History about Baba and Nyonya

In the 15th century, the city states of the Malay Peninsula often paid tribute to various kingdoms such as the kingdoms of China and Siam. Close relations with China were established in early 15th century, during the reign of Parameswara, when Zheng He visited Malacca. In return for such tribute, a princess of China, Hang Li Po was presented as a gift to Sultan Mansur Shah, the Sultan of Malacca, at that time.

The royalty and servants who accompanied the princess initially settled in Bukit Cina and eventually grew into a class of straits-born Chinese known as the Peranakan. The Peranakan retained most of their ethnic and religious origins (ancestor worship), but assimilated the language and culture of the Malays. They developed a unique culture and distinct foods. A lot of sources claim that the early Peranakan inter-married with the local Malay population. However, the lack of physical resemblances have also led many experts to believe that the Peranakan Chinese ethnicity has hardly diluted. The Peranakan often sent their sons and daughters to China to look for spouses. Also, the religion of the local Malay population was Islam which forbids inter-marriage with other religions without conversion first. In the early 1800s, new Chinese immigrants to the Straits Settlements bolstered the Peranakan population.

By the middle of the Twentieth century, most Peranakan were English educated, as a result of the British colonisation of Malaya, and the natural propensity of these people who were able to easily embrace new cultures. Because the Peranakans readily embraced English culture and education, administrative and civil service posts were often filled by prominent Straits Chinese.

The interaction with the British also caused many in the community to convert to Christianity. The Peranakan community thereby became very influential in Malacca and Singapore and were known also as the King's Chinese due to their perceived loyalty to the British Crown. Because of the interaction of the different cultures and languages that Peranakans had, up to the mid-1900s, most Peranakans were trilingual, able to converse with Chinese, Malays and the British.

Common vocations were as merchants, traders, and general intermediaries between China, Malaya and the West; the latter was especially valued by the British, since the Babas also enjoyed good relations with the Malay community and served as advisors to the royal Malay courts. In fact the term "Baba" is an honorific term in Malay; probably derived from Hindi/Sanskrit.

Hi, everyone in our Baba-Nyonya blog!

With passion in Baba-Nyonya culture and cuisine, we’ll be here to introduce about this slowly but surely disappearing-but exceedingly beautiful culture and cuisine to the world.

The origin of Baba-Nyonya could be traced all the way to the Chinese Admiral explorer, Cheng Ho, who sailed the Indian Ocean more than 400 years ago to Melaka, a busy and prosperous port in the early 15^th century.

Baba-Nyonya in Malaysia and Singapore also known as the peranakan or the Straits Chinese, these groups of people are descendants of the very early Chinese immigrants to the Nanyang or 南洋 in Mandarin which literally means the “South Sea” region that refers to Malaysia Peninsular and the islands of Java. To assimilate to the culture. These early days Chinese immigrants retain some practices of Chinese but ai the same time adapted local Malay traditions in order to minimize the culture shock, where the men are called Babas, and the women are called Nyonyas.

Nyonya cuisine is generally referred to the result of inter-marriage between Chinese immigrants and the local Malays, which produced a unique cuisine where local ingredients such as chilies, belacan ( Malaysian shrimp paste), lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, etc. are used. Regardless of the history and origins of Nyonya food, preparing Nyonya food is no affair. The unique and highly flavor cuisine requires abundant amount of time, patience and skills. A true Nyonya would need to spends hours and hours to pounding her spices with batu giling (a flat slab of stone to grind the spices) to cook up authentic Nyonya dishes such as Chap Chai, Ayam Buah Keluak, Udang Masak Santan.

If you are a fans of the series “Little Nyonya”, you have come to the right place! You will be able to delve more into the Baba-Nyonya culture and learn more about Nyonya cusine here, too

If you are our fellow Malaysians, especially you are from Melaka or Penang and a Baba-Nyonya descent, we hope this blog reignite your love, passion and bygone memories.

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