We met Professor Su again today in different topic of 'Comfort Women'. He is a historian in Shanghai Normal University and also a director of Centre for Study on Chinese "Comfort Women" of Shanghai Normal University. He presented on Japan’s military sexual slavery system and its impact on victims and also the international redress movement for the victims.
He also mentioned that some people desensitize the atrocities of this issue & misuse the contents for personal gains. One of the examples was an erotic Korean movie which materialized 'Comfort Women's sexual aspect' and later caused uproar among Koreans & ultimately led a director to shave his head and an actress to kneel down in front of a 'Comfort Women' survivor in public to show their sincere apologies. This kind of people's ignorance is one of the reasons that some of the Japanese nationalists distort the fact of these women's being sexual slaveries to voluntary prostitutes.
As the professor Su is wrapping up his lecture, a tiny little women accompanied by a younger gentleman(who was found to be a son of her second marriage) appeared at the back of the room. Flora & Thekla, organizers from Toronto & BC got up and escorted this women to the front of the room. She was Madame TAN Yu-Hua (谭玉华), a survivor of Japan's military sexual slavery system. She flew 1000 miles from her hometown to tell us her stories. As she started talking, all of us are facing unexpected obstacle in this particular session. She apparently speaks a very rare dialect of Chinese so her son had to interpret to our interpreters to translate Mandarin to English. Confusing? Yes, it was a bit(?) chaotic.. The organizers made an executive decision to stop the testimony due to technical difficulty.
However, we got some information about her with help of Professor Su who intensively interviewed Madame Tan previously. Her village was taken by Japanese soldiers and most villagers fled the town. The girls captured by Japanese imperial army were distributed to each house and served soldiers usually at night time. There were a few girls staying in one house. They were free to walk around out of the house during the daytime when Japanese soldiers left the village to fight in the front line but no one dared to escape because of the fear. There were some public beating & torture to the girls who attempted escaping. She was set free when Japanese army left the village after a few months of stationary in the village. She was very much accepted by her parents and relatives afterwards and she was able to continue on her life. I guess she was one of the lucky ones among the comfort women victims. However, her son delivered a shocking news when he answered to the question of his difficulties caused by being exposed to the public because of his mom's past. He told us that he only found out her mom's past a few days ago when Professor Su contacted him to help her to travel 1000 miles to Shanghai to give her testimony to a group of teachers from Canada. This was one of the awakening moments for me to understand the silence that most of victims of sexual slavery victims practice. He did add though that he believes her mom is telling the truth & he supports his mom's decision to come out.
After a short break, we regrouped our session to visit the Chinese "Comfort Women" Archives Centre in the basement of one of the buildings at Shanghai Norman University. It was a tiny room which contains books, photos & articles they collected. One of the article displayed in this room was an unused condom near former comfort station. A crucial evidence?
As 39 of us are overcrowding this room, I ran into Madame Tan in a very narrow corridor. I offered her a hug with help of a student of Professor Su's and she welcomed my offer. I gave her a fairly tight bear squeeze hug. When we parted, we both had tears in our eyes. We didn't need to know each other's languages to share our deep emotions. I truly wish that she can live healthy to continue telling her stories to the public for many more years and ultimately I wish her to find some kind of closure to her hardship.
Day 4 continues after a delicious meal and relatively cheap beer at the University cafeteria...The steamed fish was one of the best meals I had in Shanghai so far. Two bottles of beer were always included in our meal but we always ended up ordering extra couple of bottles paid out of our own expenses. We took turns in buying beer during our meal. Somehow(?) everyone was eager to have their turn to buy in this cafeteria. 5 ren per bottle here verses 15-20 ren per bottle in other restaurants.. Does this explain why? And today was happened to be the birthday for one of participants, Wade Serjeanston. We arranged a birthday cake for him which was a nice reminder to all of us that this trip is not all about serious stuff.
In the afternoon we visited Qian Cang Zhan - the historical site of a “Comfort House” at Pudong District. This house did belong to a wealthy Chinese business man. The house was taken by Japanese imperial army and used as a comfort station. This is a bit different from other comfort stations that we studied so far in terms of the level of luxury that the house offers. The butler from this house were held back as a cook for these girls and later told the stories to the family of this wealthy Chinese man.
The exact number of the girls who stayed in this house was unknown. However, the girls were segregated into three categories, the prettiest, the average, the uglist. The first group will stay in the bigger rooms on the second floor, the second group will stay in the rooms on the main floor and the third group will stay in the servants quater at the back of the building. But we all know the consequence of being the prettiest in this situation..Sadly...
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