It all comes down to Politics

So on my big attempt to work on my 5 page paper/20min presentation, I sat down at the library for quite some hours, churning approximately 3 pages and thorough reading. As I was packing up for the day, I decided to read one last reading packet for my Japanese Political Economy. It was about Comfort Women.

Okay, honestly, the title didn't strike me much as I thought about it as perhaps housewifes and comfort food you know? But as I read on beyond the title, I then realized, (yes I'm a bit slow) comfort woman were basically sex slaves during Japanese portion of WWII. Can't really call them prostitutes as they were not paid, but merely used in excessive rape for Japanese soldiers so they would not go romping and raping women on the streets (which they of course still did anyways). I'm not going to go into the whole -men fight wars in order to hide their penis size- (oh do read M Butterfly, that was such an amazing line- "with the dicks the size of pins") but essentially boil it down to my thoughts of these Comfort Women.

I've read The Rape of Nanking, heck I read it a month before spending a year in Japan. Probably bad idea but I had to read it sometime in my life anyways. The abuse of women during war I guess goes along with the spoils. All according to past customs of "to the victor goes the spoils". As a Chinese American, I never really thought much about my heritage, my grandparents and such, having to deal with that portion of the past. At least not until I read The Rape of Nanking. My grandma was fortunate enough to not end up with such a scarring past, but a good tens of thousands of women did. In the Comfort Women reading, the issue was not only about compensation, but also the alteration of history.

I have a lot of angles to take this from. I've been to Japan, I'm Chinese, and I'm American. There's a side of me that wants to take the Chinese side- the fact that Japanese government never sincerely apologized. The compensation money to these women were privately (note: PRIVATELY) donated to those comfort women. Therefore, the government did not take any responsibility. Heck, it could have had the same liability has genocide in the Balkans with their treatment of women. But Japan was lucky to come off with a pretty clean slate.

Then there's the aspect of the Japan. Here, docile Japanese citizens, good hearted citizens, gave money out of their own pockets to make up for their country's past mistakes. Now, you can't say Japanese people are bad. So you say the Japanese government is bad! I mean, look at past prime minister Koizumi- he angered all his asian neighbors once a year just by going to the Yasukuni Shrine. So what is the government trying to portray?? I find it so interesting that Japanese citizens would work hard together to improve the country (I mean, look at us Americans?? We still bicker about silly religion when we could be out there doing good deeds!)

Then there's my American side. The I don't care a farthing. The it's the past, it's done and over with. Seriously, in terms of legal aspects, Japan has been quite lucky. The PEOPLE (not government) actually paid off another country to save their own face. If not, heck, probably half the governments would be committing suicide by now (perhaps both political and literal).

Then there's the victim side- does compensation money really help swallow the pride ones lost? Why is it we always try to play victim?

Then finally, there's the: the past is the past. Japan has done enough repentence. China and Korea should just move on.

And honestly, I wouldn't know how to answer this issue. Thank goodness it's not for me to decide then, eh?