The term ‘Peranakan’ in the Indonesian or Malay language, means “locally-born”. The Peranakan community are thus peoples of mixed local and foreign ancestry commonly found in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. They are native-born, descendants of migrants who came to the Malay world. There are different types of Peranakans namely the Peranakan Chinese, Peranakan Arabs, and Peranakan Indians. However, since the Peranakan Chinese make up the majority, many scholars have chosen to adopt the term ‘Peranakan’ to exclusively refer to the community. In Singapore and Malaysia, the term mainly refers to the Straits-born Chinese i.e., those who were born in the former Straits Settlements during the British colonial period. The creolised nature of the Peranakan identity—situated in between both Chinese and Malay cultures—lends to daily customs and traditional practice which includes healing and medicine. The family papers and published literature on the subject matter form two important set of sources.

The Peranakan family papers constitute a collection of traditional medicinal manuscripts preserved amongst Chinese families spanning across generations. We were graced with the donations by the current inheritors of a few of these families in Singapore, namely the Tan and Lee family. The first of such invaluable historical documents were donated by Mr and Mrs Tan Geok Koon’s Yok Tua which is a collection of Chinese medicinal slips, inherited from two Peranakan families. You can read these in detail in the Yoke Tua database, as well as see close up images of the strips. Click on the Link Below to read the article by Baba Tang Kuning, and the translations of the recipes by Dr. Stanley-Baker. The second is another voluntary donation by Peter Lee that includes similar Peranakan medicinal records as well as old, published books on certain illnesses. These are currently in our archive and will be posted later.

Beyond the donations, Peranakan literature is archived in various institutions as it is seen as critical vantage points of preserving the heritage and practices of a community whose identity takes place within cultures. For instance, Leiden University, located in the Netherlands, archives the Go Sian Lok collection owned by a Peranakan Chinese in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, born and educated in colonial Eastern Java of the Netherland East Indies. The collection contains the vast interests of a literate Peranakan family with many subjects such as the Chinese classics, religion and divination, history, medicine, and more. It comprises different mediums such as block prints and manuscripts; some of which are even multi-volume books.

Yok means “medicine” and Tua “record” in Hokkien. They contain traditional prescriptions for common ailments such as flatulence, fever, and cough. During the 1930s-1940s when many still strongly believed in traditional medicine, it was commonly used for treatment and recovery. The recipes are handwritten in ink on thin cloth-like fabrics which included ingredients such as plants, dried herbs, spices, sometimes even insects and the subsequent proportion needed to make the concoctions. The Yok Tua is a classic physical representation of the polyglot nature of traditional medicine in Singaporean society then as the prescriptions were one of the junctures where both the Chinese and Malay languages were incorporated. Since most of the Peranakans could barely speak dialects, let alone read Chinese characters, the recipes would usually be accompanied with annotations in Baba Malay like obat kamchek (medicine for flatulence) or obat batok (cough medicine). Whenever someone in the family fell ill, the appropriate prescription would be retrieved from the Yok Tua and brought to the kedai obat Cina (Chinese medicine shop). The sinseh (Chinese physician) prepares the mixture which is then packed in paper for the customer to take home and brew accordingly.