A group of Japanese lawmakers took out a full-paid ad in the WaPo [the Australian] yesterday to present, ahem, “the facts” about the comfort women, namely, that “no historical document has ever been found by historians or research organisations that positively demonstrates that women were forced against their will into prostitution by the Japanese army,” “the ianfu (comfort women) who were embedded (cute choice of words) with the Japanese army were not, as is commonly reported, ’sex slaves’,” and that many of the women made more money than field officers and “even generals.”
If you’ve got the advert, I’d be keen to take a look at it.
UPDATE: Occidentalism has posted a large image of the ad, but it’s still difficult to read. Couldn’t help but notice this part from Fact 5, however:
They were working under a system of licensed prostitution that was commonplace around the world at the time. Many of the women, in fact, earned incomes far in excess of what were paid to field officers and even generals (as reported by the United States Office of War Information, Psychological Warfare Team Attached to US Army Forces, India-Burma Theater APO 689) and there are many testimonies attesting to the fact that they were well treated.
No word on when the lawmakers will run their next ad in the WaPo, “The Bridge over the River Kwai: A Model for Management-Labor Harmony in the 21st Century.”
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way to go. Way to start a shirt storm.
They’ll be eating it by the end of the month, and be putting out another vague apology, that would have been better off not even said.
More money than generals. Equating their ill acts to practices around the world.
Who’s gonna believe that?
So, what’s the deal with the Kimono.
Is that a one string pull away from a blanket and a pillow, or what?
I’m sure the reluctant to answer Japanese on this board will answer it here.
did German doctors examine prostitutes from France servicing them somewhere in southern Russia?
did US doctors examine prostitutes from Cuba servicing them somewhere in the Phillipines?
No army at the time were dragging along their colonial women. Especially not to the front lines.
A prostitute made more money than a general.
Stretching that to the max, wouldn’t it be spent the same way how prostitutes spend it ALL these days? I’ll let you think about that one.
I’ve read speculation that the reason a woman’s hanbok is so high-waisted was to easily hide illegitimate pregnancies.
stupid move on the part of the lawmakers, particularly using clinical words like “embedded”. It’ll just make them look callous. I agree with much of what they say – the women weren’t “sex slaves”, they were prostitutes, sometimes even rounded up by Koreans. But at the end of the day the root of the problem was Japan’s invasion of Korea. They can never absolve themselves of that.
Then again…
http://www.smh.com.au/news/nat.....50424.html
The only pic of the ad i can find is here
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....50011.html
Although painful reminder and a completely dispicable move by the Japaense gov, hopefully this will inform average Americans. With issue of this magnitude no average Joe american is going to take this at face value.
May I ask the reasoning of almost everyone here equating comfort women = prostitutes? I would like to see the evidences before I say anything about it.
From a guy who was decrying generalizations on another thread, bumfromkorea, this is a bit of a whopper.
By my count, wjk’s taking issue with the prostitution characterization, and estebanko seems to be also. hoju_saram agrees with it. and dogbertt is taking issue with wjk’s kimono trollbait. Where you get “almost everyone here equating comfort women = prostitutes” from that is mystifying to me.
If it sounded like a generalization, then my apologies. I was simply looking through past issues of comfort women and was observing the frequencies.
Nevertheless, I would like to know the evidences before I say anything.
“I’ve read speculation that the reason a woman’s hanbok is so high-waisted was to easily hide illegitimate pregnancies.”
Well, not always. The kind of hanbok common folk wore sometimes left little to the imagination.
bumfromkorea — I don’t equate the comfort women with prostitution. I think there’s a lot of bullshit flying on both sides of the East Sea on this issue (both sides seem to have something to hide), but I definitely don’t equate the comfort women with prostitutes. And while I haven’t been able to read the whole ad yet, the parts I have read make me sick. Or more precisely, they would make me sick if I hadn’t read them all before.
The full size ad has been made available at—wait for it—Occidentalism. You can see it here:
http://www.occidentalism.org/w.....hefact.jpg
Incidentally, I followed the link in the ad and found myself at a website that’s also playing revisionist games with the Rape of Nanking. So it looks like that’s the kind of “scholarship” we’re looking at to back up this ad.
Oh I was in no way implying that you had equated comfort women to prostitutes. I was looking for evidences from the side that does equate the two, so that I have heard the both sides of the argument. It was a poor wording by my part, and I once again apologize.
I wish Robert Koehler would, for once, refute the evidence the Japanese provide with more than just silly “ahem” statements. Just because Robert Koehler “thinks” a certain way about a certain issue may mean something to some people, but it no longer means crap to me, especially when the issue involves Japan.
I “think” hanbok-clad Robert Koehler should stick to taking pictures of Korean temples and writing about Korean food since he seems to have a phobia when it comes to dealing controverial issues between Korean and Japan.
Anyway, at least, the readers of The Marmot’s Hole know where to go for some good Korean food and a nice day tour.
Hi Gerry, hows the new job?
#15, Another county heard from.
My loss, I guess.
As opposed to what, the upteenth post about why Dokdo is Japanese?
Well, thank God the blogosphere has sites like Occidentalism, then. I mean, where else would we get the lowdown on the burning issues of the day?
Matt has scooped you a few times, hasn’t he.
Poop scoop.
Let’s see…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01801.html
#21 – If that happened, it was wrong. If the US occupying authority condoned it, that was wrong. It’s not germane to the topic at hand. What I suspect is that you’re peddling the tired old tu quoque logical fallacy: “America did it too, you’re no better, so shut up!” That shit doesn’t fly; that’s why it’s called a fallacy. Wrong is wrong, no matter who did it.
Licensed prostitution and sexual slavery are two different isssues, yet newspapers like the “Washington Post” cannot resist the urge to use the word “enslavement.” The word just sells more papers, I guess. If they are not two separate issues, then wouldn’t that mean the Dutch government is also supporting sexual slavery?
