Chapters of Asia

“Exiles and Prisoners on a Cramped Little Island”? Exploring Accounts of the Lifestyles of Colonial Administrators and Their Families in Singapore c. 1870–1920

This paper explores the accounts of travellers passing through Singapore, others recorded the experiences of men and women who had spent longer periods living and working in British Malaya.

“Prosperity Through Quality and Reliability”: SISIR and the Making of a Quality Conscious Nation

This essay aims instead to provide a broad overview of the Singapore Institute of Standards and Industrial Research (SISIR) and makes the case that it represents an important part of Singapore’s economic and cultural history.

A Historical Perspective of Singapore’s Changing Role in Early Printing in the Chinese Language, 1825–1902

This essay examines the changing role of Singapore as a society that enabled early printing in the Chinese language to take shape, and how this early availability of printing in the Chinese language impacted the multiracial and multicultural society.

A Mapping of Southeast Asian Photobooks After World War II

This essay offers a tentative overview of our photobookmaking experiences in Southeast Asia, based on NLB’s collections.

A Peek into the Lives of the “Lancing Girls”: Cabarets, Charity and Cheongsams

"Lancing" girls were the glamorous dance hostesses from the cabarets of New World, Great World and Happy World in Singapore. This paper examines the way of life of these women in the cabaret industry, with a focus on two of them who founded The Happy School, a Chinese school that provided free education for street kids after World War II.

A Prelude to an Invasion? The Japanese Army’s Covert Operation in Singapore and the Riau islands in the Early 20th Century

This paper answers the question of how the Nanpo operation affects the accepted understanding of Japan’s expansionist policy towards Southeast Asia.

Agents of Empire Representation of Race in Singapore’s 19th-Century English Newspapers

This essay will show how virtually all of Singapore's English newspapers in the 19th century perpetuated ideas of race, civilisation, progress and development that subordinated the native and immigrant populations to white colonisers by drawing examples from local English-language newspapers across a quarter of a century – from 1875, when Singapore was still a young Crown Colony following its administrative reconstitution into the Straits Settlements, to the close of the century.

All Is Utterly Changed: Representations of Space in Fistful of Colours

This essay explores how literary texts represent space and place by examining four works of Singaporean fiction that were produced after independence in the shadow of modernisation: Suchen Christine Lim’s Fistful of Colours, Goh Poh Seng’s If We Dream Too Long, and Philip Jeyaretnam’s Raffles Place Ragtime and First Loves.

An “Oriental Phase of Crime”: Representations of Amok in Singapore’s English Newspapers (1880s–1940s)

This article seeks to explore how Singapore’s English-language newspapers represented amok in the colony from the 1880s to 1940s. In doing so, it reveals how British colonials may have perceived and contended with amok in this era.

An Old Teochew Oral Account Sheds New Light on the 1819 Founding of Singapore

An old Teochew oral account, validated by a body of evidence from multiple sources – including the earliest British reports about Singapore by Raffles, no less – now reveals that it was the coming together of many, and not just the brilliance of one man, that sparked the Singapore miracle.

Chinese Newspaper Literary Supplements in Singapore's Postwar Literary Scene

This paper discusses the editorial styles of Xing Ying and Yao Zi and their contributions to the literary scene in Singapore, such as the multicultural elements they introduced to the supplements, and their nurturing of young writers.

Chinese Rice Commerce and the Transformation of Sai Gon–Cho Lon in Colonial Vietnam

Through the lens of the rice trade, this paper examines the confluence of Chinese migration and diasporic capitalism in transforming Sài Gòn–Chợ Lớn in the 1870s into a central trade emporium and prominent colonial port city crucial to the development of French governance in Vietnam and Southeast Asia at large.

Colonial Discourse in Perspective: The Malay Peninsula in John Crawfurd’s Ideas on Ethnology and World History

This paper seeks to explore Crawfurd’s diverse intellectual works to determine how the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula fit into his ideas on ethnology and global views on history, and how he sought to apply these concepts to chart the region’s history.

Europeans in the Press: A Comparative Reading of the Representation of “Deviant” Behaviour in English and Chinese Language Newspapers

Europeans who were publicly drunk, in full view of Asians, were seen as problematic. Such exposures, according to colonial rhetoric, potentially lowered European prestige in the eyes of the colonised. To what extent was this concern justified in reality? Thus, I examine the ways Europeans constructed European deviance, and also how Asians regarded such behaviour. Reviewing how incidents of European deviant behaviour were reported in local newspapers sheds light on the issue.

