Andō’s Ambiguities in Malaya: The Life of a Japanese Medical Doctor Between British and Japanese Empires

Abstract This article focuses on the life of medical doctor Kōzō Andō (安藤公三) and his family as My word count now says it is 198 words Japanese citizens in the British Empire, medical practitioners within inter-imperial biomedical frameworks and as intermediaries of Japanese imperialism during the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia in World War II. The Andō family came to settle on the Malay peninsula in the late nineteenth century which was under the control of the British but still part of Japan’s nan’yō imaginary. Both Kōzō Andō and his younger brother Jun’ichiro (安藤純一郎) were trained as medical doctors at the King Edward VII Medical College in Singapore, one of the well-regarded training institutions for medicine in the British Empire and Southeast Asia at the time. When Japan invaded Malaya, Kōzō Andō was made Chief Medical Officer of Syonan (Singapore), a position which he held until his retirement and return to Japan in 1943. The life of Kōzō Andō points to his ambiguous situation in Malaya under British and Japanese empires due to his positionality as Japanese, as part of a larger Asian racial category in Malaya, and as a medical doctor in an inter-imperial setting.