The Life of Tan Mei LinIssue #2 of 271941
Previously, in 1940…

Singapore, 1940. Tan Mei Lin is born healthy into a rich merchant family.

1941
The Price of Rice
Tan Mei Lin, 1
the child of the house
Tan Cheng Huat, 33
her father, cloth and household-goods merchant
Lim Swee Neo, 26
her mother
1941 · page 1
On a busy shophouse street, a trestle table of a China relief fund collection under a cloth banner (lettering blurred and unreadable); shopkeepers and women drop coins and notes into a collection box; a rickshaw passes.
Cheng Huat sits at the round table writing in a ledger with a green cloth cover, which normally lives on the chair beside his place; the meal cleared away.
Close on an open page of a ledger with a green cloth cover: neat columns of handwritten figures (unreadable), a pen, a small dish of uncooked rice beside it.
Cheng Huat, alone at the table, speaks down to the open ledger under his breath, pen raised, frowning slightly.
Mei Lin, a one-year-old toddler girl in simple cotton clothes sits on the floorboards under the round table and bangs a wooden spoon against the table leg, looking up, delighted.
TOK
Cheng Huat, pen put down beside the ledger, lifts the toddler up and holds her against his shoulder, his face softening.
1941. THE WAR IN EUROPE WAS IN ITS THIRD YEAR, ANDSHIPPING AND PRICES FELT IT.IN SINGAPORE, CHINESEFAMILIES GAVE MONEY FORCHINA'S WAR WITH JAPAN.TAN CHENG HUAT HAD COME FROM MALACCA WITH A TRADE, ANDA HABIT OF WRITING DOWN WHAT THINGS COST.THE TRADE HAD GROWN INTO A BUSINESS IN CLOTH ANDHOUSEHOLD GOODS.THAT YEAR THE PRICE OF RICE CREPT UP.IT DID NOT LEAP; IT CREPT, A FEW CENTSAT A TIME.THE HOUSEHOLD PAIDEASILY; THE BUSINESSHAD AN ORDINARY YEAR.BUT THE SUMS NO LONGERSAT AS STILL AS THEYHAD.It's the war.MEI LIN, ONE, STRUCK THELEG OF THE TABLE WITH AWOODEN SPOON, AND LOOKEDAT HIM AS IF HE HAD SAIDSOMETHING CLEVER.HE PUT DOWN HIS PEN AND PICKED HER UP. SHESMELLED OF SOAP AND OF SWEET RICE CAKES.
1941 · page 2
Lim Swee Neo stands at the foot of the stairs in her samfu, one hand on the banister rail, looking up toward the landing, undecided.
By lamplight Swee Neo leans over the cot and gently turns the sleeping toddler's leg to look at a faint rash behind the knee.
Swee Neo sits alone at the round table writing in a slim household account book; through a doorway behind her the toddler sleeps in her cot.
At the top of the stairs a neighbour woman holds out a covered earthenware pot to Swee Neo, who has the toddler on her hip.
Swee Neo eats soup from a bowl standing up at the round table, the toddler on her hip watching the spoon.
The neighbour's servant girl carries away the empty earthenware pot with a wrapped paper packet of tea balanced on its lid.
