‘A Malayan Girlhood on Parade’: Colonial Femininities, Transnational Mobilities, and the Girl Guide Movement in British Malaya

Abstract

In 1938, news of a group of Malayan-Chinese Scouts venturing to China to aid the wounded during the Sino-Japanese War made the headlines in the English and the Chinese press in British Malaya.¹ The Singapore Free Press described the ‘supreme sacrifice’ of these ‘doomed youths’ in the following manner:

The highest traditions of the Scout movement have been heroically fulfilled by 16 overseas Chinese Scouts from the Straits Settlements, ten of whom have been killed, two wounded and the remaining four reported missing while engaged in front-line service with the Chinese armies … Most of them came from families of high standing in the Peninsula. Led by capable and beautiful Miss Mack Swee Cheng, the only daughter of a wealthy Chinese sugar merchant in Singapore, the group reached Canton on Oct. 1, where they were sent for further first-aid and army training by the Overseas Affairs Commission Officials there … four remaining girls actually took part in guerrilla warfare while the Scouts were again occupied in dispatch-running and rescuing the wounded.²