Shanghai

The first two days in China were spent acclimatizing ourselves. Lots of sightseeings, eating and shopping.
The fun part started on the third day in Shanghai. We spent three days with Professor Zhi-Liang Su who, on the morning of the first day, talked about the carving up of China by Western powers and Japan, with special references to the development of Shanghai, and compared Shanghai with Nanjing during WWII. In the afternoon, we visited the Shanghai Museum on the War of Resistance Against Japanese Invasion. The visit enabled us to better understand the relation between the Battle of Shanghai (1937) and the Nanjing Massacre. We also visited a synagogue, which is now a museum, as well as the former residence of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen.
On the second day, Professor Su, who is also the Director of "The Centre for Study on Chinese Comfort Women" of Shanghai Normal University, discussed the issue of Japan's sexual slavery system, its impact on the victims, and the ongoing international movement for redress for the victims (the Comfort Women), during the Japanese occupation of East and South-east Asia. Surprisingly, Professor Su is presently the only person who is "looking after" the surviving comfort women in and around Shanghai. One of his graduate students, Jun-Wen Jiang, is actually undertaking the arduous task of visiting each of these Comfort Women in their home and distributing a monthly stipends of RMB200 to each of them. In his work with the Comfort Women, Professor Su receives very little assistance from the Chinese government. Whatever financial aids he receives is from his own pockets and from charitable donations, mainly from Toronto ALPHA, who pledged a yearly amount of RMB100,000 for the next three years.
In the afternoon, we paid a visit to a historical site with eye-wintness Chen Bing-Rong, who was the former owner-occupant of the property taken over by the Japanese and turned into a "Comfort House." With a tour of the site, Mr. Chen (1st pic in front of his property) briefed us on the operation of the "comfort house" and testified that at any given time, there were at least 30 "comfort women" servicing the Japanese military; sometimes there were even queues of military personnel waiting to be serviced by these sex slaves. According to Professor Su, the ratio, as evidenced by Japanese military documents, is 1 woman to 29-32 soldiers.
On the third day of the visit with Professor Su, an ex-comfort woman (2nd pic.) travelled from 200 kilometers away to come and tell her story to us. Her story was one of horror and sexual terror; she has become sterile and barren, and has a fear of men. Unable to bear any children herself, she adopted two boys, one of whom (man on her right) is now looking after her in her old age. Surprising, she displayed no hatred for her oppressors; like all the other victims, all she asked for was an apology from the Japanese government.
Everybody in the audience was moved by her story. At one point, Flora, who was translating her story for the teachers, broke down in tears. By the end of her story, there was almost not a single dry eye in the room.