Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Guri Guy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K08SmNrW2gY

Some interesting videos to watch. I was a little suprised to see a Korean professor with this viewpoint. Perhaps there is still objectivity in Korea yet.

[chris_J2]

"youtube" is not a recognised academic source. It wrongly claims there is no evidence of comfort women, but provides zero referencing, to substantiate the claim (just like guri guy)!

And guri guy made the statement that Yoshiaki Yoshimi "made the whole thing up". (Kono Statement). I'm still waiting on credible evidence & a link that either Yoshiaki Yoshimi, or the official Japanese Govt website statements are wrong.

And last time I looked, Australia was not in South Korea. Over 200 Australians were forced into unpaid labour in the Aso coal mine. None of them ever received an apology, unofficial or otherwise.

Neither was there an apology for the sinking of the Centaur Hospital Ship off Brisbane, even though it was clearly identified as a hospital ship with large, bright green & red crosses. 268 Australians died after the Japanese torpedoed the ship.

http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/centaur/index.htm

http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/ozatwar/centaur.htm

Nor was there an apology for the bombing of Darwin in the Northern Territory, on 19 Feb, 1942, in which hundreds died.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Darwin%2C_February_19%2C_1942

Korea was not the only country Japan attacked, guri guy. Back to the studybooks for you!

[chris_J2]

guri guy: You keep asking why there were no protests until the 1990's

Read these articles carefully, if you are genuinely interested in an answer:

http://www.awm.gov.au/alliesinadversity/prisoners/women.asp

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2007/s1886480.htm

[chris_J2]

And ilsanman:

I wonder if someone raped your wife, if you would accept an 'off the cuff' remark at the airport, by the perpetrators family, "we are sorry from the bottom of our hearts". Somehow I doubt it. If it was me, I would want the perpetrator charged, jailed & fined, in a formal, legal, manner. Which is exactly what the comfort women desire.

[Guri Guy]

The U-tube video was just a video of a news broadcast. Check it up yourself if you are so inclined.
I never presented it as evidence. Merely I posted it as a point of interest that there are Koreans that don't buy into the national myth.

So far you have presented no concrete evidence, anything new to add or anything remotely interesting. Show me independently verifiable evidence and then I'll reevaluate my position.
The onus really is on you. In other words, "Nut up or shut up".

[chris_J2]

jinju was right the 1st time. You are an avowed Korea hater & Japan lover, guru guy. I am the one asking you for evidence, dimwit! Still waiting on that link. If you contradict something I say, at least have the decency to provide proof of the veracity of your statement.

[Ilsanman]

Yeah Guri, bring on the ecidence!!!

More ecidence!!! More more more!!!

BTW, what the hell is ecidence?

[Guri Guy]

What a load of crap. I hate Korea because I don't buy into one of their national myths? In fact I love Korea more then most because I want Korea to be honest about their history. The government and the media are guilty of lying to their own people and manipulating events and using people (like the "comfort women") for their own nationalistic, political gains. I think this diverts precious energy and squanders resources to keep promoting hatred of Japan. It could be disasterous in the long run.

As far as the "comfort women" go, I asked you why there wasn't an outcry during the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. You quoted an article:

[chris_J2]

Guri Guy, you seem to have great difficulty in recognising my previous point that it wasn't just Korea that was victimised by Japan.

Here's a simple list for you:

China
Australia (Jan Ruff O�Herne)
Holland
Philippines
Singapore
Indonesia
United Kingdom (Kanchanaburi)
Malaysia

Unlike you, I have been to the Nanking Massacre Museum, & the Bridge on the River Kwai cemeteries & memorial. The evidence by impartial American missionaries in Nanking of Japanese atrocities is overwhelming, & yet you still obstinately refuse to see it, in your obsession with revisionist history of Korea. The local expat community in Nanking referred to the Japanese as the 'Beast Group', & with good reason.

And I am still waiting on that link where you discredit Japanese historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi, who discovered incriminating documents in the archives of Japan's Defense Agency clearly indicating that the military was directly involved in running the brothels. You claim he later admitted he made the whole thing up. Yet the Kono Statement remains on the official Japanese Government website. Provide proof, or shutup...

Ps: GG, I don't know enough about the contemporary North Korean comfort women, so won't comment, other than to say that if it's true, then that needs to be addressed, too.

This post from a compatriot Australian, January 2006:

"Here we go again, loopy Japanese logic and through the J. media which 'makes it all right and therefore the truth'. I had an uncle whose decapitated head was put on a post, and used for bayonet practice by these same wanna be samurai. Next time I offer up a quiet prayer for him, and all the others irrespective of race, I'll have to tell him about this one."

