The Mynah Podcast

Aren't We All A Little Nyonya? with Faris Joraimi

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Welcome to episode 2 of the Mynah Podcast, brought to you by Mynah Magazine! Editors Ruby and Darren are joined by a long-time contributor to the magazine, Faris Joraimi, to discuss the Malay world. We talk about the different approaches to this concept over the last three centuries and how understanding diversity and migration within the Malay world sheds light on race, and particularly the place of Peranakans, in Singapore today.

Faris is currently a PhD student in History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. His essays on Singaporean history and the Malay world more broadly have been published in a range of outlets, including Mynah, where he holds the record for the most bylines of any of our contributors. His latest piece for us was issue 4’s “Eating the Malay World: Singapore’s Peranakan Amnesia”.


To learn more about Faris and for more context about this episode, check out our newsletter at mynahmag.substack.com


Some notes on the podcast and additional resources:

  • Speaking of the obsession with Peranakan culture in Singaporean media, a Little Nyonya spinoff will be released in March 2025. It's called The Little Nyonya II: Emerald Hill, a nod to an area long associated with Peranakans as depicted in Stella Kon's play, Emily of Emerald Hill (1983).
  • For a history of the term “King's Chinese” or “Queen's Chinese” as a description of Peranakans, refer to“Not the Emperor’s, not the King’s, but the Straits Chinese” by Ann Ang.
    • Ruby misquoted Lee Kuan Yew as calling Mohamed Jufrie bin Mahmood an “enlightened Malay” during the proceedings of the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Bill in 1988. He actually called him a “very modern Malay”. 
    • If you're interested in Faris's work, check out Raffles Renounced: Towards a Merdeka History, which he co-edited.


      • More information on the sources and scholarship discussed in the episode can be found in the Mynah newsletter.

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