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Transnational Lives
in Global Cities
A Multi-Sited Study of Chinese
Singaporean Migrants

CAROLINE PLÜSS
Transnational Lives in Global Cities
 Caroline Plüss

Transnational Lives
in Global Cities
A Multi-Sited Study of Chinese Singaporean
Migrants
Caroline Plüss
University of Liverpool
Singapore, Singapore

ISBN 978-3-319-96330-3 ISBN 978-3-319-96331-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96331-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018950052

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
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Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Jeremy
 Preface

This book is a rare multi-sited study—conducted between 2008 and

2010 in Hong Kong, London, New York, and in Singapore—of how
109 Chinese Singaporean transnational migrants, who lived and were
researched in one these four global cities, experienced their transnational
lives. This study answers the questions if, how and why living in one of
the four global citied differently impinged on the transnational lives of
the Chinese Singaporeans. These questions are rarely addressed in the
scholarship on transnational migrants or on global cities. The Chinese
Singaporeans studied were well-educated, middle-class, and often high-
ly-skilled. The majority of the participants—67 Chinese Singaporeans—
were repeat migrants: they are migrants who have lived in more than
two different societies, possibly in such societies multiple times, and are a
growing but understudied population.
It is my experience with having lived in four different societies—in
Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and now in Singapore—
which sparked my interest in a multi-sited research on people whose
lives stretch across national boundaries. It is often by moving to places
with different characteristics that one more keenly becomes aware
of one’s past and present surroundings. Having myself moved from
Hong Kong to live and work in Singapore, prompted my interest in
Chinese Singaporeans. Since I already knew Hong Kong, London, and
New York, and realized that these cities are among the places to which
Singaporeans may move to in order to (temporarily) live abroad, I
decided to conduct a multi-sited study in all four global cites. This was

vii
viii    Preface

to understand if, how, and why transnational lives in global cities may
be differently affected by the characteristics of these cities. Also, I was
intrigued by the question of how one relates again to a society of origin
when one returns to live in this society, after having had lived elsewhere,
and when one has a transnational live. The Chinese Singaporeans stud-
ied were nearly all were Singaporean citizens and had family members in
Singapore, they all had lived in Singapore, and most of the participants
had grown up in Singapore. They had crossed national boundaries to live
elsewhere for work, education, and family, more rarely for friendships
and lifestyle, and also for combinations of these reasons.

Singapore Caroline Plüss

 Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Academic Research Fund Tier 1

(RG99/07) of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and
by the School of Law and Social Justice of the University of Liverpool.
My thanks are to the Sociology undergraduate students of Nanyang
Technological University who helped me with transcribing the interview
recordings, and to my Research Associates Ms. Sithi Hawa, Ms. Vivian
Woon, and Mr. Alex Ang for helping with coding these large-scale quali-
tative data, assisting with writing-up coded data and reviewing literature,
in addition conducting interviews in Hong Kong and Singapore. Special
thanks are to my editors at Palgrave Macmillan for their support. My
sincerest gratitude is to all the participants in this research, who made
the time in their often very busy schedules to contribute to generate this
knowledge by sharing their lives, and for providing me with much hos-
pitality. Thanks are due to Sage, and Springer, for enabling me to use
parts of a journal article, and a book chapter, which presented prelimi-
nary findings of this research.

ix
 Contents

1 Accounting for Transnational Lives 1

1.1 Introduction 1
1.1.1 Aims and Rationale of this Study 1
1.1.2 The Chinese Singaporean Transnational Migrants 7
1.2 Analytical Framework 11
1.3 Transnational Socialities 15
1.3.1 Forms Transnationality 15
1.3.2 Cosmopolitan Socialities 16
1.3.3 Hybrid Socialities 17
1.3.4 Incongruous Socialities 19
1.3.5 Homogenous Socialities 21
1.4 Chapters 23
References 24

2 (Dis)Embeddedness in Transnational Contexts 31

2.1 Transnational Contexts 31
2.1.1 Education and Friendships/Lifestyle Contexts 32
2.1.2 Work and Friendships/Lifestyle Contexts 34
2.1.3 Family and Friendships/Lifestyle Contexts 36
2.2 Global Cities 38
2.2.1 Researching Global Cities 38
2.2.2 Singapore 39

xi
xii    Contents

2.2.3 Hong Kong 42

2.2.4 London 45
2.2.5 New York 47
2.3 Methods 49
2.3.1 Transnational Biographies 49
2.3.2 Multi-Sited Research 52
2.3.3 Sampling 53
References 54