A reference to to Bataan Death March. Source:

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/361166/all

[Guri Guy]

Wow. Good for you chris_J2. You seem to be well travelled. I too have been to war memorials too like Okinawa's War memorial and Nagasaki's Atomic bomb museum. I hope war never happens again just as I am sure you do too. Unfortunately this has nothing to do with comfort women. Nanjing, whatever happened there is irrelevent to our discussion. Why is it that whenever anyone discusses comfort women they invariably try to bring in these other issues? Probably because they don't have an argument.

No comment on the North Korean sex slavery makes it all better and makes everything go away. A hypocritical stance if I ever saw one. Your choice.

As far as Yoshiaki Yoshimi goes here you are. He basically uncovered the fact that the military ran the brothels. However Abe and other governmental officials have insisted that the military never "coerced" women into becoming comfort women. By this they basically mean kidnapping. There is absolutely no verifiable evidence that this happened. Any kidnapping was done by either Korean pimps for the most part or Japanese pimps. This doesn't absolve Japan of all responsibility though. I am also sure some abuse took place in the system and that horrible suffering took place for some women.

Abe has stood by his remarks and they have been consistant over the years. The only reason there was a problem recently was that the New York Times misquoted him in order to generate news.

Anyway, since you seem to think I hate Korea, what is your opinion of Japan? Just curious really.


My opinion on Yoshiaki Yoshimi is that he makes some shaky intellectual leaps at times and it is well within the realm of possiblity that some of his findings are false. In fact his numbers of 50,000 to 200,000 comfort women are highly questionable. Naturally Koreans or others always state the highest number. Well, other historians like Ikuhiko Hata seem to think there were 20,000 comfort women and that 20% were Korean. That makes a total of 4,000 Korean comfort women. A little different than 200,000 eh? That also might explain why there are relatively few stories. I think it is highly concievable that Japan could have found 4,000 Korean prostitutes to work in their brothels at a rate of pay that was higher than most high ranking military officers.

COMFORT WOMEN

Were they teen-rape slaves or paid pros?

By AKEMI NAKAMURA

Staff writer

An international outcry has flared again after members of the U.S. House of Representatives submitted a resolution in January urging Japan to formally apologize for forcing young females across Asia into sexual slavery during the war.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly said he stands by the government's 1993 statement of apology to the "comfort women" that admitted the Imperial forces' involvement -- directly and indirectly via agents -- in forcing young females into frontline brothels. But Abe also claimed no official document ever surfaced to prove the military coerced them.

Leading historians with conflicting views -- Ikuhiko Hata, a lecturer at Nihon University who denies there were any sex slaves, and Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a Chuo University professor who played a central role in bringing the dark episode in Japan's history out into the open, offer the following:

Where does the term "comfort women" come from?

That is how the military referred to women who worked in its frontline brothels, or "comfort stations."

There were four main reasons for the brothels, according to Hata and Yoshimi. The military reckoned it would prevent soldiers from raping women in the areas they invaded, would prevent venereal disease, would stop soldiers from leaking military secrets to the civilian population by limiting exposure with locals, and the women would bring "comfort" to the soldiers, away from their families.

Why do some Japanese call them "comfort women" and not sex slaves?

A conservative segment is trying to euphemize Japan's wartime deeds as well as erase Japan's war-making from school history texts.

Hata, for example, refers to comfort women and refuses to say sex slaves because he claims the women, and according to historians, girls, were not forced into the frontline brothels. Hata claims the women were trading sex for money.

Yoshimi explicitly refers to them as sex slaves. He says the military forced them into sexual slavery, imprisoning them in brothels.

How many women served soldiers at the brothels?

No official figures have been provided, as there are few documents discovered. Historians have calculated the numbers by tallying how many soldiers were in the field and consulting documents on the ratio of women to soldiers. They also made assumptions about the "replacement rates" of women at the brothels.

Hata has estimated there were up to 20,000 "comfort women," while Yoshimi says the figure was between 50,000 and over 200,000.

Where did the women come from?

They came from Japanese-occupied Korea, Taiwan, French Indochina (now Vietnam), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Burma (Myanmar) and even Japan, according to Yoshimi. He believes the majority were Korean, followed by Chinese, Taiwanese and Filipinos. But there were also Vietnamese and Dutch women, and he said roughly 10 percent were Japanese.

Hata, however, figures about 40 percent of the women may have been Japanese while 20 percent were Koreans and the remainder included Chinese and Filipinos.

How were the frontline brothels run?

According to Yoshimi, the government and military played a major role in operating the brothels. Although private agents were commissioned to round up the women, the military brought the women to frontline brothels and controlled their operations, he said.

