Fuji-Go, what the land remembers

In the early 1970s, Leow Hong Tan worked at a tapioca-processing factory beside the road leading from Bahau to Ayer Hitam in Negeri Sembilan. Near the factory, he noticed a burial ground of approximately three acres.^[17]

Many years later, he still remembered that the burial mounds across the wasteland were too numerous to count at a glance, with wooden crosses erected over the graves.^[17]

Loo Cheang Liang, who moved to Mahsan in 1949, recalled that a wooden signboard inscribed with "Fuji-Go" or "不二乡" (Fuji-Go / "The Peerless Village") had once been nailed to a large tree in the village. Later, when building his house, his labourers excavated old bricks from underground.^[16]

Local reports also note that during the 1980s, tapioca workers unearthed human bones in the area, and a white headstone bearing faintly legible English lettering was found in the brush.^[17] These accounts from different witnesses, spanning distinct decades and disparate locations, cannot simply be pieced together into a single cemetery; nevertheless, these materials repeatedly draw the local narrative back to a name that has vanished from the physical landscape: Fuji-Go.

The Japanese authorities named the settlement Fuji-Go, rendered as "Fuji Village" or "Beautiful Village". It was also called Buerxiang (不二乡), meaning "peerless and most wondrous". After the war, the area gradually became known as Mahsan. On land that had once borne piles of charred timber and longhouses with attap roofs, successive crops of tapioca, pine trees, rubber, and oil palm were planted. Today, the burial mounds recalled in local oral histories can no longer be identified on the surface of the land.

Who lay buried beneath those crosses? And why, in the midst of the Second World War, did a group of Eurasian Catholics, priests, brothers, nuns, and orphans from Singapore relocate to the jungle near Bahau?

The story begins in December 1941.

On 8 December 1941, Japanese forces landed at Kota Bharu in the north-east of British Malaya, as well as at Songkhla and Pattani in southern Thailand. Commanded by Lieutenant-General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the 25th Imperial Japanese Army advanced southward down the length of the Malayan Peninsula.

Two days later, the Royal Navy's battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse, operating as Force Z, were attacked and sunk by Japanese naval aircraft in the waters south-east of Kuantan.

These two capital ships had formed the core of Britain's naval deployment in the Far East. Their loss critically crippled British naval defence capabilities in Malaya.

Thereafter, the Japanese gradually gained control of both air and sea, and British forces retreated down the peninsula. On 11 January 1942, Kuala Lumpur fell;

On 31 January, British forces withdrew across the Straits of Johore to Singapore Island; the following day, the Johore Causeway was blown up.

The straits failed to halt the Japanese advance.

On the night of 8 February, Japanese troops crossed the water and landed on the north-western coast of Singapore Island. On 15 February, Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, General Officer Commanding Malaya Command, surrendered his forces. Approximately 80,000 defending troops were taken prisoner; when combined with those captured earlier on the Malayan Peninsula, the total number of prisoners of war exceeded 100,000. Singapore had fallen.

From the initial landings in Malaya to the surrender of Singapore, approximately seventy days had elapsed. The Japanese military administration renamed Singapore Syonan (昭南), meaning "Light of the South".

In the period that followed, the local population faced the surveillance of the Kempeitai (military police), acute food shortages, escalating prices, and deteriorating personal safety.

It was from this fallen city that the story of Fuji-Go began.

Shortly after the surrender of Singapore, Japanese forces initiated a large-scale screening of the local Chinese population, later known as the Great Inspection of Overseas Chinese or the Sook Ching ("purge through cleansing"). Between mid-February and early March 1942, Chinese males aged eighteen to fifty were ordered to report to screening centres established across the island to undergo interrogation by the Kempeitai.

Those permitted to leave were either given a slip of paper stamped with the character jian (检, "inspected") or had their clothing marked with an ink stamp. Those identified by the Kempeitai as "anti-Japanese elements" were loaded onto lorries and transported to coastal or remote sites for execution. The exact death toll of this operation remains a subject of ongoing historical dispute. Official Japanese figures admitted to approximately 5,000; post-war testimonies and various academic studies propose figures ranging between 25,000 and 50,000; while collective memory within the Singapore Chinese community suggests even higher estimates, reaching as many as 100,000.

The Sook Ching permanently altered the social climate of the early occupation. The Chinese community understood that a single assembly, a single interrogation, or a single slip of paper could determine whether a person would ever return home.

