most of the peranakans or baba nyonyas in penang, melaka or singapore are actually very sinicized already and should be considered as chinese more than peranakans, u can just see it from their faces lol, most of them just look like normal chinese, because last time during their forefather days, many baba nyonya families took in wives from china and they married pure chinese instead of malay or other races during that time

their 1st generation indeed marry malay wives and they have malay ancestors but thats only for the 1st gen, the following generations after that are mostly marrying pure chinese already, thats why until now they can maintain their chinese looks even after so many generations

u want to see the real peranakans, look at the terengganu and kelantan peranakans(mixed with siamese), they look more like siamese ppl than chinese, or the cina benteng in indonesia that look more like indon than chinese ppl

most baba nyonya families will have at least 1 malay ancestor(on the female side), i read the book by prof Khoo Kay Kim (a famous historian and a true baba nyonya/peranakan), he mentioned in his book that he have a female malay ancestor when his forefather came to Malaya long long time ago and marry a local malay lady, and his family have record of every generation and passed down to future generations so he get to know about it, and he also mentioned for almost all peranakan families during that time also similar to his forefather married local malay lady because during that time they cannot bring women over to Malaya, and then after some time when things got better then only the later generations have money to bring over women from china and marry them or marry those chinese who just set foot in Malaya during that time

and thus the peranakan culture developed when the 1st gen of the forefathers of peranakans came from china and marry local malays, if those forefathers didnt marry local malay ladies, then the mix of chinese and malay culture will not develop

thanks for the clarification