Sold for Silver

I was looked at, criticized, and after much bargaining sold for $250.A" So begins Janet Lim's ordeal as a mui tsai, or slave girl, in 1930s Singapore. But this is only the beginning of a remarkable journey, which sees the author freed from child bondage to assume a position of leadership, and obtain true happiness, in later life. Janet was born in China in 1923 and spent her first nine years there. During that time she witnessed the death of her brother, sister and father. He new stepfather's family chained her up before selling her into slavery in Singapore. After gaining her freedom, Janet was educated by missionaries and served under colonial tutelage as a nurse. Her misfortunes returned, however, when Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942-the ship that she fled Singapore on was bombed and she drifted for days at sea. Rescued by Indonesian fishermen, she was finally captured and imprisoned in Japanese-occupied Sumatra. To avoid becoming a comfort woman Janet escaped into the jungle villages of west Sumatra but was once again caught, and this time tortured by the Japanese military police and threatened with the firing squad.