How do the people feel during the food shortage during japanese occupation and h

Question:

How do the people feel during the food shortage during japanese occupation and how did the japanese help them?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: You don??t say, but I looked at your profile and assume that you are asking about Singapore.

From the way that you phrase your question, it seems that you may think that the Japanese occupiers intended to be helpful to the people of Singapore. That wasn??t true. Despite being fellow Asians, despite the propaganda about the ??Co-Prosperity Sphere??, the Japanese behaved very badly to the people of Singapore. Their only objective was to exploit Singapore to provide maximum benefit to Japan. They were much more brutal than the British had ever been. They ruled by terror.

Here is a quote from the Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew:
??During the 3⽠years of the Occupation, whenever I encountered some Japanese tormenting, beating or ill-treating one of our people, I wished the British were still in charge. As fellow Asiatics, we were disillusioned; but then the Japanese themselves were ashamed to be identified with their fellow Asiatics, whom they considered racially inferior and of a lower order of civilizaion.??

Talking about Japanese propaganda, here is what Aisha Bee has to say:
??We listened to all these promises with interest but without real hope, unsure of where our next meal was coming from. Our friends were disappearing one by one, and despite promises of a better life, we had no reason to believe that it would ever materialize.??

As time passed, food became more and more scarce. The Japanese were unable to organize a sufficient food supply for Singapore, because Allied submarines sank so many of their cargo ships that could have carried rice and other food to Singapore.

The people had to queue for everything. Whenever a queue began to form in front of a shop, people would rush to join it. It did not matter what was being sold, whether it was cigarettes, coffee, sugar, salt, fish or ragi: whatever it was, even if you did not want it for yourself, it had a value that you could use to trade for food. Read about Geoffrey Tan??s recollections of queuing at link [1] below.

Prices for everything soared every day, and the Japanese made no attempt at all to try to control the situation. In fact, many of the Japanese were heavily involved in the Black Market, making huge profits for themselves.

Read the interview at link [2] below for the experiences of a fishing family. How they had to hide (because otherwise they would have been killed) whenever the Japanese came to their village.

More and more it became essential for the people of Singapore to supply their own food, by growing crops on every little scrap of land; by keeping chickens; and by fishing. The Japanese encouraged this with their ??Grow More Food?? campaign. But fishing became more and more restricted, because the Japanese feared that the local fishermen were helping Allied spies and saboteurs to land near Singapore.

Finally, read the oral history recollections of Wak Mah at link [3] below.