Wong Hoy Cheong was born in Penang, the grandson of an immigrant from south China who married into a well-to-do Straits Chinese family. occasionally painting quiet, introspective works, he is best known for paintings and performances which are overtly political. The ambivalence of the transplanted Chinese psyche comes through in touching works like Aspirations of the Working Class, portraying a couple and their two children posing stiffly in a curious combination of Chinese andWestern clothes. Non- Chinese elements surrounding the little family point up their cultural vulnerability and isolation. When focused on the affluent middle class,Wongs commentary is touched with acidity. In The Nouveau Riche, the Elephant, the Foreign Maid, or the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, the artist has trained a satirical lens on the Malaysian tendency to ape an imported lifestyle.while his subjects are ethnically ambiguous, their unconscious mimicking of fashionable Western postures and pastimes is unmistakable. Despite the distinctly Malaysian content of his work,Wong regards himself as a relative outsider in his own country. Having long lived abroad, he has the sharp, ded vision of those who have learned to view themselves and their compatriots with a merciless objectivity from prolonged exposure to a different culture.