Chinese Comfort Women (41 page)

12
He Shili, “Sanbai ‘weianfu’ cansi taiban – Shilu tiekuang ‘weiansuo’ diaocha shikuang” [Over half of the three hundred “comfort women” died: An investigative record of the Shilu iron mine “comfort station”], in
Tietixiade xingfeng xueyu: Rijun qin-Qiong baoxing shilu
[Bloody crimes of the occupation rule: Records of the atrocities committed by the Japanese military in Hainan], comp. Fu Heji (Hainan: Hainan chubanshe, 1995), 748-50. Hereafter Fu,
TXX
.

13
Yoshimi Yoshiaki,
Jūgun ianfu
[Military comfort women] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1995), 145-46.

14
Wu Liansheng’s testimony, in Fu,
TXXX
, 272-79.

15
Ayan’s testimony recorded by Li Weilin in Fu,
TXX
, 649-50,

16
Wu Liansheng’s testimony, in Fu,
TXXX
, 275.

17
Chen Zuliang, “Qin-Hua Rijun Dianxi weiansuo yu ‘weianfu’” [The Japanese military comfort stations and “comfort women” in western Yunnan], in
Taotian zuinie: Erzhan shiqi de Rijun weianfu zhidu
[Monstrous atrocities: The Japanese military comfort women system during the Second World War], ed. Su Zhiliang, Rong Weimu, and Chen Lifei (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 2000), 315.

18
Song Fuhai, “Wo qindu de Xinying Rijun ‘weiansuo’” [The Japanese military Xinying “comfort station” I witnessed], in Fu,
TXXX
, 188-90.

19
In
Jūgun ianfu
, Yoshimi provides evidence of this by citing the military records. See Yoshimi,
Jūgun ianfu
, 154.

20
He, “Sanbai ‘weianfu’ cansi taiban,” in Fu,
TXX
, 748-50.

21
Zhong Qiang, “Wo suo zhidao de Rijun Huangliu jichang de ‘weiansuo’” [The Japanese military Huangliu airport comfort station I saw], in Fu,
TXX
, 646-47.

22
Fu Heji, “Qin-Qiong Rijun ‘weianfu’ shilu” [The reality of the Japanese military “comfort women” in Hainan], in Su et al.,
Taotian zuinie
, 198.

23
Ibid., 199.

24
Yoshimi Yoshiaki, ed.,
Jūgun ianfu shiryōshū
[A collection of documents on military comfort women] (Tokyo: Otsuki shoten, 1992), 229-32.

25
Inaba Masao, ed.
Okamura Yasuji taishō shiryō: Senjō kaisō hen, jō
[Sources of general Okamura Yasuji: Recollections of the battlefield, vol. 1] (Tokyo: Hara shobō, 1970), 302-3. Translation of this passage is from Suzanne O’Brien’s translation in Yoshimi,
Comfort Women
, 66.

26
Rikujō jieitai eisei gakkō, ed.,
Daitōa sensō rikugun eiseishi
[A medical history of the army in the great East Asia war] (Tokyo: Rikujō jietai eisei gakkō, 1971), 1: 605-7, cited in Yoshimi,
Jūgun ianfu
, 51.

27
Cases of mass murder of comfort women at the end of the war have been described in several studies and wartime memoirs. See, for example, Kim Il Myon,
Tennō no guntai to Chōsenjin ianfu
[The emperor’s forces and the Korean comfort women] (Tokyō: Sanichi shobō, 1976); George Hicks,
The Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1994); and Nishino Rumiko,
Senjō no ianfu
[Comfort women in the battlefields] (Tokyo: Akashi shoten, 2003).

28
Chen Zuliang, “Qin-Hua Rijun Dianxi weiansuo yu ‘weianfu’” [The Japanese military comfort stations and “comfort women” in western Yunnan], in Su et al.,
Taotian zuinie
, 322.

