Introduction
During World War II in Asia, in barely four years between 1937 and 1941, Japanese forces swept through China. The flags of the Rising Sun rose one by one in many Chinese cities: Shanghai (November 1937), Xiamen (May 1938), Canton (October 1938) and Hong Kong (December 1941) to name only a few. Terrified by the Japanese military's policy of ‘terrorizing into submission’ that resulted in the Nanjing massacre in 1937, many Chinese civilians fled to territories lying outside Japanese occupation. In between 1937 and 1945, the estimated number of wartime refugees and homeless people rose to over 95 million.Footnote 1 One territory which was spared Japanese invasion was the Portuguese colony of Macao, located 60 kilometres east of Hong Kong. Aligned with the Portuguese policy of neutrality during World War II, Macao became the only neutral territory in the East Asian region. In Lisbon in 1940, only 43,540 people from France were granted the indiscriminate criterion of admission; in the same year, Macao, which was one tenth of the size of Lisbon, absorbed at least 200,000 Chinese who hurried to enter the territory.Footnote 2
Wartime urban history, especially that of World War II, is often overshadowed by memory and literature on battles and massacres. Details of these events stand alongside stories of everyday tragedy. Wartime Chinese cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong are shrouded in narratives of indiscriminate terrorism, assassination, Japanese humiliation of the local population and prisoners of war, the lack of food and the increasing number of petty crimes.Footnote 3 We know, for example, that the Shanghai authorities were overwhelmed by the task of disposing of thousands of corpses which crowded the streets in 1937. At one point, the Shanghai Municipal Police proposed dumping them into the sea as a solution.Footnote 4 Although Macao remained neutral, its tragic narratives were by no means different – it was isolated and overloaded with impoverished refugees who were suffering from hunger and malnutrition. These narratives are not necessarily wrong, but they fail to capture the complexity of the wartime urban experience. This article revisits World War II Macao by contextualizing previously neglected source materials. It sheds light on the experience of urban residents, which was less dramatic than the more familiar but rare massacres and episodes of cannibalism, but pivotal to the understanding of human behaviour which defines mundane daily life: survival in times of rice scarcity.
In this study, the fall of Hong Kong marks the ‘closing’ of the gates around Macao (1941–45), when the territory was surrounded by the Japanese military and Wang Jingwei's pro-Japanese Chinese puppet government. The challenge of food security became especially acute in Macao's urban setting, where survival was completely dependent on food imports from mainland China and Southeast Asia. As a consequence of the unpredictable population surge in wartime, rice, as the staple food, became more important than ever for maintaining social order. Thus, by studying the everyday experience of the Macao residents as they dealt with rice shortage, we emphasize the complex and dynamic nature of wartime urban history.
First, the daily lives of the Macao residents were complex, and not simply narratives of hunger and starvation. As we shall demonstrate here, many residents enjoyed a relatively decent life thanks to their own resourcefulness. Their experience differed from that of most Chinese refugees from the mainland or Hong Kong, as they knew that they were entitled to the government's welfare support. In addition, there were various causes of rice shortages. Although the Japanese and Chinese puppet governments and local rice merchants were predominantly blamed for creating that shortage, in fact, the local residents exacerbated the problem. Second, Macao's changing political and economic circumstances reveal much about the ongoing dynamics of local experience. While newspaper reports claimed that daily survival was a challenge for ordinary Macao residents, they did not suffer from rice shortages throughout this volatile period. The local experience in other wartime cities, towns and villages under Japanese occupation was arguably just as dynamic. For instance, with regard to the urbanization process in Wuxi County in Jiangsu under Japanese occupation, Toby Lincoln has argued that after the arrival of the Wang Jingwei government, the beginning of the anti-communist campaigns in 1941 resulted in ‘the urbanization of the countryside include[ing] the increased ability of the state to project its discourses onto physical spaces through road building and other infrastructure development. . .[and thus] caused the center of the county to shift from Wuxi [city] to Anzhen’.Footnote 5 In other words, the establishment of a puppet government and the militarized atmosphere had given Anzhen an unprecedented opportunity to urbanize – a key criterion of modernization.Footnote 6 Lincoln's work serves as a reminder that if a city in World War II is portrayed in the singular narrative of tragedy, one is prone to making biased generalizations based on extreme or uncommon cases.
This article draws on information from local Chinese newspaper sources such as Jornal Wah Kiu Po (WKP), See Nan Jeh Pao (SNJP) and Tai Chung Po (TCP). Partly serving as government media, they notified Macao's Chinese residents of new government regulations. At the same time, they kept track of everyday food supply and prices on the markets. The Macao government did periodically censor questionable content which was politically provocative. Even so, columns in both the pro-Allies (WKP and TCP) and the pro-Axis (SNJP) newspapers are significant because they offered diverse opinions on rice scarcity in the form of reports and discussions of hoarding by the local rice merchants. Other contemporary references include the Macao government's correspondence and official bulletins. British intelligence reports, the Chinese Nationalist Party correspondence and the Japanese consulate's correspondence also provide useful accounts of the local and foreign governments’ perspectives on wartime Macao. Nevertheless, in wartime Macao, the Chinese newspapers were the most widely read and ‘closest’ to Chinese residents. These newspapers in turn provide detailed stories of rice procurement and help explain the residents’ behaviours as seen from the perspective of Chinese civil society.
