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83 years ago around this time, my grandparents were 9 and 7 years old when British forces lost Singapore to the Japanese, after the British confidently declared that those Orientals could never defeat them.

The Japanese crossed into Singapore on a fleet of bicycles, bypassing British naval power.

What followed was 3 years of occupation as Singapore was renamed Syonan-to. My grandparents remember singing the Japanese anthem.

3 days after the Japanese won, they began a purge of mostly ethnic Chinese people in Singapore as retaliation for perceived overseas Chinese assistance to China, a few years earlier. 50 000 people died.

My grandparents never wanted to eat a single sweet potato or yam or tapioca ever again later in their lives, because that’s all they had to eat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Singapore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_occupation_of_Singapore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sook_Ching