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Lat Pau was first published on 10 December 1881 and continued running till 31 March 1932. This remarkable record of 50 years and 4 months made it the longest-running Chinese-language newspaper in Singapore before World War II. The newspaper’s enduring legacy has been largely attributed to its chief editor Yeh Chih Yun (1859–1921). Less widely known, however, is the fact that Lat Pau was founded by an English-educated Peranakan businessman, See Ewe Lay (1851–1906). See was born to a prominent Peranakan (Straits Chinese) family. His grandfather, See Hoot Kee (1793–1847), was a pioneer in the Hokkien community of Singapore.
The early Peranakans’ strong identification with Chinese culture could have been a motivating factor behind See Ewe Lay’s founding of Lat Pau. Exhibits at the Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum in present-day Malacca show how Chinese culture influenced every aspect of the daily lives of the 19th century Straits Chinese, including domestic routines, festivities, weddings and funerals. The See family also had frequent contact with China. See Ewe Lay’s father, See Eng Wat (1826–1884), ran a shipping business and frequently travelled between Singapore and Xiamen, China. See Ewe Lay’s younger brother, See Ewe Hock (Sit Yau Fu, 1862–1884), served in the Fujian Marine Fleet and died during the Battle of the Pagoda Anchorage in 1884.
To focus on publishing the newspaper, See Ewe Lay resigned from his well-paid comprador position at the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. He also declined an invitation from the colonial government in 1892 to become a Municipal councillor. However, during the early years of its publication, with limited literacy among the population, Lat Pau struggled to find readers, and its average circulation was less than 350 copies per year. In 1890, the threat of closure loomed large.
| Year | 1883 | 1884 | 1885 | 1886 | 1887 | 1888 | 1889 | 1890 |
| Circulation (Copies) | 350 | 301 | 300 | 300 | 168 | 200 | 200 | 200 |
See Ewe Lay did not let these financial losses deter him. He hired Yeh Chih Yun, then editor of Hong Kong’s Chung Ngoi San Po (Chinese and Foreign Gazette), to take charge of the editorial work for Lat Pau, which gave the newspaper a significant boost. See Ewe Lay described his mission as one to “enlighten the people”. This philosophy aligned well with the ideals of his grandfather, See Hoot Kee, even though the younger See had never met his grandfather in person. With See Ewe Lay’s strong sense of cultural mission, Lat Pau managed to survive despite the financial losses during its early days.
After more than a decade from its inception, Lat Pau saw a gradual increase in circulation, reaching around 500 copies per year by 1900. Over its more than 50 years of publication, Lat Pau preserved the history of Singapore’s early Chinese community, providing invaluable source material for scholars researching the local Chinese community. The newspaper’s format served as a model for future Chinese newspapers, and its supplement was the start of newspaper’s supplements in Singapore’s history. Lat Pau holds an indelible place in the history of Chinese publications in Singapore.
Ini Indexs
The Nine Emperor Gods Festival is the largest Chinese religious festival in Singapore and Southeast Asia. It is held from the first to the ninth day of the ninth lunar month each year. The festival is also observed in other Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Myanmar. Preparations for the festival involve a thorough cleaning of the temple premises and the cleaning or replacement of utensils and ritual paraphernalia to be used during the festival. The red lanterns and banners in the temples are replaced with yellow ones. When all is ready, some temples put up a zhaijie (斋戒) sign to announce that there will be no consumption of meat on the premises, and that those entering the festival premises have to be on a strict vegetarian diet and remain physically and spiritually pure. This is particularly so for temple leaders and key personnel involved in the rituals and duties of the festival, who might start the vegetarian diet earlier (with the cleaning of the temple or even earlier). In some temples, they are required to stay in the temple for the duration of the festival. Devotees are also encouraged to follow such a diet and regimen when they visit the temple and participate in its rituals. It is customary for festival attendees to wear white clothes and white head scarves, along with yellow wrist- and waistbands.
More than 20 temples in Singapore observe the Nine Emperor Gods Festival, with some simply holding small-scale or closed-door events. The festival and temples have become an important part of the social and cultural landscape of the Chinese communities in Singapore.
The oldest Nine Emperor Gods temples in Singapore date back to the early 20th century and were important focal points for their respective communities in suburban and rural Singapore. These temples would often support village schools and other community initiatives, and their celebrations involved village communities and devotees from the surrounding area. Yew keng processions through the kampongs or villages, festival rituals, and opera performances were major community affairs — as were the receiving and sending off of the Nine Emperor Gods by the river or sea. From the 1960s, Singapore’s national development plans meant that many Nine Emperor Gods temples, like the kampong or village communities they were situated in, had to be relocated to new housing estates. New temple communities formed in those newer estates, even as the temples retained ties with residents from the older communities. Furthermore, Nine Emperor Gods temples in different parts of Singapore have been establishing ties with each other and strengthening these connections through new types of yew keng processions and temple visits across the island. These have added to the community and festive atmosphere of the Festival. Other ethnic communities also participate in the festival, which has come to feature multicultural programmes involving performances by Indian, Malay, Thai and other community groups, as well as western military bands.
Today, many Nine Emperor Gods temples in Singapore are connected to Nine Emperor Gods temples in Malaysia and Thailand from which they obtained their foundational incense and incense lineages, such as Nan Tian Gong in Ampang and the Hong Kong Street Dou Mu Gong temple in Penang. In addition, devotees and temples in Singapore have also been establishing their own connections to other Nine Emperor Gods temples in places such as Johor Bahru, Rengit, Ampang, Penang, Hat Yai, Bangkok, and Phuket. Representatives from the Nine Emperor Gods temples in Singapore have also been attending the Golden Seal ceremonies hosted by different temples in different parts of Malaysia each year under the auspices of the Federation of Dou Mu Gong (Jiu Wang Da Di) or Gabungan Dou Mu Gong (Jiu Wang Da Di). Through these annual events, they have come to be connected to many Nine Emperor Gods temples in Malaysia and Thailand.
The findings from a national survey of the history and rituals of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Singapore between 2016 and 2018 at 15 Nine Emperor Gods temples and festival sites show how the festival encompasses the diverse religious traditions of the Chinese communities in Singapore. Depending on the temple hosting the festival, the rituals and ceremonies could involve Taoist, Buddhist, and other Chinese rituals and religious traditions. Furthermore, the festival encompasses core traditional values in Chinese culture, such as abstinence, purity, humility, respect and community spirit and has become an important channel for their transmission.
The Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Singapore and Southeast Asia today is characterised by a distinctive system of rituals and ritual paraphernalia, setting it apart from other Chinese deity festivals. Historical references to the Nine Emperor Gods in the 6th century associated them with prehistorical Chinese Emperors and the Emperors of the different realms of heaven, human and earth, and their visualisation in various Taoist self-cultivation regimes, with connections to the worship of the stellar constellations. From the Sui-Tang period (581–907), or perhaps even earlier, they were believed to be the nine stellar deities of the Northern Dipper (seven visible and two invisible) in various texts from the Taoist canon. The importance of Dou Mu Yuan Jun in the Chinese religious pantheon, especially in relation to the Nine Emperor Gods, emerged later, from the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) onwards.
In Southeast Asia, the Nine Emperor Gods are remembered among the Chinese communities in their historical manifestations as the last Southern Ming emperor, Ming loyalists, as well as Robin Hood-like pirates and other folk heroes who sacrificed themselves for the country and the greater good. They reflected the historical experiences and social memories of the Ming-Qing transition among southern Chinese communities in their coastal and maritime environments, and the socio-economic backgrounds of the Chinese migrants from these regions to Southeast Asia between the 18th and 20th centuries. These memories and experiences shaped the representations of the Nine Emperor Gods and the beliefs about these deities in Southeast Asia. The Nine Emperor Gods are represented either through a tablet with the name of the deity, or through one or nine images of the deity.
