I was looking at pictures that have been digitized by the French National Library and came across some interesting images of people from Cambodia that were taken by a photographer named A. Salles.
The images are very “ethnographic.” Some are taken of people’s faces, and others are profile shots. [Cambodge. Pursat. N° 22, le Balat Prom (de face).]
The brief descriptions that accompany the photographs also demonstrate an interest in blood. We learn, for instance, that the mother and father of this farmer were both Cambodian. [Cambodge. Pursat. N°27, Um, cultivateur, 43 ans, né à Leach, prov. De Pursat, père et mère cambodgiens.]
The parents of this man and woman were also all Cambodian. [Cambodge. Phnom-Penh. N°16, Tét de Phnom-Penh, père et mère cambodgiens, 19 ans. N°17, Soc de Oudong, père et mère cambodgiens, 20 ans.]
This man, on the other hand, was different. His father was born in Cambodia to Siamese parents and his mother was Cambodian. So this man was half Siamese and half Cambodian, but the term for a mixed-blood person, métis, was not used to describe him.
[Cambodge. Pursat. N° 22, le Balat Prom, 51 ans, père né au Cambodge, prov. de Rolea-païr de père et mère siamois ; mère cambodgienne, née dans [la prov. de] Roléa-païr.]
The term métis was used, however, to label this man. In particular, he is described as being a Tagal-Annamite métis, or what we would today call “Filipino-Vietnamese.” [Cambodge. Phnom-Penh. N°28, métis tagal. annamite.]
The description of this picture provides more detail. This man was a musician at the royal court, and his father was born in Manila and his mother in Saigon. [Cambodge. Phnom-Penh. N°28, métis tagal. Annamite, musicien du Roi, né à Saïgon, 29 ans, père Tagal né à Manille, mère annamite de Saïgon.]
Historically there have been many Cambodians who have intermarried with Chinese. This man’s ancestors fit that category, as his four grandparents were apparently all Sino-Cambodians. [Cambodge. Phnom Penh. N°29, Ket, interpète à la Résidence supérieur, né à Phnom-Penh, 21 ans, les 4 grands-parents métis sino-cambodgiens.]
Then there was this man whose family background was quite complex. His paternal great-grandfather was a Chinese who married a Siamese woman. Their son, a Sino-Siamese métis, married a fellow Sino-Siamese métis woman. Their son then married a Cambodian woman, and this man here was their child.
[Cambodge. Pursat. N°21, le Juge Srey, 38 ans : arrière grand-père paternel chinois, arrière grand-mère paternel simaoise, grand-père paternel métis sino-siamois, grand-mère paternel métisse sino-siamoise, père métisse sino-siamois, mère cambogienne].
And last but not least there was Seang. His father was a Chinese who had come from China. His maternal grandfather was Chinese and his maternal grandmother was Sino-Cambodian. Therefore (can you do the math?), he was 3/4 Chinese and 1/4 Cambodian.
[Cambodge. Pursat. N°23, Seang, bay du résident Hertrich, 16 ans, né à Takman (Phnom-Penh), père chinois de Chine, grd-père maternel chinois, grd-mère maternelle métisse sino-cambodgienne, mère 3/4 chinois, 1/4 cambodgienne.]
And when it came to his hair style, he was 100% Chinese. [Cambodge. Pursat. N°23, Seang, (profil).]
It is very interesting to see the details that were recorded about these peoples. Why was this important to record? What difference did it make? Why did blood matter?
I’m not sure when these photographs were taken, but given that Seang’s hair is in a queue, my guess would be that these photographs date from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. They were taken at a time when the idea of race was important, and when blood therefore did matter.
The concept of race emphasized difference and purity. That is why it was important to know the details about people’s blood. And this emphasis on difference and purity led to pretty tragic consequences in the twentieth century, particularly in places like Cambodia.
Now the concept of race has been discredited (at least in the academic world). So I can’t imagine someone taking pictures and recording such information. If someone did, it would be to point out the opposite concept, namely that it has been the norm throughout history for people to mix rather than to remain separate.
Indeed, these pictures demonstrate the forces of “globalization,” and the fact that when it comes to sleeping together, blood is a matter that people have never cared much about. And that’s a good thing.
[All of these photographs can be found by doing an image search for “Cambodge” at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.]
This Post Has 4 Comments
No matter what ethnicity or race, we all bleed red!
Latin America had a castas peonage system with the Spanish at top and the African slaves and indigenous at the bottom. Intermarriage was encouraged because it would justify their colonization of the Americas. I heard the reasoning behind this thinking was, “How can a people ignore one part of their heritage if its already part of their blood?”
The Chinese tended be part of the business class in SEA, in some cases equivalent of Jews in Europe. How did mixed Sino-SEA separate their identities? I have personally known of many Viet, Lao, Khmer, Thai, Pinoy, Burmese, etc. with Chinese ancestors, most of their families came from the business merchant class in their respective countries.
This is really interesting. As a Cambodian of Chinese descent, I do feel that it gets even more complicated because of the pervasiveness of the notion of purity and the sense of containment that it has in defining ethnic and cultural boundaries. Growing up, my parents only spoke Khmer, and even my father’s family strongly identified themselves as Khmer even if they were ethnically more Chinese. The calculus behind ethnic “origin” lends to the idea that if you could somehow quantify the amount of intermixing occurring, you can neatly delineate people into categories. In my experience, it’s not realistic and it’s not fruitful.
I think the issue of purity and ethnicity also ties in with class. This is especially true for the Chinese, who predominate among certain occupations that gave and continues to give them monetary influence. When you have a certain segment of the population highly overrepresented in the most important sectors of society, it’s easy to see why there is discontent among others. But the discontent too, like you’ve already noticed, seems to have more of a ideologically basis rather than a material one because educated Khmers of Chinese descent were instrumental in orchestrating the Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields. Yet, as they carried out their political agenda and purification process through violence, they too targeted the Chinese who were not Khmer identifying. They targeted Khmers who were too “westernized.” Purity became something abstract and negatively defined: you were pure if you are not an enemy. Blood purity was less important than ideological “purity.”
Although I’m undeniably of Chinese descent, it’s hard for me to see myself as Chinese because I don’t orientate myself towards a Chinese identity. Though I may celebrate Chinese New Year, it carries for me no tremendous cultural implications. It seemed like blood mattered very little in how I was socialized to see myself. Yet, I’ve been asked by many, especially people of East Asian (Chinese and Korean specifically) if I am “pure” or “completely” Cambodian. I never know how to answer this, because intermixing and coexistence among ethnic groups have always been part of Cambodia. Southeast Asia is tremendously diverse. Even those who proclaim a pure identity can’t deny that ethnic groups have absorbed and been absorbed by various other ethnic groups. Although it’s clear that the idea of ethnic purity is more abstract than real, I’m compelled to identify myself only as Khmer by the very fact that I was culturally socialized to do so. Maybe this is in the end what ethnicity is.
Thanks for commenting. I like your final two sentences a lot. That pretty much says it all.
@ Leak, China is extremely diverse as well there is no such thing as “pure” Han. Southern Chinese immigrants to SEA have ancestries from ethnic minorities as well.