The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 6 | Issue 5 | Article ID 2751 | May 03, 2008

1

From a Woman Aggressor. Reflections on Japan and the AsiaPacific War

Greg Vanderbilt, Okabe Itsuko

From a Woman Aggressor. Reflections onJapan and the Asia Pacific War

Okabe Itsuko and Greg Vanderbilt

Translated and introduced by GregVanderbilt

The essayist Okabe Itsuko (1923-2008)readied herself for death throughout her lifeand, when it came in the early morning hoursof April 29, with her died an independentwoman’s voice of conscience for postwarJapan. The translation which follows is of anaddress she gave at the annual service inmemory of “all the war dead” held by HigashiHonganji temple in Kyoto, shortly after theU.S. invasion of Iraq five years ago and ayear before she announced she was layingdown her pen after a half-century career ofessay writing and a total of 134 books. Thesight of the diminutive and frail 80-year oldspeaking before the great Kyoto hall of TruePure Land Buddhism, naming herself “awoman aggressor” responsible for the deathsof her loved ones in the war six decadesearlier, may have been jarring but hertouchstone story of her fiancé Kimura Kunioand her core value of respect for all people,including the weak and marginal, were well-known to a Japanese public longing for avoice grounded in the beauty of daily life andJapanese culture but unyielding in its call forpeace and dignity and respect for all menand women.

Okabe Itsuko-san (source: Asahi Shimbun)

In this speech as well she retells her story: ofgrowing up the sickly younger daughter of anOsaka tile wholesaler and a devoted mother;of leaving school due to tuberculosis(incurable in those days); of her engagementto a young officer and his statement to herthat “This war is wrong. I do not want to diefor His Majesty the Emperor.”; of herinability (conditioned by both youth andmilitarist education) to understand his quietopposition to the war; of her 1968 visit toOkinawa where he had died in 1945; of herlifelong effort to make public atonement to

http://www.asahi.com/obituaries/update/0429/OSK200804290003.html?ref=rss

APJ | JF 6 | 5 | 0

2

him and to show how peace might growquietly from the dignity of Japanese tradition(which for her, as for many other postwarintellectuals, was seldom if ever connected tothe State). Okabe’s story anticipated andrefutes the ShÅwa “greatest generation”story now enshrined in the ShÅwa-kan inTokyo and elsewhere; hers is centered onlove – daughterly, sisterly and romantic – forthe dead as the source for a conscientiousand peaceful future.

Okabe launched her writing career in 1953after she ended a marriage to a man thirteenyears her senior arranged as a way ofproviding for her parents under hard post-surrender economic conditions. In 1951 shehad self-published a collection of her wartimeessays but it was a daily radio broadcaststarting in 1954 that brought her firstreadership. Over organ background musicshe would read an essay written on a single400-character sheet of manuscript paper; herfirst piece “Omusubi no Aji” (The Flavor of aRiceball) memorably proclaimed that thedeliciousness of a riceball comes from thevitality and love of the human being betweenwhose palms it has been formed. Among thelisteners who responded was a girl namedYoshida Mieko, a blind Hansen’s diseasepatient living under forced quarantine at agovernment leprosarium located on an islandoff Kagawa prefecture. This encounter led toabiding relationships with many in this then-ignored population there at ÅŒshimaSeishÅen, at Airakuen in Okinawa, and atNagashima Aiseien in Okayama. It was aninstinctive solidarity, for Okabe knewsickness and often said she had a history ofillness and not one of schooling (a byÅrekiinstead of a gakureki). Self-identification withillness can be a source of strength; the artistHoshino Tomihiro (who is quadriplegic)provided the cover for a 2001 collection“Because I am weak, I do not break.”

