Japanese War Orphans and the

Challenges of Repatriation in Post-

Colonial East Asia

Mariko Asano Tamanoi

Main Points
 Based on ethnographic research in Nagano and Tokyo (1984-2001)
 The article aims to…
 …discuss “overseas Japanese” in NE China
 …describe how they can challenge conventional ideas about Japanese and
Chinese identities

 Structure:
 1) Overview of Japanese colonialism in NE China and conditions leading
to the orphans’ abandonment
 2) Overview of their repatriation to Japan
 3) Relationships among returnees, Japanese society, and the Japanese
government today
 Conclusion: critical examination of the notions of ethnicity, race,
nationality, and citizenship
Introduction
 1965 experience of journalist Magoroku Ide in Anshan
 A woman’s voice talking in Japanese in the train station
 Ide was not aware of existence of “overseas Japanese”
 He couldn’t connect her to the ~10 000 Japanese in NE China,
or to the Imperial past
 Reaction suggests “overseas Japanese” were an anomaly

 However:
 In early 1940s 1.5 million Japanese lived in Manchuria
 Lost protection of the Japanese Empire after 1945 surrender
 Eventually ordered to return by the Japanese government
 Meaning of “home” changed
 Identity changed (gaichi  naichi), distinction faded in 1960s in
favour of single Japanese ethnicity or race
Overseas Japanese in Manchuria in the Age
of Empires
 Japanese migration to Manchuria
 Since before Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)
 Early 1930s: 240,000
 1932: establishment of territorial colony Manchuko
 Surrender left 1.5 m Japanese stranded, mostly agrarian settlers
 Delayed repatriation resulted in many hardships
 Loss of livelihood
 Loss of dreams and hopes
 Bandit attacks (murder)
 Epidemics (in shelters)
 ...

 Why were these people stranded and why are hundreds of

them still in China today?
 Colonists sent to Manchuria placed near the Soviet border
 Strategic reasons (buffer zone), creation of Japanese Empire

 Government targeted youths (14-21) to become colonists

 1938 paramilitary group Patriotic Youth Brigade

 Adult men were drafted and mobilized following Pearl Harbor

(nekosogi, “bottom-scraping”)
 People left behind in colonies:
 Brigade members, women, children, elderly

 1945 Soviet invasion in Manchuria

 Brigade members as “first line of defense” : died or sent to Siberia

 Civil war communists and nationalists

 Created confusion

 Severe winters and poor hygienic conditions

 Malnutrition, epidemics
 To save the lives of the children and themselves, colonists left
them with Chinese families
  “leave”, “give up”, “abandon”, “sell”, “entrust”
 zanryû koji, “the orphans who have remained behind”

 Characteristics (defined by govt. officials and media):

 Born of Japanese parents
 Orphaned or separated after capitulation
 Younger than 13 at the time
 Remained in China since then
 Unsure or ignorant of their identity (mimoto, “the roots of a
person’s body”)
 Problems with definition:
 They grew up
 Have Chinese names and nationality
 Women are not included until 1993  fujin instead of koji
 Fujin and koji are both “orphans”:
 Abandoned by their Japanese parents and the state
 Adopted by Chinese parents and became Chinese citizens
 Search for mimoto in a state of non-belonging (or multiple belonging)
 Repatriation doesn’t solve identity problems

 This is a special case of wartime family separation:

 Economic discrepancy China-Japan
 Memories of being Japanese vs the Chinese they became
 Notions of race, language, and culture –what it means to be Japanese
Memories, Imagined and Real, of Overseas
Japanese in the Age of Global Capital
 From 1970s newspapers published:
 Lists of orphans and accounts of their memories
 Biographies and pictures
 Parents’ memories
 Orphan’s memories were vague
 Young age
 Relying on accounts of others
 Matches were difficult to obtain

