Life as the River Flows. by Agnes Khoo

8/8/2019 Life as the River Flows. by Agnes Khoo

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Chapter 3SURIA alias ATOM

(Born in 1951, Thailand)

Atom is how she is fondly known in the village.She lives with her husband and a son. Atomworks on her land and her rubber plantationalmost single-handedly. She shares the house-hold chores and the care of their son with herhusband. On top of all this, she still finds timeto give medical care and treatment to comradeswho are ill.

They were really good to us. They explained many things to us. They

taught us the history of Malaya, why they wanted to fight this war. Theyassured us that they were not interested in attacking Thailand. They just wanted to liberate Malaya. My father knew that my husband and I weregoing to join the guerrillas. He let me go because he knew the enemy wascoming for us .

Young and Poor

My family has been poor ever since I was young ( begins to cry ); myfather hardly had anything, no property. There were seven brothers andsisters altogether, including me. I am the youngest. My brothers left hometo look for work and I was left at home to be with my father. I went toschool when I was seven years old but stopped when I turned eightbecause we had no money to pay for my education.

We lived in a place called Ba-ho in Thailand, near the border of Malaysia. I worked at home, doing the household chores, like cooking,washing laundry, etc. for my father. I learnt how to do all these at a very

young age. Whatever my father asked me to do, I would do. I also helpedmy father to clear the forest to grow rice. We also planted rubber trees.Life was bearable but we could not sell the things we grew because welived deep inside the forest. There was no one to sell to. I was with myfather from a very young age. I did not do anything else.


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36 Women in the Malayan Anti-Colonial Struggle

My father was not good to my mother. He was very fierce; he alwaysbeat my mother up. I was still young then. He would beat her so badly

that she got fevers but we had no money to take her to a doctor or buymedicine. In the end, that was how she died. I was seven years old whenI lost my mother.

My father was also not good to me. If it were not for my sister whosaved me, I would not be here today. I dont know why I was alwayscrying. Perhaps, my father got irritated with me; he beat me nearlyeveryday. My mother was not around anymore; she would have been aloving mother if she had still been there. I really loved my mother. Mymother was a gentle woman. She never beat her children. She would onlytell us if we did something wrong.

My father used to beat me so badly I would get bruises all over mybody. I did not know anything, still young; you see it was always mysister who rescued me from his violence. She would snatch me away fromhim. She would bring me out of the house and we would wait until hecooled down and was no longer angry before we returned home but hewould revert to violence after two or three days.

My father did not drink. My father was the village elder ( fu ye ban inThai). I dont know why he was so fierce; he was like this to all hischildren. He beat us for anything. We were all scared of him. But wehad no choice. He was our father.

Marriage as a Young Girl

I got married when I was 14 years old; my husband was 25 years old.Life changed after marriage. My father no longer beat me. I left himwe were still together but not under the same roof. We lived in thesame kampong .1 Although my father stopped beating me, my husbandstarted to beat me instead. It was just as bad. My husband was not goodto me either.

I had a baby not long after getting married when I was only 14 or 15years old. I was still young and there was no mother around to teach me.The child died within one year because I did not know how to care forit. If my mother had still been around, it would have been different.

My husband was not good to me either. I just had to put up with thesituation, but I can also be fierce. There were times when I could nottake it anymore. My husband sometimes kicked me but I did not give in

1 Malay for village.


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Suria alias Atom 37

easily. I would also fight him. We had fistfights we fought until binlin ban lang (sound of falling pots and pans), I did not care! There were

times when he threatened to kill me. I told him: If you kill me, you willalso die. You bully a woman, a woman on her own. He threatened mewith a knife.

He should not have done this. We should have been able to talk toeach other if there were things that were not right. We can talk and agreeupon things together. I asked him for a divorce but he refused. He said:It is not that I dont love you. I love you. Then I asked him: If youlove me, why do you beat me? It should not be this way. So life wasreally difficult, we were very poor. We were clearing new land and wehad no money. If we had 100 dollars, that would have been a lot of money! My wan ge (birthday in Thai) is 2494 (i.e. year of birth accordingto the Thai calendar). I was born on the 1 st of January. I did not celebratemy birthday this year though. It just passed quietly.

