I seems this column, which appeared in the print addition, has been pulled from the KT website (apologies if I’m mistaken).
I’ve praised the writer in the past, but this last column really has what I’ll call a certain “Mizar5 quality” to it. Which is to say, I can’t see someone attaching their real name and profession to something like, “First, let me mention that my grandmother, who now lives in Japan, used to be a ‘comfort woman,’ and she says the Japanese army never coerced anybody into having sex with the soldier.” or “My grandmother, who made lots of money from her work as a prostitute servicing Japanese soldiers, and her friends (yes, they are Koreans, too) all say they never were forced and they were all paid very well.”
I hope this wasn’t somebody’s idea of being cute.
{ 48 comments… read them below or add one }
I’d prefer “Mizar5 quality” to “mizarv quality,” eh?
And on that note, let me add, I miss Mizar and the way he made a lot of knee-jerkers here jerk their knees and worse, any time he wanted. He playd u foolz.
cmm: look that’s as maybe.
I don’t think that the contents of this letter – which I strongly expect to be a load of codswallop – has any redeeming quality in the way of parody, satire, homage, “foolz playin” etc.
I would love to hear from the author (who may not even be Lee Cheon-heui – after tall, that writer used another email address the previous time, an no photo has been printed) as to why he/she/they wrote this and what the objective is.
Hi hamel, my comment was intended to have no relation to the article whatsoever, but rather is purely about my banned muse, mizar5. Perhaps the key is knowing what I’m referring to when I mention the difference between “Mizar5” and “mizarv.” They were two very different personae.
Jeeebus, that essay is a vile shit-stirring batch of horseshit. Every claim is false except about the 1965 Treaty. Probably not written by a Japanese, its English is too high-level, must’ve been written by a pro-J-imperialism Korea-hating westerner, like those that (used to?) comment here.
Just google the name of the email – you will find there. She/he seems to have an interest in football (guessing soccer) and likes fried fish. Could probably go on but I have no time – do the research.
http://twitter.com/duwadema
On the bright side the KT had an article written that went against the grain of thought of most of the Korean polloi. On the minus side is that the article in question … surprise surprise… made its points with shitty reasoning.
It’s a good rule to not make sweeping generalizations on controversial issues in national newspapers with merely anecdotal evidence.
Somehow i find the idea of a very old ajumma openly discussing with her grandson how much fun she was having screwing Japanese soldiers and how great the dough was a bit unrealistic, to put it mildly
WG:
I think it’s ‘hoi polloi’ – and that answers your question about the “kimchi gallery”.
.
Yeah, I guess we can leave that off for blogs.
Sorry, I meant WK; mistyped
I’m trying to imagine what Cheun-heui looks like in 한글. Heui is probably 희 although I’ve never seen a Korean Romanize it that way. Is Cheun supposed to be 천? Lee Cheun-heui = 이천희? I wonder if the writer is a fan of the drama 그대, 웃어요 (Smile, You). Whoever wrote that drivel claiming that a Korean grandmother would brag on to her grandchild about making money having sex with Japanese soldiers is a sicko.
I can hardly wait for the inevitably angry LTTE rebuttals.
Actually, there are MANY Japanese (and non-Japanese) who believe this same crazy idea that the comfort women were never forced into servicing the Japanese military. Just take a look at the blog comments on this link:
http://ampontan.wordpress.com/yomiuri-on-the-comfort-women/
I was actually shocked that there are still some nationalists in Japan (and some Japanese nationalist supporters, like the American who runs that blog I just posted) who actually believe that most of the comfort women did it voluntarily for money.
I think the commentary was fake. When I was in Seoul as a grad student, I did a stint at both the Korea Times and the Korea Herald, and we routinely received these kinds of essays. Often, the give-away was some ridiculous last name….the writer from Thailand who wondered at all the snow in Seoul who signed his name “Phukenkrap,” or the guy who wrote an essay extolling on the beauty of the old imperial building in Kyungbokkung, pretending not to know that it had been built by the Japanese.
The amazing thing was how frequently these unsolicited essays got past the Korean editors and were published as legimitate foreign commentary. Just a thought.
