【 日本語/Japanese 】

June 15, 2020

Hidemi Nagao ( Former Civil and Media Liaison Officer of the Commander U.S. Naval Forces, Japan, Novelist and Non-fiction Writer )

OUTCRY OF LEE YONG-SOO, 　FORMER COMFORT WOMEN

1.Surprise

Lee Yong-soo, a self-proclaimed comfort woman, held a press conference in Tague, South Korea, on May 7.  She accused Seigiren by questioning its money management practices.  She added that she would not join the Wednesday demonstrations any longer.

Seigiren (the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan) gets not only private funding from individual and corporate donors but also government subsidies.  What is surprising is it obtained 1.343 billion won (approximately 116.7 million yen) from the South Korean government from 2016 to 2019.[1]  Another surprise is that Kim Eun-Sung, the sculptor who made the 1.3-meter-tall girl statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, made more than 100 replicas and cashed in at least 3.1 billion won (approximately 277 million yen) so far.  Kim is believed to have sold close to ten thousand smaller statues (10 to 50 centimeters tall). [2]  The replicas, large or small, are copyrighted.  He is one of the directors of Seigiren.

While the prosecutors are investigating Seigiren’s accounting irregularities, the intellectuals and media columnists are struggling to find out what the nation and the public can do or should do for the comfort women issue.

Lee’s accusations have not only uncovered personal greed of certain human rights advocates but also brought about an unprecedented change in public perceptions of the issue.

2. Why?

Why did Lee publicly criticize Seigiran at all?  I got intrigued to figure out what prompted her to do it.  Putting myself in her shoes, I try to make a guess below.

(1) Lee has not been happy with results of her commitments for the past 30 years.

(2) Though she has been one of the key players, she is getting afraid of being pulled out of center stage as things are going on now.

(3) She has not been duly paid for her commitments in places both domestic and foreign.

(4) Her act to give a hug at President Trump at a presidential banquet has not been properly recognized.

(5) The public is no longer paying any attention to her bold statement that “Yong-soo is the Dokdo and the Dokdo is Yong-soo.”

(6) Because she recently finds it hard to tell which is true, her personal experience of decades ago or what she has been narrating about it, she intended to divert the public attention to something else.

(7) She has, at long last, begun to have qualms of conscience about having practiced hypocrisy.  Or,

(8) She has lately been suffering from isolation.

3. Criticisms against Seigiren and its former leader Yoon Meehyang

Most of Lee’s criticisms are related to money as shown below.

Lee sobbingly said, “The fact that the Korean Council (Seigiren) has been making business of the former comfort women for the past 30 years came to light at last.  I will swear to construct a comfort women history museum.” [3]

Lee appealed, “The Wednesday demonstrations should be terminated.”[4]

Lee complained, “The bear trainer taught bears to do tricks and the trainer swindled all the money for the past 30 years.”[5]

Lee fumingly said, “Yoon Meehyang became a congressperson for her personal greed.  It is unforgivable.”[6]

Lee once asked Yoon to buy some food because she was hungry.  Yoon refused to do so by saying, “I don’t have money.”[7]

4. Proposal of exchanges of South Korean and Japanese students

Lee understands what righteous history is.  She is well aware, at the same time, the authenticity of the hateful Seigiren as well as all self-proclaimed comfort women would be denied if there comes a day when both South Korea and Japan can share common historical perceptions.

Lee preached, “Japan must apologize and pay reparations to the comfort women for the next one thousand years, even ten thousand years.  It is necessary, as a prerequisite, for the students both in South Korea and Japan to learn history from a proper perspective.  Both nations must become friendly to put the process on the right track.”[8]

5. Dilemma of the self-proclaimed former comfort woman

5.1.    Promotion of human rights activities

The comfort women issue made a big wave in South Korea in early 1990s when Seigiren was established.  Seigiren launched a policy to restore honor and respect and to secure stability and freedom of the victims of the licensed prostitution system and began a variety of protest activities against Japan.

Lee came forward as a former comfort woman in June 1992.  She became one of the victims of the system and took part in Seigiren activities.

