Suffering of ‘the other’

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By Andrew Ng

MY grandfather Lau Yu-Chung learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and the subsequent invasion of Hong Kong on Dec 9, 1941 from the local school principal Mr Wong, who arrived at his door in a panic exclaiming “we’re going to be next!”
Living in Sandakan, a small port in British North Borneo (now Malaysia), Lau would spend the next three and a half years hiding from the Imperial Japanese Army in the interior rainforest, living off yams and what he could barter for them.
As a Canadian diplomat in Pakistan, I recently joined the international commemoration of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in solidarity with victims of terrorism around the world, including the tens of thousands here in Pakistan.
In Pakistan, I have come to fully appreciate that sorrow is often better exchanged than exported. In that spirit, as last month marked the 70th anniversary of Dec 7, 1941, that ‘day of infamy’ that ended in the death of 2,404 Americans at Pearl Harbour, it is worth recounting that Pearl Harbour also marked the onset of the Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and vast parts of Southeast Asia. Thus I share my grandfather’s story.
In December 1941, my grandfather had been working for a year as a consular officer for the Chinese Kuomintang government in Sandakan, Borneo, where the approximately 70,000 ethnic Chinese made up the majority. As news of the Japanese sweep into Hong Kong and across Southeast Asia spread, many Sandakan residents chose to bury their valuables and flee their homes, some for the thick jungle of the interior, rather than face life under Japanese occupation. On Jan 19, 1942, 43 days after Pearl Harbour, Japanese imperial forces arrived in Sandakan, meeting no resistance, proving right the local principal Mr. Wong. Before the invasion, Sandakan’s defence forces numbered 99 volunteers, few of whom had seen any combat. The control of British North Borneo was important for Japan due to its strategic location along the South China Sea, guarding the Malacca Straits to the west and, as in the case of Sandakan, facing the Philippines to the east. The area was also rich in natural resources needed to fuel the Japanese war machine.
Upon arrival, Japanese forces interned the staff of the Chinese consulate, including the Chinese consul general, who would later be summarily executed, and my grandfather. Upon release, Lau initially moved his wife and infant son and daughter into a small hut on a rubber plantation on the outskirts of town, but it became readily apparent that it would take more to evade surveillance.
Following his friends, Lau hired a boat and took his family 50km upstream to a small settlement called Labuk, where a handful of Chinese families had started eking out an existence in hiding.
Soon enough, disguised as an aboriginal, Lau set about clearing land for cultivation. Experimenting with a variety of crops, Lau achieved the most success with yams, eventually accumulating enough to barter with aboriginals for a wooden canoe.
During this time, Lau’s wife gave birth to a third son in the rainforest, with Lau himself cutting the umbilical cord.
Labuk would not be remote, nor safe enough. Three years after his escape, hearing allied warplanes overhead, my grandfather and three friends began to reconnoitre the situation by canoe. As they returned to Labuk, Lau recognised a Japanese soldier and local policeman waiting for him. A furious pursuit in canoes ensued, and after an hour of paddling through heavy rainfall, the four eluded capture and slept the night in the mud.
The next day, Lau returned to Labuk to find that his pregnant wife and two of his children had been executed by the Japanese officer. Only one of his children, Kan, survived — thanks to the heroism of another neighbour.
The fate of my grandfather’s family was not unlike that of so many families victimised by the Japanese occupation. In fact, my grandfather’s story was so typical, it was rarely shared with anyone, including myself. I only met him once as a child, and my mother — who, as a girl, escaped communist China with him — was reluctant to share much about his life.
Like many Chinese, my mother avoided recounting sad family histories, particularly given the relentless suffering during the five decades spanning the civil war, Japanese occupation, Korean War, Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. It was only after my grandfather’s death that I pieced together his story from a short article he wrote for an alumni publication and some months digging through archives.
The importance of commemorating together the events of Pearl Harbour and the successive Japanese occupation of much of Southeast Asia is perhaps instructive for the current moment in Pakistan. Especially as Pakistan lurches from crisis to crisis, the capacity and patience — of Pakistanis and outsiders alike — to appreciate the suffering of ‘the other’ is critical to moving forward.
The writer is a Canadian diplomat based in Islamabad. His views do not necessarily represent those of his government.

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