3 Being Chinese in a Chinese Global City: Hong Kong 63

3.1 The Chinese Singaporeans in Hong Kong 63
3.2 Being Chinese and Different at Work 71
3.3 Homogenous Transnational Families in Hong Kong 79
3.4 Ethnicity and Transnational Friendships/Lifestyles 83
3.5 Relating to Singapore 87
References 90

4 In the East and in the West: London 95

4.1 The London Participants 95
4.2 Maneuvering Porous Education Contexts 98
4.3 Cosmopolitanism When Working in a Cosmopolitan City? 112
4.4 Negotiating Individualism in Transnational Families 118
4.5 East–West Friendships/Lifestyles 124
References 131

5 Incongruous Transnational Lives: New York 135

5.1 The Sample 135
5.2 Ruptures at American Universities 138
5.3 Disjunctures in Work Contexts in New York City 149
5.4 Incongruous Transnational Families 158
5.5 Clashing Transnational Friendships/Lifestyles 163
References 171

6 Gendered Transnationalism: Singapore 175

6.1 The Male and Female Participants 175
6.2 Gender in Transnational Education and Friendships/
Lifestyle Contexts 179
 Contents    xiii

6.3 Gender, Hybridity, and Inequality in Transnational

Work Contexts 204
6.4 Hybridity in Women’s Definitions of the Family 213
6.5 Women’s Embeddedness in Transnational
Friendships/Lifestyle Contexts 221
References 234

7 Conclusions 237
7.1 Transnational Education Contexts 240
7.1.1 International Education in London 241
7.1.2 Incongruities at American Universities 244
7.1.3 Gendered Education Socialities of the Returned
Chinese Singaporeans 246
7.2 Working in Global Cities 250
7.2.1 High Diversity in Hong Kong 250
7.2.2 Cultural Differences in London 254
7.2.3 Inequalities in New York 256
7.2.4 Gender and Work Contexts in Singapore 258
7.3 The Transnational Family 261
7.3.1 Homogenous Families in Hong Kong 261
7.3.2 East–West Families in London 263
7.3.3 Ambiguous Family Relations in New York 264
7.3.4 Gendered Family Socialities in Singapore 266
7.4 Transnational Friendships/Lifestyles 268
7.4.1 Homogenous Friendships and Incongruous
Lifestyles in Hong Kong 268
7.4.2 Incongruous or Hybrid Friendships/Lifestyles in
London 270
7.4.3 Variety in Friendships/Lifestyles in New York 272
7.4.4 Gender and Variety in Transnational
Friendships/Lifestyle Contexts in Singapore 273
7.5 Living in Global Cities: Does It Matter Where I Am? 276
7.5.1 Translational Lives in Global Cities 276
7.5.2 Hybrid Transnational Education Contexts in
London 280
7.5.3 Incongruous Transnational Work Contexts in
London 281
7.5.4 Homogenous Transnational Families in Hong
Kong 282
xiv    Contents

7.5.5
Incongruous Transnational Friendships/Lifestyle
Contexts 284
7.5.6 Intersections Among Different Transnational
Contexts 286
7.6 The Importance of Location 289
References 291

Index 297
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Transnational migration trajectories of the Hong Kong

participants 66
Table 4.1 Transnational migration trajectories of the London
participants 99
Table 5.1 Transnational migration trajectories of the New York
participants 139
Table 6.1 Transnational migration trajectories of the Chinese
Singaporean women in Singapore 180
Table 6.2 Transnational migration trajectories of the Chinese
Singaporean men in Singapore 186
Table 7.1 Transnational contexts in the four global cities,
and being repeat migrants 278
Table 7.2 Transnational contexts in the four global cities 285

xv
 CHAPTER 1

Accounting for Transnational Lives

1.1  Introduction

1.1.1   Aims and Rationale of this Study

This book is a unique, multi-sited, and qualitative study of the
transnational lives of 109 Chinese Singaporean migrants. These Chinese
Singaporeans were researched within-depth interviews (Patton 2002;
Chase 2005) when they lived in one of four global cities, in the East or
in the West: Hong Kong, London, New York, or back in Singapore.1
Twenty-five participants were studied in Hong Kong in spring 2009, 24
participants in London in summer 2008, 22 participants in New York
in summer 2009, and 38 participants were researched in Singapore
between 2009 and 2010. The latter are Chinese Singaporeans who (tem-
porarily) returned to live in Singapore after having lived elsewhere. This
book addresses the questions if, how, and why living in one of these four
global cities—at the time of research—differently affected the transna-
tional lives of the Chinese Singaporeans. The 109 participants shared
race, had lived in Singapore, had strong links with Singapore, and nearly

1 Two participants researched in London lived in other places in the United Kingdom

and were interviewed when they visited London. They are included in this study because
their experiences provide knowledge on British society. One more participant who lived in
London was researched when she visited Singapore because there had been no time for an
interview in London. One participant researched in Singapore lived both in Singapore and
in Continental Europe.

