All property has spirit houses- small for ancestors, larger for spirit of land. People have these on their land to thank the spirit of the land for allowing them to live there. Even gas stations have spirit houses (normally near the road).
We went to the Death Railway Museum and Research Center. It documents information gathered by an Australian historian about how the railway was built during World War II.
Japan wanted to control Asia. In February 1942 Japanese took POWs [prisoners of war] (Australians, British, Dutch) to build railroad into Burma/Myanmar to cut off Chinese troops (supported by US, Britain & Holland) and to get oil & wolfram in Burma. Since there weren't enough workers to get the railway completed very quickly, Japan forcefully made Malaysian and Thai people work. 400 km of railway was built. Part of building the railway was to build the (well known) Bridge over the River Kwai. There is a movie by that name.
Horrible conditions for workers/POWs:
-1 Not enough food, contaminated food (maggots/rotting)
-2. Walk long distances,rain, weak
-3. Poor sleeping : 28 men in tent for 8, lice & biting insects
-4. Lack of clean water: muddy polluted stream (217 deaths in 3 months)
-5. During wet season, rapid completion ordered. Many got sick & died of diseases that wouldn't be deadly in better conditions
Nationality Employed Deaths (k=1,000)
Malay 75k 42k
Burmese 90k 40k
British. 30k 7k
Javanese 7,500 2,900
Australian 13k 2,800
Dutch 18k 2,800
Chinese 5,200 500
American 686 131
Aminese (French indo-china) 200 25
(Cambodia, Laos, Vietnamese)
Japanese/Koreans 15k 1000
The railway operated for 22 months. In 1945, it was used mainly for evacuation of Japanese army. On Feb 13 &April 3, the US Air Force damage bridges (steel bridge & wooden bridge over river Kwai. The British destroyed much of the railway in 1947.
We went on a train ride on an original train (that ran on the railway during WWII). We passed through farmland during the whole trip (45?minutes?). The crops are sugar cane, tapioca, rice, bananas, corn, sweet tamarind, bamboo (shoots for food), cotton, papaya, mango, palmello (similar to grapefruit).
Tapioca: roots are ground into flour or the plant is processed for ethanol (sell as fuel). It is easy to grow a strong crop because you can cut a talk strong plant into four pieces & stick each piece into ground. Each piece will grow roots & buds (leaves), even from a middle piece without any leaves or roots.
We saw quite a few long tail macaque (very common, 1000 to 1500 live in the mountains). They eat fruit; food is limited during summer so they come where visitors are.
We went for a walk in the bamboo forest to the Hell Fire Pass. This is where particularly hard labor occurred during the building of the railway, they worked all hours of the day so they used fires & torches to see while they worked at night. This location is named for the glow from the light sources at night. I enjoyed the walk; it was a great break from sitting on bus. It was nice to walk in nature after days of visiting tourist spots.
No comments:
Post a Comment