Writer and Director: Chng Yi Kai
Around the world, LGBTQ+ people’s stories are different – and yet, common threads are universal. Stories of rejection, acceptance, togetherness and loneliness exist wherever queer people live.
As part of the Queer East Festival’s foray outside its traditional film-based roots, ChngYi Kai’s When the cloud catches colours explores queer life in Singapore through the eyes of two people in their fifties. This verbatim piece takes their testimony and from their two threads weaves a tapestry of two vibrant lives.
Julius Foo’s Qing is a man struggling to come to terms with being single after two decades of being in a relationship. His sense of loneliness and isolation comes through in his monologues, which liberally switch between English and Mandarin. We also hear reminiscences of earlier times, when he and other gay men would struggle with the country’s mandatory National Service, or when work colleagues would assume that he would behave in a predatory manner towards other men in the business.
Such reactions to homosexuality are not unfamiliar to British gay men, of course, particularly those of Qing’s age. But progress in Singapore has been slower thanks to a statute, Section 377A of the Singapore Penal Code, which criminalised sex between two men. A holdover from British Colonial rule, it was only rescinded in 2022, accompanied by a constitutional amendment to bar any possibility of same-sex marriage.
That means that older LGBTQ+ people don’t get as much chance of financial stability as their straight counterparts, with Singapore’s housing board favouring couples in heterosexual marriages. And while Qing notes that divorce is not unusual among men his age, there is acceptance of them that is missing for someone in his position, who could never have married in the first place.
Similar sentiments are echoed by the piece’s second voice, that of Eileena, known as E (Judy Ngo). Although she has a job as a counsellor and massage therapist, she is stuck at home as a carer for her mother and nephew, with no help from her brother. E rails against her mother’s attitudes, in which an already patriarchal tradition of favouring the son over the daughter is compounded by E’s queerness.
At times, both characters’ stories deal with immense sadness at being denied the opportunity to live the same sort of ordinary lives that straight counterparts take for granted. And there are flashes of darker elements: E talks about the death by suicide of one of her young clients, and hints at some of the abuse she received from the family she cannot really escape.
But far stronger is the message of hope, light and colour. From Qing’s volunteering at an old people’s home to E’s pioneering work bringing queer Singaporeans together – she founded RedQueen!, Singapore’s first mailing list for lesbians, and was instrumental in the creation of Singapore’s first LGBT community space, the Pelangi Pride Centre – there is a sense of fulfilment from engaging with the wider community and sharing the love.
Ngo’s E talks about not feeling able to participate in the traditional family New Year’s Eve dinner because of the tensions with her brother. Families of queer people can be tough to navigate – “even if you are physically with them, they can still abandon you,” she notes.
But it is the optimism in both the characters that wins us over. And it ends with E talking about a young non-binary person giving her the biggest compliment: “Thank you for making it safe for me to be me.”
For all the similarities and moving recognisable moments in When the cloud catches colours, it’s that sentiment that stands out, especially at times when the LGBTQ+ community feels under attack here and elsewhere. For all the sense of universality, there are still places where we can learn from each other.
Continues until 26 April 2025
Queer East Festival runs at venues across London from 23 April to 18 May 2025.
