Social Lives during the Japanese occupation

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Social Lives during the Japanese occupation

On the morning of December 8, 1941 (Hong Kong local time) the Japanese launched an attack on Hong Kong, just 8 hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. British, Canadian and Indian allies helped by the Hong Kong Volunteer Defense Forces made a feeble attempt to stop the rapidly advancing Japanese invasion, but we sadly vastly out numbered. The Hong Kong people lived in an abyss of misery, which lasted for three years and eight months. Many survivors called the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong simply “Three Years and Eight Months”.

 

        For the Hong Kong people, life under the rule of the Japanese was hard; there was lack of food supply, so the Japanese rationed their food. Each person had been given a ration card, foods such as rice, oil, flour, salt and sugar we cut down. Non-staple foods such as sugar, cooking and salt were scarce. Each person could only but 0.24 kg of rice per day. Because of the lack of food, much people died of starvation. Fighting for food was the order of the day. According to Philip Snow, a prominent historian of the period, he says that the Japanese would cut the rations of the civilians just to conserve food for the Japanese military. Most of the repatriated actually had come to Hong Kong just a few years earlier to flee the terror of the Second Sino-Japanese War in mainland China. In 1944, the rationing system was thankfully cancelled. During the Japanese occupation most public services, such as electricity, gas supplies, and public transportation were badly affected. Fuel was in shortage.

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The Japanese used a repatriation policy throughout the time of the Japanese occupation because of the lack of food and the possible counter-attack of Hong Kong’s Allies. As a result from the repatriation policy, the unemployed population of Hong Kong was deported to the Mainland; the population of Hong Kong had changed from 1.6 million people in 1941 to 600,000 in 1945. But because of the takeover of mainland China in 1949 there was another population boom in Hong Kong. As an addition, during the Japanese occupation, the Japanese changed both government and private facilities for gain in their ...

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