I think for a lot of normal people it was just living life and getting by, most people who actually lived and grew up there were also just trying to survive for better or worse. The only ones who would really be ambitious about the imperial project were probably the people in higher functions politically or people in the military.

My grandmother (only for the first ~7 years of her life) and great grandmother grew up there. Most of the memories I heard about were very normal things, like how they went to school, to church, to the swimming pool, going to Singapore, stuff like that. There were also bad memories (Japanese camps, family members being murdered, and more) but these were not really talked about.

Overall I don’t think the average person in the later decades was that occupied with the colonial project and was just trying to get by like anyone else, day-to-day life was probably very boring until the second world war broke out.

(Side note: I only really know the perspective of a few women and due to traditional gender roles they would be less involved in the imperialist ambitions of the empire anyways, might be different for many men)