But Hata claimed the agents took the initiative because it was their business. The military only played a secondary role, he said, offering facilities for brothels. He also emphasized the business side of it, saying the women had contracts with the agents, not the military.

How did the "comfort women" live?

According to media reports and books by the two scholars, one sex slave, from what is now South Korea, recalled being forced to serve several soldiers a day at a frontline brothel in China when she was 17. Meanwhile, a Filipino testified that at age 14, she was gang-raped by Japanese soldiers and forced to work at a "comfort station" at age 15, where soldiers kept them at gunpoint.

A 1944 U.S. document on 20 Korean "comfort women" and two Japanese civilians in Burma shows the women were given sufficient food and goods while they took part in sports events and picnics with officers and could refuse "customers." Although the women received pay, "the 'house master' received 50 percent to 60 percent of the girls' gross earnings, depending on how much of a debt each girl had incurred when she signed her contract." The master charged high prices for food and other articles, which made life very difficult for the girls, it said.

Hata figured the situation was similar to prostitutes at regular brothels, which were legal those days. However, Yoshimi says the sex slaves were that by definition -- they did not have freedom to leave or refuse sex with soldiers.

Since the early 1990s, some former sex slaves have filed lawsuits demanding the government make an apology and pay compensation. Their suits have been dismissed at the district, high and even the Supreme Court level, usually by a statute of limitations being trotted out.

But the Tokyo High Court acknowledged in a 2003 ruling that the government had failed in its obligation to provide security for South Korean plaintiffs and in another verdict in 2004 that Japanese soldiers kidnapped Chinese women and repeatedly raped them, describing it as a "comfort women" situation.

Did the military or government forcibly take women to frontline brothels?

Yoshimi said the military knew private agents sometimes cheated, kidnapped, traded or forcibly took some women to frontline brothels. Some former sex slaves testified that the military and Japanese police were involved in the coercion, he added. Because the victims were forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers against their will, the "comfort women" system was obviously sex slavery.

But Hata noted no documentary evidence of systematic state or military coercion has been provided, although police and soldiers took it upon themselves to force victims into the brothels. He claimed the "comfort women" at the brothels engaged in the same acts as prostitutes at privately run whorehouses, which were legal. He said criticizing the "comfort women" system by today's standards is unfair.

What steps did the government take after the 1993 apology statement?

After the 1993 statement of apology by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, in 1994, then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama issued a statement expressing his profound and sincere remorse and apologies to the "comfort women."

In 1995, the semigovernmental Asian Women's Fund was created and has delivered compensation to 364 former sex slaves in the Netherlands, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan. Letters of apology signed by the serving prime minister were also sent to them. But many ex-sex slaves refused the money because the "atonement" funds were technically not from the government and the apology was not convincing.

On March 11, Prime Minister Abe on an NHK program offered what was reported as a sincere apology to the comfort women for their hardships and incurable scars, although his comments were largely taken as an attempt to douse the ongoing ire.

Did other military forces have a similar system?

According to both Hata and Yoshimi, Nazi Germany had frontline brothels during the war, using women, even by force, in Eastern Europe.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/print/nn20070320i1.html
_______________________________________________________

Where did the women come from?

They came from Japanese-occupied Korea, Taiwan, French Indochina (now Vietnam), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Burma (Myanmar) and even Japan, according to Yoshimi. He believes the majority were Korean, followed by Chinese, Taiwanese and Filipinos. But there were also Vietnamese and Dutch women, and he said roughly 10 percent were Japanese.

Hata, however, figures about 40 percent of the women may have been Japanese while 20 percent were Koreans and the remainder included Chinese and Filipinos.


This is also the difference of their guess work, because invariably the evidence is circumstantial and partial. Yoshimi used in his 1994 testimony the number of 1940 medical statistics of venereal diseases. The women who gave Japanese soldiers their VD were constituted of 52 % Korean, 36% Chinese and 12 %. He guessed that these women should be "comfort women," then he further guessed these number must be proportional to the total number of them. This is why he concluded there were 10 % Japanese prostitutes.

一つの資料がある。1940年大本営の研究班が性病罹患について調査。相手女性の調査結果は、朝鮮人52％、中国人36％、日本人12％。すべてが「慰安婦」ではないだろうが、比率から相手は「慰安婦」と考えられる。朝鮮人、中国人の比率が高かった。(1994 testimony)

Of course, there are problems in his assumptions.
Does the VD statistics represent the entire VD of whole military?
Do the women who gave VD to the soldiers are "comfort women" ?
Do the different ethnic groups of women equally carry VD?
It is safe to say that his claim is based on a circumstantial evidence at best.

Yoshimi Yoshiaki says in above quoted testimony:

Probably not all (of the women) are "comfort women," but the ratio suggests the women are "comfort women." Therefore, Koreans and Chinese are majority among them.