Okabe’s numerous books of essays – many ofthem collections of short pieces thatappeared originally in art, women’s,Buddhist, and left-leaning periodicals and oflectures to teachers and women’s groups – allpoint back to a writer walking, experiencinglife, and writing as a largely self-taught andself-consciously postwar Japanese woman.Her seamless synthesis of appreciation ofbeauty in daily life, of the work of Kyotocraftspeople, of Noh and the classics, and ofBuddhism – the flowers of quiet templegardens and the dignity of ancient andrevered images of the Buddha – with thepolitical imperatives she took from Kunio andothers she respected, like the socialistArahata Kanson, points to how to become acomplete person. As exemplified here, onecase in point was her writings on Korea,ancient Korean culture, and Koreans residentin Japan, where, as in this speech, heremphasis on the dignity of contributions toJapan from the Korean peninsula connectedto Japan’s wartime malice in Korea and thento the postwar political struggles in whichshe took a concerned citizen’s interest,including the movement for the release of theSuh bro thers f rom decades ’ l ongimprisonment in South Korea, and, morerecently, friendship with a South Koreanacademic named Park Chang-hee who readthe 1996 Iwanami edition of her collectedworks while imprisoned on allegations ofespionage in the 1990s and who has openeda community center in her honor near Seoul.

The conscience of these writ ings isencapsulated in a poem she often shared,written out in Osaka dialect: Uttara akan. It’swrong to sell out. Don’t betray. Tomodachi outtara akan, it begins. Don’t sell out yourfriends. It then lists other unbetrayables – thechildren, your true heart and mind, affection,faith, education, scholarship, secrets, thewill, nature, life – before repeating Jibun o

http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?lang=e&id=0C51C423823E3180802569A50071794F

APJ | JF 6 | 5 | 0

3

uttara akan. Jibun o uttara akan. Don’t betrayyourself. Don’t betray yourself.

Following the death of her mother in 1959and the 1963 publication of the book shementions in the speech Alone in the OldCapital, Okabe relocated from Kobe to Kyoto.After several years, she purchased a housealong the Kamo River with tatami roomscooled by river breezes and a TaishÅ-eraWestern-style annex. She lived there byherself from 1975 until downsizing to anapartment three years ago. Her sentimentsfor its well-loved furnishings shared withreaders, the house provided a stage for herdeep appreciation of each component of dailylife. Any meal there included a toast (alwayswith Kirin beer) and a taste of Okinawa’spink and pungent tofu known as tofuyo, areminder of her love for the place Kunio died.Her kimonos, once a trademark even whenshe traveled alone in Europe in the late1960s, were transformed by a long agostudent – she briefly taught flower arrangingas a substitute for an English course bannedin wartime – and lifelong friend namedYamashita Machiko into smart pant and tied-jacket outfits.

At MurÅji Temple, ca. 1962 frontispiece toAlone in the Old Capital

The following is a translation of Okabe’s April2, 2003, memorial address as it was printedwith her revisions as a pamphlet by HigashiHonganji: Kagai no Onna kara (Kyoto:ShinshÅ« ÅŒtaniha ShÅ«musho Shuppanbu,2004). A complete list of her books can befound in the last, a collection of aphorismsentitled Living in Purity: Itsuko’s Words(Chura ni Ikiru: Itsuko no Kotoba) (FujiwaraShoten, 2007) and a detailed chronology ofher l i fe ( including byÅreki) in herautobiography Last Words (Yuigon noTsumori de) (Fujiwara Shoten, 2006). Herchildren’s book Shiro the Deer (Shika noShiro-chan) which tells of an ugly-ducklingdeer in Nara has recently been translatedinto Korean and Chinese but there are as yetno other English translations.

Education for Death and not for Life

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4894345838/ref=sib_rdr_dphttp://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4894344971/ref=sib_rdr_dphttp://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4894344971/ref=sib_rdr_dp

APJ | JF 6 | 5 | 0

4

I am grateful to be invited to join this MemorialService for All Those Fallen in War (ZenSenbotsusha TsuichÅ HÅe) and that a personsuch as me could be asked to say what I think,e v e n i f w h a t I h a v e t o s a y m a y b eembarrassing.

As we said together in the time of confession afew minutes ago, war is the terrifying businessof killing, but the era into which I was born wasthe war. What passed for education fromprimary school through girls’ high school wasmilitarist education, education which taught mygeneration to “die gladly for His Majesty theEmperor.” No one said “Live!”

The whole religious world followed this policy.It dispatched chaplains and it took no part inthe struggle to stop the killing. It was a timewhen everyone, myself included, expected todie. It was acceptable just to die, but the youngmen who were being sent off to other landswent to kill as many people of those countriesas possible and then be killed themselves.That’s how it was.

