Women in the Time of Chaos: Sex and the Ideal Chinese Woman in the 1930s

*Reprint of PLU HIST 301 Research Paper Overview

Take from Shi History In (Blogspot)

Introduction

            When I began to learn about the role of Japan in World War II I did not understand why Germany’s atrocities are included in the history books of every country while the Japanese implementation of horror remains unknown by the majority of the world’s population. It was not until recently that I learned about the barbaric acts of the Japanese Imperial Army and in my twenty-six years of life I never heard of such biblical warfare in modern day history, besides at the hands of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Millions suffered, entire towns were destroyed, people were used as guinea pigs in Unit 731, and in less than a year’s time the nation’s capital, Nanking, was gutted by an Imperial army who sought to conquer the world, using China as it stepping stone.[1] 

As I dove into the events of that period of horror for the Chinese people, I recognized that many heroes emerged from the ashes, like a phoenix. Those heroes were mainly westerners who happened to be in a beautiful place at an ugly time and as much as I acknowledge and respect the men and women who came forward and prevented the annihilation of the entire race of China, I became fixated on the treatment of the comfort women, not only by the Japanese soldiers but by the families when they returned home after the war was over and they were released by the soldiers.[2] 

I considered this topic after I heard Zhang Xiu Hong tell the story of her rape.

Zhang Xiu Hong was twelve years old in 1937. Japanese soldiers threatened to murder her grandfather as he begged for the soldiers to spare her innocence. Figuring that she would be killed anyway, she told her grandfather to let her go with the men. They took her into another room where she was raped until she lost consciousness. After the Japanese rapist left, her grandfather soothed her and apologized for allowing them to take her. She responded to her comforter, “It is better for one of us to die then both of us.”[3]

Like Zhang Xiu Hong, many helpless women in towns throughout China, from Shanghai to Nanking, were victimized by the malicious army from Japan. Twenty thousand, girls as young as ten and women as old as sixty, were raped by Japanese soldiers within the first month that they occupied Nanking.[4] Every night they entered the safety zones in search of females to rape, and then they went after boys.[5] Ding Guo Yong, who was fifteen at the time, witnessed dead women being raped near Zhong Hua Gate by careless Japanese soldiers.[6] These kinds of terrorism is so surreal and even to this day some people in Japan refuse to believe the atrocities that happened in China from late1937 to early 1938. The proof has been presented to Japanese officials time and time again but acknowledgments are few and apologizes have not come to the victims who are haunted by the events that destroyed entire communities in the late 1930s. In 1993, the Japanese government did admit to having played a role in the recruitment of comfort women but no apology has been issued to the surviving victims or their families.[7] 

From the chaos many heroes arose. If you were asked to think about a hero, you might mention the Bob Wilsons, John Rabes or women like Minnie Vautrin who turned the Ginling Women’s College into an International Safety Zone in order to shelter civilians from the dangerous Japanese Imperial servicemen.[8] Minnie took on the challenge of protection with dignity. Risking her own safety she went out into the streets of Nanking and brought people back to her college. Like a mother caring for her own child, Minnie cared for the people in her zone and took it as a personal defeat whenever she was not able to save the Chinese people from being captured by the Japanese soldiers. This caused exhaustion and later night terrors when she returned in 1940 to her native town in Illinois where her alleviation from the emotional trauma she experienced was death by her own hands.[9] To this day Minnie Vautrin, along with other westerners who protected the innocent citizens of Nanking, is hailed as a heroine because of the contribution and sacrifices she made that saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Along with Minnie Vautrin, comfort women should have been honored instead of shamed for the role they played. The Japanese soldiers were out of control when they battled in the land of China, the comfort women did not completely end the raping but they minimized the victim count that happened at the hands of the Japanese. But because there is a negative stigma placed on sex the comfort women were viewed in a negative light and their stories have been concealed and hard to speak openly about by the survivors. The first comfort woman to testify in public and share her story was Kim Hak Soon in 1991.[10] Now that the silence has been broken, demonstrations are held weekly in Korea in hopes that an apology will be given by Japanese officials.[11] If there was not a moral attachment placed on sexuality it would be easier to honor the sacrifice that the comfort women made.