THAT YEAR MEI LIN WAS UNWELL IN SMALLWAYS: A COUGH AT NIGHT, A FEVER AFTER THEEVENING MEAL.LIM SWEE NEO STOOD ATTHE FOOT OF THE STAIRSWITH HER HAND ON THERAIL, DECIDING AGAIN.TEETH. A RASH ON THE BACKSOF THE KNEES. NOTHING THATHAD A NAME.EACH TIME IT PASSED, SHE FOUND SHE HAD BEENHOLDING HER BREATH. SHE TOLD NO ONE.SHE RAN THE HOUSE AS SHE HAD BEEN TAUGHT:QUIETLY, NOTICING THINGS BEFORE THEY WERE APROBLEM.IN THE AFTERNOONS,WHILE THE CHILDSLEPT, SHE DID ITSACCOUNTS IN HERHUSBAND'S SMALLHAND.A WOMAN FROM THE NEIGHBOURING HOUSE CAME WITH ACOVERED POT. SHE DID NOT ASK WHETHER SWEE NEO HADSLEPT.Good for a child's cough. Goodfor the mother too.My girl will fetch the potback. Whenever it suits.SHE ATE IT STANDING UP, WITH THE BABY ON HER HIP. ITWAS BETTER THAN SHE HAD EXPECTED.SHE DID NOT KNOWHOW TO THANK HER,SO SHE SENT BACKTHE EMPTY POT WITHA PACKET OF TEA.
1941 · page 3
A dark sky over the city's tiled rooftops: a formation of twin-engined bombers passes high overhead; searchlight beams sweep; a distant flash and smoke rise near the harbour; the street lamps below still burn.
WHUMP
Swee Neo, in her sleeping clothes, lifts the crying toddler out of the cot and grips her tightly; the mosquito net swings.
Cheng Huat stands at the open shutters in his sleeping clothes, his face lit by a strange orange glow and searchlight beams in the sky.
Neighbours in sleeping clothes and samfu stand in their shophouse doorways and on the five-foot way, talking in small groups and pointing at the sky.
BEFORE DAWN ON 8 DECEMBER 1941 THE SIRENS SOUNDEDLATE, AND THE LIGHTS WERE STILL BURNING WHEN THE FIRSTBOMBS FELL.IN THE SAME HOURS JAPANLANDED IN NORTHERNMALAYA. IT WAS AT WARWITH BRITAIN.SWEE NEO WENTSTRAIGHT TO THECOT. MEI LIN HADSLEPT THROUGH THEFIRST OF IT.SHE CRIED WHEN HERMOTHER LIFTED HER,MORE FROM THE GRIPTHAN FROM THESOUND.CHENG HUAT STOOD ATTHE WINDOW, LOOKINGOUT AT A SKY THATDID NOT LOOK LIKE ASKY. HE SAIDNOTHING.NOTHING STRUCK THEHOUSE.BY MORNING THE STREET WAS FULL OF NEIGHBOURS STANDINGIN DOORWAYS, TELLING ONE ANOTHER WHAT THEY HAD HEARD.
1941 · page 4
At the round table Cheng Huat and Swee Neo eat a quiet meal; a ledger with a green cloth cover lies shut on the chair beside him.
Mei Lin, a one-year-old toddler on her mother's lap at the table, reaches with both hands for a bowl of rice porridge, wide awake and impatient; Swee Neo smiles despite herself.
NOBODY IN THE HOUSE WAS HURT.OVER THE FOLLOWING DAYS THE HOUSEHOLDSPOKE LESS ABOUT THE PRICE OF RICE.BY THE END OF THE MONTH RICE COST MORE AGAIN.MEI LIN, WHO HAD SLEPTTHROUGH THE WORST OF THENIGHT, WOKE WANTING HERBREAKFAST.
The year in money. Household income about $504 a month, against a peer median of $42: 12.0 times the median (nominal dollars; a model estimate).
The real 1941

