16/10/2017

The Samsui women who built a city 三水妇女or 三水婆 or 紅頭巾

Sān shuǐ fùnǚ 三水妇女 Sān shuǐ pó 三水婆 Hóng tóujīn 紅頭巾
Woo Yan San, one of the few remaining Samsui women - a group of Chinese immigrants who helped to build Singapore

Samsui women were the heroines S’pore needed but their struggles were real

Many of us might have never seen a samsui woman in the flesh, but these ladies were once the backbone of our developing infrastructure, just like the transient workers who build our country today.

The first wave of Chinese immigrants who arrived in Singapore in search of a new life were largely male.

Over the years, the sex ratio in Singapore became overwhelmingly skewed towards males, such that by 1928, the colonial government introduced immigration controls to limit the number of male Chinese immigrants into Singapore.

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Scaling the heights of construction
Exhibition panels featuring former Samsui woman, Mdm Ng Moey Chye, 81, who was actually the daughter of another Samsui woman.

Another once common sight at the construction site which has disappeared, is that of the women with their signature red cloth head-dresses, bearing loads their frail frames had seemed too tiny to support. A tribute to these women who came from Sanshui (Samsui) District of Guangdong Province in China to make a living here as menial workers at construction sites, is found across the road from the Airview Building at the side of the URA Centre.

The stories of these women who built Singapore –  most came over in the 1920s to the 1940s and were sworn to single-hood, and the resilience they demonstrated (many who by the time I saw them in the 1960s  and 1970s were in already well advanced in age), are well worth hearing.

The story of one, Madam Ng Moey Chye, can be found at an exhibition currently being held at the National Museum’s Stamford Gallery. The exhibition runs until the 23rd of June 2013 and features the stories of six pioneering tradesmen. More information on the exhibition, Trading Stories: Conversations with Six Tradesmen, is available at a previous post on it, “Trading stories with six tradesmen“.

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The real Iron Lady

The one-room rental flat she lives in may be a cluttered mess of cardboard & used items, but Madam Ng Moey Chye knows exactly where the navy-coloured samfoo top and its matching red headpiece is kept.

The outfit is a trademark of samsui women, who came from China to Singapore in search of a better life, & who worked as construction labourers

Says the 81-yr-old grey-haired woman, gesturing at the string red cloth, which is held in place by tiny silver pins: "My hands are too weak these days, so I can't fold the head-dress from scratch any more."

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THE LEGACY OF SAMSUI WOMEN LIVES ON

The legacy of the Samsui Women is a big part of our history and early developments as a nation. It is believed that an influx of approximately 2,000 Samsui women came to Singapore from China between 1934 and 1938, and this continued until 1949 when emigration from China was declared illegal here. Today, there are less than 100 Samsui women left in Singapore, all of them in their 80s and 90s, with perhaps a few centenarians.
The name Samsui Woman was probably derived from the place where most of them came from – Sanshui of Guangdong (Canton) Province in China, besides Shunde and Dongguan. About 90% of the Samsui women are Cantonese and the remaining 10%, Hakkas. Samsui woman or 红头巾 in Mandarin which translates as “red bandana”, a reference to the trademark red cloth headgear that they wore.

Although there were exceptions, the majority of the Samsui women took vows to not marry before coming to Singapore as cheap labourers, working mainly in the construction industry and other manual labour jobs. Their contributions can be seen even to this day in the conserved pre-war houses built during the colonial days, right up to our nation building as an independent country in the earlier phases of HDB flats (public housing) and older commercial buildings.

*Some of the women from Sanshui also worked as lived in domestic servants for the rich families, commonly known as Ah Sum or Ah Ma Jie (aka the ‘white and black’ due to the white cotton jacket and black pair of pants they wore). These women with pigtails or with their hair fashioned into small buns usually have monikers beginning with an ‘Ah’ and their actual names remained unknown. But that’s another story, sorry I digressed. Samsui women also had a crusty reputation of rejecting jobs involving drugs (particularly opium) peddling, prostitution, or other vices, thus most of them had to live in poverty.

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Samsui women

The term Samsui women (三水妇女; 三水婦女; sān shuǐ fù nǚ) broadly refers to a group of Chinese immigrants who came to Malaya and Singapore between the 1920s and 1940s in search of construction and industrial jobs. Their hard work contributed to the development of the Straits Settlements, both as colonies and later as the new nations of Singapore and Malaysia. Samsui women did manual labour similar to coolies but were more independent. About 2,000 Samsui women were believed to have come to Singapore from China between 1934 and 1938, and this continued until 1949 when emigration from China was declared illegal. Samsui women came from mainly Sanshui (Samsui) in Guangdong (Canton) Province, as well as Shunde and Dongguan. About 90% of them were Cantonese while the rest were Hakka.