This experience laid the groundwork for the subsequent decision of more than 1,000 Chinese Catholics — a number that, according to Fiona Hodgkins, was nearly equal to the Eurasian contingent — to leave Singapore for the unfamiliar agricultural settlement of Bahau. Endau, meanwhile, was separately organised by the Overseas Chinese Association for the broader Chinese community.^[21] Eurasians and clergy with European ancestry or connections faced comparable perils: the occupation authorities suspected them of maintaining ties with the British or the Allied powers, and Kempeitai surveillance could turn into arrest at any moment. Sister Marjorie Almodiel, FMM, recalled years later that her father had been taken away to Thailand by Japanese troops and never returned. A small number of Protestant European families and neutral nationals — Swiss, Danish, Romanian, and, according to Fiona Hodgkins, some Russians — also relocated to Bahau, judging themselves safer under the protection of the Church than exposed to the occupation authorities in Singapore.^[12]

By 1943, food supplies in Syonan had grown increasingly precarious, prompting the Japanese occupation administration to relocate a portion of the urban population to agricultural zones on the Malayan Peninsula. The Japanese military administration initiated this resettlement scheme, placing Mamoru Shinozaki, then chief of the Welfare Section, in charge of its oversight and execution, while delegating the practical administrative arrangements to individual community organisations.^[12][20]

The Eurasian Welfare Association participated in organising the Bahau scheme. Bishop Adrien Devals of the Diocese of Malacca, who held pastoral responsibility for the Catholic community in Singapore, agreed to lead Catholics to Bahau and travelled to the site to conduct an inspection alongside the Eurasian representative, Herman de Souza Sr. The Eurasian Welfare Association, headed by Dr Charles Joseph Pemberton Paglar, was likewise involved in the resettlement arrangements.^[12][11]

Wartime Catholic archives record that the Japanese authorities did not present the relocation to Bahau as a voluntary undertaking. By the time the plan reached Bishop Devals, the room for negotiation had all but vanished: the military had already ordered the relocation to Bahau, the proposed territory had already been surveyed and identified in advance, and authority over the settlement had been placed under the Negeri Sembilan state government — the Syonan Municipality's request to administer it directly having been refused. The plan was conveyed to him less as a proposal than as a fait accompli; he was expected to supply leadership rather than consent. Bishop Devals urged his flock to accept the plan because remaining in the city exposed them to the risks of starvation, Kempeitai surveillance, and further persecution; he also chose to accompany them in person. For many families, this "choice" amounted to nothing more than selecting the lesser of several severe perils; Bahau appeared merely as one of the few places where a livelihood might plausibly be maintained.^[12]

By 1943, the food crisis in Syonan had worsened substantially. The Allied naval blockade, transport disruptions, widespread unemployment, and inflation made it impossible for the city to maintain a steady supply of provisions. In his memoirs, Mamoru Shinozaki linked the espionage scare after September 1943, the expansion of Kempeitai authority, the anticipation of Allied air raids, and the evacuation of civilians; at one point, the administration planned to evacuate as many as 300,000 residents.^[20]

"Self-sufficiency" (jikyū jisoku) thus became the occupation administration's principal formula for addressing the food crisis. Under this policy, residents were to leave Singapore to clear land and cultivate food crops in various parts of Malaya, in theory both feeding themselves and relieving demographic pressure on the city. Under this overarching directive, resettlement schemes at Endau in Johore and Bahau in Negeri Sembilan were progressively advanced. Shinozaki was responsible for execution and coordination, liaising first with the Overseas Chinese Association to organise the Endau settlement, and subsequently with groups such as the Eurasian Welfare Association for the Bahau migration.^[11][20]

Bahau was not selected haphazardly. Bishop Devals and Herman de Souza Sr had travelled to the area to assess conditions. Catholic archives further record that before committing to the project, Bishop Devals consulted with Brother Joseph Brophy, the provincial visitor, and the principal of St Patrick's School, assembling a committee of specialists in medicine, agriculture, and housing. Several days later, the committee returned to Singapore to brief the Catholic community on what they had observed.^[12][11]

The Catholic delegation's findings were far from optimistic, leaving many logistical concerns unresolved. Shinozaki himself harboured doubts about whether the settlement could be maintained over the long term: the local vegetation was difficult to clear, and the soil was predominantly heavy clay. The contrast with Endau was stark. Endau was a self-governing settlement administered by the Overseas Chinese Association — Shinozaki having promised the OCA that no Japanese would enter Endau and that rice would be supplied until the settlers could support themselves — and could therefore rely on material assistance from Singapore.^[21] The settlers at Bahau, by contrast, were dependent upon the Negeri Sembilan state administration for their food supplies, provisions, and administrative backing, a dependency the state government never meaningfully fulfilled. The settlement was not integrated into the state's relief channels: no reliable system for distributing food or medicine was established, and the community was denied the self-governing status that Endau enjoyed, leaving the settlers with scarcely any control over their own resources. State officials dismissed the newcomers as "lazy" men from the city, and, preoccupied with agricultural programmes elsewhere, the state agricultural commissioner had no time for Bahau; Brother Joseph Brophy recorded that the military authorities there "took little interest in the colony of Singaporeans dumped in their midst" and complained that they "frequently obstructed, even stole, supplies meant for the colony." Bishop Devals was reduced to confronting Japanese officials directly over the promised rice, hospital equipment, lumber, and quinine — negotiations that, judged by the still-meagre supplies and the private remittances that followed from Singapore, yielded little. Even Shinozaki and Dr Charles Paglar, men of standing within the administration, could only visit the settlement carrying such essentials as the circumstances of war allowed; their supply runs remained intermittent, on account of failures in transport and production. Shinozaki also noted that during earlier site selections, the Overseas Chinese Association had rejected Bahau due to inadequate water resources and clay soil unsuitable for farming, choosing Endau instead.^[11][21]

