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Southeast Asia (known to the Chinese as Nanyang – the South Seas) is the region of Chinese emigration with the longest diasporic history and the largest diaspora population.

During the Song Dynasty (AD 960 – 1279), China’s commerce started to enter foreign lands through artisans (including miners and technicians), bringing the practice of China’s domestic commerce, handicrafts and mining to places such as the Philippines, Java and West Borneo, among others. This was the first wave of Chinese emigration to Southeast Asia. Thereafter, Chinese emigration to Southeast Asia included businessmen, labourers, the descendants of earlier emigrants, and re-emigrants. Originally composed largely of short-term fortune-seekers, the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora gradually came to call Southeast Asia home, forming the largest group of native Chinese overseas.

For centuries, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia have founded various clan organisations, schools, newspapers and journals, leaving thousands of documents of historical interest. These valuable documents are primary sources for research on the economic and social history of these immigrants, their political activities, and the transmission of their religious beliefs.

They comprise collections of important documents such as weekly magazines, internal newsletters of schools and social organisations, history books, familial genealogies and pictures.