© The Author(s) 2018 1

C. Plüss, Transnational Lives in Global Cities,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96331-0_1
2 C. PLÜSS

always were Singaporean citizens. They were middle- or upper-mid-

dle-class, well-educated, often had multiple migration experiences, and
if they worked, as the large majority did, they worked in mid- or high-
skilled work.
The questions if, how, and why the transnational lives of a group of
migrants who shared many characteristics, and who lived in one of four
global cities were differently influenced by the characteristics of these cit-
ies, have not yet been answered in the scholarship of migrants (Kusek
2015; Moore 2016) or of global cities (Sassen 2000; Beaverstock et al.
2002). To provide such an answer is important, and very timely: more
and more people in the world cross national boundaries to live else-
where. In 2013 (United Nations’ Department of Economics and Social
Affairs 2013), 232 million people, or 3.2% of the world’s population,
moved to live in another society. Global cities (Sassen 2000; Beaverstock
and Hall 2012) attract disproportionate numbers of migrants. The schol-
arship of global cities (Beaverstock et al. 2002) often explains their char-
acteristics in terms of these cities’ shared role in a globalizing economy:
the ability to operate global networks of exchange. This emphasis results
in that the characteristics of global cities (Kennedy 2004; Ley 2004)
often are viewed as rather being ‘uniformly’ global, and as similarly
impinging on the lives of transnational migrants who live in these cities,
especially if these migrants share social status. Recent research (Moore
2016) shows that transnational migrants who live in different global cit-
ies understand the characteristics of these cities differently. There also
is only little research (Nagel 2005; Kusek 2015) on differences in how
migrants who live in a global city perceive the characteristics of this city.
Furthermore, there exists no known single-authored, and multi-sited
research on the experiences of one group of migrants who lived in one
of four global cities, and who were researched in that respective city. This
book contributes toward filling these significant gaps in the scholarship
of transnational migrants and global cities. Furthermore, this study also
contributes to the scholarship of migrants because high-skilled migration
(Koser and Salt 1997) has accelerated faster than low-skilled migration,
but is less often researched.
I decided to conduct this research on Chinese Singaporean transna-
tional migrants who lived in Hong Kong, London, New York, or back
in Singapore because these cities are places to which Singaporeans often
 1 ACCOUNTING FOR TRANSNATIONAL LIVES 3

(temporarily) move or return.2 The selection of these cities also stems

from that I have lived in two of them (Hong Kong and Singapore) and
visited the remaining two (London and New York) for extended peri-
ods. This provides me with contextual knowledge (Davies 2008), which
is especially important for a qualitative and multi-sited study. Multi-sited
research (Falzon 2009) seeks to understand the nuances and complexi-
ties of a phenomenon studied by studying this phenomenon in different
locations. Multi-sited research in four global cities needs a high number
of research participants: one hundred and nine Chinese Singaporeans.
This number provides this book with a large qualitative database.
To understand if there were impacts of living in either Hong Kong,
London, New York, or back in Singapore on the transnational lives
of the 109 Chinese Singaporeans, this book answers the following
questions:

1. Did the 109 Chinese Singaporeans think that their global-city lives
were similar, and similarly impinged on their transnational lives?
2. Did the 109 Chinese Singaporeans think that life in one of the four
global cities had city-specific characteristics, and therefore, differ-
ently influenced their transnational lives?
3. Did the Chinese Singaporeans feel that living in one of these four
cities did not much influence their transnational lives because
other characteristics in these lives were more important to explain
them?