The central tenet of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in both China and Southeast Asia is a strict adherence to a vegetarian regime and an emphasis on purity. Participants in the festival are expected to observe a vegetarian diet for at least 10 days. Those involved in core rituals or carrying palanquins might decide to do so for a longer period. Participants are also expected to abstain from impure thoughts and actions during the festival. In the Nine Emperor Gods temples and festival sites in Singapore today, vegetarian food is provided — typically sponsored by the temple’s supporters.
Yellow and white are the core colours of the festival in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Yellow is the colour of the Nine Emperor Gods. All the ritual paraphernalia, including lanterns, banners and candles are changed to yellow from the usual red. Yellow also signifies zhaijie, a vegetarian diet, and the purity required of all festival attendees. Meanwhile, devotees don white attire, which includes a white headscarf. In some temples, white candles are also used alongside yellow ones. In traditional Chinese culture, the wearing of white signifies mourning and death. This is due to memories and traditions of the Chinese in Southeast Asia surrounding the manifestations of the Nine Emperor Gods during the late Ming and early Qing dynasty in southern China as the last Southern Ming emperor, Ming loyalists and other folk heroes.
Another important ritual installation for the festival is the Nine Emperor Gods Lamps. While the lamps were traditionally raised on tall and strong bamboo, the difficulty of securing good bamboo in Singapore has prompted some temples to use metal masts and parts of a bamboo plant instead. In some temples, the lamps are raised before the receiving of the Nine Emperor Gods. In others, they are raised only after the receiving of the Nine Emperor Gods and their arrival at the temple. These lamps are kept burning throughout the festival, except for when they are lowered before dawn and in the evening to be cleansed and refilled. The Nine Lamps are meant to announce to the heavens and the surrounding communities that the Nine Emperor Gods Festival is taking place. Devotees and visiting temple contingents will pay their respects before the Nine Lamps before entering the festival’s main altar area.
The festival begins with the receiving of the Nine Emperor Gods. In Singapore and many other parts of Southeast Asia, the Nine Emperor Gods — and, in some temples, Dou Mu Yuan Jun — are received and sent off by the sea or rivers, or bodies of water connected to them. The receiving ritual occurs in the last week of the eighth lunar month, with most temples receiving the gods in the evening of the last day of the month. Devotees led by their respective temples will journey to a beach or river to receive the deities via a consecrated incense censer. This censer, along with other sacred artefacts, is then “invited” back to the temple in a palanquin concealed from public view. Both the palanquin and the sacred objects associated with the Nine Emperor Gods remain veiled — another unique characteristic of this festival in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Once received, the deities are ceremoniously escorted to their respective festival sites, where they rest in an Inner Chamber. This room serves as the sacred chamber for the Nine Emperor Gods throughout the festival, and is out-of-bounds to most of the devotees, volunteers and temple management. It is maintained by a selected group of people, including a Taoist priest and the censer guardians involved in the rituals in the chamber. They adhere to a very strict vegetarian and abstinence regime to ensure their purity for the tasks inside. Some temples require them to live in the temple during the festival.
Over the nine days of the festival, the temples remain open through the night for devotees to pay their respects and make offerings to the Nine Emperor Gods. Rituals are also conducted to bless the community, and for devotees to seek blessings or assistance. These include Crossing the Bridge of Blessing (ping’an qiao), as well as other luck-changing rituals (gai yun) like fire-walking. Some temples also hold fire-walking rituals. These are conducted by mediums, Taoist priests or other ritual specialists. Some temples also engage Taoist priests to conduct a short jiao (醮) ritual to bless and protect the community, or to lead the censer masters, towkays and temple members in special prayers in the early mornings of selected days. Other temples might host community feasts for the Nine Emperor Gods, during which devotees and the temple offer vegetarian food to the deities. Scriptural chanting and special blessing rituals are also conducted by Taoist priests, Buddhist monks, Chaozhou Shantang ensembles, and other ritual specialists for the devotees and the wider community.
In certain years, some temples may undertake a yew keng, a procession involving visits to other temples on a specific day of the festival. These are accompanied by lion and dragon dances, Chaozhou drum and percussion troupes, and other cultural performance troupes. The Nine Emperor Gods are invited to join these processions in their swaying palanquins. The visiting and host temples exchange gifts during these processions.
On the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, the Nine Emperor Gods and their censers are sent off by the respective temple communities by the sea or water bodies connected to it. This marks the festival’s climax, with devotees flocking to temples to accompany the deities back to the sea. Many temples in Singapore have incorporated the burning of a Dragon Ship or Ritual Ship as part of the sending-off ceremony, allowing devotees to affix their names to the “ships” to be sent off to sea with the Nine Emperor Gods and burnt at sea, to signify the removal of misfortune and the bestowing of blessings upon the faithful. In recent years, fireworks and other community performances have been added to the sending-off ceremonies. For many temples, the festival only officially ends in the late morning of the 10th day, after thanking the celestial armies with meat dishes and lowering the Nine Emperor Gods Lamps. Many temples will host dinners for the devotees and supporters of the festival from the evening of the 10th day onwards.
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In September 1935, John Sung (1901–1944), one of the most influential Chinese evangelists of the 20th century, arrived in Singapore to conduct a series of revival and evangelistic meetings at Telok Ayer Methodist Church. Preaching mainly in Henghua (Hinghwa)-accented Mandarin, Sung’s sermons were translated into Hokkien for the large number of audiences who came to hear him.
Sung’s meetings were a success. Over 1,300 people converted and 111 voluntary evangelistic teams were formed. The teams became part of a transregional network of Sung-inspired evangelistic teams that had been established across China and Southeast Asia. Between 1935 and 1939, Sung visited Singapore eight more times, resulting in the formation of more teams. These teams galvanised Singapore’s Chinese Protestant churches, leading them into a period of evangelistic fervour through regular preaching activities among many local Chinese communities in Singapore and Johor, until the Japanese Occupation in 1941.
Sung’s revivals are representative of two key historical patterns in Singapore’s Chinese Protestantism:
This essay provides an introductory historical narrative of Chinese Protestantism in Singapore through a selected number of cases during three discernible periods since colonial Singapore was founded. These cases will underline the presence and evolution of the two historical patterns in the different periods. The three periods are characterised as:
Historically, Chinese Protestantism is a minority religion in Singapore. Nonetheless, this article recovers its contributions to Singapore’s engagements with China and the island’s Chinese-speaking communities.
The eminent China scholar, John K. Fairbank (1907–1991), once commented: “Protestant missions [in the 19th century] began a flank attack on China through the soft underbelly of expatriate overseas Chinese communities in South-east Asia.” Singapore was one of the places where this flank attack began. This period lasted from 1819 to the late 1840s, when early Euro-American missionaries and Chinese evangelists relocated their base of operations from Singapore to China after the First Opium War concluded in 1842. Significantly, Fairbank’s statement highlights that Protestantism in Singapore began with the objective of bringing Christianity to China. Migrant Chinese communities in Singapore were seen as stepping-stones to fulfilling this objective. The missionaries looked towards these migrant communities as a training ground for their future ministries in China.