The resettlement scheme was formally established in November 1943, initially designated as the Bahau Catholic Settlement; in March 1944, the Japanese authorities officially named it Fuji-Go ("Fuji Village" / Buerxiang).^[11][12]

The first contingent arrived in late December 1943. These advance pioneers were predominantly young, single men tasked with clearing the jungle, building roads, erecting dwellings, and establishing a demonstration farm to prepare accommodations for the families who would follow.^[11]

Thereafter, successive contingents of residents departed Singapore. Materials compiled by Fiona Hodgkins show that the initial groups gathered at the Church of the Holy Family in Katong before boarding night trains that travelled via Gemas to Bahau. The Singapore Infopedia estimates that approximately 2,000 Eurasians moved to the settlement between December 1943 and April 1944; local reports offer an alternative estimate of around 2,400 individuals. Many boarded trains at Tanjong Pagar Railway Station bound for Bahau.^[11][13][17]

Settlers carried furniture, curtains, gardening tools, tinned food, and water filters, and some even brought pianos. Domestic stocks of quinine brought by individual households would later serve as critical medicine during epidemics. The presence of such items in the settlement demonstrates that these urban dwellers sought to preserve their customary standards of hygiene, medical care, religious observance, and domestic routine as far as possible in the jungle.^[11]

Upon arriving at Bahau town, the settlers had to walk on foot into the settlement area. Sources provide differing figures for this distance, citing 3 kilometres, 4.2 kilometres, 4 to 5 kilometres, 5 miles, a walk of several hours, or approximately 8 kilometres from the town. These discrepancies may reflect different starting points, routes, or boundaries of the settlement.^[11][17]

Survivors left more specific recollections concerning the entrance to the settlement and the initial state of the encampment.

Brother Patricius O'Donovan, FSC, recalled that as the column approached the camp, they first encountered a Japanese sentry post. Sentries controlled access, and residents required travel permits if they wished to leave. Passing beyond the sentry post, what lay before them was not the mature farmland depicted in newspapers, but vast piles of felled trunks and branches, some heaps rising fifteen to twenty feet high. Only after these had been dried, burned, and cleared would the bare earth finally be exposed.^[12]

Upon their first glimpse of Fuji-Go, what the settlers beheld was not a finished village, but a tract of jungle still in the process of being cleared.

The annals of the Good Shepherd Sisters recorded the scene that greeted the nuns upon their arrival: reaching their allotted plot, they found only the foundations marked out and a roof partially thatched with attap palm leaves, but no surrounding walls, beneath which twenty-four beds stood under the open shelter.

During the initial months, early settlers and the advance party lived in communal longhouses. When attap was insufficient, roofs were patched with wild ferns or palm fronds; where timber planks fell short, tree bark was substituted for walls. Nails, timber, mattresses, and pillows were all severely scarce.

Brother Joseph Brophy recorded the structure of the "Mission Longhouse" in detail. This building measured approximately 100 feet in length and 30 feet in width, constructed from rough timber poles cut from the jungle. One half served as a chapel, featuring a modest altar erected upon a raised wooden platform, with a tabernacle brought from Singapore set at its centre. Two Masses were normally celebrated in the chapel daily, and occasionally three. The other half served as living quarters, where crude wooden planks were raised about two feet above the damp mud. The beds were placed side by side with mosquito nets suspended overhead, and the settlers' personal belongings were stowed underneath. The bishop, priests, and brothers also resided in the cramped space situated between the chapel and the dormitory.^[12]

In time, communal facilities were gradually erected: latrines, wells, a bathing pool formed by damming a stream, a temporary hospital with limited equipment, a communal kitchen, and "Boys' Town" to accommodate young men and boys. A postal service was eventually established, operating three times a week; envelopes required for registered post quickly sold out, and paper was equally scarce, forcing residents at times to communicate via postcards.^[5]

Water supply was a major challenge of settlement life. Brother Brophy recalled using a hazel-style forked twig to dowse for water, while Brother Canice suspended a pocket watch on a chain to determine suitable locations for digging wells.^[12]

Discrepancies exist across historical records regarding the total area of the settlement. Certain Catholic documents cite approximately 3,000 acres, whereas other studies and local historical accounts state 40 square miles. The former figure likely refers to the core cultivated area, whilst the latter may incorporate the surrounding jungle and peripheral restricted zones.^[12][15]

Most sources record that each household was allocated approximately three acres of land. A 1971 newspaper account gave the figure as three to four acres.^[11][10] Receiving an allocation of land did not mean the plot had been cleared, nor did it mean the heavy clay soil was suitable for cultivation; having entered the jungle, these urban dwellers had to learn agricultural labour from the very beginning.

