Introduction
Guiqiao or ‘returned overseas Chinese’ are a special category of Chinese in China who have returned from overseas to live in China. There had been transnational networks between overseas Chinese and their relatives in China, including Chinese migrants returning to China to settle down or to visit. After 1949, with the establishment of the Republic of China, those who remained in China or had no opportunity to return to their own countries, formed a distinct category of Chinese who could be distinguished from the local people (bendiren) by their overseas cultural features, such as speaking Malay or eating Indonesian Chinese food. More arrived in China in the 1950s and 1960s to study or escape from discrimination in Southeast Asia—Indonesia in particular. The local people in China (benti) distinguished them as fan or ‘foreign’ in a derogatory sense. They were also distinguished by the Chinese government as a separate category of Chinese, namely the guiguo huaqiao or guiqiao in abbreviation.Footnote 1 The People's Republic of China government had a special policy to cater to the needs and administration of these Chinese who had links to Chinese overseas. Thus guiqiao were and still are widely known in China, forming a distinct category of Chinese both politically and culturally.
Difficulties in obtaining local citizenship, and frequent anti-Chinese policies and riots have resulted in more returned overseas Chinese from Indonesia than from other Southeast Asian countries looking to China for education and nationality identification. There were two main categories of returnees from Indonesia, namely those who returned at their own expense to study in secondary schools, colleges or universities in China, and those who returned as nanmin or ‘refugees’. The former, especially those who eventually graduated from universities and were given jobs in the cities, generally had a better life. The ‘refugees’ were sent to huaqiao nongchang (overseas Chinese farms) where life was tough. Today, the pattern is still the same—the returned overseas Chinese in urban centres have a better life than those in the overseas Chinese farms.
The returnees, including the ‘refugees,’ were welcomed as patriots (aiguo). In fact occasional reports still describe them as patriots who had left their lives of suffering overseas to return to China. Despite also suffering in China they did receive some special treatment from the state catering to their basic needs, until the Cultural Revolution labelled them as undesirable people with links to capitalists overseas. By the early 1970s, many took advantage of the slightly liberalized policy that allowed guiqiao to join their families overseas.Footnote 2 Many migrated to Hong Kong because Indonesia would not accept them. These people were the focus of a pioneering study by Michael Godley and Charles Coppel (Godley Reference Godley1989; Godley and Coppel Reference Godley and Coppel1990a, Reference Godley and Coppel1990b, Reference Godley and Coppel1990c). More recent studies include Chin (Reference Chin, So, Fitzgerald, Jianli and Chin2003) and Wang Cangbai (2006). In addition, Huang Jing, who has previously published two papers (Huang Reference Huang1999, Reference Huang2005), has completed an M.Phil. thesis on the Indonesian Chinese returnees in Beijing (Huang Reference Huang2007). In China, occasional reports continue to portray the returned overseas Chinese as patriots, contrasting their suffering life in Southeast Asia to their life in China. Perhaps, because of the ability to interview in Chinese only with the focus on patriotic spirit, these reports do not give us a picture of the returned overseas Chinese cultural life that has its roots in Southeast Asia. In 2002, Professor Li Minghuan of Xiamen University led her students to study at an overseas Chinese farm in Xiamen, Fujian, and their reports, published in various issues of Depingxian Monthly in 2002 and 2003, give some information about the migration of the returned overseas Chinese and their life on the farm (see Li Reference Li2002–2003).
This paperFootnote 3 describes a community of returned overseas Chinese in Southern Fujian (Minnan), who continue to speak Balinese and prefer to eat Balinese Chinese food. Case studies give the background of re-migrants returning to China, how they coped with life on the overseas Chinese farm, and how they see themselves today. Of particular interest is their persistence in maintaining a Balinese ‘acculturated’Footnote 4 cultural life, that is, how they reterritorialized their Southeast Asian cultural community in China. Much has been written about the Chinese overseas and qiaoxiang (the ancestral homeland in China) and China as the cultural homeland of the Chinese overseas (cf. Chen, Ding and Wang Reference Chen, Ding and Wang2006; Douw, Huang and Godley Reference Douw, Huang and Godley1999; Li Reference Li2005; Tan Reference Tan and Chee-Beng2007). This paper, however, will show the reverse: that Indonesia (where they still have relatives) has become the nostalgic cultural homeland of the returned Indonesian Chinese. It will also discuss acculturation, migration and identity, reflecting on the reterritorialization of culture (Inda and Rosaldo Reference Inda, Rosaldo, Inda and Rosaldo2002), and on the formation of a new community after migration.
