This article describes these highlights.<\/p>\n
Survivor Testimonies:<\/strong>\u00a0 One of the most horrific atrocities of WWII in Asia was the use of biological (germ) warfare on civilian population.\u00a0 One consequence of such germ warfare is rotten leg disease as a result of bacteria infection from anthrax or glanders.\u00a0 A rotten leg disease victim endures unimaginable suffering of painful and itching skin and flesh problems and extremely foul smell that continues for a lifetime.<\/p>\n We met several of these victims in our one-day excursion to Quzhou (a city of about 2 million in Zhejiang Province and a 2.5 hour high-speed train ride southwest of\u00a0 Shanghai).\u00a0 Our host in Quzhou was Mr. Wu Jianping (\u5433\u5efa\u5e73), who lost several of his\u00a0 family members and the President of the Quzhou Germ Warfare Victims Association;. [1]\u00a0 At the Quzhou Minquon Hospital (:\u8862\u5dde\u6c11\u5eb7\u533b\u9662) we met the husband-wife couple Fang Cai Pei (\u65b9\u52a0\u500d, 86) and Ye Sai Chou (\u53f6\u8d5b\u821f, 89), who recalled the tragic experiences in the early 1940s when they were young children.\u00a0 Both of them also lost many family members when Japan unleashed on Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces a series of germ warfare attacks in retaliation to\u00a0 the Doolittle Raid [2].\u00a0 Mr. Fang also got infected with the rotten leg disease.\u00a0 Fortunately, his was a minor infection, and his rotten leg disease was cured in the 1960s.<\/p>\n At another hospital in Quzhou, the Zhejiang Quhua Hospital (\u6d59\u6c5f\u8862\u5316\u533b\u9662) we met another rotten leg disease victim Chen Chunhua (\u9648\u6625\u82b1, 80) who told us that in order to save their lives, many rotten leg victims had to have their legs amputated, and that for some the suffering was so unbearable that it drove them to commit suicides.\u00a0 It was at this hospital we heard of the good news that in the last few years this hospital and another hospital in Shanghai (No. 9 Shanghai People’s Hospital, \u4e0a\u6d77\u7b2c\u4e5d\u4eba\u6c11\u533b\u9662) have successfully treated 118 rotten leg disease victims.\u00a0 This hospital has now treated successfully 79 rotten leg victims, with another 39 by the hospital in Shanghai.\u00a0 The treatment method was developed in the last few years by Chinese doctors and medical researchers based on the “Vacuum Sealing Drainage” procedure first developed in the West in the 1990s.\u00a0 The treatment method could be very expensive, costing more than $10,000 U.S. per patient in the more serious cases, but they were all paid for by government medical insurance and by contributions.<\/p>\n Chen Chunhua’s legs before and after treatment (photo from Scott Masters)<\/p><\/div>\n At the Nanking Massacre Museum, we heard another sobering and unforgettable testimony from the Nanking Massacre (NM) survivor Ai Yi-Ying (\u827e\u4e49\u82f1).\u00a0 She is 89 years old, and was nine at the time of the NM.\u00a0 She courageously recalled that her father, three cousins, and many other relatives were killed during the NM, how she together with her 2-year-old brother, and her almost full-term pregnant mother escaped by hiding in the mountains.\u00a0 Shortly after, her mother gave birth to a baby girl, but the baby froze to death.\u00a0 When they did receive some food from some kind passer by, the mother would always give the food to her 2-year-old brother and her.\u00a0 Her brother would eat the food, but she always shared her food with her mother.\u00a0 She said that there were always dead people around her, and she would have nightmares of these dead people.\u00a0 She never forgets the advice from her mother:\u00a0 You should not be afraid of the dead people, but should be afraid of the living people looking for girls to rape and boys to kill.\u00a0 They finally found safety when they were able to reach one of the refugee camps of the International Safety Zone.<\/p>\n Present in the session with Ai Yi-Ying was also Tamaki Matsuoka, known as the “Conscience of Japan.”\u00a0 Tamaki lives in Osaka, Japan, and was an elementary school teacher, and has spent the last 30 years of her life trying to find out what happened during the NM.\u00a0 She has interviewed more than 250 former Japanese soldiers who were stationed in Nanking and more than 300 Chinese NM survivors.\u00a0 She found that the recollections of the Japanese soldiers and the Chinese survivors correlate very well in terms of\u00a0 where, when, and what happened.\u00a0 Tamaki has written several books (in Japanese, Chinese, and English), and has made several documentaries, and has given numerous talks and shown her documentaries in Japan.\u00a0 We heard from Tamaki on that afternoon and saw her documentary “Torn Memories of Nanjing.”\u00a0 Tamaki also visits Ai Yi-Ying and other NM survivors on a regular basis.