American GIs and prostitutes go together like bread and butter, and that has always been the case, as far as I know. Americans had their prostitutes in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and they still have them today.
It bothers me when I hear Koreans hypocritically criticize Japan’s “Comfort Women” system without mentioning their own, but it really pisses me off to hear fellow Americans act so self-righteous in this regard.
Robert Koehler said that the ad made him sick, yet I remember when prostitutes and prostitution used to be a favorite topic of his blog. I wonder what it is about the ad that made him sick?
gbevers wrote:
‘I “think” hanbok-clad Robert Koehler should stick to taking pictures of Korean temples and writing about Korean food since he seems to have a phobia when it comes to dealing controverial issues between Korean and Japan.’
Robert wrote:
“As opposed to what, the upteenth post about why Dokdo is Japanese?”
My thoughts exactly. And not objective analysis at all either by gbevers; it’s presenting of SOME facts….along with his very biased, and anti-Korean, viewpoint.
Anyway, the organization of which I am one participant, will continue to help push this issue in Congress. Japan did do something wrong, and for it to categorically call the comfort women “prostitutes” only makes the right-wing Japanese in power look sillier to the rest of the world.
Gerry,
I think most folks see an unambiguous line between those who choose to be prostitutes, and those who do/did not choose to have sex with X number of men per day but had to anyway. But some just won’t see the difference. Yelling it louder and more often won’t change that, for the Koreans or you.
“As opposed to what, the upteenth post about why Dokdo is Japanese?”
That’s not fair, Gerry’s partner in intellectual crime also writes racist shit about immigrants in Australia.
From the ad:
That’s what made me sick.
Yes, Gerry Bevers. Korea had its own “comfort women” system. Arguably with human trafficking it still does. The US probably took advantage of the Japanese and Korean ones. Are the Koreans and Americans being hypocritical, Gerry Bevers? Yes, and about more than just the comfort women. Tell us something we don’t know, Gerry Bevers.
BTW, Gerry Bevers, I’m sorry you got canned from your job for your Dokdo posts. I really am. But don’t come on to my blog with a fucking attitude. I don’t get pissy on Occidentalism. Don’t get pissy with me here.
JK (aka BFK),
So you are involved in an organization fighting for the rights of Korea’s “comfort women”? Well, that is very interesting. How are the pickings among the members of your organization?
Aren’t you the one who used to take sexual advantage of Korean women while you were working as a “financial analyst” here in Korea and then brag about your conquests, in detail, on the Korea Times forum?
Correct me if I am wrong.
Someone let the cage door open at Occidentalism and now the monkey’s throwing shit around the blogosphere. Somone call VANK.
I think what this does, is Japan is ending up playing straight into Korea’s hands. This only shows how insincere and utterly meaningless of the past ‘apologies’ that weren’t made by Japan. Behind Korea’s anger, lies a smothering of a laugh. Next time someone argues Japan apologized for the hundredth time, just show them this development which was all but predictable from the beginning. It’s like North Korea promising to stop their nuclear program in return for aid.
And I, for one, wish Gerry Bevers would, for once, stifle his knee-jerk reflex to take the Japanese side in any Korea-Japan dispute.
The “evidence” which he challenges Robert Koehler to refute comes from, among other places, the “Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact,” whose website you can find (if you like to laugh or cry) at http://www.sdh-fact.com. Besides their yeoman work in showing that the comfort women weren’t coerced (after all, who WOULDN’T let a couple hundred soldiers run a train on them if the price was right?), they’re also making great historical contributions like “proving” that the hundreds of photos—as well as eyewitness testimony—that speak of the Rape of Nanking are “fabrications.” Lovely. The Holocaust deniers call their tripe “fact” too.
The Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact (sic) is nothing but a Japanese version of VANK—albeit perhaps more nefarious. But since it’s on the east side of the East Sea, to Bevers it’s an unimpeachable source. And that says a lot.
Robert,
Did they get the address wrong for the Psychological Warfare Team Attached to US Army Forces, India-Burma?
I don’t mean to be pissy, but I just wish you would defend your “ahem” statements because people may get the impression you have some evidence that will refute what the Japanese wrote.
VT videam,
I know very little about Japan’s “comfort women,” and I know nothing about the organization to which you linked, but I just get tired of people writing as if they have all the facts without presenting any evidence.
I do not know about the women in the Philippines and other places, but I am suspicious of any accusations about Japan’s “comfort women” system that comes out of Korea because I have seen how far Koreans are willing to stretch the truth to paint Japan in as bad a light as possible.
By the way, I also noticed that you failed provide any evidence to refute what was said in the newspaper ad.
Mr. Bevers, I also know very little about Japan’s “comfort women.” But I do know that an organization that engages in historical revisionism is not worthy of belief, and a newspaper ad that prominently features a link to such an organization stretches its credibility beyond what I’m willing to entertain.
See, I subscribe to a time-tested old axiom: “Consider the source.”
Then again, apparently you do too, but with a corollary: “Japanese source = truth.”
Ut videam,
There is nothing wrong with historical revisionism if it is presenting evidence that exposes historical falsehoods. Since you also admit that you know very little about Japan’s “comfort women” system, how can you criticize the organization to which you linked if you have nothing to refute the evidence they present? In other words, how can you consider the source when you know nothing of what they are talking about?
“Japanese source = truth.”
Come to think of it, I’ve never read Mr. Bevers questioning any source coming from Japan, not one, ever.
PS: I just wonder how Mr.Bevers is doing these days since he was canned by his university. It certainly looks as though Mr.Bevers was hired by another school in Korea.
Mr. Bevers,
I read enough to know that their dismissals of the photographic evidence of the Rape of Nanking are facile. They are not scholarship worthy of the name. Their “findings” are of the same caliber as those of the Holocaust deniers, whom they also resemble in their attempts to revise down the casualty figures of their respective favorite atrocities by an order of magnitude or better.
So yeah. I may not be a comfort women expert, but I’ve smelled enough bullshit to be able to identify it. As Toucan Sam used to say, “Follow your nose, it always knows!”
