The Life of a Female Communist

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CTL202 Oral History Essay Assignment – Tutor: Dr Karl Hack

HAN MAY YUN MAGDELENE (BAEd0307),

I give permission for this work to be digitally stored and make available for eduactional and research purposes. (17-10-03)

THE LIFE OF A FEMALE COMMUNIST

For the purpose of this oral history assignment, I had the opportunity to close the generation gap I had with my grandmother, Madam Foo, through the interview and getting to know a different phase of her life, which not many of cousins get to know of. I could see that she wants to leave all those sorrowful memories behind her and enjoy the “fruit of her labour”, which she has now. She related her experiences as a communist during and after the Japanese Occupation, in a mixture of Mandarin and very little Hainanese, knowing my deficiency in speaking and understanding my very own dialect. The interviews were carried out over two sessions. The first session lasted almost 4 hours and the follow-up was done in an hour. There were intervals in each session due to the strong emotions evoked during the interviews. She broke down a number of times, recalling the hardships she had gone through.

The Japanese Occupation in Singapore lasted for 3 years and 8 months, which she recalls vividly. That period remains etched in her memory; the brutalities, the suffering, the loss of freedom, the food shortages and the hardship brought about by the Japanese. Her account of her anti-Japanese involvement is somewhat similar to the historical accounts of the Japanese Occupation by Elizabeth Choy, Chin Peng and many other ‘fighters’ who lived to tell the their tales. However, unlike Chin Peng’s account of his communist involvement as a leader, Madam Foo’s account presented one of a life as a messenger of the movement. Instead of one who gives order and decides on the movement’s activities, she is one who received and carried out instructions from the decision-makers.

Anti-Japanese Feelings

Her strong anti-Japanese feelings are not only contained within that period but can be traced back to when the Japanese in China killed her brother. “To understand the Japanese policy towards the Chinese population in Malaya and Singapore, one must go back to the Nanyang Chinese anti-Japanese sentiment which had been prevalent since the 1930s when Japan declared war on China.”[1] Their soldiers “advanced into China in July 1937 for her vast reserves of coal and iron, and her lucrative markets”.[2] As Madam Foo recalls the times of the Japanese Occupation, she remembers one of chaos and been on the run constantly. Wars, brought about by the Japanese, were fought everywhere she went.

Madam Foo was in her 20s during the Japanese Occupation. She left China, with her mother, to come to Singapore to look for her father, who was working as a cook, when war broke out in China.

The Junk Boat Ordeal

What she recalled most vividly about the pre-Occupation phase of her life was that her elder brother was killed in the war in China and her ordeal of the junk boat ride she and her mother took to Singapore. The days spent on the junk boat was a difficult one for them. Under the poor condition of the boat, there was no food or water supplies on board the cramped boat, which they went on for one month. They had to rely on fishing and seawater for survival. When they arrived near the coast of Singapore, movement was restricted to the night, with the fear of being noticed, as Singapore does not permit illegal immigrants to enter. They ran on shore in the night and went in the midst of the jungle, filled with tigers, as she recalled. Not long after their arrival, Japanese came into Singapore and once again, war broke out. Her mother found herself a job as a housemaid for an English family and as she was uneducated and had friends from the anti-Japanese communist movement, she became a part of them.

Introduced into the communist movement

Been uneducated and had friends that belonged to the anti-Japanese Communist movement, she became a messenger, pasting posters and giving out leaflets to stir up anti-Japanese feelings among the locals. It is unclear whether her decision to join the anti-Japanese movements was due to peer influence or the death of her brother when she related her reason for her participation:

I was never interested in studying and at that time, my friends were all part of communist movement so they got me to join them.

Her reasons might be probably one of the many reasons the peasants and workers joined the anti-Japanese Movements during the peak period of 1942 –1945. However, for leaders like Chin Peng, who were exposed to Chinese literature on nationalism and communism as well as talks about anti-Japanese struggle.These leaders are convinced of the changes that communism can bring about but I do wonder if it ever daunts on the followers what their real reasons were.

Her account of some of the communist activities she engaged in at that time is parallel to most of the historical accounts in the same period in most of the published literature. The places that she went as a Communist member were indeed those few prominent Communist bases, mentioned in many books. There were some information about her communist activities that she remained silent about; the communist movement she belonged to, how she managed to keep a low profile after the war and what happened to the other members in her movement.