In Chinese, these women are referred to as Hong Tou Jin (红头巾; 紅頭巾; hóng tóu jīn), which means "red bandana", because of the red cloth hats they wore at work. Coming to Singapore as cheap labourers in the world, Samsui women worked mainly in the construction industry and other industries that required hard labour. They also worked as domestic servants. They had a reputation of rejecting jobs involving drug (particularly opium) peddling, prostitution, or other vices, even if that meant they sometimes had to live in poverty. They made a lot of contributions to Singapore's early development mostly by building houses and some of them worked at hawker centres manning the stalls there too. Samsui women came to Singapore to work as cheap labourers from 1920s to 1940s. They mainly worked as construction workers. Although they made a lot of contributions to Singapore's early development mostly by building houses, it was very tough. They were given very little. Living conditions were very poor

Before arriving in Singapore, most Samsui women took vows never to marry, although there have been known exceptions. They lived in cramped conditions with other Samsui women, helping out each other and forming tightly united cliques. Samsui women also remained in touch with their relatives back home in China, communicating with them frequently through letters. Occasionally, they would send money to them. There are fewer than a hundred Samsui women left in Singapore today, all of them in their 80s and 90s. Organisations exist to raise awareness of these women's achievements and contributions to Singapore's development, and their current state. Some of these organisations also strive to provide free travel for the women back to China to visit their relatives before they die. One such organisation was the Sam Shui Wai Kuan Association that took care of the needs of Samsui women.

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Samsui women

Samsui women, also known as hong tou jin (红头巾; Mandarin for “red headscarf”) after their trademark red headgear, were female immigrants mainly from the Sanshui (“Samsui” in Cantonese; meaning “three waters”) district of Canton (Guangdong today) province in southern China. Other areas where they came from include Shunde and Dongguan, also in Canton province, as well as places outside of Canton like Fujian and Chao’an, although samsui women from these regions were much fewer. Samsui women started arriving in Singapore in large numbers in the mid-1930s and many found work as general labourers in the construction industry. A large number of these women lived together in shared accommodations. There are few samsui women left in Singapore today, as most have either passed away or returned to China. They are often depicted in popular culture as thrifty and resilient individuals who helped to build up the country’s infrastructure.

Background - In 1928, the British colonial authorities introduced the Immigration Restriction Ordinance, with one of the aims being the improvement of the sex ratio in Singapore, as the Chinese population was overwhelmingly male at the time. Quotas were subsequently placed on the number of Chinese male immigrants allowed into Singapore. During the 1930s, the Great Depression hit Singapore, causing widespread unemployment. To control the unemployment level, the British introduced the Aliens Ordinance at the beginning of 1933. Under this law, further limits were placed on the number of male immigrants allowed entry into Singapore, but no such restrictions were placed on females. These immigration policies opened the door for female immigrants such as the samsui women to come to Singapore.

Conditions in the Samsui district and the nearby areas like Dongguan and Shunde were relatively poorer compared with other regions in China, and families living there were in desperate need of money. With restrictions placed on the number of males allowed to seek work in the British colonies, many samsui women left their hometown while in their teens to seek employment overseas. They relied on recruiters known as sui hak (literally “water guest” in Cantonese) to help them find work abroad and make travel arrangements. To pay these recruiters for their services, many samsui women took on debt that took around a year to pay off. As many as 2,000 samsui women – those who laboured in construction sites – were believed to have come to Singapore. They arrived mostly in the mid-1930s, though some came later, between the end of the Japanese Occupation in 1945 and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.6 Samsui women were part of the wave of Chinese female migrants, numbering about 200,000, who came to Singapore between 1934 and 1938

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Samsui Women: One Brick at a Time

Based on the lives of the Samsui women in Singapore, this puppetry performance is a moving story about friendship and perseverance.

Swee Leng, a young girl from China, makes the life-changing decision to run away from China to seek a better life in Nanyang. To earn a living, Swee Leng and her friends became Samsui women, toiling and working hard. Despite all the hardships, Swee Leng and her friends have each other for support. What happens when the friendship is threatened? Will Swee Leng lose her friends?

The performance will give students a peek into a slice of Singapore history, help them understand and appreciate the sacrifices of the Samsui women and reflect on the values that the women lived by.

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The samsui women of Singapore
Photo of samsui women working at a construction site dating back to 1938-1939. Image from National Archives of Singapore.