Early colonial Singapore had a large transient population. Chinese migrants, many of whom did not settle for long, formed a large proportion of the growing population. In the 1824 census, Chinese people made up 31% of the 10,683-strong population. By 1849, the Chinese had become the majority community, making up 52% of the 52,891 people on the island. On the one hand, Singapore was an ideal training ground for the missionaries to conduct evangelistic and educational work among a critical mass of Southern Chinese speakers, especially the Teochews and Hokkiens. Most missionaries employed teachers from Chaozhou and Fujian to teach them these languages. Some of these teachers converted to Christianity, and assisted in preaching, translation and publication work. On the other hand, the early endeavours of the missionaries and Chinese evangelists yielded little fruit. Besides the transience of the migrant Chinese community, which made it challenging for missionaries to achieve substantive interactions, settled individuals such as merchants were not receptive to the Christian message. Some reasons included their unwillingness to reject polytheistic practices for Christianity, and their objections to Britain’s role in the Opium War. Thus, the number of Christian converts remained small.1
A lack of sympathy for Christianity meant there was only a trickle of converts to the faith. Nonetheless, historians have managed to recover stories about some of Singapore’s early converts. For instance, Su Ching reveals rare details about Chae Hoo, the first Hokkien convert who was baptised in Singapore. Chae Hoo came to Singapore in 1827 and was baptised in 1835. His baptism was a public event attended by 30 Chinese people. Post-baptism, he worked for the missionaries, engaging in educational and printing work. It is not known if he returned to China with the missionaries in the 1840s.
Singapore (and port-cities like Melaka) also served as a training ground for the small number of converts who became full-time Christian workers. A significant case is Liang Fa (1789–1855), who is considered China’s first Chinese Protestant evangelist. Liang wrote the religious tract Quanshi liangyan (Good words to admonish the age), that inspired Hong Xiuquan’s (1814–1864) vision for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Liang had two working stints in Southeast Asia. The first was from 1815 to 1822 when he engaged in publishing work with William Milne (1785–1822), the second Protestant missionary to China. The second was from 1834 to 1839 as an evangelist. Liang’s work in Southeast Asia produced mixed results, although it prepared him for ministry in China. His publishing work in Melaka allowed him to develop original publications that built up to Quanshi liangyan (published in 1832). Liang’s second stint in Singapore was less effective. As a Cantonese native, Liang learnt to speak Hokkien and preach to the Hokkien- and Teochew-dominant Singapore Chinese population. Unfortunately, Liang failed to master the language and yielded only one conversion in Singapore. In all, these cases demonstrate how Singapore’s early Chinese Protestantism served as a launchpad for China missions.2
Singapore Chinese Protestantism’s relationship with China and Southern Chinese language speakers evolved from the late 1840s to 1945. Protestant native-place ties became intertwined with denominational affiliations. Thus, churches in Singapore formed intra-denominational connections with the churches that were established in their native places, especially Fujian and Guangdong. Singapore’s Protestants also increasingly identified as huaqiao (diasporic Chinese) when the term gained currency from the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th century.
Native-place connections were a crucial factor in the early formation of Hokkien-speaking Presbyterian and Brethren churches in 19th-century Singapore. An individual who was intimately connected to these churches was the Hokkien preacher Tan See Boo (1833–1884), who had been converted by William Chalmers Burns (1815–1868), the first English Presbyterian Mission (EPM) missionary to China. Tan moved from China to Singapore in 1856 to work for the EPM. From 1856 to 1867, he worked with the missionaries to evangelise the colony’s Hokkien communities. Tan was a significant figure in forming Hokkien Protestant congregations in Bukit Timah and on the premises of Chinese Girls’ School in Sophia Road. In 1864, the EPM planned to transform the Sophia Road congregation into a full-fledged church. Tan, who had embraced Brethren beliefs by then, thwarted their plans and successfully persuaded his congregants to leave the EPM and build their own Brethren church. 3 Emboldened, Tan returned to Xiamen in the late 1860s and mid-1870s to promote his new beliefs. However, unlike Singapore, he found it challenging to popularise those beliefs there.4
Tan’s efforts to influence Hokkien Protestantism in Singapore and Xiamen demonstrate how transregional influences and connections developed between churches in South China and Southeast Asia during the 1860s and 1870s. These links intensified from the early 1900s. One aspect was the provision of manpower from the native-place churches. The lack of missionary manpower in Singapore during the first half of the 20th century meant that the Chinese Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican congregations had to recruit pastors and Bible women from sister congregations in South China to meet their needs. This problem was exacerbated for minority groups like the Henghua and Foochow who struggled to find the right personnel to manage their churches because of the lack of ministers who could speak their languages. Provision of manpower from the native-place churches continued up to the late 1940s, before the Chinese Communist Party came into power. To be sure, resources also flowed from Singapore as congregations funded the schools and church building projects of their native-place churches and denominations.5
A significant development that arose in the first half of the 20th century and peaked during the 1920s to 1940s was the formation of a China-oriented nationalism among the denominational Chinese churches in Singapore. The acceptance of a huaqiao identity among the Chinese churches meant an increased identification with China as a modern nation-state. By this point, the number of Chinese Protestant members and churches had increased to a sizable critical mass that could be mobilised for causes with some effect. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were around 2,300 worshippers in a dozen churches — making up less than 1% of the island’s population of 226,842 in 1901. By the 1930s, there were 21 denominational Chinese churches. The percentage of Chinese Christians increased to 2.8%. Specific denominations like the Chinese Methodists and Presbyterians also saw substantial increases in membership.6
An early instance of nationalism was the influence of revolutionary fervour during the 1900s. Tay Ping Teng (1872–1944, better known as Tay Sek Tin), who was employed as the first ordained Chinese minister for Hokkien speakers by the EPM in 1898, became an important figure in Singapore’s Chinese society from the 1900s to 1910s. Significantly, he was also a major Protestant promoter of Chinese nationalism during that period. Besides establishing and pastoring Hokkien Presbyterian congregations in Tanjong Pagar and Paya Lebar (now known as Jubilee Church and Bethany Presbyterian Church), Tay’s social contributions included the creation of the Sin Chew Reading Room and his involvement in opium rehabilitation. The Sin Chew Reading Room, which was originally established for Singapore’s educated elite, became a major site for Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary activities in Singapore and the Tongmenghui’s transregional network.7
Tay’s influence extended beyond revolutionary activities. As a senior pastor, he was part of a group of leading Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican Chinese ministers who promoted inter-denominational cooperation in the late 1920s. In 1931, these ministers decided to advance this cooperation and form the first inter-denominational association in Singapore — the Singapore Chinese Christian Inter-Church Union (SCCIU). The formation of SCCIU meant that, for the first time, Chinese churches in Singapore had an independent and representative umbrella body that had the authority to mobilise church members and resources across denominations and native-place affiliations. This allowed the SCCIU to imbue a sense of China-centric identification across all congregations.
On the one hand, the SCCIU introduced national patterns of spiritual revival from China by inviting John Sung and other prominent China-based evangelists to conduct evangelistic and revival meetings. Sung’s revivals were particularly successful in energising church members and clergy from all denominations to participate in regular team-based evangelism, creating a “spiritual movement” which permeated churches in Singapore and Southeast Asia from 1935 to 1941. On the other hand, the SCCIU fostered nationalism in the churches by enjoining them to identify with the National Salvation movement in China as huaqiao Christians. Other than mobilising the churches to raise funds for China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the SCCIU became a key promoter of a transregional religious nationalism that appropriated the discourse of National Salvation for Singapore’s Chinese churches. This was expressed through prayers and liturgies in regular Sunday services and inter-denominational activities.8
The postcolonial independent Singapore nation-state presented Chinese Protestantism with two new challenges. Firstly, what did it mean for Chinese-Singaporean Protestants to identify with China? Secondly, as English became the primary lingua franca in Singapore, what did it mean for the use of Southern Chinese languages and Mandarin in the churches?