“So you are involved in an organization fighting for the rights of Korea’s “comfort women”? Well, that is very interesting. How are the pickings among the members of your organization? ”
Yep. We’ve made good contributions….and will continue to do so. And apparently, our efforts, along with many others, are working since it’s got right-wingers in Japan in a frenzy, I am happy to say. Yourself as well.
“Aren’t you the one who used to take sexual advantage of Korean women while you were working as a “financial analyst” here in Korea and then brag about your conquests, in detail, on the Korea Times forum? ”
Hm. I never ONCE took sexual advantage of anyone….EVER. I have participated in consensual sex with women, which is QUITE different from “taking sexual advantage” of someone. But, uh, why your fascination with my personal life? Your social life so dull? The girls in Korea still saying no to you? Awww….
Regarding my comment in #38: I shouldn’t have made the last personal sentence about gbevers regarding his social life, but the rest of my comment stands since he made a serious (and false) charge against me.
JK,
I have no interest, whatsoever, in your sexual life, but you used to constantly write about it in detail on the Korea Times forum, talking in a degrading fashion about the women you had had in your office, in your Korean language class, and other places. I remember your bragging one time about having sex with one of your Korean language classmates from Autralia, who you said was pretty but who you said smelled bad down, though you used different language.
I also remember people asking you not to talk about your personal sexual life on the forum, but you continued to do so, anyway. No one was interested in your personal sexual life except you.
Anyway, I just find it strange that someone like you are now fighting for the rights of Korea’s “comfort women.”
gbevers,
This coming from a guy who used to post comments and moan about how his wife left him…and how he would sing along to “You Lost That Loving Feeling”….and who used online blogs at the Korea Times and Korea Herald to invite people to his own birthday parties….because none of his offline friends would show up. You shared your views of life at the time….I shared mine. I hope we’ve both moved on since 1999.
This beats the cat fight I saw in Insa Dong tonight hands down! rahw!!rahw! hiss! hiss!
As for my comments about Australian women, yes, I made that comment at Occidentalism’s page to show that negative stereotyping of a whole race is wrong. One of the writers wrote extensively about how he hooked up with two Korean girls implying that Korean girls were somehow easy. I told him to cool it with the racial generalizing about Koreans, since I could do the same about Australian women based on my own personal experience at a Korean language school in Korea. Of course, he, and you, chose to use that to quote me out of context that somehow I was being a racist against Australians when I merely wrote it is a response to HIS negative generalizing about Korean women (based on his limited experience).
Let’s not be deceptive, shall we, gbevers?
JK,
I never invited anyone to a birthday party, and I don’t remember moaning, but I do remember writing once that I used to sang, “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” to my ex-wife.
Now, as you say, let’s move on.
Agreed, bevers, let’s move on.
But I did not lie and stand by what I said before because I remember those things you wrote….birthdays and all.
Anyway, glad we’ve moved on.
Who cares about comfort women when you have Gucci?
“I heard that some kids in Gangnam area use Gucci erasers and Hermes pencils which cost more than 100,000 won. But I know that I am not as rich as them. Knowing that I can’t afford to buy the real thing, I just go for the copy, a good one,” she said. “I like bags with large letters of luxury brand names since they can be recognized well by others.”
(15 year old Korean student)
For the full article check out the Korea Times
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/ww....._4806.html
gbevers,
I agree with you. What is bygone is bygone.
Forgeddaboutit!
The republic of Korea must embrace Japan. It has no other choice when China is getting stronger everyday and NK may start aggression toward SK or Japan anyday.
These issues are more than fifty years old. Nobody really knows the essence of these comfort women. Were they coerced or not? Nobody knows.
Even though I hate to join gbevers and side with Japanese hypos, they may be telling the truth. Under the Japanese rule, many Koreans were starving, especially near the end of WWII. It is not strange that some women offered their bodies for food and money.
Those were different times. One cannot judge them with present day value system.
Frequently these women were “enticed” by a pimp for the promise of good paying job and sold to the Japanese Army. Once they got to the army base, they got trapped. However, they might not have minded.
These women were not from good family. Just like hookers of modern times, they may have enjoyed their “job”. They had men and made money on the side. That might have been a better alternative to working like a dog in a farm and getting beaten by a drunken hubbie who had a mistress on the side.
Sorry to be brutal like this, but I have to be honest. I like to be fair to both sides.
All these anti-Japan stuffs are getting popular in Washington right now because the Chinese money have arrived.
Only five years ago, the Japanese money ruled. If you doubt this, just look at how Japanese cars creaming American ones despite the heavy protests from Detroit.
However, now the Chinese money is winning.
Expect more of these anti-Japan propaganda to hit the media and politics in coming days. Republicans traditionally take their vitamins from Japanese cars while Democrates frequently eat at Chinese restaurants. Democrates are supposedly on the roll and that may be why all these anti-Japan stuffs are surfacing on the media.
Money rules.
Is it true that Gerry Bevers got canned from his job for his Dokdo posts? If so, I feel sorry for Gerry. Koreans should not have done that. Gerry has a right to speak his mind.
Korea should not be like Nazi Germany.
Cool down!
Too much nationalism envolved on both of the east side of the Japanese sea (oh my bad, east side of the “east sea” of course) and the west side of the East sea (F**k, west side of the “Japanese sea” of course).
Although Japan has is resposible about the system of that days, its no that simple to divide the sins between nationalities.
Its rather between man and women.
Sorry its Friday night and I am a little bit drunk.Sorry for my bad grammars.
Cheers!!
Cheers, tomojiro. Believe me, I wish I could drink now, too.
Unfortunately, it’s 12:15 pm on the east coast of the US now.
http://www.latimes.com/news/op.....5385.story
There would be only hundred of elderly survivors of the “comfort women” system who were already prostitutes, had been sold into bondage by their families, or many of others who had been kidnapped, enslaved and raped. And even the conscientious Imperial Japanese Army are elderly. Not much time left.
