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Message:: [QUOTE="Shangas, post: 11318281, member: 360"]Absolutely!! The difficulty with assigning anything as being made/worn/used/owned by the Peranakan, is understanding WHAT and WHO the Peranakan are. The word "Peranakan" on its own, just means "Locally Born" or "Natively Born". It's an Indo-Malay word. There are Peranakan in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. These four countries are considered the Peranakan homeland. The vast, VAST majority of Peranakan are what's known as "Peranakan Cina" ("Chee-nah") - literally the "Locally-Born Chinese". Literally half my family is all Peranakan Cina, and myself by extension. Most will be either Buddhist, or Christian. Smaller Peranakan groups are the Peranakan Chetti (Peranakans of Indian, rather than Chinese, descent, who are Hindu). The Peranakan Jawi (who are also of Indian descent, but Muslim). Then there's also the Peranakan Kristang - who are of Eurasian-Portuguese descent, who are mostly Christians, and depending on how far you stretch the definition, there's also the Peranakan Yehudi, which is supposed to be the Jewish Peranakans, but this last group is TIIIINY to the state of virtual non-existence in the modern world. To be considered "Peranakan", your ancestors must've been a foreign people (Chinese, Indian, Portuguese, usually), whose males married into the local female population, and whose children and descendants (the "locally-born") adopted a hybrid culture from both their migrant fathers, and their locally-born native mothers. So for example, the Peranakan Cina (the largest group by far), will almost all have Chinese surnames, but will speak Malay, or Indonesian (the languages of their mothers), while also speaking Cantonese or Hokkien (the dialects of their fathers). But hardly ANY of them will speak modern Mandarin. That's because Mandarin is a NORTHERN Chinese language, whereas Peranakan ancestors all came from the south of China (Hong Kong, Guandong, Fujian, etc). A lot of the culinary and dining customs, the religious and cultural observances/customs, etc, will all have come from there, as well. The jewelry styles, likewise, change a lot, depending on where you're from. The belts, the most common example, change everywhere. There's Javanese style, Singapore/Malay style, Siamese style, etc, up and down the peninsula. But they're almost always made of silver (or silver-plate), or if you're really rich, gold (22kt, usually), and were worn mostly by the women. Sometimes men wore them, but that was less common.[/QUOTE]

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