To answer these questions in a fine-grained and encompassing manner,

this book develops and applies a new analytical framework, which this
chapter explains.
It is well known that what characterizes the transnational lives of
migrants (Basch et al. 1994) is that these lives span across the boundaries
of different societies, or nations, in which these migrants live and lived.
These cross-border connections are cultural, social, economic, and/or
political. Transnationality (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004) means that
when migrants think about their life in one society, they also consider

2 I gained this knowledge in a pilot study (Plüss 2009) that I conducted for this large-

scale, and multi-sited research. The participants in the pilot study and in this book are dif-
ferent persons.
4 C. PLÜSS

their life elsewhere, and vice versa. The result is that migrants experi-
ence transnational simultaneity, i.e., they make time-space compressions.
These time-space compressions are the migrants’ simultaneous relating
to characteristics of different places, societies, or regions. Time-space
compressions also is an important concept in the scholarship of globali-
zation (Held 2004). Although the scholarship on transnational migrants
is bourgeoning (Portes et al. 2007; Khagram and Levitt 2008), this
research mostly pertains to migrants who lived in a small number of soci-
eties, typically two. Studies of transnational migrants who have lived in
more than two societies are much rarer (D’Andrea 2007; Ossman 2013).
Furthermore, research on the lives of transnational migrants mostly stud-
ies these lives in a small number of transnational contexts, such as the
migrants’ transnational work contexts (Castells 2000; Beaverstock 2005),
transnational education contexts (Bai 2008; Kim 2012), transnational
family contexts (Cooke 2007; Ho and Bedford 2008), or transnational
lifestyle contexts (D’Andrea 2007). When migrants’ experiences in sev-
eral transnational contexts are studied, such research usually focuses on
two such contexts: transnational education and work contexts (Waters
2007; Pritchard 2011), transnational education and family contexts
(Nukaga 2013; Rutten and Verstappen 2014), transnational work and
family contexts (Nowicka 2006; Salaff and Greve 2013), or transnational
work and friendships/lifestyle contexts (Kennedy 2004; Beaverstock
2011).
This scholarship certainly offers much insight into the lives of trans-
national migrants, but researching only one or two transnational con-
texts of migrants does not fully account for their transnational lives:
these lives include more transnational contexts, and intersection among
these contexts. This book, with its new analytical framework, stud-
ies four transnational contexts (as they apply), and intersections among
them. The contexts studied are the Chinese Singaporean’s transna-
tional contexts of education, work, family, and/or friendships/life-
style.3 Furthermore, this research considers that the majority of the 109

3 The military context of male Singaporeans, who are required to serve this mandatory

service in Singapore (see Chapter 2), is not included as a transnational context in this
study: this service only pertains to Singapore. When male participants found that their mil-
itary experiences were relevant for their transnational lives, these experiences are explained
as they pertained others of the men’s transnational contexts, which are mostly those of
education and/or work.
 1 ACCOUNTING FOR TRANSNATIONAL LIVES 5

Chinese Singaporeans—67 participants—were repeat migrants (Kau and

Sirmans 1976; Borjas 2015): migrants who have lived in more than two
different societies, and may have lived in some of these societies more
than once.4 Migrants, including highly-skilled migrants (Sklair 2001;
Nowicka 2006), do not necessarily wish to, or are unable to settle per-
manently in a society to which they have moved: the migrants often help
to fill temporary skill shortages, and then need to move to live and work
elsewhere. Furthermore, repeat migrants (Takenaka 2015) are a growing
segment of the world’s population, and are globally under-researched.
Providing knowledge on repeat migrants adds to the importance and
timeliness of this book.
This study also provides new insight into global city-life. As already
alluded to, global cities are frequently researched in terms of their shared
economic role: as command hubs of global exchanges in a globalizing
economy (Beaverstock et al. 2002). As a result, the characteristics of
global cities often are explained in similar ways. For instance, pertain-
ing to highly-skilled migrants, research on global cities (Beaverstock and
Hall 2012) stresses that these cities seek to attract highly-skilled people
from different parts of the world, to have the expertise to operate net-
works of global exchange, and that these cities attract these profession-
als by offering attractive work opportunities, good prospects for career
advancement, easy access to information and expertise, and an interna-
tional and multicultural milieu. For instance, Ley (2004, 160) finds that
global cities have gentrified inner-city areas inhabited by ‘highly-edu-
cated dwellers’ who often like to live with other such people from differ-
ent societies, and that these areas promote a ‘cosmopolitan’ lifestyle with
access to the international media, ethnic restaurants, and a ‘cosmopoli-
tan’ architecture which draws on an ‘international design menu.’ These
emphases result in that the lives of highly-skilled migrants in global cit-
ies frequently are explained as being influenced by these shared glob-
al-city characteristics (Kennedy 2004; Beaverstock 2005, 2011). On the
other hand, global cities (Moore 2016) have differences in their cultures,

