Gone with the Wind in Singapore: The Japanese School Friend

The crown colony of Singapore of the 1930's was already prosperous and thriving port, serving as a commercial port, a military naval base, as well as a centre for diplomacy for European and Asian nations. Japan, seeking to further the influence of the Rising Sun in the region, had an active diplomatic service in Singapore. The Japanese did not mingle among the locals although on at least one occasion, a Japanese child enrolled in a local mission school.

By this time, my great-grandfather Chee Kwee Kin was already an influential voice for the Chinese as editor of the first overseas Chinese daily, newspaper Le Bao. Previous to his relocation to Singapore, Chee Kwee Kin had taught at Anglo Chinese School (ACS), founded by Methodist missionaries, in the city known then as Foo Chow (Fuzhou, in Fujian Province today). It was not surprising his grandsons, children of his eldest son, Dr. Chee Peck Liang attended the prestigious Anglo Chinese School in Singapore. Father and son had the foresight to realize total immersion in the English language was the key to success in a British crown colony. Even though Chee Kwee Kin passed away in 1937, his influence and reputation shielded his progeny through the bleakest times of the war. The Chinese community who knew of his sterling reputation, would not question the good will and judgment of his progeny.

It was at ACS that my father Chee Siew Oon, the third son of Chee Peck Liang, and grandson of Chee Kwee Kin met his lifelong friend, Goh Teck Phuan aka T.P. or Tippy. Theirs was an alliance of contrasting personalities. My father, a boy of judicious study, transparent in thought but sparing in speech and action admired the plucky boy, quick-witted, gregarious and energetic who was Uncle Tippy. The two unlikely companions looked up to Goh Koh Pui (no relation to Uncle Tippy) a meticulous scholar with liberal ideals, a few years their senior, who later courted and married my father's oldest sister Chee Kie Ha.

The storm clouds of war in faraway Europe were not in anyone's radar when a young Japanese boy, son of a diplomat at the Embassy of Japan in Singapore enrolled in Anglo Chinese School. As new boy in an elite school, he struggled with the exacting standards of the teachers and the school boy cliques established since primary school. Uncle Tippy, ever the leader of the pack befriended the boy, and a woebegone Japanese boy joined in the tomfoolery and mischief cooked up by Uncle Tippy and the close knit group of spirited intelligent students. They graduated from Anglo Chinese School, my father as top boy of the class of 1939 and Uncle Tippy, Sportsboy of 1939. The Japanese school boy returned to Japan to attend Military College.

When the storm clouds of war finally gathered over Singapore, fire and brimstone rained upon the city from Japanese fighter planes and bombers, the Nippon divine wind quickly establishing air supremacy. On the ground, the Japanese ran a 'bicycle blitzkreig' from Northern Malaya advancing south on stolen bicycles. While the bombing of Singapore started in December within hours after Pearl Harbour was hit, the Japanese did not cross the causeway until February. An infamous, often regaled tale of this campaign was the account of the British guns pointed south to the open sea impotent against the Japanese artillery was shelling the city from Johore Bahru to cover their advancing forces. Singapore surrendered the day after Valentine's Day.

Many, even today, equate a surrender and laying down of arms as a 'mission accomplished'. The Japanese, like many conquerors, miscalculated likewise, assuming erroneously that their ruthless show of power could cower an island of frightened civilians. They started with the slaughter of Allied prisoners of war, the savage attacks on hospital staff, patients and civilian employees of Alexandria Hospital, followed by the Sook Ching Massacre, and finally, the intermittent round-ups of civilian populations for interrogation, torture and execution. Vain efforts, which hardened the resolve of locals who might conceivably have accepted Nippon rule.

During their reign of terror, few, except the colloborator-informers, were spared from the brutish hand of the Japanese. Neither Malay, Indian, Eurasian, not even the aboriginal dayaks of the peninsula were safe from their practice of torture and mayhem. In this uneasy climate, Chee Peck Liang and his family hunkered down to the business of survival. Survival in a city, held by conquerors with a tradition of atrocities and a history of genocide, meant steering clear of paramilitary resistance groups, impulsive guerrilla or mob actions or personal campaigns of vendetta. Constant beneath the veneer of hopeless submission, peoples' resistance manifested in unexpectedly ways.

Mother spoke of an assassination of a Japanese soldier right before her eyes. She never saw the dayak lurking in the shadows of large tropical trees lining the street until a Japanese soldier rode by on a bicycle. A flash, a thud, and my mother spotted a headless rider pumping the pedals of a teetering bicycle, meandering awkwardly towards the edge of the road into the foliage beyond. Mother never clarified whether the 'turnip-head' (mother's term) was claimed by the dayak or simply rolled out of sight into the undergrowth. With a collective gasp, some murmurs, and a moment of hesitation, the bystanders continued on their separate ways. Mother too, went about her business, filing away that memory of a dayak's retribution for an interesting dialogue in another era.