Excavating Women's Participation Within Malaya's Proto-history of Computerisation (1930–1965)

This paper attempts to construct a subaltern gender narrative from the dominant masculinist and Eurocentric infrastructure of transnational corporations, government institutions and commercial media in the first half of the 20th century.

From World Religion to World Order Confucianism in the Straits at the Turn of the 20th Century

This essay explores the impact of the emerging scholarly discipline of the “science of religion” on the Confucianist movement in Singapore in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Homecoming: An Ethnohistory of Singaporean-Javanese Discourse in Nurturing Javanese Identity and the Roots Journey

Crafted from something new and rereading existing historical sources, this study attempts to present an alternative perspective of the Javanese in Singapore and examine how the roots journey is nurtured by analysing two aspects: identity and history. This paper is centred around these two aspects, explaining history and identity as integral parts of understanding the roots journey undertaken by the Singaporean-Javanese diaspora.

In Search of the Child: Children’s Books Depicting World War II in Singapore and Southeast Asia

While some efforts have been made to capture true experiences during WWII in autobiographies for children, little has been done in terms of creating children’s fiction set during this period.

In the Tropical Mood: Retracing Liu Yichang’s Years in Singapore (1952–1957)

This paper retraces Liu Yichang's Malayan years and attempts to make sense of his life and time here through newspaper archives, newly unearthed novels and published works, as well as interviews with his wife and close friends in Singapore. A chronicler of mid-20th-century Singapore society, Liu created a rich body of Malayan work that, though sadly neglected, deserves to be preserved and celebrated as part of our cultural heritage.

Intermarriages, Religious Conversions and New Peranakans within Multi-ethnic Communities in Colonial Singapore: Early Multi-ethnic Roman Catholic Communities, c. 1830s to 1850s

This study is an extension of a 2012 research paper that examined intermarriage in the latter half of the 19th century within the Asian communities of the Roman Catholic and Methodist churches in colonial Malaya and Singapore.

Interpreting Media Constructions of Samsui Women in Singapore

It is important to pertinent to look beyond popular media memory and history to put together a more inclusionary and nuanced portrayal of samsui women. Life stories of samsui women themselves as well as their kin provide richer, more complex and fluid memories of varied experiences in the early days of Singapore.

Leaving China, Discovering Asia: Ex-China Missionaries and Singapore as Cold War “Christian Hub”

This essay examines how Protestant missionaries exiled from China after 1949 envisioned and cultivated Singapore as a “Chinese Christian Hub” in Cold War Asia. It attempts to answer the question – how did the missionary exodus from China shape Christianity in Singapore? It also reveals how missionaries who arrived in Singapore were less concerned with local conditions and politics than they were looking for a “hub” in Free Asia where they could continue their work.

Multiculturalism in Colonial Singapore: A Study of Plurality and Solidarity

Unlike similar societies elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the multicultural or plural element in Singapore has been successfully integrated into the political and social edifice or structure, thus ensuring its endurance and social harmony.

Multilingualism as Utopia: Linguistic Citizenship in 1950s Malayan Writing

In the 1950s, developments in the Chinese-language and English-language literary circles both involved multilingual innovation in the written language, namely the infusion of Chinese dialects in Sinophone fiction and the mixing of resources from English, Malay and Chinese in Anglophone poetry.

Music in Syonan in Memory and Experience: The Case of the Forgotten Corporal and the Memory of a Period of Nightmare

This paper seeks to answer two fundamental questions: What did music-making mean for those who were involved in its practice and performance within the context of a military occupation? Why did these local musicians perform for the occupying forces, and what were their motivations?

On the Waterfront: The Building of Singapore’s First High-rise Skyline, 1918–1928

The 1920s in Singapore were an upbeat time, an era of optimism, energetic growth and expanding horizons, the economic recessions of the early 1920s notwithstanding.

Pemikiran Sosio Agama Ahmad Sonhadji Mohamad Melalui Khutbah 1971–1980

Ahmad Sonhadji lebih dikenali sebagai tokoh tafsir di Singapura melalui Tafsir ‘Abr al-Athir atau Tafsir al-Quran di Radio yang telah dihasilkan selama 25 tahun. Namun terdapat banyak karya beliau yang belum diberi perhatian dan dikaj. Artikel ringkas ini hanya menyentuh tema Wanita, Kekeluargaan, Kemanusiaan dan Kemasyarakatan, dan Adab, Etika dan Integriti.