Overseas Chinese Farms
Throughout the Maoist period the government had established many nongchang (farms to relocate farmers, workers and soldiers) and each is a vast area which can be equivalent to a xiang comprising a number of villages. Thus in Xishuangbanna today, for instance, there are many Hunan taxi drivers, who come from a nongchang which relocated migrants from Hunan.Footnote 5 Of the nongchang, the overseas Chinese farms are specifically for settling overseas Chinese returnees, mainly nanqiao (‘refugees’). There are officially 84 overseas Chinese farms distributed in Guangdong (23), Guangxi (22), Fujian (17), Yunnan (13), Hainan (5), Jiangxi (3) and Jilin (1 only). In Quanzhou, Fujian (where this study was conducted), there are three overseas Chinese farms, namely Shuangyang, Xuefeng and Beikang. The people in Xuefeng in Nan'an County are mostly returnees from Java and most can still speak Javanese, while those in Beikang in Yongchun County are from different islands of Indonesia, including Lombok.
The focus of study in this article is Nanshan in Shuangyang Overseas Chinese Farm. The returnees are concentrated in three communities, namely Yangshan, Pingshan and Nanshan. In Yangshan, the Chinese from Indonesia are mostly Hakka, and among themselves they speak Hakka and Mandarin with Malay acculturated features. The returnees in Pingshan were originally from Selat Panjang in mainland Riau Province, where the people spoke and still speak among themselves Minnanhua (Hokkien or Southern Fujian dialect) and Mandarin rather than Malay. The people in Nanshan are predominantly migrants from Bali who speak Balinese, Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian Malay), and many speak Javanese, too. Today many speak Putonghua or Mandarin, although some do not speak it fluently. Despite their location in southern Fujian (Minnan), most people do not speak Minnan language well, their Putonghua is better. Interestingly the local-born young people speak both Balinese and Putonghua, but few can speak Bahasa Indonesia, which the villagers describe as the Putonghua of Indonesia—putonghua literally means ‘common language’.
The Shuangyang returnees are predominantly from Indonesia with a small minority from Vietnam. Those from Indonesia returned to China in 1960 and 1961. There were victims of a Presidential Decree,Footnote 6 effective from 1 January 1960, which banned ‘retail trade by aliens outside the capitals of first- and second-level autonomous areas’, and caused an exodus of ‘more than 100,000’ Chinese to China (Coppel Reference Coppel1983: 37). This meant that rural Chinese shopkeepers had to close their shops by that date, and those affected had either to do business in cities where there were existing Chinese businesses, or find an alternative livelihood. At that time the Chinese in Indonesia had been exposed to propaganda that life was good under a communist government. Many also did not have, or did not want to obtain, Indonesian citizenship. Given the situation and belief that life could not be worse, many responded to China's call for patriotism and, taking advantage of ships sent by the Chinese government, decided to return to China.
Those in Shuangyang remember the Russian ship called Gogol which they pronounced ‘Guogeli’. After disembarking in Huangpu Harbour at Guangzhou, the returnees were received as patriotsFootnote 7 and then sent by train to Xiamen, before being sent to Shuangyang in five batches. The first batch arrived in Shuangyang in March 1960, comprising 380 persons from Bangka, the second batch comprising 702 persons from Selat Panjang arrived in April 1960. The third batch comprising 1,000 people from Bangka and Belitung arrived in June 1960. In July 1960, 400 people from northern Sumatra arrived, followed in April 1961 by more than 500 people from Bali. Four-hundred Chinese refugees, from the Sino-Vietnam border war in Vietnam, were sent to Shuangyang in September 1979.Footnote 8 Altogether around 3,600 Chinese returnees arrived in Shuangyang, most of whom are still living, with local-born offspring and grandchildren.
