Amidst war, a wedding

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star-24 April 2005

Revisiting WWII takes a detour from tracing the Japanese invasion route down the peninsula to look at Penang. While not a vital objective in the push towards Singapore, the island was still a strategically important element in protecting the invaders’ flank, so they had to hold it. The three-year-long Occupation certainly left its mark on the lives of Penangites, some of whom share their stories with CHOONG KWEE KIM.

WHILE World War II wrecked countries and homes, the exigencies of war also brought together families. Dr Kamil Ariff was C.M. Hashim’s doctor and close friend. When war, with all the potential for atrocities it held, threatened Penang, Dr Kamil and Hashim decided to protect the latter’s daughter, Zubaidah, in the best way they knew how: by marrying her to Dr Kamil’s son, Mushir.

It was a wise decision that the late Sir Dr Kamil and Tan Sri Hashim made in those troubled times. And it turned out to be a decision that has stood the test of time, for the young Mushir and Zubaidah remained together after the war – and are still together more than 60 years later!

In December 1941, when the Japanese began bombing Penang, Mushir was a 23-year-old articled clerk (law student) at Messrs Hogan, Adams and Allen above the Barkath Store in George Town’s Union Street. Zubaidah was then a student at St George’s Girls’ School, though her education was abruptly curtailed when war broke out.

“After the bombings, many people evacuated to the more rural districts, including my family who left our home in Hutton Lane to seek shelter in my future father-in-law’s mansion in Air Itam,” recalls the now 87-year-old Datuk Mushir at his home in Batu Feringghi.

Datuk Mushir Ariff and his wife, Datuk Zubaidah Hashim were brought together by the war. – Photo by K.T. GOH

Although Mushir’s family moved into Zubaidah’s home, Penawar, there was no opportunity for romantic courtship prior to their wedding in October 1942: “I was only 14 and too young for romance,” says Datuk Zubaidah with a smile.

There wasn’t much room for privacy either: “There were so many relatives, about 80 of them, who evacuated to our house to stay for about two weeks,” she says, recalling the chaotic exodus of evacuees who walked to Air Itam with children in tow after the December bombings.

In Penawar, every available nook and cranny, including the kitchen, lounge and gardener’s house, was occupied while tents were also set up on the lawn. There was no electricity for the first few months, and candles had to be lit every night.

Zubaidah remembers traipsing down the back stairs to play by the river together with relatives, all girls, when an alarm rang out that a Japanese truck had stopped at a house next door.

“All the mothers in the house yelled for their daughters to get in while my father took out his gun and prepared to shoot should anything happen to any of the girls, regardless of his own fate,” she says.

This was why Zubaidah’s father was prepared to marry her off as soon as possible; it was a good move for parents to pair off their children to safeguard young girls from predators among the Japanese soldiers in the early days of the invasion.

Life was unpredictably dangerous in those times. Zubaidah once witnessed from a window an identification parade with Japanese soldiers accompanying a hooded informer. People were lined up in front of the hooded man; those he singled out were herded onto lorries and, oft-times, never seen again, so they were probably sent to their deaths.

The young couple’s big day has been carefully preserved.

There were other frightening moments, moments that involved that most basic of needs, food.

As supplies became scarce, the Japanese began a campaign to grow more food, so all the available space in the garden surrounding Zubaidah’s father’s house was planted with vegetables such as tapioca and sweet potatoes.

Food supply was rationed, but those who had the means could get more on the black market; Mushir and Zubaidah’s families got their additional supply from friends in Balik Pulau who stored fish, chicken, beef and eggs for them.

The couple remember a frightening incident when both their parents set out in two cars to get their supplies only to be stopped by Japanese sentries in Balik Pulau who had probably been tipped off by informers.

“The two drivers were slapped, the officers confiscated all the food, then gave a stern warning but, thank God, nothing else happened to our parents,” says Zubaidah.

At their wedding on Oct 31, the food supply was still good and they could afford to invite close friends and relatives to a dinner that comprised the usual kenduri fare of nasi minyak and curries. Later, when food became scarce, wedding celebrations held by locals were simpler, consisting only of tea and cakes.

Despite the troubled times, the newly-weds still found the opportunity to go downtown for movies.

As petrol was also rationed and issued only to those providing essential services such as doctors, others had to ride bicycles. For the young couple, the bumpy bicycle rides downtown on hard rubber tyres were memorable ones, although far from comfortable. Pneumatic tyres and tubes were then out of supply.

When they did make it to town, the young couple went to their favourite cinema, the newest in town, the Rex in Burmah Road. Other cinemas open at that time were the Queen (later Cathay and now the Mydin Emporium) and Odeon cinemas in Penang Road.

“The first English movie we watched after we got married was Ben Hur in November 1942,” recalls Zubaidah fondly, adding that, “After about two months, all the cinemas stopped showing English movies and screened only Japanese, Malay, Hindi and Chinese movies.”

She still remembers the tune and lyrics of a popular Japanese love song called Shina No Yoru (China Night) about a Japanese soldier who falls in love with a Chinese girl.

Shina no yoru,
Shina no yoru yo.
Minato no akari,
Murasaki no yo ni,
Noboru janku no,
Yume no fune.
Aa wasurarenu
Kokyu no ne.
Shina no yoru,
Yume no yoru.

(What a night in China,
What a night in China.
Harbour lights,
Deep purple night,
Ah, ship,
The dreamship
I can’t forget.
The sound of the Kokyu.
Ah, China night,
A dream night.)

Even in the midst of war, love can bloom ...