In 1867, Ah Sing Jong was in a violent fight with two other Chinese gold diggers, Ah Key and Sheteen. Confused and awaiting trial, Ah Sing mutilated himself with a knife. Declared insane, he spent 33 years in gaols and mental asylums and died in Sunbury Asylum in 1900.

Ah Sing wrote his diary at Yarra Bend Asylum between 1867 and 1872. He recorded the unfair treatment he received from the justice system and protested his innocence, claiming the other two Chinese men started the fight. His words are filled with frustration and anger; they are not the ramblings of a lunatic.

The diary is a curious mix of English and Chinese. Ah Sing used the little English he knew to express Chinese concepts without changing the Chinese sentence structures. This makes it difficult for an English speaker to follow. Familiarity with Chinese ideas is also necessary in order to understand much of what he was trying to say.