The Balinese Chinese Community in Nanshan
Except for a few families of Chinese from Vietnam, and a few individuals who married Nanshan villagers, the inhabitants of Nanshan comprise Chinese from Bali and their local-born offspring. The re-migrants came from all over Bali Island, and there are some linguistic differences between those who came from the south, such as the main urban centres Denpasar and Tabanan and surrounding villages, and those who came from the north, such as Singaraja and Temukus. While the Bali language is basically the same, the villagers perceive some differences between them. I was told of an incident not long after their arrival in Nanshan. The local headmaster, who was from Singaraja, was requested to make an announcement about strong wind coming from the north which in Balinese is kolot for those from Singaraja. As the people already knew about the direction of the wind, those who came from southern Bali argued that the direction was kaje which is ‘north’ for them but south for those from northern Bali!
The settlers in Shuangyang suffered both cultural and physical shock when they first arrived at the farm (see below), and it was a difficult period when the people lived in communes. Nevertheless they had land for collective farming, and planted longan (Euphoria longana Lour.), barley, wheat and rice. There is still rice cultivation in Pingshan today, but coffee, pepper, papaya, coconut and rubber which were also tried proved unsuccessful. As employees of the state, the inhabitants of the overseas Chinese farms received salaries and were entitled to a pension. However, when Shuangyang Overseas Chinese Farm was administratively made a zhen (township) in 1998, the villagers administratively became urban, and their land was requisitioned by local government for road construction and urban development, or sold to entrepreneurs for industrial development. Administration of the nongchang shifted from the Office of Overseas Chinese Affairs to local government, and this administrative change is equivalent to xiagang (unemployment) from the villagers’ point of view, since local government does not have a separate administration in favour of returned overseas Chinese. The villagers were compensated Y300–Y500 per longan tree, while each was compensated around Y12,000 or in the form of 10–longan trees. At present, there is very little income from longan which is the only commercial crop in Nanshan. The older people lived on their pension of around Y500 a month. The younger ones seek work elsewhere, many of whom are drivers, including long-distance truck drivers, since they do not have the necessary education and skill to find other jobs. Those who have not reached retirement age but are not young enough to find jobs outside of Shuangyang are most frustrated as they have to continue to contribute Y400–460 for their future pension entitlement as well as for social security (shebaofei). This group of villagers is most vulnerable arising from the lack of economic security. Even those who are now receiving their pension are worried about falling sick and having to pay high medical fees. Their discontent is also related to their perception that the lands taken away benefit developers.
Most of the Nanshan villagers live in old quarters, while some families have built two- or three-storey modern concrete houses. The old quarters were built in rows. The original houses have now been renovated with front extensions to house a kitchen and bedrooms. The original house did not have a space for a kitchen, as when the people arrived it was a time of the commune system when people ate collectively in a canteen. There was also no bathroom, and this was a shock to the new arrivals who were used to taking a bath daily in Indonesia. In fact the housing facilities were so poor that all my female and even some male informants said that they cried for days after seeing the earthen floor, which in their description, ‘could be planted with sweet potatoes.’ These houses with leaking roofs are now considered weiwu or shaky houses, and this is another concern of the villagers who cannot afford to build new houses, for they fear that they will be forced by the authorities to leave these old houses. On top of this anxiety they had been told that their house extension was illegal as it was built without approval. Those who now live in new double or triple-storey concrete houses are those who have sons or daughters who have worked outside and earned considerable income, including those who work in Hong Kong or who have relatives there.
Whether living in old houses or new houses, the villagers see themselves as belonging to a community who speak Balinese among themselves and eat Indonesian food. They speak Putonghua to outsiders who do not speak Indonesian Malay or Balinese, and the people in Quanzhou do not know that they live as a Balinese Chinese community, although some are aware that they can speak Indonesian. In fact my friends in Quanzhou learned from me that the people in Nanshan speak Balinese. As the people speak Balinese regularly, most local-born children also speak the language. In fact Balinese is the common language in the village, even the younger, local-born people speak the language although they do not speak Indonesian Malay or do not speak it well. Even a bendi woman (i.e. local Minnan woman) married to a Balinese Chinese here speaks Balinese but not Malay. A few older women do not speak Putonghua well, speaking it with some Balinese influences. An example brought to my attention is saying in Putonghua wo de duzi hen shengqi for ‘I am very angry.’ This sounds funny to Putonghua speakers for the sentence literally means ‘my stomach is very angry’. This construction in Putonghua is influenced by the Balinese way of saying, i.e., basing nye gedek gati, which literally means ‘my stomach is very angry’ to mean ‘I am very angry’. I was told that there were more than ten Balinese women who accompanied their Chinese husbands to Nanshan. They were all officially given the surname Ni which is the second character for Yinni or Indonesia. Only five of them are still alive, one of whom speaks fairly good Putonghua.