<\/p>\n One of the sessions in Beijing was with Mr. Tong Zeng (\u7ae5\u589e), the President of the Non-Government-Organization (NGO) “Chinese Federation of Civil Claims Against Japan” (\u4e2d\u570b\u6c11\u9593\u5c0d\u65e5\u7d22\u8ce0\u806f\u5408\u6703). He was the one who in 1990 initiated the campaign that Chinese citizens have the right to sue the Japanese government and corporations for compensation due to various atrocities suffered by the Chinese people even though the Chinese government as a sign of friendship had waived the right for wartime damage compensation when China and Japan established diplomatic relationship in 1972.\u00a0 At this meeting, several Chinese victims shared their experiences with us.<\/p>\n Mr. Li Liangjie (\u674e\u826f\u6770), President of the Chinese Slave Laborer Association (\u4e2d\u570b\u5974\u96b8\u52de\u5de5\u5354\u6703\u6703\u9577) told us that as slave laborers, they worked extremely long hours.\u00a0 They were treated cruelly and inhumanely.\u00a0 The Japanese didn’t care for their health; if they die, they die.\u00a0 However, he also said that it is a characteristic of the Japanese that if you are strong, they will respect you, but if you are weak, they will oppress you even more.\u00a0 So on several occasions they went on strike, and then received slightly better treatment because the Japanese who ruled over them were afraid of their superiors’ reactions if they found out that the Chinese slave laborers were not working.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Mr. Gao Xiongfei (\u9ad8\u718a\u98de), a victim of Japanese bombing when both his mother and he at age 4 lost their right arms.\u00a0 He was the first Chinese atrocity victim to sue Japan for compensation and has been the most persistent person in this endeavor over the last 20+ years.\u00a0 At first the lawsuits were filed in Japanese courts, but eventually they all failed.\u00a0 Starting a few years ago, lawsuits are beginning to be filed in Chinese courts.\u00a0 There is hope that there will be some success here.\u00a0 Furthermore, partially because of these lawsuits being filed in Chinese courts, some Japanese companies, like Mitsubishi, are more willing to sign acknwledgment\/apology\/compensation agreement with some of the Chinese slave laborers. [3]<\/p>\n In Seoul, on a day three days after the death of Kim Kun-ja, a former Korean CW and the day that she was buried, we visited the House of Sharing outside of Seoul where Kim (and several other CW) lived.\u00a0 It was a day of mourning, but also a day to remember the unfinished business to seek justice for the hundreds of thousands of former CW worldwide who experienced unimaginable sufferings as young girls more than 70 years ago; we also especially remember that there are still several dozen living CW around the world.\u00a0 On that day (7\/25\/2017) we had the privilege to meet and hear Lee Yong Soo (\u674e\u5bb9\u6d19), 88, who was forced to become a CW in 1943 when she was only 14.\u00a0 Her experience included suffering electrical torture, beatings, and cuttings by knives.\u00a0 When she returned home after the war, she was not accepted by her family.\u00a0 Her coming out in public in 1992 gave her life a true purpose. \u00a0 She has been a most persistent advocate of the CW cause, giving testimonies in front of the U.S. Congress in 2007, in San Francisco in 2015, in Tokyo in 2016, as well as in many other places.\u00a0 We gain inspirations from people like her.<\/p>\n Museum Highlights:\u00a0 <\/strong>Our first stop was the Chinese Comfort Women Research Center at the Shanghai Normal University in Shanghai.\u00a0 Here Professor Zhiliang Su and his wife Professor Chen Lifei have been doing research on CW for more than 25 years [4].\u00a0 Their research have documented numerous Comfort Stations all over China (as well as in other parts of Asia), with the first one established in Shanghai in 1932.\u00a0 They have found evidence for a huge number of Chinese CW, including many who are still living and have come out in the open.\u00a0 Their research has shown that the number of CW worldwide is approximately 400,000, about twice the previous commonly mentioned number, because most of the Chinese CW were not accounted for in the previous figure.\u00a0 We also saw the first CW Memorial in China which shows a Korean CW, a Chinese CW, and an empty chair for a 3nd CW representing CWs of other countries.<\/p>\n New CW Memorial in Shanghai<\/p><\/div>\n The Comfort Women cause was reinforced again when we visited the “War and Women’s Human Rights Museum” in Seoul. Here we learn about the horrible sufferings of the CW, which the Koreans prefer to refer to these elderly women as “halmoni” which is grandmother in English, and also about hope for the future from the justice seeking movement and the world’s longest demonstration in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul which has occurred weekly since the beginning of 1992, and attended by hundreds of young students.