Rickshaw Coolie: A People's History of Singapore, 1880-1940Between 1880 and 1930 colonial Singapore attracted tens of thousands of Chinese immigrant laborers, brought to serve its rapidly growing economy. This book chronicles the vast movement of coolies between China and the Nanyang, and their efforts to survive in colonial Singapore. Focusing in on one particular occupation, of rickshaw coolie, this study unveils the devastating poverty of the Chinese sojourner in the colonial city, the disjunctions between colonial order and the reality of life on the streets. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including Coroner's records overlooked for many years, and making use of the technique of collective biography, this book brings to life the texture of experience, the ironies and - often - the despair of the laborers of urban Singapore. In the years since its original publication in 1986, Rickshaw Coolie has become an inspiration to those seeking to come to grips with Singapore's past. |
Contents
The Puller and the Public | 151 |
A Sense of Time and Place | 185 |
A Crisis of Habitability | 194 |
Marriage and the Elemental Family | 216 |
Leisure and the Four Evils | 236 |
Morbidity and the Environment | 258 |
A Murderous Vocation | 282 |
The Spiral of Failure | 305 |
Appendices | 328 |
| 376 | |
| 383 | |
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Common terms and phrases
accident Angullia Road Appendix Archives and Oral Bencoolen Street BMOC Bridge Road brothels Cantonese cents chandu Chew China Chinese Society Cholera Choon colonial Coroner Coroner's cubicle death deceased disease Duxton Road European fares hawker Hengwah hire Hockchew Hockchia Hokkien Hooper Hsiang Tzu Ibid Inquest Johore Kar Eng Keng labour licence Ling Ah lived lodging-houses lorry Malay Malaya months motor car municipal night number of rickshaws Ong Oh Ophir Road opium opium smoker Oral History Department passengers peons police pull a rickshaw Queen Street Registrar rent rickshaw coolies Rickshaw Department rickshaw owner rickshaw pullers rickshawmen rikisha Rochore Canal Road Rochore Road SCII Seng shafts side Singapore Free Press Singapore's singkeh SMAR JD social South Bridge Road SSOC stabbed strike suicide Swee Tanjong Pagar Teng Ah Teochiu towkay traffic trams University Press vehicles Victoria Street