Understanding history

The debate is still raging. It is about two women dressed in kimonos posing for photographs under sakura trees in Wuhan University. And it is about some students driving them out of the campus because the kimono and sakura (flowering cherry) reminds them of the Japanese aggression in China in the 1930s and 40s.

It is not difficult to understand why the students were angry with the women. We have seen Japanese women dressed exactly the same way in too many Chinese movies on the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45). Such a combination can become a painful reminder of the atrocities Japan's invading forces committed against the Chinese people.

But the sakura in blossom is beautiful, and perhaps Japanese women's charm blooms the best in their traditional dress. It is no fault of the sakura that it's the national flower of Japan, and it has nothing to do with Japanese atrocities or the war, nor does the kimono.