DLB
i have to admit the Phukenkrap thing was hilarious
On a serious note i’d like to focus one thing here: let’s say just for the heck of it some comfort women did actually prostitute themselves for money, it happens everywhere so it is a possibility, that still is not a reason to treat this people like human toilets, depriving them of their dignity and making them work in inhuman conditions, even in times of war. Even if they were not technically forced i don’t think that really takes away much from the Japanese Army responsabilities
I also agree with gangpeh that I would hesitate to say that there weren’t women who “signed up” as we all know Korea, just like any other country, had many prostitutes who were trying to get by in such a difficult period of Korean history. I believe the Japanese military tried to recruit many women for this, but I’m sure the women who were “tricked” into it, had no idea just how tortuous and horrendous the “job” actually was. But from the witness accounts, I believe a large majority of these comfort women were forced into as the Japanese military just couldn’t get enough (or trick enough women) “recruits” for this sort of thing. You can’t let the women who entered it voluntarily void or invalidate the voices of the women who were forced into it.
The Japanese have this belief that a man’s destructive passions can be tempered by ready access to sexual diversions. The Japanese government provided “comfort women” to U.S. troops during the occupation period. However, I think the actually level of U.S. troop numbers in Japan never exceeded 305k troops and a year or two after went down to far less than that. It was primarily three U.S. divisions that occupied Japan from 1946 to 1951. A rough calculation would be 100-150k with support personnel. I may not have all the data right, but I think this is a reasonable guesstimation. The point? Japan could probably sustain comfort women for this number of troops with women who were willing to do it (somewhat) voluntarily without… ah… importing them.
So that dovetails into the next point I want to explore. What if the number of serviceable troops was not 150-300 but more like 3.5 million strewed all across East Asia, the South Pacific and Southeast Asia? Does your own country have enough young women who would want to do this voluntarily? Go to the frontlines where there is shooting and killing just miles away (comfort women were often captured along with Japanese troop units) ? Who would want to do this voluntarily? At least Japanese whores servicing U.S. service members can go to their own home and sleep in their own bed and at least be with any family they had. Go to Burma or China or New Guinea near the frontlines? What sane person would do this for any amount of money? Not many in my opinion. So yeah, I believe there were Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese women who did voluntarily go to the frontlines to service soliders, but I can’t believe you can sustain a system like this with volunteers alone. Like any extensive military system, you have to, uh… draft. For non-combat military personnel what better population to draft from than conquered people like the Koreans, Chinese and Filipinos? I think, at the end of the day, that’s the cold hard calculus that the military junta leaders of WWII Japan had at the bottom of their ledger.
Oh, disclaimer. The aforementioned is just a personal theory but I think it’s based on decent reasoning.
I recall reading a book about the comfort women in the 1990s that supported much of WK’s theory.
Some points (with apologies for sketchy memory) that stay with me:
- The bad PR Japan got from the Rape of Nanking spurred the Japanese authorities to give its troops “ready access to sexual diversions.” (Japan may have been worried more about troop discipline and rape than PR)
-They tried first to go with Japanese “pros”, but many were disease-ridden and therefore a threat to the troops. They also were not as patriotic as Japanese authorities might have hoped.
-Battlefield proximity and tropical diseases took a huge toll on the “Ianfu”.
It always struck me as odd the position of Japanese deniers, because the comfort station policy grew out of official efforts to stem wanton rapes — and in a limited way, in view of the standards and conditions of that time, could be seen as enlightened.
This douchebag who wrote the essay actually made me curious about one thing: did Koreans make up an abnormally large percentage of women enslaved by the Japanese comparing to other nationalities ? If so why was that ? Japan held a particularly contemptous stance against Koreans, more than they did against other Asians ? Simple logistics reasons ?
By the way i don’t wanna cause any controversy i’m just curious about a subject i know very little about, if you guys have any reliable literature on the topic to suggest me feel free, i’m almost ready to read my first book in Korean
some of the women? WTF?!
Sexual Favors? need of a morale boost?
WTF?!
Enlightened if the primary motive was concern for the human rights of local women, which I suspect it was not. Troop discipline and the need to co-opt the local populations were more likely reasons behind the decision to create the camps. Raping local women and girls wouldn’t generate support for the East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere.
Nationality percentages of comfort women vary, but it is true that Korean women, unlike other nationalities, were exported to other countries. I can only speculate on the reasons, but it’s possible that the Japanese thought that a camp populated by foreign women and girls would not offend locals as much as inducing or coercing local women into the trade. Second, light-skinned Korean women and girls would have been more appealing to Japanese men than darker-skinned Southeast Asians or hairy barbarians, like the Dutch women who worked in Indonesia.
You know what I think? Language. All Koreans at the time could speak Japanese hence they were easier to manage. The Japanese (during WWII) hated to be misunderstood. The number one reason why Allied prisoners of war were beaten was because they couldn’t understand the Japanese commands. The Allied POWs that got beat the least were the ones fluent in Japanese.
Probably the second rationale is corporeal likeness. It’s better for morale if the women look more like the women back home.
