The Japanese Soldiers I Know: A Journal of a Student Who Studied in Japan

Author: Fang Jun
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1997-12-01
Features:
Fragment: 2 In the past, Chinese students going to Japan for study had to find guarantors. This absurd measure has now been abolished. Six years ago when I went to Japan, I met a very kind old man who served as my guarantor. He also introduced me to a group of elderly women. So whenever the university was on vacation, I would fly from Hokkaido to Tokyo and then transfer to Fuji Mountain to stay at his house. Then I would go to the factory run by that group of elderly women and work there. That group of elderly women owned a food company that supplied lunch to five factories and two universities in the surrounding area every day. There were only about twenty of them, yet they had to rush to prepare so many lunch boxes. It was naturally very busy and exhausting, even making me, a young man, sore all over and seeing small golden dragons dancing before my eyes. When the golden dragons danced, I calculated—taking one lunch box as one cent profit—and was shocked! Those elderly women drank cornmeal porridge—enough said. Out of respect, I called them "elderly ladies," but they were very angry and insisted that I call them "big sisters." I told them that if I called a 70-year-old woman "big sister" in China, I would definitely get yelled at. The elderly women would always say, "You young punk, you don't even check if it's the right time to pay New Year's greetings to a chicken!" Today, Chinese newspapers still often use the phrase "elderly comrades over half a century" to refer to people over 50. It means that those over 50 should be respected by society because they are now experienced elders. "Over 50 is already old?" Those elderly women laughed so hard they were on the verge of falling over, like a group of ducks who had seen a river. While laughing, they adjusted their loose false teeth and straightened their false hairpieces. It was this group of elderly women who introduced him to me. One day, Lady Ping-Tian asked me to introduce an elderly man to me. His house wasn't far from our company, and she asked me to go and make dumplings for him. Making dumplings also counted as working, and he would pay me wages. Making dumplings in a Japanese person's house? Interesting. Unconsciously, I brought my camera. On June 5, 1984, I went to work at the Beijing branch of the Asahi Shimbun. I read a small booklet that said journalists should always carry a camera to quickly capture breaking news. I saw two photos in the booklet—one was a train derailment and the other was a split second of a sinking ship—all captured by reporters.
Postscript: Preface by Zhang Shouren
Time flies. It has been 60 years since the July 7th Incident in 1937. Yet, until now, there has been no documentary work describing the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers in China and their current attitudes. Fang Jun's book I Know the Japanese Soldiers—A Journal of a Student Who Studied in Japan, fills this gap. The author's father was an old Communist soldier, his uncle was stabbed to death by Japanese soldiers, and his hometown was burned to the ground by invaders. For many years, he had wanted to interview former Japanese soldiers who had committed atrocities in China. In 1991, he went to Japan for studies and fulfilled his long-held wish. During his time in Japan, he worked as a delivery boy to pay for his tuition, which gave him the opportunity to enter hundreds of Japanese homes and meet many former Japanese soldiers who had invaded China. He went to great lengths to get close to them, digging up their atrocities in China, their embarrassing secrets, and their current feelings through conversations. Based on their firsthand accounts, observations, and testimonies, as well as diaries, photos, and physical evidence they provided, this documentary work is rare and invaluable. In this book, readers see the brutality and atrocities of Japanese militarism in China, which are unprecedented and outrageous; the harm and destruction caused by Japanese fascists to the Chinese people, which are too numerous to list and beyond words to describe; the sincere remorse of most Japanese veterans for their past crimes in China, which moves the reader deeply; and the denial and evasion of some officials and "scholars" regarding the atrocities of invasion, which fills people with indignation and serves as a wake-up call. Every chapter of this book incorporates the author's own life story, his experiences in Japan, and his personality and temperament, making it read as if it were written by a friend, genuine and thought-provoking. Many of the interviewed veterans passed away before the book was completed. The materials and information the author rescued from them are not even found in many anti-Japanese museums or memorial halls, nor do many experts on anti-Japanese history know about them. Therefore, it holds special historical value.
Japan admires a culture of shame and is a particularly face-conscious nation, so many stubbornly defend the war of aggression. To them, face is more important than life, morality, or the law. When this sense of shame goes to extremes, it covers up the truth of history, twists facts, and refuses to admit guilt. With Japan's economic growth after the war, nationalism has been on the rise, and right-wing forces have taken advantage of the situation to resurface. Every August 15th, a significant number of officials and militarists openly visit the Yasukuni Shrine to pay homage to the spirits of those who died in the war of aggression in China and World War II, openly challenging the Chinese and Asian people. This should cause us to be highly vigilant.
I got involved in this purely out of a sense of responsibility. One day, the respected Lady Zong Ying called me and said that a student who studied in Japan, Fang Jun, had written a unique and valuable documentary work. The author is not a writer—he wrote it while struggling to make a living, lying on paper boxes in a hospital warehouse, so it was rushed. She asked me to participate in the editing. I said I would review the manuscript first. After reading Fang Jun's manuscript, I felt it was a powerful work unlike any other foreign literature. The author went to Japan with the memory of his country's humiliation in mind and often firmly refuted the various fallacies of the former Japanese soldiers who invaded China in terms of historical perspective. The author has great integrity and dignity, and he always maintained the dignity of a Chinese person in Japan. When we met and talked, he said this book was written with the blood and lives of his Chinese compatriots, and it was a big matter for our nation. Whether my name was included or not didn't matter, but the book had to be published well. I was deeply moved by this.
I am a peaceful and kind-hearted person, yearning for goodness and soft-hearted. The extremely brutal actions of the Japanese soldiers described in the book by Fang Jun strongly stimulated my nerves. I often couldn't bear to finish reading it and had to close my eyes and meditate or pace back and forth to calm myself. Considering the book's important value in further understanding the history of the Anti-Japanese War, I forced myself to accept this task.
This book revisits the unbearable history of the Sino-Japanese War, only hoping that the young people of this and future generations will never forget it, so that the voice of history will always echo in their ears.
September 28, 1997, in Beijing, North Third Ring Road Middle Road