Cloistered War

Maisie Duncan

Description

Set in Malaya before and after World War II, A Cloistered War is a moving coming-of-age memoir of Maisie Duncan, granddaughter of Captain Vaz, a well-known Penang identity. When Maisie's mother passes away and her father remarries, the world that she knows-delightful times of curry tiffins, porcelain dolls, Cantonese amahs, and (not-so-delightful) castor-oil Saturdays-falls apart as all the children are sent away from the family home to CHIJ Institutions and Christian Brothers' schools. Maisie and her sister spend the next 14 years of their youth traversing Malaya as boarders in these cloistered worlds. The sisters survive a number of perilous events including Singapore's first air raid and a convent invasion by Japanese troops looking for 'comfort women'. Throughout the Occupation, they lived under the watchful eyes of the convent nuns. Despite the atrocities and brutality of the occupying forces, Maisie notes incidents of their kindness and humanity. Maisie's sharpness, humour and poignant recollections permeate the book, and brings each character to life.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Malasia
• Malaysia
• Memoir
• 20th century
• Malaisie

Informations

• Publié par: Marshall Cavendish International
• Date de parution: 10 avril 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789814677639
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Aerial view of CHIJ convent (cover) and photographs published with permission from CHIJMES Investment Pte Ltd.
Japanese banana note courtesy of the National Archives of Singapore.
Many thanks to Sister Carmel of St Maur International School, Yokohama, Japan for her permission to publish the extract on page 84.
Maisie Duncan
First published in 2004 by Times Editions
This reprint with new cover published 2010 by Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International
1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196
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National Library Board Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data
Duncan, Maisie, 1931-
A cloistered war : behind the convent walls during the Japanese occupation / Maisie Duncan. - Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2010.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13 : 978-981-4302-30-2
eISBN : 978 981 4677 63 9
1. Duncan, Maisie, 1931- 2. Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (Singapore) - History. 3. World War, 1939-1945 - Malaysia - Malaya - Personal narratives. 4. World War, 1939-1945 - Singapore - Personal narratives. 5. Malaya - History - Japanese occupation, 1942-1945. 6. Singapore - History - Japanese occupation, 1942-1945.
I. Title.
D811.5
940.5425092 - dc22 OCN540015557
Printed in Singapore by Craft Print International Ltd
For Big Sister Olga in appreciation of your enduring devotion and loyalty
Special thanks to...
I would like to make the following acknowledgments:
To my cousin Billy Coules, for undertaking the daunting task of finding me a publisher and cleverly knocking on the door of Marshall Cavendish.
To the hardworking and helpful team at Marshall Cavendish, who listened to my suggestions and requests and attempted, where possible, to carry them out.
To Chijmes Investment Pte Ltd, especially Esther Yong and Tanya Fum, for their generous sponsorship in connection with the book launch.
To my old and valued friends, Mary and Doris Liew, for their enthusiastic support of this venture.
To my former colleague Svyetlana Hadgraft, for acting as my BGGS in-house publicity agent, and to Roberta King, for aiding and abetting her.
To my daughter-in-law Jan for capably handling all the email traffic between me and my contacts in Singapore.
And to my wonderful family and friends, for their continuing support and encouragement.
Maisie Duncan
Helensvale, Queensland
Australia
Author s Note
Everyone has a story to tell, but for a variety of reasons many people remain silent. My memoir is the result of two major stimuli- family curiosity on the one hand and friendly encouragement from my fellow teachers at Brisbane Girls Grammar School on the other.
Many years ago my children were attending a primary school on Brisbane s northside. Usually, as soon as they got home, they d ask for something to eat. But on one occasion they asked, out of the blue, Mum, where were we born? Our teacher wants to know.
At the time I was busy in the kitchen, so I gave them a short answer- Batu Gajah, a small town in Malaya.
They looked bewildered.
Your father worked there as a tin miner and you were born at the local hospital I ll tell you about it one day.
The other stimulus occurred in the BGGS staffroom, during the less frenzied working climate of the 70s and 80s. The leisurely lunch periods allowed time for teachers to recharge their batteries and exchange anecdotes from their widely-diverging backgrounds. As the newly-appointed teacher of Japanese, my tales of World War II Japanese Occupation of Malaya always received a good hearing. My listeners were intrigued to discover that I first studied Japanese as a compulsory subject in Singapore, way back in 1942.
The collective wisdom of my peers could be expressed in one sentence: Write it all down, Maisie-do it now, before you forget what happened.
My response invariably was, Yes, of course I will, but I m too busy now. I ll get round to it sometime.
In writing my memoir, I have obviously ignored the famous exhortation by John Cleese in Fawlty Towers : D ON T MENTION THE WAR ! For those of us who lived through it, avoiding the subject altogether was extremely difficult. We are all aware that the actor did not follow his own advice. For my part, I did mention the war frequently. As one might expect, the W word was the dominant influence, but scores of other important words made their presence felt and demanded serious attention: the D word for Death, the R word for Religion, Romance and Racial Prejudice, while the H word for Humour kept popping up on occasion to maintain the balance between tears and laughter.
I discovered that the mere physical act of putting pen to paper released a flood of long-submerged memories. My memoir grew apace and it became a question of what to exclude instead of what to include if I was ever to complete the work and redeem my promise.
So here is my story-nearly thirty years later!
Content
1 The Impregnable Fortress
2 Eastern Enchantment
3 Family Life
4 After The First Death There Is No Other
5 Behind the Convent Walls
6 Seremban Stopover
7 The Enemy Arrives
8 Surrender
9 Return to Syonan-to
10 Nippon-go
11 Kimura-san
12 Food and Propaganda
13 Safe-haven Seremban
14 The Unasked Question
15 Not With A Bang But A Whimper
16 A Schoolgirl Crush
17 Reunion in Singapore
18 Love and Marriage, Convent-style
19 Penang Idyll
20 A Question of Loyalties
21 Three Quests
22 A Planter s Wife
23 Colour Bar
24 I m Twenty-One Today!
25 The Final Stretch
one
The Impregnable Fortress
August 1941: Katong Beach

