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There was no inter-marriage. Sometimes a European would marry an
Asian girl, though, in the MCS such an indiscretion would put paid to
your career. If a romantic liaison Chinese/Malay developed, the Pro-
tector of Women and Girls would intervene and take the girl into care.
One such case had resulted in serious racial riots. The peaceable Ma-
lay, when roused, was murderous with a
parang
- running amok is a
Malay expression. Young girls were also protected from luring men
into opium dens.
It is easy to forget that, beyond the city limits, the island was green,
even jungly in parts, with villages shaded by flame of the forest. There
were fields of lettuce and water hyacinth and estates of coconut palms.
My attitude to all things Chinese came about because Val, as a Canton-
ese speaker, used it a lot. It opened doors and the Chinese loved it.
The Straits Chinese spoke only English and Malay. He might be seen
at his desk, I heard, reading a Chinese newspaper, having mastered the
minimum 2,000 characters required to do this in his two years of study
in Macao (where he was also Honorary British Consul and using his
Gurkha background to send intelligence reports to London). He al-
ways maintained, if you could read, Chinese was easy! One glance at
his Chinese dictionary makes me doubt that.
We received many invitations, and many more were declined, espe-
cially from anyone suspected of collaboration with the Japanese. At
Chinese New Year we would go to Madam Lee Choon Guan, to her
mission on the east coast, driving through drifts of red paper and
spluttering crackers. Chinese New Year was a time of sleepless nights
for a fortnight as crackers exploded, building to a crescendo at Chap
Goh Mei, and worst of all, no servants for two days. At Grandma
Lee’s, a splendid dinner would be served in the garden, where a string
of crackers hung from the highest tree; she, ablaze with diamonds with
which she had embellished her MBE. Her jewels were kept under the
mattress. As a young wife, she would take a rickshaw to drag her
husband from an opium den. Formidable Chinese ladies had no equal.
I learned many things. Never to look surprised when a Chinese man
introduced his wife who was not the wife I had met before - two wives
was not uncommon. Not to remark on an opium bed, however hand-