Among these settlers were teachers, clerks, and many individuals who had previously made their living in urban professions. They had to learn felling, burning, clearing timber, digging drainage ditches, constructing dwellings, sowing crops, and rearing livestock. The clay soil of Bahau drained poorly, and the rainy season rendered roads, transport, and cultivation exceptionally difficult. Attempts to grow wet-paddy rice failed, leading the settlers to turn instead to crops such as tapioca, sweet potatoes, maize, water spinach (kangkong), jicama (yam bean), bananas, and pumpkins.

While these crops prevented many from immediately starving, they could scarcely provide adequate or balanced nutrition. To obtain protein and fats, some gathered snails, others hunted jungle creatures such as monitor lizards, and some slaughtered goats; the religious orders also reared pigs. Children from the Canossian Sisters' orphanage gathered snails across some six acres of land and undertook light agricultural chores. Under such circumstances, even children who themselves required care had to participate in foraging and simple farm work.

Brother Brophy recalled that his breakfast consisted of a banana, a small portion of ragi porridge, and sugarless coffee. When flour and yeast grew scarce, residents attempted to bake bread by blending ragi, maize, soya beans, and rice flour. The resulting loaves were dense and hard, earning two self-deprecating nicknames from the settlers: "Bahau Cement" and "Negeri Sembilan Bricks".^[12]

That a plot of land could yield tapioca was far from achieving true "self-sufficiency". The challenge at Fuji-Go lay not merely in whether crops could be grown, but in whether these harvests could adequately sustain thousands of people, let alone fend off malnutrition and disease.

Following the capture of Singapore, the Japanese military seized control of the local English-language press. On 20 February 1942, the first day of resumed publication, the masthead read The Shonan Times; the following day, it was amended to The Syonan Times. In December of that year, the newspaper was renamed The Syonan Shimbun (Syonan Sinbun). As an organ controlled by the occupation administration, its coverage of Fuji-Go was marked by overt policy propaganda.

On 8 January 1944, The Syonan Shimbun published statements attributed to Dr M. Gaus, asserting that Bahau was "practically malaria-free", with fresh water, a healthy environment, and a new life suited to agriculture.^[1] In February, the paper reported that approximately 200 households had each received three acres of land, that houses were being erected, and that a hospital and post office were being prepared.^[2] A feature published on 25 March hailed the settlement as a "great experiment", stressing that the migration involved "absolutely no compulsion", that land, building subsidies, coarse rice, and rations were provided free of charge, and depicting urban dwellers being transformed into farmers; a Catholic compilation dated this feature to 24 March.^[3]

By May, the newspaper was referring to the agricultural area as "Fuji Village", designating Mukim V as the Chinese section and Mukim VI as the Eurasian section; the residential and religious zoning recorded in Catholic compilations differs somewhat, and the precise correspondence remains to be verified against wartime maps.^[4] Down to 1945, the newspaper continued to report on cash allowances, six-month rice provisions, and harvests of tapioca and sweet potatoes, encouraging more families to relocate and setting a target of accommodating 1,000 households, or approximately 5,000 people.^[7]

These reports were not entirely devoid of factual basis: land had indeed been distributed, settlers had constructed houses, laboured, and cultivated crops, and a hospital and post office did exist. However, the press chose to emphasize primarily these relatively positive facets; it made scant mention of the semi-coercive nature of the migration, sentry controls, inadequate rations, shortages of medicine, malaria, and death. The assertions of "practically malaria-free" and "absolutely no compulsion" stood in stark contrast to the experiences recorded in religious annals and personal memoirs.^[1][3]

The diaries of brothers, annals of sisters, family letters, and post-war memoirs present a vastly different picture: externally promised food supplies failed to arrive reliably, leaving residents dependent upon remittances of money and food from relatives in Singapore; longhouses lacked mattresses and pillows; the hospital lacked drugs; entry and exit points were guarded by sentries; and malaria spread steadily. Because correspondence was subjected to censorship, some families arranged secret codes in advance, concealing their true circumstances within ordinary letters.

According to family accounts collected by Fiona Hodgkins, one settler agreed with his relatives that if conditions in Bahau were good, he would write in ink, but if conditions were bad, he would switch to pencil. Another family arranged that if a letter mentioned they were "singing the prisoners' love song", it meant everything was tolerable; if it stated they were "not singing the prisoners' love song", it was a signal that conditions were dire. Only relatives privy to the arrangement could discern the underlying meaning of these lines.^[13]

Drawing upon his wartime diary, Brother O'Donovan recounted a confrontation. On that day, the settlers had been assembled in the community hall to hear inspecting officials once again promise supplementary food and supplies. Bishop Devals challenged them directly: "You promised more rice—where is the rice? You promised hospital equipment and medicines—where are they? You promised us planks—where are the planks?"^[12]

The Japanese officials subsequently accused the settlers of laziness and incompetence, asking in return where the crops were and where the vast expanses of lush green farmland previously promised were to be found. Bishop Devals responded: "You blame the settlers for not roofing their houses, but where is the promised attap? How can men burning with fever cultivate the land without quinine? Where is the quinine?" According to O'Donovan's recollections, the Bishop further declared that he would either resign or appeal to higher authorities. The visiting officials subsequently renewed their assurances, bowed, and departed.^[12]

This confrontation, recorded in O'Donovan's memoir based on his wartime diary, is corroborated by other religious records and personal recollections regarding material shortages and disease. Shinozaki also noted that officials in Negeri Sembilan regarded the incoming settlers as urban "idlers", whereas the administration in Syonan was primarily concerned with demographic evacuation. While Japanese officials demanded to know "where the harvest was", the settlers were demanding to know "where the rice, medicine, timber, and quinine were".^[12]

Over time, Fuji-Go has been variously described in different narratives as an agricultural resettlement area, a settlement, a colony, or a concentration camp, and has occasionally been erroneously referred to as a prisoner-of-war camp.

