31 Dec 1941, Harry Ching's wartime diary
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We celebrated the New Year by buying some bread from a hawker. It was interesting, in two colours - off-white in the upper strata and near black at the base. It cost $1.40 a pound. We had about $500 in cash, but I had no income and small prospect of acceptable employment.
Fears of New Year celebrations and excesses; the Japanese make much of New Year. We are nervous also about my borrowed automatic ((pistol)). Possession of arms is a capital offence. I made a hurried nocturnal trip and took it back to the neighbour, who said he would dump it, with his own, down a well.