Amusement in grim times

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 22 May 2005

LIM Liou Wong's face wrinkles with amusement when he recalls the funfair where he used to spend his time during the Japanese occupation.

Sitting on a lazy chair at a sundry shop in Gemas town, Negri Sembilan, the 74-year-old man points towards an empty lot about 100m away says, “There used to be an amusement park there.”

“It had a funfair, wayang (movie) kung fu, bangsawan (Malay stage opera) and Chinese opera. And there was gambling ... all kinds of gambling, except roulette,” recalls Lim, whose family owns a laundry shop next door.

“The Japanese did not disturb the Chinese who operated the amusement park. Probably they hoped that the Chinese would be harmless if allowed to gamble and drink alcohol. The Japanese would only trouble you if they suspected you were a spy working for the communists or British.”

Lim Liou Wong remembers being terrified of the Japanese soldiers.

Gambling went on in full swing in all the amusement parks throughout Malaya, according to Chin Kee Onn in Malaya Upside Down.

“Under the guise of 'amusement' and 'games of skill', open gambling was carried on under the very noses of the authorities,” Chin wrote. “But, of course, the military police and civil police had been bribed.”

Before the Japanese occupation of Malaya, Lim's family lived next door to a Japanese couple who operated a photo studio. At that time (in the 1930s), it was the only Japanese-owned shop in Gemas.

“They took many photographs of Gemas town. Now when you think of it, they were actually spies. They were very interested in the Gemas railway station,” he recalls, adding the town had strategic importance in terms of transportation because Gemas was the crucial railway junction between Singapore, the east coast and the north of Malaya.

“I also remember them taking pictures of me. They were very friendly and polite. And sometimes they gave me Japanese cakes,” he says.

Some months before the invasion of Malaya, the Japanese shop closed.

The Japanese he remembered during the occupation were not so friendly. In fact, they terrified him.

“When the Japanese soldiers caught members of the Bintang Tiga (communist army), they chopped their heads off or lined them up to be shot by a firing squad. Even innocents were not spared,” he recalls.

The laundry shop run by Lim's father was also not spared, financially.

“Business was bad because everyone was poor. People were more worried about putting food in their stomach than whether their clothes were clean,” he explains. – By P.G.