<\/p>\n At the Nanking Massacre Museum in Nanjing, one always asks the question “How can a nation be so barbarious that it killed 300,000 people in six weeks, with most of them being civilians, including women and children, and raped over 20,000 women and girls?”\u00a0 Unfortunately, numerous eyewitnesses, including Japanese, confirmed that it did happen.\u00a0 The museum provides ample evidence on the reality of the Nanking Massacre.\u00a0 When the Japanese government still denies the existence of the Nanking Massacre and does not educate their young people about it, and often making remarks that it was fabricated by the Chinese, it is everyone’s responsibility to press Japan to own up to her deeds so that that kind of atrocity will not be repeated again in the future in any place in the world. [5]<\/p>\n Perhaps the most sobering part of our study tour was visiting the “The Museum of War Crime Evidence by Japanese Army Unit 731” (also known as the Unit 731 Museum).\u00a0 Here we learn of the horrifying biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction developed and deployed by Japan all over China.\u00a0 The germ warfare weapons resulted in deadly diseases like cholera, bubonic plague, and typhoid, as well as life-long horrible diseases like the previously discussed rotten leg disease.\u00a0 The Japanese military also engaged in completely inhumane and deadly experimentation like exposing human limbs and bodies to freezing temperatures and vivisection with live humans (including American POWs), like operating on live humans without anesthesia to determine their bodily response to various bacteria infections.\u00a0 If it were not true, one would think that this is just science fiction.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it is all documented here in this museum, including American declassified documents.<\/p>\n Inspirations from Life-Long Activists:\u00a0 <\/strong>A most uplifting part of the study tour is to hear and see the life-long commitments of many activists who have dedicated their lives to seek justice for all these atrocity victims.\u00a0 We had the fortune to meet and discuss with many of these life-long activists. We mention a few examples below:<\/p>\n Sample Testimonials from 2017 Asia Study Tour participants:<\/strong><\/p>\n For the complete testimonials of all the participants, see http:\/\/nj-alpha.org\/study-tour\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1] Our excursion to Quzhou was suggested to us by Ms. Wang Xuan (\u738b\u9009<\/span><\/span>), China’s leading advocate for seeking justice for the Chinese germ warfare victims.\u00a0 She also introduced us to Mr. Wu Jianping.\u00a0 I also want to thank Mr. Zheng Wei Yong (\u90d1\u4f1f\u52c7) who helped us to make all the arrangements with Mr. Wu.<\/p>\n [2] In April 1942, the American government launched the famous Doolittle Raid<\/a> by bombing several cities in Japan.\u00a0 The planes were launched from an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean and landed or crashed landed along the coast of Zhejiang Province, when many Chinese civilians risked their lives to harbor several dozen American pilots and their team members.\u00a0 Although the bombings did little damage to Japan, it did raise the morale of the American people and government.\u00a0 To retaliate against the Chinese providing support to the Americans, Japan unleashed her furor by repeatedly using biological weapons of mass destruction and other retaliation measures on the Chinese people.\u00a0 This resulted in about 250,000 deaths in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces.<\/p>\n [3] See, e.g., http:\/\/www.10000cfj.org\/en\/?page_id=5483<\/a>.<\/p>\n [4] When we visited their research center, Professor Su was actually in the U.S.\u00a0 So we met with Professor Chen only.<\/p>\n [5] Please read and sign the new Nanking Massacre Petition<\/a>.\u00a0 This link contains both the English petition and the Chinese translation.<\/p>\n [6] For more information on the 10,000 Cries for Justice, see http:\/\/www.10000cfj.org\/en\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n On July 14-27, 2017, a group of 17 people participated in a two-week immersion program to study WWII history in Asia.\u00a0 Ten are from the U.S., six are from Canada, and one is a Canadian citizen currently living in Hong Kong.\u00a0 WWII history in Asia is seldom taught in American or Canadian high schools […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4817"}],"version-history":[{"count":66,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4922,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4817\/revisions\/4922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/RottenLegs-Red.jpg\")
<\/a>You can enlarge the photo by clicking on it.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>Tamaki Matsuoka, translator Shelby Song, Ai Yi-Ying<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\n
\n
\n\n\n
\n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n <\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"