This paper will be an argument in support of the comfort women, who need to be acknowledged by Japanese government and regarded with the other heroes of that time. The honor they deserve has not come to the comfort women because the natural desire that every human craves has been made out to be the devil in us. The women of China were taught that chastity is a virtue.[12] This topic is a continuous fight between foes, chastity versus promiscuity, with Japan in favor of promiscuity and China on the opposing side. The shame that is connected with premarital and extramarital sex has been instilled in the women of China, this is why many of the comfort women decided to take their own lives rather than face their communities again, and others were killed by the soldiers when they should have been released.[13]

Sex and the United States

            If Japan is for promiscuity and China prefers their women to be chaste, the United States was the political moderate that played both sides of the fence. In the 1930s theaters, the Haze code censorship prevented the movie goers from seeing sexual expression on movie screens in America but the soldiers received safe sex education when they shipped off to serve overseas in World War II.[14] Learning from there abstinence approach in World War I, which resulted in seven million deaths due to social diseases, the government showed movies on safe sex practices and provided the US soldiers with eight condoms per month.[15] Along with pin up girls, the Victory girl appeared to keep the soldiers company when they deployed.[16] The difference between the victory girls and comfort women is that the victory women willing slept with the soldiers. Professor Estelle Freedman, coauthor of Intimate Matters, says, “The victory girls were not prostitutes but felt that it was there patriotic duty to sleep with the soldiers before they left to war.” So while the American civilian is being kept away from images of intimacy and sex, a more realistic approach was taken to handle the sex drive of soldiers.[17]

Sex and Japan

            As the Japanese Imperial Army invaded many towns in China, they followed a three alls policy. “Burn all. Steal all. Kill all.”[18] This is exactly what the Japanese soldiers did. “Mothers with babies, old women, and little girls were raped, mutilated and burned alive” by the Japanese as they made their way from Shanghai to Nanking.[19] With the men of Xhina being killed for sport the female counterparts had no one to protect their virtue from the heartless warriors. “We had time on our hands and nothing to do so we raped girls.”[20] Teramoto Juhei, a Japanese soldier, boasted about how the soldiers drew straws to see who would go first but admits that even though he participated there is no fun in having sex if both people are not into it.[21]When I think about the role of Japan, the killing of innocent people, raping anyone they desired, and forcing women into prostitution, I think that it was an issue of power and control from the powerless who had no self-control.

Sex and China

view of chastity

When it comes to sexual matters China has strict regulations that impact families and are the tradition of that society. Limitations are placed on family size and sexual exposure.[22] In China a women belongs to the family. It’s not until the 1950s that Chinese women are allowed to walk away from marriages and receive support for their independence. This is how, in the 1930s, some of the women were caught up in the sex trade, if the family was running low on funds the girls paid the price by being offered up to the Imperial Army in exchange for financial compensation.[23] “Young and attractive women were branded and taken captive as sexual slaves for the soldiers of Japan.”[24]But many were misinformed about the job that they would do for the servicemen. They were told that they would have work in a factory; little did they know that they would live in Comfort Houses with the job of being raped by as many as fifty men per day.[25]

Rape of Nanking     

            After a devastating defeat by the Japanese, the Nationalist Chinese army retreated to Nanking to regroup.[26]On November 13, 1937, Shanghai fell at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army and proceeded to ascend on the capital, Nanking. Three days after this announcement was made known through the media, Safety Zones were requested and established by westerners in the city walls of Nanking. One month later, on December 13, 1937, the Japanese occupied Nanking with orders to kill civilians if they assumed that they were Chinese soldiers. They even entered the Safety zones to search for suspected Chinese military men.[27] “Every soldier was promised a woman If he fought hard.”[28]On December 24, 1937, high military advisors requested that Minnie Vautrin allow the Japanese soldiers to enter the safety zone to take prostitutes back to their camps. Out of the hundred that they requested, twenty-one former prostitutes willingly made the sacrifice.[29]

The women’s shame

            The Chinese prefer a martyr, someone who will die to maintain their chastity. But when mad men rampage the towns of China, killing and raping everyone in sight, then they decide to pick young women to take back to their camps and use as sexual tools for military release, because it was not the fault of the women, even those who were willing to make the sacrifice, shouldn’t there be an exception made to the rule of what brings honor to the family and what brings shame? The comfort women have enough shame to deal with on their own. In addition to personal shame, they embody the shame and are a symbolic representation of relations between China and Japan during that time.

Conclusion

(The conclusion to this paper has not been formed yet because there are still some loose ends that remain. In my final draft of this paper I will have a thorough historiography, more details from Japanese perspextive, and more information about the way the Chinese view sexuality and Comfort Women. There will also be some quotes from Gail Hershatter about gender and sexuality in China. Ultimately the conclusion will be more than a thesis in support of the comfort women who were victims of the Japanese military.

