Thirty students walked into camp, little realising that others were preparing for an ... The New Paper, Nov 29, 1997 By Jill Lim Bow before your masters : Jurongville students, as "prisoners of war" had to bow before nine Hwa Chong Junior College students dressed up like Japanese Imperial Army soldiers. DESMOND Chua, 17, threw a stick. He shouted: "Fetch." And a student silently fetched the stick with his hand, and brought it back to Desmond. There was a good reason for this humiliating act - Desmond was supposed to be a Japanese soldier, and the student, a prisoner of war during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore. This was for a two-day enrichment camp by the Singapore Discovery Centre on Wednesday and Thursday for 30 Secondary 2 students from Jurongville Secondary School. It aimed to get students to better understand the Japanese Occupation by experiencing some aspects of it themselves. So it had nine Hwa Chong Junior College (HCJC) students dressed up like Japanese Imperial Army soldiers, with realistic- looking wooden rifles, to treat the Jurongville students like prisoners. Daniel Pok, a 17-year-old HCJC student, who had thought up the stick-throwing idea, told The New Paper: "We were supposed to treat them bad. How? Maybe do pumping? But that's so much like the army. "Then I suddenly thought of making someone fetch a stick. And I thought, wow, good. "But I felt quite embarrassed after that, to look the students in the eye!" Said one "prisoner", Teo Xian Qin, 14: "I was a bit scared they would shout at us. So I think it was quite good. We could really feel what it was like then. The Jurongville students were treated as prisoners of war for about five hours on Wednesday. To teach the students about hunger, lunch was two ladles' worth of thin tapioca porridge, eaten from mess tins. Biscuits were made available in the afternoon. Other activities of the camp were talks by Mr Vernon Palmer and Mr George Seow, who had been teenagers in Singapore during the Japanese Occupation, an hour-long television documentary, and a two-hour visit at night to Kranji Reservoir Park and Kranji War Cemetery. Previous Copyright © 1998 Singapore Press Holdings. All Rights Reserved.