Hat Painting - Thats One Tough Lady by Belinda Low

That's One Tough Lady is a painting by Belinda Low which was uploaded on July 29th, 2013.

That's One Tough Lady

FEATURED in the following FAA groups:... more

by Belinda Low

Canvas Print

Framed Print

Art Print

Poster

Metal Print

Acrylic Print

Wood Print

Greeting Card

Original - Not For Sale

Price

Not Specified

Dimensions

36.000 x 66.000 inches

This piece is not for sale. Please feel free to contact the artist directly regarding this or other pieces.

Click here to contact the artist.

Title

That's One Tough Lady

Artist

Belinda Low

Medium

Painting - Emulsion On Mural

Description

FEATURED in the following FAA groups:
Beauty in Art - NO Photography
Exclusively Drawings and Paintings
Awesome Asia
FAA Portrait Gallery
Asian Perspectives
Human Face
Excellent Self-Taught Artists.
This is another addition to the wall. Unfortunately this was vandalised and face was erased. So if you happened to walk by the tunnel, you will see a different face repainted by someone else in the mural group. But the good thing is it's 'immortalised' right here in FAA! I am glad to be able to paint her on another wall a few years later n Chinatown. Check out my work 'Welcome to Our World'.

The term Samsui women broadly refers to a group of Chinese immigrants who came to Singapore between the 1920s and the 1940s in search of construction and industrial jobs. Their hard work contributed to the country's development, both as a colony and as a nation.
About 200,000 Samsui women were believed to have come from China between 1934 and 1938, and this continued until 1949 when emigration from China was declared illegal.
The Samsui women came from Sanshui of Guangdong (Canton) Province in China, in addition to Shunde and Dongguan. Most Samsui women are Cantonese (90%) but there are Hakka (10%) as well.
In Chinese, these women are known to wear a red bandana -- the trademark red cloth hats that they wore.
Coming to Singapore as cheap labourers, Samsui women worked mainly in the construction industry and other industries that required hard labour. They also worked as domestic servants. They had a reputation of rejecting jobs involving drug (particularly opium) peddling, prostitution, or other vices, even if that meant they sometimes had to live in poverty. They made a lot of contribution to early development mostly by building houses and some of them worked at hawker centres mending the stalls there too.
Most Samsui women took vows never to marry, although there have been known exceptions. They lived in cramped conditions with other Samsui women, helping out each other and forming tightly united cliques.
Samsui women also remained in touch with their relatives back home in China, communicating with them frequently through letters. Occasionally, they would send money to them.
There are less than a hundred Samsui women left in Singapore today, all of them in their 80s and 90s. Organizations exist to raise awareness of these women's achievements and contributions to Singapore's development, and their current state. Some of these organizations also strive to provide free travel for the women back to China to visit their relatives before they die. One such organization was the Sam Shui Wai Kuan Association that took care of the needs of the Samsui Women.