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COPYRIGHT 2001 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)
To come from elsewhere, from "there" and not "here", and hence to be
simultaneously "inside" and "outside", is to live at the intersections of histories and memories, experiencing both their preliminary dispersal and their subsequent translation into new, more extensive, arrangements along emerging routes.
Chambers 1994, p. 6
Diaspora discourse articulates, or bends together, both roots and routes to construct what Paul Gilroy (1987) describes as alternate public spheres, forms of community consciousness and solidarity that maintain identifications outside the national time/space in order to live inside, with a difference.
Clifford 1997, p. 251
Recent studies of diaspora have problematized widely accepted terms such as immigrant, minority, exile, and refugee as multi-locale dwellings and attachments, transnational travel, and virtual communication have become increasingly common in the late twentieth century.(1) Trans formed global conditions have unsettled the boundaries that once delineated various forms of migration, and scholars can no longer ignore the tensions and contradictions experienced by displaced people who are enmeshed, both physically and ideologically, in multiple histories and communities. In response to this inevitable consequence of the late-capitalist global predisposition, James Clifford (1997) suggests that we need to focus on the metaphors of "connection" and "linkage" in tracking diaspora, rather than in simply identifying the ideal features that define it. The key to a critical understanding of diaspora and displaced communities, according to Clifford, is to stress the relational positioning of peoples so that we can accurately reflect the "entangled tension" that is inherent in their articulations of identity (ibid., p. 249).
This paper examines such linkages among the Teochew-Chinese in Thailand. While I agree with the fashionable view that identity is fluid and situational, I also maintain that people often carry certain deeply held and uncontested ideas of who they are with them at all times. This notion of the essential self -- fixed and uncontested assumptions that informs and grounds an individual's sense of being -- is a pre-condition and an indispensable ingredient for the invention, construction, negotiation, and transformation of identity. In this essay, I rely on music as a point of entry to uncover these complex processes.
Similar to other forms of expressive culture that are constituted within discursive practice and representation, music has the ability to express, assert, enunciate, and reproduce cultural identity in subtle and non-threatening ways. Because of the performative nature of music, it is loaded with symbolism and significance for both performers and audiences (Becker and Becker 1981; Baily 1994; Waterman 1991; Turino 1989). Music, therefore, is a logical site but one that has been overlooked in the study of identity until only recently. Based on ethnographic data collected in Bangkok during 1994-96, I argue that the notion "Chineseness" for the Thai-Chinese is wedged in the interstices between the subjective view of "who they are" either as Thai or Chinese and the way they interface with history and their day-to-day reality. Its articulation is never predetermined or guided by a master trope but is a result of an ongoing process of negotiation and strategic positioning.
When Ah Xing -- a third-generation Thai-Chinese who lives in the outskirts of Bangkok -- starts his day at the break of dawn on his motorized three-wheeler tuk-tuk, he knows exactly where to go to wait for his clients. Unlike most of his peers, who cruise the street for customers, he has a regular clientele and a somewhat routine schedule for his various daily deliveries. Ah Xing is proud of this and attributes his business success to his linguistic ability to converse fluently in Thai, Teochew,(2) and Mandarin -- an indispensable symbolic capital that enables him to set up his business network with the different ethnic groups in the city. After dodging heavy traffic for four to five hours on the streets in the morning, he invariably ends up on Yaowarat street, the Chinatown of Bangkok, where traditional Chinese jewellery, food, and merchandise are abundant and readily available. Situated in the older part of the city, the area along Yaowarat street has been home to many ethnic Chinese for over a century, especially those of Teochew descent. After a quick lunch at one of the many nearby neighbourhood food stalls, he makes a stop at the Nanxun Sizhushe (literally, Southern Fragrance silk and bamboo music club), an amateur music club located on the fourth floor of one of the densely populated, residential high-rise apartments.(3) There he spends a few hours playing traditional Teochew xiansi music with his Teochew friends.(4) At the end of the day, he repeats this leisure activity, visiting more music clubs to play more music and to socialize with friends before returning home. At weekends, his musical activities escalate. Occasionally, he even takes time off from work to visit music clubs in different parts of the city.
