於濱：鄙人之拙見——慰安婦/性奴隸問題的終極解決方案

【距離日本在1945年8月15日向盟軍無條件投降已經過去了69年。日本的侵華戰爭不僅使神州大地山河破碎、生靈塗炭，也給數十萬被迫淪為日本軍妓的亞洲婦女留下了終身之痛。在各國強烈譴責日軍對“性奴”犯下的暴虐罪行之時，日本右翼勢力仍不斷美化“慰安婦”制度、曲解歷史，妄圖為罪行翻案。出於對日本右翼罔顧歷史、粉飾罪行的憤慨，旅美學者於濱借鑑英國諷刺文學大師喬納森·斯威夫特力作《一個小小的建議》的文體，通過反諷的筆法指出，根本無法與日本就慰安婦問題達成諒解，只能將日本侵略者永遠地釘在歷史的恥辱柱上。英語原文載於《亞洲時報》，作者惠賜稿件，觀察者網楊晗軼翻譯。】

一個幽靈，被兩種話語割裂的幽靈，在東亞遊蕩。一方面，在國際社會（包括美國）愈發嚴厲譴責日本在戰爭中對“性奴”犯下的野蠻罪行；另一方面，在歷史修正主義道路上漸行漸遠的日本也在迴避、否認、乃至維護戰時的“慰安婦”政策。雙方各執一詞，或許我們應該考慮以一種截然不同的方式——一種不僅更具歷史性、更有分析力、也更為實用的方式——來兼容包括日本在內的各方不同的價值和利益。

“犧牲少數，拯救多數”——日本Style！

日本以外的其他國家正逐漸達成一項共識，即改稱“慰安婦”為“性奴隸”。對在矇騙、誘拐、威逼之下，被迫加入日本龐大軍妓營的30萬名亞洲婦女來説，這兩個詞語的區別並不重要，因為她們的一生已被毀掉，無法挽回。但是，這兩種截然不同的説法，都只是一面之詞，它們忽略了特殊歷史背景下人類三邊互動中的另外兩大人羣：一是分佈在亞洲各處的數百萬皇軍；二是數億保持“完璧之身”的亞洲女性。至少在理論上，多虧了這三十萬慰安婦——即小部分女性——犧牲自己，為皇軍提供及時的、系統的“服務”，大多數良家婦女才倖免於遭到皇軍虎狼之師的性侵。

1938年1月13日，侵華日軍上海派遣軍開設了大型慰安場所“楊家宅娛樂所”，其中有大批來自朝鮮少女被充作軍妓。到1945年8月日本投降時，註冊在案的日軍慰安所僅上海就有149家，中國各地及亞洲其他地區的慰安所約有數千，為百萬日軍服務。

從1938年初開始，大量慰安所在各地湧現，這是日軍為防止大規模姦污、殺害中國婦女而採取的應急措施。從1937年8月至12月，即日本發動全面侵華戰爭的最初數月中，日本的上海派遣軍由上海快速挺進南京，但軍妓的慰安服務卻嚴重滯後。這是造成日軍在南京殘暴屠殺百姓、強姦民女的根本原因之一。民國首都南京陷落後的三個月內，日本皇軍屠殺了30萬中國人，強姦了2萬名婦女。日軍士兵不但對許多婦女先奸後殺，而且常以酷虐手段殘毀肢體。

南京大屠殺持續了六個星期，一直到1938年1月底才結束。實際上，南京大屠殺是淞滬會戰（1937年8月13日至11月26日）後日本更大規模罪行的尾聲。日軍攻佔南京的次日，美國駐柏林大使發出了一份電報。該電報披露，日本駐德大使曾向美國大使吹噓，上海派遣軍在挺進南京途中，便已殺死50萬中國人。如果日本大使的話屬實，長江三角洲最美麗的部分——蘇州、嘉興、杭州、紹興、無錫和常州——正是受日軍鐵蹄蹂躪最慘重的地區。關於在此過程中慘遭姦殺婦女的數量，歷史沒有留下記錄。如果按南京大屠殺中死者與受強姦者15:1的比例推算，從上海派遣軍11月26日從上海開拔，到12月10日兵臨南京城下，區區兩週內，應有33333名中國婦女遭到強姦。如此的密集的屠戮和姦淫，在戰爭史上也是駭人聽聞的。