The residents of Macao
Macao included a peninsula of 5.2 km2 and two islands, Taipa, of 2.4 km2 and Coloane, of 6.3 km2. The government's 1937 census shows that, including residents living on land and at sea, Macao had a population of 245,194.Footnote 7 These residents were largely ethnic Chinese, and the ‘Macanese’ community of 4,600 of Portuguese, African, Indian and Malay descent, and 700 other foreigners. The fall of Canton and other regions in south China triggered an influx of refugees which doubled the city's population.Footnote 8 Facing the threat of war and insecure food supply, ‘the most vulnerable strata of Macau society were from the ranks of the Chinese refugee population and the colony's indigent working class’.Footnote 9 As Geoffrey Gunn put it, these ‘ordinary people were caught in a pincer between rising prices and lack of a livelihood’.Footnote 10 He also noted a secret telegram that was sent by Governor Gabriel Mauricio Teixeira to Lisbon stating that there were three cases of cannibalism.Footnote 11 Richard Garrett also provided a glimpse into a series of notable tragedies. Writing about Macao after the fall of Hong Kong in December 1941, Garrett noted that Macao not only ‘suffered from a shortage of food’, but also ‘a much-increased death rate’. A cold spell in 1942 killed 10,000 people, and a story about local soldiers who were amusing themselves by ‘playing fantan using the bodies [of the dead] as the counters’ helped explain the phenomenal rise in the death rate of more than 16,000 people in 1941 from the ‘pre-war rate of about 4,000’.Footnote 12 Milania Cannon's interview with the wartime manager of the Banco Nacional Ultramarino, Carlos Eugenio de Vasconcelos, revealed that ‘our suffering, our war was constant restlessness, misery in the middle classes, a physical and moral impoverishment that continued over a longer time turning us into walking ghosts. These four years count as ten.’Footnote 13
These narratives replicate propaganda by the Nationalist Party of the Republic of China (1912–49). They portrayed the overall livelihood of the inhabitants in wartime Macao as hopeless and unsalvageable, and attributed the situation to the Japanese aggression in China. Claiming that the entire Macao population would perish from starvation, asserting the prevalence of cannibalism and expecting that another storm of rape and violence by Japanese soldiers would soon befall Macao, pro-Nationalist Chinese writers defined Macao as ‘an orphan within the evil clutches of the Japanese’.Footnote 14 Furthermore, arguing that the Portuguese would not protect the Chinese nationals in Macao, the City of Sin, the Chinese Nationalist Party called for the return of the Chinese people to their ‘fatherland’, ‘the only place of their belonging’.Footnote 15
However, these negative impressions form only one side of the story. While one interpretation of the history of World War II Macao is dominated by suffering, another view stresses prosperity. At a time when the local society was less sensitive to propaganda against Japanese aggression before the handover of Macao to the People's Republic of China in 1999, a school textbook described how civil life was largely undisturbed in the territory.Footnote 16 Advertisements in wartime newspapers corroborate this description. There were many movies, mahjong and Chinese theatrical shows to attend.Footnote 17 In 1941, a commentator noted that peace in Macao had brought new industries and businesses into the territory. He even predicted that if the situation continued, Macao's economy would no longer have to rely on gambling and other ‘vices’.Footnote 18 This analysis was not incorrect. Macao's neutral status not only attracted rich merchants from Hong Kong and Canton, but it also led to a significant increase in the trading of goods and currencies (and even munitions and secret information).Footnote 19 Among these individuals was the influential Hong Kong businessman and philanthropist, Robert Ho Tung Bosman, and a prominent member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, Chau Tsun-nin, who sought shelter in Macao.Footnote 20 This phenomenon is not surprising. In World War II China, refugees’ backgrounds were often strikingly diverse, in contrast to those of the poorest segment of the Chinese population. In Wuhan in 1938, for instance, cultural and educational workers made up 55 per cent of the refugee population, while peasants made up only 2 per cent. In Chongqing, 50 per cent of the 1.2 million refugees engaged in small businesses.Footnote 21 Just as Wuhan benefited from over 170 Shanghai-based factories that resumed business there in 1938, Macao received a merchant-refugee population who helped develop local industries like bookstores and printing houses, pharmacies, the old clothes trade, to name only a few.Footnote 22 This phenomenon produced a great demand for goods and services on the local market, which also contributed to the prosperity of numerous local industries, such as hotels, teahouses and restaurants. A careful perusal of the local newspapers during the war suggests that Macao's economy was thriving.
These two perceptions – difficult lives for many contrasted with general economic prosperity – seem paradoxical. A revised understanding of Macao's demographic structure and a close tracking of the economic variations over time, however, helps reconcile the differences between these two frameworks. The core of this paradoxical phenomenon rests in the difference in the quality of life enjoyed by the local Macao residents and by refugees from mainland China and Hong Kong. This difference constitutes one of the major historical complexities of wartime Macao. If we disregard this complexity and view the refugees and Macao residents as a single demographic entity, this paradox would remain unresolved.
Many refugees escaped to Macao empty-handed and had to depend on Macao for food and shelter. The first group of such refugees was non-Chinese. As early as January 1942, almost 9,000 refugees of Portuguese ancestry left for Macao from Hong Kong. British subjects and Eurasians continued to pour into Macao in hundreds and thousands, a movement which was precipitated by ‘the Japanese policy of depopulating Hong Kong’.Footnote 23 The second group, much larger in number, was of Chinese ancestry. In 1938, the ‘Refugees and Food Management Association’, co-organized by the Macao government and merchant associations in Macao and Guangdong, built a two-storey building on a 900 m2 piece of land which accommodated 2,000 people. Expenses required for this construction were donated by the general public, the majority of whom were Chinese, and the Macao and the Chinese Nationalist governments.Footnote 24 During this time, when the number of refugees was still manageable, the Association was able to shelter them and create jobs for them. They also suggested that pieces of barren land near the refugee camps be opened for cultivation by the refugees.Footnote 25 However, when a massive influx of refugees then ensued and most of the Nationalist organizations retreated inland, the crucial task of supporting these refugees was left in the hands of the Macao government and the local charity organizations.Footnote 26 In January 1942, the Macao government set up the Green Island shelter (in north-western Macao) and supplied free rice soup, or congee, to the homeless.Footnote 27 These homeless refugees, approximately 200,000 or even more, suffered the most. Their lives were definitively different from those of the Macao residents. The three cases of cannibalism that Geoffrey Gunn mentioned all occurred inside a refugee camp.Footnote 28
The lives of the 245,000 local residents were different in a number of ways. First, refugees were forced to come to Macao as a result of the war, but local residents had settled down before the war and owned a living space. Second, they either had a job or were financially supported by family members. More importantly, new businesses that were brought in by the merchant-refugees had provided jobs for them. Third, Macao residents were entitled to purchase government-subsidized rice. The official regulations required them to register with a local home address, together with family members and family photos, to qualify as local citizens. Alternatively, those affiliated with a factory or a school were also eligible to buy subsidized rice. As we shall see in the following section, these privileges helped Macao residents to maintain their relative well-being even in times of rice shortages.
