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Origin: The National Museum Singapore, Surviving Syonan

Description: Food Rationing Card

Date: 1942 - 1943

Type: Artefact

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Group Essay: How far did Japanese Occupation change the lives of teenagers?

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Group Essay: How far did Japanese Occupation change the lives of teenagers?

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We can infer that the Japanese occupation had changed the teenagers’ lives greatly through different aspects.

Before Japanese Occupation, teenagers are healthy, strong and fit since there is enough food to supply everyone, which means there is no food shortage and there is no result of death due to insufficient amount of vitamins or minerals. Teenagers also have variety of leisure activity to choose from as there are no restrictions to any form of entertainment.  Teenagers had a lot of freedom and life was more entertaining during then. School was also quite relaxing and enjoyable for teenagers as teenagers are not pressurised.

During Japanese Occupation, teenagers have poor health and even die as there is lack of access to basic food that provides them with basic nutrition required in order to live due to the food rationing. School life of teenagers were also tough as there were changes made to the syllables as some topics like Japanese language and Physical Education was prioritised and some of the subjects were not taught anymore. Lesson conducted were also in Japanese and teenagers have to communicate in Japanese. Teenagers’ life was not as relaxing as before and their entertainment choices was controlled by the Japanese thus many leisure activities are restricted. Japanese also promote themselves through certain leisure activities to get local’s support.

In conclusion, Japanese Occupation had changed teenagers’ life greatly. As teenagers’ life had changed from good to bad in many aspects after the Japanese invaded Singapore.

(246 Words)

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Origin: The National Museum, Surviving Syonan
Description: Memorial photograph of a young boy, whose named Huanmei, that died due to the lack of vitamin B
Date: 1944
Type: Paper

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Origin: National Archives of Singapore

Description: Interview with Mrs Martin

Date: 17 Jan 1984

Type: Oral interview

“For lunch, normally in those days were likely to eat rice. In those days you had rice and curry which was a great thing and a meat dish and a vegetable. We used to eat Western food.”
“For a birthday party, you had the same. You maybe made an extra chicken curry or you put something else or an extra number of small side dishes or special ‘sambals’ and things like that. I mean to put a big spread on the table would depend on the people who came. They ate well in those days… quite well.”
“We sat down to a meal that was really a meal. You had your chicken chop. You had your cutlets and steak.”

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Origin: National Archives of Singapore
Description: Group photograph of the participants of 1920s Swimming Carnival
Date: 1920
Type: Picture

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Origin: The National Archives Online

Description: Interview with Dr Tan Ban Cheng

Date: 9 February 1984

Type: Oral Interview

“Because I don’t think it was something very strange to us because most of the teachers were the old school teachers. They went back to the school.Because they were called back to teach. And so those people in the various classes went back to the old classes. There were a number of new teachers. And the curriculum was very light then. There were many subjects which were not taught. For example, English wasn’t there. So it was taken over by Japanese Language. But, of course, we had the usual Mathematics and some other subjects like Geography and so on. There was a lot of physical education also . Because I think the Japanese did stress a lot on physical education. So, what was new was the Japanese language. We all had to study Japanese.”

The picture below shows how Japanese is taught to the students studying during the Japanese Occupation period.

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Origin: National Archives Online

Description: Interview with Dr Tan Ban Cheng

Date: 9 February 1964

Type: Oral Interview

“Well, audience is not very much in those days. These concerts were held fairly regularly but most of us probably attend about once or twice at the most”, “In those days it’s very difficult to hear any music at all”, “Life was very austere, so this sort of entertainment was quite a welcome relief. Apart from that, the only other cultural activities with the cinemas which are generally propaganda activities orientated just to praise the Japanese and to tell us how well they were doing in the war”

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Origin: History SG

Description: History of Gay world

Date: 6th May 1937

Type: Article

“At the time of its opening, the amusement park had some impressive buildings and attractions”, “Theatres for Chinese, Malay and Indian plays, an open-air cinema with a seating capacity of 300”,“ Besides the stadium, Happy World also had an oval-shaped cabaret hall. The cabaret venue had a spacious dance floor that could hold up to 300 couples, and was skirted by columns and bordered by a three-tiered dining area”.

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Origin: The National Archives Online

Description: Interview with Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam

Date: August 2008

Type: Oral Interview

“What I want to say is that I really enjoyed my school days and I think that's very important that students should enjoy their school days. It wasn't, in those days, there wasn't that pressure on us and the teaching was good”, “One thing that I do remember with some amusement is that I wasn't very good at physical activity and I'm still not good at physical activity."

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Group members: Natalynn Leong(9), Hui Long(27), Zheng Han(28), Rachel Tan(14)