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The Japanese Community in Malaya before the Pacific War: Its Genesis and Growth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

Yuen Choy Leng
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Extract

During the period between the Great European War (1914–18) and the Pacific War (1941–45) the Japanese expansionist impulse in the South Seas expressed itself through emigration and economic enterprise abroad. There were Japanese settlements in almost every country in the region. The larger ones were in the Philippines, Malaya, and the Netherlands East Indies. On the eve of the Pacific War the estimated number of Japanese residents in the South Seas was 24,000, with investments totalling around ¥250 million. Compared to those of the Western colonial powers and the immigrant Chinese, the size of these investments was insignificant and their numbers meagre. But this only served to spur those interested in Japan's economic expansion in the South Seas to make greater efforts to achieve their aims. External events helped to realize these objectives. For a brief interregnum during the Japanese Occupation (1942–45) the Japanese became the politically dominant community in the region with control over its economic resources.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 9 , Special Issue 2: Japan and the Western Powers in Southeast Asia , September 1978 , pp. 163 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1978

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References

1 The Dutch had investments totalling ¥5,700 million; the Americans, ¥1,000 million; and the British, ¥1,100 million; with the Chinese having ¥1,000 million. Matsuye, Haruji, “The South Seas and Japan”, Contemporary Japan IX, no. 5 (May 1940), 626Google Scholar.

2 Ibid.

3 Sansom, George, A History of Japan, 1334–1615 (London, 1961), p. 180Google Scholar. For an account of the triangular trade between Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, and Malacca, see Boxer, C.R., The Christian Century in Japan, 1549–1650, California Library Reprint Series Edition (Berkeley, 1974), pp. 8–14Google Scholar. For more details on relations between the Ryukyu Islands and Malacca, see Yun-Tsiao, Hsu, “Notes on the Relations between Ryukyu Islands and Malacca Sultanate during 1464–1511”(Paper No. 84, Proceedings of International Conference on Asian History, International Association of Historians on Asian History,Kuala-Lumpur,1968)Google Scholar.

4 Goshuin-sen was a government-licensed merchant vessel. Goshuin means “official passport with vermillion seal” and sen means “ship”. In 1625 whilst only one ship was sent to Malacca thirty-five were sent to Siam, thirty to Luzon, twenty-six to Cochin-China, and twentythree to Cambodia. Hina, Iwao and Singam, S. Durai Raja, Stray Notes on Nippon-Malaysian Historical Connections [hereinafter referred to as Nippon-Malaysian Connections] (Negeri Sembilan, 2604/1944), p. 36Google Scholar.

5 One of these Japanese adventurers, Yamada Nagamasa, even involved himself with local politics in Siam. Ibid., pp. 55–56; Sansom, George, A History of Japan, 1615–1867 (London, 1964), p. 35Google Scholar.

6 Returns of Population of the Straits Settlements for 1891, p. 46. The first Japanese resident in Singapore was a Madam Toyo, wife of an Englishman, who came to the colony in 1870. Mamoru Shinozaki, interview, 17 Apr. 1975. [He was press attache with the Japanese Consulate-General in Singapore during 1938–40].

7 J.E. Nathan, The Census of British Malaya, 1921, p. 90.

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9 According to Mamoru Shinozaki, the yellow slave trade is known in Japanese as karayuki which literally means “going to China or overseas”. Karayukisan is the term used to refer to “an overseas prostitute who, from the middle of the 19th century to the end of World War I, had left her homeland, Japan, and gone abroad to sell herself to foreigners.…” Tomoko, Yamazaki, “Sandakan No. 8 Brothel”, trans. Tomoko Moore and Steffen Richards, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars VII, no. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1975), 52Google Scholar.

10 Mamoru Shinozaki gave an interesting account of how Japanese prostitution in Singapore first began. Madam Toyo (see n.6 above) was left destitute by the death of her English husband. To make ends meet she obtained employment in a European hotel under the guise of a boy. But her disguise was discovered. She left the hotel and became a prostitute instead. Later she met some Japanese sailors whom she asked to smuggle girls from Shimabara and Amakusa for her brothel (interview).

11 Letter, Alastair Duncan to Sir John Anderson, 29 Dec. 1913, enclosed in Despatch, Sec. of State, CO. to Gov., S.S. 2 Jan. 1914 on “Reported Sale of Japanese Girls for the Purpose of the White [sic] Slave Traffic”, C0273/4O4.

