'When I was a young student in Hong Kong I was always told that the red in China’s flag and ours signifies the blood of the people, meaning that the success of a nation cannot exist without the sweats and hours contributed by everyone. Growing up, realizing this is not far from the truth, but rather a total discourse from the true narrative.'

My Colonisers Says I’m Not Welcomed (2025) is an intertextual mixed media painted sculpture/ sculpted painting that draws connection between iconoclastic symbolisms, colonial history and the artist’s background. With hundreds of acrylic sculpted poppies resembling the St.George’s flag, the piece pays attention to the irony between icons’ traditional symbolisms and contemporary interpretations in social contexts and gallery spaces.

Poppies were used as a symbol of peace, of Remembrance Day; but it was always a flower that bloomed over the blood the dead soldiers, the crop that provided opium, a drug along with tobacco that caused The Opium War, the direct reason why Hong Kong became a colony to the British Empire for 99 years.

England’s flag, or the St. Georges Flag, symbolism of sacrifice and courage of the country’s patron saint who allegedly slain a dragon. In 2025, far-right population arose and use their national pride as a symbol of hate towards immigrants and people of colour.

We can go everywhere, but no one can come in.

Text excerpts from Samuel Wells Williams’s The Middle Kingdom: a survey of the geography, government, literature, social life, arts, and history of the Chinese empire and its inhabitants, the Treaty of Nanking, list of British colonies, protectorates, mandates, dominions, occupational zones, and over-sea territories.