Sick of quarantine? Hotel internment in Hong Kong 80 years ago was a true ordeal, and a prelude to 38 hungry months in a Stanley camp
- Japanese troops occupying Hong Kong herded European civilians into fleapit short-time hotels and boarding house cubicles in January 1942, at first without food
- After two weeks they were moved to an internment camp in Stanley. Compared to that, the Penny’s Bay government quarantine facility is luxurious
The only consistent aspect of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is sudden, game-changing volatility. Those bitterly complaining about Hong Kong’s draconian hotel quarantine restrictions – at 21 days, for most arrivals, the longest in the world – should spare a backward glance towards others stuck in involuntary hotel incarceration 80 years ago this week.
Across Southeast Asia in the months that followed, as the Japanese advanced swiftly and inexorably and captured territories from Hong Kong to Malaya, Borneo, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia), thousands of Allied prisoners of war and civilians were swept up into long-term internment conditions that the Japanese themselves – partially due to expectations of a longer drawn out fight – had made almost no provision for in their strategic planning.
On January 4, 1942, a cold, drizzling day, Hong Kong’s European residents of Allied nationality – British and Dominions citizens, Americans, Dutch, Norwegians and others who claimed Allied status – were assembled to go into temporary internment.
Squalid “short-time” hotels along Hong Kong Island’s Western waterfront and the Wan Chai backstreets – most formerly used for assignations by prostitutes and their clients – were hurriedly pressed into service.
In one documented incident, a representative group of internees were trudged off to a “boarding house” in Western; this was partitioned off into cubicles of about two metres wide by three metres long. Two squat toilets, flushable by throwing a pan of water in after use, somehow served for 142 adults.
Sanitation in these places, before hostilities, was always basic; chamber pots, slop bowls and an occasional flush toilet system were all that existed.
Chinese-style beds – then – were already bare boards, and as the weather turned colder, blankets and bedding were in short supply. What little linen was available in these hotels was usually filthy and infested with lice. These hateful creatures quickly spread to humans and their garments, further exacerbating already miserable conditions.
Having your photo taken by this man was quite the Hong Kong status marker
No food was provided on the first day – people simply made do with whatever they may have had in their pockets or bags. The next day, internees were allowed out in small batches, under the guard of an Indian policeman, to a nearby restaurant. Friends outside were permitted to bring food, which was sent in and – depending on individual generosity – distributed among those with none.
Outdoor exercise was possible on one half of the building’s flat roof which, according to one post-war memoir, measured exactly 40 paces by eight.
On January 20 and 21, 1942, these groups of hotel internees were finally reassembled at one of the piers in Western and moved out by sea to Stanley Peninsula, which was to accommodate Hong Kong’s civilian internees until the Japanese surrender, in August 1945.
