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Chapter 2 27 Chapter 2 p Pearl Harbour When I reached the age of eighteen, the happy and peaceful life in Hong Kong was brought to an abrupt end by news of the Japanese march towards Hong Kong. In December 1941 we were in the middle of our university mid-term examination when one morning all traffic stopped and we heard Japanese airplanes roaring overhead. We had heard that the Japanese were coming and I said to myself, “This is it.” We saw a truckload of British soldiers passing by and the soldiers were holding musical instruments in their hands: guitars, mandolins, violins, saxophones and others. By afternoon the streets were deserted, and a veil of dread and silence enveloped the whole city. We lived on the second floor of 776 Nathan Road and the people in the two flats below us all came up to our flat. There was a strange psychological security in that the third storey was safer than the ground floor, being further away from the ground. At such times of danger people learn to be caring and sharing. The two families from downstairs occupied the sitting room and my bedroom while I moved to my parents’room. It was a moonless night, and we heard in the distance a rumbling followed by shouting and screaming. In the night looters emerged, and though we had closed the windows and barred the doors, we could hear their heart-piercing shouts and cries. We guessed what they meant. It was not difficult to guess they were the sounds of looting, during the time between the retreat of the British soldiers and the entry of the Japanese soldiers. The commotion grew louder and nearer. Then the noise seemed to be in the next street behind us. Every time they were done looting a house they would shout in unison, “Hurray! We are victorious!” 28 China, Bound and Unbound Hence we called them “Victory Bandits.” The looters went around in trucks, and did not even bother to break in through doors of the houses. They stood on the shoulders of one another, using the trucks as platforms to reach the second and third floors and even higher ones. When they got into the apartments above they threw their bounties into the trucks. Near daybreak, they came very near to our house. Our whole family huddled together in one room, expecting them to break in at any moment. The noise came nearer and nearer. The suspense was terrifying. We could hear our own hearts throbbing. At times I felt my heart missed a beat. All kinds of wild thoughts rushed to my head. What would they take? Worldly things did not seem to matter at such times. What would they do to us? And I prayed that God would not let them harm us. We heard them going next door. The din was deafening and we heard things being thrown into the trucks below, then finally the shouting of “Hurrah, hurrah, we are victorious!” I closed my eyes and kept saying to myself, “They are coming, they are coming,” and expected them to show up at our verandah and march into our house. The shouting became louder and louder but they never appeared in our house. Then the noise subsided and to our dismay we heard their trucks leaving our block. When we recovered from our fright we managed to evaluate the situation. The looters must have fled as the Japanese entered the city. None of us slept a wink that night, we were too scared, and the fright remained with us for a long time after the looters had gone. Fortunately, they dispersed just as the Japanese troops marched into town. A few days later, the Japanese Army newspaper reported the Pearl Harbour attack. The Japanese made propaganda of this incident, exaggerating it to show the invincible might of their military. The news came as a bombshell, for we had placed high hopes on the Americans to deliver us from the Japanese. The next day was worse than the previous one. The looters only took our household possessions, but the next day the Japanese soldiers roamed the streets. Living under the Japanese occupation was horrifying. Young women in the city lived in perpetual fear. Mrs. Chan who lived on the first floor and had been to Japan, told us that after entering a city the Japanese would have a three-day holiday and do whatever they liked such as looting...

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