(mochi)
the painted picture is fake art, it was painted by ex-comfort woman,but the ture is made by professional korean artist.
moreover,koreans have claimed that imperial japan had banned hanguel in colonial era,then she would not be able to write her hanguel sign.
the cute girl wears school uniform which is the white jeogori;jacket and black Chima;skirt, from seemed it that she backs in the way to her home from middle or high school,she was kidnapped by brutal japanese soldiers.
however......the tuition cost of girl's middle or high school were too much expensive for poor people at the time.
she could not go to even elementary school,her father let her go to Kisaeng school,the countersan course, which fee was much expensive than schools of japan government in Korea.
WHO IS SHE!?
moreover,there was not any battle field in korea,imperial japanese soldiers could not walk around freely in korea!!
70% of policemen for japan governed in korean peninsula were local KOREAN.
i'm sure that the picture shows a sean after 1945.
you should notice the historical paradox by yourself!
Comfort Women
In 1932 the Japanese military began to institute “comfort stations,” places where women were kept to serve as sex slaves to men in the Japanese military. Lieutenant-General Okamura Yasuji, one of the military leaders who confessed that he helped arrange the creation of comfort stations, said that one of a the reasons behind the creation of comfort stations was the high numbers of rapes that Japanese soldiers were committing in China. Building military-run comfort stations drastically decreased the number of reported rape of local women. The first comfort station under military control was in Shanghai, China. Comfort stations soon began being set-up through out the territories occupied by Japan. Tens of thousands of women were brought to the comfort stations from all across Asia. The majority was Korean, not only from the Korean peninsula, but from northern Kyushu as well. Chinese, Japanese, Dutch and Southeast Asian women were also recruited into the ranks of the comfort women. Japanese women brought to the front from mainland Japan most often came on a volunteer basis, many of them were professional prostitutes. The Japanese women who were professional prostitutes often times carried more STDs, however, Japanese women were more desirable to the Japanese men. Because of this the Japanese women were often reserved for officers and kept at safer military bases. Next on the ranks of favored women for sex were the Korean women, then Chinese and last came the Southeast Asian women because their skin tended to be darker. However, after all is said and done, women were in such a high demand that the only thing that mattered was that they had female bodies.
Women were “recruited” to comfort stations in many ways. Although a small portion came willingly, most women were tricked or kidnapped. They military recruited young girls, from ages ranging to as young as thirteen, by promising them work, either in a factory or military hospital. Kang Duk-kyung, a former comfort woman was told that she was going to Japan for school.
One day my school teacher, who was Japanese, visited my home and asked me if I wanted to go to Japan to further my education and do something “good for the Emperor. I was flattered, but I was too shy to question his motives. So I said yes. When I showed up at the school ground for the appointment at least 50 other girls had gathered there.
After a few months of travel Kang Duk-kyung was taken to a camp and forced to work as a comfort woman, she was only thirteen years old. Most comfort stations were crudely built barracks. Each woman would be assigned a small room with one tatami mat and was forced to have sex with soldiers. Most comfort women received an average of 20-30 men a day. Some women, such as Kim Dae-il, were forced to receive up to 50 men a day. Girls were lucky if they caught the eye of an officer and were taken away from the common barracks. Some kind-hearted officers released comfort women and gave them the papers they would need to return home. Most women taken into the stations, however, were not so fortunate. Comfort women were abused terribly by the soldiers. Not only were they forced to have sex with the soldiers but they were also beaten. Women were kicked, punched, stabbed and even killed either for refusing sex, or for no reason at all. Kim Dae-il recalls a night when a man came to her drunk, “[he] continued drinking in my cubical. He then stabbed the lower part of my body and shouted, “Hey, this senjing (dirty Korean) is dying.” He then screamed “Kono Yaro!” (Damn you!) and stabbed a few more times in my lower abdomen. I became crippled for life from these wounds.” Women also contracted a wide variety of venereal diseases for which they were often treated by being injected with “#606,” a substance containing arsenic, which had been originally created to treat syphilis. Comfort women were not fed well, and often found themselves on the brink of starvation. Hunger, disease and abuse made the lives of comfort women hell on earth. It broke their bodies and their spirits. Many women died as comfort women, those who have survived describe their lives as ones filled with constant pain and loneliness. Pak Kyung-soon, a former comfort women, now 67 years old said, “even today I cannot stop crying when I remember this past.” The lives of these poor women were destroyed by the Japanese military, but Japan has paid for its crimes?
Directly after the war the United States tried twenty-eight Japanese leaders, both military and political, on charges of crimes against peace and crimes against humanity at the Tokyo Trials of 1945. The accused were brought before a tribunal made of judges from Allied nations. In other places, including Yokohama, approximately 6,000 other Japanese were tried for lesser crimes, such as inhumane treatment of natives or POWs. The results of the Tokyo trials placed the blame on Military leaders. This placement of blame resulted in Japan's lost of rights to use military force against other nations. However, the placement of blame solely on the military was highly debated. The Emperor was taken out of power, but not punished for the actions of his country. Many people say that Japan got off easy, considering the horrible acts they committed during the war. For example, the doctors and scientists involved in medical experimentation were not punished. The United States granted experimenters, such as those in unit 731, immunity in exchange for the data they had collected through their experiments, particularly experiments with germ warfare. The men who actually preformed the experiments were also not punished.
