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ALL ABOUT THE BIG WORLD WE LIVE IN EXCLUSIVE NEWS TODAY

ISSUE 5: Term 1 Week 7, 14 February 2018

A year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning, but a going on, with

all the wisdom that experience can instil in us. ~ Hal Borland.~

Exclusively brought to you by the AES Humanities Department

AESTHEHumanities! Weekly

CHINESE NEW YEAR SPECIAL EDITION

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The day of the fall of Singapore itself was also the first day of Chinese New Year.

Some families tried to continue with traditional celebrations, but their

kampungs – village settlements – were devastated by the Japanese invasion. For

these communities, the three and half years of occupation would bring further

pressures and hardships. ● ● ●

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SINGAPORE’S CHINESE NEW YEAR MEMORIES What is your favourite memory of Chinese New Year? Whether it’s visiting family and friends, overindulging in New Year goodies or visiting the Chinatown’s New Year bazaar, compare your memories of this festive season with that of Singapore’s past!

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The atmosphere was apprehensive and the air was filled with the stench of death on Chinese New Year, 15 February 1942. The unthinkable had happened. Singapore, Britain’s ‘impregnable

fortress, the bastion of her Eastern Empire had fallen into the hands of the Japanese.

76 years ago, 15th February 1942 was the first day of Chinese New Year in Singapore when the Chinese would usher in the Year of the Horse. There was, however, absolutely no joy in celebrating Chinese New Year in 1942. The country was in shambles. The foreboding fear of the encroaching Japanese military, preceded by tales and rumours of their atrocities in China all marked the unknown that lay ahead. The British masters and their families had all left. A Japanese flag could be seen flying from the top of the Cathay Building. For the locals, particularly for the Chinese, it was going to be the start of a horrifying three and a half years. The morning of 15 February saw the opposing forces holding most of their ground, with infiltration mainly by the Japanese within the eastern sector reaching Kallang Airfield. In the west, Japanese troops reached Mount Faber.

76 years ago, Chinese New Year in Singapore was celebrated in fear, danger of bombing and

massacre

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Lieutenant-General Arthur E. Percival, the General Officer Commanding (Malaya), convened his most senior officers at the Fort Canning Bunker at 9.30am for the latest status reports on the situation in Singapore. Brigadier Simson reported that water supply could not be maintained for more than a day due to breakages everywhere which could not be repaired. Water was still

flowing despite the pumps and the main reservoirs were now in Japanese hands. The only fuels left were what remained in each vehicle and at a small pump at the Polo Club. Casualties from enemy bombing were increasing faster than the rate in which bodies could be collected and there were only three days’ worth of rations. With unanimous agreement of all present in the bunker, the decision to cease hostilities and to surrender was made. A delegation of British officers left Fort Canning for the enemy lines at Bukit Timah Road. At the junction of Farrer Road, they proceeded on foot with Union Flag and a white flag across the defence line for 600 yards where they were met by the Japanese soldiers. They were later met by Colonel Sugita who refused their ‘invitation’ to the City for negotiations.

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Instead, Colonel Sugita demanded that Percival was to personally surrender to Lieutenant-General Tomoyuki Yamashita, Commander of the Japanese 25th Army. To acknowledge this surrender condition, the British were also instructed to fly the Japanese Flag from the top of the Cathay Building for ten minutes. At 5.15pm, the British surrender party drove up to the Bukit Timah Ford Motor factory, which had been made Japanese headquarters. The delegation was made up of General Percival, Brigadier Newbigging, Brigadier Torrance, and Major Wild, the interpreter from III Corps.

Percival tried to negotiate with Yamashita on some of the conditions for the surrender of Singapore. Percival wished to delay the ceasefire so as to ensure that all of his men received their orders on time. He also wished to keep 1,000 men armed as he was afraid that the Japanese would retaliate against the local population.

Yamashita, who later described his attack on Singapore as “a bluff that worked”, feared the British were trying to buy time for more reinforcements to arrive. He was particularly worried that the British might discover the truth about the actual situation of his troops, in particular their numerical inferiority compared to the British and their shortage of supplies and ammunition.

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Hence, Yamashita

pressed Percival for an unconditional surrender and threatened to carry on with the major attack of the city planned for 10.30 pm that night if Percival did not acquiesce to his demands.

“The time for the night attack is drawing near! Is the British Army going to surrender or not?” Banging the table, he shouted in English, “Answer YES or NO.” Faced with no other choice, at 6.10 pm. General Percival signed the surrender document, handing Singapore over to the Japanese Empire and subjecting the island to three-and-a-half years of Japanese occupation.