The other day when I read in the newspaperabout the Otani protest against possible war inIraq, now when such appeals are needed fromall religious groups, now when all religiousgroups are needed in the struggle against war,I was moved and overjoyed by the Otanidenomination’s appeal and so I come to theservice today boldly and with a full heart. [1]

I don’t know if it will make sense to you, butthe education received by boys and girls of mygeneration taught us that “it is better to diethan to live.” Without complaint, boys of mygeneration were conscripted and sent to thefields of death. There they killed and theythemselves died and a great many wereinjured. How terrible it must have been fortheir families.

My brother, who was four years older than I,was sent to do aerial reconnaissance overSingapore. His plane was the only one sent and

I imagine they were prepared for anything. Itwas a superior aircraft called a Shinshitei andwas quite fast. When the British combat planescame after them, they were able to escape andcome home. With the information theygathered, his command devised strategy for theinvasion of Singapore. Even so, my brother fellthere in 1942.

At the time, I was made to think my brother’sdeath was a glorious death in battle. Motherwas a gunkoku no haha (a mother of themilitary nation) and I was a gunkoku maiden.No other way of life was possible. We couldn’teven imagine another way of life. As one whogrew up in those times, when the invasion ofIraq erupted the other day, I could hear theexplosions in my head – the sounds of thebombs falling and of the antiaircraft fire. I waswatching it on television but I felt as if I werethere.

War is absolutely wrong. Killing is wrong. Andyet I received a tearful letter from a Christianwondering why, in America with all itsChristians, do American Christians not stand atthe very forefront of opposition to war.

It is a noble thing to believe, but one need notgo to war in the name of God or kill in God’sname. And yet, in Japan, His Majesty theEmperor was a god. There was no way to goagainst the Emperor system. “Die happily” wewere told. That’s how it was.

My breast literally aches when I hear the words“all of the war dead” as those memorialized inthis service. During the last war, so many B-29sflew over our heads, dropping shimmering firebombs as the brilliant red flames rose up. Howmany people were there below? How many losttheir homes?

At that time both Mother and I were coughingup blood and so, without any idea that Osakawould be bombed, we had rented a small housenear the sea at Izumikita and gone there torecuperate. Then the air raid warnings came

APJ | JF 6 | 5 | 0

5

and the skies over Osaka turned crimson.

The house where I was born and raised was inOsaka. My father and my eldest brother’s wifeand child were there. We were worried. Myroom in that house was on the third floor. WhenI opened the east-facing window, I could seethe roof of the Minami MidÅ. Minami MidÅbelongs to the Otani denomination and the KitaMidÅ belongs to Honganji. I grew up seeingthe roofs of these two great temple halls.

The Body Turns to White Ashes

Mother believed in Shinran ShÅnin with allher heart. Morning and evening she wouldchant the sutra. Though he was married toMother, Father had fallen for another womanand he was never at home except for meals. Hewas at the other woman’s house. Because ofher, I have four younger half-siblings.

Sometimes Mother wept as she chanted thesutra. What was she thinking as she cried?With all her heart she wanted Buddha to hearher. When she cried, there was nothing I coulddo except to curl up beside her and share mywarmth so she could feel “there are childrenhere too.” Then, comforted, she would startagain to lift up her voice in the sutra.

Then she would always chant RennyoShÅnin’s “Letter on White Ashes.”[2]

“We who are robust and hearty in the morningmay be white ashes by evening.”

I grew up hearing this. When I was small, mybody was weak and relatives and neighbors allsaid that “it won’t be long until this child dies,”but, look, I’ve lived this long!

But I have never thought that way. I am onewho is aware that I will die. Even now I amdeeply grateful to my mother. Morning andevening, she chanted that “Letter on WhiteAshes” that tells us to be prepared for ourdeaths, as if to warn the child who snuggled

against her wondering if she too was soon todie to “be aware of yourself.”

Thank you, Mother. O-Kaa-chan, ooki ni.

Today, as I come before the image of theBuddha in whom my mother believed with allher heart and mind, I feel as if I am coming togreet her. Though this year marks the forty-fourth anniversary of her passing, she lives onin my heart. My brother who died in the war,my fiancé, the neighbor boy who taught me somuch, and so many others live on there.

Not Killing, but Bringing to Life

All those who fell in the war have much toteach those of us who are here now aboutliving. With pain and grief, with all our hearts,we pray for them.