4 Repeat migrants are also called ‘serial migrants’ (Ossman 2013) or ‘multiple migrants’

(Takenaka 2015), and include ‘circular migrants’ (Onwumechili et al. 2003) and migrants
who are called ‘global nomads’ (D’Andrea 2007). ‘Circular migrants’ (Onwumechili et al.
2003) are migrants who return several times to live in one society, after having lived else-
where, and ‘global nomads’ (D’Andrea 2007) are people who temporarily reside in several
societies.
6 C. PLÜSS

histories, and locations. Living in a global city also is found to be very

differently experienced by different social classes (Kusek 2015) and/or
ethnicities (Nagel 2005).
To answer the questions if, how, and why living in Hong Kong,
London, New York, or back in Singapore impinged differently on
how the 109 Chinese Singaporeans experienced their transnational
lives, when they lived and were researched in one of these four global
cities, the data of this book are the Chinese Singaporeans’ entire
transnational biographies. These biographies are migrants’ subjective
and retrospective accounts of their experiences with living in different
places and societies, and interacting with different people and collec-
tivities in them. This study generated the 109 transnational biogra-
phies with qualitative, in-depth, and face-to-face interviews in the four
cities (see Chapter 2). It is important to have data on entire trans-
national biographies to understand the present lives of transnational
migrants: past experiences in other societies influence how transna-
tional migrants relate to the society in which they live (Castles 2004),
and present experiences impinge upon how migrants recast their past
(Phoenix 2008). The aim of this book is not to find out ‘how things
really were’ in the Chinese Singaporeans’ entire transnational lives.
For this, a longitudinal study is appropriate. Rather, this book seeks
to explain the Chinese Singaporeans’ ‘present’ transnational lives—
when they lived in one of the four global cities—to understand if,
how, and why living in these cities differently impinged on how the
Chinese Singaporeans understood their ‘present’ transnational lives.
To do so, this research also considers how the Chinese Singaporeans
assessed how their ‘present’ transnational lives were influenced by
experiences that they had earlier when they had lived elsewhere, in
one or several other societies. Working with data of entire transna-
tional biographies adds to the importance and timeliness of this book:
such data are globally very sparse (Kahanec and Zimmerman 2010).
Conducting a multi-sited research in four global cities, researching
migrants’ four transnational contexts of interaction (and intersections
of these contexts), studying multiple migration experiences, and tak-
ing into account the Chinese Singaporeans’ entire transnational biog-
raphies means that this book incorporates the suggestion (Guarnizo
and Smith 1998) that to understand transnational lives, it is important
to explain how and why several characteristics pertaining to these lives
influence them.
 1 ACCOUNTING FOR TRANSNATIONAL LIVES 7

1.1.2   The Chinese Singaporean Transnational Migrants

The 109 Chinese Singaporeans were racially Chinese, had significant
links with Singapore, and had lived in Singapore. Nearly all participants
were Singaporean nationals, had family members in Singapore, and most
participants grew up in Singapore. These strong links with Singapore
explain why these participants are referred to as ‘Chinese Singaporeans.’
All participants were at least bilingual (speaking English, and to differ-
ent degrees Mandarin, which are the two languages in which Chinese
Singaporeans are schooled in Singapore, see Chapter 2). Nearly all par-
ticipants were well-educated, middle- or upper-middle-class, and when
they worked at the time of research, most participants worked in mid-
or high-skilled professions. The Chinese Singaporeans also comprised of
education migrants (especially in the London sample), a smaller number
of married female participants who moved with their families to live else-
where and who were homemakers, a few participants who were unem-
ployed, and a few participants who had retired. The participants in this
study were male or female, and mostly single or married. A few partic-
ipants were divorced. Their ages ranged from the early twenties to their
late sixties. They lived in one of the four global cities in which they were
studied for different time periods, ranging from one year to decades.
Very few participants lived in a society for less than one year during their
entire transnational migration trajectories.
The Chinese Singaporeans most often crossed national boundaries
several times to live elsewhere. This was most frequently for work, fol-
lowed by family reasons, education, and then by friendships/lifestyle
reasons. Participants also often moved to live in another society for com-
binations of these reasons, such as family and work, work and lifestyle, or
less often, for education and work. A small number of male participants
moved from abroad to (temporarily) live in Singapore to serve their two
years of mandatory military service. These men were in their late teens or
early twenties. For clarity, the Chinese Singaporeans in this study are all
referred to as migrants. According to the United Nations (Anderson and
Scott 2017) they qualify as migrants because during their transnational
migration trajectories, the Chinese Singaporeans nearly always lived
in different societies for longer than one year, and only very rarely for
less than one year. The latter would qualify them as switchers (Anderson
and Scott 2017). Few of the 109 participants were both migrants and
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 THE VIOLIN
AND THE ART OF ITS
CONSTRUCTION.

