Threads of a Pattern

This is my 100th post on this blog, a milestone indeed.  I have learnt so much when writing this blog, a pleasure and privilege which I treasure very much.  Learnt about my traditions and culture, learnt about this small corner of Singapore I live in, and above all, I have learnt about my family - by talking to other family members, and by searching through the wonderful Straits Times on-line archive.  

From my father's family members, I learnt that my great-great-grandfather actually came to Singapore, something I never knew before.  An earlier post recounts how his son, my great-grandfather settled in Singapore and brought the rest of the  family over from China.  My great-grandfather  went into business with his cousin and other relatives, but politics would intervene to drive them apart. He was an ardent Republican, but his cousin  harboured communist leanings and eventually went back (or was deported) to China.  Slowly, my great-grandfather  became a more prominent member of the business community.   The Great Depression drove him to the brink of bankruptcy, but he built his business up again. The Straits Times quotes him as voicing opposition to the taxes on rice imposed by the British.   

World War II came to Singapore, and my great-grandfather took his family to Johore where his brother lived.  Alas, one of his brothers lost his life during the war, leaving his widow and young children behind.

I've told stories before about how my great-grandfather met his wife, my great-grandmother. On my mother's side, I have told the tale of her grandfather, the ang mo lang who came from Britain to make his fortune in the Far East.  His son, my  grandfather, would become a teacher and principal of a boy's school here, leaving his stamp on the next generation of young people - who would turn out to be the first generation of Singaporeans who grew up and brought up their families in an independent Singapore.  

Sharing these stories with other people led them to share their own. An aunt on my mother's side told me about her father.  Orphaned at an early age, he left his home in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for a distant island called Singapore.  He did not tell his mother - just left her a note to inform her of his intentions, or so the story goes.  He came to Singapore, met my grand-aunt and married her during WWII when they were both in Bahau (the Eurasian settlement created by the Japanese in Malaysia).  Another story, about my mother's mother's brother, who sailed away many years ago to a distant land called America.  Today, his son returns to the country where his father was born, to meet the relatives he has never known. 

So many stories, so many stories yet unheard and untold.  And other people have their stories too, of their families, their grandfathers and great-grandfathers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers.  They grew up and grew old, contributing to the society around them even as their lives were rocked by the turbulent times in which they lived.  Collectively,  their lives are like threads in a pattern, woven in and into the fabric of the history of a country called Singapore.  

Our Darkest Hour Begins

This year, we commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the Japanese Occupation of Singapore. I thought, therefore, it would be only appropriate for me to dig into my grandfather's oral history interview transcripts and feature some extracts of his interview on this blog (slightly edited by me).  By  way of background, my grandfather would have been in his mid-thirties at the time of the Occupation.  He had married a few years earlier, and had two children with a third on the way.  Sadly, he passed away a number of years ago, and so I no longer have the opportunity to ask him more about his experiences during the war.

To start off with, here is his impression of the Japanese bombing of Singapore, on 8th December 1941.

"Early that morning, at about 3 o'clock in the morning, I was then living in Jalan Eunos at the corner of Jalan Yasin and Jalan Eunos.  I heard booming of guns, rattling of windows and, I normally would have slept through it all because I was very, very tired.  When I heard all these guns and the rattling, I felt something unusual was happening and I came out and went out to the verandah there, and I saw search lights.  And all these gun firings seemed to have come from anti-aircraft gun-posts down near in Geylang Serai, at the corner of Joo Chiat Road and Geylang Road... ...We didn't hear the fall of bombs as I know them to sound but I said, "could it be that bombs are being dropped on Singapore?" ... Alright, I'll get into my MAS uniform, that is the Medical Auxiliary, and stand by the radio and see what we hear at six o'clock when the y start broadcasting.  And true enough the news came that Japanese planes had flown over Singapore...  so what I did straightaway was to get into my car and went straight to the Yock Eng Depot in Katong Road where I reported for duty."


Subsequently, my grandfather (a first-generation Eurasian) was interned by the Japanese.  His account of how this came about:

"Now, after the Japanese took over from the 15th of February, they brought out the Syonan Shimbun, which was printed I think in the Straits Times Office ...   ....I knew that all the Europeans had already much earlier assembled on the Padang to be brought in  for internment, we Eurasians didn't know whether we were ever going to be interned or not...  ... One day, we got news somehow, that we had to go to the Padang to report, and the Eurasians were to go to the SRC, where all our particulars would be taken... ... We had a long walk to get to this SRC from Jalan Eunos.  It's about five or six miles.  The eldest son was only two years old.   I carried him from the house until I reached the end of Grove Road, which is now Mountbatten road.  Tess, my wife  was going to have a baby, our third child.  And someone else carried our second child.  At Grove Road a certain Mr Ess, a friend of mine, came along in his car, took Tess and the children and all into the car.We went there we got all registered and then we walked back all the way again.

