The Mystery and Mastery of Tan Yeok Nee (Part 8)
Tan Yeok Nee is best known for his home in Singapore, a famous heritage building now known as The House of Tan Yeok Nee. The previous post told the story of its creation, including referencing the several visits he made to China to facilitate its completion. The post also highlighted, once more, the perplexing mystery as to why so little seems to be known about such a high profile public figure as Tan. On the one hand the mid-1870s to the mid-1890s saw Tan at the peak of his eminence, even celebrity; but on the other hand there appears to be long stretches of time where little information can be found about him in the historical record. All the more surprising then that, apparently out of the blue, it was during this period that he received his honorific title from the Qing court in Peking.
Few in Singapore appear to be aware of Tan’s Qing title despite the inscription above the main entrance to The House of Tan Yeok Nee. Fewer still would be able to guess at the back story as to how such an inscription came to be there. The same inscription appears above the main doorway at his Zi Zheng Di palace in Jinsha, Chao’an. However, by contrast, visitors to Zi Zheng Di are quickly made aware of it by the site’s manager-cum guide, and from the tourist booklet available at the counter. But even in the case of Chao’an there is little substantive information offered to substantiate this nugget of information. It is as if the only thing left from the full chalice of history is the ring around the inside of its rim as evidence that it was indeed once full.
This post tells the story of how the Qing came to establish a presence in Singapore and of one of the ways they chose to engage with the local Chinese community thereafter.
The Qing in Singapore.
Chinese migration to Southeast Asia had been going on for centuries but began to pick up tempo in the 19th century, accelerating in the second half. For some of those Chinese who had left earlier in the century now was the time when they had risen to the peak of their success. Tan was among them: 1875 saw him at the peak of his power in Johor (just before he stepped down from his official responsibilities). 1875 was also the same year that the Empress Dowager Cixi consolidated her control over the Qing court in Peking when she installed her nephew as the Guangxu Emperor. The previous Tongzhi Emperor and his first Empress had seriously displeased Cixi and they had both died under mysterious circumstances within weeks of each other. Cixi, and the co-empress dowager Ci’an, were now the undisputed powers “behind the screen”. The two events are not, of course, directly connected. However, the circumstances that contributed to the removal of the Tongzhi Emperor and the subsequent fortunes of the Qing dynasty were to have unexpected implications for the wealthiest echelons of the Chinese communities in both Singapore and Johor, (as well as for the overseas Chinese throughout the rest of Southeast Asia). Years of political intrigue and chaos had led to economic stagnation and corruption. Historical record documents a catalog of additional themes and incidents, but the net result was that as each day slipped by the Qing’s financial reserves dwindled to lows that could never have been countenanced in the glory days of their dynastic rule just 100 years earlier.
Soon after Tan Yeok Nee’s arrival in Singapore in 1875, a small group of officials representing the Qing government arrived in Singapore. It was only the second time such a delegation had ever set foot there. They arrived from Hong Kong on the British P&O steamer Travancore on the 13 December 1876. Their ultimate destination was the UK, but the couple of days they spent in Singapore made a lasting impression. As well as being welcomed by the British Governor William Jervois, they were also hosted at the home of Hoo Ah Kay, otherwise known as “Whampoa”. According to Song Ong Siang, author of One Hundred Years History of the Chinese in Singapore, Whampoa was one of about ten Chinese men who at the time effectively controlled the Chinese communities and their business interests in Singapore and Johor, a number that also included Tan Yeok Nee. The British authorities in Singapore were keen to avoid exposing the Qing officials to these very wealthy and successful Asian leaders in their midst, while concurrently seeking to maximize their exposure to the grandeur of the British Empire. In this particular endeavor the Governor Jervois failed in his objective.
Two images of the steamship Travancore which brought the Qing delegation to Singapore from Hong Kong in 1876. The boat sank in the Mediteranean Sea of the southern coast of Italy four years later
The Qing officials visiting Singapore were able to observe the enormous success of the overseas Chinese leaders and did so with great interest, ruminating over how they might secure a slice of it for both themselves and their masters in Peking. Furthermore, it is quite likely that the discovery of an independent and wealthy Malay sovereign running a successful state adjacent to Singapore also stood out as a fascinating anomaly, especially since Singapore and Johor had by now become dependent on each other. They may have been intrigued to learn that this sovereign’s most trusted and powerful right-hand man was Chinese too.
While the Qing have earned themselves a reputation of intense introspection, xenophobia and aversion to change the irony is that the last one hundred years or more of their rule saw their subjects engaging with the outside world on a scale hitherto unknown. Hundreds of thousands of men left China to seek their fortune all over the world but mainly to what they called Nanyang – Southeast Asia. While some of them severed all contact, others did eventually return. Many others still remained in contact while overseas, sending back regular remittances to their families.
