Category Archives: The Peranakan Straits Chinese

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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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PERANAKAN CINA NICKEL-SILVER KEYHOLDER & CHAIN (ca. 1900)

The traditional outfits of the Peranakan Cina, or the Straits-Born Chinese, of Southeast Asia was often a “sarong” wrap-around skirt, and a “baju”, a shirt or blouse worn over the torso. Neither the sarong, and more often-than-not, not even the baju, ever came with pockets.

These factors in their clothing effected how the Peranakan carried important items with them while dressed. Men or babas who had pockets in their shirts could easily store stuff in them, or in the pockets of their trousers, if they decided to adapt to European styles of dressing – which many did in the late-1800s.

However, Peranakan men, and women, who chose to stick with their traditional attire (which some do, even today) often held onto their important possessions like purses, keys, pocketwatches, etc, by attaching these items to their belts.

Peranakan belts, usually fashioned from sterling silver or similar, or even solid gold, if you could afford it, were worn by both men, and women. Women’s belts were usually larger and more elaborate, and mens’ belts were thinner and far-less ornamented. Whether worn by men or women, these belts were often accessorized with attachments for holding personal possessions. These hooks, clasps, or holders, fastened in a similar way to European chatelaines, were made of the same materials as the belts themselves – sterling silver, or on rare occasions – solid gold – or as in this instance – nickel-silver, and sometimes even gilt brass, for those whose pockets weren’t as deep as some.

Peranakan Keyholders

Made of sterling silver, nickel-silver, or copper/brass, and sometimes gilt for extra decoration, keyholders or keyhooks were one of the more common Peranakan belt-accessories. They typically had a decorated front, with a ring for attaching a chain or keys, a hook at the back, and a thin strip of spring-shaped metal to hold everything in place.

Because Peranakan belts were typically quite flat and thin, it’s easy to slide the hook over the belt, and the weight of the keyholder and chain is enough to stop it from moving around. Any items such as a purse, keys, a pocketwatch, or any other similar accessory, is simply looped through the chain, or clipped to the end of it, and then left to hang freely.

Along with keys, items like chatelaines were also added to belts via hooks and holders similar to these. Such chatelains included items like toothpicks, pocketknives, ear-curettes and other such items, used for grooming or other types of personal maintenance.

Here, we see the keyholder in position. A sarong is wrapped and folded around the waist, and then rolled or tucked, usually 3-4 times, to tighten the folds and hold it in place. A silver Peranakan belt (in this case, comprised of chain-lengths, and a silver coin, to act as a buckle) is wrapped around the waist and secured in place, to hold the sarong in position. The keyholder is then hooked onto the belt and left to hang freely, with its chain attached, or looped through, whatever items are added to it – in this case, a set of keys.

 
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A Pair of Antique “Nyonyaware” Porcelain Bowls (ca. 1900)

There are many aspects of Straits-Chinese or “Peranakan” culture which have justly survived to modern times. The clothing, the footwear, the food, the ‘kueh’, the beautiful historic architecture, the silverware, jewelry, and furniture…but one area which is, perhaps, less-represented, is the type of ceramics used by the Peranakan – a style which became known as “nyonyaware”.

Nyonyaware ceramics were heavily used by the Peranakan or “baba-nyonya” – and these brightly painted, intricately decorated pieces of porcelain were to be found in almost every Peranakan home up and down the Malay Peninsula, in Singapore, and Indonesia. Today, they are rare, beautiful, and highly-collected antiques.

What is ‘Nyonyaware’?

‘Nyonyaware’ is the name given to the brightly-painted, pastel-coloured pieces of porcelain or ceramic-wares which were used by the Baba-Nyonya or Peranakan/Straits-Born Chinese in the 1800s and early 1900s. They were a major part of the culture, and most Peranakan households had at least some of these pieces in their home for use, or decoration.

They’re identified by their colour palette of soft greens, pinks, blues, yellows and occasionally darker colours like vermilion-red or a darker, royal blue, and decorative motifs taken from Chinese symbolism and mythology. Peranakan nyonyaware often had floral motifs on them, in particular – peony-flowers, and mythical Chinese animals, such as foo-dogs, and especially – phoenixes. Peonies and phoenixes were representative of Longevity (the immortal phoenix, king of birds) and Wealth (the bright and vibrant peony-flower), which made them popular decorative elements.