So Japan…Just keep your voice only for 2, 3, 5 or maybe 10 more years, no more testimony from victims speaking out about their experiences.
No evidence, No testimony, and Nothings happened.
Ah, good. Someone who does believe comfort women (at least those from Korea) are prostitutes. Mr. Bevers, can I have the evidences (hopefully on the web… and free (college kid so poor!) since Arizona State University’s library is… not so extensive as it should be) that you are forming your opinion from?
bumfromkorea
Japan’s Comfort Women:Yuki Tanaka (which the US congressional reseach cits to support its paper)
Soh, Chung-Hee
Women’s Sexual Labor and State in Korean History
Journal of Women’s History – Volume 15, Number 4, Winter 2004, pp. 170-177
Sex Among Allies
by Katharine H. S. Moon
@Japan’s Comfort Women:Yuki Tanaka
From what I’ve gathered from his writing, he’s claiming that for the most part, there were coercion, deception, and intimidation involved with the recruitment and he confirms the brutality of the comfort women system (and chastises Allied powers for not identifying it as war crimes at the time). No one is arguing that there were minute number of prostitutes among those recruited for Comfort Women, but saying “many” or “almost all” of comfort women were prostitutes is an intellectual dishonesty.
I’m not so sure what Dr. Soh’s article does for the argument. She argues that historical Korean masculine-central sentiments contributed to the existence of the comfort women (which in my opinion is not quite accurate, as masculine-central sentiments and objectifying women was predominant in most culture in the time periods she was discussing), but it is made quite clear that she does not equate comfort women to prostitutes, especially with the first few paragraphs.
Dr. Moon’s article does not help much either. Her discussion involves the infamous prostitution camps around military bases, and though debt-bondage system was a horrible way to keep the poverty-stricken girls, one cannot equate the brutality of comfort women to that. Indeed, Dr. Moon repeated refers to Comfort women as “sexual slavery” rather than prostitution in the mentioned article.
Unfortunately, it’ll be a while before I learn Japanese (though one day I intend to). gotta finish French first ^_^;
Why is everyone ignoring hoju-saram’s find?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/nat.....50424.html
“Eighty-four-year-old Jan Ruff O’Herne was 19 when she was seized from a prisoner of war camp in Indonesia and forced into a brothel to become one of hundreds of thousands of so-called “comfort women”.
Ms O’Herne, from Adelaide, said she was “raped day and night” by Japanese soldiers for three months during the war.”
So we have
1. Ms O’Herne’s testimony (and many others)
2. Japanese lawmaker’s “facts”? – no historical document has ever been found by historians or research organisations that positively demonstrates that women were forced against their will into prostitution by the Japanese army
So some people are so stupid that they believe – the inability to FIND (this does not even mean they do not exist) documentary evidence = “it never happened”?
Japanese are very smart, they state the above “fact” with the knowledge that the likes of gbevers will interpret it as “it never happened”. No documents = it never happened. Very smart.
As for Ms O’Herne, she testified at war tribunal in Indonesia after the war, as a result, Japanese officers and brokers were punished;One is hanged dead.
I think the ad above made that point clear.
And,
bumfromkorea
Yuki Tanaka admits brutality of the comfort women system as well as brothels systems by allies.
There is no secret that there was deceptions involved and Japan was responsible for regulating it insufficiently as the Ad above made the point
clear.
bumfromkorea wrote
So I am asking how to call it.Surely “the western whore” as Korean people call them does not seem to be appropriate.
My dear commenters,
Sorry to jump in here all of a sudden in my capacity as “comment sheriff”/comment moderator, but I wouldn’t even know where to start on the comments here so far without carpet bombing them all and hope no one is too offended about any collateral damage. But we’re going to have to be nice from here on in or, sadly, that is exactly what is going to have to happen. Thank you for your cooperation.
/oranckay (talk to me at guessthispart@fastmail.jp)
ponta, please post the orignal link to that article.
@ Ponta
Perhaps you misunderstood my position. Prostitute imply free will to trade sexual activities for profit; if one’s free will is taken away and the person is forced to commit sexual activities, one is referred to as a sex slave.
My opinion is that great majority of the comfort women were sex slaves, rather than prostitutes. It was wrong to have mistreated the returnee (Hwanyang Nyun sentiment, so to speak), and no doubt collaborators were involved with recruitment. But just as the Jewish police does not convict the Jewish people of what had happened, Korean collaborators does not make Koreans responsible for what had happened. (As victims of imperialism all have their share of collaborators within)
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bumfromkorea
I don’t really care if you call them “sex slave” if you are ready to call the Korean women vicimized of the same kind in Korea after the liberation.
My point is that they are not different from “comfort women” under Japanese rule:Both are the victims, and they were recruited in the same way.
I think Feminists like Yuki tanka and others are willing to accept it. I think it is only biased political force that just focuses on Japan.
And Japan apologized several times.
(From MOFA)
Let’s move on to the next stage.
G1
you can see the books by Soh, and Katharine H. S. Moonon online library.
As for the book, you have to go to the
large library.
As for the article on Ms O’Herne,
http://findarticles.com/p/arti....._n18771347
As for the fact other imformation, I relied on Japanese newspaper, which in turn refers to Yoshimi’s book–Yoshimi and Hata is two representative reserachers on the subject.
Thank you.
.
why don’t you just serve the truth that you are SURE of, instead of running around with stuff you aren’t even that sure of?
Answer the question about the Kimono.
Why are even granny’s carrying pillows on their backs?
Seriously, is that a pillow?
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Thanks ponta, at least that article didn’t deny coersion.
If your neighbour raped your daughter, and then apolises, and then later tells others “Oh, it wasn’t rape, it was consensual, actually I paid her for it. As a matter of fact there isn’t any evidence other than her own words that she was forced to do anything”. Would you take that apology seriously?