Wash of warm wavelets on the gritty sand Bathing-capped nuns heads bobbing up and down in the shallows Muffled drumbeats rising to a crescendo as khaki-clad, sinewy drumsticks pound their way past the front fence and round the corner towards the boarders dormitory. Its heavy-shuttered windows crash open as if on cue to reveal a cloud of disembodied balloon faces shadowy against the interior gloom, straining towards the exterior sunlight and the jetstream of turbulence raised by the wild marching feet on the gravelled laneway below. Hoots of laughter, wolf whistles and snatches of song greet the dramatic window-stage appearance of the faces. A current of excitement builds up between the pale, cloistered, curiosity-filled girls above and the sunburnt, devil-may-care, slouch-hatted warriors below.
Girls! Girls! the stern voice of authority breaks the spell. Close the shutters at once! The duty nun claps her hands hard and repeatedly as she patrols the fence Close them NOW! The order is obeyed-but not immediately, not before those inside have overheard and savoured several cheeky retorts. Girls worrying you, Sister? We ll look after them for you! Promise! Followed by a loud chorus: Oh, Sister, please!
And an older, apologetic voice- Don t mind the lads, Sister, they re all keyed up.
The marching men moved on, the laneway was quiet once more, then footsteps were heard on the staircase and we knew before Madame uttered a word that we were all in trouble.
Mine was the face at the base of the balloon cloud. I was ten years old, the youngest and smallest of the group, and had joined in enthusiastically as we cheered and waved to the passing parade. Carried away in the excitement of the moment, we had acted in an unladylike manner. My thirteen year-old sister had been equally unrestrained, but we knew that the older members of the group would be considered the most culpable, because wisdom was supposed to come with age. Two years in the convent had taught us how the system worked. There were two or three twenty-year-olds and even one venerable twenty-one year-old in our group. They were all barred from swimming that afternoon as a punishment, and the rest of us were warned that a similar fate would befall us if we behaved like brazen young hussies instead of conducting ourselves as well-bred young ladies. Nice young ladies, we were informed, do not wave and call out to strange young men, especially not to soldiers.
They weren t English soldiers, were they? I asked.
They were Australians! came the answer-and no further explanations were required.
I wanted to ask, What s a hussy? but I wasn t game; however, I did know why Madame had used that scornful dismissive tone when she said Australians . We d all heard of the Aussies . They hadn t been in our part of the world for very long, but already they were notorious. The local press frequently printed accounts of their escapades, accurately or grossly exaggerated and word of