Voices under the Rising Sun - Fiona Hodgkins

This is not your usually children's story. It is written in the form of dairies, letters and factual texts. Not only that, this is a World War II (WW2) story about how  the life of  3 children were being changed during the war.

Being a history buff, naturally, I am attracted to the book. This book is suitable for children 10 years and above. It was written as a companion piece to another book, From Syonan to Fuji-Go, by the same author, Fiona Hodgkins. Both books are based of her research into the settlement of Bahau. It was a settlement for the Catholics in Negri Sembilan (a state in Malaya, now known as Malaysia) during the Japanese Occupation.

The characters and events are based on true stories. Most names and some events are being altered. One of the children, Mary ( an Eurasian), was in fact based on the life of the author's mother. The story started on describing how life of like when the British were in power in the region. Very soon, WW2 began and eventually, the fall of Singapore.

With Kempetai (Japanese secret police) watching and food shortages in Singapore became critical, many Catholics decided to go to Bahau where they could grow their own crops and probably send some supplies down to Singapore.

However, the crops failed and the people had to survived on snails and pets, which were pretty traumatising. To add on to the misery, the people fell sick with malaria and typhoid!

Of course, the story ended when finally the war was over.

Personally, I think this is a good read for children and adults likewise. Definitely a must read for history buffs. It is simple to read and there is a lot of facts describing the life in those days.

Battle for Singapore: Adam Park

As early as 12th Feb 2016, there has been WW2 tours going around in Singapore. Many of the tours conducted are places whereby battles were fought. Otherwise, they are places of historic significance relating closely to the war. Talks and exhibitions are also conducted during this time to commemorate the 74th Anniversary of the Fall of Singapore. 

Many of these tours had to be pre-registered. They usually run on the weekends starting somewhere mid of February lasting till the end of the month. This year was the second year I signed up for such tours. Many times, through the guided tours, I get to learn new stories and look at things from a different light.

Some of the fiercest battles that took place were in Adam Park and Pasir Panjang Ridge (Bukit Chandu or Opium Hill). Both places I am interested to know more of their history. 

Sharing below what I have learnt in the Adam Park tour.

Our tour guide was Jon Cooper, an Englishman Battlefield Archaeologist for The Adam Park Project and Changi Museum. He is the founder of Adam Park Project. The team he led has uncovered a treasure trove of objects such as regimental cap badges, gas masks, boots and bullets. It is from these unearthed materials, we learnt more about the battle at Adam Park.

Heritage marker board at junction of Adam Road and Adam Park Road.

Adam Park

The 19 black and white houses (numbered 2-20) were built for municipal purposes in the 1920s. On that morning of 12 February 1945, the British soldiers of the 1st Battalion, the Cambridgeshire Regiment, took up positions in the Adam Park housing estate. The Battalion's headquarters was at house number 7. This is stated in the heritage marker board. However, Adam Park was involved in heavy fighting but this was not mentioned in the heritage marker board. In fact, this place was almost untouched since it was built. This is ideal for archaeology purposes. A lot of artifacts had been found especially in this area. It is believed that similar artifacts could be found around Sime Road (Hellfire Corner) all the way to Bukit Brown and MacRitchie which are nearby. This was the only battle line that was left standing on the 15th February 1942 before they were ordered to cease fire at 4pm. It became a POW camp for 3000 POWs. when the Japanese needed the manpower to build the Shinto shrine in MacRitchie Reservoir. Many of these POWs were later sent to work on the Thai Burma Railway that claimed many life.

"The area covered by the 19 colonial black-and-white houses that make up the Adam Park estate is the site of an intense three days of fighting in the battle for Singapore. It was here that, in February 1942, the men of the 1st Battalion Cambridgeshire Regiment held off a series of attacks by the troops of the Japanese 41st (Fukuyama) Regiment."

 -quoted from Expatliving.sg. These words were retold again by Jon Cooper during our tour.

This was not my first tour with Jon. I had been to his Hellfire Corner Tour last year which inspired me to write about a short children story regarding Sime Road.

7 Adam Park
The house, 7 Adam Park, was selected as it sits on a reverse slope and was therefore hidden from a downhill view from Bukit Timah Hill which the Japanese had occupied then.

7 Adam Park

Post war, the house was a private residence. It used to be NUSS Guild House. Now it is left vacant after the last restaurant operator left 2 years ago. Could it be used as a museum for Jon's trove of treasure found in Adam Park itself? These were some food for thoughts.

17 Adam Park

17 Adam Park, a private pool can be seen

17 Adam Park used to be the British Regimental Aid Post. It was burnt to the ground. It was set alight on the 15th February as the ceasefire broke down and tank shells tore into the house. The current building is reconstructed.

The house next to number 17 has swings

Sights at Adam Park

This hill, according to Jon, was difficult to take down. The Battalion soldiers were hiding in the interlocking trenches or drains. I wonder whether they are the same drains when we walked past.

16 Adam Park and the "Valley of Death"

16 Adam Park

This house , number 16, was mentioned in a Japanese soldier's account of the war. He mentioned they fired from a very big black and white house. The garden was so extensive that it even has its own golf course. Actually, all the black and white houses looked alike on this hill but this house has its own golf course. Hence, it is believed this was the house the Japanese occupied and was used to attack the British soldiers. This is located near the "Valley of Death". Jon shared how he deduced where the Japanese were fighting from and where the British were defending from by the artifacts that were dug out from various places around the park. I think it is pretty amazing!

