Its origin in Malacca, the joget is a traditional Malay dance, commonly accompanied by Malay instruments such as the rebana, gong and gendang – percussion instruments; and is usually performed in social functions. Here, the artist depicts a scene of early Malaysia, where the joget is performed under the illumination of Chinese lanterns, a sneak peek into the meeting of cultures. This work was commissioned for a hotel back in 1972. Five years earlier in 1967, Khaw Sia did a gouache on paper work Untitled (Kampong Spirit), 21cm x 152cm, which also had joget dancers under Chinese lanterns. This is documented in a publication entitled Artists Imagine A Nation published by the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Lasalle College of Fine Arts, Singapore, on the occasion of the exhibition Artists Imagine A Nation: SG50. Pictures Of People And Places from the Collections of Khor Seow Chuan and Friends, February 13 to April 19, 2015. Khaw Sia is perhaps the best trained among the pioneers, with tutelage at Liu Haisu’s Sin Hwa Art Academy in Shanghai (1925-32) and informal private lessons under British-Scottish watercolourist Sir William Russel Flint (1880-1969) in London (1933). Khaw Sia settled in Penang in 1937 and briefly in Hong Kong. He held his first solo in Penang in 1955 and was given a posthumous Retrospective by the Penang State Art Gallery in 1998. His standard was impeccable, as his works were accepted by reputable exhibitions such as the Le Salon Paris in 1956, the Royal Institute Galleries Summer Salon in London in 1957, and the 25th National Society Exhibition in London in 1958.