Rickshaw Coolie: A People's History of Singapore 1880-1940

by James Francis Warren

Between 1880 and 1930 colonial Singapore attracted tens of thousands of Chinese immigrant laborers, brought to serve its rapidly growing economy. This book chronicles the vast movement of coolies between China and the Nanyang, and their efforts to survive in colonial Singapore. Focusing in on one particular occupation, of rickshaw coolie, this study unveils the devastating poverty of the Chinese sojourner in the colonial city, the disjunctions between colonial order and the reality of life on the streets. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including Coroner's records overlooked for many years, and making use of the technique of collective biography, this book brings to life the texture of experience, the ironies and - often - the despair of the laborers of urban Singapore. In the years since its original publication in 1986, Rickshaw Coolie has become an inspiration to those seeking to come to grips with Singapore's past.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

393 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2003

Reviews

[Ed]

This book was not a light read but I'm glad I got down to it. He first covers the macro political trajectories of the Rickshaw pullers - trends around growth and decline, costs of buying a Rickshaw and renting it out, policies regulating them and their successes and failures, and political organising and strikes. The second half is a closer look at the lives and deaths of the Rickshaw killers based on old colonial records. He talks about the ebb and flow of their days, their recreation, their love lives, and the many ways that they died (road accidents, stabbings, poor sanitation, suicide, etc). It was amazing to have a rich look into life as it was in the early 20th century, and to see how in many ways things are the same. (I'm thinking about the attempt to regulate rickshaws and how the debates are v similar to taxis and ubers, as well as the more depressing parallel of how awfully migrant labour live and how their ill-treatment build capital for a govt that actively extracts rent from them, or else saves money through negligence)

[Neil H]

Growing up knowing that this is my history, it's decidedly exciting to read on what I have only seen portrayed on TV when I was young.

Right off the bat, the author acknowledges the difficulty in constructing the narrative of the rickshaw men from disparate fragments of the colonial reports on the owners, pullers details. How much it costs to rent, buy from a business perspective, how it moves to the challenges encountered in providing a living wage. The afflictions of a mobile labor who are served no rights, protection and immunity from the colonial masters, environment, and the poverty of family connections makes the experiences of the rickshaw pullers an emotional read. It becomes harder to read about the tribulations faced when the odds are so stacked against them and knowing that their lives are barely a hundred years ago. Knowing and walking the streets and byways they have laid their sweat, blood and tears I have not just a newfound respect but an enduring emotional space.