Hong Tou Jin Samsui women of Singapore

The Samsui women were originally from the Samsui District ( 三水 ), Guangzhou, China. From the age of 12, they were subject to hard labour e.g. chopping woods, farming, etc. Due to extreme poverty in their hometown, they came to Singapore in the early twentieth century, in search of construction and industrial jobs.

In Singapore, the majority of them worked in construction sites while others worked in industries such as rubber plantations, tin mines, dock yards, etc.

As the Samsui women were always adorned with their red bandana while working in the construction sites, they came to be known as “Hong Tou Jin” (红头巾), which means red head-scarf.

In its strictest sense, the term “Samsui Hong Tou Jin” (三水红头巾) (Red head-scarf Samsui women) refers specifically to those Samsui women who had performed construction jobs throughout their working lives in Singapore.

The Samsui District is in the Sanshui County of Guangzhou, southern China. Natural disasters (e.g. 1915 Pearl River Delta catastrophic flood) caused the people in this region to be wretchedly poor. Many of them left for Nanyang (Southeast Asia), in search of a living.

From the Sam Sui community, more women than men ventured abroad to earn money to support their families back home. Several thousands of Samsui women came to Singapore in the early twentieth century.

Although most of them left China because of economic reasons, some did so to break away from arranged marriage or ill-treatment by their mother-in-law. Almost all of them were in their teens or early twenties when they arrived in Singapore. Some later married men from their own community while the rest remained single.

Illiterate but robust, they worked as cheap labourers in any industries that required hard labour. However, most of them worked at construction sites as it was easier to find such jobs. Construction jobs were considered to be the toughest kind of job and were shunned by both the locals and the other Chinese migrant workers.

These Samsui women chose to toil from dawn to dusk to make a decent living, rather than going into prostitution, peddling opium, or engaging in other vice trades.

The red square hat worn by the Samsui women differentiated them from other Chinese workers in the construction sites. The hat was made from stiffly starched cloth. Besides providing shade from the sun and keeping their hair clean, the hat was used to hold their cigarettes, matches and money.

The Samsui women were dressed in loose blue-black samfoo (a stiffly starched tunic-and-trouser suit) with an apron.

They made their own sandals by using rubber from used tyres, fastened with straps made from folded and stitched scraps of cloth. Apart from being cheap and durable, the sandals were suitable for walking on the slippery floors at building sites.

Accommodation for the Samsui women was usually on the upper storeys of shophouses in Chinatown. The upper storeys were divided into many rooms, with six to seven Samsui women sharing one.

Kerosene lamps were used to light up the corridors and staircases inside the building but there was no light in the room itself.

Their daily meals were very simple: fermented beancurd, olives, salted egg, tofu, or some pickles to go with the rice. Some even poured coffee into the plain rice to make it easier to consume. Sometimes, they had peanuts, salted turnip, or pig’s blood fried with beansprout for their meals. They cannot even afford salted fish. Their diet was almost without fish and meat.

The Samsui women will work seven days a week without rest if there were jobs available. However, rainy days and slack periods in the construction industry meant no work and no pay for them.

They were paid according to the number of hours they worked at the construction sites. Work normally began at 8.00 am and ended at 6.00 p.m., with a lunch break.

Their job involved the arduous work of conveying building materials to the different storeys on the construction site, as well as other construction-related duties, such as working in muddy pits, digging holes, mixing cement, laying bricks, chipping tiles, clearing rubbles, etc.

A wooden pole with a basket on either end was their tool, which they carried on their shoulders. The two baskets will be filled with bricks, cement, sand, water or other building materials. With the heavy load on their shoulders, they still have to climb up and down the building to distribute them. Falling from the stairs and suffering injuries were frequent accidents. They have to perform such back-breaking tasks for about ten hours per day.

Although their duties were very simple, which can be learned in two days, new comers suffered severe shoulder pain and bruises from the hard physical labour that defied their small physical stature.

During their lunch break, the Samsui women will go in search of pieces of woods to bring home as fuel for cooking.

After work, they returned home to do their cooking. Chit-chatting with other Samsui women was their usual pastime in the evenings. Their only luxury was the smoking of a Chinese tobacco cigarette after lunch and after dinner.