Several changes occurred within Chinese Protestantism after the post-war period of the late 1940s. The disruption of connections with native-place churches in South China led to a loss in religious manpower. Due to the urgent need for manpower, the SCCIU established a high-grade Chinese seminary in 1951 called the Singapore Theological Seminary (now known as Singapore Bible College) to train ministers for the local churches. The College was one of five theological schools formed from the late 1930s to 1960s to cultivate local church clergy and leaders. During the 1950s and 1960s, a total of 44 new congregations were started by the traditional groupings of the Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists and Brethren, as well as four new denominations, the most prominent of which were the Baptists and Bible-Presbyterians. The sharp growth in congregations was due to conversions of local-born Chinese and non-Chinese who were part of a post-war youth boom. This increase did not mean direct growth of the Chinese Protestant sector. Due to the increasing number of baby boomers who were English-educated, English-speaking congregations arose from the Chinese churches and new denominations, creating a fresh generation of English-speaking Protestants who were local-born Chinese from traditionally Chinese-speaking families. In 1980, 203,517 Chinese Singaporeans (10% of Singapore’s Chinese population) identified as Christians. Nonetheless, English-speaking churches started to dominate the landscape — their membership grew by 65.9% from 1970 to 1978, while Chinese church membership only increased by 29.1%.9
In 1987, schools in Singapore transitioned to using English as the main medium of instruction. Responding to these changing times, Singapore’s Chinese churches came up with methods to retain their English-educated youth and adult members. However, these measures were unable to fully stem the flow of these young members to English-speaking congregations. By 1980, the landscape of Protestantism in Singapore had furthermore become highly associated with the English-speaking class, who were generally well-educated. In order to rejuvenate their congregations and strengthen their evangelistic work, the Chinese churches turned their attention to the broader segment of non-Christian Chinese-educated Singaporeans during the mid-1980s, calling them the “Chinese-speaking grassroots”. English-speaking churches also participated in this shift by starting new Mandarin and Southern Chinese language congregations for the Chinese-speaking grassroots. What this meant was that Chinese churches had to move away from a conventional multi-generational church model to one which catered to working-class and middle-aged to elderly Chinese-speakers.10
The re-opening of mainland China during the Reform era (1978 onwards) enabled re-connections between the churches in Singapore and China. For the pre-baby boomer generation, native-place based identification with China was rekindled from the 1980s to early 2000s, when South China’s Protestant communities looked to raise funds from Singapore’s churches to rebuild their church buildings and infrastructure. However, native-place ties did not appeal to the local-born baby boomer and post-boomer generations as they were at least one generation removed from the migratory experiences of their ancestors. Nonetheless, they still strongly identified as ethnic Chinese, and with China. Thus, for them, identification with China became more of a concern for the growth of Christianity and church-state relations there. This concern was manifested through the provision of theological education for China’s Protestant workers and clergy. In the late 1990s, Singapore’s leading theological higher education institute, Trinity Theological College, enrolled pastors and preachers from the registered churches in Fujian. Students from registered and unregistered churches across China would also train at Singapore Bible College and other seminaries, before returning to China to serve as ministers.
By the 2000s and 2010s, identification with China and Chinese speakers was partially reoriented towards the large influx of Chinese migrants to Singapore. These migrants came from different provinces and had varied backgrounds. Some churches created specific programmes that ministered to these migrants based on their occupations, such as fellowships for Chinese construction workers and nurses. Other churches tried to integrate new Chinese migrant members into their congregations by forming China-specific Bible study groups and recruiting them into church leadership positions. In the last analysis, circumstances arising from nationhood recalibrated the ways in which Singapore’s Chinese Protestants related to local-born Chinese speakers, Reform-era China and its large wave of emigrants.11
The three periods in the history of Chinese Protestantism in Singapore illustrate the changing relationship of Singapore Chinese Protestantism with China, and speakers of Chinese languages. Through these changes, Singapore’s Chinese Protestants were able to adopt, adapt and navigate the China-based influences and language changes, while developing transregional connections with the broader Chinese Protestant sphere. Each period brought its own challenges: a small number of converts in the first period; the dependence on China for religious manpower in the second period; and the need to adapt to and survive in an increasingly English-speaking nation in the final period. Nevertheless, Singapore’s Chinese Protestants have demonstrated the agency and resilience to advocate for and imbue renewed meaning into their faith communities in the face of the contingencies of their time.
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Shen Ping Kwang (1922–2015), founder of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts’ music department, was a respected Singapore composer and music educator. Born in Zhao’an county in China’s Fujian province, he attended singing and Teochew opera classes in his primary school years. He later enrolled in what is now known as the National Fujian School of Music to major in theory and composition in 1940. He joined the army in 1945, serving as the conductor of Nanjing’s Xiong Shi He Chang Tuan (Male Lions Choir).
After the Second Sino-Japanese War, he left the army and took part in the opera The Great Wall, based on the legend of the Lady Meng Jiang, an opera by Russian Jewish composer Aaron Avshalomov (1894–1965). In 1947, he was invited to work with the Taiwan Provincial Symphony Orchestra (now known as the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra) and was later hired by the Taiwan Provincial Normal School (now the National Taipei University of Education) to start its music department. He began teaching at the newly established National Taiwan University of Arts in 1955, and held his first solo concert in Taipei in 1957.
In 1958, Shen went to teach in British North Borneo. While he was there, he helped organise the North Borneo Chinese Cultural Association (now known as Chinese Cultural Association Sabah), and also formed a choir. In 1961, he held a choral concert where he adapted Borneo folk songs, which were then performed in four languages: English, Chinese, Malay, and Kadazan. He also performed in Sandakan in 1962, represented North Borneo at the South East Asia Cultural Festival held in Singapore in 1963, and won first prize in a songwriting competition organised by Radio Malaysia in 1967.
After that, he spent two years between 1968 and 1970 at the State University of New York furthering his studies in theory, composition, and conducting. He returned to Sabah in 1970 to become the principal of Kian Kok Middle School. In 1972, he was invited to speak at the University of Singapore on the topic of music education in the city state. Two years later, he transferred to Singapore’s National Institute of Education to lecture in its music department. In 1974, Shen represented Singapore at the second Asian Composers League (ACL) in Kyoto, where he presented his string quartet Three Scenes from the Straits. He also organised a society for Singapore’s composers in 1980, and hosted the 8th ACL in Singapore in 1983. He established the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts’ music department in 1984, and was conferred the Artistic Excellence Award by the Composers and Authors Society of Singapore (COMPASS) in 2001.
Shen’s compositions were mainly songs. Those he had composed between the 1940s and 1950s were filled with patriotism for China. During his time in Southeast Asia, he started to reflect the local and ethnic flavours of different regions in his songs, and Chinese festivals continued to be a key theme in his work.
