Bukit Lima Road and Queensway as Legacies of the Japanese

I am not very sure what my reputation will be if I state that the Japanese Occupation propelled the construction of the two longest roads in Sibu before the end of the Second World War.

Before the Japanese Occupation, the Rejang River was the main highway of communication. And every business was oriented towards the river. Every household faced the Rejang, making it the lifeline of the people. Boats were the only reasonable mode of transport.

Boats went every where, every nook and corner. Hence roads were not necessary but besides, the Foochows were very frugal and motor cars, although already quite a welcome invention, were not introduced to Sibu by the 1930's. Every able bodied person was making his way by foot or by boat and only a few had bicycles.
Boats and ships were still the transport of the day.

The Japanese who arrived in 1942 immediately took it to task to construct a road to the airport that they wanted to build for the Japanese Empire. Thus they recruited all the able bodied men to start building the Telephone Road (Now Tun Haji Openg Road), as the Foochows called it.

My father was one of the road construction workers. He had to get up before six, carried his changkul and his soil basket (pungki), put on a hat and be on his way to be with all the other "coolies". The team of workers had to walk from the town to as far as the work point was and it was a tortuous task. A few men did faint from hunger and the heat. Most were shoeless and according to my father, many had bleeding feet from the amount of walking they had to do. They also had blisters on their hands. The weaker ones had cuts all over their bodies because of the beatings and also because they were cut by the tree branches. Some of the workers tried not to wear their shirts because they wanted to save their shirts but they became very sun burnt. Cloth was a scarcity so the workers tried their best not to wear out their clothes. They were paid a few cents for their work every day.

Some were beaten up because the Japanese soldiers found them sloven. All workers had to bow very low whenever they met a Japanese.

The road took more than two years to complete. And the workers were also forced to build the Sibu airport. When the Australian Army (Allied Army) arrived, the airport was still incomplete. But the rough three mile road from Sibu was completed.

The Bukit Lima Road was designed by the Japanese to facilitate their plan of having a huge chicken farm in Bukit Lima. Ibans and Chinese were recruited to build the road. The relationship between the invaders and the locals was very bad. Later, when some of the Japanese soldiers tried to escape from the Allied Army, many of them were beheaded by the Ibans.

According to most historians,this forced "gotong royong" gave us the Telephone Road as the cheapest road built in the history of Sarawak!! Road building in Sibu was very difficult because of the peat soil, which was very soggy and many people fell sick because of the health threats and shortage of food. It was truly a great suffering for these elders of ours. We should be very grateful to them for constructing these two roads - so much of their sweat and blood.

In a way,the Japanese did leave a positive mark in Sibu by way of the two roads. Other than that they left no monument, no building, no hospital.