Australian Girls Begin New Life in Malay Villages

Grey River Argus, 20 September 1948, Page 5

Australian Girls Begin New Life in Malay Villages

[From Roy Macartney, N.Z.P.A.Reuter Correspondent.] SINGAPORE.

Singapore is admiring the courage of two Australian girls, recently arrived from Sydney with their expelled Malay husbands, in their struggle to adjust themselves to the Malay way of life to save their marriages. “They are real victims of Calwell’s stubborness in insisting a handful of married Malays must quit Australia,” said one Cleric. “If Calwell could see them now, even he must suffer a twinge of conscience,” he commented.

The Singapore Press has been full of the phenomenon of two white girls living in attap-roofed huts in Singapore’s crowded slums among Malays, Chinese and Indians. They have featured pictures of 37-year-old Mrs (Jean) Ramlee Bin Tojee wearing sarong and kebaya (Malaya jacket), cooking in a Malay house near the Rochore. Canal crowded with junks and sampans in the heart of Singapore. Captions told how Mrs Ramlee was now known as “Fatimah” to her Malay relatives. Another picture showed 29-year-old Mrs (Phyllis) Amat Bin Osman writing to Bishop Pilcher, Co-Adjutor of the World Council of Churches in Sydney about three little Malay war orphans standing behind her in the picture, adopted by her Malay brother-in-law at whose home she was living. In the letter, Mrs Amat contrasted the attitude of Australia in refusing to harbour a few Malays with that of the Malay relatives of her husband who, although they lived in a “poorly home and have hardly enough to support themselves in food and clothing, have yet undertaken to feed and clothe these little ones.”

Sydney journalist Nan Hall, now working with the Singapore “Free Press,” visited Mrs Ramlee the daw after her arrival from Sydney. Missj Hall wrote: “In white high-heeled shoes I stepped gigerly over a footbridge of rotten planks leading to a Malay house—one of the many which jostle for room with junks and sampans of Rochore Canal. Sitting inside with her husband and four Malay relatives I found Mrs Ramlee. Mrs Ramlee sat silent, unsmiling, and it was hard to draw her into conversation at first. By degrees she thawed out. She told me she had been married since May, 1945, that her husband’s former Malay wife was dead. Shortly afterwards, as Mr Ramlee was helping me back over the rickety foot-bridge, he assured me that the house had been a good one as he remembered it before the war, but it had fallen into disrepair and was not what he or his wife expected. Within a few days however, Mrs Ramlee had brightened. Changed into Malay sarong and kebaya and answering to the .name of Fatimah, she told another visitmg reporter: “It’s a new adventure. For me life is beginning anew,” she had begun her own shopping and could already say what she wanted in Malay. But she said, she would like to retain the Malay character of her house. Neglected for years, it .was now undergoing repair and within a fortnight, Mrs Ramlee hoped to give it the “new look.” And her in-laws. “I like them, she told the Press. “And we like her too,” piped one of them. Her husband Petty Officer Ramlee blamed the Australian public for continuance of the White Australian policy. “The Federal Government is not so much to blame as the Australian public. Every year when a Gallup Poll is taken, the public favour retention of the policy, he said “but strangely though,’ added Ramlee, “Australians—or the majority of them at least—are nice people to set along with. 1 never had any trouble with them during my long stay there. It is difficult'to understand therefore why public opinion continues to be in favour °f ing Asians from permanent residency in the country.” . Nan Hall also visited the other Australian girl, Mrs Phyllis Amat Bin Osman. She found her in a rural kampong at Keppel. Harbour west of Singapore. She is living in a tiny attap hut with her husband, their two children, his two children bv his former Malay wife, her husband’s brother and wife and three adopted children,, wrote Miss Hall. “Mrs Amat’s hut is smaller than Mis Ramlee’s and equally cleanly kept, says Miss Hall. “Mrs Amat was also married before and hopes soon to bring her own three children from Australia to Singapore. Their ages are ten, seven and five. Her Malay step-children, whom she met this week for the first time are 13 and 10 “I shall love them, too, she said warmly. “I asked her how she thought she liked living at , .Keppel Harbour and. she replied: I quite happy in an attap hut. but 1 would like one of my own A house is what you make it. I shall make, it look very pretty, and have a nice garden around it. We’ll be happy wherever we are as long as we le together. I just didn’t see the sense m letting a deportation order break up our marriage after four happy years Mrs Amat understands Malay, but has little confidence in speaking it. She has also become, under her husband’s tuition an excellent, cook of Malay dishes. One morning she took a big tub and started to do her own and her family’s washing. Malay women from neighbouring huts came running forward. No, mem, we do,’ they told her. “But Mrs Amat ‘shooed’ them away, thanking them and telling them she was quite capable of doing .her . own work. Then her Malay sister-m-law told her she was going to the Kempong Soring for a bath. Mrs Amat seized a bath towel and followed not understanding her sister-in-law’s warning that she must have a sarong. Her sister-in-law washed herself quickly under the cover of her sarong and Sen walked away Mrs Amat then turned around. All the inhabitants of the Kempong, men, women and children were standing in the back ground breathless .spectators ±eli•hp- this story against heiselt with a lively sense ot humour, Mrs Ama added - “I gave them all a smile as i n nnologise for the show having been cancelled, and walked back o the house where I had my bath i ?Smonsensm y co b^age b and S’realisation of what she nas mminp to live with her husoanas Mrs Amat has decided to bffild her own attap-roofed hut if she can obtain land. She took the first sten to this end yesterday when she found out that the _ cost of sucht a building is about 1,500 dollars aaiu Aust.).' .