The Malayan Chinese who studied at University of Hong Kong, and the remarkable story of one, a resistance fighter

Overlooking Singapore’s MacRitchie Reservoir, the isolated grave of Lim Bo Seng – a legendary clandestine resistance figure during the years of the war against Japan – offers unexpected connections to pre-war Hong Kong.

Born in  Fujian province in 1909, Lim moved to Singapore aged 16 and – like many other Malayan Chinese of his generation – had close personal and educational links to the University of Hong Kong (HKU).

Between the world wars, this  institution attracted many Malayan students. Singapore’s King Edward VII College of Medicine had opened in 1905 and expanded in 1921, but no university-standard institution existed in Singapore or Malaya until after the Pacific war ended, in 1945.

Raffles College, established in 1928, provided arts and social science courses, and merged with King Edward VII College of Medicine in 1949 to become the University of Malaya, with campuses in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. In 1962, the latter campus broke away and formed the University of Singapore, later called the  National University of Singapore.

In the absence of local institu tions, HKU provided signifi cant higher education opportu ni ties for Southeast Asian Chinese. While many Malayan students here were ethnic Cantonese, other dialect groups were  represented, too; the university also had signifi cant Hokkien, Hakka and Chiu Chow (Teochew) contingents.

Generous donations and timely loans from (mostly Cantonese) Malayan-Chinese sponsors and alumni helped  sustain HKU, founded in 1911, in its early years. Loke Yew Hall was named after the Cantonese tin, rubber and property magnate (and Kuala Lumpur’s premier triad leader).

Southeast  Asian connections remain strong; Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Penang all have active HKU alumni associations.