I don’t know why I didn’t die then. I don’t knowwhy I was born, into this world in this age, as aJapanese girl.

None of us come into being out of our owndesire but since we do exist, we must treasureLife. But look at Iraq these days. How hard it isto survive each day in Iraq. Innocent people arebeing killed by bombs dropped heedlessly fromthe sky. I tremble when I think of their plight.

More than ten million people worldwide havedemonstrated against the Iraq war. Even inAmerica, there was a demonstration inWashington with half a million people. Despitethese people saying it is wrong, the killing goeson. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt bring forthlife. Thou shalt show the way to the Pure Land.But this is not what is done. Hence the realitiesof our world. The unfortunate realities.

In these times, I feel like all of Japan of today isgathered in its former self. Japan is about tojoin the Iraq War on the side of America. ThePrime Minister has made this decision withoutone word of consultation with the people. Thisis unforgivable.

APJ | JF 6 | 5 | 0

6

I can say “Unforgivable. Unforgivable,” but Iam in no shape to participate in protests. I canonly lie quietly in bed but my heart is angry. Imust say that what is despicable is despicable.I am livid. Under these conditions the world isdestroying itself.

As the appeal declared, if war breaks out again,war and terrorism will recur in retaliation.Together with anti-war prayers for the value ofl i fe , the appeal strongly cr ies out tointernational society to not engage in militaryaction. With all my heart I join in the Otaniprotest.

What I have wanted to say, what I havethought, what I have written has not amountedto that. No one listens. One by one, we mustcome into consciousness. One by one, we eachmust speak responsibly. Yes, what is wrong iswrong.

During that war, Mother chanted the sutrasand yearned and hoped with all she had, butmy brother died in the war, my fiancé died inthe war, and my sister’s husband died in thewar. Thinking of dying in war as expected andas glorious was the tragedy of that time, thetragedy of the Japanese people. We must notallow it to be repeated. This is the meaning ofmy title today: “From a Woman Aggressor”.

“This war is wrong.”

Some here may know him. Mr. TakahashiKazumi (1931-1971) was a novelist who diedyoung. When he was an assistant professor atKyoto University, he started an associationcalled the “Dialogue Society.” Participants,including some who are still living like KomatsuSakyÅ and Murai Hideo, read and commentedon my book Alone in the Old Capital.[3] Heinvited me to come and speak to them and heeven came to my house to get me.

Here is what I said to Mr. Takahashi Kazumithen, in May 1968. I had long consideredwomen to be the victims of war. Their beloved

husbands, their children, their brothers andsisters were killed in war and they were left topreserve their homes and families on their own.Then they faced the air raids before their veryeyes. I saw them as victims.

In April 1968, a month before I met Mr.Takahashi Kazumi, I went to Okinawa for thefirst time. My fiancé died there in the war. Igathered up my courage and was taken therefor my first visit.

When my fiancé whom I so respected wastwenty-two, I was almost twenty. In those days,young men and young women did not go outtogether like they can today. It wasn’t possibleto have serious conversations either. When mybrother died in the war, his classmates fromprimary school came to pay their respects. Oneof them was named Kimura Kunio. He was inofficer training. All I could do was put out teaand a sweet and bow politely, but I watchedfrom behind a paper screen.

His mother was such a kind woman. Later, shespoke to my mother. “They seem to like eachother. Shall we arrange their marriage?”

His mother came to visit, carrying with her onlya white fan, and he became my fiancé. Nowthat we were engaged, he could enter my roomwith its view of the rooftop of the O-MidÅ. Itwas the first time for us to speak alone. We hadonly a brief time together.

Kunio straightened his uniform and spokeclearly. “I think this war is wrong. I do not wantto die in such a war. I do not want to die for HisMajesty the Emperor.”

Then in a quiet voice, he said, “But I’d gladlydie for you or for the country.”

I was shocked. From the time I was born untilthat very moment, I had never heard suchwords. “This war is wrong. I do not want to diefor His Majesty the Emperor.”

APJ | JF 6 | 5 | 0

7

Saying something like this, if caught, meantcourt martial and prison. I was startled and Ianswered, “If it were me, I’d die happily.”Kunio never mentioned the war again. That wasthe last time. It was the last time we met.

He said he would like to come again but thattime and place never came. I had no idea whatany of what he said meant. How pathetic andmiserable it all was. When I think of it now howsorry I feel.

