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At the end of 1954, a port in Yokosuka, Japan, where people gathered.
At a glance, there were black-haired Asians and blonde Caucasian in the crowd.
On the seashore near the cruise ship, a brightly dressed woman stood in front of an American officer, and she couldn't stop crying.
The American officer stroked the corner of the woman's eye to wipe away her tears, and the officer held her hand, where there was a clear emerald ring.
The officer said, "It's okay, I will definitely come back and marry you." ”
The two looked at each other, and then couldn't help but kiss together.
When the sound of the cruise siren sounded again, the officer and the girl said goodbye, and the girl watched the officer's figure disappear into the crowd of people entering the cruise ship.
When the cruise ship set sail, the girl stood on the shore, she lifted the hem of her skirt and ran with the cruise.
When the cruise ship left the port, the girl stood on the shore and sang, the song made the people in the port feel more sad about parting, and the people who remained could not stop wiping their tears.
What's going on here? Will the girl Mary be reunited with the officers?
"Mary Discriminated Against Discrimination"
Fast forward to 1989, in a barbershop in Yokohama, Japan, when Mary pushed the door in, the originally noisy barbershop suddenly quieted for a moment.
Everyone set their eyes on Mary, and these eyes contained malice that could not be hidden.
Mary, perhaps accustomed to such gazes, ignored these hostile looks and walked freely to the barbershop.
Mary was seventy years old at this time, and she was tall and tall, but her face was heavily powdered. It should have been an amiable age, but it made her look particularly weird.
Seeing Mary enter the house, a middle-aged woman covered her nose and said in a strange voice:
"How can anyone come to this store to spend?" If she comes here again, I definitely won't come to this shop in the future. ”
As soon as the women's voice came out, other guests responded.
It sounded like a complaint, but the woman's volume didn't slow down a bit, and everyone in the barbershop heard her.
The barbershop lady's face also changed, looking at her frowning acquaintance, the barbershop lady had to stand up and be the evil person.
She stopped in front of Mary and said apologetically:
"I'm sorry, can I ask you to change to a barbershop in the future?"
Ming Huang was placed in front of Mary, but her face did not change much, after being kicked out the door, Mary just bowed, she regretfully lengthened her voice and said: "This way, okay." ”
Then Mary turned and left the barbershop, and when the door closed, Mary still seemed to be able to hear the barbershop people talking about her full of disgust.
Mary has been more than ten years into days like this, and she seems to have long been accustomed to being alone.
Mary knows that she is full of gossip, and everyone who is close to Mary will be wrapped up in these malices, so those who are close to her will be driven away by Mary without exception.
Not long ago, the lady of the makeup shop that Mary frequented saw that Mary was alone and wanted to invite Mary to dinner, but Mary refused.
Mary's tone of rejection was not polite, she frowned and said: "Who are you, please don't be so close to me." ”
Japanese prostitutes Image from the Internet
And before Mary went far, she heard the other husband's complaint to his wife:
"What are you doing? Don't you know this woman yet? She just came out of the police station a few days ago and boasted that she would always be a prostitute! ”
"You are so close to this woman, be careful that you will be treated as a prostitute one day!"
Mary shook her head when she heard this, she had expected these comments for a long time.
"From Rich Lady to Comfort Woman"
Mary's miserable life was doomed from the time she was cornered and saw the job advertisement on the side of the road.
Mary's original name is not Mary, her real name is Xigang Yukiko.
Being able to come up with such a beautiful name for Mary shows that Mary's parents once had great expectations for Mary, and they loved their daughter.
Mary was born into a wealthy family, and although Mary was a girl, her parents did not discriminate and allowed Mary to be educated, read and write, play the piano and paint.
Japanese beauty of the last century
Unfortunately, Mary was born at a very turbulent age, and soon after Mary became an adult, her father died due to war, and soon after her mother died of grief.
The family left only Mary and her brother, and if her brother was a good person, Mary would not have been exiled to her current life.
Unfortunately, Mary's brother is a hypocrite, and in order to monopolize his parents' property, he chooses to throw his own sister out of the house.
Mary was alone and exiled into society, even if she used to be knowledgeable, but at this time, everyone's reputation as a lady show could not be eaten.
And this period coincided with the defeat of Japan, and the situation in all of Japan was grim, not to mention a girl like Mary who had no chicken power, and many young adults could not find a job.
Just when Mary was almost starving to death on the street, she saw an advertisement on the road - a club was recruiting female waiters, not only with food and clothing, but also with a good income.
Mary was immediately attracted by the news, she compared herself with the advertised recruitment conditions, and thought that she was very satisfied, so Mary almost immediately ran to apply.
