Implications for the development

Moldova–Singapore; MNEIN–TPM. 
In late 2017, I moved to Singapore because my hus-
band was offered a job at Nanyang Technological University. This relocation challenged me to 
start new research, but forced me to begin from an almost blank slate, as I knew very little about 
local history and none of the local languages (except English). I decided to begin – as I had 
done when I first visited Moldova in 1999 – by seeing what problematics were posed by the 
ethnographic museums.
1
As in Moldova, these visits did reveal some of the focal points of local 
ethnographers, and prompted some questions of my own
2
. However, if my early visits to MNEIN 
confirmed my commitment to ethnography as a way of integrating local communities into na-
tional (and universalistic) discourses, those to TPM have challenged it.
In this section and the next, let me briefly describe TPM as I encountered it and my first re-
flections on memory and heritage. In the following section, I will then turn to a discussion with 
the curators and what I learned from them.
TPM is Singapore’s national-level “ethnographic” museum. It originated in an exhibit housed 
in the Asian Civilizations Museum between 1994–2008. It is important to note from the outset 
that, although TPM is a national-level museum, it does not take the Singapore “nation” as its 
object. The Singapore nation is an explicitly civic nation, comprised from a multi-racial, multi-
ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-lingual population. Nor can it be said that the Peranakans con-
stitute an ethnic group in any easy or straightforward way – neither in Singapore nor elsewhere 
in Southeast Asia. Equally importantly, TPM’s mission is to serve as a museum for the multiple 
Peranakan communities across Southeast Asia. 
On my visits to TPM, and to other museums devoted to Peranakans in Singapore and 
Malaysia,
3
the identity of the Peranakans appears as one of the foremost questions to be answered 
for the visitor. All the exhibits begin with what seems to be a riddle: “Peranakan” is a Malay word 
meaning “locally born”.So is this everyone, or is this a distinct community? Writing from the 
perspective of fieldwork in Malaysia, Joel Kahn
4
points out that the term’s meaning suggest that 
almost anybody can be considered Peranakan, and even foreigners who are not actually “locally 
born” may take on enough local practices and behaviors to meet any of the substantive “identity 
markers” that are volunteered (by his informants) as “Peranakan”.
The museums, however, do not uphold Kahn’s effort to promote such a literal version of “ver-
nacular cosmopolitanism”. The displays distinguish the Peranakan communities as emerging 
from the 15
th
Century. In this sense, the term distinguished individuals, families, and communi-
ties across Southeast Asia (primarily Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia) descended from inter-
marriages between an incoming non-local male (e.g. Chinese or Indian) and a local female. The 
distinction of Peranakans seems to have become most clear during British rule as it was made 
1
O americancă în muzeele Chișinăului: Problema creării imaginilor și puterea lor socială (An American 
in Chișinău’s Museums: The Creation of Images and Their Social Power)
, in: Annual symposium of the 
Societatea de Etnologie, Chișinău, Republic of Moldova, October 2000.
2
In the Singapore case, and not restricted to a focus on Peranakan communities, my visits to muse-
ums have prompted such questions as: How did (and do) women’s social networks create community 
and contribute to identity? What were (are) the boundaries of hospitality? What forms of social be-
longing were (are) important to people other than “family”? These questions deserve more explana-
tion and exploration in other venues.
3
For example, the NUS Baba House in Singapore and the Baba and Nyonya Heritage Museum in 
Malacca, Malaysia. 
4
Joel Kahn, 
Other Cosmopolitans in the Making of the Modern Malay World
, in: Pnina Werbner (ed.), 
Anthropology and the New Cosmopolitanism: Rooted, Feminist and Vernacular Perspectives
, p. 261-
280. New York: Berg, 2009, p. 272.

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Patrimoniul cultural de ieri: implicații în dezvoltarea societății durabile de mâine
~ 610 ~
against the more ethnically homogenous communities of Chinese, Indians, etc. that were present 
and increasing in size and importance. In Singapore, most Peranakans were Chinese Peranakan, 
and thus often elided with the community of “Straits Chinese”.
The Peranakan identity was and is a high-status identity. High status was not always reflected 
by material wealth, but “local ness” in the midst of increasing migration was valuable. Post-
colonial national policies have erased much of the specificity of the identity in the public sphere. 
In Singapore, for example, the official racial categories are Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others.
5
With no category for “Peranakan”, those who could claim the identity must officially identify as 
Chinese (or another official race). Though some would like to hold this as their public identity,
6
others describe the identity as belonging to their past, but not relevant for their present
7
.
One of the things that intrigues me is that, from the very outset, any museum devoted to 
Peranakan lives and culture must immediately grapple with the problem of the “past”, and what 
kind of continuity is implied by “heritage”. After all, the Peranakan community is not “dead”; the 
passing of one political era did not make it disappear altogether. There are Peranakan communi-
ties and organized societies; the former produces professional cultural specialists of the highest 
quality (including curators, historians, writers, and activists) while the latter sponsor cultural 
events and talks, strengthening the link between the production of knowledge and community 
identity.
8
The living Peranakan community is a community of memory in a very direct sense of 
the term. However, the memories that bind this community are not stable, not fixed in a distant 
and unchanging past. In this case, the shape of collective memory is transforming in dynamic 
ways. Behind the scenes, TPM’s curators talk about how the stories that the objects in the collec-
tion can tell are changing. Lived practices and lived relationships with objects are changing, and 
memory is too!