Bearing Witness: World War II “Comfort Women” Stations
Trudi Sandmeier 00:00
This episode of Save As features that difficult and potentially triggering topic of sexual slavery during World War Two. So please be warned.
Hanyu Chen 00:08
That’s the function of an architecture of a building. like they are the witness. They can tell you the story. Themselves are stories, they are a part of the history.
Trudi Sandmeier 00:26
Welcome to Save As, a podcast that glimpses the future of heritage conservation through the work of graduate students at the University of Southern California. I’m Trudi Sandmeier.
Cindy Olnick 00:35
And I’m Cindy Olnick. So everyone, you know, we love a good time here on Save As, but this episode is going to be more sober. And it talks about a very difficult topic, but an important one.
Trudi Sandmeier 00:51
So we often talk about difficult history in heritage conservation, places and situations and experiences that are tough, and the sites where those things occurred. And this is one of those. We’re talking with Hanyu Chen, who wrote her thesis about the conservation of “comfort women” stations in China. So, Hanyu is from China, and when she came here as a graduate student started doing an internship at the Shoah Foundation at USC, which many of you may be familiar with because they have collected testimonies regarding the Holocaust. That’s probably what they’re most well-known for, but they’ve also collected testimonies from people all around the world who have experienced really traumatic events. And in this case, she was brought on to work with a woman who had served as a sexual slave in China during World War Two in one of these comfort stations. That’s a euphemistic term, as is the term “comfort women.”
Cindy Olnick 01:59
Yeah, they were also girls, by the way.
Trudi Sandmeier. 02:01
Yeah, so this is a tough topic, and it will be for many of our listeners. But it’s really important because, in particular, women’s history is not super visible as it is particularly difficult. Women’s history has just been totally erased over time. Even though it’s hard to talk about we got to do it, we got to tell the story.
Cindy Olnick 02:23
And this episode focuses on comfort stations in China, although the Japanese army established these stations all over their occupied territories, including in Korea. So, let’s get to it. This is our brilliant producer Willa Seidenberg talking with alumna Hanyu Chen.
Willa Seidenberg 02:45
Welcome to Save As Hanyu and please introduce yourself to our listeners.
Hanyu Chen 02:51
Hi, Willa. I’m Hanyu Chen, I’m born and raised in China and I have a bachelor degree in math and art history, and I did my undergrad on the East Coast — Stony Brook. And then I moved to LA, I went to USC in the Heritage Conservation program. And then now I’m working on my doctorate degree at UCLA in architecture.
Willa Seidenberg 03:15
Okay, I guess you like school.
Hanyu Chen 03:19
Maybe!
Willa Seidenberg 03:21
Well, how did you end up finding your way to heritage conservation?
Hanyu Chen 03:26
Well, as I just said, I have a bachelor degree in art history. So, one day I was taking an American art history class, and we were talking about those painters like William Sidney Mount. He’s a 19th century American painter. He was a local artist. My professor mentioned his residence was pretty close to our campus. I found that that building was on my way to school every day. And I find it interesting, maybe we should put a little bit more focus to this like vernacular ordinary architecture rather than those that were in my architectural history class.
Willa Seidenberg 04:10
Your thesis is called “Our Bodies, Their Battlegrounds: The Conservation of Comfort Stations in China.” So the comfort stations were established by the Imperial Japanese Army in their occupied territories before and during World War Two, and China was one of them. Can you briefly explain what the comfort stations were?
Hanyu Chen 04:35
Before I introduced the concept of comfort station I would like to introduce “comfort women” first. “Comfort women” were a group of women that were forced to become like Japanese military, sexual slaves. And where they were stationed or imprisoned, the place was called a comfort station.
Willa Seidenberg 04:58
When you wrote the thesis, when you mentioned the words “comfort women,” you put it in quotation marks. Why did you do that?
Hanyu Chen 05:08
The word “comfort women” is directly translated from the Japanese word ianfu. And I don’t think this term ianfu can represent the sexual violence or physical violence they suffered. And ianfu sounds like a very good or positive term, like someplace or someone you feel comfortable, but actually no, they suffer a lot. So, in recent research, scholars decided to use quotation marks when they use the word “comfort women.”
Willa Seidenberg 05:49
What got you interested in writing about this topic?
