Why not Dragon??

Firstly remember when the Chinese traders came out and started to settle down in China there was still the Ming dynasty and later the Ching. During that time dragons were of exclusive use of the Emperor.

Why Phoenix??

In a book - not to sure of title now it says the the Phoenix is the emblem of the Southern China and as the Peranakans forefathers were of Hokkien origin the phoenix was use.

It was also suggested that since the items i.e porcelain, furniture were all household items the female nonya choose the bird to represent the womanfolk.

Has anybody else have other reasons??

Hi,

Not too sure if my explanation would be correct or not?

Misconception 1:  People always think that the phoenix-peony design is a symbol of matriachical society among the peranakan community.  But this is not exactly true.  True enough, most Nonyas of the past were claimed to be independent, domineering over their children and household matters.  But this did not render the ladies being the head over everything.  Furthermore, it does not mean dragons are totally absent from our culture.  In fact, there is still dragons found when there are weddings.  Whereby the dragons symbolises the bridegroom.  Therefore the designs of phoenix-peony must be of another significance.

Possible True View:  From my elderly friends, they claimed that peranakan porcelain is a vital set item a nonya must have as part of her dowry.  According to them, it could be during the Ming dynasty, porcelain designs of the phoenix-peony could be custom-made for Hang Li Poh when she got married over to Sultan Mansur Shah.  Otherwise, why is it a custom for the Nonya's parents to prepare these grandeur porcelain. 

Hope this information might be of use to you.

Rgds

Jyun

Hi Straitsforte,

I am partially agreeable to want you mention.  But this only applied to the later Peranakan generations.  Don't you think so?  Its just that over the period, no one seems to care or the kids are not exposed to the things that we are experiencing in our younger days.  These are caused by modernisation which is inevitable.

I do not deny that before the fully enameled nonyaware came into fashion, the white ones with no buddhist 8 symbols were already around and peranakan families were using it as part of their home usage.  Those porcelain were likely exported from Swatow to the Straits like the normal blue-white Qing-ware.

We must always remember, our roots were originally Chinese.  That's why our traditions were always following the old Chinese ways like the weddings and the praying to the Chinese gods and stuff.  So I still strongly believed the older Peranakan must have chosen this design for our porcelain for a special meaning.  Like recently, I have spoken with a 90-year old Nonya at an old folk's home.  She told me in her younger days her sister's wedding were conducted at their home.  Not at her sister's husband's home.  Coz her husband was from China and has no families here, its usual case the wedding is conducted at the bride's home.  Since nonyaware with the phoenix-peony designs were essential during weddings, I believed most probably, in the past it must be great honor for the wedding for be conducted at the bride's home.  So most probably the porcelain design is dominantly the phoenix-peony design.  Coz phoenix which represents the yin (female) could refer to the bride, while the peony is a symbol of spring is also a syymbol of wealth and beauty.

In fact not many people know that Chinese phoenix also comes in two opposite sexes, the male and female.鳳 is female and 凰 is male.<br>

<p>This is what I thought. It is quite true in what Jyun said it could becoz of princess Hang-li-poh married to the Sultan of Malacca. In those days, China was a powerful nation and Malacca though was a small insignificant empire its strategic location had made her an important hub between the east and the west. Of course this was later taken over by Singapore. The Sultan needed protection from the Siamese thread from China. Thus, China took the opportunity, using the guanxi-marriage relationship to establish themselves in this part of the world as this was the usual practice of the Chinese culture to establish foreign or business relationship.</p><p>Rational: dragon is the symbol for male and pheonix for female. It represent the emperor and the empress and their offspring. That's right, the porcelain designs of the phoenix-peony could be custom-made for Princess Hang Li Poh for her marriage. This specific design was a sign of "dominant" and it became the symbol of the Peranakan (Chinese campur Malay) to display the power and importance of the female position in the marriage. Hence, it was called Nyonyaware and not Babaware. It can be seen even in the design of furniture and lighting. It was found even the legendary warriors of the Malacca sultanate Hang Tuah, Jebat and Kasturi were found to be of Chinese origin. I believe they were the Princess body guards given by the emperor for her and the Sultan's protectation. In Penang, unlike Malacca and Singapore, we seldom used the word peranakan we used nyonya - nyonya lang!</p><p>I could be wrong.</p><p>Rgds,</p><p>JLee</p><p><a href="http://barnett-house.blogspot.com/">http://barnett-house.blogspot.com/</a></p>