As the Occupation wore on, the Kempeitai retreated from their initial campaign of fear and terror. They no longer cast their net island-wide searching for resistance fighters and spies. Instead they relied on informers, who selectively fingered folks, often out of retaliation for unintentional slights or from petty jealousies. Though my father and other members of the household were gainfully employed with Japanese civilian businesses, the feelings of doom and gloom persisted. Whispers of secret arrests, indiscriminate torture or mass executions at dawn circulated widely around the island .

Uncle Tippy, in self-preservation, reined in his boisterous personality, kept close company with my father and 舅舅, who, as members of Chee Peck Liang's household, received wide respect because of the family's history for humanity. He was naturally disturbed when he heard that an unnamed Japanese officer had asked for him at his usual haunts. In a valiant effort to protect his family and neighbourhood from unwanted scrutiny, he decided to seek out the officer. He made his good byes, even gave away all his cigarettes, before swaggering into a Japanese post to turn himself in. Hours later, he returned, chastised by the officer in charge for wasting his time. There had been no arrest warrants for him nor instructions to bring him in for questioning.

Back home, he was greeted by news that a Japanese officer had come, asking for him by first name. This officer arrived later, tipped off by passers-by, that Tippy was home. Uncle Tippy had been the object of a search by a grateful friend, the same friendless Japanese boy from Anglo Chinese School. After a discreet reunion reliving the halcyon days before the storm of war, Uncle Tippy, my father and my 舅舅 received 'letters' to freely move around the inner city, as well as limited access to the commissary. The camaraderie given an awkward new boy in class had not been forgotten. Protected from the depravity at the hands of the Kempeitai by the Japanese officer and the deprivations of the Occupation by their employment, my father and 舅舅 felt safe the for the first time since their return to Singapore from Cameron Highlands.

Uncle Tippy, generous and enterprising as ever, decided to share his good fortune. With a small investment, and bare-bones lists from my father and 舅舅, he purchased medicines and medical supplies, sundry items such as cigarettes and tobacco, from the commissary, to be meted out to friends and neighbours for nominal 'tea money'. The 'letter' from their Japanese friend gave them the confidence to do what little they could to alleviate burdens caused by the hardships of war. He persuaded 舅舅 and my father to join his business venture.

舅舅, ever conscientious and straight as an narrow, played the role of a bean counter, who also kept the younger men on a short leash, guiding them through the uncharted underground economy of contraband. His prudence kept the trio flying under the radar, safe from envious privateers and suspicions of corrupt Japanese officers. His conscience reminded the boys of the altruistic purpose of their ventures. His part in a black market business seemed so out of character from his public persona that I often wonder if Uncle Tippy exaggerated his role as comptroller of their black market enterprise. Yet, it appears his contributions here would become a precursor of his contributions to Singapore after the war, as the person in charge of the Port Authority of Singapore and after retirement, as General Manager of the Mandarin Hotel.

My father, no longer attending King Edward VII College of Medicine when classes were suspended for the remainder of the Japanese Occupation, eagerly undertook the task of a bicycle delivery boy. He distributed medical supplies and drugs, and sundry items sugar, tea or the occasional pouch of tobacco or pack of cigarettes. As the son of a respected doctor, Chee Peck Liang, and also a medical student before the outbreak of war, he was sometimes asked to check vital signs or to suggest a treatment course for the sick or elderly. He did not disappoint them.

The 'house calls' gave my father the resolution to finish his studies in medicine no matter how old he was when the College of Medicine re-opened. According to Uncle Tippy, his enthusiasm in their underground business was fired more by his commitment to medical studies than its meagre profits. Absent minded entrepreneur that he was, he had to be reminded by 舅舅 to ask for payments (bartered goods, services, money, gold, etc.) for goods delivered.

Uncle Tippy, ever the rainmaker, privately considered their escapades, his small contribution to the resistance cause: small efforts which thwart the Kempeitai's wicked efforts to demoralize the population through systematic starvation and deliberate deprivation of health products and drugs. Underscoring the yarns Uncle Tippy spun about those adventures, was the undercurrent of hope, the unlikely partners passed to those still living in the shadow of death.

I recognized the leader in him, though he claimed the role of the 'wise cracker'. He drolled: 'Your uncle was the wise wizard, your father the wise witch-doctor, and I was the wise cracker'. His was the uncanny leadership of a juggling court jester, who distracted the mighty from their petty but dangerous rivalries while entertaining the innocent standing in the cross fire of opposing powers. Careful never to upset paranoid Japanese administrators, he did not complain about the new regime, willing to concede that the Japanese 'freed' him from the 'red haired devils' (literal translation of Chinese slang) His irrepressible good spirits gave others hope of better days ahead.

