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<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD>Monk's war-time driving role
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD>Shuang Lin abbot let monastery be used to train drivers in China's war against Japan </TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Tan Dawn Wei </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Four years ago, anthropologist Chan Chow Wah was asked to track down a man by the Venerable Mun Cheng, abbot of Khoon Chee Vihara monastery in Changi.
The man, Mr Wu Hui Min, had given in a newspaper article six years earlier a curious piece of information: He had volunteered during the Sino-Japanese War in 1939 and was trained for three weeks as a driver at Shuang Lin Monastery, Singapore's oldest and largest Buddhist monastery.
The monastery, it seems, was home to a driver's training centre which was churning out volunteer truck drivers headed for Burma Road, a winding 1,000km mountain road linking China to Myanmar and a critical supply route for the Chinese forces.
This interesting fact was little known to most in the Buddhist fraternity today, including the Venerable Mun Cheng, and historians like Mr Chan. That marked the beginning of a four-year journey of piecing together the untold history of Shuang Lin Monastery's involvement in the Sino-Japanese War and Japanese Occupation of Singapore.
More accurately, perhaps, it became the story of the man behind the monastery at that time: the Venerable Pu Liang, its chief abbot from 1917 to 1942, when he was executed by Japanese troops.
Details were hazy at the beginning and Mr Chan had nothing much to work with beyond that one newspaper article.
'I did have some information, as someone claimed the monastery was used as a training ground. But for what, why, for how long, by whom, for whom - all these things didn't come together,' said Mr Chan, 35, who has a master's in social anthropology from the London School of Economics and is a business development director of a German fragrance company.
His first task was to contact associates in Xiamen in Fujian province, who managed to trace Mr Wu to Hainan Island. Two days later, Mr Chan was on a plane to meet the then 85-year-old war veteran.
Mr Wu, part of a band of volunteers known as the Nanyang Volunteers, confirmed he had spent time in Shuang Lin Monastery learning how to drive supply trucks.
Back home, Mr Chan began poring through materials at the National Library, listening to oral tapes at the National Archives of Singapore and even bought 1930s music so that he could better immerse himself in that era.
He also went to China, Malaysia and Britain to collect information.
Slowly, the picture emerged of how the Venerable Pu Liang had thrown his weight behind the China Relief Fund, set up by prominent businessman and philanthropist Tan Kah Kee.
Born in the 1880s in Hui An in southern China, the Venerable Pu Liang and a group of monks came to Singapore in 1912 to take up residence at Shuang Lin Monastery, which was founded in 1898. Five years later, he took over as the temple's 10th abbot, a role he had for 25 years, making him one of the longest-serving abbots in the monastery.
Elected to chair the Singapore Chinese Buddhist Association in 1937, he allowed the monastery to be used for fund-raising activities and public education programmes in aid of China's war against Japan.
Besides leading prayers to commemorate the deaths of soldiers and civilians in the Sino-Japanese War, he also donated a Vesak Day collection from devotees to the China Relief Fund. That particular donation drive was one of the most high-profile fund-raisers of 1939, extensively covered in the press, said Mr Chan. It raised $10,000, about four years of a driver's salary then. What was more significant was the monk's decision to stop the monastery's restoration project at that time.
'What became clear to me was that he was someone who put society's interests ahead of the monastery's interests. He would have gone to the Chinese community for money anyway for the monastery's restoration, and the China Relief Fund was also going to the same people. By stopping the restoration, he was trying not to compete with the fund for the same pool of money,' said Mr Chan.
When the call for volunteers to serve as drivers and mechanics in China was made by the fund, many came forward. Not all could drive; some were so intent on serving, they borrowed their friends' driver's licences to sign up. Road conditions along Burma Road were notoriously treacherous, requiring special skills.
Members of the fund decided that a driver's training centre was needed to equip these under-qualified volunteers, and it needed to be on large-enough grounds.