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The Washington Post must have some kind of “threshold” of truth for even its ads. Although I pretty viscerally disagree with Gerry B. on this issue, I think someone has to explain why they chose to run the ad if its truth-value is nil.
PS: Robert runs his blog in a very fair and even manner, your ad hominem attacks on him are bad form.
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G1
Thanks.
Japanese historians as well as Korean feminists agree that the most of women enter into comfort station, camp brothels, etc out of poverty.
Japanese historians do not deny that there were rapes cases just as Korean feminists do not deny there were cases of rapes with the woman who worked as “sex slave” prositutes, whatever, for the Korean troop and the UN troop after the liberation.. They do not deny either there were cases where deceptions were involoved.
Japan was responsible for regulating such illegal brokers, and brothel owners insufficiently.
The ad above also admit that Japanese police regulated it.
The ad also admits the women suffered severe hardship.
Japan apologized several times for that.
I am sorry, but I am not sure what you are trying to say by this example.
Are you trying to say that though Korean troop raped Korean women, recruited the women in the same way as Japan did but they say and Korean people say that without any apology, they pretend that it was consensual, in addition to despising them, calling them “western whore”, while blaming others who have already apologized several times, that is not fair,—Is that what you are trying to say?
Let me add a few words.
As for the payment under Japanese rule, let me quote Tanaka.
I am not sure many comfort women earned
a lot of money or not. But there was a case where a former comfort women sued Japanese government to return the money she earned while she was a comfort women. The amount of money she earned surely surpassed the money the general could earn.
Yuki Tanaka said she would be exceptional cases,
Hata says it depends on where the women
worked.
As I wrote elsewhere, I think the living conditions for comfort women differed from place to place.
The comfort women in the US document
http://www.exordio.com/1939-19.....-orig.html
seems to have had relatively free lives, but it is imaginable in other cases the women suffered severe hardships.
The several chief cabinet of the secret and PMs expressed its apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.
Why not move on to the next stage?
Probably there are expat who are made sick for the fact there are Korean women who haven’t have any apologies yet by Korean government.
Ponta, have you seen the sign on the ad?
An all-star cast of historical revisionists.
I hate to agree with pawikirogi, but he is right.
These was an unsuccessful miserable suicide attack by historical revisionists.
And they are thinking that they are doing a favor for Japan.
They are just playing exactly what Korean and Chinese ultranationalists want.
They are playing the role of the “never apologising, history distorting, dangerous Japanese”.
Or are they paid by VANK and the chinese people’s army?
whoa, carpet-bombed indeed.
Ponta, the issue I’m talking about is the matter of free will by the women that is implied in the naming of the women. Once again, prostitution implies free will rather than forced (as it is a profession (oldest of its kind)), and that’s my main “beef” with calling the women prostitutes. And at least in my opinion, wordings do matter.
The apologies, in my eyes, hold little weight when something like this ad happens every other year or so (though usually it’s some official mouthing off… but there’s the problem… an official). Suppose that A punched B, and A apologized to B for it. Later, A goes around and say “B is a wuss for letting me hit him.” B confronts him about it and A apologizes. A goes around again and say “B deserved it”. B confronts him again, and A apologizes.. again. Should B “move on” when A is so… incessant on the issue? I think that, if A wants the apologies to be taken seriously, A should not contradict the very thing he apologized for.
(Oh, and it’s not generalization. Government officials are representatives of his or her country, and should be held responsible for what they say)
Just a point of interest everyone… what’s a VANK?
And why is the kimono a pillow? (Isn’t it… a clothing?)
For anyone who has not read this:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp.....304a1.html
Tomojiro
I for one doubt if the ad was a good idea.
But I am not sure if they are revisionists as to the issue of the comfort women.
As you know, at first the controversy was whether physical cohesion was involved in recruitment.
There was a testimony by Yoshida, which turned out to be false.
And there was no document to show it.
Out of 20 testimonies examined 4 women claimed they were forcibly recruited.
One woman said she was sold by her father.
The other was the one who sued Japanese
government to returned the enormous amount of money she earned I mentioned above.
Still others said they worked in the comfort stations where there was no military comfort station.
Some people shed doubt on their testimony.
I for one am not sure if they are reliable or not.
Seeing there is little evidence, proponents of “coercive recruitment” school “revised ” the definition, they defined it as the case the women worked against their will. That worked well. I am sure many of them worked against their will. For that matter I am not sure if many of prostitutes are not working against their will.
In this sense I don’t know which is “revisionist”
For sure there were cases of rapes in Philippines and in China and there were cases where woman were forced like O’Herne in Indonesia, but that was the case where the brothels was closed by Japanese military and the brokers and officers were punished at war tribunal.
bumfromkorea
As I said I for one do not care if people call them “sex slave” or not.
I am asking what to call.
According to Soh, Chung-Hee
To reforce it, for those who can read Korean.
And even after the “liberation”
(Sex Among Allies)
I think “Korean sex slave under Japanese rule and under Korea rule deserves apology.
Japan apologized several times.
Even the ad in question says.
>French Quarter
I am not denying about unit 731, nor the nanjing massacre nor the comfort women.
But forget about Kaneko. He is a “proffessional” confessor. He earns money with his “confession”.
I have no doubt if someone will advocate a theory that there was a kind of Auschwitz in colonial Korea, that he will be willing to “confess” that he pushed the button of the gas chamber.
Believe me, here in Japan, both “left sides” and “right side” uses very dirty methods when it comes to war time criminals.
This issue was dealt with here a few months back. If I’m not mistaken, few denied the Japanese military having any less than an indirect involvement in mass prostitution/slavery here and elsewhere in Asia, yet most were willing to admit that Korean brokers – or even families of the women in question – played a role in some cases. What has changed since the last debate?
As I posted a while back, even if the Japanese military authorities did not have a direct involvement in organizing the system – which seems to be very much in debare – ir happened on their administrative watch and involved their soldiers. This doesn’t mean that Korean collaborators should get a pass, but just that revisionist Japanese shouldn’t try to sneak their way out of their responsibility for what they did to other countries’ women during WWII.