Traditionally, the Qing government had scorned the overseas Chinese’s disloyalty and highlighted their illegality. Escaping Manchu Qing servitude and abandoning Confucian tradition was not only illegal but cast those who had the temerity to embark on such an adventure as little more than ungrateful vermin or else irrelevant: most of them were from the lower strata of society and so were deemed to be unimportant. They were people who could be simply erased and forgotten. All the more irritating then when decades later these same people, or sometimes their descendants, were flushed with very large stacks of cash. It must have come as some surprise when elite emissaries of the Qing establishment encountered overseas Chinese who flaunted their riches in front of them. They must have felt an infuriating blend of wonder, envy and indignation at the impertinence of these absconders. Not only had they escaped the clutches of suffocating misery, but now they enjoyed a life of wealth, status and worldly knowledge that massively surpassed that of those loyal servants of the ruling dynasty.
The Great Qing Sell-Off: Last Chance Discounts!
The 1876 Qing delegation would have eventually dispatched their report on their Singapore experiences back to the Qing court. One year after their visit the first imperial consulate opened in Singapore. A decade passed and the Qing Governor General of Hunan and Hubei, Chang Chih-tung, suggested to a court official the idea that overseas Qing consulates could be paid for and protected by the overseas Chinese who lived there. Located in the south of China he would have had an abundance of knowledge about both illegally departing locals and the remittances they sent back years later. A notice was subsequently published, on the 24 October 1887 in Singapore’s Chinese language Lat Pau newspaper, that the purchase of Qing titles was now possible. It was the catalyst to the ramping up of the whole scheme. The Qing waited expectantly for a flood of money to wash away their problems.
The veteran Qing official and diplomat Guo Binglong who became the first Qing Consul to Singapore
This was a big change. The practice of selling titles for various offices and ranks started during the reign of the Emperor Daoguang (r. 1820-1850) who managed to raise 6,000,000 taels during his reign as a result. With the decline of the dynasty, the sale of honours increased its momentum in the 19th century. From the Daoguang reign until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912, the practise was continued and intensified, so that over time the titles and ranks for sale got higher and higher. A decree of 1893 withdrew the traditional restrictions and punishments of overseas Chinese and offered protection to those who returned to China. This was the culmination of a slow change in attitude since 1860. The first known grant of a Qing title to a Chinese leader in Singapore came in 1869 when Cheang Hong Lim (who, it will be remembered, was one of Tan Yeok Nee’s co-leaders of the Great Opium Syndicate two years later) was awarded the title of Tao-yean in recognition of his generous donation of defence funds for Fukien (now Fujian) Province. By the late 1880s one estimate put the magnitude of overseas Chinese remittances in the “tens of millions of Spanish dollars” each year. (Between the years 1840 and 1900 the exchange rate between one tael and one Spanish dollar was 1:1.38).
At first, up until about 1889, the sales were disguised as recognition for charitable acts such as disaster relief when natural calamities occurred, many of which occurred in China around this time. After the 1893 decree, however, no attempt was made to conceal the true nature of these transactions and the exchange of titles for money was blatant. Teams of Qing officials were sent to Singapore and Malaya who were little more that traveling salesmen hiding behind a thin veneer of officialdom. It was a veneer, however, that was also much valued by the purchasers of such titles: they of course had to maintain their integrity as charitable donors as well be able to defend the prestige of their award.
Yen Ching-Hwang, an historian of China and the leading authority on the history of overseas Chinese, has dug deeply into the practise of the Qing’s sale of titles and honours, and specifically into whom within the Singapore and Malaya Chinese communities were buying them. He determined that between 1877 and 1912 there were 295 Qing honours holders resident in Singapore and Malaya of which only five were received as a result of successfully passing imperial examinations or based on genuine military merit. Of those purchased he estimates 17% – so, 49 of them – might be considered as wealthy merchants, defined as being able to afford to pay more than 1,000 taels for each title.
For the purchaser the practise was considered an excellent way of glorifying one’s family name and honouring their ancestors. Yen observed that “for prestige a man must use his wealth in one of both of two ways: display it or buy titles with it”, suggesting an important role for good old fashioned vanity. The Qing title feeding frenzy was particularly intense among the less wealthy overseas Chinese merchants. Many amongst their number purchased multiple titles, with some of the less prestigious honours bought for as little as $40 (Spanish). Any sense of bemusement we now might have is torn between shock at the conceit of the purchasers and disbelief at the cynicism of the vendors.
Yen goes on to say “Titles did not merely impress other title-holders. They were respected by the whole overseas community, and of course by the Ch’ing government.” The Qing government, of course, were compelled to respect the honours holders so as to avoid undermining the title’s value. Nevertheless, this did not stop the Qing from being publicly ridiculed, including in the press, for their practises. But it was also true that among many of Tan’s overseas Chinese peers these honours served to recognize and confirm leadership and potential leadership status in their communities.
The scramble for cash, the corruption and the public ridicule would not end well for the Qing. There were other serious contributory factors, but the fate that awaited them just a few decades later is well known. However, the mystery surrounding Tan continues to this day. Was he an enthusiastic participant in all of this rather crude craze of cash for honours, or were there nuances which set him apart from the feeding frenzy? In the next post we will explore this question further, and in doing so try to provide some additional insight into the character, and the life and times, of Tan Yeok Nee.
Comments
Post a Comment