They approached the Venerable Pu Liang, who agreed to set up the centre behind the temple in Toa Payoh. Between February and August of 1939, batches of volunteer drivers went through the doors of the monastery, although no one knows how many.
During the Japanese Occupation, the abbot also opened the monastery to civilians seeking shelter from air raids, said Mr Chan.
Between 100 and 200 people were believed to have stayed there at any one time. Then the infamous Sook Ching massacre happened. In 1942, the Japanese army systematically seized and executed thousands of Singaporean Chinese whom they believed were associated with the anti-Japanese movement.
The Venerable Pu Liang and two of his disciples were arrested when a group of Japanese soldiers broke into the monastery and ransacked his room. The monastery's attempt to locate them was futile, but many believe they were taken, along with other detainees, to Changi Beach, where they were shot. It has been estimated that between 25,000 and 100,000 were massacred.
Mr Chan's checks showed the Venerable Pu Liang was the only Buddhist leader to have been persecuted. 'The Japanese troops were given booklets which instructed them to leave religious organisations alone.'
Mr Chan believes the Japanese were out to get the monk, and his death sentence was largely due to his association with the driver's training centre.
'Burma Road became a sensitive issue for the Japanese. They believed once they terminated the road, the war in China would end on their terms. Anyone associated with Burma Road would have been in a dangerous situation,' he said.
Why has this compelling piece of history gone unnoticed? Mr Chan does not know.
But he said: 'To me, his history is very interesting because it relates to overseas Chinese history, to Sino-Japanese War, World War II, Burma Road, the way he reached out even till the last moments of his life.'
Worried that 'an important piece of history will be eroded by the passage of time just because the information was not managed and documented', he has put the Venerable Pu Liang's story in a new book, Light On The Lotus Hill.
It is now or never. The last of the Nanyang Volunteers, like Mr Wu, are in their 90s. Mr Chan also managed to track down only one person, a nun now in her 80s, who had met the abbot in her teens.
[email protected]
Light On The Lotus Hill will be available at all major bookstores.
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD>Shuang Lin abbot let monastery be used to train drivers in China's war against Japan </TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Tan Dawn Wei </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Four years ago, anthropologist Chan Chow Wah was asked to track down a man by the Venerable Mun Cheng, abbot of Khoon Chee Vihara monastery in Changi.
The man, Mr Wu Hui Min, had given in a newspaper article six years earlier a curious piece of information: He had volunteered during the Sino-Japanese War in 1939 and was trained for three weeks as a driver at Shuang Lin Monastery, Singapore's oldest and largest Buddhist monastery.
The monastery, it seems, was home to a driver's training centre which was churning out volunteer truck drivers headed for Burma Road, a winding 1,000km mountain road linking China to Myanmar and a critical supply route for the Chinese forces.
This interesting fact was little known to most in the Buddhist fraternity today, including the Venerable Mun Cheng, and historians like Mr Chan. That marked the beginning of a four-year journey of piecing together the untold history of Shuang Lin Monastery's involvement in the Sino-Japanese War and Japanese Occupation of Singapore.
More accurately, perhaps, it became the story of the man behind the monastery at that time: the Venerable Pu Liang, its chief abbot from 1917 to 1942, when he was executed by Japanese troops.
Details were hazy at the beginning and Mr Chan had nothing much to work with beyond that one newspaper article.
'I did have some information, as someone claimed the monastery was used as a training ground. But for what, why, for how long, by whom, for whom - all these things didn't come together,' said Mr Chan, 35, who has a master's in social anthropology from the London School of Economics and is a business development director of a German fragrance company.
His first task was to contact associates in Xiamen in Fujian province, who managed to trace Mr Wu to Hainan Island. Two days later, Mr Chan was on a plane to meet the then 85-year-old war veteran.
Mr Wu, part of a band of volunteers known as the Nanyang Volunteers, confirmed he had spent time in Shuang Lin Monastery learning how to drive supply trucks.
