Interpretation of the microhistory of the |
Editor| Microhistory Interpretation
At the end of 2018, a documentary called "What This Life" was broadcast.
The documentary tells the story of Japan's World War II orphan Nakajima Toyohachi who was raised by Chinese and searched for relatives across borders.
Soon after, Yuhachi Nakajima, who lives in Tokyo, Japan, receives a commissioned message from China.
The client's name is Li Qianlong, a retired employee in the town of Tokyo in Ning'an City, Heilongjiang.
01
The matter began with Li Qianlong's visit home once.
That day, as usual, Li Qianlong went to visit his widowed mother-in-law Huang Guixiang.
When I came home on weekdays, my mother-in-law was talking and laughing, although she lived alone, she lived happily every day.
But this time, when he returned home, Li Qianlong found that his mother-in-law Huang Guixiang was alone, hiding in the house and secretly crying.
At this point, Li Qianlong can be anxious.
"Mom, your eldest girl is back?"
"Nothing."
"And your son has returned?"
Huang Guixiang shook his head again.
"What's the point of not crying without you?"
Huang Guixiang just shook his head and didn't say anything.
Thinking that the mother-in-law only missed her daughter and son, Li Qianlong did not ask any more questions.
A few days later, Li Qianlong went home to visit his mother-in-law.
Just like last time, her mother-in-law Huang Guixiang was secretly crying alone in the room.
Li Qianlong felt that things were strange, so he kept asking his mother-in-law Huang Guixiang why she was crying.
This question actually came out of the earth-shattering big secret.
Huang Guixiang said that when she was eight years old, her mother suffered from tuberculosis and her life was in danger.
On the occasion of her death, Huang Guixiang's mother called Huang Guixiang to the head of the bed:
"You are a Japanese child, and it was your second uncle Huang Jingzhi who brought you back, in the 'Muqi Pioneering Group.'"
With that, Huang Guixiang's mother pulled out a wooden comb from the drawer and handed it to Huang Guixiang:
"This is left by your Japanese mother, you must keep it!"
Seeing the small comb that her adoptive mother took out, Huang Guixiang realized that she was originally a Japanese.
During World War II, seduced by the Japanese Kwantung Army, Huang Guixiang's parents crossed the ocean and came with a large army to the Japanese pioneer regiment stationed in China at that time.
Because of the war, the family was displaced.
Because Huang Guixiang's adoptive parents could not have children, Huang Guixiang's uncle Huang Jingzhi took Huang Guixiang, who was still young, back to his home for adoption.
Not long after, Huang Guixiang's adoptive mother died.
After the death of his adoptive mother, Huang Guixiang's adoptive father, Huang Jingwen, went around alone with Huang Guixiang to beg for a living.
Huang Guixiang has been speaking slower than others since elementary school, so she is always bullied by others.
When she was in school, there were often classmates who isolated her, which made Huang Guixiang even have the idea of dropping out of school.
Every time Huang Guixiang came home and cried to her adoptive father, her adoptive father would encourage her to study seriously.
The generous and stoic adoptive father is Huang Guixiang's solid backing.
With the encouragement of her adoptive father, Huang Guixiang successfully completed her studies.
In 1959, Huang Guixiang taught at a private school in the town of Tokyo.
After being introduced, Huang Guixiang met her husband who worked in the public security bureau and got married and had children.
After getting married, Huang Guixiang took her adoptive father to the place where she and her lover lived.
Holding the idea of "you raise me small, I raise you old", Huang Guixiang and his wife sent their adoptive father to the end of their pension.
Although he has always hidden the idea of finding relatives in his heart, because he is afraid that his identity will affect her husband's career, Huang Guixiang has always hidden her true identity from her family.
Since 1972, Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations have gradually returned to normal.
In Huang Guixiang's heart, the idea of looking for relatives became stronger and stronger, but he gave up again and again in contradictions.
With the death of her husband and the fact that her children have all started a family, Huang Guixiang, who lives alone, will miss her biological parents even more when she is bored.
Every time he thought of his biological parents, whom he had never met, Huang Guixiang would cry alone.
It was not until these two sneaky cries were discovered by his son-in-law Li Qianlong, and under Li Qianlong's repeated questioning, Huang Guixiang gave up his life in its entirety.
Looking at the seventy-year-old mother-in-law who didn't even know her true identity, Li Qianlong felt a pang of pain in his heart.
He secretly decided in his heart that he must help his mother-in-law find his biological parents.
Where to find it?
Where to ask?
How to start?
Just when Li Qianlong was at a loss, the broadcast of a documentary ignited Li Qianlong's hope of finding relatives for his mother-in-law Huang Guixiang.
02
In order to verify his identity, Huang Guixiang and his family collected some materials and reported them to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
However, each time it was rejected by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare for insufficient evidence.
People who had heard that Huang Guixiang was a Japanese child, such as Reiko Suetomo and Tokie Sumoto, had also passed away.
The hope of searching for relatives is getting slimmer and dimmer, and Huang Guixiang is almost about to dispel the idea of looking for relatives.
- Huang Guixiang's family saw the documentary "What This Life" on TV.
In this documentary, Huang Guixiang sees the Japanese orphan Nakajima Yuhachi who has the same experience as himself.
Nakajima's successful search for relatives gave the Huang Guixiang family great encouragement, and after several turns, Li Qianlong contacted Nakajima Yuhachi in Tokyo, Japan, for help.