A Treatise on the Stradivarius Violin

by

AUGUST RIECHERS,
Bow and Violin Maker.

[Copyright of the German and English Editions.]

With four lithographed plates.

GOETTINGEN.
CARL SPIELMEYER’S NACHFOLGER.
FRANZ WUNDER.
1895.
Copyright entered at Stationers Hall, London.
To his highly revered Friend and Patron

Dr. JOSEPH JOACHIM

this work is humbly dedicated

by

THE AUTHOR.
 PREFACE.

The highly esteemed author of this treatise, a renowned violin

maker and clever repairer, of old instruments, having been denied
the pleasure of publishing the same himself, death intervening on
January 4th, 1893, his work on the violin and the art of its
construction is now published, in accordance with his last wishes.
This treatise will, no doubt, be all the more welcome to
professionals and amateurs alike, as to my knowledge no such work
has yet been published treating the subject in such an able and
thorough manner.
May, therefore, the valuable labours of the deceased author meet
with that universal acknowledgment, which in a very high degree
they deserve.
Göttingen, April 1895.
The Editor.
 Index.
Page
Introduction
7
I. Of the Wood ” 10
II. Of the Construction ” 11
III. The Ribs ” 12
IV. The Back and Edges ” 12
V. The Belly ” 13
VI. The Arching ” 13
VII. The Purfling ” 14
Working-out the Thicknesses of the Belly and
VIII. ” 15
Back
IX. The F-holes ” 16
X. The Bass-bar ” 16
XI. The Head or Neck ” 18
XII. The Dimensions, Length of Neck and Body ” 18
XIII. The Finger-board and Nut ” 21
XIV. The Position of the Neck ” 21
XV. The Tail-piece ” 22
XVI. The Pegs ” 24
XVII. The Bridge ” 24
XVIII. The Sound-post ” 25
XIX. The Strings ” 27
XX. The Varnish ” 28
XXI. The Cleaning and Care of the Violin ” 32
XXII. The Bow ” 32
 INTRODUCTION.
In giving publicity to this treatise on the construction of the violin, I
believe I am only meeting the wishes of many, both professionals
and amateurs, who are desirous of learning more particulars
concerning the construction of their instruments, but am also giving a
few practical hints to my younger comrades in the art of violin-
making. I hope also to induce some of my older colleagues to give
forth other works of the same kind, which may serve to ennoble and
promote our art.
Times without number I have been asked by friends of the violin,
during my 40 years’ work as a violin maker, to recommend books
giving more exact information on the construction of that instrument,
but the only answer that I have been able to give has been that
German technical literature on the subject is very meagre, and that
information from foreign works is mostly impoverished by feeble
translations.
Very few authors understand the general build of the violin
thoroughly, they pay most attention to individual points, those most
calculated to attract the attention of amateurs; for example, the
proportions of single parts, their size, etc. There is only one work I
can recommend which forms an exception to this rule and that is
“The Memoirs of Antonio Bagatella” (Padua 1786) which has been
published in a German translation by Franz Wunder at Göttingen.
It contains not only rules for the construction of violins, violas,
violincellos and basses, as well as distinct instructions for the
restoration of the outline of the belly and back of these instruments,
but also enters into particulars concerning the adjustment and
renovation of the same.
Just as the celebrated violin makers of the last century took the
work of Amati as their model, I have found my master, to whom I, in
common with all my colleagues, look up with admiration, recognising
in him not only the gifted artist, but also the industrious workman and
far-sighted observer—I mean Antonio Stradivarius. Even as a boy I
was very fond of listening to the tales told me by my father, who was
a musician in Hanover and as an autodidact occupied himself with
violin work, tales in which he described to me the wonderful
productions of the old Italian masters and more particularly those of
Amati, Stradivarius, and Guarnerius. He regarded it as a great
distinction shewn to him, and often referred to the fact, that he was
allowed to open and repair the Guarnerius violin of Paganini. After a
time, however, he altered his tone and cursed the Italian as well as
his violin, for the great artist, although he praised my father’s work
and expressed himself perfectly satisfied with it, objected to the
payment of three Thalers for the repairs, considering it an exorbitant
charge, and this, coupled with similar experiences at the hands of
others, so incensed my father that he would not give his consent to
my earnest wish to enter the violin factory; consequently I was
apprenticed at the age of 13 years to a pianoforte manufacturer with
whom I remained for two years, in spite of having shown aptitude in
the other direction by constructing a violin with my own hands at the
age of 12 years.
Being released from my apprenticeship at the beginning of my
fifteenth year, I wandered away to Markneukirchen, there to study
violin-making under Hans Ficker; later on I was occupied for a longer
period as assistant to Ludwig Bausch, senior, in Leipsic, to whom I