 1981: official invitation to first group of 47 orphans

 By 2003: 2,133 orphans had been invited and 650 came on
their own
 Government’s assumption: orphans are Japanese
 Prove Japaneseness by seeking out relatives
 Confirm their own primordial identities
 Confirm their collective-national identity in nation state system
 Presented as deprived of identity, when in fact they have many
 Presented as victims, poor, uneducated, suffering
 Suggests rural Chinese repatriates not fitting in modern, affluent Japan
 Not able to speak Japanese and not familiar with Japanese customs
 Volunteers teaching them made them look like children
 Insistence on continuous use of the word “orphans”
 As media appropriates their stories, the orphans’ voices hardly reach
the Japanese audience

 Two opposing images of parents coexist:

 Benevolent Japanese parents sacrificing themselves to save their children
 Poor Chinese parents who exploited the labour of adopted children for
their own survival  in reality they took care of the children
 The families raised by orphans were affected
 When they decided to return to Japan, families objected
 Adoptive parents and Chinese relatives suffered a financial and
social loss
 Japanese state monitored who could return with them
 Orphans’ family members viewed as foreigners

 In China orphans were on the margin of Chinese society

 In Japan orphans were on the margin of Japanese society
 Japanese state regarded them as “aliens”
 Needed alien status certificates despite entry in koseki
 Their (grand)children do not necessarily want to be Japanese
 Live with two nationalities in a country that doesn’t allow dual nationality
 Repatriation doesn’t eliminate the struggle with nation-state system
 Passage of time makes things difficult...
 Parents may have died or become emotionally distant
 Relatives may not remember, or be reluctant to acknowledge the
relationship
 Some opt to ignore them
 Fear of obligations (financial and social)
 Reluctance to support relatives they’ve never met
 Reluctance to associate with orphans who do not look or act Japanese
 Desire to forget their past
 Adoptive parent may choose not to reveal the truth
 Aging orphans can only return with their children’s help

 Problems force Japanese government to change course:

 Before 1989: orphans can only return as dependents of Japanese
family members
 After 1989: special sponsor needed (Japan-China Friendship
Commission)
Returnees, the Japanese Government, and
Society
 Returnees faced difficulties:
 Remaking their lives in unfamiliar culture at advanced age
 Discrimination
 Japanese nationality, but not full citizenship
 Lack of full benefits  economic hardship
 Perpetuates stereotype of poor Chinese
 Some become perpetual nomads
 States restrict their freedom of movement

 Repatriates’ reactions to resurgence of colonial racism (in late

1940s):
 Join the mainstream, become bearers of colonial racism
 Also towards their own children left in China
 Live with guilt, advocating restoration of Japanese nationality of the
orphans  Japanese state policy since the 1980s
 Challenge colonial legacy by listening to orphan’s voices
 Most of author’s subjects in Nagano chose 2nd option
 Turned emotions of guilt into action as volunteer workers
 Provide information about lost children in China
 Facilitate communication
 Moral support during identity verification
 Teach Japanese language and customs
 BUT: tend to accept only those willing to restore Japanese nationality

 Since China joined WTO more orphans and their children retain
Chinese nationality
 Combine nationalities to achieve economic goals
 Orphans and volunteers stage protests marches and lawsuits
 Welfare assistance
 Retirement security
 Full citizenship
 Sue Japanese government for abandoning them
Conclusion
 Mr.Yamada (repatriate and volunteer worker) chose 3rd option
 Makes and paints tiny figurines of Jizô out of stones he finds (Manshû Jizô)
 Each Jizô represents an immigrant child who died in Manchuria and the sorrow
of the child’s parents
 Funds a project: monument to Chinese parents and adopted child
 Completed in 1999 in Liutiaogou, site of Japanese incursion of 1931

 Monument represents the suffering of the orphans, the loss of adoptive

parents when their children leave for Japan, and the pain of the Chinese
people associated with the Japanese invasion during WWII
 It also makes us reconsider the meaning of both the overseas Japanese and
overseas Chinese

 The orphans challenge the idea that a single ethnicity corresponds

invariably to a single nationality and citizenship
 The cultural battles of the government, media and society constrain them in an
exclusionary Japanese cultural identity and risk to drown out their voices

 People like Mr.Yamada give us hope that colonial racism can be

prevented by critically addressing the history of Japanese imperialism in
China