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SOUTHERN SOURCES – The Origins of Modern Chinese Food

 

GONG HEY FATT CHOY! Happy Chinese New Year!!

Chinese food is popular all over the world. From London to Los Angeles, Singapore to Sacramento, New York to New Orleans, and Melbourne to Montreal – but where exactly does “Chinese” food come from?


If you’ve ever read anything about the history of the Chinese diaspora, Chinese migration, or the history of Chinese food in various parts of the world, or how Chinatowns came into existence, you might’ve read the assertion, somewhere, that the vast, vast majority of food generally accepted as “Chinese” around the world today, actually only comes from one tiny part of the country!

But where does this claim come from? Where does the food come from? And how true is it, really?

Western Contact

The Port of Canton, Guangdong Province, China. ca. 1800.

Sailing from Europe or North America to China once took so long that Western contact with the “Central Kingdom” was once extremely rare. And what contact the West did have with China was often so limited, once they got there after an ocean voyage that took months – that most Europeans only saw a tiny, tiny fraction of what China was, or had to offer – in terms of food, or anything else, for that matter.

Starting in the 1600s, Europeans sailing to China, eager to purchase silk, spices, porcelain, gold, silver, ivory, jade, discount electronics (OK, maybe not the last one…) and tea were heavily regulated by the ruling Qing Government of the day. By order of the Emperor, all “foreign barbarians” were limited to trading in China, to just one port, in one province, as FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE from the seat of Imperial power in Peking: The port of Canton.

This form of trade, known as the “Canton System”, lasted for CENTURIES! From the 1600s all the way up to the 1840s, and it was the Canton System that not only shaped how the West traded with China, but also shaped how the West was exposed to Chinese culture – linguistically, sartorially, and possibly most of all – culinarily.

Because Europeans and Americans were restricted to such a tiny portion of the Chinese mainland (really, just the port-area of the city of Canton), all their impressions of China, whatever they were, and whatever they encompassed, were limited to whatever they saw or experienced living in Canton. Any food they would’ve become familiar with, which was not their own, would’ve been Cantonese cuisine, and this shaped their entire understanding of overall Chinese cuisine.

Southern Chinese cuisine focused heavily on rice, and riced-based foods, while communities in the north relied much more heavily on wheat. This shaped the local cuisine more than anything else. It’s why Peking Duck, with its little fluffy pancakes, comes from the north of China, instead of the south. It’s why wonton and jiaozi, and other buns and dumplings, come from the north of China. It’s why rice-noodles are more common in the south, while wheat-based noodles are more likely to be found in the north. Since it was the southern, more rice-based cuisine that the vast, vast majority of Europeans encountered in the 16-and-1700s, this is why, even to this day, most people associate Asian food first, and foremost, with rice.

The Cantonese Diaspora

Along with the contact between the Chinese and citizens of the Western powers being mostly restricted to the south of China, in the areas around Guandong and Hong Kong, Chinese contact with the rest of the world also came mostly from the south of China. As this region was the only one which saw sustained western contact, any Chinese sailing to other places around the world, mostly came from Canton, since it was the one port at the time which was open to foreign trade.

In the 15-to-1800s, most of the migrants from China who settled in places like Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, the United States, Australia, the U.K., and even Canada, came from Canton Province, from Fujian Province, or from the island of Hong Kong itself. The Chinese ’49ers’ who came for the California Gold Rush, the prospectors who came to Australia in 1851, the labourers who built the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad – they almost all came from southern China.

One of the most famous foods from southern China – Dimsum!

Because of this, when these migrants settled in places like Toronto, Vancouver, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Melbourne, London, New York, and San Francisco, and when some started opening up cafes and restaurants serving Chinese food – the food that they prepared, ate, and served to Asian and non-Asian customers alike, was the food of their home provinces – Fujian, and Canton, and the island of Hong Kong. One of the main reasons for this (apart from cultural ones) was sheer practicality – the ingredients for most southern-Chinese cuisine could be found in most places on earth, or if they weren’t available, they could easily be substituted with a local ingredient, instead.

In this way, the “Chinese” food that most Americans, Canadians, Australians and Europeans ate for the first time in the late 1800s, or early 1900s, was almost all inspired by, or were direct copies of, the cuisine of southern China. The food, the language, and the names of the dishes all came from the southern part of China. This style of cuisine spread so far around the world, and became so well-known as “Chinese food” or “Oriental Cuisine”, that to a lot of uneducated westerners, they assumed that all Chinese food was like this, even though in reality, they were only tasting a small sample of the full cuisine.

So What IS Southern Chinese Cuisine??

So, what exactly is southern Chinese cuisine? What makes it stand out? How do I recognise it? Well – how many of these do you recognise?

Stir-frying? Barbecue Pork (Charsiu)? Fried Rice? Orange Chicken? Sweet-&-Sour Pork? Dim Sum and the ritual of yumcha? Mango pudding? Salt-&-Pepper Squid? Suckling Pig? Chow Fun? Wonton? Shaomai?

The list goes on…and on…and on! These are all dishes from southern China, and almost all from Canton, Hong Kong, Fujian, or other provinces nearby.

In recent decades, other types of Chinese cuisine, such as the spiciness of Sichuan, or the more wheat-based cuisine of northern China, has started becoming more well-known, but in general, if you’ve ever had Chinese takeaway, if you’ve ever gone out to a Chinese restaurant, if you’ve ever been invited out for yumcha for Chinse New Year or the Autumn Festival, or someone’s birthday or anniversary, etc…then you’ve almost certainly eaten the cuisine of southern China.

Sources & Information

Southern Chinese Cuisines: Rich, Diverse & Delicate

https://www.tasteatlas.com/best-rated-dishes-in-south-central-china

https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/chinese-food/eight-chinese-dishes.htm

https://greedysheep.co.uk/chinese-food-differences


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A PROFUSION OF PERANAKANS – How Many Are There?

 

“Peranakan” is an Indonesian-Malay word, from the root-word “Anak” (“Child” or “Descendant”, as in the volcano “Anak Krakatau” – “Child of Krakatoa”).

In everyday speech, “Peranakan” translates to “Locally-Born” or “Natively-Born”.

In Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, the term most commonly refers to the “Peranakan Cina” (“Peranakan Chee-nah”) – the “Locally-Born Chinese”. These are broadly categorised as the descendants of Chinese labourers, sailors, and traders, who travelled to Southeast Asia between the 1400s through to the 1700s, who married local Malay, Thai, or Indonesian women, and who fathered children with them. These children and all their subsequent descendants, were…and are…the “Peranakan Cina” – the “Locally-Born Chinese”.