owe a great deal, for he strengthened me in my love of the art and
settled my belief in the unequalled excellence of Stradivarius. My
admiration for this great master increased even more and more, and
in my fifteenth year, when I began to work for myself in Hanover, I
learned even more of his works and had the happiness to find that
my reverence for him was shared by my friend and patron Dr.
Joseph Joachim. Ten years later, the latter exchanged Hanover for
Berlin, and as I was no longer contented in the former town after his
departure in 1872, I gladly responded to a call from him to prosecute
my work in the Prussian capital and to continue to study the works of
Stradivarius, in order to handle them more worthily and to infuse his
ideas into my own productions. I venture to hope that I have
succeeded in the first part of my undertaking, for, a great number of
instruments have passed through my hands in the course of years,
including the incomparable violins belonging to Dr. Joachim. The
second part of my task I do not consider accomplished. I am ever
taking more and more trouble in working, in the hope of bringing my
attempt nearer and nearer to the hitherto unattained excellence of
Stradivarius. I therefore beg my readers to regard the following
chapters with a favourable eye and to accept them in a friendly spirit
as the result of long years of experience, the confirmation or
rectification of which I shall accept with joy.
 I. OF THE WOOD.
There can be no doubt whatever that a correct knowledge and
choice of the wood for the construction of violins is of the utmost
importance. Both these qualifications, however, can only be gained
by experience, since that alone can prove which kind of wood is the
most suitable and produces the best results.
The back, the ribs, the neck, and the head should be of maple,
and neither too hard, nor too soft, nor yet too deeply grained. In
every case light wood should be selected, and I consider Hungarian
maple the best for the purpose. For the belly, the so-called white fir
or pine should be used, as both kinds of wood possess sufficient
resonance, and are easily manipulated. These woods too must be as
light as possible, and should have neither very narrow nor very
broad, but regular and well-formed concentric circles. The Tyrol and
the neighbouring cantons of Switzerland produce the best wood for
this purpose. It is to be observed that the pieces used must be split
and not cut.
In my opinion, the much praised American pine is too soft and
resinous, and neither do I consider the American maple qualified for
the construction of violins. The wood used by myself is obtained from
Schoenbach, near Eger, in Bohemia, where large supplies for the
needs of instrument makers are always on hand to be selected from.
The age of the wood I consider of only very small importance; if it
has been laying by for five years, ready cut or split, as the case may
be, for the construction of a violin, it will then be sufficiently dry and
will need no further preparation. I have exactly ascertained the
weight of wood which had been laid by for drying for five years, and
then, having weighed it again at the end of twenty years, have found
it had not become perceptibly lighter. All the violins made by me,
some 1600 instruments, have always weighed from 260 to 275
grammes, without the pegs, finger-board, and tail-piece, a weight
which I have generally found to be that of the violins constructed by
Stradivarius.
 II. OF THE CONSTRUCTION.
For the space of thirty years I have worked upon the plan of
Stradivarius solely, for I consider that his instruments and their
proportions are the most perfect that can be found. Why, therefore,
should I have taken any other as my model? I have repaired at least
three hundred undoubtedly genuine violins constructed by this great
master, besides having seen and handled many others, and
consequently have had frequent opportunities of thoroughly studying
his work, and of gauging and copying his most beautiful instruments.
As the creations of this incomparable maker seem perfect in every
detail, I have never attempted to make any additions of my own, but
have strictly adhered to specimens produced by him in his prime
(1700 to 1720) as my models, and have found that they differ but
very slightly from one another. In Fig. 1., I have given the outlines of
a violin of this period (1713) with the blocks.
 III. THE RIBS (Fig. 1. a).
The ribs should be 1¹⁄₂ m/m. thick, and very neatly and evenly
planed; the height should be about 30 m/m. at first. The ribs are
curved to their correct form by means of a hot bending iron, or still
better by a copper clew, and then glued to the blocks. After this, the
ribs next to the back are to be made true to receive the linings. The
latter must be 8 m/m. high, 2¹⁄₂ m/m. thick, and must be made of
lime-wood. The middle linings are to be let into the blocks, so that
they cannot break loose. The blocks must also be made of lime-
wood. The edges of the ribs and the surface of the rim, before being
glued on to the prepared back, must again be very carefully
adjusted, so that they appear like one even surface. This being