The diversity of the material used in his songs reflected his journey through China, Taiwan, and various Southeast Asian countries. Taiwanese ethnomusicologist Hsu Tsang-Houei referred to him as the “the man who planted seeds for the composers’ community in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia”.1
According to existing records, Shen’s published works span from 1944 to 1990. They include at least two orchestral compositions, three chamber pieces, four instrumental solos, two musicals, 58 solo songs, and 46 choral numbers.2Shen recalled in 2009 that more than 30 concerts featuring his musical works had been held in Singapore and abroad — a rare feat for a Chinese composer.3
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Leong Yoon Pin (1931– 2011) was a respected composer, conductor and educator who is regarded as the “Father of Singaporean Composers”.1
Born in Singapore, he finished schooling at Saint Patrick’s School in 1949, after receiving a mix of English and Chinese-language education. He taught himself to play the piano at 16, and the guitar at 17.2He went on to study at the Teachers’ Training College from 1951 to 1953. Upon graduation, he taught music and singing in five primary schools. The regular income from his job allowed him to take formal piano lessons with South African concert pianist Noreen Stokes (1917–2012). He also won a scholarship to study the bassoon with Fred Krempl (birth and death years unknown). In between teaching and receiving musical instruction, he found the time to sing with the Singapore Music Society Choir.3
In 1955, Leong received a scholarship from Singapore’s Education Department (the precursor of the Ministry of Education) and travelled to London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he majored in composition.4He graduated in 1958, and upon his return to Singapore, joined the Teachers’ Training College as a music lecturer. During this period, he became involved in the musical activities of the Metro Philharmonic Society.5
In 1966, Leong received a scholarship from the French government and went to study with Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979) in France for two years. Boulanger was one of the most influential teachers of the 20th century, and had taught a number of prominent composers of the time, such as Grażyna Bacewicz Biernacka (1909–1969), Lennox Berkeley (1903–1989), Elliott Carter (1908–2012) and Aaron Copland (1900–1990). She encouraged Leong to draw from the music of his own background and create his own distinctive voice.6
After his return, he carried on with his teaching job at the Teachers’ Training College and was eventually appointed Head of its Music Department in 1971. By that time, the college had been renamed the Institute of Education. Leong was still active in the musical scene, and was subsequently appointed Resident Conductor of Singapore’s National Theatre Orchestra.7In 1975, he won a British Council Fellowship and went for postgraduate studies in Music Education at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.8Then, in 1982, he was awarded the Cultural Medallion, the highest cultural award in Singapore, for his contributions to Singapore’s musical development.9
In his later years, Leong served as a director of the then-Singapore Youth Orchestra (now Singapore National Youth Orchestra), and was instrumental in establishing the Music Department of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.
In the 1950s, Leong founded the Rediffusion Youth Choir (1953) and the then Metropolitan Philharmonic Choir (1959, now Metro Philharmonic Society) — and started composing for them. The compositions were born out of necessity, because there were very few locally-written songs for the choirs to sing.10These choral pieces were sung in Mandarin, and some of the more notable pieces were Dang baihua shengkai (When a Hundred Flowers Blossom) and Zao an ah, malaiya (Good Morning, Malaya). Many of these choral pieces used lyrics written by notable local Chinese literati.11Although the melodies had a Chinese style, they were given a modern and refreshing treatment. This modern treatment of Chinese choral pieces became a distinguishing feature of his choral works.
Leong’s work developed over the years and reflected unique aspects of Singaporean society. Wulong (Dragon Dance), commissioned by the then Singapore Broadcasting Corporation Choir in 1988, was a choral work filled with vocal imitations of the sounds of the drums at a dragon dance. This was a work which transcended language, and could be enjoyed by anyone in Singapore. Jietou xiangwei (Street Calls), commissioned in 1997 by the Ministry of Education for its Youth Festival, was a choral work using text consisting only of the names of local hawker food. Xiyang (Sunset), another Youth Festival choral commission in 2005, had a text consisting of all four of Singapore’s official languages.12A commission by the Singapore Youth Choir in 1988 led to E meng (Nightmare), with English lyrics by Singaporean writer Angeline Yap. Besides composing choral music, Leong wrote chamber music for various chamber ensembles as well as large-scale orchestral works. When the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) debuted in 1979 as Singapore’s first professional orchestra, Leong — who had already composed two symphonies by then — was quickly commissioned to write a piece for them. A year later, in 1980, the SSO premiered his Dayong Sampan Overture, which drew on a well-known Malay folk song. A decade later, Leong composed Daybreak and Sunrise for wind band for the Ministry of Education’s 1992 Singapore Youth Festival Indoor Band Central Judging. This opened up his music to a new generation of wind players.
Leong also has the distinction of being the first Singaporean to compose an opera written in English. Titled Bunga Mawar, it was commissioned by the Singapore Lyric Opera and premiered in 1997. The English libretto was written by prominent Singaporean writer Edwin Thumboo, and the story tells of two ill-fated lovers from different Peranakan families.
Leong’s compositions span several decades, and include a wide variety of vocal and instrumental ensembles. His harmonic vocabulary and musical treatment of his chosen subjects paralleled the developments in Singapore’s musical and cultural history. Any Singaporean involved in the music scene as a performer, student, composer, music director, or audience member would have at some point come into contact with Leong’s musical direction or teaching, rehearsed and performed his music, or perhaps just listened to one of his myriad compositions.
Leong died on 11 April 2011. His legacy lives on in the Leong Yoon Pin Music Fund, which was created after his death to support music students at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.13
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Lim Hak Tai (1893–1963) was born in Xiamen to a Qing dynasty scholar and teacher. Skilled in Western oil painting as well as Chinese ink painting, he grew up in China during a period racked by civil unrest and poverty. He left Xiamen in 1913 to enrol in the Fujian Provincial Teachers’ Training College in Fuzhou. After graduating in 1915 with a certificate in applied arts, he taught at No. 13 High School in Fujian and several schools in Jimei.
Following the May Fourth Movement (1919) in China, there was great demand for art training. Riding on this wave of interest, Lim co-founded the Xiamen Academy of Fine Arts in 1923 with fellow artists Huang Suibi (1879–1937) and Yang Gengtang (birth and death years unknown).1
He arrived in Singapore sometime between 1936 and 1937, a move that has been attributed to various reasons, ranging from the imminent Second Sino-Japanese War to him taking up a teaching post at The Chinese High School in Singapore.2
Lim set up the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) in 1938, with support from businessman Tan Khuat Siong (1900–1965) – second son of philanthropist Tan Kah Kee – and the Society of Chinese Artists. It was modelled after Chinese art schools which balanced Western and Chinese art traditions.3
Lim felt strongly that Chinese artists in Southeast Asia should integrate Western and Chinese styles to depict local subjects — a style known as Nanyang art. “Nanyang”, which means “Southern Seas” in Chinese, refers to Southeast Asia. The new academy would champion this style of art.
On 10 March 1938, NAFA opened with just 14 students in a shophouse at 167 Geylang Road. Its curriculum was similar to that of Xiamen Academy of Fine Arts, with classes in Western painting, sculpture, Chinese art and more.
After setting up the school, Lim, then 45 years old, asked his wife and children to join him. Unfortunately, his wife died on the journey to Singapore. While he dealt with this heavy blow, Lim struggled to keep NAFA afloat as it grappled with low enrolment and a shortage of teachers and funds. To help pay for the school’s expenses, Lim also taught at Chinese High and Nanyang Girls’ High on the side. His five children joined him in late 1938.
NAFA’s first cohort of four Western-art students successfully graduated in 1940. To accommodate an increase in student numbers, which had risen to 50, the academy moved to a bungalow at 93 Serangoon Road.4
More teachers escaping war in China came to Singapore and joined the academy. Lim was able to open more classes, including lessons on art theory, music, and cartoon drawing. NAFA flourished during this period, but danger would soon be upon its staff and students.
The start of the Japanese Occupation in 1942 led NAFA, a known anti-Japanese base, to close its doors. Lim himself took part in resistance efforts but kept a low profile. Unfortunately, his eldest son, Yew Ming, was killed by the Japanese in 1943.5
Lim kept the rest of his family safe until the Japanese surrendered in 1945. NAFA reopened in 1946 in a bungalow in St Thomas Walk. It was the only pre-war art school on the island that survived World War II. The 1950s, however, marked the start of fresh problems for NAFA. Lim sought financial support from the Ministry of Education but was only granted funding equivalent to that of primary schools.6In 1952, during the Malayan Emergency, the authorities also stopped recognising the academy’s art education diploma.7
Despite the challenges, school fees were kept affordable, and some needy students were exempted from paying them. Lim carried out many fund-raising activities, and there were times when he and the school’s board of directors even used their own money to keep the school going.