While undoubtedly the largest and most well-known category of Peranakans (in most instances, “Peranakan”, and “Straits Chinese” are virtually synonymous), they are not the only ones, and there are, in fact, a number of other sub-groups or branches. Today, we’re going to see what they are, what are the characteristics of each group, and where they come from.

Let’s start with the best-known group.

1. The Peranakan Cina

A Peranakan Chinese Wedding, early 1900s.

The Peranakan Cina or Peranakan Chinese, also known by a profusion of other monikers (I won’t list them all there, there’s soooooo many of them…) is by far, the largest, and most well-known group of Peranakans. If you mention “Peranakan”, almost all the time, people will think of this, if they know nothing else about the Peranakan.

As mentioned, the Peranakan Cina are the descendants of 15th-18th century Chinese migrants who moved to Southeast Asia, who married local women, and had children. These children grew up holding Chinese surnames (from their fathers) while embracing the culture and customs of their motherlands, resulting in a rich and unique cultural fusion. Most of them will speak a mix of languages, including English, Cantonese, Hokkien, and Malay, and a creole variant known as ‘Baba Malay’, a mix of Malay and Hokkien. The vast majority of Peranakan Cina claim Southern Chinese heritage, from places like Fujian, Hong Kong, and Canton, explaining the language preferences for Hokkien and Cantonese, as these were the dialects spoken by their ancestors. If religious, most are Buddhist, or a variant of Christian.

2. The Peranakan Jawi

Indian Peranakans from the early 20th century.

The descendants of migrants from southern India, the Peranakan Jawi are typically Muslim, and Malay-speaking. Along with standard Malay (written in a right-to-left Jawi Arabic-style script), they also had their own creole language similar to the Baba-Malay of the Peranakan Cina, known as ‘Bahasa Tanjong’, which was developed in and around the area of George Town in Penang.

Jawi women adopted some clothing cues from the Peranakan Cina (such as wearing the Kebaya, or Baju Panjang), but typically paired the top or blouse with a traditional Indian saree, instead of the more typical sarong, found in Malaysia and Indonesia, keeping an element of their Indian ancestry alive.

3. The Peranakan Chitty

Also known as the Chitty Melaka, after the town of Malacca where most of them originally lived, the Chitty Peranakan also originated from southern India. Unlike the Jawi, however, they followed the religion of Hinduism, instead of Islam, and typically spoke the Tamil language at home, along with other local languages and dialects, as-necessary.

4. The Peranakan Kristang

The Kristang Peranakan in traditional Portuguese-inspired outfits.

A corruption of the Portuguese word “Cristao” (“Christian“), the Peranakan Kristang were the descendants of Eurasian marriages between Portuguese migrants to Southeast Asia (mostly Malaysia) and local Malay women in the 15-and-1600s. Like the Peranakan Cina, the Jawi, and the Chitty, they Kristang also had their own creole language, known as ‘Papia Kristang’, or ‘Christian Speech’, a mix of Portuguese and Malay. At one time, Papia Kristang, along with Baba-Malay, spoken by the Peranakan Chinese, were two of the most common creole languages heard in Malaysia and Singapore. Sadly, both patois are now almost completely extinct, being spoken by only a few thousand people in the region (if that. At the time of this writing, Baba-Malay is down to about 1,900 persons).

While there are efforts to try and salvage the languages, with dictionaries, language-guides, and even a few classes and courses being offered, they are both at risk of dying out. For the most part, this is simply due to sheer lack of use, when most people in Malaysia and Singapore today prefer to speak English, Malay, Cantonese, or Hokkien.

5. The Peranakan Yehudi

The last, smallest, and least-known group of Peranakans, the Peranakan Yehudi is the Peranakan Jewish community. Formed in the 1500s and 1600s from intermarriage between Jewish migrants (mostly from Portugal or other places in Europe), or from pre-existing Peranakan Chinese families, who converted to Judaism, the Yehudi Peranakan are, without a doubt, the most obscure branch of the Peranakan diaspora.

In modern times, the Yehudi community, as a physical entity, has virtually ceased to exist, having largely either died out, or been absorbed into the wider Peranakan community. Part of this was due to the community’s already pre-existing, small size, and partially due to the general decline in Peranakan culture on a whole, which took place after the Second World War.

The Peranakan People Today

In modern times, the term “Peranakan” refers almost exclusively to just the Peranakan Chinese, which is the largest, most well-known group, and most people who are descended from, are of, or who identify with Peranakan ancestry, are almost certainly of Chinese background. The other Peranakan groups such as the Indian Peranakans, and the Portuguese / Eurasian Peranakans are not nearly as well-known, although they are, by definition, Peranakan – which is that they are the result of the union between a foreign male who married a local female, and who grew up in their mother’s homeland, and raised in the local culture.

Due to the general decline of Peranakan culture and identity which happened after the Second World War, as a result of changing social, financial, and ethnic circumstances, a lot of people of Peranakan descent are totally unaware of their own ancestry. This has led not only to the general unawareness of what the Peranakan are, but also a further unawareness of the different types of Peranakan, beyond the most commonly-known branch (the Peranakan Cina).

In a lot of cases, the cultural practices or knowledge of identity of the other branches has completely died out, either because the community was so small to begin with (as with the Peranakan Yehudi), or because it was simply absorbed by another community because the identifiers which made them unique have been lost or forgotten about – for example, the gradual death of the various Peranakan languages, which in the past, would’ve identified the various branches.

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STEPPING OUT – A Colonial era Export Silver & Malacca Walking Stick

 

The walking stick or walking cane became the fashion accessory for the well-dressed man or woman about town starting in Europe in the 17th century.

While walking sticks, ceremonial staffs or rods, canes and poles, have all been used to aid in walking, or as fashion accessories, for literally thousands of years, the huge spike in people wearing or carrying walking sticks started in the 1600s as a reaction against men carrying swords in public.

Swords were weapons – they were only ever used as weapons – and as weapons, they invited danger, confrontation, and conflict. This was deemed as unnecessarily provocative, and gradually, the turn away from gentlemen carrying swords, towards gentlemen carrying walking sticks, began.

By the 1700s, and especially, the 1800s, only military officers (of the Army, Navy, Marines, etc), usually in full-dress uniform, would carry a sword in public. For most other people, a walking stick, umbrella, or parasol would’ve been used instead.

In an age when people walked almost everywhere, and when roads and paths were often badly paved (if paved at all!), a sturdy walking stick was absolutely essential when going about your daily life – whether it was a short trip to the village bakery to buy some rolls, a stroll across town to visit a friend, or a trek to travel from one town or village, to another!

Because of this heavy usage, walking sticks quickly became fashion accessories, and men and women of means would often buy, or have made for them, elegant, tasteful, beautiful sticks or canes with which they could carry around town, or country. For the extremely wealthy, they would have a stick that went with every outfit and possibly conceivable occasion! A stick for walks in the country, a stick about town, a stick for daywear, a stick for evening formalwear, and so-on.