正是為了約束士兵肆意姦淫殺戮，日軍才連忙拓展了在華慰安服務。人們不禁要問，如果沒有正規的“慰安”服務，在以後八年中，亞洲各地的數百萬日軍會如何行為呢？

由於日本政府和軍方在日本投降前系統地銷燬了大量文件，慰安婦的真實數量和在軍中的配置比例永遠不得而知。我們保守地估計，就算當年共有20萬名慰安婦。根據日本半官方資料估測，每個士兵平均每月造訪一次慰安所。以此類推，由於慰安婦的存在，一名普通日本士兵平均每年少強姦12名亞洲婦女，到戰爭結束時他一共少犯下90起強姦案。也就是説，二戰期間350萬海外日軍由於例常光顧慰安所，整個戰爭期間有3.15億起強姦案免於發生。這究竟是一種“成就”還是一樁罪孽，實際上是一個見仁見智的問題。不過，若沒有慰安婦們用自己的肉體築起這道“人盾”，慰安所外上億亞洲婦女的遭遇恐怕更為悲慘。

不過，這樣的估算未必靠譜。沒有證據顯示日軍士兵在享用慰安服務之後就不會強姦民女，尤其是在針對平民的報復性行動中。1940-42年，日本為報復協助共產黨游擊隊和美軍飛行員的中國平民，施行燒光、殺光、搶光的“三光政策”，造成華北地區270萬平民死亡；在1942年4月杜立特空襲東京後，從5月至9月的五個月裏，日軍遷怒於美軍飛行員降落地區的平民，有25萬中國平民慘遭屠殺。

非理性之理性？

筆者無意在此為日本戰爭暴行開脱，而僅希望全方位考慮歷史事實。在這一點上，“惡行之程度”也不無意義。

如果純粹以邏輯推論，或許可從2005年諾貝爾經濟學獎得主托馬斯·謝林提出的“非理性之理性”角度出發，來理解日本的慰安婦政策。這意味着任何一種在他人眼中不合理的行為，甚至違背今日道德標準的暴行，或許並非一無是處。日本的戰時軍妓制度實際上為數百萬日本士兵和億萬亞洲女性或直接、或間接地提供了某種“公共產品”。

日軍起初試圖從本土徵召大批妓女，但未能如願以償，轉而從朝鮮徵召了數十萬少女充作軍妓，試圖限制侵華日軍士兵與中國婦女的直接接觸。幾十年以後，一項日本資料為日軍的這一做法提供了三條原因：首先是為了緩和中國人的反日情緒；其次是為了防止性病在日軍中蔓延； 同時還可防止向中國婦女泄露軍事機密。

受奴化教育影響的朝鮮學校女生自願組建“挺身隊”

其實，日本的慰安婦政策背後，至少還有另外兩個因素。其一來自日本文化中一種獨特的信念或者迷信，即戰前性交有護體奇效，反之則易遭遇不測；其次，日本軍方批准的軍妓制度，是日本國內合法公娼的自然延伸。從19世紀末開始，日本走上了現代化和軍事化道路，在通過中日甲午戰爭（1894-1895年）和日俄戰爭（1904-05）在海外軍事擴張的同時，也向許多日佔地區“出口”唐行小姐（唐行きさん，字面意思是“去中國的小姐”，實際上是客居他鄉的日本妓女）。

來自日本福島的慰安婦

拋開這些日本文化特有的信仰和習俗，1938年的日本軍方或許更加關注本國在南京大屠殺中受損的國際形象。時任國際紅十字會南京委員會主席的美國牧師約翰·馬吉，用他的16毫米攝影機拍下了一百多分鐘的紀錄片，呈現了男子被日本兵當街斬首、婦女被強姦、屍橫遍野的慘狀。

日軍在南京的屠殺和強姦，甚至讓德國納粹黨南京地區負責人、南京國際安全區主席約翰·拉貝忍無可忍。拉貝未能説服日本軍方停止暴行，便在南京城裏到處遊蕩，試圖靠一己之力阻止暴行。日軍在哪裏強姦婦女，他就去哪裏救人。有一次，拉貝甚至從一名中國少女身上硬是拖走了一名正在施暴的日軍士兵。

