Transborder malleability: examining popular Nanyang through film stardom

What does it mean to characterise someone, something or somewhere as “Nanyang”? Whether in studies of Nanyang elite or popular cultures, the term is today frequently invoked as a shorthand for a place-based Southeast Asian Chinese identity formed predominantly through acclimatisation to, and interaction with, local cultures and environments, especially in the context of Singapore. This paper rethinks the notion of “popular Nanyang” beyond this usual paradigm through an examination of Singaporean film star Chong Sit Fong’s regional stardom in the 1950s and 1960s. Uncovering how Chong simultaneously embodied different kinds of Chinese national, local and translocal identities, this paper illustrates how the characteristic of transborder malleability, which refers to the capacity to simultaneously embody seemingly contradictory ideologies across borders, enabled Chong to attain regional film stardom during a time of geopolitical flux. This gestures towards an understanding of Nanyang Chineseness not only as place-based, but also inherently translocal and transnational, suggesting how “Nanyang” indexes a flexible modality of identity that functions across geopolitical borders during the 1950s and 1960s.