FIREFLIES AND STARS IN THE NIGHT

Essay by miyanoranCollege, Undergraduate February 2014

download word file, 28 pages 0.0

FIREFLIES AND STARS IN THE NIGHT

By: Miyano Ran

This fictional work is based on the true story - "Comfort Women: Slave of Destiny" written by Maria Rosa Henson. The story was a dark depiction of the sufferings that the comfort women had to endure during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines from 1941 to 1945. Maria Rosa Henson was a victim of this form of human trafficking and was the first Filipino to narrate her story first-hand.

Comfort women: They are the women enslaved by the Japanese military in their home bases in many countries in Asia which they conquered, as sex slaves. This didn't only happen in the Philippines, but also in Korea and China. "The Rape of Nanjing" is a very famous event which would never be forgotten. Aside from women slavery, the Japanese in the past have also done mutagenic experiments on the Chinese as guinea pigs for their new drugs, injected them with bacteria to make them sick, and operated on them to study body parts! But that's another story.

This story is a tribute to all the comfort women who had to undergo such pain. I was inspired to write this upon reading Rosa's story. Up until this day, the Japanese government refuses to write the truth in Japanese school textbooks to let their youth think that their ancestors were heroes. Due to the mounting pressure from the Korean government, the Japanese government has paid some monetary compensation to the families of the victims (who are now in their late 80's perhaps or who have passed away) but still hasn't given an official public apology.

I have nothing against the current Japanese people since they weren't the ones responsible for their ancestors' crimes - they are nice people and I have Japanese...