日本皇軍在南京的暴行甚至驚動了上海派遣軍司令松井石根大將。由於身體抱恙，松井在暴行剛開始時並不在南京前線，頂替他的是裕仁天皇的叔父朝香宮鳩彥王，是他下達了“殺掉全部俘虜”的命令。據報道，松井曾對其下屬説：“我現在認識到，我們已經在不知不覺中對這個城市造成了最嚴重的影響……給當地人民帶來這樣的悲劇，我個人非常遺憾……對這一百萬無辜者我深表同情……”日軍在南京燒殺姦淫的消息不脛而走，也許出於對國際輿論的擔心，松井曾私下向一名美國記者承認：“日軍可能是當今世界最不守紀律的軍隊。”

彼時彼刻，慰安婦制度的快速推廣，至少在“惡”與“極惡”之間，建立了一個“緩衝層”。

  鄙人之拙見

以上的理性論證可能扯得太遠，筆者在此提出一套切實可行的方案，來解決慰安婦問題。

首先，正如筆者所指出的，各方應認真考慮日本的“非理性之理性”作為，以此設立互相溝通的共同基礎。與其批評日本的戰時政策，我們更應當重視慰安婦服務的結果：它使數億亞洲女性免遭日軍士兵肆無忌憚的殘暴強姦。

平心而論，日本為廣大亞洲女性的福祉還是有所貢獻的，不管是有意還是無意。為此，我們應該致力查詢並獎勵那些曾經策劃、執行、管理和享用過戰時慰安婦制度的日本人。1945年日本投降至今已有69年，不過多虧日本人的長壽（約比韓國人均壽命長三年），今天我們仍可以如願以償。根據目前朝鮮慰安婦3636：1的存活率（20萬慰安婦如今還有55人健在）來推算，日本投降時海外駐兵共計350萬，其中應尚有約1000人在世。鑑於慰安所在戰時比比皆是，這些老兵多多少少應該都有臨幸慰安婦的經驗。

如果這些老兵不願出面，可以通過榜樣激勵的作用，鼓勵他們光明正大地走出陰影。例如，曾任日本駐菲律賓海軍中尉的日本前首相中曾根康弘在回憶錄中稱，他“在日軍士兵開始強姦（當地）女性後，煞費苦心地建立了一處慰安所。”現任首相安倍晉三的家族與戰時政府有着廣泛而緊密的聯繫，相信他有能力推動這一進程，讓更多日本二戰老兵“出台”。

心理學家，歷史學家和家庭成員應該給予那些“出台”的日本老兵最大的援助，幫助他們克服羞恥心，以重構他們在戰時與慰安婦接觸的經驗。他們口述的歷史將更準確地反映日本士兵造訪慰安所的頻率。從日本的家電、汽車、壽司、捕鯨、A片、切腹、神風敢死隊、細菌戰（臭名遠揚的侵華日軍731部隊）等方方面面，我們可以看出，日本的完美主義文化和對細節的重視，必將有益於這種遵循科學精神的努力。在慰安婦問題上，我們可以用更多的科學數據來質疑日軍士兵月均造訪一次慰安所的估值——考慮到大多數年輕人處於他們性衝動最旺盛的青年時期，這個估值似乎太低。事實上，他們造訪慰安所的次數越頻繁，遭強暴的當地婦女就越少；日本為這些從西方帝國主義手中奪來的“解放區”的和平與幸福所做出的貢獻也就越大。

部分老兵“出台”之日，也應是他們與昔日慰安婦們重敍舊情之時。如若這些耄耋老人行動不便，“臉書”等社交媒體應可派上用場。如果歲月還不足以撫平慰安婦們對老兵對的積怨，或許這樣的方式能夠消除誤解，幫助她們揮別殘存的苦澀。

老兵們如果能“出台”，與數十年前的慰安婦再度聚首，甚至可能成就一段類似喬治·希克斯筆下（《慰安婦：二戰中日本強迫婦女賣淫的殘暴制度》）的舊情重燃的佳話——由於戰時法規嚴格、環境苛刻，慰安婦和士兵間極少保有這樣的關係。一旦真有此類“孽緣”被曝光，應迅速將其改編為小説、肥皂劇、動漫——尤其是廣受歡迎的“變態”成人H動漫。

好萊塢一向對二戰時的德國不依不饒，但對日本卻總是高抬貴手。這一次，好萊塢應該不失時機地把這些故事搬上大屏幕，保證會比《蝴蝶夫人》和《西貢小姐》更加催人淚下。當然，類似的電影絕對不能由奧利弗·斯通來導演。2013年，他在廣島“原子彈爆炸紀念日”上的講話中，道出了日本遭受原子彈轟炸的根本原因：偷襲珍珠港，南京大屠殺，“進入”滿洲，殖民朝鮮等；給這一代日本人的純淨心靈造成了不必要的衝擊和震撼。

