A Japanese plastic kit manufacturer has caused a stir in Korea, by releasing a 1/35 scale Japanese WW2 tank kit that has a 1/35 scale doll of a jeongsindae*(forced laborer) woman(pic below) included as a bonus item.
This has attracted the attention of Korean netizens who are alleging that the doll represents a Korean jeongsindae woman. They are also accusing the Japanese company of commercializing the jeongsindae issue. Some has gone so far as to accuse the company in question of deliberately adding the bonus item in their latest tank kit.
However, cooler heads are saying that the doll probably represents a Japanese woman and that the Japanese company was probably not trying to intentionally commercialize or whitewash the issue.
So far, no official reaction from the Japanese company in question.
* Terminology changed.
30 Comments
… What the hell? Why would anyone want to buy a figurine (a SMILING figurine, no less) of a “comfort woman” (regardless of supposed ethnicity)?
Even assuming the innocence of the company’s intent, it is still pretty stupid of them to make a doll like this considering the current political climate. Imagine someone manufacturing and selling Golliwogg dolls in the South during the Civil Rights movement; sure, it’s a historically popular children’s doll, but could you really say the obvious backlash is unreasonable?
That’s just morbid.
I think we have to be careful with this one.
If I’ve read the article correctly, I don’t believe even the netizens critical of the figurine (and not all are, apparently) are claiming it’s a “comfort woman” (i.e., wartime sex slaves). Rather, they believe it to represent a drafted female laborer, and their beef is that it commercializes and possibly whitewashes the forced mobilization of Koreans during the war.
The Chinese characters under the model read:
“여자정신대”
That means “comfort woman”.
According to the translation by Yonhap, the company stated that the figurine represented a “호이차여성정신대”, which translated into English becomes “Hoicha Comfort Woman”. Yes the word “comfort woman” is associated with wartime sex slaves, but Korean-English dictionaries still translate the term “정신대” as “comfort women”.
what’s the matter, mins? can’t take the heat? you delete my post because i challenge you?
in my mind, marmot should be the one who deletes, not you. grow up, boy; the worlds a difficult place.
You challenged me, pawi? I remember you challenging me a while back. Now why are you talking about something that happened in a different post a while back? And if I recall, I didn’t delete your comments back then.
Now the great pawi is making up stuff to foward his issues. Is the great pawi having a breakdown? Only time will tell.
What is your point here?
#8.
No particular point, just passing on some info.
I personally would delete it for the simple of crime of being idiotic…
Anyway, no matter how you slice it, the thing is a bit tasteless.
I’ve only ever heard 정신대 used in Korea in the context of military sex slavery. In Japan, does the term have a different, or broader, meaning?
#11.
I wouldn’t know. Maybe one of the Japanese commentators can answer that question.
Part of the problem is that in Korea, the term 정신대 has come to mean 종군위안부, when the two are actually two different things.
http://news.naver.com/news/rea.....enu_id=102
You kind find a lot of articles, blog posts, etc. saying the same thing — the two words should not be used interchangeably, as they refer to two different things.
Interestingly, at least in the article linked in the post, it appears the netizens — who were, at least initially, Japanese model nerds — were aware of the difference:
Excellent comment, Robert. Guess I better change the terminology.
Regardless if it is a figurine of a “comfort woman” or forced laborer, it is both wrong and tasteless for this company to be producing this thing. How would the reaction be in the States if a company made and sold figurines of a Caucasian plantation owner in a Victorian style mansion and added a bunch of African American slaves as a “bonus”? Ridiculous and absolutely unacceptable.
The Japanese version of wikipedia has an article about these girls, 女子挺身隊 in Japanese, but it seems the Korean article is currently blank. According to the Japanese article, 이영훈 did a study and said that between 50,000 to 70,000 of the total 200,000 女子挺身隊 were Korean, but somewhere down the line everyone just started saying there were 200,000 Korean 女子挺身隊, then later on saying that 女子挺身隊 is just another word for Comfort Women. 이영훈 isn’t thought of too highly in Korea because he said the Comfort Women were prostitutes, something he later apologized for at the 나눔의집.
The 女子挺身隊 were established in September 1943 with the passing of 女子勤労動員ノ促進ニ関スル件, which drafted women to work in airplane factories, doing office work for the government and other jobs that “weren’t fit for men” (such as Nurses or day-care workers). They however were not comfort women.
Where as Korean (and English) writings about them will say they were “forced”, Japanese language writing will say they were “drafted”. I guess you won’t ever hear someone say they were “forced” to go to Korea or Vietnam but drafted, so I don’t find it ridiculous to use the word “drafted” in this case.
Japanese wiki: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%.....B%E9%9A%8A
Japan had Jung Shin Dae represented in 2 ways.
Factory workers. Sex workers.
Japan wants people to concentrate on the former.
What really happenned is simple and time honored.
Ad for girl to work at factory. Some do. Girls go. Some girls don’t do factory work. They do sex work.
Time honored sex work gig with a factory job front.
Is this Tamiya?
In the next edition, please include the German War Bride, the French Nazi prostitute, or the Polish sex worker.
I think they have never done this before, and they deserve shit.
Just based on the clothing that figure is wearing, I’d say she looks a lot like the typical Japanese portrayal of high school girl factory workers you often see in period dramas or movies.
