10 Years Later

It has been 10 yrs now from the Chinese massacre in May 1998. Precisely 10 yrs. May 13th, 1998.

Last night, we were hanging out in my sister's room when she brought this up. She took the time, while applying her night cream, to share how her current boyfriend surpassed death only by sheer luck.

He was only 14 at the time. His family lived amongside the Indonesians in the community. They formed quite a good relationship, good neighbours you can say. On the eve of May 13th 1998, everything turned upside down. The mob took over his house, luckily they had the time to smuggle the mom to one of the neighbor's house. It wasnt safe for women that days. They promised to leave them, the father and 3 boys, untouched, if only they would surrender everything they own.

He saw the crowd stripped his family from everything that they own, unable to do anything. Anything at all.

Luckily his father was quick, he told my sister's boyfriend and his older brother to quickly save some of their precious bonds and bank books by fleeing from the house. On their way, they were caught in the middle of an angry mob. Everyone was carrying wooden sticks and torches, he saw face to face the murderous faces with no mercy, chanting "Chinese! Chinese!".

They didnt know what to do.

As the mob grew closer, death was certain to them. It was so impeccably surprising that all of the sudden, police came in between and pushed the crowd. If they had not, or even came late by minutes, I wouldnt hear this story now.

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My recounts of that night was limited. I was only 8 then. Too little to even understand what was happening. All I remember is that we were put together in one room by our servant, and my dad was on the phone talking to my oldest sister. Or my servant. I dont know.

My parents were in Singapore that night, my dad was having his tumor removed. It was then hen he heard that the crowd has reached the mouth of our block, and called to make sure we were alright. He then made arrangements, and we were fetched that night to spend a couple of days at his friend's house until things cooled down.

We were lucky enough to survive it.

My sister then told me what our old driver told her 10 years before this night. Things were bad, really bad. Old Chinese people were forced to take off the clothes, then ordered to run around naked like dogs. Some of them were killed, others burned to their last breath.

Our driver saw that in morgues, Chinese corpses werent stored, they were hanged. They were hanged upside down. Some of them were still alive when they were hanged and burnt to death.

Until this day, my sister's boyfriend is a racist.


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Let us remember today what evil we are capable of. And hope that it will never, ever happen again in this lifetime.