介绍:
Anchor
Seventy-eight years have passed since the Nanjing Massacre committed by Japanese imperialist invaders took at least 300-thousand lives.
Now a Japanese couple is bringing their interpretation of this atrocity on stage.
Luo Laiming has more.
Reporter
(Stage sound: Kazuko Yokoi)
Sixty-nine-year-old Japanese artist Kazuko Yokoi knows the atrocity in Nanjing in 1937 from the victims and her own family.
She is now bringing a one-woman show on stage called The Eyes Hold the Truth.
(Act 1, Kazuko Yokoi female script voiceover)
"I was sent out to work when I was 14. One day, a Japanese police officer came in and said 'I know a good job that can make you a lot of money. Do you want to come?' I was 17 back then. I saw at least 10 girls like me waiting at the train station. The man took us to Pyongyang, left us to a military policeman and left. We were tricked! By the time we knew,it was already too late. 'We will kill you if you run!' the man shouted. We got off the train at Pukou Station in Nanjing, China. We were loaded onto a truck and taken to a military brothel called Kinsui House. The place was set for a Japanese army post nearby."
Yokoi plays a Korean teenage girl who was forced by the Japanese military to be a sex slave and witnessed the massacre in Nanjing.
With the help of simple props and stage lights, the actress is trying to let the history speak for itself.
(stage sound: what a hellish December, what a sorrow city)
Yokoi plays three different sex slaves or so-called comfort women in the play. Each of the characters reflects what they saw during the mass killing and rape from different perspectives.
The actress found out her father got rich by selling goods to the Japanese imperial army during the war when she was still young. She has not been able to find inner peace since then.
Her husband Yoshiji Watanabe is the director and writer of the play. His father was an imperial army officer and a Class-C war criminal.
Watanabe says the play is inspired by his family tragedy.
(Act 2, Watanabe, male Japanese)
"My father is guilty. After all the crimes he did during the Second World War, he couldn't be happy anymore. Family violence was often the case through my childhood and never stopped. When I was 37, my mother hung herself. That thing struck me. It also became the main reason for me to begin creating this series of war-time themed stage works. I believe if we don't atone for our previous generation's crime, we won't be happy anymore."
The couple has been presenting their reflections of that part of history on stage in Japan, China and the United States since 1991.
(Yoshiji on the stage)
The couple visited Nanjing in 2001. Watanabe says he will never forget that experience.
(Act 3, Watanabe, male Japanese)
"When we faced the Yangtze River, where there was a massacre, we put our hands together praying for all the Chinese people that were killed. My eyes were suddenly flooded in red. It was the color of blood. Along with it I experienced a piercing headache that I had never experienced before and heard the moaning of many people coming up from the ground. The souls of these people that were killed at the Yangtze River must still be wandering around, as they were never able to fully accept their death. This was the time when I set my mind on confronting the truth about the Nanjing Massacre."
Yokoi says there is no winner in wars. The tragedy of her husband's family is just one example that Japanese people are also the victims of the war.
(Act 3, Kazuko Yokoi, female Japanese)
"Many Japanese soldiers say they couldn't feel guilty afterwards. Even though they trembled when they were ordered to kill for the first time, they became numb after they killed many people. They gradually lost their sense of shame or guilty. Not only for Japanese soldiers, it's something shared in common for all who have drifted in war."
Director Watanabe says he believes the extreme violence committed by the Japanese imperialist army during the war came from a twisted sense of guilt.
(Act 4, Yoshiji Watanabe,male Japanese)
"There is a common saying in Japan - people are born with guilt. That dark side of human being is called sin. This makes Japanese people have a stronger feeling of inferiority compared with western people. However, it also made them weirdly arrogant in front of other Asian nations, which played a role in the crimes and atrocities they committed during the war."
The couple says it is very worrisome that some Japanese politicians are still not able to face up to that part of history, referring to the country's current right-leaning politics.
(Act 5, Yoshiji Watanbe, male Japanese)
"If Japan keeps going like this, it will lose its neighbor China and will be isolated in this world."
(Act 6, Kazuko Yokoi, female Japanese)
"I think it is necessary to do what we are doing with pride because I love my country deeply."
That is exactly what people from both countries have been doing - helping people know the truth and making sure it will never happen again.
For Studio+, I'm Lai Ming.
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