While older pieces of the Nyonya beadwork provide the material connection to the historical past, contemporary pieces encourage the new self-identification of the Perankan identity.
This paper is a
continuous development of articulating the material culture of the Peranakan
beadwork through its production and process as contemporary community leisure. It
reveals the ongoing cycle of its cultural transformation that is relentlessly fluid and
hybrid in its aestheticism, expressions and personification. The beading workshop
provides a broader framework of its evolving material culture to a wider audience in
the contemporary society.