Seigiren’s purpose was to denounce Japan by appeal violations of the women’s rights to the world.  It required funds to promote and continue its campaigns.  Its leaders decided to collect donations from the public.  As donations came in from students and people and from businesses, so Seigiren expanded its campaigns overseas and to the United Nations.  Once it succeeded in obtaining subsidies from the government, Seigiren became a government-endorsed entity.

Funds would never be sufficient.  So, Seigiren committed itself to raise money by selling girl statues and other comfort women related goods.

It was only recently when Lee got concerned about three things.  One is a long-standing criticism against her personality, the image of which Seigiren created.  The second is a question of who should be at center stage as far as the comfort women issue is concerned.  The third one is Yoon is no longer a civic leader but a congressperson.

Lee’s outcry derives from the three things above.

5.2.    Misgivings about stereotypical views

Lee reflected on her life for the past 30 years.  Some recollections were embarrassing but others were elating and pleasant.  She always narrated her sufferings at seminars and media availabilities, meeting with a variety of people.  She took a witness stand at the U.S. Congress and at a Harvard University hall in 2007.  She cried loudly at Palisades Park in New Jersey in 2011 when a comfort women cenotaph was unveiled, an inscription of which stated that the Japanese military abducted 200,000 women to warfront.

The knowledge of those people Lee met at various places is limited to the two years since 1944 when she was in China and Taiwan.  The timeframe—too short for anyone’s adolescent years—was, at best, a fragmentary phase of her long life.  And they regard her only as an accuser.

One goes through a life being a child, an adolescent, and an adult before becoming an aged.  Lee did so, too.  Being born and raised in Taegu, she had painful days because she had to work for four younger brothers.[9] She still remembers voices of her father, mother, and an aunt.  When she was 14, 15, or 16, a Japanese who put on a military cap gave her a dress and a pair of shoes and took her away though her memories are not so clear today.

After the war ended, Lee returned from Taiwan to Taegu.  Working as a waitress at taverns and grab-joints, she managed to live through such hard times as the Korean War.[10]  After her mother’s death, she worked as an insurance vender, too.[11]  She got married to an elderly man in 1989 but got divorced in two years as he was very suspicious and violent.[12]  In August

1991 when she was sick and tired of the personal trouble, Kim Hak-sun came to the fore as a former comfort woman.  Quite a few women followed her suit in response to Seigiren’s encouragement.  Lee decided to join them.  She viewed it as a godsend.

Those recollections did not help her overcome the three embarrassing questions.  Things are moving; Yoon would soon become a congress person.

Lee remains as a woman putting on a comfort woman mask, which is nothing but a symbol of depersonalization.

5.3.    Overcoming the depersonalization

One grows being told not to tell a lie.  Reality is the world is full of lies, which Lee also personally experienced.  Lee allows her to tell a lie for the purpose of convenience.  It is unforgivable, however, for others to tell her a lie.  Likewise, she does not mind using others for personal benefit, but she does not want to let others use her.

Lee gave a serious thought about the status quo for a while.  Her personality was a work-up of Seigiren and Yoon; an idolized creation for the two years since 1944.  It was a product intentionally defying her memory, reason, and conscience.

Lee made up her mind that she should create a new personality.  What should she do?

One way is to appeal to the public the Han of a thousand years against Japan more loudly than ever before.  She knows it has already become a

cliché.   A proposal of historical reviews by students of both South Korea

and Japan—which Lee talked about a few years back somewhere—is superficial at best.  For, she is aware of its limitations.

There must be other means.  Lee wants to be a central player on stage again and leave the stage as one.  …  It dawned on Lee.  Exposing hidden malpractices would do.  The world would pay attention to her once again, which ushers in her new image.  Even if her exposure tactics fails, Seigiren and Yoon would not survive unscathed.

Lee finally decided to cry out loud.  She or Seigiren or the government could care less about an academic criticism that Pavlovian anti-Japanese campaigns alone would not solve the issue.

6. What I wrote above is my guess of Lee’s flow of thoughts. It is quite unfortunate for no one to have mentioned her what Tomoko Yamazaki, a Japanese historian on women, wrote in her book about Osaki-san in 1972 and what Ham Seok-heon, an avid Quaker and a pro-democracy movement leader throughout his life (1901-1989), stated in his book in 1962.

