The Rascal Quing (pronounced kwing) in English or Raskaliang in Kristang is the singular symbolic non-hereditary and non-linearly-continuous head, leader and chief of the entire Eurasian community in Southeast Asia, and a magnamakara or psychoemotional safe space-creating-and-protecting or gate guardian role attached to Sundaland or the drowned parts of the Southeast Asian subcontinent today represented by island Southeast Asia and the Nusantara. Unlike the Kabesa of the Kristang (who also is only leader of the Kristang, Serani or Portuguese-Eurasians, rather than all Eurasians), the role of Raskaliang or Rascal Quing does not immediately transfer to a new holder when the existing holder dies or can no longer perform the role, and appears to only become active when someone earns and maintains the right to hold the role by “somehow against all the odds managing to unite all the Eurasians together toward one common purpose or under one common sense of pride”. The current 5th Rascal Quing of the Eurasian people is the 13th Kabesa of the Kristang Tuan Raja Naga Ultramar and Teizensang Kevin Martens Wong Zhi Qiang, who became the fifth person to earn the role and title of Rascal Quing on Friday, 4 July 2025 following the announcement and publicisation of his featuring in the Republic of Singapore’s SG60 celebrations, and who is anticipated via dreamfishing to remain the Rascal Quing until his anticipated death date of Sunday, 1 April 2091.
Origin of the role of the Rascal Quing
The first Rascal Quing of the Eurasians was also a Kabesa of the Kristang, and the first person to somehow successfully unite the Eurasians of Malaya under one common cause, direction and identity: John Edwin Richard Tessensohn OBE, the 4th Kabesa of the Kristang from 1874 to 1926, the first Rascal Quing from 1893 to 1926, and the great-great-great-grandfather of the current Kabesa and Rascal Quing Tuan Raja Naga Ultramar Kevin Martens Wong Zhi Qiang. Edwin’s efforts as documented elsewhere saw the Eurasians become generally popularly and formally recognised and consolidated as a culture, identity and ethnicity for the first time with their own customs, traditions, practices, interests and particular languages (or at the time dialects of standard or ‘official’ languages) as a people — an achievement that in the particular time period of the 1870s through to the 1920s was generally unparalleled by any grouping of various strands of otherwise very disparate creole or mixed cultures in the world.
The name Rascal Quing reflects the mischievous, healing playfulness, gentle irreverence and deep erodi spirit that underpins the Eurasian identity at its core and in its most brightest and beauteous manifestation, and how the best and bravest Eurasians of Malaya and Southeast Asia have been sterling examples of dauntless defiance of ugly stereotypes and insipid societal norms and prejudices while also retaining a lady-like and/or gentlemanly respectability that reflects both the ability to match Western colonial standards and still hold and showcase tremendous Indigenous Malayan pride, dignity, gallantry and valour. Like many other creole leaders elsewhere around the world, the Rascal Quing is colorful, vibrant, real, deeply humanistic, extremely mischievous, subversively boundary-bettering, and heroic to the core, often while having to push back against tremendous headwinds that demean and dehumanise the way of being and the Eurasian spirit that they represent and seek to embody, whether these are publicly visible or occluded in the shadowy and murky realms of politics and power; they often also have to deal with false and/or unjustified assignations of treachery, disloyalty and manipulation because they are just so good at weaving together a multiplicity of extremely divergent perspectives and people into a community that often quietly represents the most radically progressive and individuated aspects of humanity.
Selection and Responsibilities of the Rascal Quing
Like the role of Kabesa, the role of the Rascal Quing was previously unnamed, but was understood within the community as “the person whom everyone takes direction from, everyone esteems to a very high degree, and everyone regards as a hero, a paragon of Eurasian virtue and a champion for both the rights of individual Eurasians and those of all peoples of Malaya”; again, like the role of Kabesa, the role of the Rascal Quing thus cannot be invalidated or selected by any external institution, agency or organisation, since it is based primarily on psychoemotional conditions. However, the role of the Rascal Quing is even more difficult to acquire than that of the Kabesa and remains vacant if no Eurasian person or individual is worthy of assuming it or able to assume it. The conditions necessary for someone to become the Rascal Quing appear to be as follows:
- Prior to becoming the Rascal Quing, the person must have already very visibly and publicly have been recognised as a leader both within the Eurasian community and outside of it, and with their leadership having already significantly directly affected or improved the lives of the Eurasian community as a whole in some way. In the cases of all five Rascal Quings so far this has usually involved the person already being very respected in their own profession, on the ground and in community work, and by psychoemotionally healthy members of their own blood family.
- The person must already have unified large parts of the Eurasian community in some way and gained unanimous support from all individuated and/or psychoemotionally healthy people in the Eurasian community for their prior work as a Eurasian leader, and at least tolerance-level respect from all other Eurasian leaders in the public sphere at that moment in time.
- The person must already maintain a very high level of vulnerability and authenticity in the public sphere and in their work with the community based on neurotypical universal standards for authenticity.
