vice versa. A standardized spelling and a sociological investigation of the etymology of Chinese association names would go far to enhance future Sinology. 383 This content downloaded on Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:07:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Pacific Afairs marriages in the United States; others have suffered divorce from their wives. Nevertheless, Professor Lee concludes that most of the stranded "have made the best adjustment of which they are capable under trying circumstances." A second and by far larger group who have emancipated themselves in part from Chinatown are the American-Chinese, those Chinese who by birth are citizens of the United States. Penetration of the dominant American occupational structure has been followed by upward mobility and residential relocation outside and away from Chinatown. Not all American-Chinese have moved out of the ghetto, and many of those who have, maintain social, eco- nomic, or political contacts with Chinatown. For even the most assimilated Chinese, Cantonese cuisine holds an attraction that apparently has not been stifled by acceptance of American patterns of dress, language and outward social behaviour. The trait-by-trait acculturation that has characterized the adjustment of the American-Chinese has some interesting features worthy of further socio- logical investigation. The religious divisions which characterize American society, and which have been recently documented and discussed by Will Herberg, have not been taken over by the Chinese. Within the same con- jugal unit may be found Catholics and Protestants, and several different denominations of Protestantism. On the other hand, some of the alleged "cultural conflicts" of the American-Chinese appear to have their counterpart within the dominant society. The extent to which chastity and virginity are to be preserved prior to marriage, the invidious comparisons which children make between their own parents and those of their peers, and the dilemmas which young adults face in choosing to satisfy their material, emotional, and intellectual needs, are all characteristic strains of American as well as Chinese- American society. Given their isolation and insulation from American values, the China- towners deserve attention as deviants from that pattern usually followed by immigrants in America. The cycle of conflict, accommodation, assimilation, and (less frequently) amalgamation has been experienced by most of Ameri- ica's immigrants. Why have the Chinese failed to follow suit? This question haunts Professor Lee's book, but it is never fully answered. Professor Lee is not a disinterested observer of the Chinatown scene. She has a deep and abiding desire to see the full integration of her people into American society. The entire book is pervaded by a sense of mission and exhortation. On the second page the clarion call is sounded: ". . . the conditions favouring total integration are at hand." But the "Chinese need to comprehend the nature, composition and problems of their group.... (However,) the most unfor- tuate aspect is that the persons who have the most pressing need to 'see themselves as others see them' cannot read English.... The other persons who should benefit from this book are the China-oriented leaders and fol- lowers, most of whom have spent their lives in the U. S., or were born there, 384 This content downloaded on Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:07:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Overseas Chinese in America and Indonesia but whose prestige, power and influence are involved in promoting separa- tism." The book ends as it began. Despite her observation that the audience to whom the book is directed may never read nor understand it, Professor Lee is unflagging in her zeal. "Now is the most auspicious time to strive for total and unreserved integration into the American society.... Although the road ahead may be rough, the attempt must be made, with the Chinese themselves taking the initiative, because the members of the larger society have demonstrated their good will by removing the barriers, one by one.... The American-born, especially, must resist the pressure of the older Chinese who try to impose Chinese norms, values, and attitudes on them or who woo their loyalty by exhortation to 'save the face of the Chinese'. . .. Finally, ... Americans must help, too, by thinking of them (i.e., the Chinese) as fellow citizens and be less concerned with their ancestry." The author is not one to tolerate cultural relativism or a pluralistic society: "There should be but one set of norms which apply to human beings anywhere, encompassing sincerity, honesty, integrity, humanity, dignity, humbleness and concern for the general welfare." Apparently, Professor Lee believes this set of norms is more closely approximated in American society than in Chinese. Given this moralistic approach and a firm discipleship in the Chicago school of sociology, Professor Lee is led ultimately to attribute the failure of acculturation on the part of the contemporary Chinese primarily to a lack of will, and secondarily to the corruption and evil practices of Chinatown's leaders. At one point she offers the extraordinary suggestion that the leaders are acting contrary to their own private inclinations. "Their vested interests have superseded their personal motivations and wholehearted attempts at effective integration." Though Professor Lee has not presented a careful sociological examina- tion of the causes for the low rate of acculturation among the Chinese, her book is replete with data and implicit suggestions which might be used for such a study. Important for future studies is the distinction made early in the book between intramural and external barriers to acculturation. Segre- gation and isolation may have important positive functions for a minority group. The preservation of old world values and unusual practices is certainly enh