Antique Malacca Walking Sticks

Malacca is the name given to the cane or rattan from the palm of the genus Calamus Scipionum, native to Southeast Asia, in particular Vietnam, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, and Indonesia. For centuries, it was one of the most prized materials for making walking sticks from.

The cane was extremely lightweight, robust, and had a distinctive honey-mustard yellow colour which made it stand out from darker materials like rosewood, ebony, and oak. The handle or grip at the top of the cane was usually made of something like ivory, silver, gold, or brass. To Europeans who were used to making walking sticks out of tree-branches, a stick made of such a pale, lightweight material reeked of Oriental exoticism! Oooh, faaancy!

It was these exotic, far-off, distant connotations that came with using malacca cane to make walking sticks (along with its obvious physical properties) that made it so popular with Europeans.


Chinese Export-Silver Walking-Stick Handles

Silver had been a popular material for walking-stick handles for centuries. Beautiful, shiny, versatile, easy to clean, and hard-wearing, silver walking-stick handles of various styles started being made in China in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially after the First and Second Opium Wars. They were just one of all kinds of silverwares being manufactured cheaply in China by Chinese silversmiths, and which were exported for sale in Europe, North America, or in European colonies in Southeast Asia.


Chinese export silver was often overtly “oriental” in its decorations, since it was meant to appeal to Europeans who, in the 1830s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, had no real concept of what China was, or even looked like. Because of that, such silverware often had decorations like flowers, dragons, phoenixes, bamboo groves, Oriental-looking figures in Oriental robes, with Chinese-style buildings and bridges in the background, and so-on. It was a fantasy – a touristy, exaggerated idea of what China looked like in the European imagination – but it suited the Chinese silversmiths to perpetuate these ideas, because this was exactly what the Western expats, tourists, and silver-dealers wanted! – Stuff that looked as “exotic” and “oriental” as possible, and which wasn’t necessarily “realistic”.

Because of this, it’s fairly easy to recognise Chinese export silver, based on the decorations alone.

Why Is It Called “Malacca”?

The material used to make rattan walking sticks was known as “Malacca” or “Malacca cane” because the material was most often harvested near, and sold from, the Malayan port town of Malacca, or from other locations which surrounded the Strait of Malacca, between the Malaysian Peninsula, and the island of Sumatra.

Ships traveling between Europe and the Far East often sailed through (and still do sail through) the Strait of Malacca to reach places like Indonesia, and the Philippines. On the way, they’d stop off in Malacca and Singapore to do extra trade, buy supplies, or pick up extra goods. One of things that sailors collected were lengths of Malacca rattan, which were sold in Europe to make walking sticks.

That said, walking sticks were also produced locally in major colonial hubs like Batavia, Singapore, Hong Kong, George Town in Penang, and Malacca in Malaysia. This was to supply the local market of wealthy planters, British and Dutch expats, tourists, and colonial military personnel, as well as well-to-do locals living in the area – and one of the most readily available materials to make these sticks from was…Malacca cane!

The Latest Addition

I bought this stick years ago, at a flea-market, for a pittance, really. It was so cheap because the silver top was in extremely rough shape – full of dents, dings, and even cracking up in some places. But I picked it up anyway, because I liked the wood and I liked the silver handle. I eventually saved up to have the handle repaired by a local jeweler, which itself was quite an undertaking.

To repair the handle, the silver has to be heated up to remove it from the shaft of the walking stick. This is to melt the resin inside the handle, which is the glue that holds the whole thing together. Once the resin is hot enough, it liquifies and expands, pushing the handle off the stick. Then the resin has to be poured out, and left to cool and solidify. The silver handle can then be repaired – having the dents pushed out, soldering up the cracks, etc…then the resin has to be heated up AGAIN to melt it, pour it back into the handle, and then the shaft goes back in after it. The resin cools…again…and sets hard, gluing the handle back onto the stick.

This is how all walking-sticks of this type were made, back in the day. It was the easiest, and cheapest, but also most secure way of fixing a handle to the top of a walking stick.

Are Malacca Canes Popular?

Very! The material which gives these sticks their name – Malacca rattan – has been used for literally centuries to make walking sticks and you can find examples dating back to the 1700s, and likely even further. Their popularity comes from their strength, smooth finish, lightness of carry, and distinct colour. They’re one of the most popular types of walking sticks to collect.

Are They Expensive?

That depends mostly on age, and embellishments. Walking sticks with simpler handles obviously cost less, walking sticks with fancier handles or features cost more. This goes for all sticks, regardless of the shaft-material. If a stick can be dated (even roughly) then that will likely increase its price. On a whole, I haven’t found Malacca walking sticks to be particularly costly, probably because the material was so commonly used, so that can make them more easily collectible.












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TWENTY PIECES OF SILVER – A Victorian-era Peranakan Silver-Coin Belt from the Straits Settlements (ca. 1898)

 

The solid silver sarong belt is one of the most common accessories of the Straits Chinese. They were most popular from at least the second half of the 19th century, right up until the period after the Second World War in the 1940s and 50s. While mostly worn by women, Peranakan men also wore sarong, and sarong belts. You can usually tell the difference just based on size alone – men’s belts were usually significantly longer, but plainer, whereas women’s belts were shorter, but more elaborate.

These belts came in an endless variety of styles and materials, depending on location, influences, manufacturing techniques and materials available. They were almost always made of silver from almost any source that could be found. And when silver could NOT be found, then the belts were usually made of paktong (nickel-silver), or in rare cases, even brass! Styles varied up and down the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Singapore, and the Indonesian Islands, and over the years, distinctive types emerged – panel belts, layered belts, mesh belts, chain belts, and even cloth belts which were meticulously beaded by hand!

But what if you wanted a belt – really wanted a belt – a silver belt – but you couldn’t afford a fancy custom-made one? What if you wanted something more elaborate than just a length of silver chain with a buckle welded onto the end of it? As my old nyonya grandmother used to say – “…then how, ah!?”

Then how, indeed, Amah. Then how?

Assuming you didn’t want to slum-it, and just buy a nickel belt, or even a brass one (good lord, the neighbours would TALK!!), then the last option open to the cash-strapped nyonya, was to literally be strapped – or rather – belted – for cash!

Peranakan Cina Silver Coin Belts

The cheapest way for a nyonya to get a silver sarong belt of her very own, if she wasn’t able to get one by commissioning one custom from a silversmith, or inheriting one from ancestors (generally the only two ways in which belts were acquired), then her last resort was to use whatever scrap silver she had lying around as the raw materials for her local silversmith to fashion a belt for her. In most cases, the easiest source of such silver was coinage.