It was not a prisoner-of-war camp in the standard sense. The inhabitants were not military personnel interned following defeat in battle; the community included families, children, and clergy, and encompassed land allocation, parish activities, postal communication, physical labour, and neighbourhood life.^[15]

Yet to describe it as an entirely voluntary immigrant community is equally incompatible with historical evidence. The migration took place against a backdrop of military occupation, starvation, the memory of the Sook Ching, and the menace of the Kempeitai. Once inside the settlement, the sole access road was monitored by a sentry post, departure required a travel pass, and external communications were restricted.^[11][15]

"Absolutely no compulsion" was the propagandistic rhetoric of occupation-era newspapers. For many settlers, "choice" meant merely choosing between different perils: remaining in the city meant facing possible starvation, arrest, and surveillance; venturing into the jungle meant enduring disease, food shortages, and the hardships of pioneer farming. Fuji-Go combined elements of communal settlement and mutual assistance with strict movement control, and cannot be encapsulated by any single label.

At dusk each day, settlers would bathe beside streams or wells; young people gathered in the community hall to sing and play guitars or other instruments. Gwen Lange (later Mrs Perry) recalled walking approximately forty-five minutes at night as a young girl to gather at a neighbour's house, where they played music and shared home-brewed rice wine. The young girls cared for by the Good Shepherd Sisters sang together, earning them Bishop Devals's affectionate title, the "birds of Bahau". Sister Anna of the Holy Infant Jesus Sisters even arranged for a piano to be transported from Singapore into the settlement, which the sisters used to hold musical concerts.^[12][11]

These vignettes of daily life cannot serve to endorse occupation-era propaganda regarding a "blissful life", nor can they obscure the hunger and illness endured by the settlers; nevertheless, they demonstrate that even amid severe adversity, the community managed to sustain festivities, music, and social life.

Shinozaki's memoirs also record an evening dance. Young men engaged in epidemic prevention work submitted a request to the Bishop to hold a dance; initially refused, a dispute ensued. Shinozaki arrived to hear their appeal, and the Bishop ultimately gave tacit consent for the event to proceed. The dance was accompanied by guitars, banjos, violins, a cello, a trumpet, and a drum kit.^[20]

The young men attending the dance were the very same individuals who laboured by day spraying oil over stagnant pools for mosquito control.

Spraying oil by day, dancing by night; these brief moments of joyful gathering did not dispel the persistent realities of disease and material deprivation.

Fuji-Go was home to orphans, young girls, infants, the sick, and individuals with disabilities. Different religious congregations undertook distinct responsibilities: the Canossian Sisters cared for infants and orphans; the Good Shepherd Sisters looked after young girls, arranging their daily routines and singing; the Holy Infant Jesus Sisters managed convent affairs and cared for children; while the De La Salle Brothers, the Brothers of St Gabriel, and the staff of St Patrick's School took part in education, manual labour, kitchen duties, and community administration.^[12][11]

In 1944, The Syonan Shimbun claimed that Bahau was "practically malaria-free"; the records of religious orders and personal memoirs, however, preserve an entirely different reality.^[1]

The rainy seasons, stagnant water, and mosquito swarms created ideal conditions for the transmission of malaria; malnutrition and medical shortages further impeded recovery, making malaria one of the most devastating afflictions in Fuji-Go. Brother Brophy recorded that some brothers suffered more than forty recurrent bouts of fever, while others experienced attacks weekly or fortnightly. Brother O'Donovan recalled that even inside mosquito nets at night, the humming of mosquito swarms outside remained audible. Records from the Brothers of St Gabriel noted that at times all members fell ill simultaneously, leaving no one to care for others or prepare food.^[12]

Quinine was not entirely absent. Some families had brought supplies from Singapore, and the authorities subsequently distributed rations, though the quantities remained inadequate. The annals of the Good Shepherd Sisters recorded that even when quinine was taken, relief was not guaranteed. Severe cases were transferred to Seremban, the Syonan Central Hospital, or the Kuala Pilah State Hospital. Minor wounds, if left untreated, could deteriorate into gangrene, while malnutrition further compromised settlers' physical resistance.

