I used to have a lot of respect for Prof Tay Kheng Soon, architecture professor at NUS. I still respect him but social media and his frequent posts have given me an opportunity to look more deeply into his views and ideology, some of which are highly debatable if not naive or misleading . I decided not to rebut him directly when I saw the following view which he posted on Facebook. Though I’m not an anthropologist, I know enough to realise that his statement is false. Take a look.
Prof Tay said:
At the Q&A session in KL i was asked about regionalisation. I took the opportunity to talk about the ancient relationship between south China and south east asia, of the Yeh people who under pressure from the north drifted into Taiwan and Vietnam and from Taiwan sailed in multihull boats into philipines, sulawesi thousands of years ago and into the pacific and into the indian oceans becoming the natives of south east asia and the indo-pacific and that we are actually more similar than different and that the CMIO model imposed by the british has made us separate. The audience of mainly malays were quite taken aback. It think its a conversation needed for a healthy future.
First of all, the indigenous people of Taiwan had been there for over 6,000 years. They did not come from China and were not related to the “yeh” (Prof Tay probably meant the 百越 people). I’ll come to that later. The original inhabitants on the island of Taiwan were Austronesian people and they did migrate and disperse to populate the Philippines and the Indonesian archipelago. The natives in these regions have Austronesian origins. There’s another region where the Austronesian people of Taiwan migrated to and that’s the southern part of Vietnam. These folks would later establish the Champa Kingdom of southern Vietnam. Chinese records from Wang Da Yuan 汪大渊 confirmed that there were no Han Chinese living permanently in Taiwan during the Yuan Dynasty. Records from travels to My Son in central Vietnam observed that the people of Champa had much darker complexion compared to those in Dai Viet in the north. Champa rule once extended all the way to present-day Cambodia. Though the whole of Southeast Asia were strongly influenced by India culture and religions and the writing systems are based on Sanskrit, the Khmer language stands out as the only monotonal language – just like other Austronesian languages.
Having noted this difference, let us go back to 百越, which refers to a hundred different Tibeto-Burman (not Austronesian) tribes that were once indigenous to present-day Guangxi, Guangdong and northern Vietnam. It was only after the Qin Dynasty conquered these regions that ethnic Han people started migrating into these parts. Han ethnicity is Sino-Tibetan in contrast with 百越 which is Tibeto-Burman. Over time, 百越 got absorbed. Today, the Han people in Guangxi and Guangdong are be at least partially 百越 and northern Vietnamese are at least partially Han.
After the conquest of Champa by the Nguyen Dynasty, the Vietnamese (nationality) DNA became a mixture of Sino-Burman-Tibetan-Austronesian. Closer to Cambodia, the Austronesian component is magnified. Beyond that, in Thai, Laos and Burmese are basically Tibeto-Burman. Now for the Chinese community in Southeast Asia, many of my PRC friends have asked me about the concept of “Peranakan”. How are they different from the rest of the Chinese? Well, I would normally explain that the Peranakan people have Chinese ancestors who migrated to Southeast Asia when ethnic Chinese were the minority. They partially integrated with the local Malay community and adopted many of their practices. Those of us whose forefathers arrived later when the Chinese community was large enough to even have clan associations did not integrate with the local Malay community.
Having said all that, I do have an issue with using ethnicity instead of nationality, values and ideology to rally people. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi once said that our Asian ethnicity cannot be changed and we should lean towards China and not the West. Does that make sense? Let’s set Wang Yi’s overtly racist statement aside for one moment. So what if Filipinos and Javanese are Austronesian in origin? 6,000 years later, they have developed very different cultures, beliefs and practices. You can’t bind the two with ethnicity. Even the Javanese distinguish themselves from the Sundanese. The Tenggerese of East Java are closer to their friends in Bali than their cousins in Java. So what if they all have Austronesian origins?
It’s all quite simple and obvious. Mainland Southeast Asia, mostly Tibeto-Burmans. Vietnam, a mixture of Tibeto-Burmans, Sino-Tibetan and Austronesian. Cambodia, mostly Austronesian and Tibeto-Burman. Maritime Southeast Asian, mostly Austronesian. Peranakan, Sino-Tibetan and Austronesian. Chinese immigrants who are not Peranakan, Sino-Tibetan. And by the way, I’m not southern Chinese even though my great grandpa was from Guangdong Province. 1,000 years ago, my ancestors migrated south from Shan Xi 山西 not 陕西 Province. No mixing with 百越 and we’re called the Guest People 客家人. My son, however, is Sino-Tibetan plus Tibeto-Burman. His mother is Thai. Here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter! My son doesn’t speak Thai and has no trace of Thai culture in him even though he was born in Thailand. What more the 100th generation since the great Austronesian migration. Interesting to know, but does it matter in today’s context beyond the realm of genetic studies?
Prof Tay seems to trying to trace the ancestry of the Chinese immigrants and the bumiputra back to the “same” Austronesian origins. He’s trying too hard. His narrative is not only misleading, it’s also wrong. The right way to achieve racial harmony is to disregard our ancestry and work on share values and aspirations. If the rallying point is a lie and if it promotes hostility towards “outsiders”, then it’s extremely unhealthy. Whether we’re adopted or biological doesn’t matter if our adoptive/foster parents have developed an emotional bond with us. We have taken so many years to stand together as Singaporeans regardless of race, language or religion. If there are issues with our ASEAN neighbours, isn’t it a bit lame to harp on the myth that we have the same Austronesian ancestry? What if we find out that we have a relative who is a terrorist?