Despite their popular name, ‘nyonyaware’ porcelain was not manufactured in the Straits Settlements or the Dutch East Indies where the Peranakan lived. Instead, it was manufactured in China – a type of hard-paste, glazed porcelain which held little interest to the mainland Chinese. At the time, it was cheap exportware, produced for the foreign market, but the Peranakan-Chinese took a shine to this bright, overly-decorated style of ceramics, which matched their own sense of design and decoration, and started importing vast amounts of them to Southeast Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Pieces of Peranakan Nyonyaware

Peranakan nyonyaware ran the whole gamut of porcelain goods, from bowls to plates, condiment-dishes to serving platters, cups, candlesticks, teapots, tea-trays, spoons, decorative bowls and jars, pots and lidded vessels. From kamcheng to Kat Mau, from sauce-dishes to tea-services, and even stacked ceramic serving-containers (“tingkat mengkuk”, in Malay). Everything from the smallest spoon or saucer, to an entire porcelain dinner-service, with matching plates, bowls, side-dishes and serving-plates, could all be found in the distinctively bright and heavily-decorated Peranakan style.

Given this apparent abundance, one might assume that Peranakan-wares are easy to find, and cheap to collect. However, this is, for the most part, sadly not the case.

Much was destroyed or thrown out or simply lost during the Second World War, or else disposed-of, or sold-off by baba-nyonya families who no-longer had the space (or inclination) to store, or use, their ancestors’ extensive porcelain collections. Other pieces were simply just broken, chipped, damaged and disposed of.

These days, they’re valuable antiques, for display, or occasional-use, only, but 150 years ago, they were seen as nothing more than everyday, daily-use pieces of porcelain, of no more consequence or importance than the cereal bowl you might’ve used to eat breakfast from this morning. They were cheap to import, and cheap to buy, and as such, were not always treated with the greatest care. Only the fanciest, largest, or most delicate wares were housed and handled with any level of respect.

Because of this, nyonyaware is now relatively rare, and difficult to find. Pieces often cost hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, even for something relatively small. People who already own nyonyaware either inherited it from their ancestors (I have other Peranakan friends who have substantial collections of nyonyaware which were attained in this way – if they’re reading this – they know who they are!), or else, have deep, deep, DEEP pockets to purchase them on the Asian antiques market. What were once seen as frivolous, colourful, throwaway objects are now highly prized collectibles.

A Pair of Nyonyaware Bowls

Tracking down pieces of nyonyaware in good condition is not easy, especially for reasonable prices. As mentioned, a lot of them were damaged, lost, stolen, broken, or simply worn out through regular use – remember that they were not considered especially valuable pieces, and were cheap, when new – they were exportware, after all, from China.

That said, you can occasionally find nice pieces for sale at affordable prices, and over the years, I’ve managed to accumulate a small collection.

The most recent pieces I found are the subject of this post.

I found these two dishes online, originally one, and then the other – with both pieces identified by their sellers as Peranakan – and which certainly look like it. They match the accepted colour-palette of nyonyaware, and the usual types of decorations – yellow, pink, green, with peonies and phoenixes (yes, those creatures are phoenixes, not dragons!). They’re also of advanced age, as you can see from the wear and nibbling on the edges and sides.

The angled, octagonal shape, with the base and curved sides really give the bowls extra style and character – another thing which the Peranakan of old, enjoyed. Perankan-style trays platters from the same era, as well as bowls, and plates, often had decorative, curved edges, or elaborate scalloping, to add extra flair to a piece. Same goes for items such as stacking containers, which were also of a similar octagonal or hexagonal design.

While most Peranakan dishes were decorated inside, as well as out, this was not always the case, and examples with simple, single-colour glazes – such as the green shown here – were also common. In fact, green (and also white) were popular interior glaze colours.

The bowls are medium-sized, rectangular (or more specifically, octagonal), about 6.5 x 5.25 inches, and about 3 inches high. Overall, they’re in amazing condition, given their age. There is a bit of paint-loss and minor nibbling chips, which are the result of either manufacture (one bowl has a manufacture-induced crack on the base from the firing process), or just simply from old age and regular use.

Given that they’re about 130 years old, give-or-take, and being porcelain – naturally very fragile – they’ve survived remarkably intact, without anything more than light surface-wear.