The samsui women were part of an initial group of some 2,000 women hailing mainly from the Sanshui district in Canton (Guangdong), arriving between 1934-1938 together with over 200,000 female Chinese immigrants in search of a better living. Most of these samsui women would go on to work as general labourers in the construction industry, and many would come to be characterised by the distinctive red headgear and blue or black samfoo they wore while taking on backbreaking work at construction sites across the island.

While the origins of samsui immigrants to Singapore dates back to as early as 1841, it was not until 1933 when the introduction of the Aliens Ordinance was introduced, that a distinct cap on Chinese Male Immigrants was enforced, paving the way for larger numbers of female immigrants to find work in Singapore.

Upon their arrival, most samsui women made their way to the Chinatown district between South Bridge Road and New Bridge Road where many fellow samsui migrants resided. They stayed in the many shophouses along the street, with at least four women sharing a single, often-spartan room.

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Remembering the Samsui Women: Migration and Social Memory in Singapore and China
Remembering-the-Samsui-Women

Immediately recognisable by their hong tou jin or red headscarves, Singapore's Samsui women immigrants from the Samsui region of Guangdong, China have become icons of Singapore's twentieth century economic transformation. Working in construction, in factories and as domestics, the Samsui women have become celebrated in Singapore for their hard work and their resilience, and in China for the sacrifices they made for their families.

Kelvin Low explores the lives and legacy of the Samsui women, both through media and state representations and through the oral histories of the women themselves. His work sheds light on issues of their identity, both publicly constructed and self-defined, and explores why they undertook their difficult migration.

Remembering the Samsui Women is an illuminating study of the connection between memory and nation, including the politics of what is remembered and what is forgotten.

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Ng Moey Chye - Samsui Woman
samsui

At 81 years old, Ms. Ng does not allow her age to slow her down. She continues to support herself by collecting used cardboard, and once a week she will make her way to the Apex Club of Singapore’s food distribution point to receive a package that includes vegetable and bread. She prefers to see the silver linings in her life and is grateful for her health and the young volunteers for helping the elderly. “Society still has a heart,” she says.

It may be hard to imagine 85-year-old Ms. Ng Moey Chye carting bricks up a construction site. In her younger days, however, Ng would awake at dawn and walk from her quarters at Chinatown to Collyer Quay. There, she would carry out a multitude of tasks that is typically carried out by heavy machinery today at construction sites across Singapore. Born in Singapore in 1932, Ng was given up for adoption by her parents and never went to school. After witnessing the unhappy marriage of a childhood friend, Ng chose to become a Samsui woman, prizing her independence above everything else.

Samsui women were so-called as the movement originated from the county of Sanshui (Samsui in Cantonese) in Guangdong Province, where women dominated the workforce during a silk industry boom in the mid-19th century. Wearing a distinctive red headscarf or hong toujin (红头巾), the Samsui women were a sisterhood of mainly Cantonese or Hakka women who took a vow of chastity and supported themselves through manual labour.

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'The Samsui Women of Chinatown: Helping Hands from Our Past'
About 200,000 samsui women (known as 三水婆 or 紅頭巾), clad in blue and black samfoo and trademark red headgear/headscarf, were Chinese immigrants who flocked to then-Nanyang (literally 'south seas', 南洋, referring to Malaya) in the 1920s to pre-war years. They congregated in Chinatown, buying groceries and living in the tiny squalid shophouses. Life was very tough

Comprising mainly Cantonese and some Hakka women from Sanshui district in Foshan, Guangdong province, they worked in the brutal heat and toil of construction, and hard labor jobs, avoiding the vice trades of prostitution, opium and drugs. Most were illiterate and wanted to escape the poverty of the farms to earn a stable-enough salary. Most hoped to send enough money back to China for their families to build houses and live more comfortably. These women were thrifty, fiercely independent and endured so much hardship in Nanyang.

Like the ah-ma-cheh (or ah-sum, amah, or in Mandarin ma jie 妈姐) with their single plaits or pigtails recognizable black and white samfoo from Shunde district in Foshan, also Guangdong province, many samsui women remained single, either by choice or via abandonment or divorce, forming a close network of sisterhood and support. These networks and clan associations were highly crucial to providing help post-war and aiding their medical needs as the century turned, and they got too old and too weak to continue to work.

Samsui women were a common sight right up to post-1965 Singapore, building Capitol Theatre and Toa Payoh housing estate in the early 1970s. They worked for as long as they physically could. Then they aged, and there were none to take their place. They retired. Some returned to China. Others stayed. A few remained single, and others married. A bygone era. The tides of the construction industry shifted as other male foreign labor from other developing countries dominated the trade. Machines and technology relieved the humans of back-breaking work.

