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Rice scarcity in World War II Macao: the local experience revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2019

VENUS VIANA  and
KYUNG YEOB KIM Open the ORCID record for KYUNG YEOB KIM [Opens in a new window]
VENUS VIANA
Affiliation:
Department of History, HSH Building, Lingnan Univerisity, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong
KYUNG YEOB KIM
Affiliation:
Department of History, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
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Abstract

After Hong Kong fell on Christmas Day 1941, the ongoing war threatened life in isolated, neutral Macao. While many scholars have attributed the local people's starvation and suffering to the war, others have highlighted Macao's economic prosperity. To explain the gap between these two narratives, this article explores how the locals dealt with rice scarcity and fared relatively well during the four years of Japanese occupation of the Pearl River Delta. Instead of blaming the shortage solely on the machinations of the Japanese and the rice merchants, we uncover the local people's actions in exacerbating the problem.

Type
Dyos prize winner 2018
Information
Urban History , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , August 2019 , pp. 518 - 541
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

*

We sincerely thank the two reviewers for their insightful comments. This research is partially funded by the following grants: ‘Reenacting “cultural China” in the twentieth century’ (RGC-GRF Ref. no.: 14617915) and ‘Recapture “endangering” social life’ (Research Committee, CUHK, Ref. no. 3132938).

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35 WKP, 25 Jan. 1942, 3.

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55 WKP, 6 May 1942, 3.

56 Due to the lack of rice, each ticket holder was allowed to buy 30 avos (5 taels) worth of rice. WKP, 9 May 1942, 3.

57 WKP, 18 May 1942, 3.

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63 SNJP, 1 Sep. 1942, 2.

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76 WKP, 29 Mar. 1943, 3.

77 WKP, 23 Apr. 1943, 5.

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82 SNJP, 7 May 1945, 1.

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91 SNJP, 6 May 1945, 3.

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93 Tai Chung Po (hereafter TCP), 27 Jun. 1945, 4.

94 SNJP, 23 May 1945, 3.

95 SNJP, 31 May 1945, 3.

96 SNJP, 2 Jun. 1945, 3.

97 SNJP, 20 Jun. 1945, 3.

98 SNJP, 13 May 1945, 3.

99 SNJP, 23 May 1945, 3.

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102 WKP, 24 May 1945, 2.

103 SNJP, 24 May 1945, 3.

104 SNJP, 25 May 1945, 3.

105 SNJP, 25 May 1945, 3.

106 SNJP, 30 Jun. 1945, 2; SNJP 8 Jul. 1945, 2.

107 SNJP, 5 Jul. 1945, 2; SNJP, 6 Jul. 1945, 2.

108 TCP, 5 Jul. 1945, 4; SNJP, 7 Jul. 1945, 2.

109 SNJP, 8 Jul. 1945, 2; WKP, 10 Jul. 1945, 3.

110 SNJP, 10 Jul. 1945, 3; SNJP, 25 Jul. 1945, 3.

111 SNJP, 4 Aug. 1945, 1; SNJP 6 Aug. 1945, 2.

112 TCP, 17 Aug. 1945, 4.

113 SNJP, 23 Jun. 1942, 1.

114 SNJP, 19 Feb. 1942, 3.

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123 WKP, 26 Mar. 1942, 3.

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