Diary of a Japanese Military Brothel Manager

Diary of a Japanese Military Brothel Manager
Korean name
Hangul 일본군 위안소 관리인의 일기
Revised Romanization Ilbongun Wianso Gwalli'in-ui Ilgi
McCune–Reischauer Ilbongun Wianso Kwalli'in-ŭi Ilgi
Author Park (first name not disclosed)
Translator An Byeong-jik
Country South Korea
Language Korean
Subject Military brothel
Genre Diary
Publisher Esoop (이숲)
Publication date
 August 20, 2013
Pages 424
ISBN 9788994228761
Rangoon
Prome
Pegu
Mandalay
Moulmein
Lashio
Akyab
Aungban
Locations of brothels in Burma mentioned in the diary

Diary of a Japanese Military Brothel Manager is a book of diaries written by a clerk working in Japanese military brothels, also known as "comfort stations", in Burma and Singapore during World War II. The author, a Korean businessman, kept a daily diary between 1922 and 1957. This diary was discovered by historian An Byeong-jik in 2012 and published in South Korea in 2013.

The Diary of a Japanese Military Brothel Manager is regarded as an important and credible contemporary document on the workings of Japan's comfort women system. The diary sheds light on the extent to which the comfort women should be regarded as "sex slaves", and the level of control which the Japanese military exercised over the military brothels.

Background

The author of the diary is identified only by the surname Park.[1] Mr. Park was born near Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, in 1905 and died in 1979. After graduating from high school in 1922, he began keeping a diary which he updated every day until the year 1957. When Korea was part of the Japanese Empire, Mr. Park ran a scriveners' office and enjoyed a well-to-do life at first. However, in 1940 when his profits were declining, he put a substantial portion of his remaining wealth into a plan to build a restaurant in Manchuria which turned out to be an investment scam. At this time, Mr. Park's brother-in-law was involved in recruiting Korean comfort women and sending them overseas to provide sexual services to Japanese soldiers. Partly because of his financial difficulties, Mr. Park decided in 1942 to travel to Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia with his brother-in-law in order to manage a brothel, and he stayed there until 1944.[2]

After Mr. Park's death, parts of his diary found their way to a used bookstore. Oh Chae-hyeon, a sculptor, purchased them and took them to the Time Capsule Museum in Paju, a privately owned museum where he was serving as curator.[3] In May of 2012, Korean historian An Byeong-jik, a professor emeritus at Seoul National University, learned of the existence of the diary from an archivist at the Academy of Korean Studies and went to the Time Capsule Museum to view it.[1] An examined the diary jointly with two Japanese researchers, Kyoto University professor Kazuo Hori and Kobe University professor Kan Kimura.[4]

Contents of the diary

The diary is written in a mixture of Japanese characters (kanji and katakana) and the Korean alphabet. Each entry of the diary starts with the date, followed by a description of the weather, including the daily minimum and maximum temperature in degrees Celsius, and then an account of the author's daily activities.[5] It is unclear whether Mr. Park intended the diary as a simple chronicle of his day-to-day life and thoughts, as a record of his business transactions, or both.[6]

The diary's entries for the year 1942 are missing from the diary, but it is known that Mr. Park arrived in Burma on August 20, 1942, and ran a brothel called Kanpachi Club in modern-day Sittwe until January 16, 1943. He subsequently managed a brothel called Ichifuji-rō in Insein, Rangoon, from May 1, 1943, to September 9, 1943, before moving to Singapore on September 29, 1943, where he worked with a taxi company. On February 1, 1944, he started work at a brothel called Kikusui Club, which he continued to administer until December 16, 1944, when he left for home.[2] The published version of his diary includes all his diary entries between January 1, 1943, and December 31, 1944.[3]

Mr. Park's daily duty was to man the front desk at his brothel between around 2:00 PM and 1:00 AM, and to record all income and expenditure.[7] The brothels were set up in existing buildings in the civilian parts of town, rather than being segregated into red-light districts.[8] Some of Mr. Park's other frequent tasks included shopping for supplies, collecting and distributing rations, maintaining his car, and attending air raid watches. Mr. Park was in constant contact with the Japanese military authorities in order to submit reports on his business and to get entry permits, employment permits, and travel papers for himself and the comfort women.[7] According to the diary, the comfort women received leaves of absence if they became pregnant, were examined regularly for sexually transmitted diseases, and were given good quality medical care. The comfort women were paid for their work and many of them had individual savings accounts for their earnings.[9] One of Mr. Park's regular tasks was to deposit their earnings at their request at the Yokohama Specie Bank or to remit their wages back to Korea.[7]

The diary notes that many military brothels in Burma and Singapore were operated by Koreans, though others were operated by Japanese or by locals. Mr. Park mentions that many of his fellow Korean brothel managers also owned a diverse range of other investments throughout Asia, including cafeterias, factories, and confectionaries in places like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.[8] Though Mr. Park often complained of nostalgia for his hometown in Korea,[10] his business did allow him a comfortable lifestyle while overseas and he spend lavishly on clothing, shoes, and watches for himself.[7] He also made investments in restaurants and oil refineries in partnership with his fellow Korean brothel managers.[11]