Paraphrase at your (or my) peril — I chose my words with care here: “in a limited way, in view of the standards and conditions of that time, could be seen as enlightened.”
As for nationality, it is also worth remembering what citizenhip Koreans and Taiwanese held at the time.
I quoted you and repeated only one key word – enlightened – in my response, so I don’t consider it a paraphrase, but in any case, given the sensitive subject, clarification is good.
Thanks guys it all makes sense and makes me think about another thing: from what i gathered the Japanese themselves recognised Koreans as a similar people, still that didn’t prevent them from abusing Koreans horrendously, while the nazis payed some kind of token respect to other nordic nations.
From what i figured they held some kind of paternalistic attitude toward Korea like it was some smaller, kinda dimwitted brother, a brother they ended up brutalising. A very different attitude from the nazis, who never tried to make the Jews “Germanic”, very different attitude, similar results.
Am i completelly offtrack here ?
It’s the same as it ever was. Today there are women (and men) who are cornered into prostitution. I don’t believe any of our past societies gave prostitutes more of a choice between having or not having sex. It doesn’t matter the name of the country or government, it’s all the same, always has been. If you go to Shinyongsan Seoul tomorrow you can have sex with a prostitute. It doesn’t matter who you are, and I don’t believe the Korean government is providing specific prostitutes only for foreigners.
Perhaps in 30 years from now there will be elderly women in Korea asking the Korean government for compensation for forcing them to have sex at Shinyongsan.
I don’t see the point, other than to claim it’s worse when another country forces you to do the same thing your own country forces you to do.
Fair enough, Sonagi. I share your view of the probable motives. “Pragmatic” is probably a better word than “enlightened” — even with my thick caveats.
“the Japanese themselves recognised Koreans as a similar people”
The Japanese saw Koreans then just as they see Koreans now. They don’t see them. You’re caught up in a fantasy.
“The Japanese have this belief that a man’s destructive passions can be tempered by ready access to sexual diversions.”
People born in Japan are Japanese. That’s it. No special thoughts, no specific ideas about anything.
hardy etc. i fail to see the link between men sexual instincts and the issue of Japanese citizenship, and maybe it’s time Japan start taking notice of its Asian neighbours as the country is the only one with a relevant population more broke than Italy and the US
“Nationality percentages of comfort women vary, but it is true that Korean women, unlike other nationalities, were exported to other countries. I can only speculate on the reasons, but it’s possible that the Japanese thought that a camp populated by foreign women and girls would not offend locals as much as inducing or coercing local women into the trade”
It is the same reason as today. Whatever is easier/cost less. The Japanese syndicate did what the Korean syndicate and all others do to this day. The world did not begin and stop with a war in the 1930s-1940s. The idea of forcing women to move to other locations to prostitute is a human problem. This was going on long before the Japanese and will continue to go on until we cease to exist.
The current situation in Korea allows women to make more money in Seoul as call girls, so girls are recruited in from other areas based on their appearance and value.
The Japanese soldier was a person, just like you and me, they didn’t all have sex with prostitutes.
“hardy etc. i fail to see the link between men sexual instincts and the issue of Japanese citizenship”
That is correct, there is no relationship, never has been. People born in Japan are Japanese, they have no special Japanese thoughts or culture or unique understanding of anything. Same goes for everyone else. It’s all a bunch of horse shit.
hardyandtiny,
Korea is a weird country sometimes. You are not likely to see what you just described. You are more likely to see this:
http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=1087
Hey listen. I’m an economist. I’m not looking at this in terms of right and wrong per se. If women get paid for sex and it’s a profession they have chosen to some degree (and they don’t have any better options), they are going to continue doing it. I think the simple fact of logistics and economics is that the Japanese government wanted to improve discipline and morale in their troops stationed all throughout Asia and paying as little as possible for it. So the solution was to draft conquered people. It makes cold sense in the cold calculus of of the economics of it, but hey… it sounds like the economically optimal decision for a miltary juntaship, which was what WWII Japan essentially was in the early Showa Era.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militarism-Socialism_in_Sh%C5%8Dwa_Japan
I fail to comprehend what H & T means here.
My gut feeling is that during WWII, Japan might have felt more license to do what it wanted to with the Koreans and the Taiwanese women who were Imperial subjects than with others. They also controlled those areas without warfare there and had a better infrastructure and network for procuring “Ianfu” by hook or by crook.
