Kaleidoscope
'We will never forget you'
By Zhang Xin and Cao Li (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-19 10:53
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A member of the Japanese war orphans' delegation sings a Chinese song to Premier Wen Jiabao to express her gratitude. |
As he settles down to watch the replay of his meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao on the evening news, Kakubari Hiroshi looks down at his notepad and again read the words spoken by the Chinese leader that same day: "We will never forget you."
It is a promise that means the world to Hiroshi and many other Japanese orphans and abandoned children who were raised in China after the end of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1945.
A group of more than 50 orphans, all over 65, returned last week to meet Wen at Zhongnanhai, the Beijing headquarters of the Communist Party of China, as part of a thank-you trip.
Sitting in his hotel room after the meeting, 69-year-old Hiroshi struggles to contain his excitement. "We are all just so glad to be back in the land where we were raised," he says.
Until 1993, Hiroshi went by the name Zhao Lianxi, given to him by the Chinese family that took him in after finding him wandering the streets of a village in Heilongjiang province in Northeast China. His Japanese parents had been part of a large "exploration team" in nearby Jiamusi.
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Kakubari Hiroshi, also known by his Chinese name, Zhao Lianxi |
"Lianxi translates in English as 'continued joy'," says Hiroshi proudly. "I was adopted by my Chinese foster family shortly after their eldest son, my oldest brother, got married. So they considered my arrival as a continued joy."
During the early 1940s, Japan launched large-scale colonial activities in Northeast China, sending more than 1.5 million citizens. Many were repatriated or became refugees after the nation's surrender at the end of World War II.
According to Chinese government figures, 90 percent of all 2,815 Japanese children left behind after the war were discovered in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region or the northeastern provinces. Most were from families sent as part of "exploration teams" to enable Japan's military and economic occupation.
Hiroshi says his foster family, which already included six people before he was adopted, ran a small village food stall selling fried dough twists and battercakes.
"It was a hard life but I was still fed first because I was the youngest," he says. "My gratitude to my foster family will last a lifetime. Even though there were some very strong emotions against the Japanese at the time, my family gave me shelter and protection. It was they who also taught me to read and write Chinese from scratch."
It was only after diplomatic ties were restored between China and Japan in 1972 that the children were able to return to their native land to search for lost relatives. In 1981, the two nations' governments agreed to work together to help them.
In 1983, Hiroshi, who went on to teach biology in Harbin after receiving a government grant to study at Heilongjiang University, finally uncovered the reason he was left behind. He found out that his mother was killed in the war, while his father was a primary school headmaster, who was captured by Soviet soldiers and repatriated in 1948.
The college lecturer is now among more than 2,500 of the orphans and abandoned children who have returned to live in Japan, according to statistics from the Japanese Ministry of Labor.
While Hiroshi always knew about his Japanese heritage, Matsuda Keiko, also 69, was shocked to learn of her early life following the death of her adoptive parents.
"My foster parents named me Liu Guizhi, but when I was growing up all the other kids called me 'Little Japanese'. I felt so insulted but my foster parents told me they were lying," says Keiko, whose biological mother left China following the death of Keiko's father.
She returned to her native land to uncover her roots in 1986, and four years later relocated with her husband and two children to Saitama prefecture in Japan. However, the move, as for many of the returning children, was not a dream homecoming.
"Starting a new life at the age of 50 in a country where you don't speak the language is often very frustrating," she says.
For years, Meiko and her husband lived off the meager government aid of 50,000 yen ($550) each. "I miss China a lot. Even after 20 years away I still cheer for China when I watch their volleyball games against Japan," she adds.
Morita Sachiko, 69, also a Japanese orphan raised in Jilin province, did not know of her Japanese identity for more than four decades.
She was given a Chinese name Li Yuping and lived in the city of Jilin, Jilin province, enjoying the unconditional love of her Chinese family from the age of 5.
When Sachiko's foster mother was nearing death in 1996, she revealed the decades-old secret to Sachiko. She had kept the symbolic medal of the Japanese exploration team when Sachiko was adopted as an orphan, and the clothes she was wearing at that time, in a locked box.
The road to find her Japanese relatives began in 1996 and in 1998, Sachiko, then 58 years old, relocated to Japan with her family.
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Morita Sachiko |
"I was reluctant to go to Japan at first as I had a stable job with the commerce bureau in Jilin, but considering the welfare benefits the Japanese government promised, particularly considering my son's poor health, we finally made up our mind to go to find our roots," Sachiko says.
However, both Hiroshi and Sachiko found that life was not as easy as they had imagined when they arrived in Japan. Many of the Japanese orphans raised in China faced discrimination owing to their lack of Japanese language skills, and found it difficult to keep to a job.
Hiroshi managed to find work at an estate management company as a technician, despite the high education he had received in China. He retired in 2005, receiving monthly payments of 110,000 Japanese yen for him and his spouse from the Japanese government, plus a public pension payment of 20,000 Japanese yen.
Sachiko also received 180,000 yen per month for her, her husband and their granddaughter.
In 1994, the Japanese government passed legislation to provide financial assistance to Japanese nationals who had returned to Japan. However, the subsidy from the government was not enough as the average living expense per family in Japan amounts to 200,000-300,000 yen per month.
"The assistance from the government was relatively low for us to maintain a good living standard after retirement," Hiroshi says.
Since 2001, nearly 2,000 returned Japanese orphans, their average age over 70, have filed suits in many Japanese cities, charging the Japanese government with failing to repatriate them early enough and asking for compensation.
Some even complained that to discourage them from visiting China, their assistance from the government faced a cut of more than 1,000 yen for each day they visited.
It was not until the spring of 2008 that a new law to help improve the lives of Japanese orphans was implemented.
They are now entitled to receive the full public pension payment of 66,000 yen a month, compared with a third of that amount before. A single-member household will also receive up to an additional 80,000 yen in financial support from the government, to cover their medical and nursing care and housing expenses.
More than 2,000 war orphans, who have filed suits in 15 courts, have now dropped their class action lawsuits against the government because of insufficient support.
"It is now easier to come back to China to see our foster family members as we are allowed a two-month leave from Japan without any deduction of the allowance," says Hiroshi.
They know the man who has made a big contribution to this change is none other than Premier Wen.
The premier devoted 10 minutes of his speech during a visit to Japan in 2007 to express his concern for the living conditions of the Japanese orphans raised in China after they returned to Japan and suggested support from the Japanese government.
On their recent trip back here, Hiroshi and Sachiko joined the others to sing a Chinese song to express their collective gratitude.
In 2008, they raised funds to build a primary school named China-Japan Friendship Hope School, in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake.
They have also formed an association to promote Sino-Japan friendship.
"We thank the Chinese people, who despite their own sufferings caused by the war, saved the lives of the orphans and brought them up instead of pouring their hatred on the Japanese people," Kunio Umeda, deputy chief of mission at the Embassy of Japan to China said, while welcoming the group to Beijing.