As disease spread, both Dr Paglar and Shinozaki visited Bahau on multiple occasions, bringing medicines and food supplies. The Syonan Shimbun reported that Dr Paglar provided free medical supplies and monetary assistance; although these reports carried propagandistic overtones, their accounts of visits and transport of supplies are corroborated by the Singapore Infopedia. What existing sources securely confirm is that Dr Paglar conducted medical rounds, delivered pharmaceuticals, and rendered assistance in Fuji-Go.^[11][1]

Young settlers formed sanitary squads to spray oil onto stagnant pools in an effort to control the mosquito vectors. The epidemic eventually subsided to some extent, yet during its peak, large numbers fell ill and died. Shinozaki recalled that conditions in the Eurasian quarter were more severe than in the Chinese quarter, with deaths occurring almost every other day during the worst period. Religious archives record that two young brothers, Christian Lane and Kieran Brennan, both succumbed to malaria in 1944.^[12]

The total number of deaths at Fuji-Go remains unverified to this day. Fiona Hodgkins estimates the death toll at approximately 500; the Singapore Infopedia and certain Chinese-language sources cite a maximum figure of around 1,500; local oral accounts contain estimates of roughly 1,000, or claim that only half the population survived until the surrender; while early reports mentioned only some fifty Eurasian deaths.^[13][11][17] In the absence of complete population registers, death registrations, hospital records, and repatriation rolls, no single figure can be taken as definitive.

Though the numbers remain disputed, numerous sources concurrently document the high fevers, mosquito nets, overcrowded hospital wards, shortages of medicine, anti-malarial squads, and the mounting toll of death.

From the beginning of its construction in late 1943 to the Japanese surrender in 1945, Fuji-Go witnessed only one full Christmas—that of 1944.

Memoirs from the family of Herman de Souza Jr record the food and festive details of that evening. The brothers lit two bonfires in an open clearing. One family brought a tree from the forest, decorating it with red chillies, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, tapioca, bananas, coloured beans, and fresh flowers. Midnight Mass was celebrated by Bishop Devals, assisted by Father Philippe Meissonnier and Father Koh.^[12]

Family recollections note that in his sermon, the Bishop spoke of the illness and material privation endured by the community, while expressing gratitude for the assistance the settlement had received, referring to Mamoru Shinozaki as "an angel from heaven".

After Mass concluded, the bonfires were stoked. The midnight feast included soup made by boiling one kati (approximately 0.6 kg) of beef bones, vegetables harvested from the plots, tapioca fried in palm oil, onions, and leeks; of two chickens, one was slaughtered for soup; in addition, there was tapioca cake and coffee.^[12]

This menu, preserved in one family's recollection of a specific feast day, illustrates how settlers pooled their limited provisions to celebrate a religious festival.

Parish records preserve another set of figures: between 1944 and 1945, Fuji-Go witnessed twenty-four baptisms, four weddings, sixty confirmations, and 1,200 confessions; in November 1944, four seminarians were ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Devals in Seremban. While these figures do not constitute a census, they demonstrate that parish life persisted in the midst of migration, sickness, and death.^[12]

On 17 January 1945, Bishop Devals died.

On 17 January 1945, Bishop Devals passed away at the Seremban Hospital. Shinozaki's memoirs and official Japanese accounts state that the Bishop cut his foot with a hoe while farming, which subsequently led to a fatal tetanus infection. Catholic archives and Fiona Hodgkins's research mention a severe abrasion, while other sources speculate that it may have been caused by an insect, centipede, scorpion, or spider bite. Further records indicate that Devals suffered from diabetes, and that the wound ultimately turned gangrenous.^[12]

Recollections by the brothers describe the progression of his illness: the ulcer on his foot was initially treated inadequately, and the Bishop continued to labour and attend to the settlers; as his condition deteriorated, he was transferred to the Seremban Hospital, where his foot was initially amputated at the ankle. In the absence of antibiotics, the gangrene continued to spread, compelling surgeons to amputate the entire leg. He died shortly after the operation.^[12]

Arranging for Bishop Devals's remains to be transported back to Singapore required delicate negotiations. The annals of the Good Shepherd Sisters record that Shinozaki obtained the necessary authorization and travelled to Seremban alongside the Vicar General and the Reverend Father Bonamy to recover the body. Following the arrival of the remains in Singapore, hundreds of Catholics paid their respects late into the night; on 19 January, a Requiem Mass was celebrated at the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, attended by senior Japanese officials.^[12]

Shinozaki later wrote that he kissed a corner of the Bishop's casket to pay homage to this "noble and fearless" prelate. This was Shinozaki's personal tribute.^[20]

Following the Bishop's death, as the war drew toward its close, The Syonan Shimbun continued to publish articles on funding, rations, harvests, and expansion plans for Fuji-Go. In reality, Bishop Devals had pressed Japanese officials for rice, medicine, timber, and quinine; yet in the pages of the press, these hardships were rarely mentioned.

