In the other sector of Chinese society, he argued, ‘the population consists of twentieth-century immigrants and their immediate descendants, who are less acculturated and more strongly oriented toward China’.
Moreover, the locally-rooted Chinese communities themselves vary greatly in the degree to which their culture has been subject to indigenous influence, and in the aspects of that culture which have been influenced. The variations are the outcome of many factors, of which Skinner singled out as particularly important the length of Chinese settlement (especially in relation to the period in which China-born women immigrants began to arrive) and the comparative cultural level of the indigenous population amongst whom they settled. He placed these communities along a continuum according to the degree of indigenous influence in their culture, ranging from the locally-rooted China of Bagan Siap-api (among whom indigenous influence was slight) to the peranakan Chinese of Java (among whom it was most pervasive). Similarly the aspects of the culture, settlement patterns, family structure, religious behavior, language and dress.
Recent social science writing about the Indonesian Chinese has paid particular attention to the distinction between peranakan and totok. The terms themselves have been taken over from usage amongst the Indonesian Chinese themselves (especially in Java). It is likely that the original distinction was a racial one; a totok Chinese was a genuine, pure Chinese, whereas a peranakan was one of mixed ancestry. A secondary meaning followed from the first; since Chinese immigration to Indonesia before the 20th century was almost exclusively by males, it followed that a totok Chinese was China-born, and that any Chinese born in Indonesia was a peranakan. Amongst the locally-rooted Chinese communities in Indonesia, there were some (especially in Java) which developed a distinctive culture which was heavily influenced by the culture of the particular Indonesian society in whose midst they had settled. One hallmark of these communities (which have come to be labeled peranakan) is the use by their members in daily speech of the Indonesian language (formerly Malay) or of some regional Indonesian language (or even, in the present century, of Dutch) rather than one or other various Chinese ‘dialects’ spoken by Chinese immigrants on their arrival (principally Hokkien, Hakka, Cantinese and Teochiu) or, in modern times, the national language, kuo-yu. Thus a third sense in which these terms have been used is a socio-culture one, rather than one based upon race or birthplace. It is this third usage which has dominated social science writing about the Indonesian Chinese in the last two decades.