Dishes like these were handpainted, a delicate and fiddly process, which resulted in the somewhat folk-arty appearance of the decorations, which was another distinctive feature of Peranakan porcelain. As mentioned, they were never designed to be expensive, and were used as everyday crockery when new, and the level of detail reflects that.

Yellow as a background colour is also a bit more unusual for Peranakan pieces. While it was certainly used, and there are plenty of examples of yellow-ground nyonyaware dishes, this is the first time I’ve owned pieces which features it so prominently. Pink, green, and pale blue tend to be a bit more common and popular.

The fact that they’re a pair, and so wonderfully reunited, is pretty amazing for any number of reasons, but they were clearly made to the same shape, style and decorations, and were obviously meant to go together as a set, which I’m glad to have.

Of course, as hand-drawn, handpainted items, they’ll never match fully-identically, unlike something which was, for example, transfer-printed, but the intent for them to match is certainly there – and adds to their folksy charm.

Modern Nyonyaware

Authentic nyonyaware porcelain dates from the 1800s through to the first half of the 20th century, at which point civil, political and military unrest in China, and Asia in-general, made it impossible to keep producing these pieces to sell them to the Peranakan market in Southeast Asia. Changing social, cultural and economic statuses eventually caused the market to dry up, and for decades, no new nyonyware pieces were being produced.

In the 21st century, with attempted revivals of Peranakan culture, crafts, and customs, nyonyaware is also on the rise again. It’s now possible to purchase reproductions of antique nyonyaware pieces, although these ones can be as (or even more) expensive as their antique counterparts, and can still be tricky to find, but are nonetheless beautiful and fascinating pieces.




 
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SARONG KEBAYA & BAJU CINA – Traditional Peranakan Attire

Since their settlement of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, and the Indonesian Islands in the 1400s, the Straits-Born Chinese, Peranakan, or “Baba-Nyonya” developed a culture and customs which were as unique and as different from those followed by their Mainland-Chinese ancestors as it was possible to be.

Over the passage of centuries, the Peranakan-Chinese developed a way of life, and a type of culture and series of customs which were similar to, but also markedly different from the practices that their ancestors would’ve been familiar with in China back in the 15th century.

These differences were numerous, and ranged from subtle, to significant.

For example, the Peranakan did not prepare the same dishes, speak the same languages, or wear the same clothes as their ancestors who had left China centuries before. They used ingredients which the Chinese were unfamiliar with, to prepare delicacies which the Chinese had no knowledge of, and wore articles of clothing which would’ve been completely alien to the Mainland Chinese. All these changes, alterations and variations, caused by having to adapt to their new homeland, resulted in the Peranakan developing their own unique culture in Southeast Asia. While there were several similarities between the Straits-Chinese, and the Mainland Chinese, the Peranakan also had practices and customs which made them noticeably different from the residents of mainland China.

On top of that, the Peranakan did not speak Mandarin-Chinese. Instead, many would’ve grown up speaking Chinese dialects – either Hokkien, or Cantonese, or a variant of the Malayan language known as “Baba Malay“, a creole-style language using elements of Malay, Hokkien, Cantonese, and also later, English, which had no relation to the languages spoken in China. In the 1800s, the Peranakan also started learning how to speak English properly. This was largely thanks to schools established in the second half of the 19th century, which allowed an increasing number of Peranakans to both speak, read, and write English with greater proficiency.

One of the main ways in which the Peranakan were different from the mainland Chinese was in what they wore.

Before the widespread influence of European fashions in the 1900s, Peranakan women (nyonyas) almost exclusively wore tubular wrap-around skirts called sarong. For the longest time, most Peranakan men (babas) also wore sarong. In the hot, humid, muggy climate of the South Pacific, it was the most practical thing to wear. Easy to put on, easy to take off, easy to wash, and easy to dry. By the 19th century, however, most babas had made the switch to more European styles of dressing (adapted for tropical climates), while nyonyas kept their traditional outfits.

A baba-nyonya wedding photograph, ca. 1910. The baba is dressed in a suit, while his bride wears traditional Peranakan wedding-attire, inspired by the wedding-traditions of their mainland Chinese ancestors from centuries ago.

