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.