Joining the CPM

I only met the Communistsafter I got married. Theywere already active in thevillage where my husbandlived. I was 19 years oldwhen I met them. We livedin that kampong for twoor three years and did a lotof work with the Commu-nists. We built our ownhome, a Malay type house,we did everything our-selves. My husband and Ifought as we built ourhome. My father was alsostaying in the same village.There were already 40

people working and help-ing the Party in our villageincluding my husband.

We knew, of course,that it was dangerous to Atom just before she left the jungle.


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join the CPM but we were very poor and we were moved by theirkindness. At that time, I never thought I would join the guerrillas because

the Thai government had started to arrest people. We knew there weresome bad people among us in the village. They informed on those whohelped the Communists to buy things. At that time, the guerrillas werevery dependent on the masses 2 to buy things for them.

We helped them to buy whatever they needed. In the process, someof us were reported to the authorities and arrested. Because of the risk of being put in prison, they asked us to consider if we would like to goup there that meant to go with them. They were going to move to adifferent place and they asked us if we wanted to follow them.

At that time, we thought about our own situation; we were helpingthem a lot, buying so many things for them and they were nice to us. Wedidnt actually know them that well because they were CPM and we wereThais. I did ask them: We are Thai people, if we join you in the guerrillaarmy, what will happen to us after we get liberation? They told me: If Malaya is liberated, you could go to Malaya. But we are Thais, Thaicitizens; maybe the Malayan government will not recognise us. They saidthat we would be free to choose; we would be able to return to Thailandor go to Malaya. It would be up to us. We thought about it and decidedthat it was right to join them after all. That was how we came to join theCPM. We were so poor. At least with them, we had food and clothing,and they also were good and kind to us.

They were really good to us. They explained many things to us. Theytaught us the history of Malaya, why they wanted to fight this war. Theyassured us that they were not interested in attacking Thailand. They justwanted to liberate Malaya. My father knew that my husband and I were

going to join the guerrillas. He let me go because he knew the enemywas coming for us.

During those times, if the enemy caught us, we would have been killed they would have put us inside an oil drum and burnt us alive. Theywould never have let us go; we would have been executed. During thosetimes the enemy was cruel and hard with those caught on suspicion of being a Communist or a Communist sympathiser; they did not care if youwere really one. Even if you were a robber, the government soldiers

would punish you the same way they did the Communists. My fatherthought about the risks we were facing and told us to go.

2 Masses is a term used frequently by the women which either refers to ordinarypeople who are supportive of their cause or simply to ordinary civilians who may ormay not have been politicised.


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Suria alias Atom 39

Problems with My First Husband

From my family, three of us went. There were 14 of us who went to themountains as a group. One of them was my friend. My husband was latermartyred .3 He was still not good to me in the army. He changed after hehad been in the army for one or two months. His ideas changed becauseit was a very hard life. As a woman, I did not feel that life in the armywas worse than living at home, since even when we were at home, wehad to work equally hard. We also had to do everything by ourselves butfor my husband, it was different. He had never had to work at home. Hisfamily had some money and property. He could not cope with the hard-

ship; everyone in the camp could see that. Like carrying loads: I couldcarry at least 30 kilos on my back. He couldnt even carry 10 kilos! Hewould carry his load halfway, leave it there and I had to carry it for him.

They ( the guerrillas ) saw it. That night, he scolded me; he told mehe was going to leave the army. I told him I was not leaving since I hadalready decided to come up into the mountains (in other words, jointhe guerrillas in the mountains). Even if I would die in the wild forest ,4

even if I were to be mistreated by them, I was not going to leave. He

said: If you will not go, I will go! but he warned me that if he wentaway, he would not leave me alone. He said: I will have to kill you if you refuse to leave with me!

I had a few sleepless nights. I felt in my heart that this was not rightso I told the leader-in-charge at that time about his intentions. That night,there was a big storm, a tree fell on him and he was killed instantly. As aresult, I was alone and, for the first time, felt happy. I finally felt free.

Learning to Read

I was taught how to read and write in Malay and Chinese in the army.My present husband was my teacher. At that time, I could not even holda pen properly; so everyday he held my hand and taught me how to write.He taught me how to write my ABCs.

