On 14 August 1939, Aung San and another "Thakin" colleague, Hla Myaing, boarded the Norwegian cargo ship "Hai Lee" to Xiamen, China. Neither Aung San nor Hla Myaing gave their real names, identifying themselves as "Tan Luang Shun" and "Tan Su Taung". They arrived in Xiamen on 24 August 1939 and stayed at an inexpensive lodging house at the international settlement on Gulangyu Island, which was administered by a joint Chinese, Japanese, and American government. During their first two months on the island they tried unsuccessfully to establish contact with the Chinese Communist Party. By the end of this time they had nearly run out of money and Aung San had contracted dysentery. Eventually Aung San wrote to his friend Bo Let Ya about his poverty and illness, and requested that his friend arrange contact with the Japanese to rescue them. Bo Let Ya wired several hundred rupees to them and forwarded this request to his Japanese contacts along with pictures of Aung San and Hla Myaing. This request eventually reached a Japanese intelligence operative active in Burma, Colonel Suzuki Keiji, who then forwarded the request to his friend, Colonel Kiyoshi Tanaka at the Japanese Army Command in Taiwan, who agreed to send several Japanese intelligence officers to the island to look for the two Burmese men. In November 1939 a Japanese spy, Major Kanda, found Aung San and Hla Myaing and arranged for their passage to Japan. The pair left for Tokyo via Taiwan and arrived in Japan on 27 September 1940, the same day that Japan signed its military alliance with Nazi Germany.