 At the time, each ethnic community had a tendency to specialise in specific trades and economic sectors.While the Europeans predominated in the various professional fields, as well as occupying managerial positions in mercantile and shipping firms, the Peranakans and the Eurasians tended to enter the nascent civil service as lawyers, engineers, architects and clerks.Some of the newer Chinese arrivals, labelled condescendingly by the Peranakans as "'Sinkheh"' (Chinese