3 Martyred (xi sheng). The women use this expression all the time to refer tocomrades who died in the struggle, regardless of the way in which they died. It could

have been during battles with government troops; because of accidents or simply deathdue to natural causes. It is an expression of respect for their comrades who sacrificedtheir lives for their common struggle. It conveys a positive sense of ones contributionto a worthy cause.

4 Wild forests (shan ba). This refers to wilderness and forests that are eitherunexplored or where the land is minimally cultivated.


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He is from a Chinese community in Malaysia. I studied everyday untilI became literate. I woke up at five in the morning just to study. Before

this I never went to school except for one year, during which I studiedThai. When I went to school, I was in the Po nen, Po song (Thai forfirst and second year of primary school), so I did not get much education.I was the only one in my family who did not go to school. Because I hadto help my father with many things, there was no chance of getting aneducation and no money, but now I could read and write a little of bothThai and Malay. When we came down from the mountains, the Thaigovernment sent a teacher to teach us the Thai language.

I studied on my own sometimes; my husband used to wake up earlyto teach me. He would listen to me and correct my mistakes. I likedstudying because I did not have a chance outside the army. At least inthe army there is no need for money. I wanted to work hard, so that oneday, when Malaya had been liberated, my education would become use-ful. Now I can read the newspaper. When we were inside the jungle someof our Malay comrades were illiterate too. Nobody knew how to writean obituary in Malay but I could do it. I wrote a lot of sajak (Malay forpoems) or karangan (Malay for essays).

Raising Children

I think my life in the army was very good. It was tough though. I was inthe army for 20 years, exactly 20 by the time we came down from themountain. My second husband was 36 when we got married. He is 67now ( laughs ). We had a child together when we were still inside the

jungle. We gave her away. We did not look for her after we came down.Now we have a boy, he goes to school here in the village. He is elevenyears old. We would have had a third child but I lost it while working inthe rubber plantation. I fell and had a miscarriage after three months.After that, no more.

My father passed away three months after I joined the guerrillas. Hehad been very ill. My older sister told me after we came out of the jungle.My comrades did not dare tell me, they were afraid I would feel bad, soI did not see him before he died. I asked my sister about it after I camedown. She told me that my father really missed me.

I think if I had not joined the army, I would have had a harder timeoutside 5 because we were poor. We had no relatives to help us; they did

5 Outside refers to civilian life whilst inside refers to life inside the army. The termsreflect physical boundaries: the army lived inside the jungle whilst civilians lived inthe villages outside.


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Suria alias Atom 41

not care about us. Once I joined the army, I began to realise the differ-ence between the life outside and inside. Outside, we were alone and wehad to rely on ourselves, whereas in the army we helped each other. If you did not know how to read or write, I would teach you until you learnt.Even though life was tough in the army, it was still good.

What is tough about the army? In the wild forests and mountains, lifeis not easy. The enemy used to come and we would have to move house( Editors note: leave and abandon their campsite ) immediately. We wouldhave to fight as we retreated.

Risking Death Laying Mines

In the wild forest, the rainy season was the worst. We did not belong toa large company; we stayed in the village as part of the Civilian Troops .6

Even if it was raining, we still had to leave our jungle base to do ourmass work. 7 We had to buy things like food. I usually looked after themoney for the purchases. I was with my second husband then. He let mehandle everything. If fighting broke out, I was also the one to lead mycomrades in returning fire.

Atom and her son.

6 Civilian Troops (min yun bu dui).7 Mass work refers to working with the masses. It can be propaganda work, educational

work or procuring supplies from sympathisers.


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I also taught my comrades how to lay landmines. It is a risky job. Youhave to be very careful. You had to lay the mines according to the pre-

scribed procedures and then connect the current otherwise you could killyourself. There was a comrade who died because he forgot where he hadlaid his mines.

This did not happen to me because I could remember the variouslocations. I had to make maps of these locations myself. I would still bethinking about it even when I was in bed. It would have been fatal if Icould not remember. It was not easy. We are not talking about only oneor two mines; we had to remember 200 to 300 mines at one time but, of course, we were not alone. We worked as a team, seven membersaltogether, so we helped each other to remember. We had to be verycautious when we reached the area, think very carefully about the exactlocation of the mines. Sometimes, we still forgot one or two.