Back home, Mr Chan began poring through materials at the National Library, listening to oral tapes at the National Archives of Singapore and even bought 1930s music so that he could better immerse himself in that era.
He also went to China, Malaysia and Britain to collect information.
Slowly, the picture emerged of how the Venerable Pu Liang had thrown his weight behind the China Relief Fund, set up by prominent businessman and philanthropist Tan Kah Kee.
Born in the 1880s in Hui An in southern China, the Venerable Pu Liang and a group of monks came to Singapore in 1912 to take up residence at Shuang Lin Monastery, which was founded in 1898. Five years later, he took over as the temple's 10th abbot, a role he had for 25 years, making him one of the longest-serving abbots in the monastery.
Elected to chair the Singapore Chinese Buddhist Association in 1937, he allowed the monastery to be used for fund-raising activities and public education programmes in aid of China's war against Japan.
Besides leading prayers to commemorate the deaths of soldiers and civilians in the Sino-Japanese War, he also donated a Vesak Day collection from devotees to the China Relief Fund. That particular donation drive was one of the most high-profile fund-raisers of 1939, extensively covered in the press, said Mr Chan. It raised $10,000, about four years of a driver's salary then. What was more significant was the monk's decision to stop the monastery's restoration project at that time.
'What became clear to me was that he was someone who put society's interests ahead of the monastery's interests. He would have gone to the Chinese community for money anyway for the monastery's restoration, and the China Relief Fund was also going to the same people. By stopping the restoration, he was trying not to compete with the fund for the same pool of money,' said Mr Chan.
When the call for volunteers to serve as drivers and mechanics in China was made by the fund, many came forward. Not all could drive; some were so intent on serving, they borrowed their friends' driver's licences to sign up. Road conditions along Burma Road were notoriously treacherous, requiring special skills.
Members of the fund decided that a driver's training centre was needed to equip these under-qualified volunteers, and it needed to be on large-enough grounds.
They approached the Venerable Pu Liang, who agreed to set up the centre behind the temple in Toa Payoh. Between February and August of 1939, batches of volunteer drivers went through the doors of the monastery, although no one knows how many.
During the Japanese Occupation, the abbot also opened the monastery to civilians seeking shelter from air raids, said Mr Chan.
Between 100 and 200 people were believed to have stayed there at any one time. Then the infamous Sook Ching massacre happened. In 1942, the Japanese army systematically seized and executed thousands of Singaporean Chinese whom they believed were associated with the anti-Japanese movement.
The Venerable Pu Liang and two of his disciples were arrested when a group of Japanese soldiers broke into the monastery and ransacked his room. The monastery's attempt to locate them was futile, but many believe they were taken, along with other detainees, to Changi Beach, where they were shot. It has been estimated that between 25,000 and 100,000 were massacred.
Mr Chan's checks showed the Venerable Pu Liang was the only Buddhist leader to have been persecuted. 'The Japanese troops were given booklets which instructed them to leave religious organisations alone.'
Mr Chan believes the Japanese were out to get the monk, and his death sentence was largely due to his association with the driver's training centre.
'Burma Road became a sensitive issue for the Japanese. They believed once they terminated the road, the war in China would end on their terms. Anyone associated with Burma Road would have been in a dangerous situation,' he said.
Why has this compelling piece of history gone unnoticed? Mr Chan does not know.
But he said: 'To me, his history is very interesting because it relates to overseas Chinese history, to Sino-Japanese War, World War II, Burma Road, the way he reached out even till the last moments of his life.'
Worried that 'an important piece of history will be eroded by the passage of time just because the information was not managed and documented', he has put the Venerable Pu Liang's story in a new book, Light On The Lotus Hill.
It is now or never. The last of the Nanyang Volunteers, like Mr Wu, are in their 90s. Mr Chan also managed to track down only one person, a nun now in her 80s, who had met the abbot in her teens.
[email protected]
Light On The Lotus Hill will be available at all major bookstores.