29
“Di suijun yingji diaocha: Tengchong-cheng nei yiqun kelianchong,” [An investigative report of the enemy’s military prostitutes: A group of poor women at Tengchong],
Saodang bao
, 26 September 1944, cited in Chen, “Qin-Hua Rijun,” in Su et al.,
Taotian zuinie
, 322.

30
Alice Yun Chai, “Korean Feminist and Human Right Politics: The
Chongshindae/Jugunianfu
(‘Comfort Women’) Movement,” in
Korean American Women: From Tradition to Modern Feminism
, ed. Young In Song and Ailee Moon (Westport: Praeger, 1998), 240.

31
Su Zhiliang, Hou Guifang, and Hu Haiying,
Riben dui Hainan de qinlüe jiqi baoxing
[The Japanese invasion of Hainan and Its atrocities] (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 2005), 184-86.

32
Ibid., 185-89.

33
Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei. “Qin-Hua Rijun weianfu zhidu lüelun” [A study of the Japanese military comfort women system in China], in Su et al.,
Taotian zuinie
, 29.

34
The interviews were conducted by Su Zhiliang, Chen Lifei, Hou Guifang, and Hu Haiying from 2000 to 2004. Of the forty-two survivors found in the Hainan region, fourteen had already died and eight were not available for interviews.

35
Su et al.,
Riben dui Hainan de qinlüe jiqi baoxing
, 284-85.

36
Diana Lary and Stephen MacKinnon, eds.
Scars of War: The Impact of War on Modern China
(Vancouver: UBC Press, 2001).

PART 2: THE SURVIVORS’ VOICES

1
Testimonies of Yin Yulin and Wan Aihua, collected by Japanese researchers, are published in Japanese in Ishida Yoneko and Uchida Tomoyuki, eds.,
Kōdo no mura no seibōryoku: Dā’nyan tachi no sensō wa owaranai
[Sexual violence in the villages located in the area of the yellow earth: The war is not over to these aged women] (Tokyo: Sōdosha, 2004). Excerpts and testimonies of these women, collected by different researchers, also appear in Chinese journalist reports and scholarly works, but none of them has been published in English.

2
The tribunal was convened on 8 December 2000 and adjourned on 12 December 2000. It was a people’s tribunal organized by Asian women and human rights organizations and supported by international NGOs. It was convened to adjudicate Japan’s military sexual violence, in particular the enslavement of “comfort women.” This information is cited from the website of Violence against Women in War-Network Japan.

Chapter 5: Eastern Coastal Region

1
This was one kind of arranged marriage practised in China before the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949: a family in economic hardship would give or sell a young daughter to another family. The girl would be treated as an adopted daughter who would be married to a male member of the adoptive family when grown up – hence, literally, “the child raised to be daughter-in-law” (
tongyangxi
). In many cases, her in-laws used the child-daughter-in-law as free labour.

2
The Japanese troops invaded the Nanjing area in the winter of 1937. Lei Guiying’s description here is consistent with historical fact.

3
Foot-binding was practised on girls and women in China from around the tenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. Binding a girl’s feet tightly from a very young age in order to achieve the desired smallness often caused life-long disabilities, particularly for those whose arches or toes were broken.

4
Jiangsu-sheng Rugao-shi difangzhi bianzhuan weiyuanhui,
Rugao xianzhi
[Historical record of Rugao County] (Hong Kong: Xianggang xin Yazhou chubanshe youxiangongsi, 1995), 594-604.

5
The New Fourth Army was a unit of the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China established in 1937. Different from most of the National Revolutionary Army units, it was led by the Chinese Communist Party. Beginning in 1938, the New Fourth Army and the Eighth Route Army were the two main communist forces. The New Fourth Army was active south of the Changjiang River, while the Eighth Route Army was based in northern China.

6
Wang Jingwei (1983-44) was a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party, and he held prominent posts in the Nationalist government. A long-time rival of Jiang Jieshi, Wang became the head of the puppet state set up by Imperial Japan during its invasion of China.

