This entry will present 3 different aspects of war: the Nagasaki nuclear bombing, the Death Railway & the return of Chin Peng's ashes. Not in any order of importance, but by chronology of my brush with the respective stories.
Firstly, me and my daughters had attended a public talk hosted by University Malaya Kuala Lumpur on 12 October 2019, by invitation of my sister in law who works at their Department of East Asian Studies. The Atomic Bombing Storyteller Project representatives had been invited by the department to present the stories of Nagasaki nuclear bombing survivors.
In the Japanese language the society is known as Towa no kai (Society for Perpetual Remembrance/ Eternal Memories): they relate stories from the experiences of the atomic bomb survivors and impart the message of world peace. Ms Junko Shiratori and Ms Kazumi Kai were 2 storytellers who related the collective stories of 4 survivors of the Nagasaki nuclear bombing.
The stories were about what happened on the day & the days that followed. One survivor in fact lived on to beyond his 80th year and had children of his own. The nuclear bomb dropped in Nagasaki on that fateful date changed the direction of the war and the world we live in forever. Hiroshima and Nagasaki citizens experienced something that no human has, or had ever went through.
One of the more vivid photos shown was this one: a clock that stopped at 11.02am i.e. the time of bombing:
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/EXXEX6/clock-hands-frozen-at-1102am-the-time-of-the-atomic-bomb-explosion-EXXEX6.jpg
Granted, war is despicable in more than one way. And the memories (or rather, trauma) of war will linger for many years to come- similar to the survivor stories of the Japanese occupation in Malaya. In fact, one of the parting words of Ms Kai were "
In war, there are no winners".
One of the questions asked during the Q&A session was:
Do the Japanese hate the Americans for doing this (bombing)? In its innocence, that was quite a complex question. I would probably ask a question in place of an answer: Do the Malaysians hate the Japanese (for invading us during the war)? The presenters answered (as expected & within the context of the academic forum) that Japan had gone on to have good diplomatic relations with America and the rest of the world, and the work immediately after the bombing was much focused on rebuilding the country (instead of hate >> this one I added myself, by inference)
One month later, on 18 October 2019, a colleague from the International Relations faculty invited me to attend a talk by Professor David Boggett of Kyoto Seika University about
Survivors of The Death Railway. Our Vice Chancellor opened the session by sharing how memorials have been built for Prisoners of War as far afoot as his home country of Australia (which have not been directly invaded) YET there is very limited evidence of such nature in Malaysia, which HAD in fact been invaded, with hundreds of thousands of its people becoming workers who had built the railway.
This episode in our history, according to Professor Boggett, appear to be least documented (or not at all). There were different accounts by different people: on how many had actually worked on the railway. When the war ended, the records were destroyed by the Japanese. What was left were mass graves and the settlements with emaciated survivors. By these reasons, no specific number of workers can be ascertained but for a mere estimation. From Malaya alone there was suspected to be 100,000-250,000 workers involved.
What the researchers do know, there seem to be 2 categories of workers: the PoWs and the non-PoWs. The non-PoWs had been gathered from various parts of Malaya, Indonesia and Myanmar using different methods. The Malays were gathered using the sweetener of free entertainment- they were treated to a free movie night and once the movie ended, they were rounded up on a lorry and brought to a central point (I believe it was Dataran Merdeka) before being transported to the work area. The Chinese were offered 'lucrative work' and the promotion appear to have been done via their chambers of commerce. The Indian community from the estate was lured by the promise of work at a new & promising location.
None of them were paid. They were hardly given any food or medication, and it is believed that they would have dropped dead like flies. Once dead, their bodies were thrown in the river or into mass unnamed graves. After the war, efforts were made by the respective governments to trace their citizens, but many were missing. Some chose to stay in Thailand or Myanmar and not return.
The PoWs on the other hand, were believed to not have suffered as badly, since they had better knowledge of the environment as well as their own camps which enabled them to communicate with the others. The workers unfortunately were divided and due to the differences in language, were unable to interact with other workers.
One of the guests during the talk was Mr Francis Ng of Ipoh, who at 3 years old was taken to Kanchanaburi. His father was a mechanic working on the project. Based on his story, it would appear that his father and a few others were categorised as 'skilled workers' who work the technical aspects of the construction. His father did not suffer scolding or being hit by the Japanese soldiers. Their camp, he says, was comfortable and he had enough food, even rice. Once a month he and his grandmother was allowed to return to Malaya to purchase supplies to be sold in camp. At the end of the war, Francis and his family returned to settle down in Ipoh. What was vivid in his young mind was the graves surrounding the camps. They grew and grew with more and more people thrown in. He had said "
I cannot remember what I had for breakfast and lunch, but I remember the images and the experiences at camp many years ago".
Finally, we come to the story about the return of
Chin Peng's ashes. He was a Communist leader in Malaya, who led an army to kick out the Japanese. After the war he and the Communist Army created chaos by trying to drive out the British from our country, using extreme violence. More people died during the Communist Insurgence, especially those in the armed forces and the police (and many Chinese too). One of the most documented assassination was that of Sir Henry Gurney at Fraser's Hill.
It was a time of fear and uncertainty, and until the 1980s certain areas are still inaccessible to the public. I remembered in 1982, when passing Bentong on the way back to Pasir Mas Kelantan (my mom's kampung), we had to pass the area before 6pm because at night there is a curfew.
After much havoc caused in Malaya, Chin Peng fled/ was exiled to Thailand forbidden to ever return to Malaysia. He died in Thailand & literally him or his remains was not allowed to ever set foot in Malaysia.
Recently a few people had brought back Chin Peng's ashes to be scattered in his hometown
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/11/26/chin-peng039s-ashes-brought-back-to-malaysia-in-september. Various views were given (some very strongly against the return of his ashes). One of the more interesting views was this: if some communist leaders were allowed to return (like Shamsiah Fakeh and Rashid Maidin), then why should Chin Peng's ashes (in death) be banned?
Me, I prefer to ask questions. Chin Peng, was he a hero or a foe? The latter because he caused many people to be killed: his kin, his fellow Malaysians, disrupted their way of life after the British had promised us Independence. Yet in his mind, he is as patriotic and nationalistic as ever.
Contextually, this next story came from Chris my colleague, whose father was an army doctor who played a role as one of the pioneers of the Terendak Army Hospital in Malacca. As a child, he said, he used to remember his father getting dressed to go to work in full army fatigue. He never used to ask and his dad never used to tell him anything about work. Many years later, he was invited as his father's representative to commemorate Terendak Hospital's anniversary. From the accounts of his late father's surviving peers, he had realised the danger his father had been in, all those evenings when he had stepped out for 'work'. Chris is one of those persons strongly opposed to bringing back Chin Peng's ashes, regardless. He had caused great pain to the country and its people, hence should remain in exile for eternity.
Hence I now come to my conclusion: War has told its many tales, many still painful to the people affected. Yet we have not learnt our lessons. We still wage war and we still cause pain, for victory, for land, for dignity, for national pride. Rightly or wrongly waged, war has its price. There are children made parent-less, citizens displaced and oppressed, and of course the rebuilding work that will follow right after. In my view, we are still learning the lessons of the great war as we speak and let us all never forget.
