帝国的展示与殖民地的形塑 ：从1922年马来亚婆罗洲展览会看英殖民当局所形塑之新加坡“形象”= Exhibiting the empire/constructing the colonies : a look at the image of Singapore as a British colony at the 1922 Malaya-Borneo exhibition

• Main Author: 蔡竺耘 Chua, Cynthia Zhu Yun
• Other Authors: Lan Shi-Chi
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: Chinese
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::History::Asia::Singapore
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/15009
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

殖民地展览会早在19世纪就流行起来。英国、法国、荷兰，等国也都意识到展览会对于殖民地形象建构的作用。本文主要围绕英殖民政府于1922年在新加坡举办的马来亚婆罗洲展览会（马婆展览会）进行讨论。以爱德华•萨依德的“东方主义”为理论基础，本文所要探讨的是英殖民政府通过马婆展览会所建构出来的新加坡“形象”。除“东方主义”此一理论基础，本文还结合了《叻报》报道、口述历史资料以及展览会官方手册等档案资料，试图拼凑出展览会所呈现出来的新加坡“形象”。通过马婆展览会以及会期内所举办的活动，笔者发现新加坡同许多被殖民的地区一样，在展览会中的形象都是不完整、含缺陷的。同时，本文还发现马婆展览会所再现出来的殖民地形象正好符合爱德华•萨依德的“东方主义”概念 – 英国在此次展览会中是“进步”、“一般”的；殖民地（既新加坡）则是“落后”、“不一般”的。此种含缺陷的形象在展览会中不断得到加强与巩固。然而，这并非完整的“新加坡”。因此，本文希望通过对马婆展览会的了解深入剖析新加坡“形象”的建构。Colonial exhibitions gained popularity as early as in the 19th century. Many countries such as Britain, France and Holland have had long histories of holding colonial exhibitions, and these countries knew very well the impact on which exhibitions have on the construction of the colony “image”. In this paper, discussions will revolve around the 1922 Malaya-Borneo exhibition held in Singapore. Initiated and set up by the British Colonial Government, the Malaya-Borneo exhibition was one of the greatest exhibitions ever held in colony Singapore. Through this paper, we will examine how Edward Said’s teachings on “Orientalism” can be applied to colonial exhibitions and colony representations. Together with archival resources like Chinese paper Le Bao, oral history documents and the exhibition official guide published by the exhibition committee, this paper attempts to piece together the image of colony Singapore as represented in the exhibition. In the course of this paper, we will discover just how similar colony Singapore was to many other colonies. She too, was given an incomplete and flawed image through the construction of the exhibition. On top of this, we can also see how well this flawed and incomplete image fits into the teachings put forth by “Orientalism”. Great Britian in this case, was well portrayed as the “advanced”, the “usual”, while on the other hand; colony Singapore was rendered the “backward” and “unusual” image. Through the study of the Malaya-Borneo exhibition, we will find out how well this divided “East and West” concept gets strengthened over the entire course of the exhibition. However, we will also see that this is by no means the complete Singapore “image”. In all, this paper aims to understand colony Singapore the way it was represented in the exhibition, and how incomplete this representation will appear to be.