As NAFA’s principal, Lim stressed to staff and students that their works should represent the reality of the place they lived in. He encouraged them to explore Singapore and the region.
One such excursion was a landmark trip to Bali, Indonesia in 1952 by NAFA teachers – and pioneers of Nanyang art – Cheong Soo Pieng (1917–1983), Chen Wen Hsi (1906–1991), and Chen Chong Swee (1910–1985). They were joined by artist Liu Kang (1911–2004). An array of acclaimed works responding to Bali’s culture and landscape emerged as a result of that trip. In 1954, Lim recruited artist Georgette Chen (1906–1993), adding to the list of Nanyang pioneer artists who taught at the academy.
Lim refined his views on Nanyang art over the years. In 1955, he articulated six precepts for young artists in Nanyang:8
Nanyang art — a diverse category spanning oil paintings, Chinese ink works and more – continued to mature in Singapore, enjoying a “golden period” till the mid-1960s.9
Lim died in 1963 at the age of 69. His second son Lim Yew Kuan (1928–2021) — a NAFA graduate himself — took over as the academy’s principal after that.
Lim Hak Tai was known more for his contributions as an educator rather than an artist. He was not as prolific as some of his peers and never held a solo exhibition during his lifetime. This was partly due to his poor health — he had contracted tuberculosis in the mid-1950s. Only about 100 of his works, most of them oil paintings, are known.10A year before his death, Lim was awarded the prestigious Certificate of Honour (Sijil Kemuliaan). There was a posthumous exhibition of his art in 1991, and another exhibition showcasing 50 of his oil, acrylic and Chinese ink works was held to celebrate NAFA’s 70th anniversary.11
Lim’s legacy is far-reaching. Over the years, NAFA has produced numerous alumni who have shaped the country’s arts landscape, ranging from painters Lim Yew Kuan, Chua Mia Tee, Lai Kui Fang (1936–2022), Lee Boon Wang (1934–2016) and Tan Choh Tee — founding members of the Equator Art Society (1956–1972) — to pioneering musician Lucien Wang (1909–2007), and sculptors Ng Eng Teng (1934–2001) and Han Sai Por. More recently, NAFA and Lasalle College of the Arts joined forces to form the University of the Arts Singapore, which is slated to open in August 2024.
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Chen Wen Hsi (1906–1991) is regarded as one of Singapore’s most significant 20th century modern artists. Born in a small village in Guangdong, China, Chen’s interest in art started early. As a child, he was fascinated by Chinese paintings and calligraphy displayed at home, and enjoyed watching traditional folk-painters decorate the eaves and pillars of buildings. Despite initial objections from his family, he left for Shanghai in the 1920s to study art after completing his secondary school education in Shantou.
While at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts and, later, Xinhua Academy of Fine Arts, Chen’s exposure to the Chinese ink painting tradition deepened. This was a period when ink painting underwent much change and debate, against the backdrop of China’s new status as a modern republic in the early 20th century. In the wake of China’s humiliating defeat to a technologically superior West, many Chinese like political reformer Kang Youwei (1858–1927) felt that China’s progress needed to be propelled by science and technology. On the cultural front, the May Fourth Movement in 1919 had ignited the drive to strengthen China through cultural reforms. Many artists regarded ink painting, with its traditional emphasis on copying from old masters, as fossilised and irrelevant to a new China. Ink painting was seen to have fallen behind in the international competition for modernity, and there was intense debate over the building of a new nation and the role of art in the new era. Different schools of painting emerged. There were artists such as Wu Changshuo (1844–1927) of the Shanghai School, whose ink paintings appealed to the city’s rich merchants through the use of rich colours, bold calligraphic strokes, lively compositions, and accessible subject matter such as birds and flowers. At the same time, there were others, like Gao Jianfu (1879–1951) from the Lingnan School, who were inspired by Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) which synthesised Chinese and Western traditions, by incorporating Western realist techniques of shading and linear perspective into ink paintings. During those formative years in Shanghai, Chen gained a sound understanding of these different developments and built a strong foundation in ink painting. Coupled with his keen powers of observation, Chen’s paintings often married the Lingnan School’s naturalistic depictions with the expressive brushwork and dynamic compositions of the Shanghai School.
At the same time, like many artists of his generation, Chen was also exposed to Western art. This was especially so for Chen, who was enrolled in his school’s art education department, and therefore received training in both Western and Chinese painting. The cosmopolitan city of Shanghai also offered many opportunities for him to encounter diverse art forms and ideas. There were frequent exhibitions by artists who worked in different media such as ink, oils, sculpture, architecture, design and photography. Foreign concepts like Impressionism and Surrealism were taught in local art schools and discussed within the wider art circles. In the late 1940s, Chen left his job as an art teacher in China and eventually settled in Singapore. Life in Singapore further consolidated his understanding of and exposure to Western modern art — more than would have been possible in China. In the ensuing decades after the Chinese Communist Party came to power in China in 1949, modern art, with its foreign associations and emphasis on individual subjectivity, was discouraged by the authorities. By contrast, Singapore-based Chen had access to international art books, and opportunities to meet different artists and travel overseas. In his new home, Chen could discuss art with like-minded colleagues and explore different ideas about making art. This led him once to remark: “My foundation in Chinese painting is rooted in China, whereas my training in Western paintings was perfected in Singapore.”1From the 1950s to 1980s, Chen experimented with diverse international movements such as Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism and Abstraction.2
Chen’s openness to innovation may be attributed to a few factors. His art teacher Pan Tianshou (1897–1971) was an important influence. Pan advocated that both Chinese and Western art traditions should maintain their own uniqueness and originality. He taught his students to apply Western principles of mass, space, movement and balance, and the relationship between lines and the picture plane, to ink paintings. At the same time, Pan promoted the Chinese literati ideal that regarded art as expressing an artist’s ethical values, character, learning and talent.
Chen also much admired the works of earlier ink masters such as Huaisu (725–785), Bada Shanren (1626–1705), Huang Shen (1687–1772) and Xugu (1824–1896). These artists were known for their eccentric personalities and highly individualistic practices that paid scant heed to convention. Hence, over time, Chen came to believe that “an artist would inevitably be influenced by tradition, but following tradition slavishly should not be his goal. He must break away from tradition to create his own style.”3 Chen further held that “(t)he world is evolving in every aspect, not just in politics, but also in the field of painting, where improvement and originality is constantly being sought”.4
Chen’s open attitude towards Western painting styles was also due to his familiarity with Chinese literati traditions. The traditional scholar-artist was focused on capturing the spirit or essence of his subject, rather than physical likeness. Hence, Western modern styles such as Fauvism and Cubism, with their emphases on subjectivity rather than representation, were not inconsistent with literati xieyi principles.5 In the end, Chen always maintained that both Chinese and Western painting had their own strengths, and he aimed to combine and continue in both traditions. The path he took was one of “fusion of the East and West”.6
In the last decade of his life, Chen concentrated almost exclusively on ink painting, which was a less time-consuming medium than oil painting. He sought to use ink painting techniques in innovative ways that incorporated his understanding of Western modern art. Although his paintings were still based on reality, he freely distorted and transformed them. In the process, they became abstract compositions that integrated different traditions.7 From Cubism, he incorporated the notion of fragmenting or distorting the subject into geometric shapes within a space that had no definite light source or horizon. From Fauvism, he used the idea that colours had their own individual characteristics that could be exploited to enhance visual impact. From Expressionism, he realised the affinity between the Western gestural stroke and the feibai (flying white) brushwork associated with Chinese literati artists. And from Abstraction, he saw the value in emphasising pure form and its relevance to contemporary life. These led to his well-regarded body of semi-abstract ink paintings of egrets, herons and ducks where bird forms were deconstructed and then reconstituted into powerful compositions of lines, shapes and colours.