Hanyu Chen 05:53
In the summer of 2021, I started my internship at Shoah Foundation, which is affiliated to USC. They primarily focus on the Holocaust, but they do have some programs related to China. They have one about the Nanjing Massacre. And the one I work on is about a “comfort woman” system survivor. So I did some video editing, translation, and some paper work, just a very basic internship things. I have the access to read and watch all materials related to the grandma, we call her Grandma Peng [Peng Zhuying from Hunan]. And I find it’s so tragic, and it’s so heartbreaking. And it’s also related to what I learned at USC, related to heritage conservation. I found most research were based on like the “comfort woman” angle. But very few are focused on like comfort station. I think it’s very important to conserve, or preserve these comfort stations because they are the witness of the crimes. And it’s very helpful to educate our next generation. And it’s also very important to remember that painful, painful part of the history.
Willa Seidenberg 07:12
You wrote about a couple of case studies, which I want to ask you about in a bit. But first, I want to just, for people who aren’t really familiar with the “comfort women” and the Japanese role in Asia. So first, can you talk about some of the cultural beliefs that the Japanese had about why military men needed to have sexual relations?
Hanyu Chen 07:36
So from the cultural perspective, one thing is like in East Asia countries, if a man who does not have sexual relationship for a long time, that man will do some very crazy things, will drive him to do, to be very emotional, or make some very bad decision, which I think is very ridiculous. And then the second thing is they believe having sexual relationship with virgins can bring good luck, especially before the war. So many of those “comfort women” were abducted, very innocent or ordinary girl at a very young age.
Willa Seidenberg 08:19
So they thought that if they had sex with a virgin, they’d have better success in a battle.
Hanyu Chen 08:24
Yes, yes.
Willa Seidenberg 08:26
What were the goals of the comfort stations for the Japanese military because I suppose you could just say, okay, just let them go out and, you know, have sex on their own, but they really set up this system to kind of institutionalize it.
Hanyu Chen 08:43
So for first reason, they want to prevent STDs, sexually transmitted disease, so their soldiers can have a better health condition and to fight against their enemies. And the second reason is, at the beginning they recruited some Japanese prostitutes. Many Japanese people against this idea. And the third one, they raped some innocent local girls not only in China, but also in Korea, in other countries in Asia. And the whole international society was strongly against this, like England or United States and some were from the Japanese community. This causes like social instability. So they started to have this “comfort woman” system.
Willa Seidenberg 09:44
Can you talk about how they, I don’t want to use the word recruit, but how they would get the women to be “comfort women.” Sometimes they had help from local people, right?
Hanyu Chen 09:55
Yeah. There are several ways to force them to become “comfort women.” The first one is like using a very well-paid job offer to attract them. Like they will have maybe a woman because usually you see a woman tell you, “Oh, I have a great job offer, it’s well- paid, come with me. You just need to wash clothes or be a maid or a waitress.” And then some girls will be tricked and became “comfort woman.” And sometimes they just use a very violent way to randomly pick and imprisoned. And in China, there was a very special way is selected by local collaborators. Grandma Peng from the Shoah Foundation I interned for, she has an older sister [who] was selected by a local collaborator. And the collaborator here refers to those Chinese who work for Japanese.
Willa Seidenberg 11:00
And one of the things that you write in your thesis is that by using local collaborators, it sort of was able to, in theory, or visibly, exonerate the Japanese army from being the main people who were doing the abductions and forcing these women to be “comfort women.”
Hanyu Chen 11:20
Yes.
Willa Seidenberg 11:21
Can you talk a little bit about the ways that they were treated while they were in these stations?
Hanyu Chen 11:29
Okay, so when those young Chinese girls, when they were first imprisoned in comfort stations, they were forced to serve those ranked officials first. Virginity means good luck, and they want these virgin girls to serve ranked officials first.
Willa Seidenberg 11:49
So officers, like higher level officers.
Hanyu Chen 11:52
Yeah. And after that, they were just stationed in a single unit, and usually only has a bed. And then that’s it. They don’t have any sanitary facilities, they can’t wash their bodies after each, I don’t want to use the word guest, but after each soldier came. If they don’t follow the order, or they want to escape, comfort station managers, they usually have a deep connection with the military. So they will call the military and people came and beat them. And, one primary reason to establish the whole “comfort woman” system is to prevent STDs, but actually, in comfort stations, they don’t use condoms. So you cannot prevent STDs without a condom. And very soon these girls they will get STDs and the Japanese military, they don’t want to pay for the treatment. So they will just kill the girl or abandon her after they found this girl has STDs.