Rice supply for the Macao residents
The claim that civil life was undisturbed is an exaggeration. In Macao, as in many other cities during the war, basic necessities, including rice, became scarce and food prices usually multiplied several-fold. In rural southern China, growing enough rice to feed the population had been a problem since the 1700s.Footnote 29 Cities faced additional problems. As one scholar has noted, ‘food is not an urban product’.Footnote 30 It was not unusual for the Chinese government to secure ‘the. . .unpredictable rice supplies’ to reduce hunger and satisfy its people's palates.Footnote 31 Otherwise, as the pre-war Japanese government's inability to provide affordable rice demonstrated, popular riots, like ‘the nation-wide Rice Riots of 1918’, could destabilize the social order.Footnote 32 The famine in Henan province in 1942 also undermined the legitimacy of the Nationalist government, which eventually led to the pro-Japanese uprisings that helped the Japanese forces to annex the province in 1944.Footnote 33 Hence, the Macao government strove to provide adequate amounts of foodstuff for its local population. For Macao residents, food not only had to be transported from the countryside, but also imported from outside the territory, including mainland China and Indo-China. Unlike the other food sources, such as beans and sweet potatoes, which were commonly consumed as cheap replacements, rice was highly prized in the Cantonese diet. Rice shortages could cause panic in the Chinese-dominated Macao society. In this context, many believed that the territory faced the risk of being barred from rice altogether, in particular while under the control of the Japanese and Chinese puppet governments. The following analysis explains the complexity and dynamics of wartime rice shortages: first, rice shortages cannot be explained by the role of the Japanese military, Chinese puppet government and Chinese rice merchants alone; second, Macao residents did not suffer from the shortage invariably throughout this period.
In January 1942, one month after Hong Kong had fallen, rice import became unpredictable and scarcer. People were at the edge of starvation and the entire city was in an anxious state. On 25 January 1942, the Macao government realized the urgency of subsidizing rice for the public. They bought rice from the neighbouring Zhongshan county at 80 patacas for each picul (approximately 60.5 kilograms) and sold it to the ‘impoverished residents’ of Macao at 60 patacas per picul; to non-resident students at 80; and organizations at 100.Footnote 34 Residents who wished to buy the rationed rice were registered with the government which then issued ration tickets on a family or organizational basis.Footnote 35 Each holder of a ration ticket was thus eligible to buy designated amounts of rice from the government rice stations. A total of 45,000 ration tickets were issued.Footnote 36 We can reasonably assume that each household consisted of five people on average, and organizations had more. Thus, nearly the entire Macao resident population (230,000 out of 245,000) were covered by the rice subsidized ration system.Footnote 37 Whenever rice entered the territory, the government opened their rice supply stations. These rice stations, the Yueh Wah college rice station and the Mong-Há rice station, were co-ordinated by volunteers headed by Rev. Vincent Bernardini from the Salesians of Don Bosco, one of the active Roman Catholic societies based in Macao.Footnote 38
The anxious times for Macao appeared in February 1942. Restless Macao residents followed the daily news reports on the amount of rice being imported. In February, the total amount of rice imported was estimated to be 22,000 catties.Footnote 39 This amount was insufficient for the proper nourishment of the entire population, but this shortage was far from calamitous.Footnote 40 The rationing of subsidized rice could at least ensure that people would have 3 taels (1.5 bowls) of rice every day. The supply of rice in March was similar, as a total of 24,500 catties of rice arrived.Footnote 41
By April 1942, the rice shortage was similarly severe. On 1 April, the government announced the temporary closure of the rice stations due to a shortage of rice, but also reassured the people that 28,000 piculs of rice would arrive in a week.Footnote 42 The next day, the governor visited Yuet Wah, the nearly empty rice station, and found a few thousand people queuing for rice.Footnote 43 Four days later, WKP again announced that a Macao registered ship had arrived in Saigon and would be carrying 20,000 piculs of rice back to Macao.Footnote 44 However, these announcements were false. No rice arrived. When the rice supply finally entered Macao a week later, and rice stations reopened, the government had to reduce the portion of rice sold to each person in the hope of delivering rice to as many people as possible.Footnote 45 On 18 April, the Mong-Há rice station once again announced a temporary closure.Footnote 46 Although the British intelligence reports claimed that ‘[t]he market was without rice for three days’, rice scarcity persisted for more than three days.Footnote 47 Shops which normally provided meals to their workers had to cease this practice.Footnote 48 April 1942 was probably the worst month in wartime Macao. As social resentment reached the ears of the Macao government, it anticipated a large-scale rice riot. Fortunately, the riot did not occur. The governor publicly expressed his gratitude for the people's patience.Footnote 49 Such an acknowledgement did not mean that this government in particular was too fearful of any impending social unrest. Rice riots were especially likely to occur in the unpredictable wartime period. As in Macao, in Wuxi in 1940, when rice became scarce and merchants hoarded rice supplies, the local authorities limited the amount of rice an individual could purchase to between 1 sheng and 1 dou. The consequence was a three-day spontaneous riot and robberies which spread throughout the city.Footnote 50
Back in Macao, the next major arrival of rice came on 22 and 23 April totalling 11,000 piculs.Footnote 51 Irregular supplies of scarce rice convinced the government that it should keep residents from buying in bulk.Footnote 52 This time each person was allowed to buy 2 catties of rice.Footnote 53 On 30 April and 1 May, a line of 20,000 people each day could be seen at Mong-Há.Footnote 54 It was late spring and early summer, so queuing for rice in the humid subtropical climate was by no means pleasant. The lives of the workers at the rice stations were just as difficult. Their work began at five in the morning and ended at ten in the evening. Queueing for rice was difficult and wearing enough, but for the local residents nothing was worse than a sudden announcement of the temporary closure of rice stations, which occurred again on 6 May,Footnote 55 or a further cut in the rations.Footnote 56 Worse yet, false hopes grew on the frequently renewed rumours that an abundant supply of rice would arrive soon. It was not until 18 May that 15,000 piculs of rice finally arrived.Footnote 57
By June, the Macao government had subsidized 3.22 million patacas of food purchase, (mostly rice) since the outbreak of the war.Footnote 58 Rice stations continued to operate and rice was rationed at 1 and 2 catties per person every week at the price of 60 avos and 1.2 patacas, respectively. Now residents complained that they were asked to buy a week's portion every time, which they found too heavy to carry. Allowing residents to buy greater portions suggests that Macao was less worried about insufficient supply at this point.Footnote 59 The rice supply continued to come at irregular intervals, but the promising spring harvest in Guangdong at least assuaged the Macao residents’ anxiety about a rice shortage during most of June. By late June, the most serious rice shortage during the war now came to an end.
