Zhixiong Zhang

I have to confess that I skimmed a lot of this book. For my interest there was way too much explanation of different dialects of Chinese; perhaps a person who spoke one or two of those dialects would have found it more interesting. Also, there were numerous grammatical and spelling errors which always makes me impatient. I guess I was looking for more human interest stories about the Chinese people who settled in Singapore and Malay from the 1800s on. The back of the book seemed to promise this when it started out with "A coolie's life sucked..." Some of the history was interesting but I really would have liked to have seen more about the Japanese occupation as, to me, that seems a major turning point.

There is no doubt that the author researched this book well. You just have to look at all the footnotes and graphs to see that.… (mere)

Een verhaal van de arme en ontevreden onderklasse in het koloniale Singapore. Ze zaten in een vicieuze cirkel van armoede, beperkt toegang tot onderwijs, krediet en andere middelen om inkomen te verzamelen. De armen hebben zich georganiseerd en vochten voor de middelen die ze nodig hadden om hun inkomen te vergroten.

De manier waarop de Britten de kolonie bestuurden had een groot effect op deze onderklasse. Uiteindelijk kwamen zij in verzet en kwamen zij in opstand tegen de regering.

Na de Tweede Wereldoorlog begonnen ze een communistische opstand, ervan overtuigd dat dit hun kans was om uit de armoede te komen door een wereld op te bouwen waarin iedereen op gelijke voet kon starten.… (mere)

This is a most interesting and informative book on the Chinese that lived in Singapore with an introduction by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. Fascinating descriptions of the servants and poor members of the community with a delightful example about Chinese who [quote] ‘preferred to be self-employed would become practitioners of the three blades – razors, scissors, cleavers – or more commonly known as the barber, the tailor, and the chicken-rice seller.‘ One chapter gives an excellent if brief account of the Sino Japanese war and the boxer rebellion in the early 20th Century. As a long time student of history, I must say that I found the whole book very interesting and I was particularly impressed with the author’s detail on schooling in the 19th and 20th centuries’, the struggles encountered providing and teaching language. And finally an Appendix; A collection of figures and maps (15 illustrations), a list of attributions and citations, plus a glossary of Chinese Romanization, Chinese Characters and Notes, completes an excellent dissertation (essay) outlining 200 years of Defiance and Deference under Colonial Rule. I thoroughly recommend this book to every reader. It is well researched and I give it my maximum rating of 5 stars.
A copy of this book was provided for review by the publishers Pacific Media Mania, Singapore.… (mere)