Noun

1. In (particularly overseas) Chinese culture and society, a family house.

Quotations

• 1998, Zawawi Ibrahim, The Malay Labourer

  By 1970, for instance, the state authorities considered these kongsi to be unfit and unhygienic for living, and they were ordered to be dismantled.

• 2003, Wu Xiao An, Chinese Business in the Making of a Malay State, 1882-1941

  The term kongsi loosely referred to any association of the Chinese, ranging from a business partnership to governments in West Borneo, secret societies and clan associations.

• 2004, Simon Richmond, Marie Cambon, Damian Harper, Richard Watkins, Lonely Planet: Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei

  A kongsi is a clan house, a building that’s partly a temple and partly a meeting hall for Chinese of the same clan or surname.