Interestingly, however, a food panic occurred in July when there were rumours that certain unspecified locations in mainland China were planning to ban any exporting of food to Macao.Footnote 60 Most of the rice substitutes, such as dried sweet potatoes, were completely sold out. Soon, Macao residents began to suspect that the rice merchants were spreading rumours. These incidents led the locals to distrust the integrity of rice merchants, as they believed they were taking advantage of the food shortage in Macao to profiteer. In response to a series of price surges in food in July, especially that of rice in the market, a newspaper reporter named Liu went straight to the point, asking Kou Ho Neng, the chairman of the Merchants’ Association (Associação Comercial de Macau), whether merchants had been manipulating the food prices: ‘it is rumoured that Macao's finance and food supply is manipulated by a portion of gentry-merchants, and they collaborate with some government officials and share the profits. May I know if this rumour is true?’ Kou laughed and then answered: ‘I have also heard about it, but I don't know whether it is true. If true, then the government will deal with it.’Footnote 61
In another show of the popular distrust of rice merchants, a commentator claimed that merchants in Macao became rich by either hoarding or making up rumours so as to profit from selling food at a higher price, obviously referring to the event that occurred in July 1942.Footnote 62 Revealing an insider's information about those ‘evil’ rice merchants, a reporter confessed that, ‘when you see a hoarder's (merchant) fat belly, you hate him. . .but when you are a reporter, you have to be polite and earnest in greeting him. As if wearing a mask, you try to ask him about hoarding methods. . .you clearly understand the things they do are wrong.’Footnote 63
Back in January 1941, the government came to an agreement with the local rice merchants whereby prices were restricted to between 11.5 and 15 patacas per picul and a ceiling margin of 20 per cent profit from sales. A fine of 10 times the sales value was imposed on rice merchants who were selling rice above the margin.Footnote 64 These merchants, as represented by Kou Ho Neng, agreed to the price ceiling upon borrowing 250,000 patacas from the government. However, actual surveillance was difficult, and some merchants cheated the system. Another meeting was held in May 1941. Kou Ho Neng, together with 67 representatives of the rice merchants, agreed to enforce a harsher punishment for those who sold rice above the price ceiling by forfeiting their business licences.Footnote 65 It was apparent, however, that dishonesty among the rice merchants still prevailed.
By 1945, after a few years of suspicion and hatred toward those profiteering rice merchants who speculated, one columnist chastised Lin Zifeng, a rice merchant and a self-proclaimed representative of the ‘rich people’ in Macao. Lin claimed that rice price fluctuations were in no way related to the actions of the rice merchants; rather, they were related to the weather.Footnote 66 Indignant at Lin's ‘dishonest’ explanation, which the columnist described as ‘an entertaining tale of myth for children’, he rhetorically asked, ‘Would rain destroy the rice reserve [in grain storage]?’