Without any further opportunity for us to talk,Kunio left by night train from Osaka Station.Osaka Station in those days was pretty run-down and that night it was mostly officers-in-training boarding trains. I don’t know wherethey were headed that night but Kunio wassmiling broadly as the tears ran down his face.

Kunio was against the war. It was right in themiddle of the war when he said to me, “Thiswar is wrong.” My brother had died in 1942 sothis was in 1943, just when Japan was losing atGuadalcanal.

The train that was arriving on the oppositeplatform that night we saw him off carriednothing but the remains of soldiers. Rows androws of white urns were being unloaded thatnight. It did not even occur to me that this mustnot be allowed to happen.

Engagement photo with Kimura Kunio, 1943(reprinted in Yuigon no Tsumori de)

Okinawa, the Trail of Bones

Kunio ended up in northern China, in what wascalled “Hokushi” in those days. The Japanesemilitary was occupying China and he wasforced to participate in the invasion of anothercountry.

When the platoon Kunio commanded was onpatrol, it had a run-in with a local unit ofChinese resistance forces and he reportedlykilled the other commander. Was that worthy ofa medal in those days? When the letter tellingme of this arrived along with his fountain pen, Ireally did not know what to say.

I had waved my flag as I sent Kunio – Kuniowho had so clearly expressed his true feelings

APJ | JF 6 | 5 | 0

8

that “this war is wrong” – off to the war. It wasthus I who had caused him to kill on thebattlefield.

This was how I changed my mind and this iswhy I had to go to Okinawa.

As you may know, in that terrible Battle ofOkinawa, Japanese forces came out from thetrenches around the headquarters at ShuriCastle to fight the Americans as they cameashore. So many battleships came from thesouth and surrounded the island. Their gunswere so huge and the island so small and theykept striking and striking it.

Kunio met the attack and fought back and bothof his legs were blown off. Then, I’m told, hetook his pistol and ended his own life, there ata place called Mt. Tsuka in Shimajiri County. ALieutenant Masuda, who was with theneighboring platoon, was with him at the end.

After that, the residents of Okinawa andsoldiers, all headed south. The Americanmilitary surrounded them and pushed themsouth as well. Each volley from Americanartillery blew away twenty, thirty people. Theleaves of nearby trees were splattered withhuman flesh.

It was terrible. They were headed for thesouthern tip of Okinawa – Mabuni Hill – where,it is said, they lowered their heads and died.The living came to take the possessions of thedead. Japanese soldiers also took from thedead. Really, they did. They drank from thecanteens of the dead. They stripped the corpsesand replaced their own worn-out uniforms.They took shoes and whatever else they could.

And then, they headed further south, to thecliffs, to where there was no place to run.Okinawan people had escaped there too, andbecause Japanese troops were there as well,the Americans fired and fired.

There were caves called gama and they went

inside. Someone who was there told me howthey sucked on what little water dripped downthe cave walls. There was nothing to eat andso, after the sun had gone down and theythought the Americans might be gone, they’dcreep out of the cave, but they’d be swept upby the searchlights and killed. Anyone whopassed out would end up an American prisoner.

Then there are the bones of those who died inthe Battle of Okinawa. So many bones. Theydied en masse. Later there would be threehundred thousand at Hiroshima and 230,000 or240,000 at Nagasaki. No one knows the truth.No one knows the real numbers. Such thingscannot be known.

Among them was the man who saw Kunio die.Lieutenant Masuda’s entire platoon was killedin the final attack. Then there were the so-called youth labor corps, boys who were sweptup into the war along with girls made to serveas nurses. How my heart aches when I think ofhow they suffered.

Here’s what one of the people who told mewhat happened in Okinawa said. TheAmericans did not bother to gather up theremains of the dead Japanese. They buried thebodies of each and every dead American soldierand erected a cross over each grave, but theyused bulldozers to push the remains of theJapanese soldiers and the people – along withdestroyed weaponry and whatever else – intocraters left by the bombing and buried themthere. Then they paved and made concreteroads over the top. When I go to Okinawa, I sayto myself, “I’m walking on their bones.”