7
This information is from the investigative notes of Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei, which were written in Chinese.

8
According to local history, the company had approximately sixty or seventy soldiers.

9
This building has now been demolished; the Miaozhen Town Hall now stands in its old location.

10
Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei, investigative notes.

Chapter 6: Warzones in Central and Northern China

1
Hans van de Ven and Edward J. Drea, “Chronology of the Sino-Japanese War,” in
The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945
, ed. Mark Peattie, Edward J. Drea, and Hans van de Ven (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 9.

2
Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven, “An Overview of Major Military Campaigns,” in Peattie et al.,
Battle for China
, 34-35.

3
It is not clear what kind of pills Yuan Zhulin was forced to take. Yuan seemed to suspect that they were some sort of contraceptive drug, but the availability of oral contraceptives at that time is questionable. Some other survivors also mentioned that the comfort stations made them take pills, but the nature and effect of these drugs is unclear.

4
Shihuiyao is today’s Huangshi City, Hubei Province.

5
A neighbourhood committee (
Jumin weiyuan hui
, or simply
Juweihui
) is under the administration of each district of a city in the urban areas of China. It is responsible for neighbourhood residential administrative matters.

6
van de Ven and Drea, “Chronology of the Sino-Japanese War,” 12.

7
Stephen MacKinnon, “The Defense of the Central Yangtze,” in Peattie et al.,
Battle for China
, 201-4; Tobe Ryōichi, “The Japanese Eleventh Army in Central China, 1938-1941,” in Peattie et al.,
Battle for China
, 217-18, 226-27; Wang Qisheng, “The Battle of Hunan and the Chinese Military’s Response to Operation Ichigō,” in Peattie et al.,
Battle for China
, 403-18. See also, Zhang Xianwen,
Zhongguo kang-Ri zhanzheng shi
[A history of China’s resistance war against Japan] (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 2001), 608-28, 815-35, 954-66, 1069-82.

8
A collection of proverbs. The authorship and date of the book are unknown.

9
A four-volume collection of proverbs, which was used for the education of children and was compiled by Cheng Dengji during the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

10
Today’s Town of Zhuliang-qiao, Ningxiang County.

11
In ancient China this term was used as an honorific to show respect to someone else’s mother but it is not commonly used in modern China. During the war, Chinese people in occupied areas were often forced to call the Japanese military men
taijun
.

12
van de Ven and Drea, “Chronology of the Sino-Japanese War,” 8.

13
Xie Zhonghou, Tian Susu, and He Tianyi, eds.,
Riben qinlüe Huabei zuixing shi gao
[A history of atrocities: Japan’s invasion of northern China]. (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2005), 41-143. Hereafter Xie et al.
RQHZS
.

14
“Jin Ji nütongbao canzao diren roulin” [Women in Jin and Ji regions are brutally raped], in
Xinhua ribao
, 9 April 1938.

15
Drea and van de Ven, “Overview of Major Military Campaigns,” 39.

16
Zhang,
Zhongguo kang-Ri zhanzheng shi
, 733-51.

17
Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei, investigative notes.

18
Because the written characters for these names were not given, all the personal and place names in this account are transcribed according to the pronunciations recorded during the interview.

19
Same as child-daughter-in-law. A child-bride was raised in her in-laws’ family and would then marry their son when she grew up. A child-bride/child-daughter-in-law was at the bottom of the family hierarchy.

20
According to Wan Aihua’s recollection, because of her contribution to the anti-Japanese invasion, the local CCP committee made an exception and allowed her to become a CCP member before the age of eighteen.

21
Li Guiming is a villager in Yu County and a supporter of the local surviving comfort women. He helped several survivors in the area, including Wan Aihua, in their lawsuits for redress.

Chapter 7: Southern China Frontlines

1
Hans van de Ven and Edward J. Drea, “Chronology of the Sino-Japanese War,” in
The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945
, ed. Mark Peattie, Edward J. Drea, and Hans van de Ven (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 11.