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The party's activities in Hong Kong entered a new phase in 1927 when Chiang Kai-shek embarked on the Party Purification Movement against Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members all over China. The Japanese invasion from 1937 to 1945 is described. The chapter particularly highlights the Eighth Route Army Hong Kong Office, guerrillas, and war. The Chinese people were exhausted after eight years of Japanese occupation. The war had disrupted their lives enormously. Hong Kong, under British administration, was useful during the civil war to the CCP primarily because it was not under Kuomintang (KMT) control. To the CCP, Hong Kong's relatively liberal political environment provided significant strategic value. One of the most important decisions made by the CCP in relations to Hong Kong was to create the Xinhua News Agency, Hong Kong Branch in November 1946—the agency's first office outside the Mainland. A guiding principle of the CCP's work in Hong Kong during the civil war period was that, while facilitating the party's activities on the Mainland, it should avoid conducting any activities harming the interests of Hong Kong.

This introductory chapter discusses briefly the contents that are found in this book. The author tells the tale of the people who were caught in the Japanese invasion and occupation of Hong Kong. In order to get the information presented in the following chapters, he conducted personal interviews and found other primary sources. The author further stresses that the book does not contain experiences of being in a POW or Internment Camp.

This chapter explores philanthropy as a marker of power and a vehicle for enhancing social prestige. The unsuccessful Japanese invasion of Shanghai in 1932 and the Japanese invasion and occupation of the city in 1937 produced massive refugee crises. The 1937 refugee crisis overshadowed the 1932 crisis. Social networks held the refugee relief initiatives together, and their transformation helps to explain the development of a large, ambitious, but very weak Chinese state in the late Republican period. The National Salvation Movement played a critical role in rousing Shanghainese from all walks of life to participate in the refugee relief campaign, and offered the link between the Chinese Communist Party and the elite network helping to coordinate the refugee relief campaign. The return of the postwar refugee relief program in Shanghai to private hands reveals the hollowness of postwar Nationalist state-building efforts.

On the study of eastern central Sulawesi, Indonesia, this chapter contrasts the perspectives of two histories, one written from the viewpoint of the metropolitan center of Java and the other from the viewpoint of a pagan upland group in the hinterlands. The latter is an oral history collected from Wana farmers; the former was collected by Indonesian-government-sponsored historians by means of interviews with the regional political elite. Both histories focus on events that occurred in the wake of the Japanese invasion of central Sulawesi. The first concerns a millenarian movement, and the government history concerns the struggles of national liberation that shaped the transition from the Dutch colonial regime to the independent nation of the Republic of Indonesia.

One month after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Jin Yan and his wife Wang Renmei and the cream of Shanghai's actors appeared in a stage production called “Defending the Lu Gou Bridge”. The play was a sensation in Shanghai and was part of a concerted effort by the inhabitants of the city to demonstrate their hatred of the Japanese invasion. After that, shooting films in Chongqing was a challenge. From 1940 to 1945, only twenty features were produced and these were of poor quality. Production was hindered by the huge bureaucracy, poorly educated censors, and little financial help from the government. After the war, Jin Yan wondered whether he could resume his career as the “Emperor” of film or if he would be forgotten in the turmoil of post-war developments.

This chapter details Saw Ralph's experiences during the Japanese invasion. It chronicles his mother's early death and Saw Ralph's encounters with new people. Alongside these personal events are Saw Ralph's personal encounters with death and violence, beginning with the death of his mother and moving toward the casualties of Japanese occupation and British reoccupation. In those days, Saw Ralph recalls being afraid. The Japanese occupation was both a good time and a bad time in his life, because he and his fellow children liked the Japanese occupation. The occupying forces taught them the Japanese language and Japanese songs and engaged with them. The chapter concludes with Saw Ralph's experiences after the occupation.

This chapter examines Shi Jianqiao's post-pardon career to inquire into the fate of sentiment beyond the 1930s and to address briefly the question of historical memory. In reviewing Shi Jianqiao's participation in War of Resistance relief efforts, it first offers a few thoughts regarding how Shi Jianqiao's feminized moral sentiment inspired the collective emotion of modern patriotism (aiguo) during the Japanese invasion of China in the late 1930s and 1940s. The second part of the chapter moves away from Shi Jianqiao's experiences during the War of Resistance to consider her fate after the 1949 Revolution. By reviewing two of her autobiographical accounts written in the 1960s, the chapter explores how the politics of the post-1949 era made her embodiment of qing highly problematic.

This chapter is about the events of December 7 1941. The chapter describes Hong Kong on the eve of the Japanese invasion during World War II and introduces some of the main characters in the book. Its central theme is the departure from Hong Kong of the Ulysses, the last passenger ship to leave the colony before the invasion. The chapter concludes with the first bombing of Hong Kong by Japanese aeroplanes on the morning of December 8, marking the beginning of the invasion.