It was a very common practice in the 1800s and early 1900s, in places like Singapore, Malacca, or Penang, to have your chosen silver sarong belt made out of – not plates or panels of silver, or even silver mesh or chain, if you couldn’t afford it – but actual silver coins. During this time, in the 1800s and the very-early-1900s, the higher-value coins used as currency in the Straits Settlements – the Straits Dollar – were all solid silver of 80% purity (the early 1900s Straits silver dollar coin was 90% purity) – so 5c, 10c, 20c, and 50c. If you could afford to save up a few coins each week, then before long, you would have enough coins to not only make a belt out of them, but also have enough to pay the silversmith.

Belts like these were often made of coins riveted or chained together with silver loops soldered onto each of the coins, either in rows (usually two coins wide), or, more commonly – as just one long chain of coins, with a larger coin, like a 50c piece, or even a silver dollar, used as a buckle. Alternatively, if you didn’t want to use a coin as a buckle, you could use one that already existed, and simply fashion the belt so that it worked with your pre-existing buckle.

So how long were these coin belts around for? Pretty much for as long as Peranakan silver belts of any style had been around for. Examples exist which date back to the 1880s, and which date as recently as the 1940s and 50s, usually dated by the years on the coins which were used to make the belt. The one disadvantage of making a coin belt, however, was that the longer you waited to make the belt, the harder it was to find high quality silver to do it with. Coins from the 1910s, 20s, 30s, and especially, those postwar, had far less silver-content in them than similar coins from the 1800s or the early Edwardian era. As an example, the coins used to make the belt in this posting all date between 1887 – 1896, when silver content was high. If it’d been made in the 1920s or 30s, the silver content in the same coins dropped from 80 or 90%, down to just 60%!

So, are belts like this — common?

They can be, yes. As I said, it was the cheapest, easiest way to make a silver nyonya belt – and after all – having a belt made of literal money does sound kinda cool, right? So yes, they were fairly common, and various styles of such belts were produced, with overlapping or linked coins of various sizes and denominations to produce an almost endless array of silver-coin belts. Some belts could be extremely simple – just a length of chain or two, with a coin welded onto the end of it – but others could be incredibly elaborate, with dozens of 5c and 10c coins riveted or linked together to produce the final product – a process which would take a skilled silversmith or jeweler several hours, if not days, to complete.

Even a relatively simple belt like this has a lot of intricate parts to make it work – the dozens of little rings soldered onto the coins, and then the extra rings between them to produce a flexible, final product – and all done by hand – so even a silver-coin belt could be a lot of effort to produce.

Other Types of Peranakan Belts

Made of gold, or – more commonly – silver, there are of course, other types of Peranakan belts – over half a dozen styles, in all. Panel belts, layered belts, mesh belts, chain belts, coin belts…heck, there are even Peranakan belts which aren’t metal – beaded belts, with silver buckles! While I have seen examples of most of these, and have some in my collection, this one is the first one I’ve had that’s made almost entirely of silver coins.

My current collection of Peranakan Chinese belts. The first four are all solid silver.

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POLICING THE SETTLEMENTS: An Antique Straits Settlements Police Whistle

 

Researching my family history, and understanding where, and how my ancestors lived, is infinitely fascinating, since the world they knew is so far removed from anything that any of us could imagine in the 21st century.

My grandmother was the firstborn child of a Straits-Chinese family living in Southeast Asia in the late 1800s. Originally from the city of Pelambang, in southern Sumatra, sometime shortly after the turn of the last century, my great-grandparents packed their bags, and decided that the Dutch East Indies was not the place to raise a family. Instead, they moved from Sumatra, across the Strait of Malacca, to Singapore, which was then part of a collection of British colonies known as the Straits Settlements (hence “Straits Chinese”).

Here, they lived with my great-grandmother’s sister, slowly raising a family, and giving birth to – eventually – four girls, and a boy.

Singapore in the early 1900s was, by all measures, a recognisably modern city. It was the capital of the Straits Settlements, and featured all the trappings of such a position, such as schools, hospitals, public transport systems, and of course, a police force.

The Singapore Police Force – or as it was back then – the Straits Settlements Police – was unique among police forces in Asia. Established in 1820, just a year after Singapore’s official founding, the Straits Police was – and is – the oldest operational professional police-force in the whole of Asia. It was established so soon after Singapore’s establishment as a free-trading port that it beat the creation of the London Metropolitan Police by a whole nine years!

The Early Straits Police Force

The early Straits Police Force had extremely humble beginnings, with a full complement of just eleven men to act as clerical-staff, patrol-officers, sergeants and police-inspectors. The first police chief was Francis James Bernard, son-in-law of Singapore’s first governor, William Farquhar. While Farquhar had some military experience (he held the rank of Major-General), Bernard had no such army training, and no policing experience of any kind whatsoever! He was a newspaper-editor!

Singapore’s multicultural nature meant that the police force was soon made up of officers from each of Singapore’s main ethnic groups, such as Indians, Malays, Indonesians, Chinese, and also British expatriates. This racial diversity was necessary for the police-force to operate, because up to half a dozen languages or more, were spoken within the colony!

The Straits Settlements Central Police Station, South Beach Road, Singapore.

In the 1860s, the police finally got their first real, proper headquarters, when grand new premises were constructed on South Beach Road in central Singapore. These remained in operation until the 1930s and 40s, until the buildings were vacated for more modern premises after WWII. The original headquarters buildings were demolished in 1978.

In the late 1800s, police uniforms were standardised with a khaki cotton tunic, shorts, puttees, boots, a cap with a police badge on it, and an equipment-belt. This would remain more or less unchanged right up until the 1950s, with only minor alterations.

Straits Settlements Police Whistle

By the time my ancestors had started living in Singapore, around the turn of the 20th century, the Straits Settlements Police had come a long way from its humble beginnings in the 1820s. By the 1900s, it had a large, elegantly designed new headquarters, proper uniforms, and modern equipment.

And one of those pieces of equipment were police whistles.

Back in the early 1900s, almost every police-force in the world issued its officers with service whistles – they were essential for crowd-control, passing orders, getting attention in emergencies, and signaling to other officers. However, their most important role was as an alarm-raising device. In a policing system that relied on regular beat-patrols done on foot, the main use of an officer’s service whistle was to raise the alarm in the event of a crime being committed. If a patrolman saw someone being mugged, for example, they would blow their whistle before moving in to engage the suspect, or would blow their whistle if the miscreant tried to get away.

