Page 23 - Stories_of_Older_Adults

I N S P I R I N G S T O R I E S O F T H E O L D E R G E N E R A T I O N

MADAM GOH CHING CHIN

"It was a terrifying experience, but I have survived!"
by Teh Ke Li & Nur Aisyah binti Mohd Saudi

Madam Goh was born in a small village called Sri Gading, seven miles from the town of Batu Pahat,
Johore. Born in 1936, she witnessed the Japanese invasion of Malaya (at that time) in 1941 when she was
five years old. She recalls being stressed and anxious whenever her mother warned her to hide her
three year-old sister and one year-old brother under the bed, not knowing what may happen next.

When asked about her most memorable life moments, she says it was when she had to run away from
the Japanese soldiers. She stopped at Parit Jawa where she met the village head who kindly gave them
refuge in a bungalow opposite his house. At such a young age she was told to be independent. She used
to pick fungus from rubber trees to eat. Her mother, being resourceful, used to grow rice on a piece of
empty land near the house.

Up till the age of 9, Madam Goh and her grandmother spent their days actively evading the Japanese.
When the war ended, her guardians enrolled her into a Chinese Primary School before switching to an
English private school - a shop house with three rooms. After spending three years there, the
headmaster suggested that she take an exam to enter a government school (which back then was highly
desirable). While she may attribute it to ‘luck’, it was by sheer determination and resilience that she
was accepted as a candidate.

However, public school was not as easy as it seemed. Her teacher disrespected her and her friends in
various ways: She was the subject of insults and her teacher even once threw her book into the drain.
She remembers retrieving her book from the drain and cleaning it with her uniform. Her Chinese
friends who could not bear their teachers’ offensive behaviours, left the school, but not her.

She said, "I told myself if I could survive the Japanese soldiers, I would survive studying from a Chinese to
English school and be capable of receiving any insult". Because her parents struggled with their finances,
she knew she had to study hard. She realised that education was the only thing that would improve
her family’s condition. She applied for and secured a scholarship to study in England in 1958 after
taking her Cambridge examinations. Now looking back, she said, “I had a thick skin and I carried on.
I’m glad that I carried on because I managed to pass Form five and managed to get a scholarship to continue
my education in England.”

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