營銷這些娛樂產品產生的利潤可用於多種用途，這包括在世界各地為慰安婦建立博物館和樹立雕像，最好能通過雕塑再現她們與昔日主顧深情纏綿的姿態。與此同時，日本政府應將慰安婦作為日本“對人類共同遺產做出傑出文化貢獻”的歷史瑰寶，向聯合國教科文組織世界遺產委員會提出申遺。繼日本最近向聯合國提出為神風敢死隊——他們悲壯殉國的英雄事蹟讓包括安倍首相在內的越來越多的日本人為之動情——申遺之後，下一步理應輪到慰安婦。如果慰安婦申遺失敗，日本或許應在2020年東京奧運會開幕式上，濃墨重彩地演繹日本男性和亞洲女性之間那種“粗暴之愛”。

容我贅言幾句，當前趨勢顯示，日本將重釋、修訂或否認限制軍力和軍事行動的和平憲法，那麼未來日本必會在海外部署兵力。所以，日本防衞省應認真考慮將慰安婦文化遺產與時俱進，作為日本武裝力量走出國門不可或缺的組成部分。

儘管本人用心良苦，估算科學，建議合理，可能仍有心智正常者無法接受我的論證，這是完全可以理解的。魯思·本尼迪克特（《菊與刀》作者）經典地提煉出日本民族極端矛盾的雙重性，如果上文包含的智識訓練能夠進一步拓寬道德和分析的邊界，則不失為幸事：

日本人矛盾到了極致，他們既好戰又温良；既黷武又愛美；既粗野又禮貌；既死板又變通；既順從又不馴；既忠誠又忤逆；既勇敢又怯懦；既喜新又守舊。

所有的文化都有兩面性。但絕少有哪種文化像日本文化那樣，在善與惡之間展現出如此巨大的差異。“慰安婦-性奴隸”二分法是兩大對立面的完美統一，它們將人類多種多樣的性行為——從親密的性愛到暴虐的強姦——統統簡化為龐大的戰爭性愛機器麻木而不懈的運行。即使本尼迪克特，也必將震驚於日本人的這種超凡本領。在人類行為史上，這確是空前絕後。如果這份獨特的記錄無法存在於日本的集體記憶中，那將是一個巨大的缺憾。

江蘇如皋九旬老婦周粉英公開自己“慰安婦”身份，控訴侵華日軍

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  A Modest Proposal

—For the Final Solution of the Comfort Women/Sex Slave Issue

YU Bin, Asia Times online, August 7, 2014

[Asian Times: The author’s preferred title for this article, its length precluding its use on our front page, is “A Modest Proposal - For the Final Solution of the Comfort Women/Sex Slave Issue”. The phrase “final solution” is deliberately used here to reveal both the horror of the issue and satiric nature of the essay, similar to Jonathan Swift’s treatise centuries ago. This article was previously posted under the headline: “Healing the ‘comfort women’ rift”. ]

A specter is haunting East Asia—the specter of a steadily growing divide between the mounting condemnation of Japan’s wartime “sex slave” brutality on one hand,1 and an increasingly revisionist Japan to deflect, deny or defend its “comfort women” policy on the other.2 With the polarization of the issue, a radically different approach—which is not only more historical and analytical but also practical—should be considered to accommodate the values and interests of all sides, including those of Japan.

—“So much Owed by So Many to So Few”: Japanese Style!

An emerging consensus outside Japan is to redefine the term “comfort women” as “sex slaves.” For the 300,000 young Asian women who were duped, abducted, or coerced into Japan’s vast network of managed prostitution,3 the difference between the two phrases means very little because their life was forever altered and mostly ruined. The dichotomy, however, misses two vital pieces in a unique historical triangle of human interaction: millions of the Emperor’s soldiers in Asia and hundreds of millions of “untouched” Asian women. Thanks to the timely and systemic “service,” or sacrifice, by a fraction of women at the time, these two large human groups were mostly separated, at least in theory.