The purpose of doing this was to let officers in neighbouring beats know that a crime had been spotted, and that the arresting officer (since officers almost always patrolled on their own, without partners) would need backup. The responding officers would blow their own whistles, so that the arresting officer knew that help was on its way, and then run in the direction of the original whistle blasts. A bit like a police car with its lights and siren today, an arresting officer would continue to blow his whistle until backup arrived, so that other officers knew where to run to.

The whistle that I added to my collection is stamped with “STRAITS SETTLEMENTS POLICE FORCE” across the barrel. When this whistle was manufactured, back around 1910, the main supplier of police whistles in Singapore (as well as almost every other part of the British Empire) was the Birmingham firm of Joseph Hudson & Co., which had by then been in operation for over four decades.

Police whistles became standard-issue equipment for officers starting in the early 1880s, when a replacement was sought for the heavy, wooden police rattles, and by the early 1900s, almost every officer would’ve carried one. Police forces (as well as other organisations like railroad companies, hospitals, the postal service, and so on) could special-order their whistles from Joseph Hudson & Co. It was as simple as writing to the company, and placing an order for so-many whistles, and would they pretty-pretty-please include a special stamp on the barrel, identifying the institution or company placing the order.

A custom stamp would then be manufactured, and this was added to the machinery that produced the whistles. The stamp was then rolled across the whistles during manufacturing process, impressing the name of the police-force (or other such institution) onto the barrel.

Because of this, there’s actually a wide range of whistles manufactured by Joseph Hudson & Co (which at the time, was the largest whistle-factory in the world), along with an almost endless array of barrel stamps printed across them. That said, whistles marked “Straits Settlements Police Force” are among the rarest around.

This is largely because of the short time-period in which these whistles would’ve been made, spanning from the first decades of the 1900s, up until the early 1930s, if that. It is unlikely that fresh whistles would’ve been supplied at regular intervals. Instead, they would’ve been sent in batches, if or when the Straits Police required another order. If whistles were recycled between one officer leaving the force, and another one entering it, whistles – which were police property, after all – the whistle of the outgoing officer would likely have been sterilised, and then handed over to an incoming officer, rather than ordering a new one all the way from Birmingham. This would’ve kept the number of new whistles required relatively low. Only when whistles in the current order were running out due to increased officer-numbers would a new batch have been ordered from the factory in England.

It’s because of all these factors – short length of use, relatively small officer-numbers, and recycling of used whistles, and possibly others – that police whistles with “Straits Settlements Police Force” stamped on the barrel are so rare.

So while the whistle is only a small piece, it is a rare survivor and a reminder of an aspect of life that existed in Singapore and the wider Straits Settlements in the early 1900s, when my ancestors were living there in their early childhood.

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BABAS & NYONYAS – THE PERANAKAN CHINESE HOUSEHOLD

 

The Peranakan Chinese of Southeast Asia (largely Thailand, Malaya, Singapore, and Indonesia) have been a source of fascination for decades. The rise of Peranakan cultural museums, societies, clubs, and events, over the past 100-odd years, have done much to try and preserve the culture, customs, and practices of the people, and explain and display what once was, how life was lived, and how families of a Peranakan background operated during their cultural heyday.

Peranakan culture was at its height in the roughly 200 years between the late 1700s through to the first half of the 20th century, even if the Peranakan had existed in Southeast Asia since as far back as the 15th and even 14th centuries. It was around this time that many staples of Peranakan culture were established, and propagated within the Peranakan community, which flourished under the growing influence of European colonial powers such as the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, who were colonising areas such as Malaya, Singapore, and Indonesia between the 1600s to the early 1800s.

THE PERANAKAN HOUSEHOLD

In the Straits Settlements of the 1800s and 1900s, before the Second World War, the Peranakan or Straits-Born Chinese, occupied a unique position in the colonial-era social structure of the times.

The Peranakan saw themselves as being above the status of “regular Chinese people” – the migrants from mainland China who had arrived in the Settlements in the 19th century, escaping war, famine and civil unrest in their homeland, people whom the Peranakan derisively called the Sinkeh Chinese (“Sin Kay“, from the Chinese “Xin Ke“, or “New Visitors”).

By-and-large, Peranakan families, most of whom were well-off, with family businesses or professional careers, typically lived in large, long, terraced townhouses, or, if they could afford it, enormous mansions built in cities like Georgetown, Malacca, and Singapore.

These houses were long and narrow, with living spaces, dining rooms, kitchens, bathrooms etc, on the ground floors, and bedrooms and boudoirs up above, usually set out in a linear arrangement, and with a mix of European and Chinese architectural and decorative elements.

It was extremely common for entire extended families to live together – with multiple branches and generations all residing under one roof – or under one row of roofs, as the family expanded, and purchased adjoining townhouses next door.

Intermarriage within the extended family was encouraged, to keep heirlooms, jewelry, and generational wealth within the household.

Peranakan families, like most Chinese families, were notoriously hierarchical, and everybody was expected to know their place, and most of such families operated under a similar structure.

THE PERANAKAN FAMILY

At the top of the family structure was the “towkay“, or “Master of the House”. Literally, towkay meant ‘Boss’ or ‘Master’, in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect often spoken by the Peranakan.

Below him was the “Bibik” – the family matriarch – usually the oldest, highest-ranking female, which might or might not be a grandmother, or a senior aunt (literally “bibik” means “aunt” in Malay, another language commonly spoken by the Peranakan). The Bibik might be (but was not necessarily) the towkay’s wife.

A “Bibik” might also be known as a “taitai”, meaning the most senior female or wife of a large, extended household or family. These days, “taitai” has rather negative connotations, and might even be used as an insult! Senior housewives, and other elderly Pernakan women or ‘nyonyas’ did not work, as a rule, and calling them “taitai” suggested a life of leisure, and luxury, but also one of unearned pleasure and laziness!

Below the Bibik came all the “nyonyas” – the young women of the household – younger sisters of the Bibik, daughters, daughters-in-law, granddaughters, and nieces. “Nyonya” is also the generic term for any Peranakan woman.

By tradition, nyonyas did NOT LEAVE THE FAMILY HOME until marriage – or at least, not except on very special occasions. Not that most nyonyas had long to wait – marriage was extremely young in those days – fifteen was a common wedding age, and any nyonya unmarried into her twenties was considered an old maid!

A typical Peranakan Chinese family…mine! Included in this photograph are four generations! Shown here are my grandparents, uncles, aunts, great-grandparents, great-great-grandmother, and my father. As you can see, Peranakan families were never small!

Below the nyonyas came the “amajie”, which was either called an “amah”, or a “majie”, as a shortened title. “Majie” were paid domestic servants or housemaids – always women – who were known for their uniforms of black trousers and white tunics. Usually from poor families, majie migrated from southern China to the Straits Settlements to work as domestic servants for wealthy Peranakan and European expatriate families. They used their wages to support each other, fund boarding houses for their collective welfare, and even took a strict vow of celibacy, refusing marriage and childbirth. Despite this, they were often hired as nannies.