A Communist messenger during the Japanese Occupation

“The Pacific War erupted after repeated incursion on China by the Japanese troops and following that, Japan conquered Malaya and Singapore.”[3] During the 3 years and 8 months Occupation, the Japanese committed many atrocities, making life miserable for the people. This gave rise to resentment and hatred, which led to many people “walking into the jungles to join the anti-Japanese army”[4]

Communist activities are “centrally connected with the events surrounding the World War II. The military actions follow the principles of guerilla warfare with its army built largely with peasant recruits and finding its natural habitat in the rural areas.”[5] She remembers her role as a messenger for the movement, moving from places to places to dispatch letters or messages to and fro the different communist bases and carrying out ground work like distributing leaflets and pasting posters to stir up anti-Japanese feelings.

I was in Malaya (PangkorIsland, Kuala Lumpur, Taiping, and Sarawak. Johore, Kedah, mostly in the jungle and was on the run from the Japanese … I was constantly on the run, never stayed in one place for long.

Other than been a messenger, she worked in rubber, pineapple plantations as well as rice fields. In some historical literature, it was noted that many of these communist members took up odd jobs as “undercovers and to lay ground work for the movement,” but it is unclear whether she was undercover or working was for the sake of survival and there might be a likelihood that it was for both reasons.

The communist bases in Malaya

Their bases were usually situated amidst the jungles and plantations in areas like PangkorIsland, Sarawak, Kedah and Taiping as recorded in most historical text. Their members operated mainly from dense forests or jungles, with steep mountain paths and swamps, across Malaya. Many of these bases were “mountain ranges covered with dense jungles, which was ideal for hit-and-run guerilla warfare resorted to by the communist against the Japanese during wartime.”[6]PangkorIsland was constantly mentioned during her recollection of her communist involvement. She talked about how self-sufficient the base was, with many members staying in the jungles:

The headquarter was in PangkorIsland, in a rubber plantation. It belonged to people from the Fuzhou clan. It is in the jungle… We, the communist, are a big group. We have many members and friends. We spotted one of the Japanese spy who ‘bao gao’ (reported or pointed me out) at PangkorIsland. She was outnumbered. We caught hold of her and we killed her.

I read and found out that PangkorIsland was indeed “one of the secret congregating venues of the Anti-Japanese Movement and it was where Force 136 operated from”[7]

Anti-Japanese Movements in Malaya

However, it is not certain whether she was a part of Force 136 or the CMP, which Chin Peng was actively involved as there were a number of anti-Japanese movements at that time and she did not want to disclose any details of the movement she was in. This could be due to the incident where she was betrayed by a Japanese spy and she spoke about how ones identity as a communist member should be kept at wraps at all times because one does not know who the spies are.

… we can’t stay at one place for long because there might be spies among us that report our movements to the Japanese and then they will come to surround you and catch you.

The Japanese informer

She spoke about the female Japanese informer who identified her as a communist member to the Japanese and how she felt at that time. Alone on a mission to deliver messages and documents from Sarawak to PangkorIsland, she sat in a boat with “suspicious-looking” people. She also recalled how her quick wits saved her life as she narrated how she abandoned the gun and documents she had with her into the sea.

I was moving towards PangkorIsland from Sarawak, on board a sampan and together with me were five other people… They had a suspicious look on their faces … I was scared that my cover might have been exposed. The ride was bumpy… I took this opportunity and removed ‘wen jian’ (the documents) and the gun I had on my body and submerged it into the water.

When asked about the gun she had, Madam Foo recalled how she was taught to use it by her fellow comrades and how small and compact it was that she carried it wherever she went. However, through Chin Peng’s account, it was that none of them had a personal pistol, “which was what [they] wanted at the time”.[8] The other varieties of guns are namely the Tommy guns, Bren guns and the .303 rifles. Despite the differences, there was a common consensus about the portability of a pistol. “Pistols were small, comparatively light and easy to operate. To small-framed Asians they offered ready protection and enhanced confidence.”[8] It might be due to the gender differentiation and the basis of the work allocated that the series of guns distributed to each individual was different. As Madam Foo was a female comrade and due to the nature of her role as a messenger, she might have given the priority of been issued a pistol.