Because I heard the “Letter on White Ashes”when I was small, I’ve always thought of myselfas “a child of the white bones,” of my wholebeing as nothing but ashes. But it was otherpeople – local residents, the people of Okinawa,and Japanese soldiers – for whom it did notseem to matter whether they were killed. Somany died. So many were killed. It was Japan’sway not to care about life.

APJ | JF 6 | 5 | 0

9

Hearing the Woeful Cries

At that time, a vast underground complexcalled the Matsushiro Imperial Headquarterswas being built at Matsushiro in Shinshūshould Tokyo and the Imperial Palace bebombed. I went to see it and it is magnificent.And yet what I cannot comprehend is that itwas workers forcibly brought over from Koreawho built it. Seven thousand of them, it is said.They were so maltreated, they were starvingand weak and yet worked until they were onthe verge of collapse. Then they were thrownaway. Women were brought over to be sexslaves.

Today I visited the exhibition “KoreanGrandmothers’ Pictures” in the temple visitorcenter gallery and saw the wonderful picturesby Kim Sundok and others from Korea. Tostand before their artwork and see that theyare the same age as I, brought over at fourteen,brought over at seventeen. There are works ondisplay by a number of women who werebrought over on ships that flew the Japanesemilitary’s Rising Sun Flag.

I say “brought over” but they had no choice. Ican hear the woeful cries of those girls. Thenthere is a painting where a cherry tree hasturned into a Japanese soldier and under it liesa naked girl. Around the base of the tree areskulls, skulls, skulls. I want each and everyJapanese person to understand the feelings ofthe Korean woman who felt compelled to makethis picture.

Kang Duk-Kyoung “Deprived Purity”source: http://www.nanum.org/eng/

These women are the same age as I am and yetI was attending girls’ higher school, singingBuddhist hymns at morning service. It waswhen I was about to enter the second year atthat school that I contracted tuberculosis andhad to leave school and stay in bed. In thosedays there was no medic ine to t reattuberculosis. There was nothing to do but stayhome in bed so that no one else would catch it.There wasn’t much to eat either.

I am Awakened as an Aggressor

I was able to call myself “a woman aggressor”to Takahashi Kazumi because I had been toOkinawa a month before we met, to the placewhere my fiancé died in the war.

Kunio had said “this war is wrong,” but, wavingmy flag, I sent him off to it. Waving my flag anddoing nothing to oppose the war, I sent them

http://www.nanum.org/eng/

APJ | JF 6 | 5 | 0

10

all: my brother, my brother-in-law, the youngmen of the neighborhood, my family’semployees, the neighbor boy I respected so, allof them. I killed them. When I first set foot onOkinawan soil, I saw that women are thevictims of war but that I was an aggressor. Ifelt the sharp pains of the victimizer who killsthose she loves by not standing against war.

The first time I met Takahashi Kazumi was thefirst time I said that “I consider women to bevictims of war, but I was an aggressor.” Heunderstood. “This is important,” he said. “Writeabout women’s war experience, about howwomen wage war.” He was soon to get sick anddie but I thought of myself thereafter as onewho killed a lot of people.

Everywhere the Japanese and their militarywent throughout the world they killed thepeople of that place with their Hi no Maru flagand Kimi ga Yo anthem. They bowed before theflag and went off to kill. They sang Kimi ga Yoand they committed murder. Large Rising Sunflags flew from the rooftops above the roomswhere they brought their sex slaves. TheJapanese military did such things.

Many times I contemplated suicide since therewas no excuse for lying sick in bed, doingnothing. Mother understood I was ready to dieand she held my hand and wept. “You’ve got tolive while your mother is still alive. There can’tbe any dying first.”

“I thought if I were to die, Father would takecare of you, but that’s wrong, isn’t it?”

Mother cried when I said that. I set death asideand sought a long life.

Kunio left more words in a message he wrote ashis and his classmates’ graduation. “Victory toois tragic,” he wrote. It is a sad thing to win. Inother words, war is wrong. It is wrong to killand it is wrong to kill oneself. It is not a matterof winning or losing. War is absolutely wrong.Waving my flag, I sent a man who firmly held

his own tenets of belief off to the war. I killedhim. There were no men like him in Osaka, menwho could declare so clearly their opposition towar. I did not understand. I have no excuse. Idid nothing to give comfort to Kunio.