As do the acculturated Chinese in Indonesia, the villagers cook both traditional Chinese foods and localized Indonesian Chinese dishes, and in the case of Nanshan, mostly Balinese and Javanese, since Bali is close to Java and there has been much interaction between Bali and the nearest Javanese city Surabaya. Not only do they cook such common Indonesia dishes as gado gado (Indonesian salad), rojak timun (cucumber pickled in vinegar and sugar) and curry dishes, but also Balinese dishes such as begedel (made with minced pork, potato and other ingredients), and jukut asem (spicy sour dishes). While the older women know how to make different kinds of Balinese dishes, only one woman is well known for a much-liked dish that is complicated to make. This is tum, which uses pig's blood and many kinds of ingredients that are hard to obtain locally. Whenever she makes such a dish, other villagers are always interested to buy some. Most villagers had brought some of the spice plants from Indonesia to plant in Nanshan. A person familiar with such Southeast Asian plants can observe the contrast between this village and the nearby bendi Minnan villages, for here there are spice plants near the houses not indigenous to Fujian. These include turmeric (kunyit in Malay), galangal (lengkuas in Malay and isen in Balinese), basil (kemangi), cekok manis (Sauropus albicans), lemon grass (serai in Malay), and kaffir lime (the leaves are used in certain types of Southeast Asian cooking). The villagers also eat sweet potato leaves, which the local Minnan people also eat, but the Nanshan people refer to it in Balinese as daun sɛlə. Unlike the Minnan locals, the villagers also eat tapioca leaves (daun sawi). There are also a few jack fruit (nangka in Malay) trees in the village, as well as some flowers brought from Indonesia.
Much chilli is used in cooking, and there is a woman who makes a living selling sambal (chilli paste) and various kinds of bumbu (spice paste), saving other villagers the time to prepare them—if they do not make them themselves.
The people also make different kinds of Indonesian and Balinese rice sweets and cakes for festivals called ‘kuih’. At the time of my research, there was a villager who made such kuih as sumpin waloh (pumpkin kuih), latok (green rice kuih), kuih ləmpər (fried tube-shaped kuih that looks like a spring roll), kale adrem (fried ring-shaped kuih that looks like flat doughnuts—very Balinese), kuih dadar (containing coconut scraps), and other items, to sell in the morning at the village market. However, on my revisit to the village in June 2007, he had just stopped selling kuih in the market, as the profit was too little considering the work involved.
In daily dressing, there is no difference from the local people in southern Fujian, wearing different kinds of modern clothes. However, some women have sarong and kebaya (an Indonesian style blouse traditionally worn by the more localized Chinese women in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore), which they wear for special occasions such as when they are invited to sing Indonesian songs or perform Indonesian dances on stage. One also sees some older women tie a cloth on their head (a simple kind of headgear common of rural Indonesian and Malay women); the local Minnan women do not practice this. The older villagers also play a common card game among the Chinese Peranakan in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, namely ceki. There are always some men and women who play this card game at the local communal centre.
In matters of religion, the villagers worship the earth god (which the Chinese in insular Southeast Asia call ‘Tua Peh Kong’) and Guanyin (Goddess of Mercy), often the statues of the two deities are honoured at the family altar in the living room. They observe all the major Chinese festivals when they pray to the deities, which they also do on their ‘birthdays’. The religious practice is as they had practiced in Indonesia, but they have also incorporated a new practice that has developed in Quanzhou since the economic liberalization. This is the praying on the earth god's birthday or during major festivals at the family members’ motorbike or car after the worship inside the house, to ask for divine blessing for safe driving and travelling.
