Time.com, 2 Apr 2009, Neel Chowdhury
The irony is both sad and delicious. The Little Nyonya, a Singaporean television serial about a Chinese Peranakan family that concluded in the middle of January, was told entirely in Mandarin, a language whose creeping bid for dominance in Singapore has lately eclipsed Baba Malay — the pidgin Malay at the heart of Peranakan culture. But in a sly act of revenge, the immensely popular serial triggered a boomlet in all things Peranakan — like the batik fabrics Peranakan women used to stitch their sarong kebayas, worn most famously by Singapore Airlines' stewardesses, or the lavender-and-purple-colored porcelain bowls from which they doled out their quivering, jelly-like sweets and spicy laksa soups.
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