After I went to the place in Okinawa whereKunio died, a man who was in officer trainingwith him visited my home in Kyoto. He came totell me about Kunio. He told me that Kunioabsolutely refused to go to the comfort stationwhere the so-called “military comfort women”were. Others would go whether they approvedor not, but he would not go. Once they draggedhim and he stayed awake the whole night.Kunio and the woman he was given for theevening gathered the girls who were free andthey talked the night away. This is what thisman came to tell me.

There is no forgiving how so many people werekilled everywhere the Japanese went and howthey themselves were killed and how so manyothers lost their homes and were separatedfrom their families or even killed and werekilled as the Americans bombed places all overJapan.

When I went to look for my father after thefirebombing of Osaka, I saw the charred plainthe city had become, burnt as far as I could see.I walked the streets, carrying the brocade bagMother had packed with riceballs for me to eat.Corpses were piled along the roadside. Somewere lying on mats but they all were dead, injust the positions in which they had breathedtheir last. As I walked on, I came across astorehouse that had survived the fire but it wasstill burning. Suddenly, it burst into flame.

When I reached our house, there was, ofcourse, nothing left. When I saw only theburned ground where our house had been, Iprepared myself but then I thought that Fathermight still be alive. It turned out that duringthe bombing, he took bedding down by theYokobori River and got it wet. Then he coveredhimself with it and was protected from the

APJ | JF 6 | 5 | 0

11

sparks and falling embers. I asked around andfinally I found him. How relieved we were.Together we went home to where Mother was.

The Wrongs Done to the People of theKorean Peninsula

I don’t know who can be counted among thewar dead. Life is fushigi. It is a mystery for usall. No one knows who will die first. That is whyI believe that every living person must protectand treasure the entire human family, not justtheir circle of friends, but all circles of friendsthroughout the world.

The names of everyone who died in Okinawa –truly “all the war dead” – are carved onto theCornerstone of Peace that has been built onMabuni Hill. Yet what makes my heart ache ishow few Korean names there are. There are sofew names of the Koreans who were forcedwithout their consent by the power of theJapanese military to come to Okinawa and tofight the war and who then were killed.

Locating Kunio’s name (fourth under Osakaprefecture at right)

on the Cornerstone of Peace, Okinawa, 1999(from Yuigon no Tsumori de)

Some families declined to have their lovedones’ names added to the monument. They arejustified, considering what Japan did to Korea.How ashamed and miserable I feel when I thinkof the colonial era when Japan menaced Koreawith its military power and forced it to submitto Japanese rule. Thinking of the Koreanwomen’s pictures, I say, as a Japanese, “Gomennasai.” Please forgive us. I long for us to livetogether and to move forward together.

Despite these clearly stated facts, there hasbeen no clear apology to the people of theKorean peninsula. Then, when I think of all theresident Koreans who live here in Japan andhave suffered so many humiliations and have somuch to say, so much that we Japanese musthear but have yet to, I wonder about those of us

APJ | JF 6 | 5 | 0

12

who try to do the right thing. I understand howfrom before this Japanese archipelago becamethe country of Japan, it was shaped by the richcivilization of the Korean peninsula and theKorean people, their culture, thought, religion,technology, literature and so on which broughtover by Korean experts. The extent to whichour ancestors received the influence of theculture and civilization of places fromthroughout China and South and East Asia –Buddhism is one example – and expanded it inJapan over the generations is beyond ourimaginations.

I was born in 1923. On September 1 that year,the Great KantÅ Earthquake hit. Men andwomen who had been forcibly brought to Japanby the military to work on public constructionwere detained and murdered by the police andmilitary as the result of rumors spreaddeliberately by the Japanese government. Asthe prejudice of the Japanese citizenrydeepened, they killed whomever they thoughtwas “ChÅsenjin.” This all happened the year Iwas born. Just to think of the conditions inthose days is miserable. I reflect sadly on thecruelty of Japanese society.

I was at home in Kyoto before dawn on January17, 1995, when the Hanshin Earthquake hit. Iremember how I could not take my eyes off mytelevision as I braced for aftershocks. Kobe waswhere I had lived for a decade, where mynieces and nephews and many of my friendsand acquaintances still lived. Imagining theflames, there was nothing I could do excepttelephone them one-by-one to check. Therewere many houses where I could not getthrough. I was at my wit’s end.

