“WE NEED TO TALK” FUNDRAISER BOARD TO SUPPORT

Fragments: Reality / Dream / In-Between

A curatorial essay by Deborah Lim
October 25, 2025

Curatorial Essay by Deborah Lim

Reality

Long before Penang became today’s beacon of living heritage and Singapore a modern metropolis, these two locales were deeply connected by lesser-known histories. Located in the Straits of Malacca, they served as prime trade outposts for the East India Company before becoming British colonial settlements with the founding of Penang in 1786 and Singapore in 1819. [1]

The development of such settlements in 18th and 19th-century Malaya required a flow of labour [2] to islands that were sparsely populated in their early years. A mass influx of migrants and merchants, drawn by the prospect of trade, soon followed. A significant portion hailed from diverse parts of China, cementing Penang and Singapore as centres of overseas Chinese culture and homes for this diasporic community.

Historically, villages in China were largely self-sufficient and organised around kinship and lineage networks. In imperial China, while the emperor was considered to rule under the mandate of Heaven[3], this was an abstract concept for most villagers and far removed from their daily lives. Officials such as magistrates and tax collectors served as the villagers’ main touchpoints with the state, but were often associated with corruption and the harsh enforcement of restrictive rules. Village heads and elders, rooted in kinship, were therefore seen as more legitimate [4] and closely connected to the people.

Migrants who settled in Penang and Singapore mirrored village structures from China. They often regrouped by surname lineage. Other networks included the Cantonese, Hokkiens, Teochews, Hakkas and Hainanese, who banded together based on shared dialects to form clan associations.[5] There were also organisations of traders and workers which protected the interests of their members. Based on their experiences in China, mistrust of governments carried over to Penang and Singapore—particularly in relation to the British colonial government of the Straits Settlements.

Given this context, secret societies or Triads were able to assert their influence over local Chinese communities who resented external interference and saw the Triads as better representing their needs. One of the most powerful Triads was known as the Hung Society, Hong Men (洪门) or Tian Di Hui (天地会)—the trinity of Heaven, Earth, and Man. Historical records state this Triad included more than twenty thousand members at the height of its power in Penang.[6] For the early Chinese immigrants who desired community and brotherhood, Triads offered a sense of belonging, playing integral roles in everyday life—providing mutual aid and employment, and functioning as cultural hubs and religious fraternities.

Dream

#1
Legend has it that an oath of brotherhood took place in a peach garden, a scene that features in the classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Three strangers, Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, pledged loyalty to one another until death. They were bound by a shared desire to save the state and serve the people at a time when the throne was threatened by revolt. They burnt incense, offered prayers, and sacrificed a black ox and a white horse. Black and white, opposing forces, symbolised yin and yang, good and evil, light and dark. [7] When Guan Yu was eventually killed by Liu Bei’s enemies, he was deified as the God of War.

#2
The story goes that after the Qing or Manchu dynasty was established in 1644, 108 militant Buddhist monks from the Shaolin monastery offered their support to the state for an important battle. In return, the Emperor granted the monastery special privileges. However, some years later, the Manchu army grew suspicious of the monastery and burnt it to the ground, accusing the monks of treason. Only five escaped, and these survivors went on to found the Hung Society, aiming to overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming to its former glory. [8]

#3
The initiation ceremony of the Hung Society is described as a mythic journey, believed to symbolise the soul’s passage beyond death. The soul travels through the underworld to be reborn in Heaven, the realm of the gods. Its destination is a sanctuary and refuge referred to as “The City of Willows.”

In-Between

Artist Chong Yan Chuah and scholar Simon Soon collaborated to reimagine the Hung Society’s elaborate initiation ritual as the ornate video game The City of Willows (2025)—transforming what was once real into the virtual.

