Manila stories: A bus arrives at the city's outskirts, the passengers get off and line up for an inspection. The Japanese guard says to one, "Pikit" [shut your eyes in Tagalog]. The man does so, but nothing happens so he opens them again. "Pikit," says the guard again, so the man shuts his eyes again — this time, tighter. Still nothing happens so he opens them again. "Pikit!" shouts the Japanese in a rage, slapping him twice until he shuts his eyes again in terror. Tragedy was averted when a Filipino sentry arrived and explained that the Japanese guard only wanted to see his ticket.

A nouveau riche Buy-and-Sell man saunters up to the shoeshine establishment and takes a seat beside a friend of mine. The shoeshine boy goes to work on his shoes. The Buy and Sell man watches, fidgets a bit, then says, "S-ay, what's that paste you're using? Is that genuine?" The youth ignores him and continues with his job. The Buy and Sell man fidgets again then shouts: "Hey, I don't like that. Is that shoe polish genuine?"

The irritated youth looks up and replies: "Is your money genuine?"

Tribune: In the recent raid on Rangoon, Corporal Taniguchi "deliberately" crashed into and downed an enemy bomber. However, he was able to bail out successfully. "At the same time Sub-Lieutenant Ito also crashed his plane into an enemy craft to down another enemy bomber." Yet, "he managed to make a successful forced landing at an undisclosed airdrome." Pretty good feats, you might think. But the top prize goes to a recent Nippon Times article in English: "Our bombers were on their mission, when suddenly three enemy fighters appeared. Two of our bombers self-blasted themselves."

La Vanguardia: "Gift of Rice for the Philippines." For independence, the Japanese will give us three tons of quinine [from Java], 25,000 sacks of rice [from Saigon], and one million yards of cotton goods [from here]. Of course, it will be given on three separate occasions accompanied by the usual dulcet phrases. We've received the quinine already, the rice comes next, and the textiles will be given later — at least those that survived the white ants. My guess is Burma is similarly getting quinine from Java, sugar from the Philippines, and so on.