The primogenitor of our Chan/Chung family tree in Malaya was our grandfather Chan Ah Kee. He and his young wife, and three siblings, probably left China and followed their great granduncle for British Malaya in 1914. Their destination - Taiping. The following year, our father Chung Chow was born.
In the beginning, grandfather Chan was quite successful working in the tin mines. In 1918, when work opportunities in Taiping declined, he went to Chemor to prospect for tin. But, this venture failed.
In 1921, he returned to China together with his wife and our father Chung Chow who was then only six. Two years later, he became a Taoist priest and returned alone to Malaya. In 1927, our father Chung Chow, then age 12, and his mother returned to Malaya to be reunited with grandfather Chan in Taiping where they settled down permanently and spent the rest of their lives.
The most important and unforgettable event in their struggle to start a new life was the Japanese Occupation of Malaya that lasted for three years and eight months from February 1942 to September 1945. Those of us who have grown up in a safe and secure environment will find it difficult to comprehend or have a feel for the hardships of war. Nor will we understand the meaning of deprivation, food shortages, fear, and a total loss of freedom. I will try to bridge this experience gap by describing intimately what life was like during the Japanese Occupation as narrated by our father Chung Chow.
Our father Chung Chow married our mother Lee Mooi on 21 August, 1942, eight months after the Japanese invaded Malaya. They had nine children. Our family history has been built around the nuclei of our father Chung Chow and our mother Lee Mooi's lives. It is a compilation of stories and events told to us by our father and mother, collaborated by our many uncles and aunts, and from our own experiences and observations while we were growing up in Taiping. Some of the events are written under my own perspective and I have tried to be as objective as possible. This history is written in a narration style for easy reading.
Our genealogical records are from the jiapu or family register initiated by our grandfather Chan Ah Kee and continued by father Chung Chow, and from legal documents such as birth and death certificates, naturalization papers, identity cards, marriage certificates, letters, etc. Voice recordings of Chung Chow's narrations of our family backgrounds, homeland and major events etc. are important sources of information that formed a major part of this record. Our mother Lee Mooi had carefully kept a large quantity of family photographs and these represent a very important visual history of the old days. Some of the illustrations are my own and I hope they convey the messages as intended. The origin of our surname, the historical events that occurred in China and 'British Malaya', and some of the images are sourced from the Internet and reference books.
I strongly urge those of you, especially the younger generation, who are reading this to get your parents to tell their stories and to compile your own family history before it is too late. For those of you who are bi-cultural and interested in improving this write- up, I encourage you to do further research especially our family roots in Qing Yuan, and to constantly update your own family records.
Chung Chew Wah
20 July 2007
This blog is dedicated:
To
Our beloved parents -
Lee Mooi and Chung Chow
Next:
Chapter 1: Reasons to Emigrate
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