During the Japanese Occupation, “the Japanese had imposed strict rules on people’s movement, so it was an uphill task for people to obtain the necessary papers to move around.”[9] There was a question about how she was able to move around as freely as what was mentioned in the interview. Checking with the sources, it was known that many of these communist members obtain their travel documents through undercover work at plantations, fisheries and fields. The many odd-jobs Madam Foo had taken up as she traveled to the different bases could be undercover work or it might even be forged travel documents, though no sources have mentioned the possibility.

The Japanese interrogation process

Her role carries high risk of being caught, having to travel frequently to and from different communist bases. If she was found out to be a part of the anti-Japanese movement, she would have been taken away and given the various inhumane tortures like the “water or fire treatments”. These brutal treatments or forms of tortures carried out by the Japanese were extensively recorded in many historical literatures pertaining to issues on the Japanese Occupation. From historical records of the traumatic interrogation process experienced by Elizabeth Choy, it was known that “she was electrocuted, had water pumped continuously into her body, beaten up and stripped to the waist during interrogation” [10] The other sources added that water treatment had victims pumped full with water, with soldiers jumping repeatedly on the person’s water-filled belly. [11] However, Madam Foo did not see or encounter any of these treatments after she was captured but had only heard about it from her fellow members. The closest she had been treated badly by the Japanese was when they did a body search for documents on her.

They did a body search, ‘ta men ba wo de yi fu mei you’ (they tore my clothes bare) to check for Communist related documents or guns but found nothing.

She was then taken away by the Japanese after been pointed out by the female spy, who was one of the people on board the same boat as her. She resisted and pleaded her ‘innocence’ as no anti-Japanese documents or evidences were found on her but she was taken away.

What puzzled me was that she was not given any “treatment” or any form of torture from the Japanese after she was arrested and she managed to be freed on the very next day, after several persistent letters from the rich Chinese merchants were sent to the Japanese.Did these rich Chinese merchants have such influence to be able to free people out of prisons? These people could be the communist sympathisers, mentioned by Chin Peng in his account. These people gave monetary support as well as other essentials to the guerilla fighters, living in the jungles. She did not want to talk about what happened to her during her captive and just spoke about how this fellow member, who later became her husband, went around persuading the rich and influential people in Pangkor Island to bail her out.

After her release, they fled to Perak, and stayed there with the other communist members till the Japanese surrender. “Before the Second World War, Perak was a major tin and rubber producing and exporting state; it attracted tens of thousand of immigrant labourers from China [and] a majority of the Chinese in Perak were men whose national identity and loyalty were with China”[12] This could have led to the success of mass recruitment for members to the anti-Japanese movement in Perak.

Post Pacific War – British’s effort to eliminate communism in Malaya

It was only after the 3 years and 8 months of Japanese Occupation that they returned to PangkorIsland but this time, the British were on plans of eliminating communist power. “The British were determined to reinstall her colonial supremacy in Malaya” [13]and they had little choice but to deal with the communist movement, who they had once shared a “common enemy”, the Japanese, during the Occupation. Chin Peng felt they had been used by the British and there was no real bond or allied connection between them though they were both fighting against the Japanese. Madam Foo, however, only felt that it was due to the fact that communist activities are unlawful, saying:

They are anti-communist, all these people

The British were rounding up the communist parties and their members to create law and order. This drove Madam Foo and her husband to leave PangkorIsland for China after they got married and had their first child to seek safety.

Leaving the movement

She returned to Singapore once again but this time, with her children, as her husband had came over to work as a fisherman. After the war, both husband and wife had given up their communist work and decided to lead normal lives for the sake of the children. They wanted to give the best to their children, especially a safe environment to live in and not one that had constant fear. She recalled the hardship of bringing up her nine children, playing the role of a mother and having to work. 0 She wanted the best for her children and stuck to a strict diet of porridge and soy sauce so that her children could have the meat and fish. However, life got better as they saw ‘the fruit of their labour’. Madam Foo strongly believes that when one is willing to give one’s best and work hard, anything is achievable.

Conclusion

“The occupation of Singapore by the Japanese Army between the 15th day of February, 1942 and the 18th day of August, 1945 was a dark and tragic epoch.” [14] Her account of her life before, during and after the war reveals her strong determination, will power to persevere hardship and her unwavering spirit in difficult times. This serves as an invaluable lesson for me, her granddaughter, to learn and to remember that the present comfort and stability should not be taken for granted. Though her experiences of the Japanese Occupation were almost 60 years ago, her memory of the pain and suffering remains and even her deep-seated resentment for the Japanese remains till this very day, as she ended the interview with these angry words: