A+Korean+girl,+age+11+2




 * Name:** Kim Gil-Young (김길영)
 * Japanese name:** Yido Kichi-Ae
 * Age:** 11
 * Gender:** Female
 * Occupation:** Primary School Student
 * Appearance:** Short, black hair, round face, small eyes, innocent looking
 * Location:** ChoongChung Province, CheonAn-si, Sung Hwang-dong, Korea (충청남도 천안시 성황동)
 * Personality/Quirks/Unique Personality Traits:** Responsible (has to look after 6 siblings), quiet, women-like, mature
 * Family:** Parents, 1 elder brother (Kim Du-Yong), 3 younger brothers, 3 younger sisters
 * Education:** Chunan YoungJung Elementary School (천안 영정 국민학교)
 * Languages you speak:** Korean, Japanese
 * Your main concerns at this time and in life:** She has recently heard about young Korean girls being taken away to foreign lands as sex slaves, also known as the "comfort women". She is worried that one day she and her sisters might be taken away.

__**Diary Entry #1**__
13th October, 1940 Dear Diary, Telling the truth, I don’t like my life. I’m only 11, but my life is always so busy- full of work and sadness. With my elder brother away in China since 3 years ago, I am the eldest daughter of the house. Therefore I have greater responsibilities and jobs. People say I matured early, and that is probably because of all the responsibilities I have been down with. Straight back from school, I rush to out to our farm to help my parents with the work. Despite the fact that we grow great amount of crops, we don’t earn as much money because Japanese people buys it in such big masses at low price, that it leaves us with not much to eat or sell. To afford for our big family, I have to help my parents so that our profit would increase by at least a little bit. I’ve always considered our family ‘poor’, but dad told us that we are at least the ‘lucky ones’. He said that other Korean people often don’t even get to have rice. With lacking rice in Korea, the price is too high for most Koreans to afford.

After doing the farm work, while mother cooks dinner and father takes a rest, I have to do my homework, and at the same time take care of my brothers and sisters. I’m telling you, taking care of seven siblings is not an easy job. With everyone crying and arguing, I can hardly even do my homework! Argh, when will they ever grow up? Luckily we don’t get a lot of homework, or else I would sleep past midnight everyday. My day was passing just as usual- tiring and nothing special.

That night, I lied down to sleep, when I heard my parents talk in a low voice next door. I listened carefully because they sounded so serious. They talked about many things- from the things they read on newspapers, to rumors they heard. They said that our eldest brother, Kim Du-Yong, was being used in the war between Japan and China. They showed anger to why Korean men should fight for Japan, and at the same time showed relief for the fact that my other brothers were too young to go to war. They also talked about Japanese people taking Korean girls and women to Japan to give them factory jobs. It is actually good for those women, but my mother said that she doesn’t want to send me or my sisters. Our family needed more hands for the work, and moreover, she said she can’t really trust the Japanese. She says that she has some kind of a bad feeling about it. What bad feelings? My curiousness of what it would be like to work in Japan was put aside by the thought of my brother.

I remember the time when he was taken to Japan straight after high school. I was crying, telling him not to go, but he only smiled and told me he would come back soon. Thinking back to those times, I now realize how mature my brother was. What a liar...it’s already been three years Du-yong, why aren’t you coming back? Thinking about him and the times we spent together, I got worried and angry by the thought that he was risking his life to fight for Japan in a war that had nothing to do with Korea. He often send us letters about how he is doing, but that is very rare. On his letters, he tells us not to worry and says that life isn’t so bad. But as someone that has been the closest to him and as someone that knew him the most, I always sensed sadness and yearning hidden behind those letters. Our age difference was huge, but we understood each other better than anybody else. Thinking about my brother, I couldn’t get to sleep until the sun started to rise.

__**Diary Entry #3**__
15th October, 1940 Dear Diary, I have never been this happy for the past three years. Although, unfortunately, my boring life stayed the same- school, home, work, school, home, work.... Well that’s not really the point here. Today, everyone (as in the teachers) in school were acting differently. The teachers were behaving unlike their normal selves. They were smiling for the whole day...! ‘What do these weird people have in mind?’ I thought, and probably everyone else thought the same. (By the way, no one in our school likes the sensei. They always scare the heck out of us with those swords they carry around school.) It is very unlikely to see our teachers smile. And even if they did smile, it was always becase they had something secret and evil going on in their minds. Every time they smiled, something bad will happen to the students, which I don’t want to mention on this jolly day. Anyways, today was one of those days, where all teachers looked happy and joyful. Seeing them made us wonder and worry about what they had in mind and what will happen to us by the end of the day. We only hoped that nothing bad will happen to us. And guess what? Nothing bad happened! The teachers smiled at us until the end of the day and no students were upset. Why were they smiling? I had no clue, but I was happy just for the fact that the teachers were all smiling.