Fidelity, intrinsic in Uncle Tippy, demanded that he recognized his duty to an old friend; that he never betrayed the trust which prompted his Japanese friend to renew ties bound in friendship in the past, during the current times of enmity. Meetings with his former class-mate were never prolonged; always conducted openly with discussions of what appeared to be official business, with every respect accorded his Japanese friend. Other Japanese officers as well as respectable locals (often ACS alumnus) were sometimes included, to avoid appearances of impropriety between the former classmates.

Genuinely concerned for the well-being for all, Uncle Tippy empathized with the war- time conflicts within individual Japanese officers. There was never any placement of blame for their obedience in the decisions of their superiors and he always considered them as victimized by the ambitions of the war leaders as the people they oppressed. He once told me, 'War is fought by young men to achieve bovine waste delusions of old men (more colourful language has been substituted by words involving bovine waste)

The Americans dropped the final bomb of the war on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. My parents, wearied for word of a Japanese surrender, had set the date weeks after the confirmation of peace in the European theatre. In the blacked-out of the news by the local press run by the Japanese, and too absorbed with her preparations for marriage, my mother heard nary a whisper about the devastation of Hiroshima.

On August 9, 1945, she was surprised when she was toasted by a grand-uncle, as the 'peace bride'. The wedding guests eagerly discussed and cheered rumors about the Emperor's probable intervention and imminent signing of a Treaty for Peace. Surely that date was an auspicious day for a marriage with the brightest of promises for a young couple's future. My mother said that there was no blackout curtains drawn during her wedding celebrations nor the honeymoon which followed. The streets were lit from then on.

A fortnight or so after my parents' wedding, during a tropical squall, the heavens rained leaflets announcing the end of the Japanese Occupation.

The days before the landing of Lord Mountbatten, the Japanese did little to contain the celebratory mood of the local population. Responsible for keeping the peace, their armed patrols attempted to maintain a semblance of order. For the informer/collaborators, they could find no refuge. My mother spoke of mob attacks on acknowledged informers, who had led death to the homes of friends and neighbours for favors or vendetta. She witnessed a few people, running amok with pent-up hatred, attacking Indians and Malays indiscriminately because many of these populations co-operated with the Japanese invading forces during the Sook Ching massacres, which indiscrimately exterminated thousands of Chinese. The Japanese in charge were impotent, often hiding in fear of their own lives. In the frenzy, there was never a single hint of threats towards my 舅舅, Uncle Tippy or my father. They were safe under the umbrella of Chee Kwee Kin's legacy of Confucian teachings of virtue and filial piety. Their underground activities were never ridiculed or condemned.

I realized recently that my mother's recollections of the period before the official surrender of Singapore, were not of dark difficult times of retribution. She often reminisced about the rejoicing which continued long after Lord Mountbatten led the victory procession from the docks to the padang, amid waving Union Jacks, to receive the official surrender from the highest ranking Japanese commander. Amidst the swelling throng of people stood my parents, married barely a month, my 舅舅 officially an in-law to the Chee clan, and other siblings of the Dr. Chee Peck Liang family

In the closing days of the Japanese Occupation, from the first celebratory toasts to the 'peace bride' to the final surrender to Lord Mountbatten, the Japanese alumnus of a mission school was not seen at his former childhood playmates' wedding, nor was he heard from again. Uncle Tippy believed that he returned to Japan, married and led a successful business after the war, but I could never pin him down on whether he was only guessing and voicing his hopes for an old school friend. At any rate, the Japanese friend was relegated to the distant past, never to be seen again by either my parents or anyone else.

Half a century later, at a family dinner, my brother, Ping Chian recalled an incident told by one of more elderly ACS teachers. In the 1950's. Mr. Yap told a class full of cheeky boys about his encounter with a former students after the fall of Singapore, when food was scarce, fear was rampant, and the Japanese were flexing their muscle through indiscriminate arrests, torture and mass executions.

Schools had been suspended for the rest of the War. Mr. Yap was hailed on the street by a young Japanese officer who demanded: ' Mr. Yap, do you remember me?'.

Mr. Yap stood mute, barely able to control his bladder functions and trying hard not to allow his knees to buckle under him.

The Japanese officer continued, 'Mr. Yap, you used to slap me at the back of my head. Do you remember that? Painful slap!' Mr. Yap began to mentally say good bye to all his loved ones.

'Mr. Yap, you did that to the naughty boys,' the young man smiled broadly at Mr Yap

'Mr. Yap, you did me good!'