Case Studies
Four individual cases have been selected from my interviews during 2006, which will describe the experiences of the returned overseas Chinese before and after returning to China. I shall begin with C and H who continue to feel frustrated and unhappy about life on the overseas Chinese farm. C arrived in Nanshan as a young adult; H is younger and continued his study in Nanshan, but his secondary education was cut short by the Cultural Revolution, when, common of students of the time, he participated in leftist activities. The other two cases, L and Z, now do not feel bitter about their life, and their cases show that those who have sons and daughters who have fairly good jobs or have someone working in Hong Kong are able to manage a better livelihood and cope with the end of the state support of overseas Chinese farms.
C
C's great grandfather migrated from Zhangzhou in southern Fujian to Bali. In Bali he lived in Gianyar, abut 20 km from Denpasar. In 1959 he graduated with lower secondary education from the Chinese school in Denpasar, called ‘Zhonghua School’. After working for two years, he was affected by the No. 10 decree (Coppel Reference Coppel1983: 37), and, in April 1961 at the age of 18, he and his grandparents and parents as well as three younger sisters ‘returned to China (huiguo)’. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce (Zhonghua Zong Shanghui) arranged the trip, being the last batch of re-migrants carried by the Russian ship, the Gogol. It was at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce that C read Renmin Huabao (The People's Pictorial) which portrayed development in the new China very positively, illustrated by very good photographs.Footnote 9 After about thirteen days, the returnees arrived in Guangzhou. Three days later they were sent by train to Xiamen in Fujian, from where they were sent to Shuangyang Overseas Chinese Farm. The family was allocated a one-room house. C said that one ‘could plant sweet potatoes in the house’, referring to the earthen floor, and he said his ‘tear flowed’ on seeing the condition. Of the difficult life then, he said that at that time they used oil lamp, and in 1962–63 they had very little to eat, as was the situation in China elsewhere. C has two sons. As is the case for most villagers, they had lower secondary education only, and now work as long-distance lorry drivers. Because of the lack of education and other opportunities, most young people from the village work as drivers. C, now out of job and staying at home, sees his life as one without a future, nor could he expect his sons to build a new house. He remains bitter about his fate.
H
H was born in 1947. He studied in an Indonesian primary school until standard five. At age 14, he ‘returned’ to China together with his parents, aunt and elder sister. He attended primary school in Nanshan from standard three. It was very difficult for him and he resorted to marking Chinese characters with Indonesian transcription. He graduated from primary school in 1966, but half way through his first year of secondary school, he stopped studying because of the Cultural Revolution. He joined the chuanlian (‘establishing contacts’), that is, together with more than twenty students from Nanshan, he walked to Fuzhou City, capital of Fujian. On their return, he and another student from Nanshan joined students from other parts of Southern Fujian and cycled to Guangzhou. Receiving food from people along the way, such ‘establishing contacts’ activities were common during the Cultural Revolution.
After returning from Guangzhou, H did not work for two years then worked in planting paddy and received a salary of 9RMB.Footnote 10 He retired in 2007 and received a pension of around 500RMB. He complained of not having any work to do in the village since he retired, as there was no land for farming.
H's wife is a local (bendiren). As her family was very poor, her mother thought that life would be better for her if she married an overseas Chinese. This turned out not to be true, as she continued to have a hard life after marrying H. According to her, there were more than ten local women who married men from Nanshan, but she knew of no local man marrying women from Nanshan. She attributed this to the language barrier since virilocal residence requires women to move to their husband's family home, and most women from Nanshan cannot speak Minnan dialect. H's wife learned to speak Balinese after marrying H, and they now converse in Balinese, but she does not speak Indonesian Malay. The couple have two daughters; the elder is married and lives in Hui'an in coastal Fujian, while the younger one is still single and is a factory worker in Guangzhou when I conducted the interview in 2006. In 1998, H visited Bali, where he still has a stepmother and two sisters. His elder brother, who had visited him in Nanshan, had passed away.