6.1.    Yamazaki wrote the following about Osaki-san.[13]

“Osaki-san was sold as ‘Karayuki-san’ by her brother Funazo for 300 yen when she was ten years old.  She was taken to Sandakan in Borneo, Indonesia and she became a prostitute at the age of 13 (*Karayuki-san are Japanese prostitutes who did business in foreign countries).  After the war, she fled from Manchuria with her husband and a son and lived in Kyoto; upon her husband’s passing, she alone came back to Kyushu; and she peacefully died there years later.”

“Osaki-san, despite her having been exposed to the villagers’

prejudice in Kyushu, elevated her personality to a noble level, without becoming cynical or anti-social.  She had a big heart not only toward other people but also toward nine stray cats living around her house.  Osaki-san gave them food while having barely enough food for herself.  She said to me, ‘They also have a life to live through.’”

6.2.    Ham Seok-heon wrote as follows in his book.[14]

“A human being is born to resist.  Resistance proves the existence of the human being.”

“Life experience derives from a mental process of understanding, scrutinizing, and demonstrating one’s existence as a unique and valuable personality.”

7. Lee Yong-soo’s attempt seems to have achieved an objective. She would not feel lonely for a while.  But the authorities’ investigations to the allegations against Seigiren’s fund management are irrelevant to public appraisal of Lee’s personality.  People always face a harsh reality, but the reality also sees many people being saved by a person(s) of integrity.
Lee Yong-soo will earn her place in history though it has nothing to do with historical perceptions.

———————————————————–

Bibliography

[1] The Japanese language edition of the JoongAng Ilbo dispatch at 1017 on May 26, 2020

[2] The Japanese language edition of the Chosun Ilbo dispatch at 1140 on June 3, 2020

[3] The Japanese language edition of Wow!Korea dispatch at 1311 on June 6,2020

[4] Ditto

[5] The Japanese language edition of the Chosun Ilbo dispatch at 0540 on May 31, 2020

[6] The Japanese language edition of the Chosun Ilbo dispatch at 1040 on May 26, 2020

[7] The Japanese language edition of the Chosun Ilbo dispatch at 1010 on May 26, 2020

[8] The Yonhap News dispatch at 1647 of May 25, 2020

[9] The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and Teishintai Research Committee, Ed. (1993). Shogen–Kyosei Renko Sareta Chosenjin Ianfu Tachi [Testimonies – Korean Comfort Women Forcibly Recruited] (author translation). Tokyo. Akashi Shoten Publishing, pp. 131-132

[10] Ditto, p. 142

[11] Ditto, p. 143

[12] Lee Yong-soo and Michiko Takayanagi. (2009). Watashi wa Nihongun Ianfu Datta [I was a comfort woman for the Japanese military] (author translation). Tokyo. ShinNippon Shuppan Publishing, pp. 78-79

[13] Yamazaki, Tomoko. (1972). Sandakan Hachiban Shokan [Brothel Eight in Sandakan] (a/t). Tokyo. Chikuma-Shobo Publishing, p. 255

[14] Ham Seok-heon. (1980). Kunan no Kankoku Minshu-shi [History of hardships of the South Korean people] (a/t). (Kim Hak-hyon, Trans.) Tokyo. Shinkyosha Publishing, p. 399, p. 15

【 日本語/Japanese 】

June 4, 2020

Hidemi Nagao ( Former Civil and Media Liaison Officer of the Commander U.S. Naval Forces, Japan, Novelist and Non-fiction Writer )

DEVELOPMENT OF THE “SEIGIREN” CLATTER

Lee Yong-soo, a self-proclaimed comfort woman, accused Seigiren and its leader Yoon Meehyang in Tague, South Korea, on May 7.  Since then, her accusation has been rocking the entire South Korean society.  I would like to personally offer an observation about the situation which I call a clatter involving Seigiren (the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan).    Honorific titles are not used herein.

1. Limits of the clatter

1.1.        I set aside the definition of the comfort women here.  The comfort women cenotaphs and statues being built in South Korea and foreign countries symbolize the use of comfort women by the Japanese military in warfront.  Their significance will not be called into question by the South Koreans even if Seigiren gets denied and disestablished.

