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Last Sunday, bored and feeling bloated after a heavy lunch, Swee and I went looking for the Japanese Cemetery which we heard was located somewhere in the Batu Lintang area.

After a bit of searching, we found the cemetery, located just beside the Telekom buildings.

The cemetery is fenced. It’s partially fenced actually. The section of cemetery which borders a housing area is fenced but the section adjacent to the road is not. I think the fence serves to indicate the cemetery’s perimeter rather than to keep out intruders.

The entrance to the cemetery is in the form of a cement archway. The chinese characters at the upper portion of the archway denotes the name of the cemetery, which roughly translates to ‘Paradise Mountain’. The gate wasn’t locked so we let ourselves in.

Inside the cemetery, there are rows of neatly arranged graves with either stone or wooden headstones (or is it headwoods?). Just in front of the graves is a stone monument. The monument looks new compared to the headstones. The chinese characters on the monument means ‘Soul-Comforting Monument’. Pretty self-explanatory eh?

There are some flowers left on the monument, along with some sacrificial offerings.

Just next to the stone monument, there’s a smaller and older looking monument.

A ceramic plaque was affixed on the monument, explaining its origin.

The origin of a monument

During the Second World War when every able-bodied men had enlisted in the Japanese war efforts, a group of young boys fishermen aged 15-16 volunteered their service to help the country by ferrying food supply to Japanese Troops of the the Southern fronts.

These courageous boys were from the fishing port of Yaizu which was famous in Japan for its plentiful supply of bonito and tuna fishes.

In their tiny 50 tones worn out fishing boats the boys began ferrying food supply to the southern battlefronts.

Toward the end of the war when massive counter attacks by the Americans and the British had cause heavy defeats of the Japanese army, the young Yaizu fishermen took up arms to help defend their country.

The youthful hands which had only held fishing nets and had only been used for making KATUOBUSHI now held guns and firearms.

Between 1942-1945, 81 of the Yaizu boy fishermen lost their lives in the call of their patriotic duty.

On behalf of the war bereaved, we held this service to honor and pay our deepest respect for the brave boys and to pray for their eternal peace. This year of 1991.

(TAIJI SUZUKI)

The Chief Priest of YAIZU Shrine.

The cemetery looks pretty well maintained. Makes you wonder who is caring for a cemetery of full Japanese soldiers that died half a century ago.

Weird.