Every Peranakan household had majie, if they could afford them. If you were rich, you had several, if you were poor, you only had one, which was the equivalent of the European “Maid of all Work” – or, in Cantonese, another language spoken by the Peranakan – “Yat Kiok Tek!” – “One Leg Kicking” – meaning a person engaged in an impossible task – a single maid to look after an ENORMOUS household which could consist of over a dozen family members.

But what about these children in the Peranakan household, then? What happened to them?

As a rule, boys were taken into the family business, or were sent to school, mostly learning English, and might even have traveled to the UK to study at university. Nyonyas, almost exclusively, stayed home and learned cooking, beading, sewing, embroidery, dressmaking, shoemaking, and other cultural and household chores and customs. Before the late 1800s, nyonyas never went to school – they stayed home and completed household tasks or other “feminine duties” until they were married off. The idea of nyonyas leaving the family home before marriage to get an education was a revolutionary idea in the late 1800s, when the first schools for nyonyas were opened by Christian missionaries in places like Singapore. A nyonya was judged on her suitability for marriage based on her beading, sewing, cooking, and other such intricate, detailed activities. With so much time to kill, they had literally all the time in the world to master these crafts, and their skills could reach incredible levels of beauty and talent.

Between steaming kueh, beading slippers, embroidering kebayas and sewing sarongs, nyonyas killed time between chores by eating, chewing betel nuts, and playing games with family and friends. They learned card-games like Cherki (invented in Malacca in the 1800s), played five-stones, Chongkat, or mahjong, to pass the hours away. Gambling was said to be endemic among nyonyas, who could win, lose, or pawn the family jewels at the mahjong table all within the space of an afternoon’s gaming and socialising with neighours and relations!

THE PERANAKAN TOWNHOUSE

The vast majority of Peranakan families lived in beautifully-appointed Peranakan-style terraced townhouses, usually of 2-3 storeys in height, and stretching back several hundred feet! Layouts from house to house were virtually identical, and very little changed from house to house.

First, you entered the veranda area, in front of the house. This was either the Five Foot Way, or a private veranda area, directly in front of the front door. The front door usually had a pair of gates in front of it, and then the door-proper, behind it.

If you rang the doorbell or knocked on the door, then you’d best watch your head, because directly above you is the overhang of the front room of the upper floor/s. Typically, a peephole was installed here so that anybody upstairs could observe visitors to the house, or communicate with passing tradesmen or door-to-door salesmen. A block of wood could be removed from the floor, and money could be dropped down to pay for things like fast-food deliveries…or even the house-keys might be dropped down here, so that you could unlock the door yourself, and come inside!

The layout of a typical Peranakan townhouse. Size and number of rooms varied according to the wealth of the family, but they almost all followed this basic design


Entering the house typically had you stepping into the Ancestral Hall. This was where shrines to departed relations were situated, accompanied by portraits, or photographs.

Beyond this space was the first large interior room of the house, which was typically a living room or front parlour. This is where you might socialise or entertain guests.

Beyond this was, usually, a set of stairs, leading to the upper levels, and next to that, the lightwell.

Every Peranakan house had a lightwell or airwell in the middle of the house – especially large houses had two! In long, dark, narrow houses like these, airwells were essential for ventilation, cooling, and light penetration. They were also a holdover from the Chinese courtyard houses of old, or the “Siheyuan”. The lightwell pierced the house right up to the roofline.

Beyond the airwell came more reception rooms such as a back parlour, and/or a dining room. Large Peranakan houses might have a formal, and informal dining room, as well as a formal, and informal parlour. For special events like birthdays, wedding anniversaries, marriages, or the Chinese New Year, a Peranakan family would host a special dinner known as a “Tok Panjang” (literally “Long Table” in Malay), in imitation of European formal dinner settings, similar to those held by the British. For this reason, larger Peranakan households had an everyday dining room, with a circular or square Chinese table, and a more formal dining room, with a rectangular European-style dining table.

Past this was the kitchen (which may or may not be separated into “Wet” and “Dry” kitchens), the scullery, laundry, toilets, and bathroom.

Returning to the airwell – here is where rain would pour into the house during the rainy season. Rain was symbolic of wealth pouring into the house, since, like money, water was essential for life, and had to be collected. Water was stored in cisterns, or large porcelain jars called “kamcheng”. Some Peranakan houses had wells sunk inside their airwells, hooked up to underground springs. A pump allowed them access to fresh water whenever they wanted it. In houses without running water, this was often how water was collected, accessed, and stored.

Now let’s go upstairs.

Peranakan houses were almost always two or three storeys. The upper floors held spaces like studies, bedrooms, boudoirs, maybe a more private, upstairs sitting-room (usually the frontmost room, with loads of light!) for private activities, as well as space for storage, etc. A typical Peranakan family could be enormous – my grandmother was the eldest of FIVE children, and that was considered pretty middling, when it came to Peranakan family sizes!

The Peranakan family unit, housed in a residence such as this, existed in this way, for the better part of 150-200 years, until the start of the Second World War…

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1930s SOLID SILVER TABLE LIGHTER

 

Cigarette lighters are infinitely collectible. Dunhill, Zippo, Ronson, Parker, and S.T. Dupont, to name but a few, are all big names in the world of antique and vintage cigarette lighters, which dominated the fashion accessories scene during the first half of the 20th century.

Along with all these big names were countless smaller names, makers and dealers, which produced cigarette lighters, both great and small, for every possible consumer. Men, women, for at-home, for out-and-about, for travel, for commemoration, graduation, and celebration.

One of the more common types of lighters were table-lighters.

Table-lighters were larger, heavier cigarette lighters, not designed for portability, but rather, to sit or stand on a coffee-table, a counter, or a desk, and serve as a convenience for guests and visitors who needed a ready flame to light their cigars, cigarettes, pipes, and candles.

Table-lighters varied from the mundane, and even the homemade, all the way to flashy examples in gilt brass, cut glass, and even solid silver.

An Antique Silver Table-Lighter

I picked up this lovely antique example of a silver table-lighter about a month ago, on eBay. I’ve always wanted a table-lighter, especially a silver one, to add to my modest collection of antique lighters. Some lighters, especially those made by famous names like Dunhill, Cartier, and S.T. Dupont, can cost an absolute fortune, but there are also a lot of table-lighters…even quite fancy ones…which can be picked up for a surprisingly small amount of money. And this lighter is the perfect example of that.