The reporters continued to perceive merchants as hoarders. Merchants’ ‘misdeeds’ became ‘common knowledge’. This attitude of distrust persisted throughout the war.Footnote 67 Some residents eventually grew disgusted with the rich merchants’ practice of advertising their integrity by donating a small sum of their money and becoming ‘great philanthropists’.Footnote 68 During another rice shortage in May 1945, when the government demanded that rice merchants should disclose the amount of rice hoarded, another columnist's words perhaps best sum up the general sentiment of the people regarding ‘evil merchants’: ‘we truly hope rice merchants become conscientious. They who raise the price of rice are exploiting the people. Such behaviour would soon arouse public resentment. People in Macao will never tolerate the ill winds of rice monopoly and hoarding.’Footnote 69
Back in July 1942, while the merchants were spreading rumours about a rice shortage, the Macao government made every effort to ensure there was a sufficient supply of rice. The police chief, together with an SNJP reporter, surveyed the government rice storage, and found that there was enough rice for the Macao residents for another two months.Footnote 70 Furthermore,
various purchases of foodstuff were also made. One major purchase of rice amounting to 147,324 piculs at that time cost more than two million patacas. . .A verbal agreement with the rice monopoly from Hong Kong provided a monthly supply of 20,000 bags of rice for Macao and a stock of 60,000 bags for any eventuality. . .the panic disappeared and the situation normalized.Footnote 71
In addition to rice, the Guangdong provincial government announced the adoption of new regulations on trade between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. These regulations stated that the value of goods imported into Macao should not exceed 330,000 Japanese military yen per month.Footnote 72 The restriction appeared to be a reasonable amount of food provision for Macao residents. The vegetables imported per day amounted to 15,000 piculs, equivalent to 3 catties of vegetables per person (including refugees). There were also ample amounts of chickens, ducks (38,000) and 1,000 piculs of pork. Eggs were in relatively short supply. Still, 200,000 eggs were imported each month.Footnote 73 By mid-September, Macao had imported more than 126,000 piculs of rice.Footnote 74 The government then announced that Macao had accumulated 300,000 piculs of rice which was sufficient to feed the city's population until the following spring. Consequently, the market price of rice decreased to 53 patacas per picul, compared to more than 120 patacas in May of the same year.Footnote 75 As for subsidized rice, residents were now allowed to buy a bulk portion sufficient for two weeks of consumption each time.Footnote 76
There was yet another round of push-hands between the government and the rice merchants, the former intervening to stabilize the rice price and the latter driving up prices by hoarding. The situation was especially challenging for the government in April and May each year. At that time, the previous harvest was almost fully consumed while the quantity of rice that would be available from the next harvest, normally in June, remained unknown. In April 1943, expecting these declining rice reserves and the fact that rice stations were closed for one week in preparation for the new rationing system, the rice merchants began spreading rumours about a rice shortage. The price of rice thus continued to rise. On 23 April, the market price of rice dropped back to 112 patacas per picul.Footnote 77 Although there was no shortage, rice hoarding and speculation persisted, and rumours kept spreading among Macao residents.Footnote 78 The market price of rice rose steadily, which prompted the government to force a price ceiling on the rice shops with the threat of punishment if violated. The government caught one rice shop, Lei Sang Hong, for raising the price of rice against government prohibition.Footnote 79 With the reopening of the rice stations after two weeks’ respite, the price again was reduced, this time by one third.
To prevent another rice panic, the government proceeded to store extra rice just in case it became expensive or scarce, despite local rice merchants’ disapproval.Footnote 80 In addition, it was observed that since late 1943, newspapers including SNJP and WKP refrained from publishing the rice prices. ‘The price of goods in the market was frequently censored’, one commentary from SNJP complained.Footnote 81 One possible reason for the censorship was the government's attempt to stop speculation by concealing the market price of rice. It was impossible to track the price in 1944–45 as consistently as we were able to do for the prices in 1942 and 1943. However, it is clear that, in the wake of the government's resolution to maintain a rice reserve in 1943, no rice panic was observed in 1944.Footnote 82 The official statistics also suggest that Macao's food import prospects were promising. Between September and November 1944, Macao imported 55.7 million Chinese yuan worth of goods from Canton. Food and medicine amounted to 20 per cent of these imports. Most of the other goods were silk, cotton and paper products which were then likely re-exported to elsewhere. It is also noteworthy that Macao exported products worth 49.3 million Chinese yuan to Canton during the same period, thus indicating that trade was extremely active.Footnote 83 A variety of staple foods was available on the market, including black-eye peas, mung beans and rice noodles, which had inevitably become part of the standard diet for the Macao residents during wartime.Footnote 84
This general availability of food was due in part to Fukui Yasumitsu, the Japanese consul in Macao. He proposed that ‘Japan should befriend Portugal’ and ‘employ proactive, friendly measures, such as providing stable supplies of goods’ and ‘display as much generosity as possible’.Footnote 85 Although such a proposal was said to have been made in exchange for allowing Japanese troops to patrol Macao waters (which did not happen), Macao managed to keep its border and trade unblocked.Footnote 86 The Japanese also granted naval protection for a Macao-registered cargo ship, so it could reach French Indochina, presumably for food procurement, and it promised ‘support and protection to help her safely cruise towards the destination’.Footnote 87 Furthermore, the Macao government signed a contract with the pro-Japanese Guangdong authorities for a monthly import of 15,000 piculs of rice.Footnote 88 In this way, the supply and price of rice were relatively stable.
This favourable situation continued until, at around the end of April 1945, a rice panic suddenly swept the Macao population. The price of rice rose by more than 30 patacas per picul in three days, even when the rice supply under government control could still feed the entire resident population for the next three months.Footnote 89 Rice became expensive due to merchants’ hoarding and the spreading of false and misleading rumours about rice supply. There were even three unnamed rice shops which refused to sell rice to the public.Footnote 90 Hence, certain measures were taken to control the market price of rice. In early May 1945, the government commissioned eight rice shops to sell rice on the government's behalf. These shops were ordered to sell 10 catties of rice at 1 pataca.Footnote 91 Yet during the period when the ‘grain was already consumed, and new crops were not yet harvested’, Americans’ indiscriminate aerial bombardment in nearby lands and waters compounded the rice panic more than in 1943.Footnote 92 The bombing was so serious that it severely disrupted the transportation of food into Macao.Footnote 93
These external factors, all of which were beyond the control of the Macao government, resulted in the rise of the price of rice by one third in two weeks. Beans and sweet potatoes, too, became difficult to procure. Even so, ‘it was not a rice shortage but expensive rice’, as the investigation into the rice supply in Macao eventually revealed.Footnote 94 The vice president of the Grain Regulatory Committee asserted that the supply was enough to feed the Macao population for another four months. The government's 5 May report on the rice supply in Macao demonstrates that there were more than 16,700 piculs within the territory, and the government held more than 10,000 piculs.Footnote 95 Hence, the continued operation of the rice stations reasonably guaranteed the survival of Macao residents.Footnote 96 Indeed, rice supply was actually plentiful.Footnote 97
However, hoarding was widespread and the impending price ceiling meant less profit for the merchants. Rice shops were emptied, and the rice carried away elsewhere for illegal hoarding inside or outside Macao, or for export.Footnote 98 As expected, the government stepped in. It stipulated that the merchants should sell grain at around 100 patacas per picul.Footnote 99 In order to prevent merchants from hoarding, the government then restricted the free flow of rice and stipulated that any person attempting to carry grain weighing over 20 catties would have to acquire a grain transport permit.Footnote 100 It also prohibited the private storage of rice above 5 piculs.Footnote 101 The government's precise knowledge of the rice shops’ storage facilities also demonstrates how the rice supply came under the closest watch ever during the war. It became virtually impossible for rice merchants to hoard and speculate anymore, as we shall see. At this government ‘exhortation’, the so-called ‘profoundly impressed’ coolies brought rice which was supposed to be exported back to Macao on behalf of the ‘evil merchants’.Footnote 102 The government intervention in the rice market was certainly not welcomed by rice merchants, but the policy did ensure the relative well-being of the Macao population.
