‘Kono Statement/Apology’ which was issued as a result of the Japanese government’s own official investigation into the matter which concluded that the Japanese military was directly or indirectly involved in coercing women from Japan’s Asian colonies/invaded territories into wartime sexual slavery and apologised for the grievous psychological and physical harm caused to the former comfort women as well as recognised that the system was a grave affront upon the honour and dignity of these women.
The issue of comfort women, which is an area of my immense interest and research/advocacy, was again brought into the limelight recently by the reintroduction of a US resolution calling for a formal, unambiguous, and official (one approved by the Japanese parliament) apology for the comfort women issue.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwanese women forced into prostitution by Japan’s military more than six decades ago put on wedding gowns Tuesday to celebrate the nuptials they never had.
The women are part of a shrinking group of “comfort women” — forced into sexual slavery by Japan’s military — in several parts of Asia during World War II.
After Japan ended its 50-year occupation of Taiwan in 1945, many of the women were rejected as “damaged goods” by their relatives and never found a spouse, said the Women’s Rescue Foundation, the rights group which organized Tuesday’s event.
Six women — ranging in age from 82 to 90 — came together in Taipei to put on white wedding dresses, hold bouquets and have their pictures taken.
“People of our age didn’t dare dream of having a wedding, but now the day has come, and I like it a lot,” said Wu Hsiu-mei, the oldest member of the group.
Taiwan has 28 of the women left, with an average age of 84, according to the foundation.
When other analytical tools break down, it’s interesting to compare the mass socio-political attitudes of China, Taiwan and the United States through the habits of dogs.
China: Dogs in China (see photo) do whatever their masters say, think they’re bigger than they really are, bark at will and crap anywhere.
Taiwan: Dogs here on the island are mild-mannered and boundlessly free but collectively and even individually aimless, i.e. stray.
United States: American dogs are over-bred, sometimes violent, often bigger than necessary and given the power to take extreme legal action on matters (What’s that noise? Attack it) that they barely understand.
On Sunday, Ann, Morgan, Dodo, Lawrence and I went to our favorite little fried rice restaurant and then downtown to People’s Park. People’s Park is the largest park in Mudanjiang, including a few large lakes. We went on the bumper cars and the octopus ride, and then cancelled our go-kart plans because we all felt sick. Then we moved on the the animal section of the park. Ann and I had been there before, seen the monkeys and bears, but one area is walled off and costs a bit of money to enter. We bargained from 15 each down to 10 for all of us. Bargaining is getting really annoying. We stopped bargaining with taxi drivers because we just don’t care that much about two Yuan. But it seems like more and more people are trying to rip us off. Well, most aren’t trying to rip us off, they just expect a bargain. In Shenyang this month we had to bargain for a street-food donut-thingy (麻花). That’s ridiculous.