Don’t forget that lighters of all kinds used to be extremely common not that long ago, and that lighters of all styles and price-points were manufactured. People like to collect lighters because they are small, portable, easily stored, easily displayed, they have FIIIIIRE!! (always cool, right??) and they’re…usually…a lot cheaper than most other types of collectibles out there.

Of course, this isn’t true of all lighters, or all collectibles, prices fluctuate all the time, but the great thing about the enormous variety is that you can usually – if you’re very patient – find what should probably be quite expensive pieces – for relatively modest outlay.

Such was the case with the lighter in this post.

Where Did the Lighter Come From?

The lighter is made of what’s called Yogya silver, which is the style of silverware manufactured in Indonesia in the early to mid 20th century. Thanks to the Great Depression, traditional Indonesian silversmithing crafts were in danger of dying out, when the Dutch realised that there could be an enormous market for traditional style Indonesian silverware in Europe. All kinds of things – tea-sets, cigarette lighters, trays, plates, platters, bowls, canisters, cigarette-cases, and so much more, were manufactured in Indonesia during this time, between the late 1920s through to after WWII, and shipped to the Netherlands for sale.

It gave the Dutch a new area of merchandise to purchase, and it gave the Indonesians a new market for their products – it was a win-win!

This lighter would’ve been made in Indonesia in the early 1900s, where it was hallmarked, and then either sold locally to people living in Malaya, Singapore, or Indonesia, or else shipped to the Netherlands for sale in Europe.

What is the Lighter Made Of?

The lighter is manufactured from 800 silver – which is a more common silver standard than you might expect, if all you’ve ever seen is sterling. 800 silver was stronger, having a higher concentration of copper, without also sacrificing the beautiful shimmer that silver is capable of producing when polished.

How does the Lighter Work?


The lighter is broadly made of three components: The base, or body, the lighter and reservoir, and finally, the lid or cap on top.

It functions the same as most lighters of the era will do:

The base and the reservoir are filled with cotton wool, and then soaked in lighter fluid. The lighter is slid over the top, and the wick is left to soak up the fluid in the cotton-balls through capillary action.

Then the cap is removed from the top of the lighter, and the flint-wheel is rotated at speed. This generates sparks which, under ideal circumstances, will spark the flint, and ignite the fuel-soaked wick housed inside the silver wick-chimney, which exists to protect the flame and the wick from outside influences (mostly wind).

When you’re done, you simply extinguish the flame by sliding the cap back over the top of the lighter to snuff the flame. You can of course, blow it out, too, but using the cap is a lot easier.

I Want One! Are they Hard to Find?

Yes…and…no.

They’re actually fairly common (remember, they were basically mass-produced in silver, for export), but they were also so common that they weren’t exactly treated very well. I’ve seen loads of them (just in the time when I was searching, I saw at least four or five of them on eBay!!), but they’re often in really rough shape. The snuffer-caps are cracked, the wick-chimneys are broken off, they’re covered in dents… they have all manner of issues!!

By comparison, the one I have is all-intact and all complete and correct. There were one or two minor dents, easily removed, but no other serious damage. If you do decide to go after something like this, and end up buying a damaged one, make sure you know a decent jeweler or silversmith who can repair it for you. Prices for these types of lighters vary enormously, from north of $1,000 to under $200, and everywhere in between.

Closing Remarks

Antique lighters are fun to collect, and there’s an infinite variety of them out there, of all shapes, sizes, operation methods, and price-points. You can find some truly weird and wonderful types, if you have the patience to search, and know how to repair them. Most repairs are pretty easy to make (they’re not complicated machines, for the most part) and you can find lighters almost anywhere, from charity shops to flea-markets, antiques shops to an endless variety from online sellers.



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HISTORY BITS #9 – TIME FOR SALE

 

In the 1700s and 1800s, clocks and pocketwatches were not the most reliable machines in the world. The problem was that there were very few reliable time-standards that existed in those days, against which to correctly adjust your timepieces.

Your watch isn’t telling the right time. But the problem is, you don’t know if the clock in the living room is telling the right time, either! How do you set the right time, when you don’t know what it is?

The only way to be sure of the right time was by celestial observation – tracking the movement of the stars was the only surefire way of knowing that a clock was EXACTLY on time. The problem is, to do this, you need an observatory! And obviously, not everybody can have a full-on observatory in their living room.

In 1836, John Henry Belville, who worked at the famous Royal Observatory at Greenwich, near London, got the idea to “sell” time.

Using his highly-accurate chronometer pocketwatch, Mr. Belville would wind it up, set it to the correct time, as dictated by the Observatory master-clock, and head into London. He would then visit the people who had paid to subscribe to his service, and they could borrow his watch to adjust their own timepieces.

Ruth Belville, the Greenwich Time Lady, at the Royal Observatory, at Greenwich.

The Belvilles continued this service for over 100 years, until 1940!! By that time, the service had been taken over by John’s daughter, Ruth Belville, using the exact same pocketwatch that her father had used.

Every morning, Ruth would check her father’s watch, and head into town.

Ruth finally retired in 1940, and died three years later in 1943, at the age of 89!!

The pocketwatch used by the Belville family was a keywind model manufactured by watchmaker John Arnold in 1794!

Arnold the pocketwatch

Originally crafted with a solid gold case in 18kt, Mr. Belville changed it out to a sterling-silver case, fearing that a solid gold watch-case would make him a target of muggings and robbery as he walked around London.

Upon her retirement as the “Greenwich Time-Lady” in 1940, Ruth donated her father’s antique pocketwatch to London’s Worshipful Company of Clockmakers – the city’s official guild for watchmakers and clockmakers.

The watch – nicknamed “Arnold” after John Arnold, the man who created it, has remained with the Clockmakers’ Company ever since!

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CHASING THE DRAGON: An Antique Brass Opium Lamp

 

For most of the 19th century, and well into the 20th, the majority of Asia, and a good number of countries outside of Asia, were brought low by the scourge of opium! Even today, decorative, touristy opium-pipes can still be purchased in places like China, and Hong Kong, and antique opium paraphernalia can sell for hot bucks on the internet. But a casual look around online would suggest that a good number of people don’t have a solid grasp on what opium is, how it was used, or what was used with it. It’s been so romanticised and mythologised that in the 21st century, most people are largely clueless about this drug, which has had a presence in the human story for the past several hundred years.

In this posting, we’ll be looking at what opium is, where it comes from, what it was used for, how it was smoked, and what kinds of equipment were used in its recreational enjoyment. So lay back, relax, and breathe deeply, now…

What IS Opium?

Opium is an addictive, pain-killing drug, extracted from the bulbs of the poppy flower. Yes, the same poppy flower that gives you those black seeds you put on your bagels and bread-rolls. Slicing open the bulbs of the poppy causes the opium sap to seep out from the plant. Collected, concentrated and dried until it turns into a dark, cohesive, gunky mass, this is raw or ‘crude’ opium – opium which has not been refined, processed or otherwise altered in any way, apart from the natural processes required to extract and collect it.