1941 is the last full year of peace in Singapore. The war in Europe is in its third year and shipping and prices are affected; Chinese communities in Malaya raise funds for China's war with Japan (the China Relief Fund drives).

Japan landed in northern Malaya and bombed Singapore in the early hours of 8 December 1941. Air raids on the city continued from then, with civilian casualties. The fall of the island follows in February 1942.

Mei Lin is a one-year-old; Tan Cheng Huat is a Malacca-born textile and household-goods merchant, Lim Swee Neo his wife. Their district, street and trade partners are not established.

Sources

  • Singapore Infopedia (National Library Board): entries on the Battle of Singapore and the air raids of 8 December 1941; on the China Relief Fund (Nanyang Chinese Relief General Association).
Behind the dice How likely was each thing that happened? (Spoilers)

Nothing in Life Story is chosen by a writer. Each person's year is a set of rolls, weighted by their stats and their times; the story is written afterwards to fit what the dice decided.

WhoWhat the dice decidedResultChance
Tan Mei LinThe price of rice creeps up, a few cents at a time.prices12%
Tan Mei LinA sickly spell: a night cough, an evening fever, teeth, a rash; nothing with a name.sickly spell6%
Lim Swee NeoA neighbour brings soup and does not ask whether Swee Neo has slept.kindness5%
Tan Cheng HuatAn ordinary trading year: no big consignment, no bad debt.no80%
Lim Swee NeoShe runs the household and does its accounts in the afternoons.no91%
Tan Cheng HuatA quiet year for him, but the sums no longer sit still.quiet44%
Tan Mei LinNo serious illness for Mei Lin; only small ones.no98%
Tan Mei LinNo pinch on the household.no92%
Tan Mei LinMei Lin alive at the year's end.no98%
Tan Cheng HuatCheng Huat is not seriously ill.no95%
Tan Cheng HuatCheng Huat alive at the year's end.noover 99%
Lim Swee NeoSwee Neo is not seriously ill.no93%
Lim Swee NeoSwee Neo alive at the year's end.noover 99%
The chapter in prose

1941: The Price of Rice

In 1941, one-year-old Tan Mei Lin spends the year in and out of small ailments in her parents' comfortable Singapore home. Her father, Tan Cheng Huat, a Malacca-born textile and household-goods merchant, watches the price of rice rise and keeps his accounts steady through an ordinary trading year. Her mother, Lim Swee Neo, gets through the sleepless months with the help of a neighbour's kindness. On 8 December the war reaches Singapore by air, and the household comes through the first night unhurt.

Small Ailments

That year Mei Lin was unwell in small ways. A cough that came at night and was gone by morning. A fever that rose after the evening meal and had dropped by the time Lim Swee Neo had decided to send for the doctor, so that she was left standing at the bottom of the stairs with her hand on the rail, deciding again. Teeth. A rash on the backs of the knees. Nothing that had a name, and each time it passed, Swee Neo found she had been holding her breath.

She did not say so to anyone. The household was a competent one, with help in the kitchen and help on the stairs, and she ran it as she had been brought up to run a house: quietly, and by noticing things before they were a problem. She did the household's accounts in the afternoons, when the child slept, in the same small hand her husband used for the shop.

It was a woman from the neighbouring house who came that week with a covered pot, and who did not stay long and did not ask whether Swee Neo had slept. She put the pot on the table and said that the soup was good for a child's cough and good for the mother too, and that she would send her own girl to fetch the pot back tomorrow, or next week, whenever it suited.

Swee Neo ate the soup standing up, at the table, with the baby on her hip. It was better than she had expected. She did not know how to thank the woman, so she sent back the empty pot with a packet of tea.

The Price of Rice

Tan Cheng Huat had come from Malacca with a trade and a habit of writing down what things cost. In Singapore the trade had grown into a business in cloth and household goods, and the habit had become a ledger with a green cloth cover that lived on the chair beside his place at the table.

That year the price of rice crept up. It did not leap; it crept, a few cents at a time, like a child's fever, and in the evenings he read the figures aloud as he wrote them, mostly to himself. The household had no trouble paying it. The business, too, had an ordinary year: no big consignment, no bad debt, nothing he would remember in a decade. But he had begun to notice, in the way of a man who had spent his life on small differences, that the sums no longer sat as still as they had.

"It's the war," he said, to the account book.

Mei Lin, on the floor with a wooden spoon, struck the leg of the table and looked at him as if he had said something clever. He put down his pen and picked her up. She smelled of soap and of the sweet rice cakes the cook had given her to keep her quiet.

The Eighth of December

The planes came over Singapore before dawn on the eighth of December. The sirens sounded late, and many of the city's lights were still burning when the first bombs fell. Japan had landed on the coast of northern Malaya in the same hours and was already at war with Britain.

Swee Neo woke to the noise and went straight to the cot. Mei Lin had slept through the first of it, and woke only when her mother lifted her, and cried, more from the grip than from the sound. Cheng Huat stood at the window in his sleeping clothes, looking out at a sky that did not look like a sky. He did not say anything. Nothing struck the house. By morning the street was full of neighbours standing in doorways, telling one another what they had heard.

Nobody in the house was hurt. Over the following days the household spoke less about the price of rice.

By the end of the month rice cost more again, and Mei Lin, who had slept through the worst of the night, woke wanting her breakfast.