One comfort woman’s story
A Chinese woman has come forth with her story about how she was forced by the Japanese Imperial Army to serve as a comfort woman during World War II.
Zhou Fenying is a living witness to the dark history that still poisons China’s relations with Japan more than 60 years after World War Two.
When Zhou was 22, Japanese soldiers came to her village in eastern China, grabbed her and her sister-in-law and carted them off to a military brothel, she says.
Now 91, Zhou has broken decades of silence to speak of her traumatic experience as a “comfort woman” — the euphemism the invading Japanese used to describe women forced into sex slavery.
“I hid with my husband’s sister under a millstone. Later, the Japanese soldiers discovered us and pulled us out by our legs. They tied us both to their vehicle. Later they used more ropes to tie and secure us and drove us away,” she told Reuters in her home village in Jiangsu province.
“They then took us to the ‘comfort woman lodge’. There was nothing good there,” she said, speaking through a local government official who struggled to translate her thick dialect into Mandarin.
“For four to five hours a day, it was torture. They gave us food afterwards, but every day we cried and we just did not want to eat it,” Zhou added, sitting in her sparsely decorated home.
While this bit of History seems to come back now and then, it is beating a dead horse. Yes, it was wrong. But war is hell and while the woman suffered, you do not hear the Chinese talk AT ALL about the millions that died and suffered under Chairman Mao. The Chinese have a particular way of looking at things. They overlook the most obvious and don’t let some things pass. Given China’s selective memory (you may say amnesia) this page of history has turned. Time to move on.
June 26th, 2007 at 2:20 amThis bit of History seems to come back now and then, it is beating a dead horse. Yes, it was wrong. But war is hell and while the Jews suffered, you do not hear them talk AT ALL about all the Palestinians and Arabs that DIED since Israel was formed. The Jews have a particular way of looking at things. They overlook the most obvious and let some things pass. Given the Jew’s selective memory (you may say amnesia) this page of history has turned. Time to move on.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:57 amI wonder if the Jews really appreciate the Holocaust being appropriated by anyone who wants to make a hyperbolic point about history….
June 26th, 2007 at 11:01 amThe Overthinker used ‘hyperbolic’ in a sentence.
That’s soooo sexy.
Grrrrrrrooooowwww.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:42 amStop picking on Mr. T. He’s different from all of you. I bet if it was his mother who was repeatedly ****** by a group of men…he still wouldn’t hate them. he probably would pitty the fool who give a ****
June 26th, 2007 at 12:26 pmGumdoguy, go back to your Nazi pedophile club, and stop bothering decent folk with your drivel about the evil Jews. The post is about China, ever heard of it? Or are your bowels plugging your ears?
June 26th, 2007 at 4:56 pmAs a Japanese citizen I feel a little obliged to comment on this subject. There are still quite amounts of patriotic people here in Japan who aren’t eager to regard the acts of the Japanese army in WW2 as very negative, and this is the reason why some groups maintain the influence trying to rewrite
wartime history.
The inhumane acts done to Chinese civilians and defeated troops by Japanese army were reported in details by several books of Katsuichi Honda(Asahi News Journalist). I read them years before. In those days, Japanese army marauded foods and assaulted people in China regardless of men and women. As for the brothels, it was the same in such inhumane ways.
The recognition is depending on the side to see in the phenomenon. The same thing about “the history recognition” which is connected with the national interest of the country. It sometimes is moreover the logic of the winner, which is conspicuous.
One proposal is the conference by the experts of both country, which is the genuine way in such a case. I consider that establishment is very effective. (Example : The WW2 recognition conference by Germany and Poland).
The Korean president Kim Dae Jung and Japanese prime minister Koizumi agreed in establishing “The Korea - Japan history cooperation research committee” in 2001. And the committee presented the report on June 10. 2005, but actually ended in the failure consequences. (Mostly each participant just presented his article alternately and no serious debate took place. And it wasn’t specific about wartime history, either).
I think it is difficult but anyhow the war specific conference should be established among Japan, Chine and Korea, to build the common wartime history recognition, otherwise at least to understand more about existing gaps.
If present China, south Korea(and north Korea) continue to attack Japan about the wartime crimes, using the exaggeration and the fabrication to keep their political favorable-ness, on the other hand if Japan is supposed not to be able to do proper refutation, is also an absolute problem.
Moreover, as Mr. T suggested, “the attack to Japan” used politically in China, Korea (and North Korea) isn’t desirable for their people as well.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:12 pmThe funny thing is, Japanese history generally doesn’t NEED rewriting. Aside from the over-hyped lunatic fringe like the Tsukurukai (and their textbook that was condemned by just about every historian and teacher in the country), and politicians who love soundbites, most Japanese history books are perfectly straight-forward about the various sins of the Japanese Army. Japanese history has generally been left-wing, even going back to Noro Eitarou way back in 1930 or so. and Ienaga Saburo’s long court case is a famous example of left-wing Japanese historiography. There are books on all sorts of aspects of Japanese history that, to read the Western (or continental Asian?) press you would think were verboten. The Tokyo Shoseki high school history text, for example, talks about Comfort Women, Forced Labour, and Unit 731.
June 26th, 2007 at 8:15 pmThis is what happens when elected Japanese officials continue making idiotic remarks that revive painful memories among the affected victims of WW2 and give the “enemies” opportunities to attack Japan all in the name of restoring patriotism and pandering votes
June 27th, 2007 at 3:49 amI should’ve known a Japan-bashing idiot would show up and play the Hitler card.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:56 amPaul, You’re a consistent source of amusement.
June 28th, 2007 at 3:12 pmin Hitler’s time the Germans and the Japanese were allies - where does the bashing bit come in ?.
June 28th, 2007 at 3:31 pmThe clear statement that Japan’s use of Comfort Women in particular and its various War Crimes in general is directly analogous to the Final Solution. Which is nonsense.
June 28th, 2007 at 3:35 pm