Chinese Students in 1950s-60s Malaya: Activism, Translation, and the Making of a Multilingual Future

In the mid-20th century, Nanyang University (Nantah) in Singapore became a powerful symbol of Chinese-language education outside China. Founded through grassroots support, it quickly grew into a vibrant hub of student activism, where young people imagined new futures for Malaya through literature, politics, and academic debates. This talk explores how students at Nantah used language as a tool for activism - writing, translating, and publishing in Chinese, Malay, and English. Their multilingual student periodicals not only circulated on campus but reached wider audiences, reflecting bold visions of decolonisation and cultural belonging in a newly emerging nation. Despite facing censorship, arrests, and bans, these students engaged in what this talk calls the ‘labour of languaging’ - a creative and political effort to shape identity and community across linguistic boundaries. Their work offers rich insights into how Chinese communities in Southeast Asia navigated questions of language, nationhood, and cultural citizenship in the context of decolonisation, while also revealing the limits of multilingual imagination that continue to shape Malaysia today.

About the Speaker

Dr Ying Xin SHOW is Senior Lecturer in the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University and Deputy Director of the ANU Malaysia Institute. Her works explore the history and culture of migration, decolonisation and the impact of the Cold War on Asian societies through literature and arts. She co-edited (with Ngoi Guat Peng) Revisiting Malaya: Uncovering Historical and Political Thoughts in Nusantara and authored the Chinese translation of Alfian Sa’at’s short story collection Malay Sketches. She currently holds an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA).

The ANU China Seminar Series is supported by the Australian Centre on China in the World at ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.