Dear Baba-Nyonya: The Further into Cross-Culture in Seaport Cities

When sea-roads opened in the age of exploration, the Earth became a place explored not by hard land and earth, but the sea with Asian maritime cities positioned on its routes. Merchants from land began taking maritime trade routes and maritime cities became places of exchange between civilizations and convergence of cultures.

Seasonal winds facilitated trade across sea routes, expediting the exchange of goods, such as black pepper and other spices, silks, and pottery. New marine routes were explored and consolidated throughout history, driven by hope and yearning for the unexplored world, the stories and paths connecting like a grand epic of human civilization told across the oceans. The movement and trade of goods entailed the exchange and convergence of cultures between civilizations, not only between the East and the West, but also within Asia. Many distinct cultures within Asia also came into mutual contact and mingled.

Trade cities were common throughout history, but maritime cities flourished particularly as places of cultural convergence between the indigenous and foreign. These cities continue to resonate with that rich history, the traces of forgotten kingdoms intact and the city itself a museum.

Possibly yet a strange concept to us, Baba-Nyonya is a symbol of mixed culture in maritime cities that we want to introduce through this exhibition. Baba-Nyonya is a word meaning the descendants of Chinese migrant men and native Malaysian women, where the men are Baba and women are Nyonya. As is clear from its very etymology, Baba-Nyonya represents novel cross-cultural results, as seen in the trade between India, China, and European countries.

This year, Asia Culture Center’s core theme was Asian Urban Culture. This exhibition selected the maritime cities of Kochi in India, Malacca in Malaysia, and Quanzhou in China to present the cultural narratives in maritime urban spaces, across the past and the present. Each of their unique and distinct cross-cultural identity is aesthetically expressed as creative contents based on convergence.

Through this narrative, the exhibition asks the audience whether our appearance living in a multicultural era may be the one of Baba-Nyonya. We hope the visitors to Dear Baba-Nyonya: The Further into Cross-Culture in Seaport Cities exhibition are led to explore and appreciate cultural diversity and harmonious coexistence.