Sheriff,
Please delete #55.
Thanks in advance.
I presume #91 is referring to #56. #55 is fine; #56 is disgusting.
I have found a website that has interesting reads:
http://www.skycitygallery.com/japan/japan.html
Yeah, where’s ‘the decider’ when you need him? #56
stop comparing yourself to the Germans, you evil Japanese people.
The German version of sexual slavery in concentration camps was of a much smaller scale, and those who were using those women were prisoners, not soldiers.
I think your dirty little ad may have had effect if you kept it at least believable, but things like
same as rest of the world.
more income than generals.
Incredible.
Shows how low they regard Korea.
Did everyone notice the Corea wording on the British Embassy gravestone in the earlier pics, which was during late 1800 or early 1900.
It’s true then.
What they were saying was true.
the penis complex Japanese, forced Corea to spell it out to Korea, so they the Japanese would come ahead.
It’s the same bullshit they’ve been pulling with many other items.
evil fuckers.
the Japanese sea is also listed as Sea of Corea, on many early maps in 1800s.
Dickheads of Japan stole that, too.
Dokdo as well.
Their only claim is something like, we the Japs registered it first sometime in mid 1800’s.
Fucking theives.
you don’t see the Germans claiming east Poland based on 100s if not a thousand years of presence and rule by Prussia et al, do you?
How come the Japanese can’t give up rocks to the NSWE?
Remember, Japan, you LOST World War II.
it’s also amusing to see that the Japanese say the Kono statement was released without sufficient knowledge of the matter by the Japanese govt.
Does make sense to you?
Really, does it?
Let’s see.
There are certain classified files in every country.
The head of state can have access to those files and know whether or not his govt did this or that.
In Japan’s case, they shredded and burned so many files, that
1. Koreans can’t prove what the Japanese did to them.
2. Japanese politicians today claim they don’t know the exact details of War time govt in Japan.
3. Japanese can say whatever they hell they want and rewrite history if they please.
It’s very telling when you the Japanese claim that your own PM didn’t have enough knowledge about Japanese War Crimes.
Must have had a lot of things to hide from Douglas MacArthur in 1945.
What was he gonna do to you? Hang some men?
I think it was done to shield themselves from what they consider public embarassment in the world.
“Remember, Japan, you LOST World War II.”
No thanks to the Righteous Army.
Comment #56 deleted.
Those fully discounting the Japanese side (due to revisionism) while accepting the Korean side at face value is a tad hypocritical to say the least.
wjk, one group of lawmakers isn’t representative of most Japanese. It isn’t fair to label Japanese “evil fuckers” because of a few trouble makers. I don’t think you would appreciate all Koreans being stereotyped based on the actions of a minority of Koreans, would you?
As for historical interpretations/disputes in general, I’ve seen very few where one side is 100% correct and the other side is 100% wrong. My bullshit meter starts going off when I hear claims implying that one particular side is wrong – not just on one issue but on a whole host of issues – while the other side is right.
By the way, while I support the general Korean positions with regard to comfort women and Dokdo, I don’t think it is right to connect mass wartime prostitution and/or slavery of thousands of women (among other wartime crimes) with a minor territorial dispute in which Korea retains – and will continue to retain – possession of the islets in question. I think linking Dokdo to the wartime suffering of thousands cheapens the latter issue.
And, by the way, I think there may be about as much truth to the “C”/”K” spelling of Korea as there is to that fascinating kimono urban legend. When Son Gi-jung won the Olympic gold in 1936, neither “Korea” nor “Corea” would have appeared anywhere because he represented the Japanese team. There was no Korean flag, anthem or whatever else at the Olympics, the League of Nations, etc. Why would English word order have mattered to Japan when they had already taken it over, effectively making it cease to exist as a country?
@ Ponta
I’ve already addressed the comments of Dr. Soh. Her thesis does not alleviate the imperial’s responsibility over the comfort women, and her point about Koreans themselves being responsible for what had happened is mute on several point (non-exclusivity of male-centered society, degradation of women, etc. prevents her from putting responsibility of comfort women towards Korean sentiment).
Your quote in Korean is from a column of an unprofessional newspaper written by a guy who studied Supply Operation (branch of economics). He is hardly a respectable source on the matter of discussion here (20th Century history).
I’m still not seeing why Sex Among Allies is a valid point on prostitution = comfort women. Since we seem to be stuck in a loop of logic in this discussion, let’s try to break it: Was comfort women system mostly voluntary system or involuntary system? (Once again, using the word prostitution implies Free Will, which is the major problem I have with the original advertisement in question)
That’s quite an misinterpretation of my analogy. Think “A” = Japan, “B” = Korea, “punching” = various war crimes and war-time wrongdoings. Perhaps that’ll clear up the misunderstanding.
Mr Bevers if you want evidence shows the lies of the Japanese governments stance. These Japanese documents describe the ages of the girls. The Japanese Government official stance is as follows….
“..Girls only over the ages of 21 were engaged…”
However we can see the health records showed these girls to be younger……much younger. Around 15 and 16 years old.
http://blog.naver.com/cms1530/
The Japanese are digging themselves into a huge hole on this one.
bumfromkorea
Thanks.
I agree. I have no intention to alleviate the Imperial Japan’s responsibility by citing Dr,Soh. And as I understand, Japanese government stands by the statements made by several PMs.
And I think describing what happened accurately and denying what did not happened are perfectly compatible with taking responsibility for what actually happened.
Here I don’t understand.
You are not making any argument, citing evidence that her claim is wrong.
Note in passing that if I said it to the allegation to the Japanese involvement with comfort station, I would be called Holocaust denier.
If that is the case, I must say the Korean media in general is hardly a respectable source. I am afraid attacking a source alone without giving a substantial argument is a poor way of challenging the claim
But anyway, I was citing the article to reinforce the other article.