The first signal of the effectiveness of the government's measures was the substantial price drop to 70 patacas per picul of rice in late May.Footnote 103 With one anti-hoarding policy after another (the latest being a fine of 8,000 patacas for hoarding), pressure upon pressure, and also the sympathetic private discussion among the ‘benevolent’ merchants, rice merchants acquiesced to the government's wishes and started selling their rice stocks at a lower price.Footnote 104 The recently decreed ban on grain transportation within the territory meant that merchants had to sell their products directly to consumers.Footnote 105 With a sudden increase in the rice supply on the market, the prices decreased drastically. This phase of price change was entirely due to government intervention in the market. Macao and Guangdong authority's half-year contract continued to ensure the monthly supply of rice (then increased from 15,000 piculs to 20,000 piculs) into Macao until June 1945.Footnote 106 With such a safety mechanism and the unprecedented iron grip on rice prices, the Macao government was able to guarantee the survival of the Macao population.
However, wild speculations and groundless rumours could easily panic the population – a common behavioural pattern especially prevalent during times of war and uncertainties. In early July 1945, the news of the expiry of the Guangdong–Macao pact again fuelled the anxiety among the Macao populace and raised the general price of rice on the market.Footnote 107 This panic was short-lived. Along with the news of the impending signing of the pact with Guangdong on rice supply, the Macao government also announced the resumption of free trade in rice and cancelled all cumbersome restrictions, thereby facilitating an enormous influx of cheaper grain from the mainland and ‘bringing a jubilee amongst the citizens’.Footnote 108 When the pact was actually signed, Macao imported a windfall of 40,000 piculs of rice each month from then onwards.Footnote 109 This news triggered another drop in the price of grain and rice to such an extent that the market price was almost that of the government's price of 160 per picul.Footnote 110 As the price kept decreasing, the queue at the Mong-Há rice station shortened.Footnote 111 Just a few days after the war had ended, on 17 August 1945, the price of rice returned to the pre-war level of 50 patacas per picul.Footnote 112
In summary, Macao residents did not suffer a rice shortage throughout the entire three years and eight months. The most difficult time was the first half of 1942. At other times, although at irregular intervals, the city managed to obtain a food supply from Guangdong province and various parts of Southeast Asia. Queueing for subsidized rice was by no means a pleasant experience. Queues were long. Standing outdoors for hours in the blistering summer heat was as unbearable as enduring the icy north wind in winter. Moreover, since there were no public toilets near the Mong-Há rice station, men and women openly relieved themselves in the streets.Footnote 113 Nevertheless, subsidized rice rationing must have allowed many more residents to obtain rice. Since the price of rice kept fluctuating, we must acknowledge the dynamic nature of rice shortages. Hence, rice shortages in wartime Macao cannot be generalized into a story of suffering alone. Wartime dynamics of good and bad times reflect the complexity that we have reconstructed in this article: there was no single cause of a rice shortage and panic. As we saw, one crucial and unsolvable cause of rice shortages, which was external to Macao, was the seasonal and unpredictable nature of the food harvest. Another recurrent cause was the local merchants’ hoarding and speculative activities. It is important to remember as well that the most serious blockage of trade routes by the Japanese military mainly occurred in early 1942.
The well-being of the Macao residents
How did Macao residents live resourcefully with a rice shortage? While it is often assumed that they were defenceless victims of wartime hardship, the truth is that many found ways to protect themselves from the rice scarcity. In fact, they exploited government generosity and were actively involved in black market activities. These important facets of historical complexity suggest that not only did they possess considerable resourcefulness, but also the financial capacity to afford the purchase of rice. Ignoring such historical dimensions would prevent us from understanding the phenomenon of why people endured, and did not perish.
Resourcefulness in times of want is crucial for survival, as Macao residents knew. Buying more rationed rice than permitted was possible when the government offered team-buying to large families, businesses and organizations, so they could buy rice in bulk. During the very early periods (March 1942) of rice rationing, bulk purchases were allowed.Footnote 114 The regulations allowed 10 registered residents to form into a group to buy 1 picul of rice at 80 patacas.Footnote 115 However, some individuals were unregistered for team-buying and were found bringing along a company of men, presumably unrelated by blood, to buy illegal portions of rice.Footnote 116 Eventually, in April 1942, the government, now frustrated to learn that team-buying was being exploited, announced its decision to prohibit the practice except for certain groups that were recognized by the police chief of Macao.Footnote 117
The government's unfamiliarity and its informality in issuing ration tickets were both important causes of the phenomenon observed above. When rice rationing began in early 1942, the representative of a household was registered at a police station for a ration ticket. His name and address were written on the ticket, and below the information were the names and ages of other family members who lived in the same household. These family members did not need to be lineal relatives. On some tickets, names of nieces and nephews were found. The tickets also included the total number of adults and children. To ensure these numbers were officially approved, they were stamped. However, in the 1940s, there was no equivalent of an identity card, and most people were born at home without a birth certificate. Accordingly, it was not difficult for ticket holders to register a fake family member to obtain the right to buy an extra portion of rice. Furthermore, many government officials were not necessarily punctilious in issuing ration tickets. Mistakes were not uncommon. In one case, a name was found written in the relationship box, and his/her relationship with the ticket owner was missing. In another case, genders were written on the list of relationship to the owner of the ration ticket. On some tickets, the stamp for the total number of members was missing.Footnote 118 The prevalence of these flaws helped many residents manipulate the government's generosity and engage in profiteering.