My attack on Singapore was a bluff – a bluff

that worked. I had 30,000 men and was

outnumbered more than three to one. I

knew that if I had to fight for long for

Singapore, I would be beaten. That is why

the surrender had to be at once. I was very

frightened all the time that the British

would discover our numerical weakness

and lack of supplies and force me into

disastrous street fighting.

– Tomoyuki Yamashita

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The Japanese Occupation started brutally, and is remembered as a time of hardship and deprivation. British military and civilians were rounded up and marched off to POW camps. All Chinese were subjected to the mass screening exercise known as Sook Ching.

The lucky ones were issued with identification passes, while countless others were imprisoned, tortured or executed. Private homes and cars were seized by the Japanese for their own use. Basic foodstuffs, including rice, became scarce. Rationing was a fact of life. Prices skyrocketed due to the scarcity of goods, leading to a flourishing black market. Although the Japanese wooed the Indians and favoured the Malays, anyone could be tortured on the mere suspicion of disrespect to Japanese authority. The brutality of the Kempeitai, the Japanese Military Police, kept people in a perpetual state of tension and fear. As the war turned against them in early 1945, the Japanese prepared to defend Singapore to the bitter end. The possibility of a bloody battle, however, evaporated when the Americans dropped a pair of deadly atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. On 15 August, the Japanese formally surrendered. Three weeks later, British warships and Commonwealth troops steamed into Keppel Harbour to a tumultuous welcome. For the next six months, Singapore was placed under the British military administration. The war was now over.

THREE WAR SURVIVORS WITH INCREDIBLE STORIES OF RESILIENCE

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AN INTERVIEW WITH

MRS ELLEN LOUIS who shares her most painful memory of the war

What was most difficult in terms of daily living? Not having what you need - there’s nothing you can just go to the shop and buy. But we somehow managed. My father used to cut the hibiscus and branches or twigs and fray them like a brush. You could add a little salt and brush your teeth with that.

How did you help or receive help during the

war? When I was about to give birth to my baby, I had nobody. One of the families that was with us had a very nice boy, and he ran across all the fields to someone he knew and brought her. He could have been shot. He knew this elderly lady, and he went and brought her. On another occasion, when my husband went to look for things for the baby, he passed a pigsty and he saw this close Chinese friend who owns a granite

quarry hiding in the pigsty. The man and his friend were hiding from the Japanese. My husband offered for him and his friend to stay in our house. And they stayed with us for about a month. We had tea out all the time to make it seem as though they had just come to visit. And then my husband found them each a house nearby.

What was your most painful memory? I lost my daughter because of a lack of children’s food, you know? At the time that she died, she was two years and two months old. Food for children was so difficult. I would feed her powdered milk and whatever I could find… But because she was lacking in proper food and minerals, she developed worms, and eventually she had strangulation of the intestines, and died.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH

MR JOE CONCEICAO who was tricked into going to Bahau

How did people react to the British

surrender? It was very ironic. The day before, Sir Shenton Thomas spoke over the broadcasting system and he said, “Singapore shall not fall. It must not fall. It will not fall.” But the next day, it fell. The people had been too horrified by the bombing to feel very much. It felt that the British could not be relied on any more. I saw them running down the road, taking off their uniform. People everywhere came to the same conclusion: that life would be fearful.

Why did you choose to go to Bahau? What

was it like there? I was fed up with the Japanese. They were cruel to me and would kick me around. The only time I was not beaten up was because I had a Japanese officer who was looking after my job.

There were two leaders in the church and they were preaching in Bahau because they were warned that if they did not preach in Bahau, the Eurasians would be in a very bad situation. The Arch Bishop said, “For your own lives, you had better go.” It did not need much more than that for us to decide. On the way there, we were all playing guitar and singing on the journey, until we reached the Bahau Raiway Stattion. And we looked around, and we decided: this is not the time for singing anymore. It was a dreadful scene. A desolate scene. Not even jungle. Just marsh.

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How did people support each other in an

environment like that? A lot of us got malaria there. But this is what I learnt in Bahau: you work, or you die. When I was shivering with malaria, my brothers and my sister put a blanket on me and another blanket and a pillow. In malaria, all these things do not work, you still shiver. And they all threw their bodies on me and enjoyed my shivering.