[Example of the common view of 女子挺身隊: http://www.cc.matsuyama-u.ac.j.....age004.jpg ]
As wjk has stated, there is much more of a focus in Japan on wartime women factory workers than there is on comfort women. As such is the case, it would probably be much more likely that a company would create a figure based on such schoolgirl workers, rather than making a figure of a Korean comfort woman.
#17 While you can still find ads for comfort women, there was no ad for Jun Shin Dae(挺身隊）because they were DRAFTED to work at factories. At least in Japan working as 挺身隊 was, and still is nothing to be ashamed of.
Testor’s glue in the red tube…reckon that’s what the good folks as Tamiya have been sniffin’.
Is there some Korean group that scrutinizes every Japanese product for slights? Who would have though to look at plastic models?!
No, the manufacturer in question is not Tamiya. Tamiya is too smart to release something like this.
The tank kit and figurine is made by a smaller manufacturer well know for its series of 1/72 scale Star Wars related kits such as the X and Y-Wing fighters, the TIE fighter, and the Millenium Falcon.
“According to the Japanese article, 이영훈 did a study and said that between 50,000 to 70,000 of the total 200,000 女子挺身隊 were Korean, but somewhere down the line everyone just started saying there were 200,000 Korean 女子挺身隊, then later on saying that 女子挺身隊 is just another word for Comfort Women. 이영훈 isn’t thought of too highly in Korea because he said the Comfort Women were prostitutes, something he later apologized for at the 나눔의집.”
Well the Japanese Wikipedia is basing this arguments apparently on Takasaki Soji’s essay, a left wing historian who also contributed to the Asian Women’s Fund.
http://www.awf.or.jp/pdf/0062_p041_060.pdf
According to him, “Seoul Shinmun” published an article about the “Jung Shin Dae “ both in Japan and Korea (female workers drafted to military factories) in august 14th, 1970. In this article the “Seoul Shinmun” estimated the total numbers of Jung Shin Dae (both Japanese and Korean) as 200,000 personnel and among them 50,000 to 70,000 as Korean.
A Japanese writer, poet, who was the first to raise the so called “comfort women” problem whose name is Senda Kakou （千田夏光）seems to have written his book about comfort women in 1973 (rather focused on Japanese comfort women) in which he misread the Seoul Shinmun article (apparently because he couldn’t read Korean enough) as that 200,000 personnel were drafted as Jung Shin Dae (or Tei Shin Tai in Japanese, again meaning as drafted female military factory workers, I have two aunts who were Tei Shin Tai quite common for female Japanese junior high school or high school students. What makes the problem complex is that of course Korean were also regarded as “Japanese”) and among them, 50,000 to 70,000 were converted as Comfort women (Japanese and Korean included).
A Korean-Japanese (zainichi) scholar Kim Yong dal （金英達） has already pointed out about the misreading of Senda. He also pointed out that he doesn’t understand the reasoning of the Korean Journalist at Seoul Shinmun why he came to the conclusion that 50,000 to 70,000 women among the total sum of 200,000 Jung Shin Dae were Koran. Kim is known because of his huge encompassing studies about forced drafted labors of Korean under Imperial Japan rules.
Farther, a Korean female activitist Yun Chung-Ok seems to have also misread arguments of Senda, and came to the conclusion that actually there WERE 200.000 Koran women who were “Drafted” to “comfort women” (although I suspect whether this “misreading” was just a haphazard coincidence. Seems to be more intentionally).
During the early 1990ies, shortly before the official visits of PM Miyazawa to Korea, opposition parties like the Social party or Communist party used this to attack the LDP. And the whole thing started.
Takasaki in his essay which I linked, discusses what really happened to Korean Jung Shin Dae, and his conclusion is that all officially drafted Korean military factory workers actually worked at Japanese factories (presenting hard evidence).
But one thing what he suspects is also interesting. That maybe after 1943, pimps who tried to gather comfort women in Korea actually used the drafts of the Jung Shin Dae, and conceived many women.
Anyway (although his essay is all in Japanese), quite solid arguments about the origin of the myth of the “200,000 Korean women who were drafted to sexual labors”.
It makes no sense whatsoever for this figurine to be a comfort woman, Korean or otherwise. What point would it serve? Who would buy it for this reason? A factory worker makes far more sense as a figure from history (one could be proud of the contributions of factory workers, but who would stand up and applaud the efforts of the comfort women?).
Unless this company is off its rocker, a comfort woman would only result in lost sales and controversy. Could the company believe that publicity is a good thing for sales? I highly doubt it. Perhaps an American company might do something to be provocative or to invite controversy, but this is a Japanese company, remember.
Now the great pawi is making up stuff to foward his issues. (Emphasis mine.)
It’s not just “now”, pawi has a track record of making stuff up.
actually, i remembered i forgot to post the post. i would have apologized but since it’s just mins, well, you understand.
‘Anyway (although his essay is all in Japanese), quite solid arguments about the origin of the myth of the “200,000 Korean women who were drafted to sexual labors”.’
do we need any more proof that the japanese as a whole are a vicious lot?
Anyone wishing to preserve his or her integrity would apologize, but since it’s just pawi, well, you understand.
I’m docking points from anybody who uses “integrity” and “pawi” is the same sentence.
pawi, apologizing for his actions? That’s very hard to imagine.
That’s my point.
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