Reception and debate

Professor An Byeong-jik translated the diary into modern Korean[5] and had it published in August of 2013.[12] Researchers have hailed the diary as a crucial source of information on the workings of Japan's comfort women system.[1] It is the only known contemporary account of the comfort women system written by a brothel manager. According to Kan Kimura, the diary is "highly credible", noting that Mr. Park died before the comfort women issue became a source of tension between Japan and South Korea.[4] The comfort women issue did not become a significant international problem until 1990 when a group of former Korean comfort women asked for an apology and compensation from the Japanese government.[13]

According to The Japan Times, Mr. Park's accounts "conflict with assertions by some Japanese that comfort women were involved in a purely private business, and by some South Koreans that the women were completely enslaved."[4] However, historians have interpreted parts of the diary in different ways.[14]

According to An Byeong-jik, the diary provides clear evidence that the military brothels were established in a systematic manner and fully controlled by the Japanese military, rather than being private outfits.[14] In the diary, Mr. Park indicates that he left Korea in 1942 as part of the "fourth comfort corps", the existence of which is confirmed in a US research report written in November of 1945.[13] The "fourth comfort corps" appears to have been organized and administered by the Japanese military.[2] Furthermore, the diary states that Mr. Park frequently traveled between cities with Japanese soldiers in military-use vehicles and ships, and that he had to provide the Japanese military with regular work reports.[15] According to An, this suggests that the brothel owners were treated as being employees of the military.[14]

On the other hand, Choi Kilsong, a Korean historian and professor emeritus at Hiroshima University, came to the opposite conclusion about the diary.[14] Choi points out that Mr. Park paid dues to and attended regular meetings of the "Military Brothel Association", which appears to have been an independent guild of brothel owners similar to those which existed in the Korean prostitution industry at the same time.[16] The military brothels transferred along with the military unit they were serving, but according to Choi, it is unclear whether these transfers were ordered by the military or whether the brothels voluntarily moved to where their customers were going.[17] Though Mr. Park frequently hitched rides on military vehicles and received permission to spend the night at military facilities during transfers, he just as frequently writes about having to use private transportation or having to spend the night at the homes of friends.[18] Choi calls attention to one entry in which Mr. Park declines to have a meal at a restaurant upon being told that it served only soldiers and military employees.[19] In contrast with Professor An, Professor Choi concludes that Mr. Park was not a military employee and that the military brothels were essentially run as private businesses. However, Choi does agree that these businesses operated in close partnership with the Japanese military.[16]

Concerning the controversy over whether the comfort women should be described as "sex slaves", Choi Kilsong notes that the diary refers to the comfort women only as "barmaids" or "workwomen". They were treated by the military as ordinary employees of the brothel and were in many cases permitted to quit their jobs at their request. Choi believes that the comfort women were not sex slaves, but rather were more similar to the karayuki-san, Japanese prostitutes who plied their trade abroad.[20] By contrast, Professor An points to a diary entry showing that the comfort women were forced to transfer to new work sites along with the Japanese Army regardless of their own wishes, and to one entry which states that two comfort women in Burma attempted to quit their jobs and return home but were forced by the Japanese military to continue working. An concludes that "sexual slavery" is a reasonable description of the comfort women system.[21]

When the diary was first published, many South Korean media outlets reported it as being definitive evidence that Korean comfort women were forcibly recruited by the Japanese military, but Choi Kilsong has dismissed the idea that the diary supports this theory.[14] An Byeong-jik concurs that the diary contains no information about forcible recruitment of comfort women,[22] stating that, "Comfort women were recruited by business operators in Korea, and there was no need for the military to abduct them."[13] However, the diary entries of the year 1942, which might have dealt in more detail with how the comfort women at Mr. Park's brothel were recruited, are missing from the diary.[2]

Release details

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 An Byeong-jik, "はじめに."
  2. 1 2 3 4 An Byeong-jik, "解題：第4次慰安団," 165-167.
  3. 1 2 Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 117.
  4. 1 2 3 "Korean's war brothel diaries offer new details". The Japan Times. August 13, 2013.
  5. 1 2 Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 122-123.
  6. ↑ Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 124.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 127-128, 148, 152-153.
  8. 1 2 Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 141.
  9. ↑ Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 146-147.
  10. ↑ Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 132.
  11. ↑ Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 143.
  12. ↑ Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 114.
  13. 1 2 3 "Diary written by Korean worker at comfort stations in Burma, Singapore found". Mainichi Shimbun. August 7, 2013. Archived from the original on August 11, 2013.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 155.
  15. ↑ An Byeong-jik, "解題：第4次慰安団," 171, 177.
  16. 1 2 Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 140, 149.
  17. ↑ Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 134.
  18. ↑ Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 136-139.
  19. ↑ Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 140.
  20. ↑ Choi Kilsong, 韓国の米軍慰安婦はなぜ生まれたのか (Tokyo: Hatoshuppan, 2014), 3, 114, 145.
  21. ↑ An Byeong-jik, "解題：第4次慰安団," 181.
  22. ↑ Kimura, Kan (7 August 2013). "Twitter" (in Japanese).
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