The Fuzhou People in Sarawak: Chinese Network Community in Sibu

Chinese immigrants arrival in 1900 at Sibu

Sibu is an old and well-known place for its Chinese decedents throughout Southeast Asia. This city is also known as New Fuzhou because of its majority Chinese people are initially came from Fuzhou, Fujian province in Mainland China around 100 years ago. Fujian people are divided to ten groups in China. There are Minhou, Minqing,. Changle, Fuqing, Pingtan, LianJiang, Luoyuan, Yongtai and two groups in Ningde - Gutian and Pingnan. In Sibu there are basically most of the Fuzhou people gathered from Minqing and Gutian.

According to Gordon Redding in his book "The Spirit of Chinese Capitalism", there are two main pillars for a formation of Chinese overseas in the world. First it refers to the family education and background of Chinese tradition that he called it Paternalism. Second he argues that insecurity is one of the characteristics of Chinese overseas. The insecurity refers to some difficulties or hurdles encountered by Chinese overseas when there were migrated to a new places. The have barriers in foreign languages, adapting to the environment, job opportunities, foreign cultures beliefs and so on. On top of the insecurity element that encountered by Chinese people in foreign countries, they are getting more united by forming various kinds of networks.

In general, there are three types of networks among Chines people in Southeast Asia that were recognized by scholars today. The network of kinship, region or state and sector or job are those three types of networks widely accepted by scholars. Moreover I attempt to argue that another type of network also significant to the formation of Chinese network society in Southeast Asia. The network of religion in Sibu most particularly unique to explain the Chinese network community in Sibu. Sibu has more Christian people because of its history in this land a century ago. The man like Wong Nai Siong was a Christian and he brought many Fuzhou people from China to Malaysia and Singapore. In his entire life, Wong did contribute to the migration of Fuzhou people to Malaysia especially to East Malaysia at the city called Sibu.

Sibu, Sarawak

Therefore this article shows four kinds of network among Fuzhou people in Sibu which includes kinship, regional or state, sector or job and religion. Four kinds of network will be supported by four Chinese clans or associations to research the characteristics of the Chinese community in Sibu. For the network of kinship, Chiang Hsia Huang Clan association of Sibu will be taken as the sample of research to figure out its characteristics in managing kinship networking among Chinese people. It follows by Fuzhou association will be chose to explain the network of regional or state among Chinese people in Sibu. For the network of sector or job, Sibu Shipyard Association will be our sample of research. Lastly I will argue the network of religion by adapting the Methodist Church as my sample of research.

The Natural Behavior of Water in Entrepreneurship

The Natural Behavior of Water and Entrepreneurship (PDF File)

In today's entrepreneurship, the competitive market leads to problems to survive and a sustainable business. Competitive environment exists because everything in the world changed, while it seems hard for men to breakthrough it and adapting the changeable world. The changes in market, economy, education, culture, policy, politics and even sciences and technology occurred rapidly. What should we do to survive and achieve sustainable growth? Are we need to follow the flow of the market or adjust our plan to adapt the changes? Is there anything that we can do to remain our business performance? Yes. An ancient Chinese philosopher - LaoZi (B.C 600 - 470) teaches us a valuable idea in his book - " Dao De Jing" about the principle of the Way (Dao). 

The meaning of Dao basically can be understood as the wisdom or unchangeable truth. No matter how fast the world changed, we still can survive better if we can master the unchangeable truth. In this article, I will share one of the LaoZi's philosophy - "Principle of a Great Survivor" in entrepreneurship by using the metaphor of water. In other words, to be a great survivor, we have to firmly understand the unchangeable truth (behave like water) towards adapting changeable surroundings. Hence I conclude the behaviors of water by break it into 5 elements - WATER. 1) Way or Wisdom 2) Accessible 3) Tender and Tension 4) Efficiency and Effective and 5) Relative. These five elements will be discussed by focusing on the ideal behavior of an entrepreneur and discovering marketing strategy, products, environment and other subjects. 


1) Way and Wisdom
Water moves and flows naturally in its own route and path randomly. It flows from higher place to lover, fills the bottom part and flows through little cracks or crevices among the rocks. Initially a successful entrepreneur should be basically "love the wisdom" and pursuing knowledge all of his life. Knowledge or wisdom mentioned here refers to the latest information in the market. Furthermore the basic knowledge and personal capability and significantly important. According to experts, traditional Jewish attach great importance to four kinds of basic knowledge needed in entrepreneurship; financial, market, law and investment. To be successful in a competitive market, entrepreneur has to act and move creatively like water to fulfill the needs in the market, more particularly the markets which are still not yet reached.

For instance a new entrant just entering a new market and found that a "Gigantic" firm is monopolizing the entire market. When facing this scenario, most of the firms will choose whether leave the market and find other opportunity, or just go ahead and compete with the "Giant" face-to-face. Which one is better? According to LaoZi in the metaphor of water, the problem can be solved easier by imagine how water flows and moves apparently. Water flows naturally towards a market, nor compete with the "Gigantic" firm, but conquers around it. This is a manifestation of innovative because by surrounds the "Gigantic" firm, new opportunities come and new entrant can still survive by providing substitute or complementary goods or services.

