Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum

This place we visited was about Peranakans. In Malaysia though, there are such people called the Indian ‘Baba’s. Under this, they are sub-divided into 2 types, the ‘Chitties’ who live the Malay culture and lifestyle but are true blue staunch Hindus, and the ‘Chittia’, who dress in white and are moneylenders. Some of the ‘Chittia’s are at Jonker street. ‘Chittia’s will not lend money to you if you aren’t able to provide them with property in exchange.  Peranakans also tend to have a Malay slang and are, in this day and age, mostly Christians/Catholics. Peranakans are straits born Chinese and follow the Malay culture sometimes. An example would be how it is rude to pass people things with your left hand as that hand is ‘unclean’. In the 1950s, there were a lot of Chinese Peranakans in Singapore but now, there is intermarriage.

In the Baba museum house, there was a divider that divided the female and male rooms that were side by side. It also acted as a barrier so females and males couldn’t meet/see each other before they got married through their arranged marriage. However, there were slits that allowed people from either room to peer through.  The female Peranakans of then, were very conservative.

In the olden days and in modern time as well, there are a lot of Victorian designed lamps as well as lamps which need fueling, used in Peranakan/Baba houses. Also the type of cloths they use tend to be silk embroidered which not only takes 5-6 years to stitch, but also expresses the family’s wealth. Babas wear ‘kabayas’ which are lacy and/batik and are translucent. Kabayas follow the figure of the wearer. Peranakans also tend to have marble objects around in their house.  Marble, apparently, has a soothing and cooling effect and this helps in terms of ‘cooling’ people down, especially hot tempered people in which, most Perankans are. They also have a stone grinder and pounder, one which they have to work manually. The plates that they use are differently coloured for different ceremonies and occasions. There were also no chopsticks because of their eating style(malay).

The houses of Babas tend to have a small façade but a huge interior. The small and narrow design concept.