Pantun Baba Chan: The Art and Beauty of Traditional Baba Malay Poetry

Pisang mas di-atas peti,
Ada dua biji bekembar;
Cakap menulis kita mesti,
Baru Hidop Bahasa Baba

***

A comb of golden bananas,
Bear two ripening twins;
As we strive to speak and write,
Baba Malay will thrive anew.

Pantun Baba Chan is a collection of 100 original pantun poems written in Baba Malay over a period of 15 years by Baba Chan Eng Thai, a prominent member of Singapore's vibrant Peranakan community. Chan's poetry celebrates the traditions of his community and a nostalgia for the old ways—ranging from favourite foods to rites of passage to commemorations of famous people. The book also includes a hilarious pantun "duel" between the author and G.T. Lye over WhatsApp.

The pantun is an oral poetic form with a rich tradition dating back many centuries. Written in Baba Malay, a Creole tongue merging Malay with Hokkien Chinese, these poems express complex emotions in quatrains with an ABAB rhyming scheme. They were extremely popular in prewar Singapore but are now considered a dying art, although a revival is currently underway.

This book is a labour of love—the first collection of Baba Malay pantuns published since the early 1900s and the first to present parallel English translations of the poems. Baba Chan hopes that putting his words to paper will inspire others to follow suit and preserve the language and traditions of the Peranakan Chinese community.

About the Author

Chan Eng Thai speaks Baba Malay as his mother tongue. Born and raised in Geylang in Singapore, he shares his deep knowledge of Peranakan Chinese culture through programs at the Peranakan Museum, the NUS Baba House and Singapore's Peranakan Association. His favorite kuehs are pulut inti, kueh ku and apom bokkuah. He is a practising lawyer, known by some to dish out a decent nasi ulam. This is his first book.

About the Contributors

G.T. Lye is a Wayang Peranakan actor/playwright and pantun composer/performer. He started his career in Felix Chia's Pileh Menantu, staged at the 1984 Singapore Arts Festival. The play was a landmark in Wayang Peranakan which sparked a revival of Chinese Peranakan theatre in Singapore. He is established as a household name for his performance of the cross-dressing Peranakan matriarch role across stage and screen. In 2020, G.T. was recognized as a Steward of Singapore's Intangible Cultural Heritage by the National Heritage Board for his mastery in the art forms of Wayang Peranakan and Dondang Sayang.

Crop.sg is an independent multidisciplinary design studio based in Singapore, specialising in a broad range of creative work, from campaign strategies and visual identities to printed materials and digital media. Recent publication projects include Becoming Lim Tze Peng for the National Gallery Singapore, Chinese Pagodas on the World Stage for the Asian Civilizations Museum, and Olafur Eliasson: Your Curious Journey for the Singapore Art Museum.