Bibliography

Anonymous, “Confessions of Former Soldiers: III Rape and Pillage” The Nanking Atrocities (2000) http://www.nankingatrocities.net/Confession/confession_03.htm (accessed April 27, 2011)

The Birth of the People’s Republic, New Laws Marriage and Divorce, May 1950. 361-366 (document from Sakai, need to find original source)

Comfort Women: a documentary. Dir. Stephanie Pierson, Dana Smith. Youtube, 2007.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=iw&v=YCVA4Cv96_I (accessed April 27, 2011)

Comfort Women-Living Hell. Dir. Joanna Hong. Youtube, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C89hXGzgIcA&feature=related (accessed April 27, 2011)

Declan McCullagh. “Chinese government to Web companies: No porn allowed” cnet News, January 6, 2009. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10132348-38.html (accessed March 30, 2011)

The History of Sex, “”The 20^th Century”. Dir. Jim Milio, Shyam Benegal, Melissa Jo Peltier. Nar. Peter Coyote. MPH Entertainment, Inc. The History Channel,1999.

Japan Defended at the Chamber of Commerce, 1934 (document from Sakai, need to find original source)

Konoye, Prince Ayamaro. Address of Prince Ayamaro Konoye Prime Minister at the 72^nd Session of the Imperial .Diet, September 1937. (document from Sakai, need to find original source)

 Let’s Talk about Sex. Dir. James Houston. TLC.2011

Nanking. Dir.Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman. HBO Documentary Films, 2007. http://www.hulu.com/watch/74369/nanking (accessed April 29, 2011)

Pals, Daniel L. Seven Theories of Religion. “Religion and Personality: Sigmund Freud” Oxford University Press, New York, 1996. 54-87

Rape of Nanking (Nightmare in Nanking). Dir. Rhawn Joseph, Phd. BrainMind.com Productions, 2007. http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-rape-of-nanking/ (accessed April 27, 2011)

Silence Broken. Dir Clara Kim, Minji Yang. Youtube,2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xs4sORagrw&feature=related (accessed April 27, 2011)

Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. New York: WW Norton, 1999.

Tse-tung, Mao. On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship. 1949. (document from Sakai, need to find original source)

Zeheng ,Wang. Creating a Feminist Discourse, 55-68. (document from Sakai, need to find original source)

[1] Rape of Nanking (Nightmare in Nanking). Dir. Rhawn Joseph, Phd. BrainMind.com Productions, 2007

[2] The comfort women were not just Chinese. They were also Tawainese, Malays, Thais, Filipinos, Indonesians, Burmese, Vietnamese, Indians, Eurasians, Dutch, Japanese, Koreans and Paxifix Islanders. Silence Broken. Dir Clara Kim, Minji Yang. Youtube,2007

[3] Zhang Xiu Hong gives her personal account. Nanking. Dir.Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman. HBO Documentary Films, 2007.

[4] Nanking (2007)

[5] Nanking (2007)

[6] Nanking (2007)

[7] Silence Broken.

[8] Nanking (2007)

[9] Minnie Vautrin committed suicide a year after returning to Illinois. Nanking (2007)

[10] Silence Broken.

[11] Every Wednesday. Silence Broken.

[12] Story on chastity (pending from Sakai)

[13] source

[14] The History of Sex, “”The 20th Century”. Dir. Jim Milio, Shyam Benegal, Melissa Jo Peltier. Nar. Peter Coyote. MPH Entertainment, Inc. The History Channel,1999. 

[15] The History of Sex, “”The 20th Century”.

[16] The History of Sex, “”The 20th Century”.

[17] Haze codes. The History of Sex, “”The 20th Century”.

[18] Azuma Shiro, Japanese soldier. Rape of Nanking (Nightmare in Nanking).

[19] Rape of Nanking (Nightmare in Nanking).

[20] Sakai Hiroshi, Japanese soldier, Nanking (2007)

[21] Nanking (2007)

[22] Declan McCullagh. “Chinese government to Web companies: No porn allowed”

[23] Comfort Women: a documentary. Dir. Stephanie Pierson, Dana Smith. Youtube, 2007. 

[24] Rape of Nanking (Nightmare in Nanking).

[25] Comfort Women: a documentary

[26] Out of 700000 troops sent to protect Shanghai in July 1937, 300000 troops along with 10 generals were killed in Warfare by November 1937. Rape of Nanking (Nightmare in Nanking).

[27] Nanking (2007)

[28] Rape of Nanking (Nightmare in Nanking).

[29] Nanking (2007)