L
The third case study, L, re-migrated to China with her father's two wives and six brothers from Seridek, not far from Singaraja in northern Bali. Her grandfather had migrated from Hainan to Bali. Living in rural Bali, L's father made local cakes and pastries (kuih), while her mother took care of the family restaurant. Her father had two wives, a Chinese and a Balinese. Her own mother had passed away while the Balinese mother was still in Nanshan at the time of research. In Bali, L could speak only Balinese and Bahasa Indonesia, and she learned Putonghua only after coming to Nanshan. She attended Indonesian school, did well, and attended university. She was soon expelled after the discovery that she was not a citizen. She was 17 when the family came to China. On arrival in Nanshan the family was given only a bedroom and a living room. On seeing the earthen floor, she cried, ‘If we knew the situation in China was so bad, who would want to come?’. L met her future husband while on the journey from Indonesia, and she married him in Nanshan at the age of 19. Their eldest son is married with two sons and lives in Quanzhou. The younger son works in Jingjiang, also in southern Fujian. The daughter is married and lives in Hong Kong with her husband and two sons. L's two sons and daughter are university graduates. The fact that an opportunity to study at university was denied her, no doubt motivated L to ensure that her sons and daughter received a tertiary education. With their sons and daughter all having secured a job, L and her husband are happy with their lives. The eldest son has built a two-storey modern house (costing around Y50,000) in Nanshan, but L and her husband still prefer to live in their old house.
L is a good singer and dancer and regularly participates in the activities of Licheng Returned Overseas Chinese Association, housed in downtown Quanzhou city. The activities are mainly singing Indonesian songs and doing Indonesian dances. The members perform on special occasions, including when there are delegations from Indonesia or Malaysia. In August the association sponsored a trip to Beijing to stage Indonesian performances, and L, not having been to Beijing, went along, having to pay only Y800. While L suffered frustration in her younger days, and in pre-reformed China, she is not resentful, as her sons and daughters, having received a university education, have reasonably good jobs. The daughter in Hong Kong also ensures that there is a source of financial assistance if needed. L has been to Bali to see her relatives, together with her husband, who has been twice. Her elder sister from Indonesia has also visited them in Nanshan as well as other relatives in Hainan.
Z
Z migrated from Temukus, Bali. His great grandfather migrated from Zhangpu in southern Fujian to Jakarta, via Singapore, and eventually settled down in Singaraja, Bali. He had worked as a carpenter and later married a local Chinese woman. One day he bought a wooden box in which was a locked iron case. After melting down the lock, he found jewelry and so he became a rich man, and, later in life, was appointed Mayor by the Dutch colonial government. Z's father was educated in Dutch, and he could also speak English. His mother tongue was Balinese, rather than Chinese, but he spoke Javanese, too. In fact his first wife was a Javanese woman but she did not bear any children. His second wife was a Balinese. Z's father had visited Zhangpu, indicating his identification with his ancestral homeland, despite his acculturated background. Perhaps because of this, Z and his brothers and sisters were all sent to Chinese schools, unlike his cousins who received a Dutch education. During the Dutch colonial era, only the rich and those close to the colonial authorities were allowed to receive a Dutch education. Z's father, having been educated in Dutch, must have felt strongly about having his children learn Chinese. Z attended the local Chinese primary school from 1942 to 1948, then proceeded to the lower secondary school. After the school was disbanded in 1950, he went to Jakarta until 1953 to continue his Chinese education. He completed a second year of upper secondary education but then had to return to Bali through lack of money.
On his return to Bali, Z taught at the Zhonghua Huiguan (Chinese Association) School. While studying in Jakarta he had already become patriotic towards China, and in 1951, without consulting his parents, he gave up his Indonesian citizenship and took up Chinese citizenship.Footnote 11 Unlike most Chinese, Z had Indonesian citizenship because his grandfather was a prominent figure in colonial Indonesia, but, like so many young Chinese at that time who believed in China's propaganda, he thought life in China was very good. When he wanted to ‘return’ to China, his father, having visited China once and knowing the condition, objected. Z did not take his father's advice and asked his uncle, who had connections with the Chinese Chamber of Commerce (Zhonghua Zong Shanghui), to help him get to China. Thus in 1961, Z and his wife (they were married in 1957, both born in 1932) boarded the ship bound for China, together with his mother-in-law and his wife's younger sister. During the journey, someone gave birth to a baby girl, and the returnees, in high expectation, thought this was a good omen. They disembarked in Guangzhou, from where they were sent by train to Xiamen where they were put up in a hotel. Z and his wife said that up to then they were all happy and excited. But when they reached Nanshan and saw the house allocated, they realized that they had to adjust to a life harder than the one they had left behind in Indonesia. Z's wife also mentioned about crying on seeing the earthen floor of the house allocated.
