November 9, 2008
Today was an incredible day. We went to see the Comfort Women in southern Seoul. It was sad, moving, motivating and surreal, all at the same time. We were 1 group of 3 who would have this very special tour in English.
For those of you who have never heard about the Comfort Women, they are survivors of the war when Japan occupied Korea. They are women who were used as sex slaves for the Japanese soldiers. They were kidnapped, sold, or tricked and forced to have sex. Some were taken as children from their family’s farms, in the cities and out of schools, some as young as 11 years old. They were abused, beaten, and even killed if they did not perform as expected. The tragedy of what I learned today is almost too much to bear, but the story has to be told. These women are waiting for a pubic apology from the Japanese government, but the Japanese refuse to admit that it happened. Even today Japan is in the middle of rewriting textbooks so that there is not even a hint that this even occurred. They are just waiting for these women to die so they can easily say that it never happened.
Historians and humanitarians have traveled all around Asia to find women who will speak out about their experiences. The numbers of victims vary from 50,000 to 200,000 possible sex slaves, depending on who is telling the story. Nevertheless, a hand full of women have come out to speak about these crimes, giving painful personal testimonies, in hope that someday someone will apologize, and that this type of crime never occurs again.
Today my children and I were fortunate to travel to this Sharing House on the outskirts of Seoul, to tour a very small museum funded by Buddhists Monks, and meet some women who live there. One never knows what to expect when they arrive, as the women may or may not be able to give a testimony on any given day. They are still living with the pains of the past. A local artist has been teaching them how to paint in order to tell their stories, as they women are illiterate. People travel there from all over the world to record their story with urgency because these women are old and time is slipping away. Last year two of the women passed away, and now there are 7 left.
Today we got to hear the testimony of one woman who looked out at the audience of young people, mostly college students, and couldn’t resist the opportunity to keep history alive. She spoke with passion and insistence, and even though we couldn’t understand Korean, we knew what she was saying through her eyes, tone and body language. The interpreter just confirmed for us what we thought she might be saying.
She was 14, my son’s age, when two men, one Korean and one Japanese, abducted her. Yes, a Korean soldier was selling her to the Japanese soldier. She was taken to a Comfort House, (a Japanese brothel for soldiers) and was 1 of 6 women who serviced 4000 soldiers. As we learned from the museum tour, this is how the Japanese felt they were reducing the risk of their soldiers from raping the local village women, reducing the chances of venereal diseases, and keeping their soldiers’ stress down. The needs of the women were never considered, as they were property, not humans. She escaped twice, but was found and beaten, and finally they cut her foot off so she couldn’t run away again. When the war was over they never told the women it was over but were taken to the mountains left to die. Scared and disoriented, she did survived and found her way back down to a village. She did not speak the language, and took on a job as a laborer. She had no way of getting back to Korea and ended up remaining in China for 58 years. Koreans had listed her as dead and she had no way of proving she was who she claimed. She did find her way back to Korea a couple years ago, and finally to this Sharing House.
Today she is active in protesting every Wednesday in front of the Blue House, asking for an apology and reparations. So far the pleas of these women have fallen on deaf ears, although a few foreigners have picked up the cause and begun to create some momentum. The US government passed a bill asking the Japanese government to recognize these war crimes.
When this woman spoke you could hear the determination in her voice and the strong-willed manner that kept her alive throughout all of this. She asked that everyone who heard her story spread the word, so that these monstrosities never repeated. I am doing just this with hope that these women can die in peace. I saw a video of one of the women who recently died, and even as she lay on her deathbed she repeatedly asked about the status of “the cause”.
I cannot tell you the profound effect this experience has had on my life already. I am so fortunate my children were there to share it with me. I cannot understand how people can be so cruel. I know how widespread crimes against humanity are, but to meet a person who is at the end of her life, and have her plead with you to continue to tell this story, compels you to do something, to mobilize, to pray, to no longer be apathetic.
So with this in mind I retell her story and invite you to learn more about the other stories of the women at this house. There are so few women who come out because of the shame involved. Asian people are, in general, about saving face, and this is exactly why the Japanese do not want to admit their wrongdoings either.
I am including the web address here and maybe you will check it out. At the end of her talk she asked if any of us had questions. Of course we did, but out of respect we did not ask. She told us to pretend that she was our grandmother and that we were sitting in her living room. I kept thinking about my own grandmother, and how very few questions I asked her, and now that she is gone, how little I really know about her life.
Anyhow, check it out.
Monday, November 17, 2008
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