Throughout the 20th century, the “melody” that followed the path of the Prince’s exile had undergone countless “reincarnations” in several places, including the Malay Peninsula, Hong Kong (used to be a British colony as well), Japan (an empire aspiring to “Asia for the Asians”), and Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. Originating from an unknown French song, the “melody” had considerable manifestations, such as Terang Boelan (an Indonesian ballad preluded by condemnation for men), Tiger of Malaya (a song of revenge sung by the protagonist who missed his sister in the political propaganda film released by the Japanese after they invaded Malaya in 1943), Mamula Moon (a song played by the Hawaiian music band “Felix Mendelssohn’s Hawaiian Serenaders”), The Moon Night in the South Sea (a Chinese love song sung by Hong Kong singer Nancy Yao), and Moonlight (a Cantonese song sung by Hong Kong singer Jing Liang who murmured endearments by invoking the metaphor of moonlight).
Nowadays, these banned songs in Malaysia collectively constructed the country’s treacherous narrative that started from the exiled prince. Ranging from colonization, resentment and labor to revenge and bittersweet romance, this “melody” has infiltrated the secret path of time, charting the two split trajectories of the “peninsula” under the moonlight in the South Sea. To sum up, the “melody” is tantamount to a “strange and unheard-of silver noise” resembling a spell as well as a prophecy.