On 13 January 1938, the headquarters of the Japanese Shanghai Expeditionary Forces (SEF) opened a large comfort station named Yangjiazhai Entertainment Station in Shanghai, which employed, for the first time, a large number of young Korean women. By the time of Japan’s surrender in August 1945, Shanghai had 149 registered comfort stations for the Japanese military, while several thousand comfort stations were in operation across China and beyond, serving millions of Japanese soldiers.4

The rapid expansion of the comfort stations from early 1938 onward was an emergency measurement to curtail the widespread rape and murder of Chinese women. In the first few months of Japan’s all-out invasion of China during August-December 1937, the fast advance of the SEF from Shanghai to Nanking was not accompanied by adequate comforting, or military prostitution, services. This was one of the root causes for the brutal killing and raping of civilians. For three months following the fall of the Chinese capital city of Nanking in early December 1937, the Emperor’s soldiers killed 300,000 Chinese and raped an estimated 20,000 women. Many of those women were killed immediately after being raped, often through explicit mutilation.5

The Rape of Nanking, which lasted for more than six weeks until the end of January of 1938, was actually the final phase of a much larger scale of Japanese atrocities after the Battle of Shanghai (13 August to 26 November 1937). According to a declassified telegraph sent by the U.S. ambassador to Germany in Berlin one day after the Japanese army occupied Nanking, the US ambassador heard the Japanese Ambassador in Germany boasting that Japanese army killed 500,000 Chinese as the SEF advanced from Shanghai to Nanking.6 If this was true, this most beautiful part of the Yangtze River valley—Suzhou, Jiaxing, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Wuxi and Changzhou—was disproportionally devastated by the Japanese troops racing towards Nanking. There was no record for the number of women raped. If Nanking’s 15:1 ratio (300,000 killed and 20,000 raped) is applied here, about 33,333 Chinese women were raped between Shanghai and Nanking in a matter of just two weeks between the end of the SEF’s Shanghai operation on November 26 and its siege of Nanking on December 10, 1937. Such a killing and raping spree is yet to be rivaled by any other military in war history.

It was against this backdrop of random and indiscriminate rape and murder of Chinese civilians that the Japanese military raced to expand its comfort services in China. One wonders how millions of Japanese military personnel across Asia would have behaved without proper “comfort” in the next eight years of war.

The real number of comfort women and the ratio with Japanese troops can never be established,7 given the systematic destruction of documents by the Japanese government and military authorities on the eve of Japan’s surrender.8 Let’s take the low estimate of 200,000 comfort women.9 A semi-official Japanese source estimated that on average a soldier went to a comfort station once a month.10 Statistically, this means 12 Asian women would NOT be raped per year and about 90 rapes would not be committed by a particular Japanese soldier over the duration of his overseas deployment till August 1945. This, in turn, means a total of 315 million rapes would be “avoided” thanks to the visits to comfort stations by the 3.5 million military personnel outside Japan’s homeland throughout the war.11 It is anybody’s opinion to consider this an “accomplishment” or an atrocity. Life for hundreds of millions of Asian women outside the “comfort zone” could have been much worse without this human (comfort women) “shield”.

The math exercise, however, should be treated with caution. There is no evidence that Japanese military personnel would not rape local women after visiting comfort stations, particularly in punitive operations against civilians who were believed to collaborate with either the Communist-led guerrillas or allied forces (Doolittle Raid pilots). For example, Japan’s “Three All” operations (kill all, loot all and destroy all) of 1940-42 killed 2.7 million civilians in northern China. In the five months between May and September of 1942, 250,000 Chinese were slaughtered in the areas where the Doolittle pilots landed. 12

— Rationality of Irrationality?

By no means does this author try to rationalize Japan’s brutal war policy. My purpose is simply to take into account this historical fact of life in its totality. In this regard, the degree of evilness does matter.

In pure logical inference, Japan’s comfort women practice can be comprehended as a case of what the 2005 Nobel Prize of Economics winner Thomas Schelling calls “the rationality of irrationality.”13 This means an act—no matter how irrational or even brutal according to others’ opinion or today’s moral standards—may have its own “merits.” Japan’s wartime brothel system actually provided some “public goods”: directly for millions of Japanese military personnel and indirectly for hundreds of millions of Asian women.

Decades later, a Japanese source offered three reasons for drafting hundreds of thousands of young women, mostly from Korea, following the initial but failed effort to recruit a large number of Japanese prostitutes: to prevent a worsening of anti-Japanese feelings in China; to prevent the spread of venereal diseases among its troops; and to avoid leaking military secrets as a result of contact with Chinese women.14 All tried to limit the contact with local women.