Z's life in Nanshan, however, was better than other re-migrants as he became a teacher at the village school, while his wife worked in the field (as did the other returnees). Despite the tough life and having to endure the suffering that the rest of the Chinese population also suffered during the ultra-leftist period in the 1960s, Z and his wife, as do the other informants, mentioned that the cadres were patient with them. Z's wife (who passed away in September 2007) mentioned that she had to be taught how to distinguish rice plants from weeds, as she had not worked in the field in Bali and had a servant at home. At the time of research, life for Z and his wife was fairly comfortable, living in a three-storey modern house built by his daughter and her husband. The daughter, a very able person, is a local cadre. Z retired in 1992 and now lives on his pension. He and his wife spoke Balinese, and sometimes Indonesian Malay, to one another. In fact Z's wife hardly spoke any Chinese in Bali, and learned basic Putonghua only after arriving in China. Unlike her husband, she was not fluent in Minnanhua. They both spoke Balinese to their daughter, who was born in Nanshan and does not know much Malay—although Balinese is her mother tongue. Married to a bendi person and living in Quanzhou city, she speaks Minanhua fluently. Her son (five years old at the time of research) speaks Putonghua and Balinese which he uses to communicate with his grandparents. She visits her parents daily except weekends when she works in Shuangyang. Z, his wife and daughter had visited Bali three times in 1990, 1992 and 1996. Before that Z's wife's older sister had visited them in Nanshan in 1984.
Interview Analyses
The returnees in Nanshan were all affected by the Indonesian policy of not allowing ‘foreigners’ to do business in rural areas. Their decision to ‘return’ to China was also influenced by China's propaganda about its prosperity, and my informants all mentioned having read Renmin Huabao which glorified China under communism. Given the choice of starting their life again in urban Indonesia or in a prosperous China, many thought life in China could not be worse than in Indonesia, and responded positively to the ‘patriotic call’ of China. Indeed when first I asked the returned overseas Chinese their reason for returning to China, the standard answer was ‘aiguo’ or ‘patriotism towards China’. As I enquired further (communicating in Malay and thus gaining their confidence)Footnote 12, they soon told me that, had they known about the difficult conditions in China, they would not have returned. ‘Who would want to come back?’ was the common response. (Though initially, on their return to China, they had been well received at Guangzhou as ‘patriots’ returning home.)
From my interviews and informal ‘chats’ with the returnees in Nanshan, it is clear that the people were already quite culturally localized in Bali, especially linguistically: that is, the people were fairly ‘acculturated’ in the direction of the Balinese. However, many of them had also received a Chinese education, and the environment of the Chinese schools led them to be ‘leftist’, or politically oriented towards China, since most of them did not have Indonesian citizenship. In other words they were culturally localized Chinese but politically sympathetic to or pro-China. The case of Z above illustrates a minority who already had Indonesian citizenship but opted for Chinese citizenship because of their patriotic feeling for China, in light of their discrimination in Indonesia. All returnees were agreed on the impact that China's propaganda had on their decision to return there.
The cultural localization in Bali explained their interest and ability to culturally reterritorize their cultural living in China and create a Balinese Chinese community in Nanshan, since the people were all from Bali (although from different parts of the island). Their recognition by the state as a separate category of Chinese, as well as their concentration in Nanshan and their cultural Balinese Chinese affinity, enabled them to form a unique community. Separated from the local Minnan Chinese, and sharing a common fate as returnees from Bali, the returnees have reterritorialized their Balinese Chinese cultural life in Nanshan: in language, food consumption and socializing with each other as Chinese of Indonesian origin, Balinese in particular. Their ‘best’ languages are Balinese and Indonesian Malay, while many speak Javanese too, as well as variously proficient levels of Putonghua. Because Balinese is the language of ‘intimacy’, local-born children and grandchildren are also able to speak Balinese.