The racialist thinking in NE Asia has tended to have a pecking order that coincides with skin color (and, to a lesser degree, latitude): Roughly speaking, viewed from Japan, that would be Japanese>Korean>Mongolian>Chinese>Vietnamese>Other SE Asians>South Asians. (I’m winging it on whether Mongolians rank higher than Chinese. For reasons of political system and the perception of economic/security/nationalism menace, modern Chinese are not necessarily held in great regard. Mongolians on the other hand, are outside the broad Confucian intellectual and cultural sphere and perhaps more alien.)
The article states no one was ever coerced into prostitution. Everybody knows that is wrong.
Of course people have always been coerced into prostitution. It is happening right now about a half kilometer from where I live in Seoul. And it happens all over the world. What happened with Japan and Korea, as Japan was trying to “take over the world” is not a special case. There is no difference between taking a Filipino woman next week and sending her to Hawaii to be a prostitute for East Asian tourists and sending a Korean woman to Thailand to service Japanese military in 1930.
The Korean government has nothing to do with the current plight of the girls at Shinyongsan, the US government has nothing to do with French call girls in New York City. And, the idea that the Japanese government sent hookers as part of their MILITARY plan is bullshit. Sending women overseas to prostitute is the norm for centuries. Organized by criminal activities in Korea – just as it is done today.
My heart goes out to anyone who has been abused, but I am honest, I don’t really care. I don’t care as long as I am not effected.
Do I or do you, really care about those women in Shinyongsan? What the fuck are you doing about it? I don’t care about them, most people don’t. Isn’t that what is really going on? Are you doing something about comfort women or just talking shit? Are the comfort women different than the women in Shinyongsan?
What are you doing to stop what is going on?
“I can only speculate on the reasons, but it’s possible that the Japanese thought that a camp populated by foreign women and girls would not offend locals as much as inducing or coercing local women into the trade . . . Raping local women and girls wouldn’t generate support for the East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere.”
Sonagi, I look forward to your comments, but I think you’re really off base here. “Not offending the locals” wasn’t exactly Japanese policy in that sad era; whereas rape, on the other hand, seems to have been.
Re-appraising history and understanding one’s (former) enemies are worthy goals, but let’s not pretend Japanese behavior in that era was anything less than atrocious.
[Gratuitous Korea-bashing alert:] What really rankles me is the way so many Koreans, despite their [sarcasm on] world-class education system and excellent study habits [sarcasm off], appear to be totally unaware that any nation BESIDES Korea suffered under the Japanese.
Wow, two gratuitous Korea-bashers answered each other.
Why are:
Because they:
Funny.
If it were just that Koreans don’t care, I could understand.
The Korean trait I’m describing — not knowing — is worse.
Look like she was being paid by Japanese rightwing to soften the words on Japanese imperialism. What is comfort women? volunteered prostitutes? I don’t think so, if people don’t understand difference between comfort women and prostitutes then they obviously don’t know anything.
Prostitutes sells sex per customer, where as comfort women don’t. They don’t even get promised amount of cash, more over some of age of the comfort women is just shocking. Btw, who wants tobe comfort woman anyway? Koreans were not only who suffered from Japanese back in these days, entire East Asian suffered and Japanese didn’t careless about them. Japanese robbed bulk of natural resources from East Asia to fuel their war and to feed their greed, and Japanese citizens benefited from it too. Now they says comfort women is myth and Japan have never caused any war atrocities such as live human testing and stealing historical relics. When there are large numbers of evidence Japan caused terrible things to East Asians. Japan still have not returned all stolen artifacts and historical texts from Korea, that is over 200,000 pieces of arts and relics.
I don’t know what you’re talking about Weikuboy, Koreans seem plenty (over?)educated on subjects like comfort women, Nanking, unit 731 etc. Things most people in the West don’t know or care about. Where do you get your impressions about what “so many Koreans” think?
I’ve just received email from Cheun-Heui Lee.
http://forum.koreansentry.com/viewtopic.php?p=10262#10262
Have fun
If that is really from Cheun-Heui Lee, then his style of writing is like that of an Internet troll.
But, he sounds agitated. Korean Sentry, are you sure you didn’t edit out any comments in your email that you may have made to make him feel agitated?
Cheun-Heui Lee sounds exactly like the kind of NEST that I go out of my way to avoid.
Like Rob said, it’s got a bit of a Mizar5 slant to it… including dubious claims to Korean ethnicity.
Mizar5′s facade became more and more transparent only as time went by… it was too tough to keep up. The douchebag writing this editorial, however, smells of 5hit right out of the box.
He sent me another email with rude words, so I’ve sent the entire email exchanges to KT and rest of Comfort Women associations. Just received one email from one of the Comfort women friend, they’re going to trace his grand mother in Japan to find out what Cheun-Heui Lee claimed.
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