In January 1945, the newspaper claimed that the Bahau Fund had raised $370,666.^[6] In February, it announced a plan to resettle an additional 1,000 households (approximately 5,000 people), promising $300 per family alongside a lump-sum distribution of six months' worth of rice rations.^[7] In June, an additional allocation of rice rations was described as "manna from heaven";^[8] by July, Fuji-Go was still being portrayed as a "safe haven" for Catholic evacuees, with ongoing mobilization to encourage more families to move.^[9]

In August 1945, Japan announced its surrender. Certain residents recalled that members of the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) or communist guerrillas entered the area and attempted to assume administrative control; existing records do not document any large-scale attacks taking place during this period.

The annals of the Good Shepherd Sisters record that on 2 September 1945, two British parachutists appeared before the convent doors. Having learned from local Chinese that the settlement was still inhabited, they had trekked through the jungle for seventeen days and nights before finally delivering news of the war's end. This journey is recorded solely in the sisters' annals, which do not explicitly identify the two men as members of Force 136. Other historical sources and the research of Fiona Hodgkins record the initial contact or formal liberation of Fuji-Go by Force 136 as taking place on 3 September.^[12][15] These two dates may correspond respectively to the arrival of advance personnel and the formal takeover, or may stem from differing recollections.

The annals further note that several days later, approximately fifty parachutes dropped into the convent grounds, accompanying the arrival of six medical doctors. They brought food and essential provisions, and one doctor remained behind to conduct daily medical rounds. The original record specifies the number of parachutes, from which it cannot be inferred that fifty parachutists landed.^[12]

According to materials compiled by Fiona Hodgkins, most residents were subsequently repatriated in batches to Singapore by Force 136 over a period of approximately six weeks, with the final group departing in mid-October 1945.^[13][15]

Brother O'Donovan recalled that as the train neared Singapore, the settlers once again saw the city lights. When they had departed, Singapore was under blackout; upon their return, the city lights shone once more against the night sky. Following the train's arrival, the party returned to the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd—the very site where some settlers had assembled prior to departure.^[12]

From the Cathedral to Bahau, and from Bahau back to the Cathedral, the route formed a closed loop upon the map.

Upon returning to Singapore, the Good Shepherd Sisters were temporarily accommodated in an uninhabitable Chinese bungalow. Having searched unsuccessfully for alternative lodgings, they eventually stayed to clean the house. British troops and army chaplains assisted in cleaning, the Little Sisters of the Poor provided mattresses and cooking utensils, and a furniture dealer supplied tables and chairs, enabling the girls from Bahau to be rehoused.^[12]

Returning to Singapore did not mean that life instantly resumed as normal. Some returned bearing memories of illness, hunger, and the loss of relatives; some refused ever to speak of Bahau again, while others kept the experience within the family until the next generation began to ask questions.

The dwellings of Fuji-Go collapsed, roads were altered, and the land was put to new uses. The vast majority of survivors returned to the city; registers of the deceased and burial records remain incomplete, and it cannot be ascertained whether all who died were interred within the settlement grounds.^[13]

Following the end of the war, the name of the land underwent successive changes.

The Japanese name Fuji-Go was rendered in Chinese characters as 富士乡 (Fuji-Go), and also known as 不二乡 (Buerxiang), which was glossed as "peerless, supreme in goodness and beauty". After the war, the Chinese village head, Lee Rong, abandoned the old designation of Buerxiang and renamed the settlement Mahsan (马身, literally "horse's body"). The pairing of "Bahau" (马口, literally "horse's mouth") and "Mahsan" formed an echo between head and body, becoming a well-known local geographical anecdote.^[15]

According to Loo Cheang Liang, an elderly resident of Mahsan, when he relocated with his family from Sungai Lui to Mahsan in 1949 at around the age of fourteen, he saw an old wooden board inscribed with "Fuji-Go" or "不二乡" nailed to a large tree. Later, when building his house on Mahsan Second Street, his workers excavated old bricks from underground. His son also found a headstone with faint English lettering roughly two kilometres away. Mr Loo passed away in 2013.^[16]

The three-acre burial ground filled with mounds and wooden crosses seen by Leow Hong Tan in the early 1970s constitutes another significant local testimony.^[17]

In the post-war decades, Mahsan gradually evolved into an ordinary Chinese New Village. Yet in the oral accounts of the older generation of villagers, many unique fragments of history remain preserved.

Chen Tian Teck, an elderly villager (aged 73 at the time of the interview), recalled that nailed to the fork of a large tree roughly 700 to 800 metres from the bridge, near a Chinese primary school, was a wooden signboard bearing the inscription "Fuji-Go". It remained there when the British returned to Malaya after the war, hanging generation after generation until it decayed with age and fell naturally.

Cheah Tian Song, now eighty years old, stated that during the 1950s he dug up a drum of kerosene near the former Buerxiang—material allegedly buried by the Japanese military for the construction of an airfield—which he sold for cash. Today, regarding the unusually straight main road at the entrance to Mahsan New Village, many speculate that it was originally surveyed as a route for an airstrip. The Japanese military had reportedly planned to build a military airfield on this ground, but abandoned the project and converted it into a settlement, allegedly due to the fear of malaria and the worsening war situation. These rumours and conjectures currently lack definitive documentary and archival corroboration.

