Legacy of colonialism: Singapore artist’s show on Malayan Emergency and its resonance for Hong Kong

Sim Chi Yin can’t wait to see how Hongkongers react to her work about war against Chinese communists given the anti-Chinese Communist feelings in city just now

Her exhibition recalls the suffering of both sides in 12-year insurgency that gripped Malaya Federation, and their failure to reckon fully with what happened

Reading Time:3 minutes

Sim Chi Yin at her exhibition "One Day We'll Understand", about the war against Chinese communist insurgents in Malaya, at the Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong. Photo: Kitmin Lee/Courtesy of Hanart TZ Gallery

Published: 1:45pm, 22 Jun 2019Updated: 7:13pm, 23 Jun 2019

Singaporean artist Sim Chi Yin has brought her exhibition about Chinese communists to Hong Kong just when anti-Chinese Communist sentiment is running high in the semi-autonomous city.

“One Day We’ll Understand” is about the Malayan Emergency, the 1948-60 communist guerilla war fought in the Federation of Malaya before and after independence from Britain. Its opening in Hong Kong last week coincided with a protest march by record numbers of people against a proposed law change that would make it easier to send fugitives to mainland China and other places that don’t have extradition agreements with the city.

The fear that this would be open to abuse is linked to the protesters’ deep-seated distrust of the ruling Chinese Communist Party and the challenges of implementing the “one country, two systems” framework for postcolonial Hong Kong 22 years after its return to China.

“A Hong Kong artist friend did say to me, jokingly, that her friends won’t come and see the show because they hate the communists,” Sim says. “But I am really interested in how people here will react to this show, since it is about grappling with the legacy of colonialism and thinking through the ideals of that generation.”

The exhibition is the latest iteration of a deeply personal project to which the former photojournalist has been adding for a number of years.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x