志异 Draft by Drama box December 2014 (english) | Page 17

Exile is the sequel to He Jin’s novel The Mighty Wave, and its
subtitle reads: The Story of the Exile of Young Singaporean
Students to Indonesia in the 1960s. Basing the main characters on
himself and his wife, the author tells the story of a young man

Phoon Yuen Ming

The MCP had always operated underground in Singapore. In
order to protect the cadres and to conserve its strength, the
party evacuated those who had blown their covers to Indonesia
in the early 1960s. The MCP had a secret water route at the time,
and cadres who were escaping to Indonesia were given legal
documents issued by the local government. They made their way
to Jakarta via the islands between Singapore and Indonesia and
were then dispersed inland into the villages and towns in Java
and Sumatra. These experiences were brought up in Eu Chooi
Yip’s oral history account as well as Wong Soon Fong’s memoir.
A later article by Zhang Taiyong gave more details on this secret
route. However, what really offers a real understanding of the
travails of this group is the work Exile by MCP writer He Jin, an
autobiographical novel written in the literary form.

17
The Issue of Displacement

conflicting claims. While leftists decry the use of state violence
by arguing that they were ‘not Malayan Communists’ and
that there were no ‘Malayan Communists,’ the MCP itself was
asserting that it too played a role in the nation-building process,
in which many had sacrificed their youth, freedom and even their
lives, while others were forced into exile.