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This is an important and controversial work, hitherto available only in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, a book which has been subject to court cases attempting to have some parts deleted. The author reconsiders the issue of the "comfort women," that is the Korean women who were compelled to provide sexual comfort to Japanese troops during the Asia-Pacific War. She explores the human complexity of the experiences of these women, who despite terrible exploitation, she feels, cannot and should not only be considered as passive victims. She sets the issue in context, revealing how Korean society played a role, with patriarchy and middlemen being significant factors in the procurement of comfort women, and how alongside the comfort women there were volunteer labor corps of Korean young women supporting the Japanese war effort. The author highlights Korea's colonial status, different from the territories Japan invaded and conquered, discusses how relations between colonizers and colonized in an empire are not straightforward, and argues that people should work to understand more fully the mindset of those at the time, and refrain from forcing values from the present to resolve indignities of the past. Aiming to find a way to pursue reconciliation while looking more closely at the history, the book provides substantial consideration of key issues to do with empire, memorialization, and censorship. It is an uncomfortable read for those seeking simplistic interpretations and easy solutions.
List of contents
List of Figures
Prologue from Volker Stanzel, former German Ambassador to China and Japan
Author's Preface to the English Translation
Translators' Introduction
Author's Introduction to the Japanese version
Part I: Who were the comfort women? State control of the body, civilian engagement
Chapter 1: Forced transport or national mobilization
Chapter 2: The erosion of memory at the comfort station
Chapter 3: Immediately after defeat - Return of the Korean comfort women
Part 2: "Colony" and the Korean Comfort Women
Chapter 4: Korean perceptions of the comfort women
Chapter 5: The battle over memory: the South Korean side
Chapter 6: Thinking About South Korean support groups
Chapter 7: Reading the Korean Constitutional Court ruling
Chapter 8: Examining "what the world thinks"
Part 3: The conflict of memory: the collapse of the Cold War order and the comfort women issue
Chapter 9: The colonial consciousness that supports the thinking of deniers
Chapter 10: Considering Japan's apology and compensation actions in the 1990s
Chapter 11: Expectations placed on the Japanese government once again
Chapter 12: Facing the supporters' potential
Part 4: Beyond the empire and the Cold War
Chapter 13: Comfort women and the nation-state
Chapter 14: For a new Asia: Seventy years since defeat, seventy years since liberation
In place of an afterword: why we must reconsider the comfort women issue
Index
About the author
Park Yuha is a Professor Emeritus at the College of International Studies, Sejong University, Korea
Summary
This is an important and controversial book, hitherto available only in Korean, Japanese and Chinese. The author reconsiders the issue of the “comfort women”, that is the Korean women who were compelled to provide sexual comfort to Japanese troops during the Asia-Pacific War.
