Penarakan museum trip

yesterday, Ms lim has brought us to the penarakan museum. it was an enriching experience. the trip was organised for us to have some background knowledge of our literature text, Emily of Emerald hill. The text is about the life of a woman from a pitiful background, how she became a member of a well to do family, the Gan household. she became the matriach of the family, but ended up losing all her family members.
Emily was a nyonya, a female penarakan. and the text was set in Singapore, and the Gans were a penarakan family. thus is was essential for us to visit the museum. i learnt that penarakan means mixed blood or mixed race, referring to the penarakans being the offspring of foreign traders and local women.
i learnt that the penarakan follows chinese traditions, like thinking of the color red to be auspicious. but they also adopt the malay culture, like using hands to eat. the penarakan culture is very rich. i have watched the TV serial, little nyonya. this gave me minimal background information of penarakans, but the museum trip was an eye opener.
in conclusion, the trip was really useful for me to understand the text, and i hope there will be more of such trips