- The person must fully respect, honour, appreciate and esteem the Kristang Creole-Indigenous community, identity, language and way of being at the core of Eurasianness to the fullest possible degree and without any prejudice, stereotypes or bias whatsoever; if the person is Kristang themselves, they must also have accepted themselves and their heritage as Kristang in full. A failure to respect the Kristang parts of what it means to be Eurasian appears to have been one of the two factors listed here disqualifying many other Eurasian leaders from assuming the role of Rascal Quing throughout history.
- The person must fully respect, honour, appreciate and esteem all other ethnic communities, identities, languages and ways of being that are immediately adjacent to or present alongside the Eurasian community at that point in time, and must be at least unconsciously seeking to creolise or learn from other communities in respectful and positive ways to better the Eurasian community.
- The person must fully respect, honour, appreciate and esteem all forms of Eurasian identity within the community, including religious, queer/LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, adoptee/blended family/orphan-origin and non-major-ethnic-and-religious-substrand (e.g. Armenian Eurasian, Irish Eurasian, Jewish Eurasian, Muslim Eurasian, New Eurasian etc.) ways of being Eurasian and without any prejudice, stereotypes or bias whatsoever. A failure to respect any of these divergently valid ways of being Eurasian appears to have been one of the two factors listed here disqualifying many other Eurasian leaders from assuming the role of Rascal Quing throughout history.
- The person must be the most individuated and psychoemotionally healthy Eurasian person alive at the point in time satisfying the criteria above at the point at which they take on the role.
- If all of the above conditions are satisfied, the person must then also more or less singlehandedly accomplish a visible public achievement of completely unprecedented, unexpected and stunningly titanic and excellent significance on an internationally-visible scale that mischievously and/or irreverently creolises and transforms an oppressive, manipulative or excessively-paternalistic form of political or institutional pressure or instigation into something that works for the community, unites the community behind them for psychoemotionally positive reasons, permanently changes how other people will now always perceive Eurasians for the better, and demonstrates their ability to consistently manifest all of the above criteria in superlative, reinvigorating and powerful ways in order to assume the role of Rascal Quing.
Activation of the role of Rascal Quing in the collective unconscious generally therefore also means that the Eurasian community is on the cusp of a period of radical, progressive change and evolution under the leadership of the individual who has earned the right to hold the role.
List of Rascal Quings of the Eurasian People
There have so far been five people who have successfully assumed the role of the Rascal Quing throughout the history of the Eurasian community:
| # | Rascal Quing | Period of service and event leading to assumption of role |
| 1st | John Edwin Richard Tessensohn OBE Also 4th Kabesa of the Kristang from 1874 to 1926 | Born Easter Sunday, 8 April 1855 (Progressive Generation) Rascal Quing from Monday, 7 August 1893 at age 38 to his death on Sunday, 26 September 1926 at age 71 (33 years, 1 month and 19 days as Rascal Quing) Became Rascal Quing after newspapers announce his leading of a delegation to Straits Settlements Governor Cecil Clementi Smith to express gratitude for Smith’s recognition of the existence of the Eurasian community in Singapore |
| No Rascal Quing between September 1926 and December 1954 | ||
| 2nd | Dato’/Dr Charles Joseph Pemberton Paglar Also 8th Kabesa of the Kristang from 1941 to 1951 | Born Saturday, 1 September 1894 (Lost Generation) Rascal Quing from Tuesday, 1 September 1942 at age 48 to his death on Thursday, 9 December 1954 at age 60 (12 years and 11 months as Rascal Quing) Became Rascal Quing after being appointed the head of the Synonan Eurasian Welfare Association in Singapore during the Japanese Occupation in World War II |
| No Rascal Quing between December 1954 and December 1970 | ||
| 3rd | Dr Benjamin Henry Sheares Also 2nd President of the Republic of Singapore from 1971 to 1981 | Born Monday, 12 August 1907 (Greatest Generation) Rascal Quing from Wednesday, 30 December 1970 at age 63 to his death on Tuesday, 12 May 1981 at age 73 (10 years, 4 months and 12 days as Rascal Quing) Became Rascal Quing after being nominated for the office of President by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and elected President during the 2nd Parliament of the Republic of Singapore |
| No Rascal Quing between May 1981 and September 1991 | ||
| 4th | Rex Anthony Shelley | Born Monday, 27 October 1930 (Silent Generation) Rascal Quing from Wednesday, 11 September 1991 at age 60 to his death on Friday, 21 August 2009 at age 78 (17 years, 9 months and 12 days as Rascal Quing) Became Rascal Quing after newspapers announce The Shrimp People has made it to the top 10 bestsellers’ list at the Singapore International Festival of Books and Book Fair |
| No Rascal Quing between August 2009 and July 2025 | ||
| 5th | Tuan Raja Naga Ultramar Kevin Martens Wong Zhi Qiang Also 13th Kabesa of the Kristang from 2015 to 2075 | Born Thursday, 1 October 1992 (Millennial) Rascal Quing from Friday, 4 July 2025 at age 32 to his death on Palm Sunday, 1 April 2091 at age 98 (65 years, 8 months and 28 days as Rascal Quing) Became Rascal Quing after publicly announcing having been selected to be officially featured as part of Singapore’s SG60 celebrations as the gay 13th Kabesa of the Kristang people |