At least two additional factors were behind Japan’s comfort women policy. One was a culturally specific belief, or superstition, that sex before going into battle worked as a charm against injury, and sexual deprivation was considered to make one accident-prone.15 Secondly, the Japanese military’s sanctioned brothel system was a natural extension of Japan’s state-organized and licensed prostitution at home. As a modernized and militarized Japan started to expand its military presence outside its homeland from the late 19th century onward, Japanese karayuki-san (唐行きさん, meaning “Ms. Gone Abroad” or travelling prostitutes) were also “exported” to many Japan-occupied areas. This was done during the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). Both wars were fought in China, hence the literally meaning of karayuki-san as “Ms. Gone-to-China.”

These culturally specific beliefs and practices aside, the Japanese military in early 1938 was perhaps more concerned about its tarnished international image in the midst of the Rape of Nanking.16 American priest John Magee, then chairman of Nanjing Committee of the International Red Cross Organization, used his 16mm movie camera to document more than a hundred minutes of film: men being beheaded by the Japanese soldiers, women raped, and corpses lying everywhere.17

The killing and raping in Nanking even sickened John Rabe, the leader of the German Nazi party in the area and head of the International Safety Zone in Nanking. When he failed to persuade Japanese military authorities to stop the atrocities, Rabe began to roam the city, trying to prevent the atrocities himself. He’d go anywhere raping was taking place. On one occasion, Rabe even lifted a Japanese soldier off a young girl.18

The atrocities committed by the Emperor’s soldiers in Nanking even alarmed General Matsui, commander of the SEF, who was not present in the early stage of the atrocities because of illness and was temporarily replaced by an uncle of Emperor Hirohito, Prince Asaka Yasuhiko, who issued an order to “kill all captives.”19 Matsui reportedly said to his subordinates: “I now realize that we have unknowingly wrought a most grievous effect on this city… I personally feel sorry for the tragedies to the people… I offer my sympathy, with deep emotion, to a million innocent people…” Perhaps genuinely worried about the wide dissemination around the world about the killing and raping spree in Nanking, Matsui confided to an American reporter that “the Japanese army is probably the most undisciplined army in the world today.”20

The rapid expansion of the comfort system at this point was, at least, a soft “cushion” between the bad and the worst.

— Some Modest Proposals

After having perhaps digressed a bit too far into intellectual reasoning, it is time to offer practical solutions to resolve the comfort women issue.

First, as I have already observed, Japan’s “rationality of irrationality” should be seriously considered as the basis for reciprocity between various parties. Instead of criticizing Japan’s wartime policy, one should not ignore the outcome of Japan’s comfort service: hundreds of millions of Asian women may have avoided being randomly and brutally raped.

For Japan’s contribution to the safety and wellbeing of Asian women, intentionally or not, efforts should be made to identify and award those who planned, executed, managed and utilized the wartime comfort system. Sixty-nine years after 1945, this is still possible, thanks to Japan’s extraordinarily long life expectancy (almost three years more than that of South Korea). Based on the 3636:1 ratio for the surviving Korean comfort women (200,000:55) at this moment, there should be about 1,000 WWII veterans still alive in Japan out of 3.5 million stationed abroad in August 1945. Given the ubiquitous comforting services, most of these veterans should have had some experience of the wartime comfort stations.

In case veterans are hesitant to come forward, role models can be used to energize the coming-out process. For example, former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, then a first lieutenant in the Japanese Navy in the Philippines, claimed in his memoir that he “took great pains to set up a comfort station after Japanese soldiers began “assaulting (indigenous) women.”21 Prime Minister Abe, whose family has broad and deep connections with the wartime government, should be able to facilitate this process.