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Tribute to Samsui Women of Singapore

This blog to express as a tribute to the Samsui women of Singapore, the silent heroine who built Singapore over five decades. The immigrant construction workers from China, the synonymous red headgear workers (all female) with tough, resilient, hardworking and weather-beaten characters who are the vanishing workers of Singapore.

The blog is created with acknowledgement of thanks to the contributors at National Archive of Singapore (NAS), YouTube and other "memory-aid" resources of the Internet fraternity to share with our bloggers.

Samsui women came to Singapore in large numbers. As many as 200,000 are thought to have arrived between 1934 and 1938 alone. From the Sanshui District (三水區) of Guangdong, they took a vow to never marry before leaving China, and wore large red headdreses as a symbol and reminder of their vow. Most found menial employment in construction or as domestic servants and were known and respected for refusing to work as prostitutes or opium peddlers. Many of them had taken root in Singapore as their homeland.

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Samsui Women
Liu Kang Building Site / Samsui Women 1951 Oil on canvas
Liu Kang Building Site / Samsui Women 1951 Oil on canvas

Laborer is needed everywhere. No matter how much time has passed, it is something that still revolves around us. Though now isn’t as harsh than the past where in the ancient Egypt, there were slave laborers to build pyramids for the king, and in the 16th centuries, where laborer were hired to help out in shifting trades cargo. And now we have migrant laborer to help build and clean our home.

All of them require a lot of effort and I do appreciate them for their presence. During presentation about laborer, I find the oil painting by Liu Kang is rather interesting. Because often when people talk about laborer, they will tend to look at the bad side of things and talk about cruelty against human rights and etc. However in Liu Kang’s work “Building Site/Samsui Women” he depicted the happiness of the laborers (Samsui Women).

By making his oil painting colorful, it shows realism in his work. When looking at the painting, the women point of view seem to be looking down on their work, it felt as if they were really focusing on the job that need to get it done by the end of the day. Somehow the work itself make one feel to look at it with respect rather than a judgmental point of view towards it. It is really a pretty refreshing way of looking at another point of view. Cause it is like saying that we should be appreciative towards laborers in our country and respect them for having to travel so far in order to earn a living, doing jobs that normally people wouldn’t really want to do in life.

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The Samsui women of today

SAMSUI women have a small but distinct niche in Singapore's history. Their broad red hats & blue-black samfoo marked them out as they went back and forth to work on the island's building sites.

Since the last working Samsui women retired, their image has become a fixture in Singapore's perception of how it transformed itself into a modern city.

They are eulogised in drama serials; there are Samsui women T-shirts, collectible figures and dolls on sale at the Chinatown Heritage Centre; & when the Dim Sum Dollies performed The History Of Singapore at the Esplanade last July, one segment was devoted to Samsui women.

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Lim Tze Peng’s 1976 painting Untitled (Samsui Women), depicts the subjects in the trademark red hats, panning for raw materials.
These samsui women were probably part of the first batch of immigrants who arrived from the Sanshui district in Canton (Guangdong), here you see them working on a construction yard between 1938-1939. Image from National Museum of Singapore
samsui women helping in a cleanup of the former Empress Place, better known to many now as the Asian Civilisations Museum. Here you can see their distinctive red headgear and blue samfoo. Image courtesy of The National Archives of Singapore.
On 7 November 1987, three samsui women who worked on the construction of the Bishan MRT station, were invited for Singapore’s first MRT ride. Image from Asiaone.com
A samsui woman receiving help before heading out for a celebratory march-past at the 1980 National Day Parade. Image courtesy of The National Archives of Singapore.


Ah Sum or Ah Ma Jie (Majie 妈姐)

The majie and it dawned on me that these were FDWs of yesterday. Not unlike the FWDs of today, these single women in black and white samfu outfit with their hair tied in buns were from the Guangdong province. They worked here from the 1930s to the 1970s. These sturdy women were not called “maids” though they took vows of celibacy to dedicate themselves to their vocation.

The word majie is made up of the word ma (mother) and jie (elder sister), though some have suggested that amah may have originated from the Portuguese ama meaning "nurse". In Taiwan and China, the word amah refers to an older lady in general, As many were also nannies, it could well have come from the word nai ma (literally "milk mother" in Chinese). Variants such as amah-chieh or mahjie have also been used. Similar terms in the same context includes ah-yee, yee-yee or ah sum (aunt), or jie-jie (elder sister).

Again, not unlike the FDWs of today, the majie of yesterday worked very long hours. It was normal to be up at 5 am in the morning, and they worked to around 8 or 9 pm in the evening. But unlike the FDWs of today, they did not have families to return to. Many were treated as part of the family as they served their employers for a long time.