Other times, trees would fall and change the landscape. Therefore, wehad to remember the way well; if we made a mistake, it could have beendangerous or even fatal. Once or twice, I nearly got caught myself. Istepped right on top of the mine. Fortunately, a comrade warned meinstantly: You are sitting on a landmine! I quickly jumped off.

The only way to defuse a mine is to remove the current. There wasthis Malay comrade, who is still alive today. We went together to lay themines. Then, I was dispatched elsewhere to do some other work. He wasassigned to go and check the mines, to see if they were still working orif some had exploded, etc. Whenever there was an explosion, we had togo and check. He went on his own. He used something in his hand totap around. Dun Dun Dun . Suddenly, one exploded and he lost an eye.

We did not have a mine detector. We had to rely on ourselves, ourmemory. As for myself, I laid so many mines but I did not have anyaccidents. Sometimes, mistakes would happen when we were connect-ing the current. This would cause an explosion. So, whenever we wereconnecting the current, we had to hide behind a tree, just in case some-thing happened. Accidents did occur; this was part of the job, so we werealways prepared. Sometimes, as soon as we connected the current boom(laughs )! Many things happened but because we laid so many through-out the years, we became very experienced.

Life as a Barefoot Doctor

We also did medical work in the army. I did it for 20 years ( laughs ). Mysecond husband was a doctor. He taught me, and then I took over from


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Suria alias Atom 43

him. Even now that we are no longer in the army, I still do some medicalwork. I know how to give injections, acupuncture and so on. I know how

to use Chinese herbs collected from the heart of the forest because myhusband is very knowledgeable in this. We had many big (highly quali-fied) doctors who studied in China and returned to the jungle to teachus. These lessons lasted between one week and a month.

We were divided into groups of seven, to learn together. We studiedmedicine for one or two days a week. We had to study hard to learn thenames of the various medicines and herbs. I still do some medical work these days. If someone is sick in the village, they ask me to give injectionsand so on. In Malay, we are called Doktor Kaki Ayam 8 (laughs ). TheChinese also call us a similar thing: barefoot doctor. We referred to abook when practicing acupuncture. We published it ourselves in the army,my husband wrote it. It was written in Malay and Chinese since someChinese comrades could not read Malay.

Building a New Life

Of course, I think of my home and miss my family. I left home with onlymy two bare hands. I took nothing with me. When I came out of the armyin 1989, I was prepared to fight for my inheritance in court against myfamily but my husband refused to let me do it. He said, there is no needto go and fight them. We can look after ourselves.

My brother, who lives in Pattani, is still around. His daughter iswealthy now but I never went looking for them, neither did they visitme here. I have not been back for many years now. My hometown isonly further up from Yala. 9 What is the point of going home? I have

nothing there.When my child was one or two years old, I did return once. I stayed

with my friend. They kept telling methe house my father left meis still standing there but my brother had sold it to other people. It is nowa two-storey house. Many Malay comrades living in this village wouldreturn to their hometowns for the New Year. They were often curious whyI never did. I told them I do not have a home other than this one in thevillage and my parents have both passed away.

Even though I have sisters, they are not very concerned about me.They hardly ever ask about me or come to see me. What is the point of

8 Doktor kaki ayam literally means a doctor who has legs like a chicken and walkseverywhere to treat the sick.

9 Pattani and Yala are both provinces in South Thailand.


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going home? I am better off staying here. Even so, I still tried to visitmy older brothers and sisters occasionally in the past. Here, everybody

is good to me. This is my home now. I have everything here. Of course,I still have to work very hard because I have a child to support. Here,we help each other in times of need. If anyone is in trouble or needs tosee a doctor or has no money, people will help.

When we first set up our village here, our house was not ready yet.As we did not have money, our house was built much later. I stayed herewith Ah Yu before our house was ready. I stayed here for a long time, inthis very room. She has helped me so much. We cannot forget these oldfriends. If we have problems, lots of people will come round to help.

