Remembering the Samsui Women tells the story of women from the Samsui area of Guangdong, China, who migrated to Singapore during a period of economic and natural calamity, leaving their families behind. In their new country, many found work in the construction industry, while others worked in households or factories where they were called hong tou jin, translated literally as “red-head-scarf,” after the headgear that protected them from the sun. Contributing to current debates in the fields of social memory and migration studies, this is the first book to examine how the Samsui women remember their own migratory experiences and how they, in turn, are remembered as pioneering figures in both Singapore and China.

Kelvin E.Y. Low's profile page

Kelvin E.Y. Low is an assistant professor of sociology at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Scents and Scent-sibilities: Smell and Everyday Life Experiences (2009) and co-editor of Everyday Life in Asia: Social Perspectives on the Senses (2010).

This book is a fascinating study of the Samsui women who migrated in the early twentieth century from Sanshui in China to what is today Singapore to work, among other occupations, as unskilled laborers in the construction industry … the wealth of materials consulted – from textbooks to films to oral histories – is impressive, making the book a salient resource for those interested in both Asian migrations and the politics of social memory-making.

International Migration Review

This book is laudable research on how issues and discourses have been revolving around Samsui women … [it] is empirically rich and theoretically intriguing. It is worth recommending to those who are interested in gendered migration and social memory in national history.

Southeast Asian Studies