12 Singapore Free Press, 10 July 1914.

13 Notes of interview between Ormsby-Gore, Parliamentary Under-Sec, of State, C.O., and Otobumi Hirikiri, editor of Nanyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun [South Seas Daily], 30 Apr. 1923, enclosed in C0273/524.

14 Cik Minah (nee Yamamura), interview, 1 Mar. 1969. [Cik Minah came to Malaya in 1920 as a nurse. She worked in a Japanese dispensary in Singapore and married a Malay two years later.]

15 Seen. 7 above.

16 Letter, Japanese Consul to High Commissioner, Malay States, 22 July 1920, enclosed in Kelantan File No. 1079/20. See also General Advisor (G.A.), Johore, File No. 612/20.

17 For instance, Japanese brothels in singapore were often found to be operating under the guise of massage parlours. Malayan Bulletin of Political Intelligence (M.B.P.I.), May 1922, enclosed in C0273/516.

18 the first large-scale survey was made on the southwest coast of the peninsula from Oct. 1893 to Feb. 1894. It was carried out by Miki Saito. Japan's second consul to Singapore. As a result of the survey it was decided that Johore was the most suitable state for investment. Mukai, Umeji, Malai Seiji Keizai Ron [On Politics and Economics of Malaya] (Tokyo, 1943), p. 21Google Scholar. I am grateful to Hara Fujio, Institute of Developing Economies, Tokyo for the above reference. See also Matsuye, op. cit., p. 625 and Nippon-Malaysian Connections, p. 88.

19 However another attempt was made by the same person in 1932 to revive the land lease. G.A. Johore, File No. 692/32; High Commissioner's Office, File No. 1290/32. The Johore Sultan's offer was very much in keeping with his welcoming attitude towards foreign capital to develop his state. Drabble, J.H., Rubber in Malaya, 1876–1922 (Kuala Lumpur, 1973), pp. 49–52Google Scholar; Sinclair, K., “Hobson and Lenin in Johore: Colonial Office Policy towards British Concessionaires and Investors, 1878–1907” Modern Asian Studies I, pt. 4 (Oct. 1967), 338–40Google Scholar.

20 Yanaga, Chitoshi, Japan since Perry, rev. ed. (Hamden, Conn., 1966), pp. 382–83Google Scholar. See also Lockwood, William W., The Economic Development of Japan, expanded edition (Princeton, 1968), pp. 18–20Google Scholar.

21 Jackson, J.C., Planters and Speculators: Chinese and European Agricultural Enterprise in Malaya, 1786–1921 (Singapore, 1968), p. 211Google Scholar.

22 Market prices for rubber in London rose rapidly to 9s. 3d. per lb. in 1909, reaching to as high as 12s. 9d. in April 1910 before falling to 5s. 7d. by October of the same year. Drabble, op, cit., p. 61.

23 Jackson, op. cit., p. 253.

24 Two-thirds of the 1,287 residents were men. See Appendix 1.

25 Nathan, op. cit., p. 91.

26 For an account of the growth of Japanese rubber and iron interests in Malaya, see Leng, Yuen Choy, “Japanese Rubber and Iron Investments in Malaya, 1900–1941”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies V, no. 1 (Mar. 1974), 18–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 See Appendix 1.

28 Ibid.

29 Report, marked Secret, G.O.C., Malaya to Under-Sec, of State, W.O., 24 Aug. 1932, enclosed in C0273/581 File No. 92052/32. This was confirmed by T. Mori (interview, 22 Oct. 1968), who observed that there was no recruitment of manual labour from Japan; those who were recruited were employed in “technical posts like overseers, engineers and cooks”. [T. Mori is a retired principal of the Methodist Boys School, Kuala Lumpur. He came to Malaya with his parents who brought their three children with them.]

30 See Appendix 2.

31 See Appendix 1.

32 Nippon-Malaysian Connections, p. 88.

33 Singapore Free Press, 25 Nov. 1918; M.B.P.I., May 1922, enclosed in C0273/516.

34 Nathan, op. cit., p. 90.

35 German, R.L., comp., Handbook to British Malaya (1926), p. 175Google Scholar. [Hereafter cited as German, Handbook, followed by the relevant year.]