Then some days later now my name appeared in the Syonan Shimbun in thick block letters and so did many others, and we were told to report to the Toyo Hotel, just told to report to the Toyo Hotel which was in Queen Street.  And there, I had gone down that day, thinking, well, it need not be internment.  I brought about $66 or something down meaning to buy a new tyre for my wife's lady bicycle.  But when my name was called by Shinozak in the Toyo Hotel, he just rapped the table with his finger, and he said, "By order of the High Command you are to be interned." I said, "But I've only come down just as I am now." "Oh don't you worry," he said,when we take you to the place of internment, on the way we will drop at the houses and pick up things.  I had about, as I said $66 with me, I gave $60 to my brother in law  and I said, "Give this to Tess".   And I kept just six for myself because I felt, my good gracious, she needs money.

We were there up to about 12 or half-past twelve, and then all these registration of those that they intended to intern were ready... ... Well, we got into the truck and it must have come along Geylang road, and when it came to the head of Jalan Eunos, well of course we were all quiet, silent in the truck, wondering where we were going. That's the main thing.  We didn't know where we were going."

My grandfather would spend the rest of the war in Changi Prison.  My grandmother would subsequently be put in a camp together with her three young children.  Happily, the family was reunited after the war, all intact.

My Grandmother's Convent School Days

I'll be going for my Sec 4 class reunion on Saturday.  It's been years since we saw each other - in those pre-email/internet days, it has been a little more difficult to keep in touch.   But this post is inspired by a far more senior group of Sec 4 girls - in fact from my grandmother's Sec 4 class from the 1930s.  In fact, besides my grandmother, my grandaunt and one of my teachers were all in this same class. 

The photo has not stood well the test of time.  But it shows a happy and cohesive little group of schoolgirls, presumably in the grounds of the Victoria Street Convent (see my earlier post about my grandfather's convent boyhood; little would this young convent boy know that his future wife would pass through the same gates, many years later).

You can see from the photo that the convent uniform used to be a little different - definitely those large collars had mercifully left the scene by the time it was my turn to don the uniform (but my convent is in Katong).
For many of these girls, their education  would end after completing secondary school.  But already, this was a privilege - for theirs was an era where many girls remained uneducated.  They would proceed to become wives and mothers; some would take up jobs.  Their lives would not be easy - within a few years they would be facing the trials of the Japanese occupation, followed by the trials of the pre-Independence years.  But the friendships and ties nurtured in these years would endure.  This year, the survivors of this class turn 90.  Those who can, still meet up regularly as they have been doing all these years.

So my wish for my classmates is that we too remain happy and healthy, well into our golden years. 

P.S.  Happy Birthday, grandma.

A Different Sky, A Different Era

I have just finished reading Meira Chand's "A Different Sky".  A tale of Singapore in the tumultuous years prior to Independence, the story starts in the mid 1920s, takes us through the Japanese Occupation to the early years of self-government.  Told through the stories of three main protagonists - a Chinese girl of good family, a Eurasian boy and a young Indian businessman - we read how each person is shaped by the events they live through even as each, in their way contributes to the Singapore story.

In the same way, the book tells the story not only of Singapore during these critical years, but of the larger events in the world beyond.  Indeed, what I like best about this book was the way it portrayed how the nationalistic movement of the pre-Colonial period, and the growing threat of communism, influenced politics and society here in Singapore.

Of the three protagonists, I found Raj, the pragmatic but warm hearted Indian capitalist, rather endearing.  His self-serving actions (including collaborating with the Japanese during the war) contrast with his many acts of kindness to those around him.  The other two were less interesting and I felt that they were created to fit a certain "mould" -   Howard, the Eurasian civil servant, who grew up with a chip on his shoulder; Mei Lan, the war heroine who became a lawyer fighting and protecting abused women.  But a number of the minor characters, I felt, played an important role in livening up the tale.  Rose, Howard's mother, a widow making a living for herself and two young children.  Mei Lan's second grandmother, tyranising her slave girls, smoking her opium and dabbing on her Schiaparelli perfume.  Raj's brother-in-law Krishna, freedom fighter and rabble rouser.  Their stories, too, formed part of the rich tapestry of "A Different Sky".

But overall, the story was indeed that of Pre-Independence Singapore.  A tale of life under the British, and then under the Japanese.  A tale of political awakening, of a nation beginning to arise.  A tale of individuals and families passing through tragedy and terror, to live again and love again. 

In the broad sweep of history, 50 years ago is not a long time at all.  Yet for many of us, it is indeed a totally different era - a time and place totally outside our experience of life in Singapore today.  This book gives us an insight into these days gone by, and leave us the wiser for it.