LIFE IN MALAYA

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23535, 13 January 1942, Page 2

LIFE IN MALAYA

* WOMEN DO HEAVY WORK In a recent letter to friends in the South Island, Pilot Officer J. H. Kemnitz, formerly of Dunedin, who is now stationed in Malaya, gives an interesting account of his experiences. He writes: “After a leisurely but comfortable trip from New Zealand on an old and small Dutch ship of about 4000 tons, we reached Singapore, and at the beginning of September I was one of four New Zealanders to be sent on to this outpost of Empire. It is as warm and damp and sticky here as at Singapore but the nights are cooler, and a refreshing change from the steamy nights of Singapore, where rivulets of moisture trickled down one all night. Singapore has an average variation between day and night temperature of only sdeg., with a like variation between summer and winter. “At present, where we are, we are in mid-winter, which brings little relief from the heat, only an abnormal amount of rain. The difference is not between summer and winter, but between dry and wet seasons. Just now it is light at 6.30 a.m. and dark again shortly after 6.30 in the evening, but the hours of daylight are not appreciably greater in the dry or summer season. "We are in the middle of a rubber plantation, which gives some relief from the sun, though there is not much scorching sun from a blue sky, as it is usually very cloudy. However, the trees also deprive us largely of the all-too-few breezes we are favoured with, together with sunshine, to dry out our clothes and bedding. If one leaves clothes hanging in the room overnight, in the morning’ they are so damp that one would think they had been left outside in a dew. Unless matches are tucked away in a drawer overnight, they will be much too damp next morning to strike. The officers' quarters are good, and I have a nice large room to myself in a new wooden bungalow built amid the rubber trees, which, by the way, do not bend if you bump into them.” “Isle of Paradise” Referring to the island of Penang, Pilot Officer Kemnitz said that it is a 30-mile trip by road and ferry to Georgetown, Mala'ya’s second city, with a population of about 400,000. The city is on the north-east of Penang and is one of the cleanest and most pleasant cities in the East. Known as the "Isle of Paradise,” Penang was a trading post centuries before Singapore was thought of, exporting spices, grown on the terraced slopes of the island. The industrial development of the twentieth century, however, made rubber more profitable than spices, and so to-day Penang is thickly covered with rubber plantations. “One surprising thing over here,” he continues, "is that heavy work, such as shovelling earth, pushing trucks, and mixing concrete is done by women, the men indulging in softer tasks.. They work steadily fr6m 7 in the morning till dusk, Sundays included, for which they received about 9d a day.”