This chapter starts the discussion around the events of December 14. At this point other participants in Chan Chak's escape are introduced as preparations continue for the Japanese attack on Hong Kong Island. These include the Canadian Francis Kendall, the Scot Colin McEwan, and the White Russian Monia Talan, whose lives and roles are described. Kendall was in charge of a Secret Services commando unit known as Z Force, a hand-picked unit formed to carry out actions behind enemy lines.

Explores the role of the Dutch in the Indies from 1595, when sailors from Amsterdam first arrived in the islands, to 1942, when the Japanese invaded the colony and inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Dutch. The history of the Dutch in the Indonesian archipelago is critical to understanding the impact of the Japanese occupation after 1942, and the nature of the war crimes committed by the Japanese. This is because the ultimate goal of the Japanese occupiers was to erase all aspects of Dutch culture and influence the islands. The chapter begins with an examination of the early Dutch settlement of the islands, and the development of the colonial economy. It then discusses the so-called “Ethical Policy,” which sought to unify the islands under Dutch rule and implement European ideas about civilization, culture, and prosperity. The chapter looks at the colony’s social structure prior to World War II and closes with a discussion of the colony’s preparations for war with the Japanese in 1942. A short postscript explains what occurred between August 1945, when the Japanese surrendered, and December 1949, when the Netherlands East Indies ceased to exist.

This chapter opens on December 8 1941. The chapter introduces Admiral Chan Chak, the Chinese government's representative in Hong Kong in the years leading up to the Japanese invasion, and describes his life so far. A powerful and influential figure in the Nationalist government and a veteran of earlier clashes with the Japanese, during one of which he lost a leg, Chan was near to the top of the Japanese list of wanted men and it was essential that he left Hong Kong before he was captured The chapter also introduces members of Chan's entourage, including SK Yee and Henry Hsu.

On the following day, December 27, after spending the night at the village of Wangmu, an anti-Japanese stronghold, the escape party continued their journey with great caution across the countryside through Japanese lines, accompanied by guerrillas. Chan Chak was carried in a sedan chair. Japanese units patroled the area. The 31-mile journey on this day caused great fatigue.

Three weeks later, on February 8, the Burma-bound party arrived in Burma and were shocked to find demoralized and disorganized defending forces. They heard about the capture of Singapore, with its 80,000 defenders, and, on February 23, departed from Rangoon on the Heinrich Jessen, the last ship to leave before the Japanese invasion.

This book ends in 1937 because the Japanese invasion marks an important shift in the contexts in which Peking opera was performed and reformed. The coastal and eastern cities that were the main centers of the Peking opera were invaded and then held under puppet rule. This book has argued that the complex of performances that constituted Peking opera in the early twentieth century was shaped by colonial modern discursive and institutional forces. These conditions interpellated the construction of Peking opera as an identifiable genre within national and international contexts. This chapter notes that the molding of the genre during the Republican era had longer-term ramifications, that, despite the many radical formal and institutional changes that Peking opera underwent from 1937 onward, its construction as a paragon of national traditional culture continues to shape the genre today.

December 20 is the next crucial date to be described. Against the background of urban Hong Kong increasingly under siege, MacDougall on this day asked his superiors if there was any official objection to his organizing an escape attempt from Hong Kong. There was no objection, and the planning proceeded with discussion among key members of the party. Kendall and his Z Force were given responsibility for ensuring that Chan Chak and his party escaped from Hong Kong. As discussions progreseds, the two plans were joined together.

This chapter furthers the discussion on the events of that day. Chan Chak, MacDougall, and others made a dramatic dash by car from the central district of Hong Kong around the island, through Japanese shellfire, to Aberdeen. Chan Chak took command of the escape. On arrival in Aberdeen, there were no torpedo boats to be found.

The motor torpedo boats, with Chan Chak and the rest of the party, continued their night journey across Mirs Bay, as this chapter describes, avoiding Japanese ships. They stopped at the remote island of Ping Chau and met villagers there, who gave them help and advice on conditions and guerrilla contacts in the Dapeng peninsula on the Chinese mainland, where they were heading.

This chapter talks about the events of December 12. The chapter moves to the “Battle Box” on Hong Kong Island, the heavily fortified underground headquarters of the British defense of Hong Kong, and its preparations for the defense of Hong Kong Island. Other important characters in the escape are introduced and their lives and roles in Hong Kong explained: among them are Mat Oxford, Arthur Goring, William Robinson, Reginald Guest, and Peter Macmillan.

This chapter continues the story of the events of that day. After spending the night at the village of Kowtit, the party were given breakfast by the villagers. They made preparations for a long march across Japanese-occupied territory to the free city of Waichow in eastern Guangdong province. The party began the march, accompanied by guerrillas.