I came home and told my parents about all the teachers being happy today. And this was when I found out why they were smiling for the whole day. My parents told me that it was because Japan had another victory over colonial powers. According to what my parents heard, the Japanese were enjoying their victories over several colonial powers in East Asia. Although I try not to think this way, I really can’t help being jealous of Japan. I mean, why can’t Korea be like Japan? Why can’t we be strong and powerful? Why should we be taken under control of the Japanese? I just can’t stop being jealous. While I was filling myself up with these “unfair” thoughts, my parents told me a good news. A letter came from my brother! Boy, today really is the best day I had in three years. I rushed to open the letter. Although I still sensed sadness and hardship, I was just glad to receive his letter and know that he was alive. Knowing how much I missed Du-Yong, my parents always let me keep the letter. I put the letter safely in the closet.

__**Diary Entry #2**__
22nd November, 1940 Dear Diary, Well, it has been very long since I wrote this diary. Until yesterday, I was too busy with more housework to do than before. How did I suddenly get time to write this diary again? Its because I’m not working in the farm with my parents anymore. In fact, I’m not even going to school anymore. Me and my sister is, at the moment being taken away by the Japanese to work in Japanese factories. Our parents’ concerns have became true. Despite my parents’ strong oppose, me and my sister were pulled out of the house and dragged onto this ship. We were literally forced to go. We heard that there were actually some women who wanted to go, but that’s them- we don’t want to go. We are still young and we want to be with our parents. Why should they force us to go? Why should it only be women and not men, when we will be working in a factory? Won’t men be more efficient? With anger and sadness, all these questions are rushing into my head. Thinking about our parents, me and my sister are crying our eyes out. Other people are not crying, but they don’t seem to be too happy either- maybe some.

Ah, I must have fallen asleep crying. After crying and having a sleep, I feel much better than before. It seems like its been quite a while, but we still haven’t arrived. Are we really heading to Japan? According to what I heard from others, it doesn’t take this long to get to Japan. Everything is so suspicious.

Feeling a little better, I started taking interest on the people around me. I asked them how they were made to go to Japan. Some said that they saw the advertisements and wanted to come, and some said that they were persuaded by the Japanese. But most were forced. Looking around, I realized that the whole ship was full of Korean girls and women. There were some girls as young as 11 years old, and some as old as 45. With these many people around, I felt much better and much more relieved. However, I can’t stop having this bad feeling. Only one question is in my head right now: ‘What is going to happen to us?’

The ship has finally arrived. We are now getting off the ship. Oh, what is going to happen to us?

__**Diary Entry #4**__
23rd November, 1940 Dear Diary, We got off the ship and walked quite a long time. It was amazing to see Japan for the first time. Everyone was looking around and was curious to see Japan for the first time in their whole entire life. Without much time to be amazed, we were pulled by the Japanese soldiers as if being chased. While rushing through the streets, I constantly heard people talking amongst themselves. I thought ‘whatever’, but wait a minute. That wasn’t Japanese. As soon as I realized that the people weren’t speaking Japanese, I listened more carefully to verify myself. Oh no, I wasn’t sure what language they were speaking, but it was definitely not Japanese. We are not in Japan! Where are we? Where are we going? Why are we here? Why did they bring us here? With thousands of questions in my head, I tried to calm myself down by thinking that we were just having a visit in this land. But my hope broke apart when we entered a house. We were assigned rooms and were just left there. This is where we are going to work?

It wasn’t really a pleasure atmosphere in the house. We asked the women that were already there about what was going on, where we were, and why we were here. But no one would answer. They just stared into space as if waiting for something unpleasant to come. They all looked so depressed and hurt the I began to feel more and more uneasy and afraid as time passed.

Dark began to fall over the house, and still, no one gave us a hint about where we were. I couldn’t tell what time it was. A few minutes later, a crowd of soldiers came in the house, and this was when I started to understand the situation. The soldiers took one women each and sometimes several soldiers took one women. Some girls resisted, but all that came back were severe beatings from multiple men. We had no choice but to accept what came to us. I don’t even know how many men we satisfied that day. But I guarantee it was more than thirty. The soldiers were all gone by sun rise. Many girls -including us- were crying, with physical and mental injuries. But the women that were there before us didn’t cry, they accepted it as if it was a normal happening. Finally one women started talking. “You see now?” she said. She told us that this dirty work was our job and daily life here. She explained briefly that we were tricked by the Japanese and that we are now in Shanghai- not Japan. The thought that this will happen again tonight horrified me, but moreover, I was worried about my sister. She is younger than me, so she must have had a greater shock. However, she was rather calm. Although she was crying, she said that she was fine. Knowing that she only said that to keep me less worried, it broke my heart. Oh, mother and father, what is going to happen to us?


 * Images:**
 * http://image.aladdin.co.kr/Community/mypaper/pimg_717978153536175.jpg (http://blog.aladdin.co.kr/bluefox?CommunityType=AllView&page=6)
 * http://distribution.asianamericanmedia.org/wp-content/stills/films/full/186.jpg
 * http://students.umf.maine.edu/~welchca/ComfortWomenTruck.jpg
 * http://www.japanfocus.org/data/comfortstn.shangha.jpg
 * Information:**
 * "Japanese Comfort Women: One Woman's Story." //Solidarity Philippines Australia Network (SPAN)//. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 May 2010. .
 * "네이버 :: 지식iN." //네이버 지식iN :: 지식과 내가 함께 커가는 곳//. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 May 2010. .