In other cases, residents who were leaving Macao were found selling their tickets to others. The Grain Regulatory Committee accordingly announced on 18 April 1942 a prohibition against transferring the ownership of ration tickets. Officials were also sent to houses to check whether the number of family members corresponded to the officially registered number. Those who were found over-reporting the number of family members would get their ration tickets confiscated for one month.Footnote 119 This prohibition was difficult to implement. Not surprisingly, the problem persisted until, at least, the following year. As the government knew there were still some residents holding two ration tickets, they encouraged these residents to return the extra ticket by offering a reward of one extra portion of rice.Footnote 120 As this situation continued, the government conducted more household investigations.Footnote 121 In extraordinary times when supplies were unstable, moral exhortations and threats from the government could not inhibit ordinary residents’ acts of self-preservation, nor could they deter profit-seeking behaviour.
One question remains: what did Macao residents do with the extra rice they bought from the government? In the previous section, we explained that there were two separate rice markets in Macao. The first one was the government-rationed rice market. The other one was the free market, in which rice merchants were its main suppliers. Between 1942 and 1945, the government held more rice than the merchants. As a consequence of the artificial lowering of prices by the government in the rationed market, the market price of rice was always more expensive.Footnote 122 Although expensive, market rice was in demand. There were always residents willing to buy rice at a higher price instead of queuing overnight for the rationed rice. Some residents then deployed their ingenuity to sell some rationed rice for extra cash.
Soon after the rice rationing began, on 26 March 1942, the government issued a decree in WKP, which stated the price of rationed rice. It also announced that anyone found selling the rationed rice at a higher price would be heavily penalized.Footnote 123 However, in late April 1942, a considerable amount of government rice was found on the free market where its price was 30 per cent higher.Footnote 124 Even in July 1942, the government was still threatening any people who were planning to resell their rice on the free market with fines and imprisonment, clearly suggesting the persistence of that practice.Footnote 125 It also became clear that many people would buy rice at the Mong-Há rice station and sell it on the spot to others. Therefore, the government vowed to address this practice.Footnote 126 Yet, even in 1945, some residents who procured rice at the cost of 1 pataca per 10 taels would sell it to the hoarding merchants at 1 pataca per 7.8 taels, thus earning some extra income.Footnote 127 These cases demonstrate that first, ordinary residents were not poor because they could afford to buy additional rationed rice, and secondly, they also knew how to manipulate the ration market for their own benefit.
The government did not simply sit by and let itself be ‘manipulated’. As a ‘temporary solution’ to curb the widespread black market activities of selling rice rationed from Mong-Há station on the free market, Revd Vincent Bernardini decided to sell fewer amounts of rationed rice for a few days in a row, hoping that the illegal practitioners would give up their ‘immoral’ pursuit.Footnote 128 Indeed, one day later, true to his suspicion, the police detained three women (aged 30, 50 and 58) and one 14-year-old girl for selling rationed rice on the free market.Footnote 129 As one commentator acutely observed, ‘this world has been completely flooded with black market activities’. Even the poorest residents as well as the refugees who received free congee would sell their portion to others.Footnote 130 Some creative individuals even forged ration certificates to get illegal portions at the congee stations. They swapped the registered photos with those of their own family members, forged the official stamps and tried to fool the officials.Footnote 131 Clearly, these residents were resilient, and they were able to defend themselves from the plight of rice scarcity by actively engaging in what were termed by the authorities to be black market activities. This is not to say that the Macao residents were exceptionally greedy or insidious. Similar illegal transactions could be found elsewhere in China during the same period. In wartime Beijing, smuggling was a serious problem.Footnote 132 These were simply survival tactics for, as Zhao Ma puts it, ‘getting by in an extraordinary period of political crisis and economic uncertainty. The black market thus operated as a vibrant “parallel economy” outside of official distribution channels.’Footnote 133 In Henan, where the 1942 famine took one million lives, as a foreign observer noted, ‘every farmer and land owner [became a] hoarder: because of the present uncertainty of currency he will not release his surplus until he had to purchase something, and naturally he will hold out for the most favourable prices’.Footnote 134 Even in times of peace, in Henan for example, where there was a ‘thin margin the Chinese peasants had between survival and starvation. . .there is much stealing that people wouldn't bother with if there was plenty for everyone’.Footnote 135
It is critical to remember that rice was never the only food that the Macao residents consumed; it was just more palatable. To ease hunger and diversify food sources, the Macao government ordered at least one local bakery to produce ‘commoner bread’, each costing 20 avos, which was said to be filling as a meal for one person.Footnote 136 Unsurprisingly, some individuals bought this bread and sold it on the free market. Even children were familiar with this trick. Irene Kwan, who was 10 years old in 1943, queued for the ‘commoner bread’ and sold it to Portuguese housewives at 1 pataca each.Footnote 137 This abuse of the government's subsidy programme was elusive in nature, and it could not have been addressed effectively. Therefore, the much-hated rice merchants and the ordinary residents willingly perpetuated the black market activities. When not employed in this illegal trade, local residents learned to be prudent by storing rice at home in anticipation of any future rice shortage.Footnote 138 At the very least, they did not live hand to mouth at all times.