Exhausted by the quake, my niece’s familycame and l ived upstairs in my house.“Somehow we found each other,” we said toeach other with gratitude. I had no strengthwhatsoever to go to the affected areas and dosomething for those who had died and thosewho were suffering.

When I heard that some resident Koreanwomen living in Kobe worked hard to preparefood for the victims of the earthquake and fire,I was struck by the goodness of the Koreans incomparison to the cruelty with which they weretreated by Japanese citizens after the GreatKantÅ Earthquake.

My niece and family who were staying on thesecond floor of my house could not be still.Though they enjoyed using my bath, they saidthat “when we think of everyone in ourneighborhood who survived the earthquake andhas no place to bathe, we do not feel we can goon living here” and they went back to theirfriends and neighbors. Helping each other, theystarted again.

Suh Kyung-sik

On May 31, 2003, AsÅ TarÅ, the chairman ofthe Liberal Democratic Party Policy ResearchCouncil, made a terrible misstatement. In alecture in Tokyo, he declared that the policy offorcing Koreans to adopt Japanese-soundingnames (known as sÅshi kaimei) “began fromthe desire of the Koreans in those days forJapanese names.” He apologized after hisstatement was reported in the newspapers, butI doubt AsÅ himself learned anything. I’ve hadit with this Chairman of the Policy ResearchCouncil.

I know that for every Korean having one’s ownname is a point of pride and dignity and aconnection to one’s ancestral lineage. At thetime when Japan invaded Korea with militaryforce and subjected the peninsula to colonialrule, this policy forced onto the people was onepart of Japan’s offensive “policies for creatingImperial subjects” which set out to destroytradition and individual dignity.

I respect Suh Kyung-sik. He has published anumber of fine books based on his excellentsensitivity, intellect, scholarship, and ideas. Inhis personal history of reading called A Child’sTears, he tells how he hoped the world of ideas

APJ | JF 6 | 5 | 0

13

would be “a bridge I could make my own.” Hethen writes about the inequality he experiencedas a Korean in Japan, inequality inconceivableto Japanese people.

I could not imagine the samelife course as the Japanesearound me. At that time, it wasnot possible for a residentKorean to become a publicservant or a professor at anational university. It wasimpossible to become anattorney and the barriers toe m p l o y m e n t i n l a r g ecorporations were nearlyimpassable. What meaningwould there be to work in sucha place my whole life? I couldnot even plan my life expectingto always live in Japan. I couldhave only a temporary life,always preparing for andexpecting the time to comewhen Japan would no longerallow me to stay. That’s what Ithought.[4]

I cannot say how much I have learned fromhis understanding of humanity.

Please forgive me for speaking at lengthdespite the limited time allotted me.

Humankind, humanity is necessarily headed fordeath. It is for this reason that I ask us all to

respect each other, to treasure each other, toprotect each other’s freedom and each other’slife as it is. This is not only for those like us; itis for everyone. My hope is that we can make asociety where everyone can find happiness,where everyone can rejoice together, andwhere everyone respects each other.

Thank you.[1] A Protest over the Possible MilitaryOperations against Iraq was issued onFebruary 28, 2003.

[2] Hakkotsu no Ofumi is a letter from thefifteenth-century True Pure Land abbotRennyÅ often read at funerals.

[3] Koto Hitori (ShinchÅsha, 1963; reissuedFujiwara Shoten, 2005). Originally serializedin Geijutsu ShinchÅ with Okabe’s ownphotographs.

[4] So Kyon-shiku, Kodomo no Namida(ShÅgakkan BunkÅ, 1998), p. 175. Thispassage appears in his chapter on readingFrantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth.

Greg Vanderbilt is a lecturer in the HistoryDepartment at UCLA. He came to know OkabeItsuko in 2001 through the grassrootsintellectual community Rongakusha in Kyoto, towhich he was introduced by the greatly missedProfessor Miriam Silverberg. He can bereached at gvanderb@ucla.edu.

He wrote this article for Japan Focus. PostedMay 10, 2008.

http://www.tomo-net.or.jp/info/news/030228.htmlhttp://www.tomo-net.or.jp/info/news/030228.htmlhttp://jodoshinshubuddhism.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/white-ashes-a-letter-of-master-rennyo/http://blog.rongakusha.com/https://apjjf.org/gvanderb@ucla.edu