Mary wasn't alone in her desperate need of finding a job, and within three months, 60,000 Japanese women had signed up.
These girls thought they had found the job they wanted, but they did not expect that the abyss awaited them.
When Japan invaded other countries, it always regarded women from other countries as prostitutes and playthings.
Therefore, after the defeat, the US military led by MacArthur was stationed in Japan, and the Japanese side took it for granted that its own women would also be the target of manipulation.
In order to prevent women in Japan from suffering, the upper echelons of the Japanese government at that time had a method - to exchange the sacrifice of a small number of women for the safety of women throughout the country.
Yes, the ad Mary saw wasn't a serious job advertisement at all, it was actually looking for "comfort women."
These people looked for suitable facial features from the women who signed up, and made these women comfort women to appease the American troops stationed in Japan.
Mary's parents raised her to be beautiful and intelligent, but at this time it became a help to push Mary to the cage.
Mary is young and beautiful, she has a culture to sing and English, and when she showed these talents to the interviewer, Mary was immediately accepted.
She was taken inside along with the other admitted girls, while there was a long line of American troops waiting outside to have sex with them.
When the first American soldier entered the house and roughly tore Mary's clothes open, Mary knew what kind of magic cave she had stepped into.
Here, Mary could not escape if she wanted to, and the American troops who came to have sex with her came one after another, and Mary once received fifty-five people at most in a day.
Image from the Internet
It was the darkest days of Mary's life, and she almost thought she was going to die here, and these days didn't last long - because these American troops didn't like to wear condoms, the disease quickly spread in society.
Seeing that the situation was getting worse, in 1946, Japan finally closed the comfort center.
"The strangest street girl"
The comfort center was closed, and Mary, who was once regarded by the government as "saving the women of the country", was also rejected by the government.
The girls came innocent, eager for a future life, but when they were released, they were given the reputation of "comfort women."
People outside society shunned these girls, and even some girls' families did not want to accept them anymore, but threw them out of the house.
The girls were homeless, walking the streets, forced to pick up the skill they had learned in comfort shelters – picking up customers.
They all became prostitutes on the street, and Mary was no exception.
But Mary was also different from other prostitutes, who relied on coquettishness to attract customers, and Mary never used such means.
Always dressed in a white dress and white lace gloves, Mary stood quietly at the corner of the street, with the prostitutes.
She has a different temperament, obviously a low-level person who lives by selling her body, but she looks like a rich girl who is high, at least during this time.
Mary's temperament is something that no other prostitute can learn, and men eat this set the most, and they like to pull women high up into the quagmire.
So even if Mary doesn't take the initiative to solicit customers, as long as she stands there, there are still many men who come to Mary to try to spend the Spring Festival with her.
Mary is the strangest of the street girls, others are the guests choose the street women, and here is Mary choosing the guests.
Even many American soldiers stationed in Japan heard Mary's name, everyone called her "Her Majesty the Queen" in the dust, and American officers asked Mary by name.
When Mary was a comfort woman, she was tormented by the Americans and did not look good, she was not good at American life except for accidents, but what she did not expect was that her future was also an American.
While Mary was standing on the street, another American officer heard about Mary's reputation and wanted to meet her.
At that time, Mary thought that there was another American who was going to spend spring dinner with her, she went to meet the officer, and when the two were in bed, Mary naturally took off her clothes.
But when she unbuttoned, the officer stopped Mary.
They didn't have sex that night, the officer just let Mary lie beside him, and they hugged each other for the night, and the officer patiently listened to Mary tell her story.
After that night, Mary fell in love with the officer, and she even followed the officer from Yokohama to Yokosuka.
The two fell in love, and after the warmth, the officer gave Mary a promise token, which was an emerald ring.
The officer himself brought the ring to Mary's hand, and he swore to Mary that he would marry Mary and make Mary his wife.
And after Mary had been adrift for so long, her heart seemed to finally come ashore, and she waited for the officer's promise.
"To promise to stand on the street for decades"
Unfortunately, things did not turn out as Mary had hoped, and soon the American officers were recalled to their hometowns, and the two separated in the harbor.
Before leaving, the officer kept holding Mary's hand, and he told Mary that he would definitely come back, so that Mary must wait for him.
After the officers left Japan, Mary returned to her former lonely life, and she returned to her old profession and supported herself by standing on the street.
But at this time, Mary is also different from before, although she is a street girl, but there is a person buried in her heart.
In the past, when she stood on the street and had sex with others, Mary could do anything, but after this, Mary did not allow others to kiss her, she was waiting for the person who could really kiss her to find her.
In order to allow the American officer to find herself at first sight after returning to Japan, