| Abstract: | Kiang Ai Kim is the first Singaporean Professor of Chemistry. In his lifetime, he has seen the evolution of the Raffles College to the University of Malaya in Singapore and, after two more evolutions, to the current National University of Singapore. Yet this unassuming 88-year-old professor would not have realised his ambition, if fate had not smiled kindly on him on two occasions. When the Japanese forces invaded Singapore, he was forced, at rifle-point, into a concentration camp in Jalan Besar. When he was interrogated, he gave his occupation as a laboratory assistant. Somehow, this did not impress his captors and he was released after two days. Later, a friend told him that he was reporting at the Kempetai Headquarters in Orchard Road because he had heard that young men would be given jobs. For some inexplicable reason, Kiang did not follow him. His friend, a Queen's Scholar in Botany, was never seen again… |