Amateur music clubs similar to those Ah Xing frequents are popular among ethnic Teochew-Chinese in the capital city of Bangkok and in the province. During my fieldwork in 1994 and 1996, I visited over ten such clubs in Bangkok alone, and there are reported to be more music clubs throughout the city and in the province. The Teochew clan association yearbook further substantiates the prevalence of this type of musical activity. For example, the 1983 Thailand Teochew Association Yearbook listed twenty-two musical clubs that had been invited to participate in its forty-fifth anniversary celebration (Thailand Teochew Association 1983, pp. 37-38). It is clear from the report that there are more clubs active in the communities than the number invited for the occasion. This kind of amateur music club is popular not only among the Teochews, but also among other ethnic Chinese, such as the Hainanese, Cantonese, and Hakkas. Surprisingly, despite the recent popularity of Chinese karaoke parlours, satellite TV, and the availability of inexpensive audio and video recordings of traditional music and opera, it is still common to see such traditional and "folk" musical activities performed in parks, regional associations, social clubs, Chinese temples, and private homes on a regular basis. Their presence not only enlivens the vibrant social life of the diasporic community, it also highlights the heterogeneous characteristics of the contemporary Thai cultural landscape.
This paper, based on established ethnomusicological theory and methodology, focuses on the amateur Teochew music clubs in Bangkok and examines their significance in the production of identity in contemporary Thailand. Studies of Thai-Chinese have traditionally emphasized issues related to economics and politics (see, for example, Skinner 1958; Coughlin 1960; Cushman 1991, 1993; Tejapira 1997; Burusratanaphand 1995; Supang 1997; Bao 1998; Nonini and Ong 1997; Hill 1998). Given the abundance and significant role of musical activities in the community, surprisingly few scholars have investigated the importance of music in the construction of Thai-Chinese identity. This study utilizes Ah Xing's experiences and those of his peers to examine an important way in which a segment of the Teochew population subtly asserts its identity in daily life. My discussion is based on the widely held assumption that music is both socially meaningful and culturally significant.
Ethnomusicologists have long recognized the centrality of music in society and its close relationship to the cultural context. In their view, music is a powerful mode of communication and symbolism that captures, informs, and reproduces the ethos and world-views of a specific group of people. Alan Merriam's seminal work Anthropology of Music argues that the study of music is a study of society, thereby establishing music as an integral and functional part of society rather than as an autonomous sound object or an artistic expression that resides above society and its people (Merriam 1964). Many recent scholars have refined his argument and demonstrated that music -- informed by the unique characteristics of social and cultural formation -- articulates the essence of a society and cultural identity in both subtle and overt manners.
The excellent music ethnographies of Anthony Seeger (1987), Steven Feld (1982), Turino (1984, 1989), Waterman (1990), and others, have further narrowed the theoretical gap between the study of music and the study of society. These authors have succinctly argued that music is grounded in specific historical moments and socio-economic and cultural conditions experienced by a particular group of people. Musical styles and music performance manifest the "deep" structure of a society and mark the identity of its people because the conventions that guide each performance are dialectically linked to patterns of social interaction (Waterman 1991, p. 52; Feld 1982, p. 214). For example, in examining the sound expressions of the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea, Steven Feld demonstrates that the Kaluli vocal range in weeping, grammatical conventions in poetics, and melodic contours in songs are all socially determined outward expressions of deeply felt collective Kaluli sentiments and consciousness. In other words, sound structure -- a system of metalinguistic and poetic codes within a culture -- is a simultaneous articulation of cultural knowledge about themselves and the world in which they live (1982, p. 131). Anthony Seeger's study of the Suya people of Central Brazil further argues that music and dance are a means of organizing social time and articulating cosmology for the Suya Indians. Using ritual songs and ceremonies as evidence, Seeger suggests, by way of the Suya, that a society might be conceived as something happens "in music" and that music is a microcosm which contains society. The central question for these authors is not so much how music reflects social values or formation but how music, as codified sound realized in performance, actively produces them.
Feld and Seeger focused on music of small tribal groups, while other scholars have turned to the connections between musical styles and group identity in contemporary urban settings. For example, Thomas Turino's studies of the panpipe style of the Aymara Indian in highland Peru and the urban mestizo charango (a small guitar-shaped lute) style in southern Peru have effectively established the coherence between musical styles and the socio-economic forces that impinged upon the musicians (Turino 1984, 1989). He demonstrates that the reason a particular Peruvian rural panpipe and charango style is popular among the urban mestizos and migrants is a result of the socio-cultural and political factors they have experienced and the power relationships that...
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