Willa Seidenberg 13:01
Wow.
Hanyu Chen 13:02
And they cannot leave the station. There was a rumor saying that these “comfort women,” they were prostitutes, they were paid, they will volunteer, but actually no. They never had an opportunity to get their salary. And even if they were paid, they needed to pay for their cosmetics, their food, their staying. And even their treatments [for STDs]. And sometimes the Japanese military just give them military ticket. You can use that ticket to get some food from the military, but you cannot use it as the real money. And after the war end, the military ticket basically means nothing.
Willa Seidenberg 13:44
One of the things you write about is that there was a lot of shame associated with sexual violence in, well, in all cultures, really. And you write that that really contributed to the world not knowing what had happened to these women during the war. Can you talk about how that shame contributed to the fact that the women didn’t really speak about what had happened to them?
Hanyu Chen 14:13
In East Asian cultures, if a woman has sex with a man other than her husband, that can be a very shameful behavior. And if a girl who had sexual relationships with a man before her marriage is also very shameful. And, that’s why like the Japanese military abducted a lot of unmarried girl, and they were afraid to talk about that. People will use very dirty words to describe this women, like you should be killed.
Willa Seidenberg 14:52
How many sexual partners might they have in a given day?
Hanyu Chen 14:56
In the comfort station the number can vary. Because, according to [what] a “comfort woman” mentioned in her testimony, she said like before the battle there were a lot of soldiers came and have sex with them. It can be like more than 10 in a day, in a regular time, maybe less.
Willa Seidenberg 15:46
When the war ended, what happened to the “comfort women?”
Hanyu Chen 15:52
Some of them were sold to local Chinese men. I think this is the most heartbreaking part for me. Like you already suffered a lot, but the Japanese military men want to make a last profit from your body. And then they decided to sell you to local Chinese men. Because at the time, due to the war, a lot of Chinese men, they didn’t have chance to get married, they can’t afford to get married. And after war, they were able to purchase a woman to be their wives. So they don’t care about those traditional virginity things.
Willa Seidenberg 16:34
And of course, you also point out that the women didn’t get any kind of psychological help to deal with the ordeal that they had gone through. And as you just said, they were even re traumatized by being sold.
Hanyu Chen 16:51
Yeah, they don’t have the chance to get any psychological help, ’cause the news really about “comfort women” were not rediscovered by the public until the 1990s. And before that, like China was so poor. Our priority maybe is just to develop economics. So the government ignores this kind of specific group. And in 1972, China and Japan started their diplomatic relationship again. And this probably hurts a lot of victims’ feelings, like we suffered a lot from the war. And you just decided to go back with Japan to have diplomatic relationship.
Willa Seidenberg 17:37
I thought that was interesting that some of the reluctance to even acknowledge the system of comfort stations and “comfort women” had to do with politics, international diplomacy, and the women were victims of that.
Hanyu Chen 17:53
Yes, yeah.
Willa Seidenberg 17:54
I wanted to get to those two case studies that you write about in your thesis, you said most of the comfort stations have been demolished since the war.
Hanyu Chen 18:04
So there are two types of comfort station buildings. One is like it’s a pre-existing building, and the other is like our temporal tent. And those temporal things are almost all gone. Because after a war, nobody wants to see that anymore. I won’t say like 100%, maybe 99.9 were demolished. And some are pre-existing buildings. The topic of “comfort woman” came back to the public’s view until the last two decades of the 20th century. And during that time, like, a lot of things change. And some pre-existing buildings have been demolished due to the city development or the owner just want to build a new building or new home. So that’s basically like you cannot find a lot of comfort stations today.
Willa Seidenberg 19:00
One of the ones that did survive is in Nanjing, which as many people know was the site of a lot of atrocities by the Japanese army. But there was a comfort station that still exists and it’s now been made into a museum. Can you talk about that?