Chapel and Murals
The POW chapel is believed to be house 11. House 5 contains another mural.

Social History
Jon shared too the social history of the place. You may want to read about it here. His new book, Tigers in the Park, will be out soon.

"We are appealing to anyone who has heard stories of their fathers or grandfathers who worked in the area to also help provide a snapshot of how life was like then for civilians working with the POWs," said project initiator Jon Cooper, 48, a military historian and archaeologist.

                             - Straits Times , 4 NOV. Jon made a same request on our tour.

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Thoughts on the tour
This tour is enlightening , entertaining and interesting!  I have learnt much from the trip. So little is known about Adam Park. I have been goggling about Adam Park but not much is being found. Even Infopedia has no information on this last line of battle which left me pretty disappointed. Luckily with this tour, I managed to learn more about the place. I hope I would be able to pick up the book , 'Battalion at War', which he had mentioned. I hope I will not fall asleep.

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Swiftlet Nests in Singapore

Yes, you heard me right! There are real Swiftlets' nests, commonly known as Bird's Nest ( made by the swiftlets using solidified saliva), in Singapore! I happened to stumbled upon one such area during the last weekend to visit Mt Imbiah Battery. I had signed up some tours for Battle for Singapore and this trip was one of it. What I had not expected is to find intact bird's nests in the battery.

Upon arrival, I joined a group of history enthusiasts. We were told current status of Mt Imbiah, stories of WW2, the history of the battery, and the suspected use of each rooms. Although the place was decomissioned prior WW2, this battery is the only intact battery in Singapore that remained relatively untouched after the British army left Singapore. The rest of the batteries (Fort Siloso and Fort Connaught) in Sentosa had been bombed. The underground rooms were where the infantry used to store weapons was flooded and almost suffered the fate of being buried away as a result. Luckily, that idea was being abandoned and measures were made to drain away the water. Otherwise, we will not get the chance to visit and experience how it was like in such a battery. 

We were also brought through a very narrow passageway (basically the passageway is the perimeter of the underground magazine), we were told that this passage will help to keep the ammunition that were stored next to it dry. It is also in this passageway, we found the swiftlet nests. We were told the swiftlets are Jin Si Yan and the nests found here are poisonous, not for human consumption. Walking though the narrow passageway in a dark and groomy environment is pretty scary if you asked me. We were told to switch on our torchlight in our phone but I don't know how to operate mine. Luckily, majority of the members of the group had their lights on, so I followed behind. From their lights, I managed to see 2 rows of bird nests near the ceiling on the both sides of the corridor and snapped a picture of 2 nests next to each other (below). You can imagine the excitement I had because I had never seen any bird nests of any kind in my life before. What an experience it was! The swiftlets were probably frightened by us as we were making quite a commotion and they flew all over the place. Luckily, we were told there were swiflets in the passageway, otherwise I may have thought they were bats. One of the birds even bumped into my hand. In the innermost of the passageway, I felt the floor soft beneath my shoes. I could not see what it was. I believe they are feathers. When we were finally out, one of the guides asked whether we saw any big fat cockroaches! Eeewwww... Yes, these are some of the creatures you can find here, much to my amusement. I am sorry to tell you that the magazine is not open to public except in tours like this. Plans are made to preserve the site. I do hope in future, it will be open to public, including the magazine.

Bird nests in Mt Imbiah Battery

In the next photo collage, I am pleased to tell you that you will be able to visit and know more about swiftlets in Swiftlet Garden Museum. This particular museum is located at D'Kranji Farm Resort. When we first saw this museum during our farm hop last December, I was pretty excited to know more. It is not a very big museum but with the guided tour, you will be able to know the history of Bird's Nest and how it was harvested. It was Admiral Cheng Ho who brought them back as delicacy for the royal family from the South East Asia. You will also learnt that swiftlets are  monogamous and not all swiftlets are able to produce edible bird nest, only a few species do. You get to know how despicable some manufacturers are to the extent of bleaching bird nest to make them white so that they are be sold as premium bird nests.

You also get to learn how this particular plant, Swiftlet Garden Group of companies , harvest their own bird nests in swiftlet houses without harming the swiftlets and how these nests were processed. Essences ( glycoprotein extracts to produce food supplements for anti-cancer -SGBx, and stem cell therapy-NUSGx) of bird nest were extracted to make cookies, chocolates and coffee. To find out more, you may want to visit their homepage. The items can be purchase from their visitor's centre. Although I believe in consuming whole food rather than extracts (which were made into products), I bought the oats and blackcurrent cookies because Little One likes them.  

We do hope to visit the musuem again. Hopefully if we are not rushing for time so that we can stay and read the boards in the museum. At that time, I also wished to visit their farm in Malaysia. Currently, their farm does not have open farm tours available but I do hope that they conduct some day. I am sure plenty of people, especially the Chinese, would be interested.

Swiftlet Garden Museum
Left: Harvesting in swiftlet houses
Bottom Right: Mock up of Bird's Nest in swiftlet house
Top Right: Harvesting naturally in a cave

PS: I am in not affiliated or associated with the above mentioned company. 

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