It depends on how you define “voluntary”
Do you think the Korean women who worked in the brothel for the Korean troop and the UN troop, the US troop was recruited on a voluntary base, and they were working voluntarily?
On the whole, I would like to ask a question: what are people trying to do when they keep demanding more apology after several apologies ?
Are they trying to save the former comfort women?
Then why Korean nationalist prevented the women from receiving the fund?
Then why not try to save the other comfort women who were victimized as a comfort women under Korean regime, recruited and abused in the same way as the comfort women under Japanese rule.
Are they afraid of resurgent of Japanese militarism?—So far there is not sign of that.
Are they trying to impose their version of history which is not grounded on the fact? —-Sorry but that is not possible.
It seems clear they are not accusing Japan out of sympathy for the victimized women but some people are are doing it to reconfirm endlessly that Japan is evil,
So every time some troubles happen with Japan, whatever the topic, some people end up the argument with 731 troop, Nanjing massacre etc.
and it seems others are doing it out of sympathy for the Korean negative sentiment toward Japan.
I have a suggestion. Why not Korean people and the government set an example of apologizing sincerely and compensating to the former comfort women victimized under Korean regime? Then not only the former comfort women will be happy but I am sure Japanese people will be impressed and will follow the suit.
frogmouth
Fact 1 states that Japan ordered that only women over 21 be hired as a comfort woman.
Fact 2 states Japanese police regulated
illegal brokers.
These facts are consistent with the fact the women under 21 were working; either they were illegally recruited or they were illegally working, or they were victimized by the illegal owners.
http://news.naver.com/news/rea.....o_id=14514
thus, the yap around about strengthening Japanese US relations with an ad signed by douche bags.
Korea’s lawmakers have been yapping about Japanese this and that for decades within their own law bodies. Did the Japanese make an ad in Ye Olde Chosun Ilbo?
NO. Why not?
Who cares?
That was the Japanese answer.
When the west starts noticing some truly fucked up aspects about Japan, Japan goes on the full defensive.
Why?
They care about that.
Why?
Not sure. They assert themselves as the best quality people on earth. Not sure why their racial superiority dick size complex is sensitive to what western media says about Japan.
Don’t try so hard to ignore me, Ponta.
I do still want you to say something about the Kimono.
Is it true?
Is that why you can’t even deny what I heard as hearsay?
The more I look at the garment, the more I’m connecting the dots. Yeah, that could be blanket.
Yeah, that could be a pillow.
Although it’s really odd.
“The Politics of Apology…” (NY Times, March 05, 2007):
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.c.....ort-women/
Well ponta, in this case it was brought up because the publishers of the ad cited “research”—indeed, prominently featured the URL for it—by the “Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact” (sic>. The other projects of this “think tank” include the denial or minimization of the atrocities at Nanjing, claiming that photos of the massacre are faked, etc. The people behind the ad invited this sort of criticism of their effort by linking themselves to such a group.
An article regarding the ad (The Sydney Morning Herald, June 15, 2007):
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Nat.....39807.html
the words of a woman is not evidence in Japan.
Anyway, I have also come to light that the whole issue about Dokdo being Korea’s posession is tanking some fishing village in Japan.
really?
That’s a lie.
I have been educated that Kim Dae Jung signed some agreement with Japan to allow Korea and Japan to fish the area together.
With the result that some Koreans are calling him a traitor and a sell out to the Japanese.
All in all, that shouldn’t have been done.
The Japanese still are very very active in acquiring the rocks.
That whole fishing village in danger is bull shit.
And the article reads,
(BTW that is not what Abe said)
Just for the reader’s reference. The following is the list of testimonies by her on different occasions.
The handbook of the house of sharing
When she was 16, she was adopted to the (korean) policeman. Her foster told her to go to the place where she could earn money, if she couldn’t just returned home;she followed a Korean soldier who came home to pick her up.
Hokkaido newspaper
“Her foster father told her to go for an errand and rode on the train; there were many women and she saw soldiers”
the conference of peace for Junior High School Students (in Japan)
“when I was 16, I was picked up by a Korean soldier, being told by my foster father that “you’ll have a good place to earn money”"
Asahi newspaper
“When she was 17, Two Korean men took her away, saying that she could work at the factories. She was taken to China, where there was a comfort station.”
Expat Advisory Service
“One such victim is Kim Koon Ja, now aged 81. After exchanging greetings her first words are, “I’m too embarrassed
to talk about this.” This is her story. After her parents passed away before
she was 14, she was orphaned. Her impoverished relatives could not afford to care for her and her siblings, so they lived with other families serving as maids.
When war broke out, many Koreans were marrying quickly so not be drafted by Japanese forces. At 17, she also planned to marry her boyfriend, but his parents objected because they could not overcome her background. Not being married, she was unwillingly drafted by Japan as a sex slave and was forced to China.”
hearing of the Subcommittee on Asia
“I became an orphan when I was 14 and I was placed in the home of Choi Chul Ji, a colonial police officer. As his “foster child,” I cooked and cleaned for Mr. Choi. I had a boyfriend and we wanted to be married. However, his family objected because I was an orphan.
I remember the day that changed my life forever. I was wearing a black skirt, a green shirt, and black shoes. It was March of 1942, and I was 16 years old. I had been sent out of the house by police officer Choi and told that I needed to go and make some money. I found a Korean man wearing a military uniform and he told me that he would send me on an errand and I would be paid for this errand. I followed him and he told me to board a train – a freight car”
………………………………
As for apology, there is another opinion.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/Di.....pril82.xml
In passing notice how the journalist picked up the photo.
And look at the photo of the comfort women org from which he picked the photo.
http://www.comfort-women.org/v2/photos.html#
ComfortWomen.org
A pox on this whole region’s lying historical houses!
China, Korea, Japan : it just never ends with these clowns. When it comes to history, bald-faced lying, fantastical ‘never really happened’ tales and self-serving crap is all we hear. This endless historio-fictional huffing and puffing will never end – Tokdo, the comfort women, blah blah blah.
