Towards the end of World War II, the Japanese administration in Malaya printed a massive amount of "banana money", like this old note. Photos: Gary Lit Ying Loong
During a recent long weekend, I took the opportunity to do some long overdue packing at home. While clearing my storeroom, I chanced upon a bag of coins and notes neglected for many years. It was given to me by my late grandfather in the 1960s.
My grandpa doted on all 60 of his grandchildren. He would give us a gift each time we obtained top marks for our tests. Invariably, it would be either one of his old coins or dollar notes.
Grandpa would painstakingly explain to us the history behind the coin or note. It was always about this dead king or that dead queen in faraway China or England many centuries ago. However, as young children, we couldn’t really comprehend what he was really saying. It was more like “in one ear, and out the other”.
As I was opening my bag of coins and notes, I couldn’t help but feel a small sense of pride. As I took the coins, one by one, in my hand, I could recall the circumstances surrounding some of the major tests which I had managed to ace.
I remember that I was once studying for my test using a kerosene lamp late at night. We were then staying in a village and there was neither electricity nor piped water.
Suddenly, halfway through the night, the light dimmed due to a drop in pressure. Frantically, I pumped the lamp so hard that the kerosene shot out and exploded. Fortunately, no one was injured. Only the hair on the right side of my head was singed, leaving me with a lop-sided look. When I went to school the next day, all my friends laughed at me, with some calling me “Chempelot” head.
After my test, I rushed to the barber under a shady rain tree for a haircut. It cost 20 cents. If we behaved well, the Indian barber would give us a free massage on our shoulders and back after our haircut. However, if we were mischievous, he would crack all our fingers, including our small pinky. Besides that, he would also give a twist to our necks with such force that some of us would walk around with a bent head the rest of the day. We would be having sore necks and pinkies for the next few days.
Marvelling at a quarter cent coin from grandpa, I recalled my history test. The popular questions would invariably be related to the Melaka Sultanate. Besides Sultan Mansur Shah and Hang Li Po, we also memorised the names of Hang Tuah and all his warrior friends. However, in secondary school, I nearly failed my geography test once. I found it most upsetting to study the different features of glaciers with strange names in faraway Scotland, for instance. Many of us hadn’t seen snow before, let alone an ice glacier.
It was only much later that I experienced a snowfall – when I was doing my post-graduate studies in Britain. I then discovered from my classmates from the Indian and African continents that such curriculum irrelevance was common among students throughout the Commonwealth.
Among the many coins in my bag was one that stood out in my memory. It was the King George coin issued during the British Colonial administration before the war.
My grandma believed that the crown of King George had special magical powers that would cure any pain or sickness. When we were young and if we had a headache, grandma would rub the coin on our forehead so hard that we got a bruise.
Sometimes, she would insert the coin into a hard-boiled egg. After rubbing the egg on our forehead, the egg would turn black, with grandma exclaiming, “Ying Wong pit chay!” (the King of England destroys evil). This was quite a common practice among the old folks both during the colonial and post-colonial 1960s.
A chemist friend told me that it was perhaps the copper in the coin which reacted with the sulphur of the egg yolk that produced the black copper sulphide.
Once, my aunt was rebuked for using a coin featuring a young Queen Victoria. Grandma explained that the King George coin had more powers than that of the queen’s because he was older and wiser.
In secondary school, I learnt that Queen Victoria was in fact much older than King George. Perhaps, grandma believed that the big crown and long beard of King George conferred on him special powers.
Both sides of the King George coin.
Besides coins, grandpa also gave me some Japanese banana notes issued during the Japanese occupation of Malaya. Whenever I saw the banana notes, I couldn’t help but feel a deep sadness. They brought back memories of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese army in Malaya and around Asia.
Towards the end of the war, the Japanese administration printed a massive amount of money. This created a serious inflation problem for the poor innocent folks of Malaya then. I recall my father telling me that he could buy a bunch of bananas with a $10 note. However, by the evening of the same day, he could buy only one banana with the same banana note.
My grandpa told me that all the Japanese banana notes under his bed became worthless after the war. As a result, grandpa’s family could hardly afford a bowl of rice every day.
Driven by poverty, my father had to stop his schooling and drive a lorry around the rubber estates deep in the jungle. During those dangerous days of the Emergency, there were many bears, tigers, cobras and communists lurking in the jungle.
Looking back, I now appreciate the stories told to me by grandpa about the different kings and queens belonging to the different eras in history.
