Lee Kuan Yew's study plans were shattered when Japanese forces landed at Kota Baru on the north-east coast of Malaya in the early hours of Dec 8, 1941. But the political education which followed would leave a lasting impression and change Lee's life forever.
"They (the Japanese) were the masters. They swaggered around with big swords, they occupied all the big offices and the houses and the big cars and they gave the orders. So that determines who is the authority.
"Then, because they had the authority, they printed the money, they controlled the wealth of the country, the banks, they made the Chinese pay a $50-million tribute. The Chinese merchant community, you need a job, you need a permit, you need to import and distribute rice -- they controlled everything.
"So people adjusted and they bowed, they ingratiated themselves, they had to live. Quietly, they cursed away behind the backs of the Japanese. But in the face of the Japanese, you submit, you appear docile, you're obedient and you try to be ingratiating. I understood how power operated on people.
"As time went on, food became short and medicine became short. Whisky, brandy, all the luxuries which could be kept in either bottles or tins -- cigarettes, 555s in tins -- became valuables. The people who traded with the Japanese, who pandered to their wishes, provided them with supplies, clothes, uniforms, whatever, bought these things and gave them to the officers.
"And some ran gambling farms in the New World and Great World. And millions of Japanese dollars were won and lost each night. They collected the money, shared it with, I suppose, whoever were in charge: the Japanese Kempeitai and the government or generals or whatever. Then they bought properties.
"In that way, they became very wealthy at the end of the war because the property transactions were recognised. But the notes were not.
"Because people had to live, you've got to submit. I started off hating them and not wanting to learn Japanese. I spent my time learning Chinese to read their notices.
"After six months, I learnt how to read Chinese, but I couldn't read Japanese. I couldn't read the Katakana and the Hiragana. Finally, I registered at a Japanese school in Queen Street.
"Three months passed. I got a job with my grandfather's old friend, a textile importer and exporter called Shimoda. He came, opened his office. Before that, it was in Middle Road. Now it's a big office in Raffles Place. I worked there as a clerk, copy typist, copied the Japanese Kanji and so on. It's clerical work.
"But you saw how people had to live, they had to get rice, food, they had to feed their children. Therefore, they had to submit. So it was my first lesson on power and government and system and how human beings reacted.
"Some were heroic, maybe misguided. They listened to the radio, against the Japanese, they spread news, got captured by the Kempeitai, tortured. Some were just collaborators, did everything the Japanese wanted. And it was an education on human beings, human nature and human systems of government."
First published in The Sunday Times, Sept 28, 1997
Copyright © 1998 Singapore Press Holdings. All Rights Reserved.