For those “coming-out” veterans, assistance should be provided by psychologists, historians and family members for overcoming any sense of shame in order to reconstructing their wartime experience with comfort women. Their personal accounts will provide more accurate estimates for the frequency that soldiers visited the comfort stations. This scientific effort can be aided enormously by Japan’s perfectionist culture and attention to details: be in the areas of home electronics, automobiles, sushi, or whale killing, AV, ritual suicide (seppuku), kamikaze bombing, biological warfare (by its notorious Unit 731 in China), etc. In the comfort women issue, more scientific data may test the validity of Japan’s one-visit-per-month claim, which seems too low for majority of those young men in their prime sexual age. Indeed, the more frequently they visited comfort stations, the fewer local women they would rape; hence greater contribution for peace and wellbeing in those areas Japan “entered,” or “liberated” from West ern imperialists.22

As soon as some veterans start to come forward, actions should be taken to reunite former comfort women with their former clients. Social media outlets, such as Facebook, should be utilized in case of physical difficulties of these seniors. This may help dispel misunderstandings and overcome lingering bitterness, if passage of time is not enough to neutralize such feelings.

The coming-out campaign may even help rekindle some past affection—albeit extremely rare because of strict wartime regulations and harsh environment—between some former comfort women and their clients, as described by Hicks’ 1994 book. Should such “dangerous liaisons” be discovered, they should be quickly turned into novels, TV soaps, and anime, particularly of the popular adult-content “Hentai” variety.

Hollywood—which has been Germany heavy and Japan light—should lose no time in putting to the big screen these stories that guarantee to be more tear-jerking than Madame Butterfly and Miss Saigon. This should be done, of course, without Oliver Stone, whose 2013 speech at the annual Hiroshima commemoration (available on YouTube) unnecessarily shock-and-awed the innocent mind of the current generation of Japanese to the root causes of the atomic blasts: Pearl Harbor, the Nanking Massacre, the Manchuria “entrance,” Korean colonization, etc.

The profits from marketing these entertainment products can be used for multiple purposes, including setting up museums and statues of comfort women around the world, hopefully with their former clients together in an affectionate posture. Meanwhile, the Japanese government should present this treasure of Japanese history to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee as a case of “outstanding cultural importance to the common heritage of humanity.” This will be a logical step following Japan’s recent submission to the same UN committee of those Kamikaze suicide pilots, whose tragically heroic actions are winning the hearts and minds of a growing number of Japanese including Prime Minister Abe.23 Should this application fail, the opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics may prominently feature such a “tough love” between Japanese men and Asian women.

Last if not least, this heritage should be seriously considered by Japan’s Ministry of Defense as an integral component in the Japanese forces, whose future mission would inevitably include overseas deployment given the current trend in Japan to reinterpret, revise or reject the constitutional constraints on its military.

For all my good intention, scientific estimates and reasonable suggestions, the above reasoning could still be unacceptable to people with a normal mindset, which is perfectly understandable. Nonetheless, I would be pleased if this intellectual exercise could stretch the moral and analytical limits for Ruth Benedict’s classic juxtaposing of the bipolar behavioral patterns in Japan:

The Japanese are, to the highest degree, both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aesthetic, both insolent and polite, rigid and adaptable, submissive and resentful of being pushed around, loyal and treacherous, brave and timid, conservative and hospitable to new ways.24

All cultures have two sides. Few, if any, exhibit such a huge gap between the good and evil. And the comfort-women-vs.-sex-slaves dichotomy was such a perfect unity of opposites that even Benedict would be surprised by Japan’s extraordinary ability to reduce wide range of human sexuality—from intimate lovemaking to violent rape—to mere mechanical and tireless operation in its gigantic wartime sex machine. It would be a great loss if such a unique record of human behavior finds no place in Japan’s collective narrative.

Yu Bin is senior fellow of Shanghai Association of American Studies.

References:

1 See Park Hyun, “Former comfort women have first official meeting at the White House,”, The Hankyoreh, August 6, 2014, http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/650066.html; Stephanie Nebehay, “U.N. panel tells Japan to compensate ‘comfort women’,”Reuters, July 24, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/24/us-japan-sexcrimes-idUSKBN0FT1F520140724; Christine Ahn, “Seeking truth for ‘comfort women’,” Asia Times online, June 26, 2014, www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/KOR-02-260614.html; “Congressman Mike Honda Asks State Department to Act on ‘Comfort Women’ Issue, Letter asks for immediate attention, meeting with Department,” Press Release February 4, 2014, http://honda.house.gov/news/press-releases/congressman-mike-honda-asks-state-department-to-act-on-comfort-women-issue; “Sex slavery an ‘indescribable’ wrong: Murayama,” The Japan Times, February 12, 2014, www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/02/12/national/sex-slavery-an-indescribable-wrong-murayama/#.UwCa6fvgcoR; In September 2013, Taiwan released a documentary titled Song of the Reed about six former comfort women in Taiwan, “Documentary on Taiwan’s ‘comfort women’ premieres,” http://www.ecns.cn/cns-wire/2013/09-29/82825.shtml.