Over the decades, this land has been repeatedly replanted. Tapioca gave way to pines, rubber, and oil palms, and the wooden signs, longhouse remains, and wooden crosses on the surface have become increasingly difficult to identify. Today, oral history alone is insufficient to determine the precise boundaries of the burial ground; it requires cadastral maps, burial registers, non-destructive surveys, and precise spatial coordinates mapped to oral accounts.

Though physical relics have gradually disappeared from the surface, affected families and local residents continue to trace the connections between these sites.

On 8 November 2008, Steve Chong (Zhang Yiquan), a photography enthusiast who had spent his childhood in Mahsan, received an email from an Eurasian organisation in Singapore seeking help to trace ancestral roots. Three weeks later, on 29 November, he assisted a group of visitors to Mahsan.^[16]

Chong's later notes indicate that the visiting party included Dr Barry Pereira, Geoff Morris, Paul Rodrigues, Therese Thompson, and Fiona Hodgkins.^[16] Chong contacted local journalist Chia Chook Nam and media worker Tham Siew Loi to assist with photography and documentation.^[15][16] The visitors toured the former sites and explored the suspected cemetery area—now an oil palm plantation—identified by local oral accounts; Loo Cheang Liang recounted to them his recollections of the old village signboard, old bricks, the headstone, and life in the early village.^[16]

This visit reunited local villagers' spatial memories of the old site with the wartime memories preserved across generations by Singaporean families.

Prompted by her mother's family history, Fiona Hodgkins began researching Fuji-Go in 2008. In 2014, she published a monograph on the subject;^[13] in 2016, she published "A Utopia That Went Awry" in BiblioAsia.^[14] These studies brought the nearly forgotten history of Fuji-Go back into public view: it was not a prisoner-of-war camp, but an agricultural resettlement scheme initiated amid military occupation, food shortages, and security threats, which ultimately failed to achieve its intended goal of self-sufficiency.

On 5 August 2026, Geoff Morris, Paul Rodrigues, Therese Thompson, Percy Shepherdson, and Nanette Morris visited Bahau and Mahsan. Steve Chong once again coordinated communications and hospitality, with Tham Siew Loi assisting in local documentation; journalist Chia Chook Nam, who had long compiled the history of Bahau and Mahsan, passed away in September 2024 and could not participate in this revisit.

Three days after this group's visit, on 8 August 2026, Ms Aoi Sugahara, the grandniece of Mamoru Shinozaki—the Japanese welfare officer who had actively facilitated the Bahau settlement—also made a dedicated trip to Bahau for field research.^[19] These successive visits and investigations demonstrate that this long-dormant chapter of history continues to engage the hearts of researchers and descendants across national borders.

The returning Eurasian visitors hope to erect a memorial, historical marker, or interpretive plaque on a verified site in the future to record their forebears' journey of migration and settlement. The specific location and follow-up arrangements remain to be determined.

The wooden crosses seen by Leow Hong Tan in the 1970s can no longer be identified today. In the absence of burial registers, spatial coordinates, and archaeological investigations, one cannot assert that every human remain mentioned in local oral accounts belonged to a settler of Fuji-Go.

This historical experience remains preserved in archives, family memories, and local oral traditions.

Available evidence indicates that Japanese forces advanced south from the northern Malayan Peninsula, after which Singapore fell and entered the occupation era; subsequently, the Sook Ching, Kempeitai surveillance, food shortages, and the so-called "self-sufficiency" scheme step by step impelled a segment of the population toward Bahau.

Many families were allocated approximately three acres of land; settlers experimented with mixed grains to produce the dense bread known as "Bahau Cement"; children from the orphanage gathered snails across some six acres of land; and certain families communicated their true condition through secret codes such as ink, pencil, and the "prisoners' love song".

The annals of religious orders, family recollections, and personal memoirs also record pianos, singing, dances, and Christmas of 1944. On that evening, using crops from their plots, one kati of beef bones, a single chicken, tapioca cake, and coffee, they pieced together a Christmas feast.

Fuji-Go was neither the agricultural utopia portrayed in occupation newspapers nor simply a prisoner-of-war camp or concentration camp. It was an agricultural resettlement project executed against a backdrop of food crisis and population control; amid constrained choices, travel restrictions, disease, and material deprivation, the settlers continued to cultivate the land, maintain their religious observances, and care for one another, sustaining daily life through deep hardship.

Today in Bahau and Mahsan, many of the old sites have long been blanketed by oil palm plantations, the land has undergone multiple redevelopments, surface traces have grown increasingly scarce, and eyewitnesses are passing away. In discussing Buerxiang today, what matters is not contriving neat answers for every contradiction, but preserving the verifiable names, dates, and details, while faithfully recording where historical sources diverge.

When future generations pass by Bahau and hear the name Buerxiang, they will still know: here once stood a settlement of thousands. Here, people built homes, dug wells, cultivated crops, fell ill, sang, and held religious services, and here, when the war ended, they departed in successive contingents. Though the crosses near the tapioca plantation can no longer be identified, the memory of them remains preserved in family narratives and local records.