2. Accessiblity
Today the importance of water is sometimes ignored by man because the usage of water seems to be too usual, common, frequent, familiar and regular, but in fact it moistures the land and benefits the living things. Today the word "accessible" is often used to focus on people with disabilities or special needs. For instance accessible vehicle, toilet, customer services and market. An entrepreneur should behave with honesty and love in business. According to LaoZi, "The sage places himself after the others, ignore his desire... he is complete because he does not serve himself." In other words, it is important for an entrepreneur to be honored and respected with his works and contribution to the society. Nevertheless entrepreneur should place himself in a position to serve the customer instead of served by the customer or market.

About 30 years ago, Bill Gates has built-up the world's user-friendly product - Microsoft which has successfully became the most common and familiar products to the computer world today. Nevertheless Gates recently tells the public that he will give away 90% of his wealth back to the society. By referring to LaoZi, Gates and Microsoft has not only succeed in business from the perspective of accessibility but also attained the competeness of the habit to serve and benefits others.

3. Tender and Tension
Water is naturally soft, formless and shapeless. It can be easily shaped by mold, frame or any natural surrounding. Therefore entrepreneur should perform flexibility, elastically, and sensitively in this competitive market. LaoZi believes that "the softest thing in the world dashes against and overcomes the hardest... Softness and tenderness are attributes of life and hardness and stiffness attributes of death." To face the market with full of hardest things and forces all around, and entrepreneur should behave flexibly and remain the softness to succeed. Metaphor about violent wind and grass reminds us that no matter how strong or huge a tree is, the possibility to be uprooted by violent wind is higher than grass. Furthermore a Chinese proverb quotes "Constant dropping water can wear the stone." We should never ever underestimate the power of softness in man too. The Holy Bible also teaches us that "among faith, hope and love, the greatest of theses is love." The softness of love is more powerful than any other tools in general.

To learn its application in entrepreneurship, let us see an example. A customer who stopped weeks ago requests to change her cloth that she found some damages on it. Many companies particularly Chinese (in Mainland China) will reject this kind of request without any consideration. But the softness and tension of water help us to figure out the best way of solution. Today we can still find those in Jewish style of management. When a Jewish manage faces this kind of problem, he will accept all of the customer's requests sincerely and ask for the customer's personal details for further reference. The customer will be black-listed in his record. If that customer comes again the next time and claims about same matter, he will totally be ignored or some managers will even reject the customer to come again.

4. Efficiency and Effectivenes
Water is a multipurpose source in our life. It is used for drinking water, shower, washing, gardening and so on. From the purposes mentioned, water is not only generally important to the living things, but also is the most suitable and efficient substances to each daily activity. For instance the water for shower cannot be replaced by orange juices, or water for washing dishes also cannot be substituted by water for gardening. This section not only focus to a person or a company's performance, but also the product or service that they provide. Efficient or effective performance basically comes from an outstanding focus or concentration. Both Pareto efficiency (80:20) and Jewish golden Universal Law (78:22) explain the natural rule of efficiency and effectiveness. Many marketing or managerial experts use this theory on pursuing successful result. Basically man can perform 80% by putting 20% effort on his priority, personal talent, future goal and main desire. LaoZi mentioned that"When the great man learns the Way, he follows it with diligence." In other words it is important for a man to know his own talents and understand the best way to achieve it before acting diligently.

Today Jewish people always claimed to be wise and wealthy. They are successful in many different fields including business, economy, education, science and others. Scholars found that the fundamental reason of their success is because they are able to place themselves in the right positions or fields. Men have different gifts and talents but outstanding performance can only be unleashed when we are in the right positions.

5. Relative
Although water sometimes exists separately in different size, location or form but when it meets each other, a strong connection unified them to joined together strongly. Entrepreneur also should build up a strong relationship with others. In the new age of globalization, the terms like social networking and business networking getting more and more familiar to us all.

The achievements of overseas Chinese entrepreneurs around the world can appropriately explains this part. Many scholars conclude that the success of overseas Chinese business is because of their great and strong international networks. According to economists, with a number of less than 60 million overseas Chinese, they form a far-flung diaspora that extends from San Francisco to Singapore. With estimated wealth of more than US$1.5 trillion, they are actually form the third largest economy in the world. Furthermore ethnic Chinese occupy around 80% of corporate assets in Indonesia, 40-50% in Malaysia, 90% of manufacturing and 50% of services sector in Thailand. In fact not only overseas Chinese business, but Jewish also having the same method to succeed. Someone says that there are three important books in Jewish family - Torah, Talmud and the contact book. In fact Jews attach great importance to their contacts with people or friends (especially Jews) around them. By having this contacts, they can easily obtain supports and helps anytime from their community. In other words, the relationship amongst individuals to form a strong team is so important to the entrepreneurship today.

For conclusion, i believe that by understanding the nature of water, everyone will be able to transform the entire difficulty to opportunity, crisis to challenge, adversity to advancement. The principle of a great survivor - "The wisdom of water" is not only suitable for entrepreneur or businessmen, but it is also applicable to anyone in any field. From the given examples above, Jewish entrepreneurs' achievements used the most in supporting my points. I think Jewish business can be our model and key for further reference towards a successful business.

"The flows of water reveals the attainment of a great survivor;
The principles of the universe returns mankind to its origin."