36 German, Handbook (1935), p.221.

37 Lockwood, op. cit., p. 91.

38 Report on Netherlands East Indies, Political Situation, by Consul-General, Batavia, No. 105, 25 Sept. 1931, in Despatch, Sec. of State, Foreign Affairs to Sec. of State, C.O., 26 Nov. 1931 enclosed in C0273/571, File No. 82045/31.

39 Report, marked Secret, G.O.C., Malaya, to Under-Sec, of State, W.O., 24 Aug. 1932, enclosed in C0273/581, File No. 92052/32.

40 Ibid.;Nippon-Malaysian Connections, pp. 121–22.

41 German, Handbook (1935), p. 221. The Japanese fishermen used a peculiar method known as moro ami (bream net). They used divers to drive the fish (bream) into the net. For a fuller description see p. 220.

42 Ibid., p. 219. Attention was directed to this lack of mechanization about a decade ago. “The most outstanding need of the local fisheries is the suitable conversion of fishery methods from manual labour to the use of power.” German, Handbook (1926), p. 174.

43 For a list of all the Japanese Associations established, see Nippon-Malaysian Connections, pp. 126–29.

44 Straits Settlements Police Journal (S.S.P.J.), 1933, para. 89.

45 Siew, Kee Yeh, “The Japanese in Malaya before 1942”, Journal of South Seas Society XX, pts. 1 and 2 (1965), 64Google Scholar.

46 S.S.P.J., 1924, para. 89.

47 Ibid.

48 M.B.P.I., May 1922, enclosed in C0273/516. Nippon-Malaysian Connections, p. 127.

49 M.B.P.I., Nov. 1922, enclosed in CO273/518.

50 S.S.P.J., 1924, para. 89.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid. The person concerned was Goro Miho.

53 Nippon-Malaysian Connections, p. 155.

54 S.S.P.J., 1933, para. 89.

55 The school was owned and managed by the Japanese Association in Batu Pahat. Letter, Chief Police Officer, Batu Pahat to Custodian of Enemy Property, Johore Bahru, 20 Dec. 1941, Custodian of Enemy Property, Johore, File No. 22 on “Japanese Associations”.

56 S.S.P.J., 1933, para. 55; Monthly Review of Chinese Affairs, June 1933, enclosed in CO273/585, File No. 13008/33.

57 In a police list of Japanese aliens in Johore, 31 Oct. 1938, the children below the age of 15 were listed as schooling in Singapore, Custodian of Enemy Property, File No. 23 n.d. on “Names of Japanese Aliens in the state of Johore”.

58 Nathan, op. cit., p. 110.

59 Passin, Herbert, Society and Education in Japan (New York, 1965), pp. 155–57, 266–68Google Scholar; S.S.P.J., 1941, para. 44, 57, 69.

60 S.S.P.J., 1924, para. 109.

61 S.S.P.J., 1938, para. 27. See also comments on file by A.N. Calsworthy, 11 May 1939, CO273/658, File No. 50616/39.

62 M.B.P.I., Dec. 1926, enclosed in CO273/535; S.S.P.J., 1938, para. 56.

63 S.S.P.J., 1939, para. 47; Letter, G.W. Seabridge, (Straits Times, Singapore) to Tonkin, G.R. (Straits Times, London), 28 Apr. 1939Google Scholar, enclosed in CO273/656, File No. 5037/1.

64 Ohkawa, Kazushi and Rosovsky, Henry, “A Century of Japanese Economic Growth”, in Lockwood, W.W., ed., The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan (Princeton, 1965), p. 77Google Scholar.

65 Iriye, Akira, “The Failure of Economic Expansionism, 1918–1931”, in Japan in Crisis: Essays on Taisho Democracy, ed. Silberman, B.S. and Harootunian, H.D. (Princeton, 1974), pp. 240–44Google Scholar.

66 Ibid., pp. 255–56.

67 M.B.P.I., May 1922, enclosed in CO273/516.

68 T. Mori, interview.

69 Khor Cheang Kee (a journalist, resident in Penang), interview, 30 Oct. 1968.

70 Tomlinson, H.M., Malay Waters (London, 1950), p. 51Google Scholar.

71 Tsuji, Masanobu, Singapore: The Japanese Version, trans. Lake, Margaret E. (Sydney, 1960), p. 12Google Scholar.