Tuesday, May 22, 2007

The moon and comfort women

See also comfort women depicted in the film


The following is the essay by an Asahi journalist in which comfort women were described. The book in which the essay was included was published in 1953 , long before the comfort women drew attention to the public as an international issue. The setting was April 1945 shortly before the war ended..

It was unusual that a rain cloud cleared and the moon appeared---the Burma moon that I saw through the leaves in a jungle----our emotion was too dried up to be sentimental about the moon, but the moon reminded me the day before we pulled out from Rangoon.
That day too, a rain cloud cleared and the moon shined over the golden Shwe Dagon pagoda. The moon was thoroughly blue. A captain and I were sitting on the street, with the legs throwing over on the asphalt road.
Across the street were sitting 4 or 5 comfort women. At first they lured us persistently to stay up , saying "the money does not matter, just stay up, we are lonely."
They didn't know that the military headquarters were pulling out the next day, but it seemed to be certain that they sensed something unusual was going on; there was no customer. And here we were, two military officers turned up at night. They said they didn't care about the money because they felt lonely. It might have been rather me who felt more lonely.

The next to the comfort station stood the branches of Japanese movies company and Japanese movies distribution company. There were a lot of films in the distributive company, so the head of information service had ordered the chief of branch to get rid of them so that British troop might not abuse them; We were there at night to confirm the job was done. The films were thrown into a waterlogged trench, the two branches were tidied up---the job had been well done. And it was on the way home we had this conversation with the women as a reward.

" For free, enjoy till the morning"----The Korea woman almost twenty years old went so far as to say that.
She was in a slip, with thighs showing, slapping a mosquito sometimes.

Why didn't I tell them to get out of Rangoon because the situation was threatening? I asked the question to myself, looking up at the moon---until that time I had been a military officer and I had been too afraid of military regulation--- from this time on I would be be finally a decent man again .

via ステージ風発
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「月と慰安婦たち」

(沢山勇三著の「白旗をかかげて」から)

 珍らしく雨雲が途切れて、月が顔を見せた。ジャングルの葉ごしに見るビルマの月――月に感傷を托すには、われわれの感情線は固渇しすぎていたがそれでも、その月は私に四月前のラングーン撤退前夜を偲ばせた。

 その晩も珍らしく晴れて月がシュエダゴン・パゴダの黄金色の尖端を照らしていた。青い青い月だった。私とも一人大尉は、コンクリートの人道に腰を下して、アスファルトの車道に長々と足を投げ出していた。

向かいあって、四、五人の朝鮮出身の慰安婦がしゃがみ込んでいた。はじめ慰安婦たちは、我々に泊まってゆけとしつこくすすめたのである。「お金なんかどうでもいいんだよ。淋しいから泊っていきなさい」と彼女らは言った。

明日、軍司令部が撤退するというのに、彼女らは何も知らないのである。ただ何か異様な雰囲気だけは感じていたことに間違いはない。客がさっぱりなかった。そこへ夜ふけて将校がふたり現れたのである。金は要らないから泊っていけ。淋しいというのだ。

 私の方がどれだけ淋しかったか知れない。慰安所に隣り合って、日本映画社と日本映画配給社の両支局があった。映配の方には、沢山の映画のフィルムがあった。英軍に見付けられて利用されるといけないという報道部長の考えで、これを処分することを支局長に命令してあったが、これを確認するために、われわれ二人が夜中近くになって行ったのだった。フィルムは壕の中へ投げこんで水浸しにしてあった。そして両支局ともさっぱりと片付けてあった。まずこれでよし――そして帰りがけの駄賃の彼女らとの雑談であった。

「タダでもいいよ、朝まで遊んでいきなさい」

 私の前にいた二十歳にもなるまいと思われる娘はとうとうそんなにまで言った。太股までむき出しにしたシュミーズ一枚の恰好で、時々蚊をぴしゃぴしゃと叩きつけていたっけ――

 あの時、危いから早くラングーンを逃出すようになぜ話してやらなかったか――私はジャングルの月に向って自問自答して見た。そうだ。あのころまでは、私はまだ軍人だった。軍紀がこわかった。――これから俺は人間に返る。――

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