Events

This talk is organized by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, in collaboration with the National Heritage Board (NHB). This event is funded by a Heritage Research Grant from the NHB.

CHAIRPERSON

Assoc Prof Beng Choo Lim, Department of Japanese Studies, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

“Mapping Middle Road” is a social history project which attempts to reconstruct the prewar Japanese community in Singapore, through the locus of what was once known as Singapore’s “Little Japan” and its surrounding area around Middle Road. Apart from the wartime occupation, the history of the Japanese community in Singapore has remained relatively unknown for decades. This presents an apparent gap in Singapore’s historical landscape, as the prewar Japanese community played a prominent role in this cosmopolitan port city. Over the past two years, our research team has investigated this community, which straddled the boundary between colonizer and colonized, between rich and poor, and between Asians and non-Asians in prewar Singapore. In this talk, we will discuss our findings, as well as our method of digital database mining that has enabled the involvement of a substantial number of non-Japanese speaking undergraduate students in our work. We will introduce different stories that we have found within this diverse community and the impact that they had on colonial Singapore, while describing their sometimes-fraught relationship with both the British authorities and other Asian communities. Finally, we will share different resources in multiple languages that anyone can use to deepen their understanding of this community in particular and prewar Singapore more broadly.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Naoko Shimazu taught at the Yale-NUS College and was Research Cluster Leader at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore until July 2023. She is now at the University of Tokyo. She has written widely on modern Japanese history, including Postcard Impressions of Early 20th Century Singapore: Perspectives from the Japanese Community, which was co-authored with Regina Hong and Ling Xi Min (Marshall Cavendish, 2020) and commissioned by the National Library Board.

Chee Keng Lee is Senior Lecturer at the NUS College, where he designs and leads the GEx Tokyo (Global Experience Tokyo) course, a four-week experiential learning journey in Tokyo and Nagoya.

Clay Eaton is Lecturer in the Department of Japanese Studies at National University of Singapore. He specializes on the Japanese occupation of Singapore, and his broader research interests include global imperialism and historical connections between Northeast and Southeast Asia.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed. However, we welcome walk-ins to join us if there are available seats.