One key reason that led to this widespread phenomenon was the availability of plenty of substitutes for rice on the free market, as we noted in the previous section. For ordinary residents, in July 1942, when rationed rice was 60 avos per catty, black-eye peas and navy and black beans were around 50 avos. Residents thus bought these beans in bulk.Footnote 139 As one newspaper article suggested, ‘black-eye peas and navy beans can replace rice. . .as the price of beans fell, lower-class citizens tend to buy more of them to replace white rice’.Footnote 140 In the eyes of the Macao residents, beans and sweet potatoes were life-saving coarse cereals for many who could not afford much or, more likely, simply wanted to save money in times of ongoing uncertainties. As a self-pitying member of the salaried class mentioned, just to stuff their stomachs, they would add coarse cereals to the rice.Footnote 141
Towards the end of the war, the poorer segment of the population was said to have turned to a greater variety of coarse cereals, including sweet potatoes, taro, dried corn and green beans, as their main diet. When rationed rice became as expensive as 1.6 patacas per catty, these coarse cereals cost no more than 40 to 50 avos per catty, and they were more filling.Footnote 142 Noting that ‘ordinary commoners tended to eat soy beans and black-eyed peas to stuff themselves at every meal to replace white rice’, one article not only considered it appropriate because it contained a high amount of protein, but also because it was economical, ‘now that rice eating is no longer widespread’.Footnote 143 This simple fact shows that the residents were flexible in times of rice shortages by switching to a cheaper diet. Not surprisingly, with the money they saved, they hoarded rice and engaged in speculation.
In summary, the Macao government shielded the locals from the worst possible starvation by offering them subsidized rice. At the same time, they were extraordinarily resourceful in times of need. Many of them escaped the watchful eyes of the government and procured a portion of rice greater than permitted by over-reporting family members, making use of other residents’ ration tickets or even forging them. Those more profit-oriented individuals would hoard and sell certain portions of this rationed rice on the free market just like the ‘immoral’ merchants. After all, these profit-oriented behaviours were partially acts of self-preservation against the successive waves of rice shortages. At the same time, this finding suggests that rice was not unaffordable, and the residents possessed a decent level of financial capacity. At those times when the rice supply was limited, the excess purchase by some residents meant less availability for other residents. While blame today and in the past has been pointed at the Japanese blockade and merchants’ hoarding, our analysis clearly demonstrates that many of the local residents contributed to rice shortages in wartime Macao.
Conclusion
Using Macao as a case-study, this article incorporates the complexity and dynamics of reading wartime urban history. First, we suggest a new complexity by distinguishing the local residents from refugees from the mainland and Hong Kong. We have explained why, in order to understand the complexity of wartime Macao, we cannot equate the livelihood of Chinese refugees with that of Macao's Chinese locals. Refugees lived in government-organized refugee camps, the Beggars’ Refugee and the Asylum of Abandoned Children. They also received free soup provided by various local charity organizations. The British also provided large sums of money to the Macao government: £1 million to cover the government's wartime expenses, and £241,766 for the management of the refugee camps. Although refugees were hungry and underemployed, they were at least safe from wars.Footnote 144 Chinese Nationalists in the past and existing scholarship homogenized their wartime experience solely based on race. Local residents were mostly settled in Macao before the war, owned a living space and either had a job or were financially supported by their family members. They maintained a relatively stable well-being in contrast to the chronically suffering refugees – those who were destitute and powerless. This analytical lens thus offers a valuable insight into the contradictory reality in which prosperity co-existed alongside poverty, suffering and death.
Equally crucial is the dynamic nature of the wartime rice shortages in the context of Macao's complex and changing political and economic situation. Hence, refraining from undue generalizations based on extreme, uncommon or sensationalized cases is necessary for writing a more balanced wartime urban history of Macao. In early 1942, the Macao residents’ lives were difficult, as genuine food shortages occurred and hardship prevailed, and life must have been far worse for the refugees. Despite periodic rice shortages and an irregular supply, the locals usually managed to obtain rice supplies and maintained their relative well-being.
In essence, this work revises the simplistic interpretation of the wartime narratives of Macao – that rice shortages were masterminded by the Japanese and the ‘immoral’ merchants. Despite the undeniable disruption brought about by periodic rice shortages, local residents managed adversities with resourcefulness under the government's protection time and time again. When a government-controlled rationed market and a free market persisted, black market activities were bound to occur. In wartime Shanghai, even more strikingly, officials were actually involved in smuggling and black marketeering.Footnote 145 However, in Macao, while the Japanese and the local merchants contributed to rice shortages and panic, seasonal rice shortages and local residents’ illegal purchase of excess portions of rice and black market activities worsened the already unfavourable situation. As such, even though the Macao government was capable of securing a food supply from outside the territory, it was ineffective in curbing any internal problems to which the local residents contributed. Hence, any one-dimensional narrative of the victimization of these residents only obscures the more complex historical reality.
Queueing for rice in Mong-Há was a local experience. Today, it is a local memory likely recollected only by the people of Macao who experienced the war. In the wider historical context, the wartime ‘global memory culture’, as Carol Gluck puts it, developed over the decades, and very often ‘domestic political concerns underlie the uses of the past, thereby inflaming a kind of hate nationalism, most dangerously so among millions of Chinese. . .youth who were taught less about the history of war and empire than about the memory of victimization and hatred’.Footnote 146 When one remembers wartime Macao today, its residents are seen as victimized and local rice merchants are hated, when nobody, including the ordinary people, was completely innocent.
Other cities share similar stories. For instance, we hear tragic stories of women, both Chinese and British in Hong Kong, being raped or brutally treated by the Japanese soldiers. Nevertheless, the complexity and the dynamics of history should always be applied to revisit Hong Kong's history during World War II in a more balanced manner. ‘Most, if not all rape inflicted upon the British women was confined to the brief period during and immediately after the battle for Hong Kong.’Footnote 147 This history of course is atrocious enough, but the less unfortunate fact is that, according to F.C. Gimson, the British colonial secretary,
the Japanese guards did not present much of a threat to the women in the [internment] camp. . .Apart from the incidents reported during the battle for Hong Kong, their captors, for the most part, were well behaved and disciplined toward women. . .Meijima (an official of the Foreign Affairs Department). . .maintained ‘strict control over the guards and no assault on any internee took place’.Footnote 148
This example, plus the rest of our analysis of the lives of the Macao residents, suggests that a comprehensive understanding of wartime urban history can only be accomplished through a deconstruction of simplistic generalizations and the study of the patterns of human behaviour.