done, the superfluous wood of the blocks must be cut away to the
shape of the mould (see Fig. 5). The ribs from the bottom block to
the side blocks are then regulated to a height of about 30 m/m., and
from the side blocks to the top block (Fig. 3) they are gradually
decreased by 2¹⁄₂ m/m., that is, until 27¹⁄₂ m/m. is reached. This
diminution in the height is most practically thought out and executed
by Stradivarius, the belly obtaining thereby a tension which offers the
necessary resistance to the neck. The upper linings must be
adjusted to the ribs in the same way, and as a matter of course, they
must be curved to the shape of the ribs. The superfluous wood of the
blocks being cut away, the mould is removed.
 IV. THE BACK AND EDGES.
It is not of importance whether the back be made in one or two
pieces; nevertheless, Stradivarius seems to have given the
preference to a divided back. I also consider it more advantageous,
as, being joined, it offers greater resistance, and is not so easily
pressed outwards on the sound-post side, as is the case with violins
having the back cut in one piece. The edges of the mid-rib and
corners should be 4 m/m. thick, whereas the upper and lower edges
of the back (Fig. 1 ee/ee), gradually decreasing from the corners,
become 1 m/m. thinner.
 V. THE BELLY.
The belly must be composed of two parts, and has to be joined
together so exactly that the narrow year-rings are in the middle of the
same; the outer ring which should not be more than 2 m/m. broad
and very equally disposed, may run towards the edges. The edges
must be of the same thickness as those of the back.
 VI. THE ARCHING.
It does not seem to me probable that Stradivarius acted without
mature deliberation in making the arch of the back and belly, taken
together, of the same height as the ribs, viz.: 30 m/m.; of course, I
am speaking now of the violins made during his prime. If the back
and belly are placed one upon the other, the height will amount to 30
m/m., the entire external diameter, therefore, must be 60 m/m., since
the ribs, as already stated, have a height of 30 m/m. I am certainly of
the opinion, that Stradivarius substantiated these proportions by
experiments. There are, however, exceptions; the greatest of the
deviations from this rule which has come under my notice, consisted
in the middle line measuring 70 m/m., reckoning from the upper edge
of the belly to the lower edge of the back. No doubt, this violin, made
in 1710, was an experiment, the average measurement being
considered to be from 58 to 62 m/m. Now and again, Stradivarius
made the arch lower, whether intentionally or from want of wood, I
am not in a position to say. In this case he makes the ribs
correspondingly higher, so that the above-mentioned measurement
may still be 60 m/m. Stradivarius has also occasionally made the
arch of the back less than 15 m/m., and by way of compensation, in
this case, has increased the arch of the belly. I am of opinion,
however, that these deviations are to be ascribed more to
experiment than to accident. He never trusted to chance in his work,
but in the most careful way reflected upon it and took into
consideration all circumstances in connection with it. The arch given
as an example in Fig. 6, is taken from a Stradivarius violin of the
year 1713, and as the belly and back are both of equal height, viz.:
15 m/m., the entire height amounts to 60 m/m.
 VII. THE PURFLING.
The purfling is always placed 4 m/m. from the edge and is 1¹⁄₂
m/m. wide. It consists of three parts, the two outermost of which are
prepared from maple and stained black, while the middle part is
made of the same kind of wood, but unstained. It is of the utmost
importance that the purfling should only be inserted to the depth of
one-third of the thickness of the edges, otherwise the edge will very
easily break off. In the work of Stradivarius, one finds continually on
the back, both above and below, a peg of maple-wood, by means of
which he fastened the back to the block, and the half of this peg is
inserted in the purfling. In violins having a divided back, one finds
another purfling on the bottom block, along the joint of the ribs, but
with backs made in one piece it scarcely ever occurs, because then
the under ribs, as far as the middle rib, are prepared in one piece.
The purfling is not to be regarded as an embellishment, as many
suppose it is. It considerably strengthens the back and the belly
towards the edges, and at the same time offers a protection,
especially for the belly, against cracks, if the instrument, for example,
should be opened for repairs by an inexperienced workman. I will
even go so far as to assert that if the purfling were not employed, old
violins could not exist without numberless cracks, for any violent
blow would cause cracks, without the additional strength given by
the purfling, and the greater number of old and costly violins would
come down to us spoilt, or at least damaged.
The purfling also has this advantage that if perchance the edges
get broken off, they can easily be replaced and the good appearance
of the instrument restored without much trouble.