Unheard Memoirs from the Japanese Occupation of Malaya

For those who have been following us on Instagram of Facebook, you may have seen our updates as we travelled around Malaysia. Myself, Chan Lee and Nicholson Ren embarked on this journey just over 2 weeks ago and returned yesterday morning after visiting key locations around Perak, Kota Bahru and Singapore.

We had an itinerary planned for filming and various locations, however new opportunities arose while we were there. We had a snowball of connections made within our first couple of days which set us on a new trajectory, meeting with local historians and war enthusiasts who were able to share their knowledge with us. The bonus of this was being able to hear the local history first hand, from the people who have had oral stories passed down to them, combined with their own local research.

One big surprise was after arriving in Penang for a late night interview at 9pm, we jumped on a call with Professor Gary Lit, who I had previously been in contact with. Unfortunately he had told me he would be in Singapore at the time of our trip, but his call came in, close to midnight saying he was in the Perak region! We quickly adapted our new plans, cutting our trip to Penang short and drove back to Ipoh the next day to meet with the Professor. We spent the next two days driving around Ipoh, Kampar and Bidor with him to hear stories from the locals.

We also met with our participants, Margaret, Dr Julian, Aunty Irene and Uncle Pat. (The latter two lovely people were introduced to us by Professor Cheryl Nicholas from
Penn State University.) It was astonishing to hear them revisit some of their stories from the Japanese Occupation when they were children. Dr Julian, had a very clear memory of his interactions with the Japanese soldiers from the age of 3-4.

Kota Bahru was a bit of un unknown for us, as we didn’t have contacts up there. We were hoping to visit the first landing site and the War Museum up there. Thank you to Hisham and his involvement with the Malaya Historical Group Society, we were able to get in contact with a history buff, Zafrani, who was able to take us to the real landing site in Kota Bahru, as well as enlighten us to more details of the events of the 8th Dec 1941 including the following days.

When we returned to KL, we went our separate ways; Chan returning to Melbourne, Nicholson remaining in KL for a couple more days and me travelling to Singapore for a solo trip.

In Singapore, I was able to visit more key historic sites, attend multiple museums, find rare books and visit war hero, Lim Bo Seng’s tomb. Nicholson joined me on the last day to visit Fort Siloso as we learnt about the final stages of the Malayan Campaign which lead to the fall of Singapore and the occupation of Malaya.

This journey would not have been possible without the generous contribution of our donors. My team and I are so grateful for your support, as there were many moments where we were not sure if we could make it or not, especially for these last minute changes! We averaged 2 meals per day, which kept us within budget, while also being able to provide a meal for our hosts, who also volunteered their time to show us around. (Most of the time, the 2 meals were due to us running out of time each day and often having a late lunch, for example in Singapore I had breakfast at 5:45pm!).

Overall, it was a tough trip, with long days and adventures, including Chan and I getting leeched on a hike up Kampar Hill! But it was all worth it in the end and the people we met along the way helped us get the very vital footage we needed.

Next steps will be to review all the footage and start sorting it within our storyline. While we were able to make it through this trip with the $1,900 raised, any further funds in this next stage will go towards acquiring archive footage, particularly from the Australia War Memorial and National Archives of Singapore, and saving to afford post production costs such as colour grading, animation etc.

More details to come in the next updates, but in the meantime, if you’d like to see behind the scenes photos and videos from our recent trip, make sure to follow us on:
Instagram – @unheard.memoirs (https://www.instagram.com/unheard.memoirs?igsh=cGlxcWlyNzV6Ym52)
Facebook – Unheard Memoirs from the Japanese Occupation of Malaya (https://www.facebook.com/share/1AAk3yh7K3/?mibextid=wwXIfr)

Bags are in the process of being packed as we prepare to head to the airport tonight! We will fly out early tomorrow morning to arrive in KL, before catching the train to Ipoh. Over the next week and a half, we will be spending 1-3 days in each town, exploring historical landmarks and speaking with survivors across Ipoh, Penang, Taiping, KL, Kota Bahru and Singapore.

Please follow us on our social media channels to get more up to date updates with this journey:
Instagram – @unheard.memoirs (https://www.instagram.com/unheard.memoirs?igsh=cGlxcWlyNzV6Ym52)
Facebook – Unheard Memoirs from the Japanese Occupation of Malaya (https://www.facebook.com/share/1AAk3yh7K3/?mibextid=wwXIfr)

We are also opening a dedicated YouTube channel for this project and will update you when this is ready to launch.

In the meantime, I just want to take the time to thank the amazing people who have donated to our campaign to date. The funds raised via Documentary Australia so far are all that we have to make this trip happen and I am so grateful for each and every one of you for your kindness and belief in this project.

Thank you to our anonymous donors, Cindy Pritchard, Marcus Chong, Isabel Folland, Maeve Johnson, Tristan Braines and Shen Ni Loke. Thank you for making this trip possible and allowing us to capture invaluable footage!

I look forward to updating you all again shortly.

Next month we embark on a journey from Melbourne to Malaysia, travelling through the Perak region, KL and Kota Bharu to speak with and stand in monumental locations from the Japanese Occupation of Malaya. We are excited for the trip ahead and have booked flights and are currently in the process of booking internal travel around Malaysia. This includes train tickets, domestic flights, accommodation and car hire. We are almost half way with these bookings and are hoping we can also make it to Kota Bharu, which is the site of first landing by the Japanese troops, which happened at 1:45am on 8th December 1941 (40mins before the bombing of Pearl Harbour.)

Aside from our excitement, we also have a few nerve-racking weeks in the lead up, hoping that additional funding support will come through. This trip will be our final chance, to capture more stories from survivors as a this generation is aging quickly. Currently, I am 20 weeks pregnant and will be travelling between 26-27 weeks before my international travel cut-off. This also means that after this time, it will become difficult for me to embark on the rigorous travel itinerary we have planned, however will allow me the time to review footage we film and start piecing this project together more.

Please consider partnering with us and donating to our cause to preserve the locals’ unheard stories from the Japanese Occupation. Any contribution amount helps us get closer to making this a reality and makes sure these stories aren’t lost forever.

We are excited to announce the next leg of development with this project! I have been speaking with a Malaysian history professor, Gary Lit Ying Loong, to plan our trip to Malaysia to visit key historic sights that he has researched and previously written about. He also has a few elderly friends who survived the horrors of the Japanese Occupation and are open to sharing their story with us. We can’t wait to capture their stories on camera to share with our audience!

This is a very valuable step in this process, as we get to witness and explore the paths that previous generations walked, while fleeing for their lives. This short trip provides a key milestone in the direction of our story with professor, Gary, providing key, new findings that are not documented in history books.

In order to make this happen, we need to raise $4,000 of our goal to cover the costs of accommodation, insurance, general travel expenses such as train tickets, meals for participants (a great way to hear their stories over a meal), car hire (to reach remote key locations) and camera equipment hire (we will be filming in dark, damp caves as well as hiking hills so we will need to hire appropriate equipment from Malaysia, as we are restricted by luggage allowance).

With the contributions already made, plus the remaining funds from the Berry Family Fellowship (State Library Vic), we are fortunate to have just booked our tickets to confirm our voyage to Malaysia. I will be bringing a team of 3 and will need to make sure basic living costs are provided for our crew members. Any contribution to this next leg of our production helps propel us forward and gets us closer to saving these stories!