Public Bathing in Singapore, 1819–1942 Cultures, Landscapes and Architecture

This essay takes a wider view of swimming in Singapore, not just as sport or exercise, but as a series of interconnected social practices based around designated swimming sites.

Sailing to the Horizon: The Relative Decline of Malay Shipping in the Malay Peninsula During the 19th Century

This paper looks at the circumstances and policies of peninsular Malay states that limited Malay shipping in the carrying trade or intraregional shipping to the elites and those deemed non-threatening, thereby sending trade into a relative decline during the 19th century.

Searching for the “Real” Singapore In Hollywood Feature Films

This paper looks at Singapore in the Hollywood imagination and how this was expressed in non-travelogue feature films from the late 1920s to 1940, and in particular how “real” the Singapore depicted in these films was.

Singapore’s Tamil Writers: Works on Social Progression in Post Independence Singapore

Post-independence literary writing in Tamil has met with starts and stops. It eventually found its way in the 1970s, settled on its pace in the 1980s and picked up swift momentum from the 1990s. This paper explores fiction and poetry in Singapore Tamil literature written between 1965 and 2015.

Thai, Chinese and Malay Modern Textual and Civilisational Discourses in Hsu Yun-Tsiao’s 1933 Diary in Patani

Digitised by the National Library Singapore in 2018, Hsu’s five unpublished diaries (1930–38) provide rare glimpses into his interwar Nanyang studies in Siam.

The Circulation of Premodern Knowledge of Singapore and Its Straits Before 1819

References to Singapore or its straits can be easily found in European literature before 1819 but have often been overlooked or disparaged by scholars. This paper seeks to collect these references related to Singapore and its straits in European literature and question whether they are as scarce, fragmentary, vague and contradictory as formerly supposed.

The Historical & Cultural Influence of the Record Industry in Singapore, 1903–75

Few studies examine the record industry from a Singapore perspective or look at the industry in the broader historical context in terms of the cultural and economic conditions in Singapore.

The London Missionary Society in Colonial Singapore

This essay explore the motivations of missionary printers, the challenges they faced and their contributions to early printing in Singapore.

The Netherlands East Indies 1926 Communist Revolt Revisited

This paper argues that partly because of the extensive public discussions surrounding the Netherland East Indies insurrections, the British administration’s anticommunist measures predated the formal establishment of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) in 1930. As a result of the British authorities’ effective surveillance and policing work, the MCP struggled for its survival from its inception and never had a real chance to pose serious threats to the colonial regime before World War II.

The Prewar and Postwar Art Scene in Singapore Modernist Artists and Art Spaces

This paper examines the prewar and postwar (late 1920s–early 1950s) art scene in Singapore: the life and work of the active but lesser-known SOCA Modernist founders, the relationships among them, the prevalent styles of their work, the historical and social circumstances that shaped their art, and the art spaces they used.

The Stillborn Singapore Welfare State

This article examines the circumstances that encouraged the Colonial Office to assume responsibility for their colonies’ welfare, and discusses the developments and plans to establish the welfare state in Singapore after the Second World War.

Then and Now: The Keramat Phenomenon in Singapore

This paper will offer a brief of analysis of the various types of keramat that were once found across Singapore, including keramat hidup or living keramat, datuk keramat, grave-shrines or shrines that resemble graves, and authentic graves. It concludes by examining how, for instance as vernacular culture, keramat often have fraught relationships with authority, both religious and secular.

Through Diasporic Eyes: The Writings and Worlds of 19th Century Malay Travellers

This essay explores how stories about travel were used by Malays to redefine the relationship between the local and foreign.

Women and Islam in Pre–19th Century Aceh

This Chapter of Asia article examines gender relations in Aceh, which have been changed and transformed by the adoption of Islam. From the 16th to 17th centuries when Aceh emerged as an Islamic state, women had proved to be actively involved in the processes of social and political change.

从书业历史看新加坡华文书业的特点

The development of Singapore’s Chinese-language publishing industry was a major event in the history of Singapore’s cultural development in the early 20th century. The industry emerged in response to the growth of modern Chinese-language education in the region. The development of the Chinese-language publishing industry in turn promoted Chinese-language education and literature. The publishing industry laid the foundation for Singapore to become a former “hub of Chinese culture” in the Nanyang

胡文虎及其虎标药品在新加坡报纸的广告研究, 1916–1954

Newspaper advertisements for medicine serve as historical sources for the study of socio-economic history. This paper examines the advertisements for Tiger Balm medicine in Singapore newspapers from 1916 to 1954.