Nothing comfortable about unvarnished reality of wartime sex slavery

By Wei Yaochuan Source:Global Times Published: 2012-7-31 20:20:03

Tokyo went into a tiff with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in early July when she said the term "enforced sex slaves" was more accurate than "comfort women." For the Chinese, it is thought-provoking that our media is still using the euphemistic term "comfort women."

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Japanese used euphemisms to conceal the ugly realities of their wartime brutality. The first "comfort women" (ianfu in Japanese) were prostitutes recruited in Japan or Japanese colonial territories for the military brothel system of the Imperial Japanese Army.

They were often forced into the profession by the poverty or starvation of the 1930s, or tricked with false promises of regular jobs. As the war progressed, the Japanese army began the mass kidnapping and enslaving of Chinese, Korean, and Southeast Asian women for the system.

Similar euphemisms continue among the Japanese right-wing, which, for instance, use "incident" instead of "massacre" to refer to the killings in Nanjing in 1937, and the "advance on China" rather than the "invasion of China." Today the Chinese media is generally alert to these two expressions. But "comfort women" is still generally used.

The phrase "comfort women" is also widely used in academic writings, historical textbooks, news reports and literary works. This happens not only in China, but also in other Asian countries that once suffered from Japanese invasion.

Historically it was not uncommon that Asian countries directly borrowed Japanese words, including "comfort women," into their own languages. And due to the impact of patriarchal culture, terms directly relating to sex are often avoided. But a more important reason is our numbness to such expressions.

Some media outlets even quoted Japanese right-wingers' statements about World War II without discrimination.

Unlike the Germans' generally honest and apologetic attitude toward Germany's historical war crime, some Japanese still refuse to admit historical facts. As the similar crimes committed by the Wehrmacht and the Nazis in World War II are bluntly referred to as "sex slavery," some Japanese have been using "comfort women" to blur the grim realities of their country's past crimes.

Translation must balance various factors, including fidelity to the original language and fluency of expression. When translating foreign terms into Chinese, the instinct has often been to choose a more pleasant-sounding expression.

For instance, Chinese translators chose yingguo (literally "hero country") and meiguo ("beautiful country") to represent England and the US, despite the clashes with Western powers in the 19th century. These characters are obviously ones with strongly positive connotations, and they remain in use today.

However, when it comes to national dignity, we should stress fidelity to historical truth rather than adopting the euphemisms of the day. There is no reason for China, a victim of World War II, to continue to use language that obfuscates Japan's war crimes.

This is also a clear expression of our national attitude. When territories are disputed between other countries, we have our own translation. For instance, our media uses "Dudao" which sounds similar to the Korean name Dokdo, rather than Takeshima in Japanese, to represent their disputed islets. The Chinese media also uses "Nanqiandao qundao," which is closer to the Russian name for the disputed area, to represent the area known as Hoppo ryodo in Japanese. It's normal that such translation makes some countries uncomfortable.

We should discard "comfort women" in our usage, and adopt "sex slaves for the Japanese army" instead. This is not only a restoration of historical truth, but also makes the society alert toward euphemisms, such as "incident," that seek to veil historical truth. This also helps us face up to the cultural damage left by historical suffering.



The author is associate professor at the Department of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Finance University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn



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