1.2.        Seigiren, established in South Korea in 1990, became the first civic entity to support the self-proclaimed comfort women.  The South Koreans consider the existence of similar groups important.  Accordingly, anti-Japan campaigns will not come to an end as far as the comfort women issue is concerned.

1.3.        Most of the expenses for Seigiren campaigns is said to have been borne by donated funds from the public at large.  The prosecutors will investigate the case for misappropriation and breach of trust in bookkeeping. Investigations would probably be completed by making its leader Yoon Meehyang and her accountant and family members face the fire.

1.4.        It is said to be Etsuro Totsuka who first began to call comfort women sexual slaves.  He used the phrase at a United Nations committee in 1992.  Sexual slavery is used with specific reference to comfort women in Seigiren’s English name.  It is unknown who first used the phrase.  Its usage—to refer to licensed prostitutes—began to prevail by mid-1990s.  Things have made an abrupt turn backward on May 25 when Lee Yong-soo said at the media availability she had detested the naming as abominable.  The South Korean Foreign Ministry, in its English homepage, favors sexual slavery to refer to comfort women.  It is, therefore, inconceivable for Seoul to bother to retract the naming at the U.N. committees.  It is because there is no substitute phrase that can carry as much social impact as sexual slavery does even if the premise of the victim-centered approaches is being upheld.

1.5.        As mentioned above, the environment regarding the comfort women issue would not drastically change.  I would like to make a proposal here, despite such an observation.  Seigiren has been accusing Japan by making the comfort women issue a case of women’s rights violation.  If it seriously intends to advance the women’s rights, its name should reflect the existence of comfort women for the South Korean military and the U.N. command during the Korean War and the South Korean comfort stations and Lai Dai Han during the Vietnam War, too.  I would recommend the following name if volunteers are to establish a new coalition after the Seigiren clatter, which requires courage of the South Koreans.

The Korean Council for the Women (and Lai Dai Han Mothers) Abused by the Japanese Military, the South Korean Military, the U.N. Command

2. Establishment of a public comfort women support organ

2.1.        Trying to turn the challenge into to opportunity, the South Korean government is believed to establish and manage a new support agency for the comfort women as public trust for Seigiren has reached its nadir.  The new organ would belong to either the ministry of foreign affairs, the ministry of health and welfare, or the ministry of gender equality and family, depending on what the Blue House prioritizes, i.e., diplomacy, social welfare, or promotion of women’s rights.

2.2.        This new organ must clearly understand what the comfort women want to accomplish.  If the women may merely ask for provision of consolation money, this organ would fulfill its role when it completes provision of the money to all comfort women and their bereaved families.

2.3.        If the women, on the other hand, calls on the government to negotiate with the Japanese government for the purpose of making the latter unequivocally acknowledge the national responsibility for having institutionalized the comfort women system in warfront.  Predicted at present are two situations below.

2.3.1.     The Japanese government would claim the issue to be settled domestically in South Korea by referencing the Kato statement, the Kono statement, the Asian Women’s Fund, and the recent bilateral agreement.  Because it is unrealistic for Japan to make concessions, the donation of one billion yen for the Foundation to Support Former Comfort Women would get out of hand now that the South Korean government already disestablished the foundation.  The comfort women issue would remain unresolved.

2.3.2.     The comfort women may propose a compromise.  They would accept the consolation money on condition that the South Korean government pledge to continue its efforts to call for Japan’s concession.

3. South Korean “Han” against Japan

3.1.        The Japanese government should be aware of three things while observing events in South Korea.  All of them relate to “Han (see Note at the end)” the South Koreans have toward Japan as mentioned by Chun Yung-woo, former chief diplomatic adviser to President Lee Myung-bak.  He emphasized two points below in the Japanese language edition of the Chosun Ilbo of May 24.

“It is necessary for fellow citizens to continue to erect girl statues and reflect on the violence Japan inflicted upon us as a historical lesson, even after all comfort women pass away.

We would never be able to say enough is enough when it comes to revenge campaigns against Japan.  It is unwarranted, on the other hand, for our country to turn our attention solely to the past.  Our country has core values more important than the anti-Japan commitment.  We must remember that our goal of overtaking Japan shall slip away if we lose our moral superiority over Japan.”

3.2.        The Japanese government must also bear in mind the third point, which also relates to “Han” Chun narrated.  According to the Japanese language edition of the Chosun Ilbo of May 26, Yee Yong-soo said at the press conference of May 25 as follows.

“What I would like to say is not to quit the campaigns but to change the way they are carried out.  The pillar of our philosophy is Japan should continue to apologize for the comfort women issue for thousands of years to come.

Key players in our history are students of both South Korea and Japan who are to solve the comfort women issue.  We must strive to lead them to develop righteous historical perceptions and encourage them to mutually exchange.”

3.3.        A Japanese would clearly see in the background of the thoughts Yee and Chun mentioned is the annexation of the Korean Empire by Japan in 1910.  It is meaningless here to mention to the South Koreans the present relationships between the former colonial power and the former colonized territory in the days of imperialism; Britain and India, France and Indochina, the Netherlands and Indonesia, and the U.S. and the Philippines, for example.  When it comes to matters involving South Korea and Japan, they are irrelevant, period.  It is, therefore, meaningless what the yangban, the ruling class since the Yi Dynasty in the Korean Peninsula, did or did not do when their homeland was annexed to Japan.

4. What Japan is supposed to do?

4.1.        Pyon Jinil, editor-in-chief of the Korea Report, contributed on May 27 an opinion piece titled “Five reasons why a bombshell statement by a former comfort woman is good news for the Abe administration.”  The gist is as follows.

Merit 1:  Seigiren’s legitimacy is denied.

Merit 2:  The published comfort women statements are questioned.

Merit 3:  The Wednesday demonstrations are not encouraged.

Merit 4:  The phrase of sexual slaves is detested.

Merit 5:  Congressperson Yoon Meehyang’s political voice will decline.

4.2.        I hate to reiterate this, but the Japanese government issued the Kato statement in 1992, the Kono statement in 1993, established the Asian Women’s Fund in 1994, issued the Murayama statement in 1995, and reached an agreement with South Korea in 2015, regarding the comfort women issue.  Whatever the U.N. committees presented as conclusive observations/recommendations in the past and whatever they will issue in future, what Japan did in earnest has been carved in stone.

4.3.        On the other hand, what South Korea and the U.N. committees have done so far is to merely link the comfort women issue with women’s rights violation in today’s ethical standards.  They have never attempted to scrutinize the comfort women system—which the Japanese military used from 1932 to 1945—from the sociological or legal viewpoints.  They have not paid any attention to the geopolitical situations of the Far East up until the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty of 1910, either.  Any discussion without reviewing the how and why of the past events are irresponsible per se.  The mission of each U.N. committee is to issue a recommendation to the state party concerned in response to a presented claim.  It is, therefore, not appropriate to question the committee members’ wisdom.  They happen to be there for talking as writers till the day is done.  No one can expect more from them because they are no more than bystanders.

4.4.        Lastly, what Yee Yong-soo recommended must be reviewed.  She encouraged students of South Korea and Japan to be given righteous history education and to engage in cross-pollination of ideas.  Presenting historical materials to students of both countries would not usher in any solution to the comfort women issue.  For, it is not possible to ask them to reduce into writing contentious and divisive issues, to examine each, and to come up with a reasonable judgement.  It is, however, possible for such an interaction to become a means to inspire hope.  This hope will become realistic only on condition that no decisive conclusion is to be made by both students.  In other words, they are supposed to accept pros and cons of the issue as a result of historical consideration.

4.5.        The Japanese government has nothing to do but to wait and see till the clatter subsides.

Note:  Han in Japanese is an emotion of rage and hate against others.  Han is a concept of an emotion, variously described as some form of grief or resentment, among others, that has been said to be a characteristic of Korean culture.  Han is a modern phenomenon that did not exist in premodern Korea.  Han is not found in the first Korean–English dictionary, published by James S. Gale in 1897, according to Michael D. Shin of Robinson College.  Shin says almost any negative emotion can be called Han and argues that the central aspect of Han is loss of identity, in that the complex of emotions that result from the traumatic loss of collective identity, according to Wikipedia (browsed on May 30)  One seasoned journalist who is well-versed in Korean language and has years of professional experience in South Korea said, “Han is an emotion to be generated when one’s pursuit of an ideal gets undermined by a person or an organization, which, therefore, never goes away.”