Hanyu Chen 19:18
The comfort station museum in Nanjing, I personally think this is a very good example of like how you preserve difficult history in a building that witnessed those difficult histories. So, the building itself was constructed in the 1920s or 1930s. It had two comfort stations. One is for ordinary soldiers and the other is for ranked officials. And that building was used as comfort stations for decades, I think until the war ends and then used as multifamily house, residential. In 1990s, some scholars just did some research and found this building might be a comfort station during the war. And then in 2003, a victim of the “comfort woman” system, she confirmed this was the building she was stationed and imprisoned. And then the Nanjing government didn’t make any force to protect this building or conserve this building or make any efforts. Like the district government shifts a lot of times during that period, but this building remained unconserved until 2015, or 2016. And then it was remodeled, or did some conservation work to make it a museum.
Willa Seidenberg 20:55
When you were talking about the grandma identifying that as a comfort station, that kind of points up the fact that there’s so little documentation of these stations. You know, who knows, maybe there are other places that nobody’s identified, but it’s very hard to document what happened because there is not very much documentation, written or photographic.
Hanyu Chen 21:19
Yeah. The story behind that grandma, I think it’s very tragic, but very important. The grandma, she was born in Korea, at that time South Korea and North Korea still the same kingdom. I think she was born in today’s North Korea. And one day, local police told her, like, there was a good job opportunity in China, you must go with me. And she refused to do so. But police force her to board a train and she was transported to Nanjing to that comfort station for three years. And then gradually the war extended. So the grandma was transported from Nanjing, very close to Shanghai in Eastern China, and then to Southwestern China. She was stationed there for a while and even transported to Myanmar. A photographer took a very famous photo about her. She was pregnant and stayed with other “comfort women” in a battlefield. That’s a very famous image about “comfort woman” and everyone wants to know who was the pregnant “comfort woman.” And a Japanese scholar, she found out this woman probably was the North Korean grandma. After the war ended, the grandma, she went back to Korea and lived a very peaceful life until the Japanese scholar found that oh, this might be the pregnant “comfort woman.” And after some diplomatic negotiations, and the scholars invited her came to Nanjing to point out this is the building. I think she’s like [in her] 90s ’cause she can’t remember the exact location. She just said I know there was a building next to a lake and it’s a very modern building. She just gave a very ambiguous description. And the scholars match all these checklists and found out this might be the one in Nanjing
Willa Seidenberg 23:36
Wow. That’s an incredible amount of work.
Hanyu Chen 23:39
Yes.
Willa Seidenberg 23:40
So what is the museum like?
Hanyu Chen 23:42
So the museum represent exactly what looks like during the war. At the museum building entrance you will see a ticket [seller] and in that place a century ago it was actually a ticket office to sell tickets to the soldiers to see different “comfort women.” And then you will follow the traffic of a soldier. Like you go upstairs you see “comfort women” and their living conditions, their teeny tiny unit, only a bed or tatami, no restroom. No desk, just a bed. And then you go to the exhibition hall, you will see some historical evidence like the medicine they use.
Willa Seidenberg 24:34
What’s the name of the museum?
Hanyu Chen 24:37
Liji Lane Comfort Station Museum in Nanjing.
Willa Seidenberg 24:41
The other case study that you talk about is not a museum yet.
Hanyu Chen 24:47
Yeah, it’s not a museum yet, but it’s going to be a museum very soon. The other case study I have in my thesis is a comfort station in my hometown. After I started my internship at Shoah Foundation I talked to my mom about this job. And my mom said there was a comfort station near your childhood school. Actually, there were two comfort stations in that certain area. Before I did research, I thought they were the same one. But actually, no, they were two different sites. I realized I knew so little about what happened in my hometown. I didn’t realize there were two comfort stations in my hometown. So I decided to use them as my second case study. The first one is called Hanazono Mineto, which means the Top of the Garden Hill in Japanese. And the second one is called the Grand Taimen. Taimen is a traditional Chinese architecture in my hometown area. It first referred to a very specific type of architecture, like Siheyuan [an architectural style commonly found in northern China, especially Beijing]. But later, it’s referred to like the wealthy people or powerful people.
Willa Seidenberg 26:06
Like a socialites house.
Hanyu Chen 26:08
Yes! The Grand Taimen faces to ordinary soldiers, the “comfort women” living in the Grand Taimen were usually local Chinese women who are abducted and imprisoned. Because, like in the “comfort women” system, they have very strict classification or hierarchy. Chinese woman only serve ordinary soldiers, Japanese woman and the Korean women might be able to serve ranked officials.
