‘We are all updated Peranakans’: Reopened Peranakan Museum gives fresh spins to artefacts

SINGAPORE – Who is a Peranakan? A person of mixed Chinese and Malay heritage? Someone who eats buah keluak and babi pongteh? A Chinese-looking person who is bad at Mandarin?

For a term stitched so firmly into the fabric of Singapore, there seems to be no clear definition. As with many questions about ethnic categories, porous boundaries and shifting definitions make for uncertain territory: What you get often depends on who is being asked.