Vol. 47 No.3 9/2017
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Title |
Sea of Blood: A Classical-Style Chinese Poetry Collection about the Japanese Occupation in Singapore |
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Author |
Lam Lap |
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Genre |
Article |
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Pages |
547-589 |
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Download |
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Language |
Chinese |
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Key words |
Japanese Occupation of Singapore, Sook Ching Massacre, traumatic memories, tradition of poetic-history, Sea of Blood, Xie Songshan 謝松山 |
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Abstract |
In the horrible Sook Ching Massacre, at least twenty-five thousand Singaporean Chinese were slaughtered. Afterward, the Japanese army administration implemented a series of highhanded measures to extort wealth and resources from the Chinese, who, with other ethnic groups, lived in extreme poverty, fear and hunger in this darkest age of Singapore history. Sea of Blood is a collection of classical-style Chinese poetry with detailed narrative notes that remembers the Sook Ching Massacre and the various social and economic vices in the Syonan years. From 1946 to 1950, the author Xie Songshan 謝松山 published the book in three different forms and also changed the title significantly. In this article, I attempt to explicate the meaning behind the title change and the traumatic collective memories of Singaporean Chinese evoked by this collection and to examine the relation between history, memories, and poetry writing by comparing the content of the book and other historical records, especially those in newspapers. |