Until recently, the study of the history of the Chinese diaspora in colonial British Malaya has largely been subsumed within broader discussions related to early Chinese overseas engagement and migration within the wider contexts of Asian maritime trade and global commerce. Traditionally, research on the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia has predominantly approached this complex phenomenon from an economic standpoint. Much emphasis has been placed on the role of Chinese overseas migrants as merchants, labourers, and middlemen within the region’s rapidly expanding colonial trading networks. While this economic focus is understandable—given the remarkable ingenuity demonstrated by Chinese migrants in developing intricate economic dynamics and transnational networks throughout colonial Southeast Asia—it has tended to limit deeper explorations into the foundational socio-cultural and historical dimensions of Chinese migration in the region. In contrast, recent scholarship has moved beyond these traditional economic narratives by employing critical historiography to challenge reductive Sinocentric, nationalistic, and patriarchal framings of diasporic Chineseness. These contemporary accounts often depict migration as a masculine, pioneering enterprise, exemplified in colonial Singapore’s foundational myths. Yet, they tend to obscure the diverse historical interplay between migratory Chinese subjects and colonial governance within the colonial Southeast Asian context—a complex and dynamic discourse that reframed Chinese societies before the twentieth century.