ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how collective memories serve as an important power and moral capital that constantly nags the Singapore Anxi Chinese and tugs at their conscience. For the Singapore Chinese, the collective memories of their ancestral homes are selective ones. The behaviour of the village kin was often seen as uncivil and barbaric, and there was little that the returnees saw that they liked. A new era—the Open Door Era initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978—marked a new watershed in Chinese history, and a new beginning in the history of qiaoxiang relations. After 20 to 30 or more years of not meeting their siblings, parents or other immediate Singapore kin, there was great expectation when Anxi villagers heard news of a home visit of siblings, parents and other blood relatives. Since the 1978 reform, an increasing number of Anxi villagers have visited Singapore; of villager-informants who visited, over 30 per cent of them did so from the mid-1980s onwards.
