THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 8, 1994 TAG: 9406080482
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLISE LYLES, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940608 LENGTH: Long
Choppy Cantonese phrases paint horrible images in English.
{REST} ``When the bombs came, everyone ran everywhere. When they came back my twin baby sisters were gone from their baskets. To this day, I never see them again,'' Shewling Wong speaks for her mother, Heung Moy.
``Oh no. You don't want to hear,'' Wong translates. The daughter squeezes back tears as her mother begins a frantic litany that sounds like a mourning song.
``I saw Japanese soldier with 6 year old girl. They rape her. She too small. So they slit her open. Girls shave head so look like boy. That way soldiers won't rape them. They throw babies in the air. Let them land on bayonet.''
Moy had tucked away the memories, rarely discussing them with her daughter or anyone else. But the sorrow and anger of Moy and many other Asians have been resurrected by a Japanese official's recent claim that the atrocities of Japan's 1930s movement to colonize China never happened.
To protest that denial, three busloads of area Chinese and Filipinos will join Asians from across the country this Sunday in a march on the White House. It's timed to greet Japanese Emperor Akihito as he launches a two-week visit to promote peaceful relations.
``Everyone expects Chinese to be smart, quiet person, never making any noise,'' said Betty Lu, owner of China Garden restaurant and lead organizer for the Tidewater Alliance Against Japanese Denial of War Crimes and Atrocities.
``But we are angry that they deny that this ever happened,'' she said. ``When you deny, that means there's a danger that it could happen again. We forgive but we do not forget.''
The controversy began with justice minister Shigeto Nagano's public denial that Japanese soldiers murdered and raped thousands of civilians in the 1937 conquest of of Nanking. Nagano's remarks stirred up old hurts inflicted not only in the ``Rape of Nanking'' but across China and Asia during Japan's imperial march that became World War II. Koreans have protested on the streets of Seoul. Several Asian countries scolded Japanese diplomats, saying the remarks have set back efforts to repair relations for years.
Finally in May, Japanese Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata dismissed Nagano. ``The bad effects caused in neighboring countries has reached a worrisome stage,'' Hata said.
A resignation is not enough for Lu, a native of Taiwan. Basic issues are still hotly disputed. The Chinese estimate Nanking deaths at 300,000, and millions more during World War II. But the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal claims 150,000 died at Nanking. Lu calls that a distorted version, which is taught in Japanese history text books.
An official at the Japanese embassy in Washington said school texts report the ``Rape of Nanking.'' But ``there are various theories in Japan about how many people were actually killed. Some say more than 300,000. Some say less,'' said Kenji Nakano, a spokesman.
Lu said: ``Our whole point is awareness. My daughter is a teenager. She doesn't understand. She asks, `Mom why are you doing this, bringing up something from the past?' ''
Because she knew the story of Shewling Wong and her mother, Heung Moy.
As Moy spoke on her daughter's sunny patio porch, she held a handkerchief tight, occasionally rubbing the jade stone in her necklace. It matches the one that her daughter wears.
Faithfully, the daughter translates her mother's recollection of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong during World War II. It was not Nanking, she said. But it was another display of the brutal treatment of civilians by the Japanese. A school teacher sent puzzled 7-year-old Heung back home that day in 1941. Heung knew something was wrong. Then from the balcony, she saw the army advancing across a field. Mercilessly, they pillaged houses, stores. No water. No food. No electricity.
Heung's father, a businessman, was overseas. Alone, her mother gathered the six children. They fled to the countryside, moving from one village to another. Always trying to stay ahead of the Japanese army.
``We need to eat. We need to go on. That was all I could think,'' Wong translates.
A rickshaw carried Heung's blind grandmother, whose feet were bound. A servant balanced a bamboo bar across her shoulders, with baskets tied to each end. Nestled inside were Heung's infant twin sisters.
On one road, ``we heard bomb sirens and bells. You don't know if it's real or not. People ran in every direction.'' They hid in mountainside holes, in sewage pipes. The servant carrying the babies fled in terror.
Heung hid under a broad, shady tree just as she had learned to do in bomb drills. ``I wait there four, five hours for my mother to come back.''
When she did, Heung's baby sister was on her back. But the twins were gone.
``My mother looked and looked. We don't know where they are.''
There was no time to dwell on it. ``When we don't feel safe anymore, we move on to another village.'' Desperate for food money, Heung's mother sold her to another family.
``I was supposed to be like daughter. But I worked like a slave, washing clothes, carrying water, carrying wood, pulling grass. Then after one year, my mother buy me back. Like pawn shop.''
The twins were still missing.
``We went back to the road we were on, over and over. We hunted everywhere. We did not even know what they look like because they were babies when they disappeared.''
When the Japanese occupation ended four years later, Heung and her family returned to Hong Kong, without the twins. They took out newspaper ads. They visited people said to have been on that road that day. An occasional clue sent them searching in vain.
``Even in 1957, after I married, we try again. But we cannot find them.''
Before leaving China for the United States in 1969, 28 years after that awful day, Heung Moy searched once more for her lost sisters.
The daughter cannot bring herself to translate one last question. ``I won't ask if she still believes they will find them.''
Instead, the daughter speaks her own pain.
``They couldn't be making this up,'' she said. ``I don't want my children to hate the Japanese. But I do want them to know their family history. My children should have compassion for what other people have been through, to be in another person's shoes. I want them to know, they don't need to do this to other people, to try and take away their home.''
by CNB