How did you feel when the Japanese finally

surrendered? We had the happiest memories when the British took over the camp. When the Japanese surrendered. When we went back to Bahau, we saw that the British flag was flying in the house of a person

who used to be very close to the British. Soon, the parachuters came and decided that Bahau was a refugee camp and they helped us and made arrangements. The British sent large contingents of Japanese soldiers guarded by Gurkha soldiers and as the Japanese soldiers were marching, we started yelling and jeering at them. The suddenly, we stopped. Because we saw that the leader of the Japanese contingent was someone who had been kind to us. He had arranged for rice to be delivered to us by lorry. We saw him and we stopped. And we could see that he was in tears as he marched past.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH

MRS SALLY WEE whose family survived with the help of a Japanese

Did you have any happy memories during the

war? We, my brothers and sisters, had to make our own toys. We had to use the betel nut leaf and it had a huge base and we would sit on that and someone would pull the frond and we would get a bus ride – that was our toy. And we had guns… my brother would saw the guns into shape. We invented our own toys, and musical instruments. My sister would play on the piano, and my brothers would take the bananas as percussion instruments, and we used tin cans as gongs. We had our own little concert because we had nothing to do during the war and it was fun.

What close shaves did you and your family experience? I remember the lorry part… the Japanese would carry people away in lorry loads to the hill, make them dig their own graves and then shoot them. When I was 3 years old, they came, but my dad was told by my uncle’s father-in-law to run to Tiong Bahru, so we all… ran there. On the way we saw lorry loads of people being taken away. They were being taken away to be executed, but we did not know, we just saw them being taken away. Then, the bombs started falling in Tiong Bahru, so my father said “No way, run back to Charlton Road”. So we came back. When I was more than 4, two Japanese soldiers with long swords came into our house. They demanded to carry away

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the piano and my sister to play the piano. I was very frightened of course. My servants were very alert. When they knew the Japanese were demanding for the piano, they ran to my aunt. My aunt lived nearby in my granpa’s estate. Fortunately, she was a Japanese, born in Nagasaki. My servants ran to her and she came running to our house because being a Japanese, she was given a post as an interpreter, which was quite a big officer’s post in the Paya Lebar police station nearby. So, she ran to my attap house and she spoke to them in Japanese and told them not to take away the piano. “This family is not evil and has not done any bad deeds, please leave it behind.” And of course they did not carry it away. In fact, they bowed to her before they left.

Looking back, who or what do you think

helped your family survive the war? My Japanese aunty helped us. In fact, she helped everybody in the kampung. She went to tell the Japanese soldiers, “Do not touch any of my kampong maters. They are all very good people who did no evil.” And when the Japanese lorries passed by, she hailed quite a number of them to come down and the neighbours all remember her.

After the war, when my uncle went to the fish market nearby, the vendors would not take his money, they would just throw chunks of fish, big fish and meat all that into his basket. They do not want his money because my aunty helped them throughout the war not to get arrested, abused, be caught by them, or anything of that sort. And they were very grateful. Without her, I think our kampong would have been finished. But poor thing, after the war, she realised her family was wiped out. One Hiroshima bombing, one Nagasaki. The whole family was wiped out.

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In Singapore after World War II, Chinese Singaporeans for generations could revive fond nostalgic memories of the young and old, celebrating the traditions of their respective cultures. One Singaporean recalled “The Chinese New Year was always the time when we enjoyed goodies, wore new clothes and visited relatives once a year. Through my memories of growing up in Bukit Ho Swee, Chinese New Year involved a lot of fun playing with fire-crackers and playing cards to gamble.” Like everything else, the New Year celebration has changed a lot since the past. What is your favourite memory of Chinese New Year? Whether it’s visiting family and friends, overindulging in New Year goodies or visiting the Chinatown’s New Year bazaar, take a look at and compare your memories with that of Chinese New Year celebrations from the past contributed by various Singaporean in the 2013 irememberChineseNewYear campaign by Singapore Memory Project.

BLAST FROM THE PAST:

SINGAPORE’S CHINESE NEW YEAR MEMORIES

Visiting old folks to celebrate at the Red Cross House in 1974

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Reunion Dinner in the 1970s and 1980s

Visiting Chinatown's New Year bazaar in the 1950s where there are scenes

of people buying jewelleries, couplets, greeting cards and groceries

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Home-made cookies for Chinese New Year in 1970s

A hairdressing salon in Chinatown in 1957 which ladies visited for a new perm hairdo for the Chinese New Year

Crowded Chinatown filled with Chinese New Year shoppers at night in 1956 and 1970s

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Watching lion dance performance in Chinatown in 1959 and 1973

Children and adults letting off the firecrackers in the 1960s and 1970s in Chinatown

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Sources:

First Article: http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/history/events/b29e03c8-9f7a-4ba7-a807-b570ca4cea169

Second Article: Singapore: A Pictorial History, NE Forte, Issue 3, February 2018

Third Article: http://blogtoexpress.blogspot.sg/2013/02/iremember-chinese-new-year.html