Sarongs don’t have any fasteners – they’re simply wrapped around your body, then tucked and rolled like a towel. To hold it in place, an optional belt was added beneath the rolled upper hem, around the waist, although this was a practice mostly adopted by the women or ‘nyonyas’ rather than by the men. By the late 1800s, these belts were elaborately fashioned from sterling silver, or 22kt gold (if you could afford it), or silver-plate (if you could not!).

On their feet, nyonyas traditionally wore “kasut manek” – Beaded Slippers. These were outdoor slippers, worn for everyday use. Intricately handmade, one pair of such slippers took weeks, or even months to produce. Men also wore kasut manek, but almost always as house-slippers, and never outside.

Up-top, Peranakan men wore traditional Chinese shirts or jackets known as “shan” or “changshan” (also known as “baju cina” or “Chinese Clothes”).

Originally, women wore a similar garment known as a panjang or “baju panjang” (literally “long blouse” or “long tunic”) – a long-cut, loose-fitting, long-sleeved tunic.

By the early 1900s, the baju panjang was seen as a very Victorian-era holdover – overly formal, and old-fashioned. This was when the much shorter, lighter blouse or “Kebaya” started taking over. By the end of the Edwardian era, it had pretty much replaced the older Baju-Panjang (although some older “bibiks” kept wearing them) in popularity.

A Peranakan family from the early 1900s. Notice the mix of traditional Peranakan, and more modern European styles of clothing

Just like the sarong, the kebaya (and the panjang) did not have any fasteners. No buttons or zippers or clips. To hold them shut, a nyonya used a “kerongsang” (also spelled ‘kerosang’) – three brooches on a chain, fastened at the bust, the torso, and the waist. Again, like the belt which held up the sarong, the kerongsang was almost always made of either high-grade silver or high-karat gold, sometimes studded with diamonds.

Whether they were sarong (for the nyonyas) or shirts or tunics (for the babas), many Peranakan-style clothes were batik-printed. This hot-wax printing and dyeing process was invented centuries ago in Indonesia (specifically Java) and the style became very popular among the Indonesian Peranakans, and spread to those residing further afield in Sumatra, Singapore, and further up the Malay Peninsula.

Today, nyonyas still wear traditional sarong-kebaya outfits during special occasions, and men will wear sarong (usually at home, but not in public) or batik-print shirts to connect with their past and heritage.

 
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Antique Chinese Silver Retractable Ear-Curette & Toothpick Pendant

This is probably one of the most interesting, unusual, useful, and, possibly – off-putting – pieces in my eclectic collection of antiques.

This was something that I scored on the great online flea-market we call eBay (remember folks! I’m on eBay now!). It isn’t something especially common, and I thought it’d make a great little novelty addition to my collection.

This solid silver rectangular pendant, with a ring-top and a pair of toggles on the sides was something that I stumbled across completely by chance on the internet, and once I realised what it was, I decided that I simply had to have it, even if only for the novelty aspect of the whole thing!

Very common in Chinese culture, these ear-curette and toothpick pendants were extremely popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and were commonly used by Chinese women to remove stubborn earwax from their ear-canals, or crud from between their teeth after meals. In an age before consistent, and quality dentistry, anything extra that you could use to keep your teeth clean would’ve been very useful!

This particular pendant has two slide-out implements: A curette (an earwax-spoon), and a toothpick. They were most commonly made of either gold (usually 18kt), or silver (800, 900, or 925 sterling), and were popular as trinkets, gifts and practical little doodads to carry around with you on a day out.

Here, you can see the toothpick. Fully extended, the whole thing is about 3 inches long, from the point of the toothpick to the end of the ringtop. The slide-toggles are shaped like flowers, and the sides of the pendant are also decorated with leaves and flowers.

On the other side is the little hook/spoon-shaped scoop for removing earwax.

Pendants like this one were commonly worn around the neck with a matching chain of either gold, or in this case – solid silver. My grandmother had a pendant like this in solid gold which I remember from my childhood. It was lost in a move and we never saw it again, but it is nice to have this little trinket – a unique piece of Asian silverware, not likely to be found manufactured anywhere else in the world!

Although this is probably the smallest antique I’ve ever bought, at just over 1.5 inches long, I think that it ranks up there as one of the most interesting, because of how unique it is. They aren’t common, and so far as I know, aren’t made in modern times. At least, not in this configuration! I hope you found this short posting enjoyable and got the chance to see something that perhaps, you’ve never seen before, or perhaps, not even thought might exist!

Well, now you do.