Willa Seidenberg 26:40
You said that it’s not a museum yet. What’s happening with that site?
Hanyu Chen 26:45
The two sites were confirmed as comfort station sites in 2016, or 2015. And at that time, the whole neighborhood were undergoing like the historical city reformation. Like the city government decided to build some new architectures, new buildings or redevelop this this area. But very luckily, they were confirmed as comfort station sites before they were demolished. And now they are fenced and all residents once living there were moved out. And when I wrote my thesis, a designer team from a very famous university in China is going to design the whole neighborhood, including the two comfort station sites. And I think due to the COVID, or a lot of different reasons, until today, I didn’t see any proposal or master plans yet. So, I don’t know what’s going on in the future. But I know they are going to be museums.
Willa Seidenberg 27:52
What do you think that visitors come away with after they see a comfort station?
Hanyu Chen 28:00
I think one thing is, this part of history should not be forgotten. They should be remembered by all people. There were a group of women, they suffered a lot of sexual violence during the Second World War. Their names should not be erased by the history. And I think this is a very primary reason I wrote this thesis. I want their stories been known by a lot of people.
Willa Seidenberg 28:27
You talk about difficult history, which is a big subject that we talk about in heritage conservation, because it’s often something that people want to ignore and have a hard time figuring out how to remember. One of the things that you argue is the government has a real responsibility in this.
Hanyu Chen 28:53
We all know difficult heritage is a very heavy topic. It usually connects with like different groups, different minorities, different community or even like international communities. As an individual, your power is very limited. Conserving difficult heritage can be sometimes, like time-consuming, or need a lot of budget to do so because you need to do a lot of research and collecting a lot of different materials to prove your argument or to make it accessible. And in the past, maybe the government didn’t pay a lot of attention to the “comfort women,” but in recent decades, they are doing better now. I don’t want to say one “comfort woman” memorial museum is enough for the whole Chinese people, we should confirm more comfort station sites to educate people. Maybe those comfort station sites are not necessary to be a memorial museum, but can be some kind of educational centers, or just a panel stating the history of this building?
Willa Seidenberg 29:29
Well in since most, or all, of the “comfort women” have probably passed away by now, these buildings in these museums might be the only way to help people see what was going on at the time and to remember them.
Hanyu Chen 30:17
Yes, so that’s the function of an architecture of a building like they are the witness, they can tell you the story. Themselves are a story, that’s the other part of the history.
Willa Seidenberg 30:29
Thank you so much for joining us. And thank you so much for this really fascinating topic. And I wish you a lot of success in your PhD.
Hanyu Chen 30:39
Thank you.
Trudi Sandmeier 31:45
Well, welcome back, everybody. And that is maybe a tough interview to listen to, for many people. I think it speaks to a lot of issues, not the least of which is the fact that for many women in the past, and certainly in currently in parts of the world, there is a real disparity in power. And whose stories get told and why. And this is, sadly, not a thing of the past. But it’s still something we’re grappling with today.
Cindy Olnick 31:16
And it’s not about blaming individuals as much as the systems, you know, and the institutionalization of violence and abuse. But you know, it’s important to remember and in this case, particularly, it’s important to have the very few physical remnants that we have to tell the stories as Hanyu said so beautifully to bear witness.
Trudi Sandmeier 31:39
So, we talked about some really compelling images that were a crucial part of Hanyu telling her story. And if you want to see those images, they’re on our episode page on our website at saveas.place. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of Save As. Next time, we’ll hear from alumna Brandon Smithwick, talking about a Rosenwald school in Tennessee.
Brannon Smithwick 32:05
Over and over and over again, I heard I would not be where I am today without Allen-White, without that confidence that the teachers and the staff instilled in me. Without that belief that I know I could do anything with my education, without the tools to do so. And so hearing those stories of uplift from within were incredible.
Cindy Olnick 32:25
A surefire way not to miss that episode is to subscribe if you haven’t already, so please subscribe at Save As dot place or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d always love a review and we’d really love it if you tell a friend. This episode was produced by Willa Seidenberg. Our original theme music is by Stephen Conley. Additional music for this episode is by Tom Davies. Save As is a production of the Heritage Conservation Program and the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California.