Now I tap rubber for our livelihood. When I am not tapping rubber, Ido other work. We have our own plantation and my husband takes careof the village deer. My plantation is not big; I am now saving up so thatwe can buy a bigger piece of land. The rubber plantation that was allottedto us by drawing lots is located on very high and steep ground, very hardto tap, so now I concentrate on the flatter land, which is at a lower altitude.We do not hire anyone to help us with the land, I do it all by myself.Sometimes, if there is not enough money, I work for other people. Ourlife is OK now. There is a lot of work for me everyday, on top of takingcare of the boy. This and that all on my own ( laughs ).

Fighting the Enemy

We were involved in a few skirmishes with the Thai soldiers. They cameright into the heart of the jungle to attack us. Out of self-defence, weambushed them. We started a gunfight with them when they got halfway

to our base. It was they who came looking for us, not us looking for them.Once the guns started firing, all fear was lost. Fight! But the exchangeusually did not last long, it cant. We would retreat.

We also fought with the PULO 10 but there were not many of them. Itwas more difficult to defend ourselves against the government soldiers.The PULO members were scared of us because they were few and theywere sparsely scattered in the jungle, whilst we always travelled ingroups. Usually the government army was more afraid of land mines.

They knew that we had laid many in the jungle. Sometimes we laid themines near the river and when they exploded, the soldiers would fall intothe river.10 The PULO Pattani United Liberation Organisation is the Muslim liberation and

independence movement founded in the South of Thailand (bo luo).


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But the enemy also laid their own mines. Their mines killed many of our comrades. We never attacked first; they attacked us first. Among the

Thai soldiers, there were differences too. Those in black were rough andwere ruthless when fighting us. Those in green uniforms in Thai wecall them Da han they were usually local Malays. They usually triedto inform us before they entered the forest and they also told us whenthey were going to leave because they were scared of us. They com-municated with us through our underground members, among the Malaypeople. We would not have been able to survive if we had not hadthese connections.

If we did not want to fight them, we would decide to leave whilst theywere in the jungle. Usually, we avoided fighting them; it was not advan-tageous to us, since we had some very old comrades with us. We had toconsider the safety and security of every member in the troop.

Sometimes the enemy came very close to us, but they never discov-ered us. We would keep absolutely silent. We covered our traces well. Ihad two or three battles, not many. We fought as a group of seven oreight members, not many. Our leader then was a very experiencedold comrade.

The first time, I felt a little scared. I was over 20 years old and wasin the M troop. It was in the Betong area. The enemy entered our territory.There were about 14 or 16 members in the troop but only six or sevenwere dispatched to the frontline. I was one of those sent to ambush them.

Sometimes we divided ourselves into smaller teams of five people.Usually the enemy came in groups of over one hundred so we used theguerrillas tactic of small units, scattered fire. As small groups, we hadto fight large numbers of the enemy with clever tactics, not easy. Weplayed hide-and-seek with them, there was no other way. That was ourstrategy and tactic.

After my first battle, my confidence increased because I had fired myguns at the enemy and nothing had happened to me, so I was no longerscared. I was never wounded because we practiced and drilled everydayhow to fight the enemy. I belonged to the frontline troops .11 That meantthat whenever the enemy was near, we were the first to go and fightthem. Usually I was the only woman in the team ( laughs ).

It was not difficult to fight alongside the male comrades but sometimes,when it rained, it became difficult since we had to stay in the ambushposition, we could not move around. We had to stay there, very tough.

11 Frontline troop (zhan dou dui) which can also mean the combat troop.


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Suria alias Atom 47

The women are not afraid of danger, of working alone at night in theplantation, because we know this village well but, of course, outside this

community, we cannot be so sure. After all, our community is differentfrom those outside. The people outside our community dare not do any-thing to us, nothing bad has happened since we started to tap rubber here.Because we were fighters before, we are used to it now. There is nothingwe are afraid of.

Those Malays outside our community, when they see us women, theysay: Those women from the Communist Party are very capable! Noneof them are afraid. So they dare not bully us. We set out to tap rubberfrom as early as 11 pm to midnight. It is better to tap the rubber at night,the latex flows much more. The morning is hot. So you see, we aredifferent, life is different; the way we live is different.

