1st+Entry

=August 13, 1928 =

My mind went completely blank. Where am I?—No, no—let’s start with a better question: What have become of myself?

//Nothing. Nothing comes to my mind.//

Well, let’s start from who I //was//. Go back to the past. It all started on July 7, 1937. Prior to the date, I was a mere middle school student, with an admirable parent and a brother. That was, until my parents went missing on July 7th during the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. I remember running around the neighborhood, looking for my parents with my brother, Kim Sun Ha: people told us to “not even bother” looking for them. I felt sick, hungry, and my elbows and knees were bleeding from all the hard searchings, but my searching did not stop till dark, when I finally noticed and picked up a flyer, a pile of which was being distributed earlier. I distinctly remember the content of the flyer. It went: “//Breaking News: The Last Straw on the Camel’s Back? Japan attacks, China regains//”. The flyer first released the information on how Japanese open fired and attacked the Marco Polo Bridge around 5:00 in the morning, but ended in negotiating with the Chinese Nationalist government. The flyer made the event seem to trivial, and glorified our army, coating the tension between China and Japan with a sweet, dark chocolate.

//Only, I should not have believed that.//

At first, life was bearable with my brother, albeit without my parents. But just as when I thought everything was going back to where they used to be, my brother was forced to become a laborer in Japan. It all happened too quickly. It was June 20th. My brother and I were at home cooking dinner, when suddenly, some strange men emerged through our door and took my brother after completely destroying our house. Only after a while did I realize that my brother, along with other boys and men in the neighborhood, was forcefully taken as a laborer in the Japanese army—Imperial Japanese Army, I was told. I despised them. I shivered with disgust at the thought of them: they had taken everything from me, my family!

//I was foolish of me to oversee the fact that they were yet to take everything...yet.//

Only one month passed before they came back. This time, for me. I was on the way to collect water from a lake nearby. Completely unaware. Oh yes, I remember what happened to me now! As I walked around the corner in the ally near my house, the world suddenly went dark. I couldn’t see anything. I tried to shout for help, but without much success. My body failed to move as I wished it to. Unaware of anything that was happening to me, that’s how I arrived here. I first found myself surrounded by many other women. Although most of them were crying, one next to me was strangely calm. She told me she knew what was happening and what will happen to us: Japan, warfare, comfort women. The term ‘comfort women’ is still quiet unfamiliar to me, but I don’t think I care. Right now, all I can think of, is family. I’m still struggling to find out what had happened to my family, why, and most importantly, who. I shall be writing more as I find out.