From Asia Literary Review Volume 8, Summer 2008
This piece is derived from Jeongshik Min’s paper 'A Visual Collective Biography of the Former Korean Comfort Women'. The collective biography in poetic form is inspired by ‘memory-work’ that moves towards a collective history. The Wednesday Demonstrations have been a central influence; Min’s visit to the House of Sharing, the group conversations, and the paintings by the former sexual slaves have provided material for the articulation of ‘the stories without voice’. The original text has been reworked by Shirley Lee with the author’s permission.
Memories of Childhood
born in 1921
home with four siblings
family poor; for the girls no school
only work like an ox
girls from poor families
all the same
but never complaining
happy to be home
with her family
her family united, One
in her hometown
with parents and siblings
everything pure, like snow
everyone happy
her family were One
living at the foot of Mount Chiri
growing tobacco, gathering mushrooms
wild greens on the mountainside
Colonial Taxation:
Japanese took everything
rice bowls, spoons, chopsticks
even her father’s life
her family broken
family broken
her family plants seeds, Japan plants a colony
Japan takes their seeds: ‘Baeari fruit’
(embryo buds)
Colonial Taxation:
they extract oil from the seeds
oil goes to factories
planes go to War
her land is a colony
Recruitment
on a ship
there are three Chosun maidens
who yearn for the same hometown
she had persuaded her friends
to come with her
in those days people were simple
the girls knew nothing of the world
they believed they were going
to work in a factory
if only she hadn’t persuaded her friends
to go with her
The Women’s Volunteer Labour Corps
her Japanese teacher at secondary school
asked her to join the Corps
she would be able to continue her studies
her mother wept and pleaded with her
to marry like the other girls
at least on paper
to avoid the recruitment
but the brightest girls joined
the head girl and she
50 girls from Chinju
50 girls from Masan
became 150 in Pusan
more girls
more girls
from everywhere
Japan was desperate for workers
from colonies
from everywhere in Korea
to run the factories in Japan
to be taken to the front
to comfort the soldiers
the soldiers
soldiers
the Japanese wanted even
the youngest girls
young girls
young girls were taken
innocent Chosun girls
an innocent girl
stolen, kidnapped
the girls would work
in factories and hospitals –
everyone believed it
she could live a comfortable life as a nurse
she would become a nurse in Japan
she would go to Japan
Japan
a better place
a girl of 14 taken away
she did not know where she was being taken
one girl from each family
– a colonist’s law for a colony
the eldest, the youngest
but only the girls
the fearful girls
the girls of the colonies
were delivered to
Japan
far
far away
far away from home
Forced Initiation as a Comfort Woman
Corporal Kobayasi Tadeo
stole her innocence
dragged her
raped her
under a tree in the dark on a road
she was fifteen and scared
unable to bite off her tongue
like a virtuous Korean woman
she had been too scared
too scared
the flowers of the cherry tree blossomed
and sucked up a young girl’s spirit
young girl then abandoned in a cubicle
of one and a half tatami
Kobayasi came again
and again
and again
many soldiers followed
ten soldiers a day
thirty soldiers a day
forty soldiers a day
countless soldiers
soldiers
no time to eat
no time to sleep
no time for the toilet
no time
the soldiers rushed in
one after another in orderly lines
their trousers down already
‘Hayaku! Hayaku!
the soldiers’ swords and pistols at hand
too exhausted, she gave up counting
her pants hung round her legs
no strength to pull them up
other girls committed suicide
like virtuous Korean women
their bodies were burned
‘the dead are your soup,’ soldiers told her
she ate and drank her friends
Life at the Comfort Station
she washed her clothes when there was time
and soldiers’ clothes
and condoms
Sexual Slavery Women of the military unit
not people –
public toilets
piss house
she looked up at the moon
they smacked her – what are you doing, girl?
she talked to herself
they smacked her – don’t fucking swear at us, girl!
they told her to suck them – it was her duty
and when she refused
they beat her into a coma
she woke up three days later
no time to feel lonely
serving the soldiers
kept her too busy
the soldiers preferred her
a clean Korean girl
some did not care about condoms
to die through disease
to die by a bullet
there was no difference at all
soldiers always queuing outside
waiting their turn, quarreling
sometimes jumping the queue
most done in under five minutes
soldiers about to leave for the battlefield
were much more gentle with her
they gave her loose change
said it would be of no use to them
if they never came back
some soldiers wept
too scared to go out and fight
comfort them
say to them, ‘return safely from battle’
one or two made confessions of love
some even proposed
the women’s vaginas are swollen
injection No. 606:
no space, not for a needle
subject to torture
day and night
days and nights
kicked beaten
hit slapped
cursed
her menstruation starts
while serving
she serves soldiers while bleeding
malaria, jaundice, breakdown
every night she sat on a board
on a puddle inside an emergency dugout
she longed to go home
she missed her mother
her brothers and sisters
she longed to go home
sixty years on
her teeth grind at the thought
Returning
Japan had lost the war
Japan hurried to bury their crimes
papers and bodies
bodies of girls
they burned
the bodies of girls
all men were the same to her
even the white soldiers asked her
to comfort them
mother!
mother, she is back
‘Have you returned from the dead?’
mother, she is back
she has come back
but in silence
her voice has been lost
in the Comfort Stations
After Telling their Stories to the Public
she is a woman of Chosun
whose culture of Confucian values
respects a virtuous woman
where the shame of a woman
is the shame of her family
and her family whispers this –
she has brought shame to the family
was it her fault that her virtue was taken?
had she really brought shame to her family?
why did she have to be
Korean man’s property
to be sold to Japan?
as youth slips away
she is suddenly old and grey
her womb malformed
from abuse
her diseases
and shame
have been living within her
for her family
for her homeland
for her
she has tried to forget
– more than fifty years on now
aged over sixty –
by testifying
by meeting other Sexual Slavery Women
by painting
the memory tortures her
again
she is going crazy
again
nightmares of the past possess her
her screams in the night waken everyone up
as she voices her past
the wounds she has kept
inside for so long
seem to slowly be healing
slowly
her heart can be soothed
she can express her happiness
sadness
with fewer distractions
when she cannot sleep
she paints all night
she forgets everything while painting
it was hard for her to be with
other former Sexual Slavery Women
in the same house
she came to Teochon
the House of Sharing
others then joined her
she was there
alone
when drunk and lonely
she went up to a grave
and cried
and cried
and there she imagined punishing the guilty
punishing the guilty –
the Japanese emperor tied to a tree
she aims her gun at him
white birds are flying to bring peace –
for him to say sorry to her is enough
who is she?
a crushed flower
or a bud yet unblossomed?
these words still keep hope for the blossoming
o unblossomed flower!
remembering youth
she mourns her innocence
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