Huang Guixiang told Nakajima that he was raised in Muqi Village, next to the town of Shalan in Ning'an, Heilongjiang Province.
The village of Muqi, where Huang Guixiang was raised, is close to the town of Shalan, where Nakajima's childhood lived.
According to the information provided by Huang Guixiang, Nakajima Yuhachi also began to investigate.
After investigation, Nakajima Discovered that one of the Japanese Pioneer Regiments, called the Yuri Pioneer Regiment, was headquartered in the village of Kiki.
With a clue, Nakajima, who lives in Tokyo, Japan, began to contact Akita Prefecture in Japan to find the remaining members of the "Yuri Pioneer Group".
But the investigation soon went down.
After consulting the information, no one in the Yuli Pioneering Group had ever placed a child in the local area.
Just when the investigation was about to fall into a desperate situation, a message provided by Huang Guixiang made the investigation usher in a new turning point again.
Huang Guixiang said that in her memory, there was an aunt named Zhu Yanqiu who always took good care of her.
And this Aunt Zhu is also a japanese woman left in China after the war.
Chu Yanqiu, whose real name was Tomiko Sakurada, later returned to Japan and passed away.
Incredibly, the name Tomiko Sakurada happened to appear in the list of the "Hachijojima" pioneer group where Nakajima Yuhachi was located.
It is possible that Huang Guixiang was not a child of the Yuri Pioneer Group, but from the Hachijo island Pioneer Group.
At this time, Nakajima Yuhachi suddenly remembered that in the Hachijojima Pioneer Group, there was an old man named Hasegawa Zenichiro, who looked like Huang Guixiang.
Nakajima learns that Hasegawa Zenichiro has been looking for his daughter left in China.
However, until his death, there was no news of his daughter.
In the records of the pioneer group, Nakajima Yuhachi found the name of Hasegawa Zenichiro's daughter, Yayoi Hasegawa.
Yayoi Kayatanigawa, birth June 13, 1945.
Two months later, Japan was defeated.
The pioneers were abandoned by the Japanese Kwantung Army and began to flee.
The records also show that Yayoi Hasegawa was fostered in the home of a man named "Right" in Wamori Village.
Is there a surname "right" in the Chinese?
Is Huang Guixiang Yayoi Hasegawa?
"Right", who is it?
With a series of questions, Nakajima Contacted Li Qianlong.
Li Qianlong, who received the news, immediately rushed to Hesheng Village and brought back an exciting news.
03
"Mr. Nakajima, that's not 'right,' the one who adopted Yayoi Hasegawa is called 'Liu Hao.'"
Liu Hao has died, but his granddaughter still lives in Hesheng Village.
Li Qianlong found the home of Liu Hao's granddaughter, and as soon as he explained his intentions, Liu Hao's granddaughter Liu Fengbo burst into tears.
For this moment, the Liu family has been waiting for three generations.
It turned out that Liu Hao had always been thinking about Yayoi Hasegawa.
In 1945, when Japan was defeated, Hasegawa Senzo was conscripted into the army.
Because of the sudden death of his son and the insanity of his wife, Hasegawa Shanichiro had to entrust his wife and daughter under the age of one year to the care of the Liu family.
In difficult times, the Liu family has too many children, and life is difficult to maintain.
In desperation, Liu Hao's wife carried Liu Hao on her back and sent Hasegawa Yayoi to a childless family in a neighboring village to raise him.
Liu Fengbo said that when Yayoi Hasegawa was taken away by his grandmother, he still had a wooden comb on his body.
And this comb coincided with the one left to her by Huang Guixiang's adoptive mother.
Because of this incident, Liu Hao and his wife argued for a lifetime.
Later, Hasegawa's wife also died of illness in the local area.
After Hasegawa Returned to Japan, He searched for his daughter, but there was no news.
In 1981, the 69-year-old Hasegawa Senzo came to China again to look for his daughter, but it still failed.
When he left China, Hasegawa Left his only group photo with his daughter to the Liu family.
The search for relatives was fruitless, and Liu Hao's family had to keep this old photo.
Before Liu Fengbo's father died, he was still entrusting Liu Fengbo to keep this photo well.
In the future, when Hasegawa Yayoi comes to look for relatives, he must hand over the photo to Hasegawa Yayoi.
After more than seventy years, the Liu family waited for three generations, and finally waited for Yayoi Hasegawa.
Liu Fengbo also finally fulfilled the long-cherished wish of his father and grandfather, and handed over the photo to Huang Guixiang.
"If someone comes to me, this is my hometown."
This is a song that Huang Guixiang often hums in his spare time.
Where is my hometown? It was Huang Guixiang's lifelong question.
She has lived in Tokyo all her life, but her real hometown is In Japan, which has crossed the sea.
Like Huang Guixiang, thousands of Japanese orphans fled to China by their biological parents during World War II.
More than 10,000 Chinese adoptive parents have adopted these orphans.
Most of them came from the northeast, which was the most affected by war.
Standing in front of her biological mother's grave, Huang Guixiang shouted "Mother" over and over again in Japanese.
"Yayoi", which means "new life" in Japanese.
Huang Guixiang said: This land in China has given her a new life, she shed the blood of the Japanese, but it looks like Chinese flesh.
Huang Guixiang, who is in her seventies, finally knows her true identity, but she will always be grateful to China and to all that her Adoptive Parents brought her, just like her name - Yayoi.