Apart from being an influential art teacher, Chen’s years in Singapore were marked by commercial and critical success. His works were well-collected, and he had major retrospective exhibitions in Singapore, Beijing and Taipei in the 1980s and 1990s. After his demise in 1991, he received posthumous national honours, and his paintings were commemorated on stamps and currencies issued by the Singapore government.
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Tchang Ju Chi (1904–1942) is one of Singapore’s most important painters from the pre-World War II era. He was also an important advocate of fine art activities for Chinese associations in Singapore.
Born in Chaoan, Guangdong, Tchang (whose father Zhang Yinbo was skilled in the gongbi style of painting) cultivated a love of art from a young age. He studied Western-style painting at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, and upon graduation, furthered his studies at the Marseille Academy of Fine Arts in France. In 1927, he moved to Singapore, where he taught at Tuan Mong School and Yeung Ching School (now Yangzheng Primary School).
In 1929, when Sin Chew Jit Poh was founded, its chief managing editor Tchou Paoyun (birth and death years unknown) invited Tchang to contribute cartoons to the newspaper’s literary section Fanxing (Stars). In July that same year, the newspaper added a pictorial section, Xingguang (Starlight) — with Tchang as its chief editor — to promote fine art and gain the interest of readers. During this period, the mastheads of Sin Chew Jit Poh supplements, such as Fanxing and Yepa (Wild flowers), as well as Tsing Nien (Youth) organised by the Nanyang Chinese Students’ Society through Sin Chew Jit Poh, were all designed by him. He also redesigned the masthead of the literary supplement Yelin (Coconut Grove). In 1930, after a year and two months at the helm, Tchang resigned as editor of Xingguang. That same year, his friend Chen Lien Tsing (1907–1943), who was editor of Lat Pau, added a new illustrated weekend pictorial supplement Yehui (Coconut Splendour) to the newspaper, and put Tchang in charge of it. Due to a lack of funds, however, the supplement ceased publication after half a year.
In late 1929, Tchang resigned from his job as a schoolteacher. He then founded Ju Chi Studio on 11 February 1930. It was apparent, from an advertisement for the studio in Sin Chew Jit Poh on 18 February 1930, that members of the cultural community such as Zhang Shu‘nai (1895–1939), Francis S. Fang (unknown–1942), Chen Lien Tsing, and Fu Wu Mun (1892–1965), held Tchang’s artistic talent in high esteem.
Ju Chi Studio was mainly involved in designing artwork for business advertisements. It also conducted art classes. Many cartoons by Tchang’s students were published in Sin Chew Jit Poh’s pictorial supplement Xingguang. In 1933, Tchang and his brother-in-law Chuang U-Chow (1907–1942) co-founded The United Painters to create advertisements for businesses.
While living in Singapore, Tchang was actively involved in local and overseas exhibitions. Many of his exhibited works were oil paintings, probably closely related to his time in France.
According to existing literature, he was a painter who consciously — and from very early on — integrated Nanyang (Southeast Asian) scenery into his paintings. The masthead he designed for Lat Pau’s supplement Yelin featured a coconut grove, which not only echoed the supplement’s name but highlighted a view, long advocated by Chen Lien Tsing, that “literature should exhibit a sense of place”. In his essay Difang secai yu wenyi (Local colour and the arts), Chen Lien Tsing regarded Nanyang scenery, such as verdant coconut groves, dense rubber trees, lush banana plants, towering old trees, and cooling rains, as good subjects for writers. Chen Lien Tsing mentioned in his writing Zhang Ruqi xiansheng (Mister Tchang Ju Chi) that “the coconut tree, though having slender branches and leaves, and a weak posture, when featured in Mister Tchang Ju Chi’s paintings, shows strength in its slender length and robustness in its weak posture, a symbol of our life in Nanyang.”2
Tchang’s time in Singapore may have been short, but it was a brilliant one, artistically speaking. After living in Singapore for some time, he felt strongly about the development of local art. In 1930, when he was in charge of Lat Pau’s Yehui pictorial supplement, he wrote in the preface of the publication what was undoubtedly a call-to-arms for the art community, as well as a reflection of his strong social mission: “The art scene right now is no different from a desert – bleak, desolate, and extremely dry! Yet here in the desert, we long for the fountain of life … The pace, though very slow, still carries a great mission. Step by step forward, never to tire…” The masthead of Yehui even had the English words “Slow but Sure” on it.
Tchang’s works include Malay daughter, Kachang Puteh Man, Southern Beauty, Still Life, Portrait of a Bengali, Old man from Jining, Attap House, Shadow of a Coconut Tree, and Coolie, all of which expressed the painter’s love of local life. Chen Chong Swee (1910–1985) wrote of Tchang’s works: “The composition is uniquely crafted, the figures are life-like, the lines are perfectly applied, the shades show strong and weak texturing that is precise and concise; and a cool breeze can be felt looking at his landscape painting of madashan [Brastagi, Sumatra], as if he has completely tapped the magical power of nature in his masterful expression.”3
Before World War II, the Society of Chinese Artists and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts promoted the development of fine art in Singapore in a big way. Tchang served as the founding president of the Society of Chinese Artists in 1936, 1937, 1938, and 1940, making huge contributions to its growth. The society was regarded as the first well-organised art group in Singapore, and many of its members were art teachers in primary and secondary schools. Other members of the club included Chen Chong Swee (who taught at Tuan Mong School), Yeh Chi Wei (1913–1981; Chung Cheng High School), Huang Qingquan (birth and death years unknown; Chinese Industrial and Commercial Continuation School4), Wu Tsai Yen (1911–2001), Yan Zaisheng (birth and death years unknown; Tao Nan School), and others. Tchang Ju Chi also taught at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, doing what he could to nurture the next generation of artists.
Painter Liu Kang (1911–2004) said of Tchang: “He is one of the painters in all of Malaya with the most mature and sophisticated realist techniques comparable to that of [Xu] Beihong and Basuki [Abdullah], and at least as, or even more, charming and elegant in style, with characters so life-like to the point that they enthral the soul.”5
In 1942, during the Japanese Occupation, Tchang was killed in the Sook Ching massacre, bringing an end to his short life.
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Lee Howe (1915–2009) was born in Changsha in Hunan province, China. After completing her secondary education, she enrolled in the Shanghai National Conservatory of Music (now Shanghai Conservatory of Music). During her time at the conservatory, she was classmates with the renowned Chinese vocalist Zhou Xiaoyan (1917–2016). She studied under several prominent musicians, including Chinese composer Huang Tzu (1904–1938).
Upon graduation, Lee returned to Wuhan, where she soon took up a position as a music teacher at Hankou City No. 1 Girls’ High School, marking the beginning of an extensive career in music education that would span five decades.
When the Sino-Japanese War erupted in 1937, Lee evacuated with the school and made her way from Guilin to Hong Kong. She had originally intended to travel by ship to Italy for further studies, but by a stroke of luck, her plans changed as the ship was passing through Singapore. She was offered a position as a music teacher at the Pay Teck Girls’ School in Malacca (now SJK(C) Pay Teck) and remained in Malacca for some time.
