Surprising Grace

This blog entry is a modified version of a speech given by our guest writer Cheah Wui Ling at a WWII talk organised by the Singapore National Heritage Board in March 2017 at the Singapore Art Museum.  Together with my co-researcher, Pei Yi, I have been working on the Singapore War Crimes Trials Outreach Project  for several years now. Yet, the stories that these trials tell continue to shock, amaze, and inspire me. From 1946-1948, the British organised 131 war crimes trials in Singapore. Singapore served as a hub for British war crimes investigations, and trials subsequently held in Singapore dealt with crimes committed throughout the region, as far as the Nicobar and Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. These trials contain many stories of the sufferings experienced by locals and Allies at during the Japanese occupation of Singapore. Ordinary men, women and children suffered greatly. However, many were not only victims but survivors and resisters. The trials tell stories...

As I sit here writing, rain is pouring in sheets outside. Not any ordinary rain, but what Filipinos call “habagat” (monsoon rain), made stronger by the tail end of a typhoon. I had never feared rain before living in the Philippines, even the thunder and lightning storms that came so often to my native Singapore. However strong the rain, you never worried for your safety. Here, though, I have learnt a better reverence for the forces of nature. The Philippines experiences an average of 20 typhoons every year. I remember sitting and looking out the window during my first serious typhoon, with the electricity out, awed by the force of the winds lashing the trees outside. In the evening, when the storm had quieted and we could venture out again, the neighbours were also emerging from their houses and there was a sense of camaraderie on the street. People took out their radios and sat around. Later on, we heard the stories of trees falling across roads and roofs being blown off and, in ...