He is trying to prove

(A) Koreans and Chinese were the majority of comfort women

by

(B) Koreans and Chinese were the major source of VD disease in one study

because

(C) He thinks VD sources are likely to be comfort women

because

(D) Koreans and Chinese were the majority of VD sources


This sounds like a circular logic to me.


Then what did Hata Ikuhiko do? He acknowledges that the information is sketchy. He points out that there are lists of registered Japanese residents in Manchuria and parts of China. At that time, Koreans and Taiwanese had Japanese citizenship, so they were also registered. He assumes that Japanese residents who worked in "service industry" are roughly proportional to one sector of the industry -- sex workers. Then, the number goes like this (Hata ibid, p399)

1940 Northern-Middle-Southern China
Japanese: Women 16,004 (including 14,378 between ages 15-39), Men 5,472 (including 2,420 business owners)
Korean: Women 7,141 (including 7,019 between ages 15-39), Men 2,423 (including 1,164 business owners)
Taiwanese: Women 299

1938 Manchuria
Japanese: Women 14,743
Korean: Women 3,870
Taiwanese: no record


Of course not all of them are "comfort women," since these includes the male workers and business owners and those who worked in "restaurants." However, if one assumes that female number represents (or proportional to) the ratio (or number) of sex workers, then the Japanese-Korean ratio is always 2:1 or 3:1 throughout Manchuria or China. This is not surprising because the Japanese population has been always roughly 3 times of that of Korean peninsula. With other sketchy records of Japanese occupied territories during the war, Hata estimates comfort women were consisted of 40% Japanese, 30% natives of the area, 20% Korean and 10% other.

Their estimates are largely different, but they share one thing in common: Presence of Japanese comfort women. Not a single Japanese women proclaimed themselves as "sex slaves," so far. There were stories of Japanese comfort women before 1991. Most probable answer to that contradiction seems to me that the Japanese comfort women did not think themselves as "sex slaves."

http://buvery.blogspot.com/index.html

[pastis]

[Guri Guy]

It is easier to live in the past though Pastis. Of course any rational human being knows that you can only change the present but it seems a lot of Koreans (especially the hyper nationalistic ones) want to keep fighting old wars. Koreans want to fight over Dokdo/Takeshima, East Sea/Sea of Japan as if this will vindicate their troubled past.

I have asserted this many times but it has fallen upon deaf ears. If Korea really cared about the issue of sex slavery they'd do something about their own people being sold out in the the most inhumane way possible at this very minute. The South Korean government and by extension the South Korean people have shown moral cowardice and moral bankrupcy by sitting idlely by while China buys tens of thousands of North Korean women into sexual slavery. This is the present dammit! This is a war you can fight now! Sadly it seems because it is North Korea and China (Older brother), South Korea doesn't have the stomach to fight. Only when Japan (Younger brother) is involved. That's not the South Korea I have grown to admire over the years I have lived here. It actually saddens me greatly.

[chris_J2]

A good response from pastis. You are correct that I wasn't born until well after the war, but my mother, aunts & uncles WERE alive during the war years, & still are. The other flaw with your thesis is that the current Japanese regime continues their worshipping at Yasukuni Shrine. The War Criminals remains should never have been placed there, in the 1980's.

If Germany can officially apologise, as it did in 2000, (& even the US apologised to Japan in 1988 for Japanese internment), then Japan can, & should as well. There were Japanese interned at Cowra in Australia, too, but I'd have to research if Australia ever officially apologised to Japan, the way the US did.

http://www.naa.gov.au/Publications/fact_sheets/fs198.html

GG: I'll try to get back to you later. I actually have to work today. I honestly don't know enough on the current North Korea issue to comment meaningfully, so won't shoot off my mouth on a subject I know next to nothing about.

[pastis]

[Guri Guy]

Fair enough. It is nice to debate with someone with manners and tact chris_J2..

Again this is off topic from the comfort women issue but the Yasukuni Shrine is something that is misunderstood as well. Pastis essentially has it correct. A correct understanding of the Shinto religion shows you that War Criminals aren't actually worshipped there.
Perhaps moving the war criminals would be acceptable but somehow I suspect Pastis is correct in that that would never be enough for the hyper xenophobic super ultra nationalists ruining Korea's future.

Perhaps they really ought to focus on things they can definitely change like North Korea. By showing the world that South Korea truly cares about human rights and taking a firm stance against the human trafficking of women as sex slaves would enhance Korea's reputation around the world and truly earn my respect. That's the character that I know lies in the true heart of Korea. Not the petty, one upmanship bickering that is all too common in the media, the government and the ultra nationalists that is ruining Korea's reputation around the world.