Despite living in China and now identifying with China as their nation, the Nanshan returnees, including local-born adults, continue to see Indonesia (Bali in particular) as their cultural homeland, in the way that many Chinese overseas see China as their cultural homeland. They maintain contacts with their relatives in Indonesia. Since China's liberalization, transnational visits have been easier, and many have visited Bali, more than once, while some relatives in Bali have visited Nanshan. Their interest in Indonesia is cultural and kin-related. For example, when visiting Indonesia, they buy video cassettes or CDs of Indonesian songs, Indonesian food items (such as coffee), and souvenirs, and a common item seen in some houses in Nanshan is a plastic set of pisang mas (banana plant bearing bananas). Pisang mas (literally gold banana) is a well known and well liked type of small banana that is commonly mentioned in Malay poems. Another family has a big doll dressed in an Indonesian sarong, and another has a garuda (Indonesian mythical bird) displayed in their living room.
Conclusion
In Tan (Reference Tan and Chee-Beng2007: 7), three kinds of homelands are discussed: namely homeland of residence, homeland of emigration and ancestral homeland. In the case of the returned overseas Chinese, it is more useful to discuss ‘residing’ homeland and ‘cultural’ homeland, since they had re-migrated to their ancestral homeland which had become their residing homeland. It is not relevant to consider China as their ancestral homeland, but it is relevant to speak of their ancestral hometowns in specific places of China outside the region of their residence. The ancestral places of some of the people in Nanshan is Hainan,Footnote 13 Guangdong, and other districts in Fujian.
For Chinese overseas (those who still see themselves as Chinese in one way or another), China is culturally relevant, and remains their ‘cultural’ homeland. For those who can read and write Chinese, Chinese history and literature are relevant to them. For those who do not read and write Chinese, China is also culturally relevant, because they see Chinese writing and literature as part of Chinese civilization. Other aspects culturally link them to China, for example, religious sites and major temples in China, especially if they are the ‘original’ sites of worship for their deities of worship. In the case of the Balinese Chinese described in this paper, Indonesia in general (and Bali in particular) has become their immediate cultural homeland, the source of their cultural pride and interest in language and culture which was part of their Chinese cultural life before re-migrating to China. This interest in cultural Indonesia is passed down to their sons and daughters born in China. Thus while in Indonesia, China was their only cultural homeland; after re-migrating to China, China has become their residing homeland, while Indonesia has become their cultural homeland. My informants indicate that they have no interest to re-migrate to live in Indonesia, but Bali is the homeland of their intimate language and the source of cultural practices which are meaningful to them. It is also where they still have their relatives. It is a place where they feel culturally nostalgic despite having some difficult times before. It has become their cultural homeland,Footnote 14 whereas China is now their residing homeland. It is, in the words of Clifford (Reference Clifford1997: 256), ‘a place of attachment in a contrapuntal modernity.’
This paper illustrates a very important aspect of a people's culture: it is dynamic, always being practiced, re-shaped and re-invented, as people adapt to different ecological and cultural environments. The study of Chinese overseas shows us that Chinese in different parts of the world have developed their own Chinese cultures, reflecting local ecological and multi-cultural environments. Adoption by the Balinese Chinese of the dominant local language, and the innovation of Chinese food which reflects local culinary influence, are particularly significant. They have become so associated with everyday life that still people wish to speak the language and eat the same kind of food. The Balinese language and the Indonesian Chinese food have thus persisted in Nanshan, and have characterised the community.
The Nanshan Balinese Chinese community is an example of a reterritorialized community. The concept of reterritorialized culture is an important concept in recent anthropology to rectify the view that culture is deterritorialized as a result of globalization, and clarifies that deterritorialization involves reterritorialization (Inda and Rosaldo Reference Inda, Rosaldo, Inda and Rosaldo2002: 10), as culture does take root and develop in specific space even after migration. Reterritorialization refers to the ‘process of reinscribing culture in new time-space contexts’ (Inda and Rosaldo Reference Inda, Rosaldo, Inda and Rosaldo2002: 12). In the case of Nanshan we see the reterritorialization of a Balinese Chinese community. It is the establishment of a Southeast Asian neighbourhood in China, where the Balinese Chinese social life has developed outside Bali.Footnote 15 Reterritorialzation involves the creation of a Balinese Chinese community, but this creation is not a replica of any particular Chinese community in Bali. It is formed of people from different localities in Bali, and the concentration of people from different parts of Bali and reterritorialization of their culture has resulted in the establishment of this fascinating community in Nanshan, China.