Gen. Shiro Ishii, the head of Unit 731, was allowed to live peacefully until his death from throat cancer in 1959. Those around him in Unit 731 saw their careers flourish in the postwar period, rising to positions that included Governor of Tokyo, president of the Japan Medical Association and head of the Japan Olympic Committee. Unfortunately for the victims, the human medical experimentation will not be re-evaluated in the foreseen future. The plights of the comfort women have been one aspect of Japan’s war crimes that has been revisited again and again. In 1848 the Dutch government held trials for the war criminals who had enslaved approximately 100 Dutch women as comfort women. The trials were held in Dutch Indonesia and were not highly publicized outside of the Dutch community. Of the accused Japanese officers, two committed suicide, one was sentence to death and eight were given sentences from seven to twenty years in prison. Two officers were acquitted and medical examiners that had examined the comfort women were give light sentences of up to two years. These trials were, however, only for officers connected with the sex slavery of Dutch women. It wasn’t until many years later that Korean women began to come out and share their stories. The Korean government did not press any charges against the Japanese government for the wartime institutionalization of comfort women. In May of 1990, after a few publications telling the stories of former comfort women had caught the public’s attention, several Women’s Associations from Korea made a trip to Japan to issue a joint statement regarding the institution of comfort women. In May the issue was addressed by the Japanese Diet however no substantial progress was made. In November, 1990, people from multiple Korean women’s associations formed the Korean Comfort Women Problem Resolution Council, also known as the Council for the Matter of comfort Women. In December the council sent a letter to The Prime Minister of Japan stating their six demands:
1.
That the Japanese government admit the forced draft of Korean Comfort Women;
2.
That a public apology be made for this;
3.
That all barbarities be fully disclosed;
4.
That a memorial be raised for the victims;
5.
That the survivors or their bereaved families be compensated;
6.
That these facts be continuously related in historical education so that such misdeeds are not repeated.
In April of 1991 the council received a verbal reply from the Japanese Embassy in Seoul the Japanese replied that, “there was no evidence of the forced draft of Korean women. So no public apology, disclosures or memorial are forthcoming.”4 Although this is not a complete recount of accusations against Japan and Japan’s reactions to them, it is clear that since the end of the war Japan has been reluctant to accept responsibility for its actions.
Despite Japan’s published intentions to “liberate” East Asia, World War II was a time of suffering for the people Japan conquered. The Japanese treatment of natives, POWs and women were some of the worst crimes against humanity the world ever has seen. Many of their actions have been covered up, and should be uncovered. The truth about Japan’s actions during World War II must be told so that these atrocities will not happen again.
https://gustavus.edu/
http://homepages.gac.edu/~sommera/japaneseness.html
Alison Campion
Anthropology of Japan
Exploring Japaneseness
In order to “explore Japaneseness” we must first define what we mean by Japaneseness. There are many ways we could interpret this term, many angles of Japaneseness we could explore. There are many aspects of Japanese society, from ethnic identity to national pride to individual Japanese social conscience. When we explore Japan and its people we must always be aware of our focus and perspective. For me, I must always be aware that my perspective is that of an American who, despite having studied much about Japan, has not spent time in the country so my opinions are greatly formed by the authors whose works I have read. However I am going to attempt here to give a well-rounded account of “Japaneseness” by looking from the three angles: ethnicity, nationality and society.
Ethnic identity in Japan is quite unique from the rest of the world, or so they would have us believe. The true origins of the Japanese race are still disputed by experts but there are a few prevailing theories. According to Japanese mythology the Japanese people are a race of people totally separate from “mainland” Asia. The Emperor of Japan is told to have descended directly from the sun goddess Amaterasu-Omikami. This unique outlook on the origin of their people has contributed much to many aspects of Japanese sense of “Japaneseness” and Japan's national identity. The only evidence for this is a long tradition of written and oral tales of the story of Amaterasu-Omikami. One of the more factually based alternative theories is the theory that most of the people we consider Japanese today are actually descendants of the Horse Rider people of Korea. The Horse Riders were theorized to have ridden through Korea, taking control of the people there then kept moving across the water to Japan where they conquered the indigenous peaceful agrarian people and turning them into the warrior state we now think of as old Japan. The physical proof archaeologists have for this theory are the remains of certain saddles, horse tackle and other paraphernalia not point to an origin outside of the Japanese borders. Also the rapid transition between an agrarian state to a systems of warriors is indicative of the introduction of a conquering force. These different theories may give us an insight into “Japaneseness” but we must look also to different parts of Japanese national society to explore the question further.
