6. From Singapore to Yangon, Myanmar
In May 1939, I received an office letter from the Yangon branch office in Myanmar to transfer me to work in the Yangon branch office. This time, I was only assigned, so I was the only one who boarded the ship and set off in early June 1939. The name of the ship is TIRAWA 10,000 tons passenger and cargo ship. I thought I was too lonely, but unexpectedly I met several Shanghainese from Hong Kong to Yangon after boarding the ship. They were the new deputy consul Tian Baosheng of the Yangon Consulate General and his wife; the China Travel Agency manager’s wife and her daughter, very cute at the time of twelve or thirteen years old; and Shen Guilin, a staff member of the China Travel Agency, etc.
Soon after we got on the ship, we knew each other and knew each other well, especially Shen Guilin and I were about the same age. When Meng Zhaochang came from Yangon to Singapore, he borrowed a camera from Zhou Shijun. This time I brought it back and I bought a roll of film. The next day, the ship went to the Pathein port to load and unload cargo. I took a photo of the whole ship, which was still there as a souvenir.
After the ship arrived at Penang, it took a long time to stop. The six of us hired a car to travel around the island and ate Fujian food in the city. In addition to the beautiful scenery in the local area, the strangest thing was that there was a snake temple built by overseas Chinese. In the temple, there were many kinds of snakes winding on the Buddha statue and the iron frame in front of the bodhisattva. They did not crawl, but the head will lift up. It was indeed alive. After hearing that these snakes were infected with a certain drug, they would not crawl.
After the ship left Penang, it went straight to Yangon for about four days. Soon after reporting for work in Yangon, I took the time to write a travel article on “From Singapore to Yangon”, which mainly introduced Singapore’s urban appearance, scenery, customs, the scenery of Penang Island, and the feelings of the sea on the way, economy, Delivered to a travel magazine run by China Travel Service in Shanghai. The full text was published soon, with photos from both places in Penang, and there were snake temples. I was surprised that I did not send the photos. There were six or seven photos published, which made the article more vivid and colorful, which was stored by the magazine a long time ago.
I once asked Lin Mengyu to purchase a few copies, but later lost them all. Otherwise it would be interesting to see now. In Singapore, I had nothing to do in my spare time. I also wrote several articles to Sin Chew Daily and other newspapers, and they were also published. The newspapers that were also preserved later disappeared, probably related to the future escape. If it was still there, I would be interested to see what my thinking was like at that time.
