games of chance were favoured. Life itself had become a game of chance.
But however you made money, the most important thing was how to preserve its value by changing it into tangible goods or the old Straits Settlements dollars. Grains and other foodstuffs were bulky and difficult to store or handle. The items most sought after were those that would retain their value after the British returned, and in the meantime were small and easy to hide. Hence, from 1944, the exchange rate of the British Straits Settlements dollar shot up on the black market with every passingday as more and more banana notes were printed and distributed. The next most desirable asset was jewellery. To deal in jewellery, brokers had to know what was real gold, what was 24 carat and what was only 18 carat, to recognise good diamonds with good colour and few or no flaws, and to learn the virtues of rubies, sapphires, aquamarines, cat’s-eyes and other semi-precious stones.
The bolder ones with big money bought properties, but their value did not escalate as much as gold or Straits Settlements dollars because they were immovable. Transfers required conveyancing by lawyers and registration in the Registry of Deeds. The chances were 50–50 that the conveyance would be repudiated or annulled when the British returned. Meanwhile, there was a likelihood of buildings being bombed and destroyed. As it turned out, there was no invasion, conveyances were not annulled and buildings were not destroyed. In the last stages of the occupation, after Germany had surrendered and Japan’s defeat was certain, it was possible to sell a case of 12 bottles of Johnnie Walker whisky for enough Japanese banana dollars to buy a shophouse in Victoria Street. Those who negotiated such exchanges became wealthy after the war.
I learnt more from the three and a half years of Japanese occupation than any university could have taught me. I had not yet read Mao’s dictum that “power grows out of the barrel of a gun”, but I knew that Japanese brutality, Japanese guns, Japanese bayonets and swords, and Japanese terror and torture settled the argument as to who was in charge, and could make people change their behaviour, even their loyalties. The Japanese not only demanded and got their obedience; they forced them to adjust to a long-term prospect of Japanese rule, so that they had their children educated to fit the new system, its language, its habits and its values, in order to be useful and make a living.
The third and final stage, which they would have achieved if they had been given time, was to get us to accept them as our new masters as part of the natural order of things. Morality and fairness were irrelevant.They had won. They were on top and in command. We had to praise their gods, extol their culture and emulate their behaviour. But it did not always work. In Korea, the Japanese met resistance from the moment they attempted to govern the country. They tried to suppress the instincts and habits of a people of an old culture, people with a strong sense of pride in their history and a determination to oppose their new barbaric oppressors. They killed many Koreans but never broke their spirit.
But that was one exception. In Taiwan – ruled by the Chinese, the Portuguese and the Dutch before the Japanese came – there was no hatred. Had the Japanese stayed on in Singapore and Malaya, they would, within 50 years, have forged a coterie of loyal supporters as they had successfully done in Taiwan. Malaya was too young, its peoples too diverse and its society too plastic and malleable to resist. There were some Malays who joined the anti-Japanese guerrillas in the Malayan jungle trained by British officers of Force 136. But most of them hoped the Japanese would be their new protectors, just as they hoped the British would be when they in turn ousted the Japanese.
The only people who had the courage and conviction to stand up to the invaders were the Chinese who joined the
But however you made money, the most important thing was how to preserve its value by changing it into tangible goods or the old Straits Settlements dollars. Grains and other foodstuffs were bulky and difficult to store or handle. The items most sought after were those that would retain their value after the British returned, and in the meantime were small and easy to hide. Hence, from 1944, the exchange rate of the British Straits Settlements dollar shot up on the black market with every passingday as more and more banana notes were printed and distributed. The next most desirable asset was jewellery. To deal in jewellery, brokers had to know what was real gold, what was 24 carat and what was only 18 carat, to recognise good diamonds with good colour and few or no flaws, and to learn the virtues of rubies, sapphires, aquamarines, cat’s-eyes and other semi-precious stones.
The bolder ones with big money bought properties, but their value did not escalate as much as gold or Straits Settlements dollars because they were immovable. Transfers required conveyancing by lawyers and registration in the Registry of Deeds. The chances were 50–50 that the conveyance would be repudiated or annulled when the British returned. Meanwhile, there was a likelihood of buildings being bombed and destroyed. As it turned out, there was no invasion, conveyances were not annulled and buildings were not destroyed. In the last stages of the occupation, after Germany had surrendered and Japan’s defeat was certain, it was possible to sell a case of 12 bottles of Johnnie Walker whisky for enough Japanese banana dollars to buy a shophouse in Victoria Street. Those who negotiated such exchanges became wealthy after the war.
I learnt more from the three and a half years of Japanese occupation than any university could have taught me. I had not yet read Mao’s dictum that “power grows out of the barrel of a gun”, but I knew that Japanese brutality, Japanese guns, Japanese bayonets and swords, and Japanese terror and torture settled the argument as to who was in charge, and could make people change their behaviour, even their loyalties. The Japanese not only demanded and got their obedience; they forced them to adjust to a long-term prospect of Japanese rule, so that they had their children educated to fit the new system, its language, its habits and its values, in order to be useful and make a living.
The third and final stage, which they would have achieved if they had been given time, was to get us to accept them as our new masters as part of the natural order of things. Morality and fairness were irrelevant.They had won. They were on top and in command. We had to praise their gods, extol their culture and emulate their behaviour. But it did not always work. In Korea, the Japanese met resistance from the moment they attempted to govern the country. They tried to suppress the instincts and habits of a people of an old culture, people with a strong sense of pride in their history and a determination to oppose their new barbaric oppressors. They killed many Koreans but never broke their spirit.
But that was one exception. In Taiwan – ruled by the Chinese, the Portuguese and the Dutch before the Japanese came – there was no hatred. Had the Japanese stayed on in Singapore and Malaya, they would, within 50 years, have forged a coterie of loyal supporters as they had successfully done in Taiwan. Malaya was too young, its peoples too diverse and its society too plastic and malleable to resist. There were some Malays who joined the anti-Japanese guerrillas in the Malayan jungle trained by British officers of Force 136. But most of them hoped the Japanese would be their new protectors, just as they hoped the British would be when they in turn ousted the Japanese.
The only people who had the courage and conviction to stand up to the invaders were the Chinese who joined the
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