The Formation And Evolution Of Chinese Community In Southeast Asia

This thesis takes the Jiangdou Wang Family in Singapore as a case study. With the material collected from field study in China and Southeast Asia, as well as the available historical material, it roundly analyzes how the early immigrants from South China beginning from the end of 19th century, equipped with Chinese traditional folk culture, linked by the blood relationship, location relationship, trade relationship, and religion relationship network, fostered Chinese communal identity, and further structured a Chinese community formation and cultural form. The thesis comprises 5 chapters.Exordium sets forth the origin and academic significance of the research, and briefly introduces the method of the research, the source of the material, and the outline of the analysis.Chapter 2 amply reviews the modern history of Jiangdou Wangs migrants, and makes a survey of their survival conditions in the Chinese group society in colonial Singapore, and thereby shows the historical necessity for the formation of Chinese community in Southeast Asia.Chapter 3 elaborates the roles and functions of the Chinese trade relationship, association and organization, and common deities belief in the formation of Chinese community in Southeast Asia, through the particular review on historical construction of Jiangdou Wangs' community in colonial Singapore mainly from three aspects like economic condition, clan association, and deities belief.Chapter 4 traces the evolution of Jiangdou Wang's communal structure and cultural form from the aspects of economic condition, clan association, and deities belief from the independence of Singapore in 1965 on, roundly analyzes the functional change of the trade relationship, association and organization, and common deities belief in the contemporary Chinese community, and then probes into the identity of Chinese diaspora in the contemporary Southeast Asia.Epilogue summarizes the formation and evolution of the Chinese community in Singapore, and further sets forth the author' s understanding of the current research orientation in the field of Southeast Asia Chinese society studies.