Opium in this state is collected from the opium poppies, and when you have enough of it, it slowly dries out and turns into a dark-brown hard, sticky, gummy substance, which can be rolled and formed into blocks, pucks or “cakes”, as they used to call them, back in the old days. Opium in this state can be used for all kinds of things, such as mixing it into medicines for pain-relief, it can be refined into morphine or heroin, or it can be smoked.

Opium and China

Opium has had a long association with the Middle-and-Far-East, as well as being one of the main exports to Europe. Its main use was as a medicine, to relieve various types of bodily pains, from muscle-cramps to toothaches, fevers to gout inflammation. But opium in its raw form could also be smoked recreationally – a practice heavily associated with China in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Restrictions on the types of trade that China would permit with the West, largely the UK and the countries of Western Europe, led to them (again, mostly the British) importing large quantities of raw opium into China. The inability of European powers to pay for Chinese exports with silver (the only currency the Chinese government would accept) led to an enormous opium epidemic across the land as literal tons of opium were shipped in through ports like Canton, and later Shanghai and Tientsin.

The opium supply that the British relied on largely came from India and Burma, where it was harvested, processed, and then shipped through the Strait of Malacca to China where the addicted Chinese traded spices, porcelain, silks and other precious commodities for it.

Opium Equipment & Paraphernalia

As time passed, the Chinese started designing and manufacturing more and more elaborate opium-smoking equipment and paraphernalia, out of everything from bone, or brass, to ivory, from paktong, to solid silver. By the late 1800s, a full opium-smoking setup could be extensive, elaborately decorated, and made from some of the finest materials available.

A typical opium-smoking setup included a tray, at least one pipe, the associated pipe-bowls, a bowl-stand, a container to store the opium cakes, a spoon, a ‘needle’ or ‘staff’, and possibly just as important as the opium pipe and bowl – the opium lamp.

How to Smoke Opium?

So, you’ve got all this fancy stuff – pipes, trays, needles, spoons, opium caddies, cutesy little lamps…but how do you use all this stuff? You’ve seen it in TV shows, in movies, you’ve read about it in books, you’ve heard about it in stories from family-members (or at least, I did, when I was a child!), but how do you actually smoke opium? What’s the whole process behind this thing?

Smoking opium was a very involved process. It’s for this reason that all this paraphernalia and equipment was required. Smoking opium wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing like lighting a cigarette, or even filling up a pipe with tobacco. So how do you do it?

Step 1 – Preparing the Opium

Opium is the sap or latex which is extracted from the opium poppy, by slicing the bulb open, and collecting the liquid which seeps out from within. Once enough of the sap is collected, it’s dried in the open air. As the latex dries, it darkens and solidifies. This is raw opium. It’s compressed or molded into blocks or “cakes”, and then sold as-is.

To smoke this stuff, you first need to scrape off a small amount of opium using a pin, needle or “staff”. The amount removed isn’t very much – about the size of a pea. It’s rolled up into a little ball or “pill”, and then placed on a spoon.

Step 2 – Preparing the Opium Lamp

In many ways, the opium lamp is more important than the opium pipe. Without the lamp (or some other heat-source) you simply cannot smoke opium – so no lamp = no high!

You remove the wick-holder from the lamp and fill the reservoir with oil. Then you put the wick-holder (and the wick) back into the lamp and light it. Once the lamp-wick is burning properly, you put the glass lamp-chimney back over the base. The chimney of an opium lamp is low, squat, circular, and dome-shaped, with a small opening at the top.

The point of the lamp is to provide heat, rather than light, so you don’t need to expose a large amount of wick to the air. Instead, only 1-2mm of wick poking up above the wick-holder is really necessary.

Step 3 – “Cooking the Pill”

Once the lamp is lit and the chimney is replaced, you hold the spoon with the opium “pill” over the lamp-chimney. The heat from the flame warms the spoon, and the opium pill begins to melt and liquefy. Using the opium staff, you stir and stretch the mass as it melts, mixing it into a cohesive mass.

Step 4 – Filling the Pipe

After heating and ‘cooking’ the opium pill, it’s rolled back into a ball and then the cooled opium pill is poked into the bowl of the opium pipe. The natural stickiness of the opium will ensure it doesn’t fall out.

Step 5 – Chasing the Dragon

The fifth, and final step, is to actually “smoke” the opium.

In reality, you don’t “smoke” opium in the same way that you’d smoke tobacco, or marijuana or anything else like that, since there isn’t any actual ‘smoke’ involved. To ‘smoke’ a pipe of opium, you held the pipe over the chimney of the opium lamp, and oriented it so that the pipe-bowl is over the chimney-mouth. The heat from the lamp warms the pipe-bowl, which liquefies and boils off the opium sap. The vapour produced from this process is what you “smoke”. It’s inhaled down the pipe and into the smoker. You keep dragging on the pipe until the pill inside the bowl has been completely boiled away, and all the resultant opium vapour has been inhaled.

The Necessity of the Lamp

As you can see from this extensive, five-step process, smoking opium is no walk in the park! In fact, it was impossible to walk, or even move at all, while smoking opium. The need to liquefy and vapourise the opium mass within the pipe-bowl meant that a constant heat-source was required while smoking opium. And since you can’t “light” opium like you do with tobacco, it needed to be an indirect source of heat that was consistent and steady.

This is why in every depiction of opium smoking you’ve probably ever seen, opium smokers would lie down to smoke. It was easier to lay back on a bed or couch, and to recline on your side, holding the pipe outwards and over the lamp, with one hand holding the pipe by the mouth, and the other hand grasping the pipe by the end of the pipe-stem

The Lamp – A Physical Description

I bought the opium lamp featured in this posting from my local flea-market about a week ago, from a dealer in Asian antiques. It’s shape and overall style is very typical of the types of opium lamps used in the 1800s and early 1900s, until the crackdowns on opium began in the middle-and-later 20th century.

The lamp has an engraved and enameled body, made of brass, with hexagonal sides, and a flat base. There’s a decorative, circular, pierced brass grill around the top of the lamp, and a circular hole for the wick-holder. Seated on top is the etched glass lamp-chimney. Since the lamp is designed to provide heat, instead of light, there’s no way to mechanically adjust the wick – it’s simply held in place by a basic, tubular wick-holder. To make the flame larger or smaller, you have to push or twist the wick up or down inside the holder to adjust the height. Oil for the lamp is stored in the brass lamp-base, and as with all lamps, is drawn up through the wick via capillary action, before being burned at the tip which is exposed above the mouth of the wick-holder. Simple!