Rebuilding the Ancestral Village: Singaporeans in China

Abstract

This work is about the relationship between one group of Singapore Chinese and their ancestral village in Fujian in China. It explores the various reasons why the Singapore Chinese continue to want to maintain ties with their ancestral village and how they go about reproducing Chinese culture (in the form of ancestor worship and religion) in the village milieu in China. It further explores the reasons why the Singapore Chinese feel morally obliged to assist their ancestral village in village reconstruction (providing financial contributions to infrastructure development such as the building of roads, bridges, schools and hospitals) and to help with small scale industrial and retail activities.