When one speaks of Japanese “nationality” and nationalism it is hardly surprising when thoughts of the extremely nationalistic Imperial era of Japan come to mind. One of the reasons that such images come to mind is that, from the western perspective, the study of Japanese society did not begin until World War II began and it was necessary to learn their culture in order to fight against their nation. But although this point of view may be bias it is not without worth. Through these studies we have learned more about Japanese society and Nationalism than we had previously known, even if some of these new insights are biased. One of the main observations the Americans made about Japanese society is that it is “unusually homogeneous. Because individualism is not held as of high importance like in America the Japanese people tend to conform more to a national norm, and this conformity is will eager willingness on the part of the citizens. They readily follow the rules and regulations set upon them by their superiors. Part of that willingness to conform may come from the fact that Japan is a “shame culture”. A shame culture is a society where the deterrent form doing “wrong” deeds is not punishment or guilt, it is that a bad act may shame the person and all those associated with him. Shame, or “losing face” is the strongest deterrent. Comparatively western society is part of a “guilt culture” where people are tough from childhood to feel a sense of guilt at wrong-doings, a feeling with may over-power the urge to mis-behave.
Another one of the large differences Americans noticed while studying Japan is the large hierarchical structure which permeates the whole society, right down to the language. Japan's social ranking system is largely vertical. In almost every social situation between two people one will be the superior of the other. Even the language reflects these rankings. In a given conversation people choose specific markers (such as -san or -kun) and different verb-forms to indicate the hierarchical differences between the speaker and themselves. These rankings have to do with a variety of variables including socio-economic status, sex, education and most importantly age. Revere for the elderly is a key part of not only Japanese but much of Asian culture, especially as it is tied to Confucian values of filial piety. People must respect and obey their parents and their elderly relatives. This respect does not end at the death of the elderly person but in carried on in a practice know as “ancestor worship”. Families will pay special attentions to their dead ancestors to keep the ancestors' spirits at peace and their own lives save from otherworldly interference.
As I have said Japanese society contains many specific roles for each member of society. These roles are woven together to allow the people Japanese society to lean on each other. The role of the individual in the society is not to search out their own personal goals, as it is in American society, but to help others and contribute to the whole. This steams from the idea of amae, which is said in the first question of the exam is the symbiotic relationship like a child and a mother. It is the warm feeling of being at the breast of your mother that this sort of social arrangement propagates. The social obligation, or giri, plus the benefits which each individual person reaps from the arrangement form this amae bond in Japanese society. In modern society this social construct has been greatly implemented in the workplace. The workers are made to feel as though they are part of a big family that all depends on each other. The boss gives special favors to the workers, which translate into On, or “social obligation” to the workers to remain loyal and work hard for the same company for their entire life. These workers are called “company men” and are quite unique to Japan. That is why when people study Japaneseness the idea of a company man as a part of the social fabric, and perhaps as a replacement for the nationalism of the Imperial era, comes to mind. Unfortunately right now, with the struggling economy the “company man” is becoming less feaseable and more men are minding themselves in dead-end jobs or even without steady empployment all together. Sadly this has raised the suicide rate of middle-aged men in Japan within the last decade.
One of the last major points about exploring Japanese society I would like to make is the importance of the study of religious practices in understanding a culture. The two major religions of Japan are Shinto, which is the native religion, and Buddhism, which originated in far-away India. In Japan neither of these religions is generally considered exclusive to the other, meaning that a person is free to practice elements of both religions. Shinto, unlike most of the world's largest religions, does not have one specific body of teaching, instead it is a combination of folk stories, rituals and beliefs which helped the ancient Japanese to explain the world around them. Many Japanese refer to Shinto as the”natural” religion, where as Buddhism is the “religion of man”. Buddhism was introduced in the 6th century and has made deep roots in Japanese culture. The teachings of Buddha combined with the moarls of the Shinto sect to help form what we now think of as Japanese spirituality. Christianisty was introduced to Japan in the 16th century but because of a strong effort to hinder its spread by the Japanese government the Christian Japanese remain a small fraction, only 1%, of society. This demonstrates a resistance to change and move against the government's wishes and a fundamental loyalty to that which is considered native Japanese.
It is very difficult to come up with a clear definition of Japaneseness, as it would be for any culture or society. However, by exploring the many the many sides of japan and its people we can hope to have a better understanding of the culture there. The best way to study Japan is to look at it from all angles; have personal experiances, meet the people, see the cities and the countryside, read the books written by scholars from around the world. Only if you spread your eyes wide will you be able to take in the many wonderful aspects of Japanese culture. I hope I outlined well for you some of the key parts of Japanese culture. Although these observations are from a western observer who has not had the privilege of studying in Japan proper I hope they are altogether not without merit.
Bibliography
Gari Ledyard, “Galloping Along with the Horseriders: Looking for the Founders of Japan.” Journal of Japanese Studies, Columbia University, 1975
P.G. Steinhoff, “Japanese Studies in the United States and Beyond”, Japan in the World, The World in Japan, 2001
Chie Nakane, Japanese Society, University of California Press, 1972
Harumi Befu, Japan, An Anthropological Introduction, Harpercollins College Div, 1971
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