More ridiculous, though, is seeing rational westerners earnestly trying to logic out what the real truth is. Who knows? The smokescreen of propaganda and nationalistic myth-making in East Asia means everything you think you know has been spun from the get-go. This isn’t history, this is the local harummphing and chest-poking contest, so lets just leave them to their BS. East Asia : The Land That Truth Forgot.
Ponta stop being so slippery by passing the buck on this issue. The Japanese Army were the end users of these girls and thus fully responsible for which women were on their backs putting out or sent home. What a pathetic excuse.
The Japanese government has the brass balls to publish a propaganda flyer stating they stayed were within the boundaries of their own regulations when they operated these “comfort stations” during the occupation era.
Next comes out a document that proves without a doubt that the Japanese government is lying. They did knowingly violate their own protocol by allowing these underage girls to be a part of this system.
http://blog.naver.com/cms1530/
What’s at issue here is the not only the past attrocities but rather the “integrity?” of the Japanese politicians who are lobbying to have this issue dropped. When they get busted like this how can we trust a single word they say?
It seems to me that there are many similarities between the “comfort women” controversy and the Abu Ghraib controversy, to wit:
* Both involved the abuse and degradation of persons under a control of an occupying power;
* Both were officially blamed on abuses by low-ranking soldiers and general breakdowns in discipline;
* Neither could have gone on without the knowledge and approval—at least implicit—of high command; and
* In neither case can such knowledge and approval be proven, thanks to document destruction, selective memory, and other measures that produce plausible deniability.
The main deficiency of this analogy is the scale. The number of prisoners at Abu Ghraib pales in comparison to the number of women victimized by the system of “comfort stations.”
frogmouth
Pass the buck?
As I said before describing what happened and denying what did not happened are compatible with taking responsibility for what actually happened.
Japan was mostly to blame, and Japan apologized several times and compensated.
Don’t pass the buck, you need to face the rest of the story in which Korean brokers abused comfort women under Japanese and Koran brokers and Korean troops abused Korean women after the “liberation” in the same way the women were abused under Japanese rule.
(Could you unify your names?)
ponta,
Who’s passing the buck here? Korean collaborators were complicit in the Japanese comfort women system. US occupation forces used comfort stations in Japan after WWII. Korea had camptown brothels for US and ROK bases. None of these absolve Japan of her responsibility for the comfort women abuses that occurred at her hands.
Yes, all of the above parties have to come to terms with their roles in abuses and accept responsibility for them. But Japan apologists, by continually pointing to the role of Korean collaborators while denying or minimizing the abuses that did occur at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army, are doing exactly what you demand others stop doing: passing the buck.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Mom taught me that a long time ago. I look forward to the day when the apologists on this issue learn that simple truth, quit finger pointing, make a simple and sincere apology, and then just shut the hell up.
After the end of WWII, South Koreans failed to punish those Koreans who had worked for Japan during the colonization for a few reasons including their strong resistance and the need of the U.S. to re-recruit them to build the social system “more effectively”:
Excerpt from an interview (Ohmynews.com, March 4, 2002) with Kim Gui-Ok, Ph.D., who first bought up the issue of the “comfort women system” that existed during the Korean War (1950~1953):
- What is the background of the “comfort women system” of the Korean Army? (Quotation mark added)
“… In 1950, women irregularly accompanied troops, washed their clothes, and ‘comforted’ soldiers. In the summer of 1951, as battles were deadlocked, the Army felt it necessary to run the ‘comfort women system’ effectively.”
- Is there a link between the “comfort women system” during the Korean War and the experience of the persons of the Korean Army when serving at the Japanese Army?
“There is a close link between their experience at the Japanese Army and the “comfort women system,” according the testimonies of former generals. The officers who had served at the Japanese Army and the Kwantung Army took the lead to set it up.”
- Was it disclosed that who had decided to introduce the “comfort women system”?
“Official documents of the Korean Army do not show it. Based on ircumstantial evidences and testimonies, however, we can say without difficulty that it was former Japanese/Kwantung Army personnel who introduced it. Because the Korean Army was under the control of the U.S Army, the commander of the U.S. Army seemed to have expressly or impliedly approved it.”
French Quarter
Are you showing the typical example in which Korean blame everything on Japan and the U.S.? Or are you showing how what she is saying offensive like the ad?
Does that absolve Koreans who abused the women?
Didn’t I post the article by Chung-Hee
How about the camp town?
(Sex among allies)
So are Korean people still influenced by Kwanton army?–Wow.
A website offering the relevant news:
http://support121.org/
Unfortunately sometimes it’s difficult or impossible to punish the criminals and the victims have to find a way to set themselves free.
Neither Robert Koehler, nor anyone else, should confine themselves to writing about certain subjects because one or a million readers disagree with a particular take on a particular subject. As for the subject of comfort women, there is ample testimony from the women themselves that they were subjected to what most agree was sexual slavery by the Japanese troops they were forced to ‘comfort’. The question of whether they were prostitutes, or vestal virgins or girl scouts before being so enslaved, seems quite beside the point. Even a slave is entitled to some form of subsistence. To have to accept the label of prostitute as a natural accompaniment to that subsistence is tantamount to blaming rape victim for the assault against her.
As for the assault on Koehler, via ad hominem references to his personal preferences in clothing and/or avocations, that’s flat asinine, infantile and downright amusing.
Rockchuck, well put… on all counts.
Ponta’s article from Kyodo dated March 27
“It’s just fantastic news, I could hardly believe it,” Ruff O’Herne said.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles.....67439.html
from the above article dated June 22
Ms Ruff-O’Herne, who lives in Adelaide and travelled to Washington in February to address a House of Representatives hearing on protecting the human rights of comfort women, said the advertisement had left her trembling with anger.
“It’s absolutely appalling. I am so angry that after all these years and so much proof they could do that … Japan is not owning up to their historical responsibilities.
“I was put on a truck and driven away, torn away from my family and put in a brothel to be raped day and night.”
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