Si Jing (the pen name of Ng Soo Lui) was a prolific female writer in the Chinese community. Born in Singapore in 1934, she has written extensively on her childhood and life in Chinatown. Si Jing married her childhood sweetheart, Huang Da Li, in July 1952. Huang Da Li was a literary writer before settling into the Chinese medicine business. He was also an amateur photographer. Together, they had three children. In the photograph, Si Jing is wearing a nipped-in waist floral Western frock, while her husband is wearing a long-sleeved shirt, trousers and a tie. From the 1950s onwards, the adoption of Western-style clothing in Singapore accelerated as many turned to the West and other Asian countries (Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo) for fashion inspiration. Men and women in Singapore were thus no longer limited to their traditional garbs. This photograph is part of the donor’s personal photograph collection.