2 In March 2014, the Abe government said that it would water down the Kono Statement “if new findings emerge.” In a meeting by the UN Human Rights Committee on 15-17 July 2014, the Japanese delegation continued to deny its responsibilities for the comfort women issue by insisting that the issue was resolved and those women were not sex slaves. See “Roundup: Japan questioned on ‘comfort women’ in Human Rights Committee,” Xinhua, July 17, 2014, http://www.china.org.cn/world/Off_the_Wire/2014-07/17/content_32973323.htm.

3 “Sex slaves put Japan on trial,” BBC, December 8, 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1061599.stm.

4 George Hicks, The Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War (W.W. Norton & Company, 1994), p. 16; “Secrets of the First Japanese Comfort Stations in the World,” People’s Daily online, June 16, 2005, http://world.people.com.cn/GB/14549/3465588.html

5 “A Debt of Blood: An Eyewitness Account of the Barbarous Acts of the Japanese Invaders in Nanjing,” February 7, 1938, Dagong Daily, Wuhan edition Museums.cnd.org, http://museums.cnd.org/njmassacre/njm-tran/njm-ch10.htm.

6 “U.S. archives reveal war massacre of 500,000 Chinese by Japanese army,” Xinhua, December 12, 2007, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-12/12/content_7236237.htm.

7 Chinese scholar Su Zhiliang, for example, argued that there were at least 400,000 comfort women during the 14 years of Japanese war in Asia (1931-45), including many Chinese women. See Luan Fan, “‘Comfort Stations’ in More Than a Dozen Countries Brutalizing Hundreds of Thousands of ‘Comfort Women’,” Global Times, June 17, 2005, p. 23, http://world.people.com.cn/GB/14549/3481377.html.

8 For example, a decrypted message sent by the Japanese Chief of Staff of the 1st Southern Expeditionary Fleet on 18 August 1945 (three days after the surrender) reads: “on 1st August the personnel employed in connection with Japanese naval comforts at Singapore were appointed civilian employees of 101st hospital. Most of the girls were made auxiliary nurses. Other commands under 1st Southern Expeditionary Fleet are to conform.” On 20 August 1945, the Japanese Civil Administration Department from Makassar, Indonesia ordered that comfort women were to be attached to local hospitals as nurses and “when this message is understood, burn it.” Hicks, op.cit., p. 8.

9 Various evidences indicate a wide distribution between 29:1 and 100:1.See Hicks, op.cit., p. 19.

10 Digital Museum: The Comfort Women Issue and the Asian Women’s Fund, http://www.awf.or.jp/e1/facts-01.html.

11 Reports of General MacArthur: MacArthur in Japan: The Occupation: Military Phase, Volume I Supplement (Washington D.C.: 1994 edition), p. 117.

12 See “Doolittle Raid,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid.

13 Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 16.

14 Digital Museum: The Comfort Women Issue and the Asian Women’s Fund, http://www.awf.or.jp/e1/facts-01.html.

15 Hicks, op.cit., pp. 28, 32-33.

16 Hicks, op.cit., pp. 45-46.

17 John Magee, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Magee_%28priest%29#The_Film.

18 John Rabe, The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe (Vintage, 2000).

19 Chen, World War II database, cited from “Prince Asaka appointed as commander,” in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre#cite_ref-Chen.2C_World_War_II_Database_36-0.

20 Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking (Penguin, 1997), pp. 51-52.

21 Reiji Yoshida, “State mum on Nakasone’s war brothel,” The Japan Times, March 17, 2007, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/03/17/news/state-mum-on-nakasones-war-brothel/#.UwQW2PvgcoQ.

23 Jeff Kingston, “Pan-Asian dreams: The Greater East Asia Conference,” The Japan Times, November 9, 2013, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/11/09/commentary/pan-asian-dreams-the-greater-east-asia-conference/#.U7eMufua9bw.

23 Yuka Hayashi, “As Tensions Rise, Pacifist Japan Marches Into a Military Revival,” The Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2013, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324867904578592824100470576.

24 Yuka Hayashi, “As Tensions Rise, Pacifist Japan Marches Into a Military Revival,” The Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2013, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324867904578592824100470576.