You have probably never heard of the Jenti Kristang: the Portuguese-Eurasians of Southeast Asia. And that’s not your fault — we’ve accidentally caused so much trouble for colonial powers and independent governments alike that it’s often been hard to listen to our stories, hear our songs, or just understand that we have voices too, and hearts, and minds, and souls —
 
And beautiful brown bodies, that have also been the stuff of quiet, hidden sun-soaked legends of old.
 
Long denigrated as hypersexual, promiscuous, insignificant and immoral, let the leader of the reinvigorated Kristang community and Omimerliang or last Merlionsman of the Republic of Singapore, Kevin Martens Wong, take you on a subversive, transformative odyssey through creole/indigenous body neutrality, psychoemotional wellness, quiet, indomitable resistance against personal and institutional abuse and queer, neurodiverse and fully authentic and vulnerable Singaporean pride like you’ve never experienced any of them before — and with good reason, since the Kristang language is also recognized by UNESCO as critically endangered. With some of the finest, rarest and sexiest queer creole/indigenous poetry in both English and Kristang this side of the Dragon’s Teeth Gate, you’ll never look at the Other in the same way again.
 
This double-sized Diseideza or celebratory anthology commemorates the keynote address “Bunga Sayang Kristang: On Becoming the Last Merlionsman of the Republic of Singapore, and the Lion City’s Secret Big Brown Lucky Gay Non-binary Kristang Star”, delivered at the University of Chicago’s “Doing Being Other in Global Singapore” from April 21 to May 1, 2023.