Being in a foreign land, the Samsui women were wary of strangers and mixed only with their own kind, forming tightly united cliques. They had a reputation for being fierce and aggressive, a necessary behaviour to protect themselves from physical or sexual abuse.

Their Cantonese dialect has a heavy accent that made it difficult for another Chinese to understand.

The Samsui women led a frugal life, saving every cent wherever they can, so that more money can be remitted back to their families.

Before dawn, they woke up to prepare their breakfast-cum-lunch before assembling to go to work. Every morning, they walked for one to two hours to their workplace, just to save a few cents on transport fare.

Some Samsui women wore clogs to work. As they have to walk long distance to their workplace, some would walk barefooted while carrying their clogs, so that the clogs can last longer.

There was no festive celebration for them even during the Chinese New Year. Having some roast pork or soup were the best that they can afford with their miserably meagre wages.

As the construction sites will be closed for the first three days of the Chinese New Year, the Samsui women will make use of these rest days to sew new clothing for themselves.

The daily suffering at the construction site was just a physical aspect of the hardships of the Samsui women. Being all alone in a foreign land, they have to endure loneliness and homesickness.

The Samsui community has a song called “sighing about life”. The lyrics of the song are as follows: “Ten who ventured overseas, nine are hard life, even if not hard life, it is because of poverty; arrived in Nanyang for six months, loss of appetite for half a year” (十个过洋,九个苦命,若非苦命,也因家贫, 到了南洋六个月, 不思茶饭半年长). This song truly reflected the emotional pain of the pitiful Samsui Hong Tou Jin.

Regardless of whatever reasons that initially caused the Samsui women to leave their hometown, almost all of them were still bound by the Chinese traditional family ethics. They toiled overseas to earn money either to support their parents and/or siblings, or for the husband’s family. Some of them died without seeing their relatives or homeland again.

From 1980 onwards, the majorities of the Samsui women were in their old age. Some of them returned to their hometown, either reunited with their families or entered old-age homes. For those Samsui women without families, they were entitled to free admission in elderly homes in China.

For the rest who stayed behind in Singapore, they retired with very little savings left for themselves after having supported their families for so many years.

They generally have a long life span. Most of them in their 80s or 90s, some lived alone, some in old-age homes, and some living with their families. Those without families lived in poverty, either depending on social welfare or collecting cardboards and soft drinks cans to sell for a living.

According to the Sports & Tourism Bureau of Sanshui District, the confirmed number of surviving Samsui Hong Tou Jin was ten as at May 2011 – three in Samsui and seven in Singapore, all centenarians.

From 1930s to 1980s, the Samsui women were a significant part of the construction industry in Singapore. As they were very industrious and reliable workers, they were engaged in many mega-building projects.

Their importance and contributions to the construction industry gave rise to a saying in those days “Without Hong Tou Jin, unable to build high-rise buildings” ( 没有红头巾, 高楼建不成).

Some of the major building or road construction projects, in which the Samsui women played an important part, were as follows:

Alexandra Hospital

Asia Building

Capitol Theatre

Housing & Development Board, Bukit Merah (old HQ)

Merdeka Bridge

Meritus Mandarin Hotel

Nanyang University

Singapore Conference Hall

Old Supreme Court

Bukit Timah Road (4^th mile – 9^th mile)

Bukit Merah Road levelling

The many landmark buildings and roads that Samsui Hong Tou Jin helped to construct formed a significant proportion of what Singaporeans see around them today. Calling this group of women the “pioneer builders of Singapore” is well justified.

To commemorate this special group of females, the Singapore Government has erected Hong Tou Jin’s sculptures, issued commemorative stamps, produced “Red Scarf” TV drama series (1986), etc.

The Hong Tou Jin’s sculptures are located at the Urban Redevelopment Authority Centre, the Chinatown Heritage Centre, and Sentosa’s Wax Museum.

Samsui women t-shirts, collectible figures and dolls are available too at the Chinatown Heritage Centre.

The Samsui Hong Tou Jin represents thrift, hard work, resilience and perseverance. They certainly deserve the admiration and respect of the younger generations in Singapore.