"A bomb fell on our house"
Esther Zhou recalls a close shave when a bomb fell on her house, alongside memories of her grandmother's cooking.
I was born in 1938 in Singapore. During the Japanese Occupation, I was about 4 years old. Home was a bungalow house at 28 Duku Road near Katong. A lot of fruit trees grew in my area. My father was a Khek (a Hokkien term for the ethnic Chinese group called Hakka) and my mother was a Straits-born Nonya who came from 5 generations of Peranakans. I lived a traditional Peranakan lifestyle.
Before the Japanese arrived, people were telling my mother to run away because they would come from the sea and Duku Road is near the sea. 22 of us lived in that house - my mother had 11 brothers and sisters and we all lived with my maternal grandfather. The news worried my grandmother so we asked my auntie living in Serangoon to help shelter us.
The war broke out when all 22 of us were living at my auntie’s house in Serangoon. My younger brother was 2 years old at that time. He always cried so it made my auntie very angry. We stayed near my auntie’s daughter’s room. Her son-in-law worked in a bank. When the war broke out, people were still working in their offices while the ladies were at home with the children.
Smoke arising from the city after the Japanese bombardment
13th Feb 1942
Credit: Bukitbrown
The Japanese bombed the city for three days, and a bomb fell on my house on one of those nights. My auntie’s 8 year old son had two mattresses laid on top of him to protect him but he still died from the impact of the bomb. We couldn’t bury him. One of the ma jie’s (a domestic maid and nanny) back was burnt and my auntie’s daughter was injured on her side.
My grandfather finally returned home after the three days of bombing ended. During that time, we couldn’t go out to look for a doctor so they had to endure the pain from their wounds. My auntie’s son-in-law’s good friend lived nearby and he had a car, so my grandfather pleaded with him to borrow his car. At first he said no, but finally he relented. We brought them to the doctor and when the doctor finally cleaned their wounds, worms came out from my auntie’s daughter’s wounds because they had been left untreated for so long. Thankfully she recovered.
My relative who was taking care of me had a premonition just before the bomb hit. She said she felt a sudden gust of wind and moved me away from where I was sleeping. That’s how I managed to survive the bombing of my house.
Our own house back at Katong was looted. To make the journey back home safely, we darkened our skin (with charcoal) and wore our Nonya kebayas (traditional clothing worn by female Peranakans, consisting of a blouse worn over a long skirt). The Japanese stopped us at first but released us when they saw our darkened skin.
Our house had been looted. We still had some rice left though but after three months we ran out. We still had our compound which already had fruits and kangkong (water spinach) growing, in addition we planted our own vegetables like lady’s finger, tapioca and sweet potato. Our grandfather had no work so we just lived on the food grown in our compound. But we still had no rice - even if you had money you couldn’t buy rice. We made watery porridge with sweet potato to stretch the rice we had but even then we ran out.
Ragi bread, made from finger millet
Illustrated by Julia Tay
My grandmother was a very good cook and a very strong woman. To supplement our diet, we also ate palm oil mee - the smell of the palm oil was so terrible but at least we had something to eat. I remember my grandmother once made ragi bread during the war. It was very nice, we all enjoyed eating it. But when we asked her to make it again, she didn’t know how. Until today I still think of that bread.
Once, my auntie told my mother that there was a tapioca sale at Siglap. My mother walked all the way to Siglap and carried back 20 catties (around 12kg) of tapioca back to feed all 22 of us in the household. It was very expensive too, you had to pay through your nose.
Before the war, the traditional Nonya meal was one soup and four plates of different dishes. But now just one vegetable and some rice made us happy.
Squeezing the juice from shredded coconut to make tahi minyak
Illustrated by Julia Tay
We had a lot of coconut trees so we ate coconut oil. My mother would hand-scrap the coconut to get the coconut flesh out. She would take the flesh, grate it and then squeeze the coconut juice from the flesh. Then she would take the squeezed flesh and leave it aside for a day, and cook it when it became pungent. She would then boil it until oil came out. We couldn’t afford to buy oil those days so that was what we used to cook our food. We cooked fish with it too.
After the oil comes out, you don’t throw away the leftover coconut flesh! That’s a treasure! You cook it with chilli and belacan, it makes a very tasty dish.
My father was working in Thailand when the war broke out in Singapore and was stuck. He was very well-educated, he was an accountant. He only managed to return after the war and found a job with the British within a few months.
Life during the Japanese Occupation was very difficult.