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"It's more than a feeling of awkwardness, it's a feeling of degradation and humiliation as our history, which is the world's history, is constantly being refuted and dismissed and this affects us so very deeply, to the point that lately living here has become more uncomfortable."
So said Ji-yoon Shin, a 26-year-old trainee accountant, who's been living in Tokyo, Japan's buzzing metropolis, since she graduated from university, with regards to the Japanese government' s recent remarks and U-turn on the "comfort women" issue.
Shin said for the best part she loved her life in Japan, the relative safety, the convenience, the food and said she has some amazing friends, both Japanese and foreign.
"I have nothing against Japanese people, I can speak Japanese, have wonderful friends and even have a Japanese elderly couple that have kind of 'adopted me.' They invite me to their house and we go out for dinner from time to time, it's really nice," Shin told Xinhua.
"But the Japanese government now backtracking on the comfort women issue again, for the umpteenth time, is infuriating and leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Even those with a modicum of understanding about historical issues know the truth, but I worry that some uninformed people here may just believe what they're hearing," Shin said.
"It's this thought that makes me feel particularly uncomfortable about living here."
The widely-used term "comfort women" is a euphemism used to describe the hundreds of thousands of girls, including teenagers, and women, largely from the Korean Peninsular, but also from other Asian nations, who were forcibly coerced into working in military brothels and serving members of the Imperial Japanese Army, during its brutal wartime occupation of the peninsular.
Shin's renewed "discomfort" being here, as she described it, follows recent remarks made by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, stating that official records from neither the military nor the government prove "comfort women" were forced into sexual service and that the government had found no evidence of "forced mobilization" of the women by the military in official documents.
The prime minister maintained in his remarks made in front of a budget committee in Japan's upper house of parliament, that the government's fundamental position on the "comfort women" issue had not changed and that no war crimes pertaining to the actions of the Imperial Japanese Army before and during WWII had been recognized by the state.
Abe also remarked that all of Japan's legal obligations related to the issue had been settled when ties were normalized with South Korea in 1965.
"To be honest I was thrilled when Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye finally met for the first time face-to-face towards the end of last year, doubly-so when Japan finally apologized for the 'comfort women' issue, but recently it seems that all of this was a bit farcical, I just don't get it?" Shin, who hails from Busan, South Korea's second-largest city, told Xinhua, on the government's latest flip-flop over the issue.
Abe, by proxy, renewed an official apology for the wartime travesty committed by Japanese military in WWII during its occupation, expressing his most sincere apologies and remorse to all those who suffered immeasurable and incurable physical and mental wounds as "comfort women."
Japan conceded that its current government recognizes its responsibility over the issue and the "grave affront to the honor and dignity of large numbers of women," caused by the Imperial Japanese Army during its occupation, which seemingly cemented a new accord struck between Tokyo and Seoul to once and for all put the issue to bed.
But along with Abe backtracking on his own and his government's stance, a stipulation following a deal struck that would only see Tokyo pay a promised 1 billion yen (about 8.3 million U.S. dollars) into a South Korean fund for the 46 surviving comfort women, if Seoul removes a statue of tribute to the women from near the Japanese embassy in Seoul, has compounded a sense of disbelief, despondency and ill-ease among South Koreans living here.
"I'm no expert on politics, but I know it was Japan's (foreign minister Fumio) Kishida who brokered the deal in South Korea and delivered Japan's apology from Abe on his behalf. But now I'm hearing that Kishida himself has also rowed back since then," Hyun-woo Bai, a 30-something software developer, working and living in the capital here, told Xinhua.
Bai was referring to Kishida saying in parliament recently that the women forced to work in Japan's military brothels during the war should not be called "sex slaves," saying the term "doesn't match the facts."
"I think the term 'comfort women' really doesn't do the victims justice. 'Sex slaves' far more accurately describes the abomination, as the women were held captive against their will and repeatedly raped. Japan, as usual, is trying to rewrite its history, but thankfully most of the world knows otherwise," Bai said.
"For a country with so many merits, and of course its my choice to live here otherwise I'd leave obviously, the government's actions are utterly backwards. Their thoughts, words and actions just don't match up. It's bizarre and disappointing," he said.
"The rise of the right (wing) here, does make life difficult sometimes. When I see stuff on TV and in the press about hate speeches towards Koreans I sometime feel, even when I'm with my Japanese friends and colleagues, that there's an 'elephant in the room', so to speak," Bai explained. "It's not a nice feeling."
As with Shin and Bai, South Koreans living in Japan and Japanese with Korean ancestry born here have also taken to social media to express their irritation and feelings of discomfort over recent events.
One user wrote on Twitter, "Japan, once again, is using money to try and buy its way out of trouble. It's pathetic!" another remarked, "Typical Abe, saying one thing and doing the exact opposite. Why is this clown still the leader?"
FaceBook has also been lit up with similar remarks recently. One striking post which carried a photo from the huge rallies held outside parliament here last year, ahead of the passage of new war bills, depicting Abe as Hitler, read, "Japan is my home. I'm as Japanese as I am Korean. But right now I find everything that's going on in politics here absolutely disgraceful. Not only is it provocative and against peace and have worrying implications for the country's future safety, but for people like me, it's forcing us to choose sides, when I'm a living example of what 'should' be harmony between Japan and Korea.
Others, including Japanese citizens, took aim at inflammatory comments made recently by Yoshitaka Sakurada, a former senior vice minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology, to a group of other ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers stating that "comfort women" were prostitutes and not victims.
He also said people are being heavily misled by propaganda work handling them as if they were victims and that because "comfort women" are hesitant to say they were prostitutes, he suspected wrong perceptions may have been spread in Japan and South Korea.
"This guy needs to study history. Although I wouldn't recommend he use a Japanese textbook!" quipped a South Korean resident here on Twitter.
Another wrote, "If these comments came from regular citizens they'd unforgivable. But they're being made by the people running our country. It must be 1939 again, a Japanese user wrote with reference to the start of WWII."
While Japan has taken both steps forward and backwards recently towards resolving its long-standing quarrel with South Korea, with Japan's current stance being that its has suitably atoned for its wartime abuses of Korean women before and during the war, in a previous pact with Seoul, how Japan plans to restore the honor and dignity of "comfort women" from other countries who were similarly brutalized by Japan during the war, still remains a burning question.
Tens of thousands of women aside from Koreans, from then occupied countries comprising women from China as well as the Philippines, Taiwan, Myanmar, Indonesia, and those from the Netherlands and a contingent of Australian women, were also forced to service Japanese soldiers at wartime sex camps.
The Imperial Japanese Army also forced its own nationals to work in some of its military brothels.
"There is no harm or disgrace in admitting you're wrong, in fact it's an act of honesty and bravery. Trying to squirm your way out of past wrongdoings by telling lies or writing cheques to try and buy your way out of owning up is a disgrace. It's infantile, immoral and just ensures things will never move forward."
"I was taught this as a child. Yet here we are watching an entire government doing just this. As much as it's nauseating, it' s just so sad," said Shin.
