It was the end of the Japanese Occupation and Lee Kuan Yew had decided to continue his disrupted studies in the United Kingdom (UK).

On September 16, 1946, he boarded the Britannic, a 65,000-ton Cunard Liner that sailed from Singapore to Liverpool. He waved a tearful goodbye to his friends and family, and embarked on his journey.

Travelling by ship was still one of the main modes of transportation in those days.

And while sailing to foreign lands, people would inadvertently be exposed to different cultures and ways of life along the way and on board their ship.

For Lee, it was his first time travelling outside of Singapore and Malaya, so being on board the Britannic allowed him to witness different practices and perspectives that he had never encountered before.

Culture shock

The journey from Singapore to Liverpool took a total of 17 days.

During the journey, Lee killed time mostly by playing poker with a group of Hong Kong students, a past time which he described as "relatively innocent" when compared to the promiscuity he encountered on the ship.

In an account in The Singapore Story, Lee was "shocked to see the unabashed promiscuity of some 40 or 50 servicewomen, non-commissioned officers and other ranks, who flirted with the officers."

What really shocked him was an incident where he witnessed people openly having sex:

"One night, a Hong Kong student, his eyes popping out of his head, told me they were unashamedly making love on the lifeboat deck."

Struck by curiosity, he went up to the deck and described the scene:

"What a sight it was! The deck was a hive of activity, with couples locked in passionate embraces scattered all over it. Some were a little less indelicate. They untied the canvas covers of the lifeboats to get inside them for a little privacy. But to see dozens of men and women openly engaging in sex contrasted sharply with my memory of the Japanese soldiers queuing up outside the 'comfort house' at Cairnhill Road. 'French letters', now called condoms, littered the deck."

His memory of the the scene of Japanese soldiers queuing up at Cairnhill Road was described in this separate account:

"I cycled past and saw long queues of Japanese soldiers snaking along Cairnhill Circle outside the fence. I heard from nearby residents that inside there were Japanese and Korean women who followed the army to service the soldiers before and after battle. It was an amazing sight, one or two hundred men queuing up, waiting their turn."

For Lee, witnessing rampant sexual acts in public was a completely unprecedented, if not shocking, phenomenon.

Prejudice and bias

Other than encountering different perspectives and approaches towards sex, Lee was also exposed to different racial prejudices.

When the vessel was passing through the Suez Canal, he witnessed a group of Arab men performing obscene acts toward British women:

"As we passed, a group of Arab workers on the shore started shouting obscenities and lifted their gallabiya - long garments like nightshirts - to flaunt their genitals at the British servicewomen, who were on the deck watching the world go by in the torrid heat. The women shrieked in surprise and disgust, much to the delight of the Arabs, who put their hands on their penises and shook them."

Lee later learnt that the Arabs hated the British, hence resulting in such acts towards the women.

Through these eye-opening incidents that he witnessed on the vessel, Lee realised that the world was much larger than he had originally imagined, and its inhabitants possessed vastly different world views and norms.

So, wanderlust drives one to see the world and gain a better understanding of it.

The end.

Top image from Wikipedia & Love Stickers! for Doodle Text

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