Increasing suppression of Triad activities by authorities meant that mysterious encampments of lodges or headquarters were located in the jungle, where members gathered late at night. The elusive pathways to the lodges were defended by traps and guarded by armed men. Strangers who tried to infiltrate this territory, and failed tests proving they were members of the Triad, faced threats of execution. [9]

The game transforms the traditional Triad initiation ceremony into a cosmological map. Players embark on a mythic journey through a dense jungle landscape, encountering Southeast Asian scenes along the way—such as durian stalls and a seven-storey pagoda recalling Penang’s Kek Lok Si Temple, with its famed “Pagoda of Ten Thousand Buddhas.” Stages reached in the game mirror locations referenced in the initiation ceremony and folklore. These portals include the Hung (or Ang) Gate, the Hall of Fidelity and Loyalty, the Market of Universal Peace and the Red Flower Pavilion. The quest is ultimately to reach the fabled City of Willows, a symbolic sanctuary where belonging and community are embodied.

Reality

Despite their roles in building fraternity and kinship, Triads were often associated with crime and public disorder. They were locked in conflicts over territory, economic rivalries, and internal frictions, which frequently escalated into violent feuds, riots and revenge killings. Eventually, Triads were outlawed under the Societies Ordinance which came into effect in 1890 [10], making it an offence to possess Triad documents and related materials. This did not mean that the Triads disappeared; instead, they continued underground.

A revolutionary alliance was forged between the Triads and Dr. Sun Yat Sen (1866–1925), who is often known as the “Father of Modern China.” He played a vital role in overthrowing the Qing Dynasty, which was a desire shared by the Triads. From the 1890s onwards, the Triads provided Sun with support in the form of funding, manpower, and diaspora networks. Sun’s rhetoric of nationalism and brotherhood strongly resonated with Triad traditions as well.[11] At times, lodges in Singapore doubled as revolutionary headquarters.[12] Rituals once deemed illegal by the Qing Dynasty and colonial authorities became resources for political renewal. The Triad initiation rites paralleled the path of revolutionaries—with stages of exile, suffering, sacrifice, and rebirth into a new world order.

Today, rituals continue to live on. Clan associations and temples serve to sustain the essence and longevity of Chinese traditions and culture. It could be said that an increase in rational thought is directly responsible for the erosion of rituals in daily life.

Dream

#4
The main function of temples is to hold objects of public worship, through which devotees communicate with deities. For the Chinese, beyond human capabilities, one requires the blessings of divine forces. Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, is prayed to for compassion and fertility.[13] There is the God of Wealth or Prosperity and various deities of healing and protection. The God of War is an eternal symbol of courage and loyalty who was worshipped by the Hung Society.[14]

#5
What drives people to tradition, superstition and religion? During the Hungry Ghost Festival or “Phor Thor,” temples perform ceremonies for the dead. Food, clothing, and other items are offered to ancestors as well as wandering, hungry spirits. In Bukit Mertajam, Penang, devotees have flocked to the Tua Pek Kong Temple for over 130 years to present offerings to a giant statue of Tai Su Yeah—the King of Hades. [15] Around the 15th day of the seventh lunar month in the Chinese calendar, this effigy is dramatically set ablaze. Consumed by flames, the deity is sent back to the underworld.

#6
When one dies, there is a belief that the seven spirits keeping watch over his seven senses perish too. However, the soul remains and lives on in three locations. One rises to Heaven, another is lodged in the grave and the final soul lingers with the spirit tablet that is placed in the ancestral shrine. [16] It is customary for family members to gather at specific times of the year to pay respects to those who have passed on. What is the connection between the world of the living and that of the dead?

In-Between

At present, the merging of tangible and intangible, reality and virtual reality, feels ever closer. If Triads once offered refuge for Chinese migrants, in a dystopian future, the City of Willows might serve as a post-apocalyptic haven. Game worlds and technology could even open up pathways to truer expressions of imagination and emotion. Chong Yan Chuah expands this thought with the Geneacosm Index (2023, 2025), a series of speculative Peranakan futures through the lens of machine vision. The index comprises 113 eerie and uncanny portraits bearing traces of cultural memory while eliciting more questions than answers. There is also a disembodied voice declaring fragments of presence and absence, of history and mythology. All these remnants invite reflection and further dreaming, dissolving the boundaries between past, present, and futures yet to be imagined.

Bibliography