If we gave birth in the army, the Party provided us with post-natalcare. The women got a higher monthly allowance. They got subsidies tobuy good, healing food to help them recover faster from the birth but thechild could not be brought up in the jungle. He or she had to be takenout of the jungle to live with relatives. As you know, life is difficult inthe jungle, it was not safe for children if the enemy suddenly came intothe jungle to attack us. It was also not safe for adults. Usually after thefirst week of birth, the children were taken out of the jungle.

It was not difficult to give birth in the jungle because we had qualifieddoctors. I also delivered a baby for a comrade of mine; it was very fast.The process was quick and smooth because we ate well. They took goodcare of the mother. In just one week, the woman would have recoveredand after one month, she would be ready to carry loads. No problem. Butusually the mothers were not allowed to carry heavy loads, even afterone month. No heavy work. She would rest.

We have been through a lot; we were trained and we have provenourselves in battles. We encountered so many difficulties back then. Weexperienced good things but also bad things. We came out of the junglewith nothing; each person only had 1,000 Thai baht, which the Party gaveus. We had a few hundred baht as savings ourselves. All in all, we hadonly 2,0003,000 baht to start our new life with so if we did not work hard, how could we eat? What could we eat?

Identity and Belonging

When I first came down, I lived in another village. I started to sellgroceries there. It was a predominantly Malay village. My husband is


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Chinese; he did not go with them to the mosque and the villagers did notlike it. I now consider myself to be half Malay, half Chinese because I

do not join my own people in the mosque either so I also do not knowhow to pray. I dont want to go either.In the second year, the leadership asked me to return to the Peace

Village. By that time, I had my boy. The leadership kept asking us tocome back so I considered my husbands situation. As he is Chinese andwe were living in a Malay area, it did not work well and we decided tomove here. Now we are no longer worried, we feel comfortable here.

Because we are from the army, our thinking is different from theMalays who are not from our community. We were educated in the ideasof Marx. His teachings are very different from Islam but local Malaysare much more concerned about religion and they take it more seriouslythan us. They are much stricter about praying to God. They follow theirown customs strictly but with me (laughs) no such thing already, lah.That is why my own comrades consider me half Chinese, half Malay. Thisis also how I see myself. Times have changed.

Life as a Thai Member of the CPMI joined the CPM because they kept telling me that the Party was good.I did not understand much about what they were fighting for then. I didnot know what exactly was good about them. After I joined the army, Ilearned that there are also Malays in Malaya just like where I wasborn in Thailand. They told me that the part of Thailand where I wasborn previously belonged to Malaysia, it belonged originally to theMalays. I thought that once Malaya was liberated by the Party that Icould also choose to live there. I thought it could be a good idea to livein Malaya too.

They told me that the Communist Party was good because it helpedpoor people. We were poor people too. Even though I was not from Malaya,I could still join the CPM for the common, universal value of freedom(bebas in Malay). If I joined the guerrillas, I could become a member of the CPM. So, in the future, if Malaya is liberated by the CPM, I can alsogo and live in Malaya. Until now, I have not been to Malaysia though.

I have been a Party member for 20 years already, you know. Myideas remain the same today. My loyalty has not changed; I am still partof the Party. Whatever I do, I am guided by the Party. Now that we havecome down, we remain loyal to the Party; we cannot just ignore ourglorious past.


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Suria alias Atom 49

Settling Down in the Village

I could actually choose not to live here with my comrades. I could goback to my hometown. Thailand is very free; I could live wherever Iwanted, but I think about the fact that I belong to the Party. Living hereis comfortable and good. No worries, no problem. The outside world isfar more complicated.

As Thai locals, I know the realities of the world outside here. I think of how good the Party has been to us. Even after we came down, it wasstill good to us. Even though now we have to stand on our own two feeteconomically and we have to work for our own livelihood, it is still betterto live here.

It was not difficult to adjust to our new life after we came down butthere are many places we do not recognise now in Thailand; maybe wehave been away for too long. There are many unfamiliar places now.Initially, we needed people to guide us around. In just over twenty yearseverything changed. Even the way home, I cannot really remember it.

Documents

Life as the River Flows. by Agnes Khoo