The Peranakan Chinese Home - (Tuttle Specials) by Ronald G Knapp (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Discover the rarified Peranakan (native-born Chinese of Southeast Asia) aesthetics that are today highly sought-after for their beauty: distinctive furniture and ceramics, textiles and jewelry, and many other art objects. Peranakan Chinese Home displays these extraordinary objects, visible markers of a highly developed culture.

The broad range of beautiful objects which the Peranakan Chinese created and enjoyed in their daily lives is astounding. Each chapter in The Peranakan Chinese Home focuses on a different area and presents objects used or found in those spaces. Each piece is described in the context of their utility as household objects, as part of periodic celebrations to mark the Chinese New Year and other holidays, or in important life passage rituals relating to ancestor worship, birth, marriage, mourning and burial. The meaning of the rich symbolic and ornamental motifs found on the objects is discussed in detail, and key differences are highlighted between Peranakan objects and similar ones found in China.

A fascinating mix of Chinese, European and Southeast Asian influences, the distinctly Peranakan identity of a people and their culture is beautifully portrayed through objects and archival photographs in this lovely and exotic book.

About the Author

Ronald G. Knapp has been carrying out research on cultural and historical geography in China's countryside since 1965. Currently SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York, New Paltz, he is the author, contributing author, or editor of twenty books, including the award-winning Chinese Houses: The Architectural Heritage of a Nation and Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia: The Eclectic Architecture of Sojourners and Settlers.

A. Chester Ong, born in the Philippines and currently based in Hong Kong, has photographed widely throughout Asia. His works appear in magazines, exhibitions, and books, including China Modern, Chinese Houses, China Living and Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia.