November 28th, 2025
Today was a very short discussion period for my women’s history class. To be honest this post is somewhat skippable as it is very short and not much was said, but the section about the treatment of the female victims of the Japanese Imperial Army is very interesting.
First we talked about the documentary The Apology which was a tough watch. I balled my eyes out several times. In the movie it is rated that there was no historical record of the “comfort” women in the victim countries. Why don’t the Chinese and Korean governments and textbooks talk about it? Students answered that it may be because China and Korea want to maintain diplomatic relations, another answer was that these governments felt shame due to the fact that at the time they knew about how women and girls were being abused yet they did nothing.
Next we looked at the Liminality source. Nothing new was said here that went beyond the lecture I already wrote a post about so I will not write more.
The assignment for today was to paraphrase the author’s argument regarding Okinawans in Taiwan. This is where I wrote about how Okinawa was colonized and there may be a parallel to the occupied Taiwan experience. This is also where my professor hesitated to call what happened to Ryukyu as colonization, but she said I could make that argument anyway. So I did.
Why don’t the Chinese and Korean governments and textbooks talk about it?
I can’t speak to Korea, though i am fairly certain that the DPRK probably does not shy away from teaching this history, but afaik there has always been education and discussion in China on the history of comfort women, if somewhat in the background or on an academic level.
However, more recently this topic has actually started to be covered a lot by Chinese media in various documentary pieces. Here are just a few examples:
A voice for the voiceless in fight for ‘comfort women’ in Hong Kong
From Amnesia to Remembrance: The unfinished story of the ‘comfort women’
What Happened to the WWII “Comfort Women” Survivors and Their Families?
I actually highly recommend you watch these clips as it can give you something to talk about if and when the topic gets addressed again in your classes.
And yes, for a long time shame did play a large role in why this was not so widely known about in China. The Chinese government also did not like to bring the topic to the forefront on the international scene because it wanted to move on from Japan’s WWII atrocities and have stable diplomatic relations with Japan.
Now with tensions between the two countries escalating again this is changing, and i would not be surprised to see an increased desire on the part of the Chinese population for acknowledgement and restitution for the crimes committed against them. You have to understand that Japanese war criminals were let off very easily for what they did in China. Even those who were tried in Chinese courts by the PRC after the war.
If you are interested in this topic, you should look up the Shenyang trials. Also check out the video in this post: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/10191809
From 22:20 onward it talks about the trials.
This is also where my professor hesitated to call what happened to Ryukyu as colonization
With what argument? How can it possibly not be colonization when a country invades and occupies an island, erases the indigenous culture, forces its language on the people, and imports its own settlers? What else is it? It is a literal textbook example of violent colonization.
She said it was annexation specifically, which is a separate concept from colonization although they can overlap. There was no mention of how violent the annexation was so maybe thats why? Perhaps she just doesn’t know the deeper history of what happened to Ryukyu. I have noticed that many professors don’t know everything about what they teach and have to rely on others for said information and thus his leads to large gaps at best, and at worst misinformation.
There was no mention of how violent the annexation was
Not just the annexation itself was violent but also how the indigenous population continued to be treated by Japan well into WWII times.
See my other comment here: https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/7550598
And to this day the local population continues to suffer due to the permanent American military occupation. There are countless stories about American soldiers stationed on the bases there abusing the local population and enjoying impunity.
As for Taiwan, the Japanese occupation there was even more brutal.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Link 3:
Just found out this comm. Really cool concept.
Thanks, I feel documenting my experiences in a Canadian is interesting to give people insight into how it works over here, as well as having a chronicle of my life that I can come back to read.