In 1941, Lee relocated to Singapore, where she took up teaching positions at Nanyang Girls’ High School, Chung Cheng High School, The Chinese High School (now Hwa Chong Institution) and Yock Eng High School (now Yuying Secondary School). During this period, she also travelled to various countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States, to further her studies in vocal music. She had the privilege of learning from renowned musicians, including the British conductor Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970).
Lee dedicated over five decades of her life to music education in Singapore, nurturing many talented individuals who went on to achieve great success. Some of her proteges included early Singapore vocalists Sng Chin Hock (1939–2005), Soo Ming Cheow (1936–2002), Elena Ng Choy Luan, and Lui Chun Seng (1934–2010).
She established one of the earliest local choirs, the Lee Howe Choral Society (now Song Lovers Choral Society), making significant contributions to the promotion and development of vocal music in Singapore.
Lee also had a rich creative output, where composition techniques and styles were notably influenced by her teacher Huang Tzu, a renowned composer in the 1950s. Her composition styles also share similarities with those of contemporary Chinese composer Liu Xue’an (1905–1985) and the Taiwanese composer Hwang Yau-tai (1912–2010). The songs Lee composed included:
Between 1981 and 1995, Lee was a columnist for the Sifang bamian (From Every Corner) column in the lifestyle section of Lianhe Zaobao. During this period, she also contributed to the coordination and review of music-related articles for the newspaper.
Lee’s influence in the music community extended beyond Singapore. In the early 1980s, even before Singapore had established diplomatic relations with China, Lee made several visits to China. Between 1985 and 1989, she was invited to lead the Lee Howe Choral Society for performances in cities such as Shanghai, Wuhan, Urumqi, Guangzhou, and Xi’an, making significant contributions to cultural exchange between Singapore and China.
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The Singapore Children’s Playhouse (thereafter referred to as Children’s Playhouse) was an active children’s theatre group in the 1960s and 1970s. It had its roots in radio drama and later became a leader in stage performance, while also engaging in publishing activities to showcase the talents of its members.
Established on 12 June 1965, it was initially affiliated with the Chinese department of the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation. At the end of 1964, due to a shortage of Mandarin-speaking child actors, the radio station decided to conduct training classes. The radio director Fu Helin (1940–1990) was responsible for enrollment, while Thia Mong Teck (1936–2007), who was also a broadcaster and announcer, later took over as the mentor. 1Thia was one of the driving forces behind local radio dramas and youth theatre, and had a profound influence on Mandarin drama, stage performance, and other related fields.2
The original intention of the training classes was to cultivate radio drama actors, but Thia hoped the students could develop and learn in various areas. He thus set a goal for them to eventually perform on stage. The first training session commenced on the same day as the establishment of Children’s Playhouse.
The selection criteria for Children’s Playhouse were strict. Applicants had to have excellent academic performance as well as potential in singing and dancing. The first two training sessions attracted as many as 2,000 applicants, but only around 60 were ultimately selected. They were all students in primary and secondary school, and usually engaged in playhouse activities on weekends, including rehearsals, recordings, Mandarin voice training, and mime performances.
In addition to classes at the radio station, Thia’s father-in-law’s row of old bungalows on Arthur Road in Katong served as the main headquarters for the playhouse’s activities.
Thia adapted many world classics, fables, and folktales into radio dramas, which were performed by the playhouse’s students. Children’s Playhouse’s first radio drama, broadcast on 8 August 1965, was The Hunting Rifle Without Bullets, a piece of work from the former Soviet period. Besides children’s radio dramas, the playhouse also aired its first interview programme titled Yiyuan xinsheng (Art Garden New Voices) on 4 December of the same year, allowing listeners to get to know these young actors. Both weekly programmes gained popularity and gradually attracted a loyal audience for the playhouse, including listeners from across the strait in Malaysia. The success of Children’s Playhouse encouraged the establishment of other drama groups targeting children, such as Rediffusion’s Children’s Drama Group, which was established in 1967 and later renamed the Youth Children’s Drama Group.
A year and a half after its establishment, Children’s Playhouse made its stage debut in December 1966, staging Children’s Playhouse Night at the Victoria Theatre. Tickets for all five nights were sold out. Due to the enthusiastic response from the audience, the three one-act plays performed in the show, Borrowing an Umbrella, Dormitory Turmoil, and Before and After Children’s Day, were later recorded and broadcasted as television programmes, giving those who missed the live performances the opportunity to watch them.
The most iconic performance of the playhouse was the multi-act play The Watch, which was staged seven times at the Victoria Theatre in April 1968 and adapted into a television programme. Later, Children’s Playhouse collaborated with the television station to produce Deep Benevolence and two single-unit dramas, Lost Melody and Rail.
In early 1969, the playhouse established multiple interest groups, including literary arts; fine arts; men’s, women’s, and children’s choruses; dance, piano, accordion, harmonica, and photography groups. As the playhouse developed and matured, they also established brass bands and traditional Chinese orchestras.3
Children’s Playhouse ventured into publishing as well, releasing the first issue of Camel Art Literary Weekly in January 1969. The name Camel came from a supplement page created by Min Bao in 1968, when Thia was invited to serve as its editor-in-chief. Later, The Camel Art Publishing House was formally established in March 1970. At its peak, it had nearly 40 full-time members. However, it dissolved in February 1976 after only a few years of operation.
In 1970, the radio station ceased broadcasting children’s radio dramas and Yiyuan xinsheng. Thia resigned from the radio station, and almost all the members of the playhouse left with him. Following their departure, Children’s Playhouse became an independent organisation and began to professionalise. As its members grew older, The Youth Playhouse was officially established on 3 March 1971.
At its peak, The Singapore Children’s Playhouse and The Youth Playhouse had 500 members. Their performances were often sold out, with a record of up to 31 shows per run. The highest number of audience members they ever witnessed exceeded 30,000. During its 15-year existence, Children’s Playhouse produced a total of 13 stage performances and nurtured a generation of excellent Chinese-speaking performers.
Thia announced the suspension of the playhouse’s activities in 1976, despite it being at the peak of its popularity. That year, many drama workers were arrested due to their involvement in political activities. In a 2005 interview, Thia openly admitted that in light of the social situation at the time, he did not want to see the playhouse’s activities spiral out of control and lead to similar incidents. Therefore, he believed it was necessary for the playhouse to suspend its activities and reconsider its future direction.4
The final performance by Children’s Playhouse was held at the Little World Children’s Arts Evening in 1980. After that, Children’s Playhouse officially became history. However, its influence had deeply penetrated the local Chinese cultural and education community. Even today, many former members still uphold the spirit of the playhouse and actively nurture future generations of successors in the theatrical arts. For example, the Hokkien Huay Kuan Arts and Cultural Troupe, which started its children’s performing arts training classes in 1987, was co-founded by former members of Children’s Playhouse, including Perng Peck Seng, Huang Shuping, Ng Siew Ling, and Shi Manhua.
In the early years of Singapore’s nation-building, while various industries were still emerging, cultural development had yet to be fully realised. It was during this time that Children’s Playhouse emerged, nurturing hundreds of cultural talents. Figures such as Wah Liang (1953–1995), Wu Xueni, Chua Soo Pong, Perng Peck Seng, Wong Lin Tam, Woo Wei Quee, Ho Seo Teck, Chak Chee Yoke, Ng Siew Leng, Lim Jen Erh, Yang Fan, Tan Tiaw Gem, and others who were cultivated by the playhouse later became active members in theatre, broadcasting, television, culture, and the education sectors. Organisations like Children’s Playhouse and Rediffusion Children’s Drama Group played a crucial role in laying the foundation and sowing the seeds for the inheritance of Chinese culture.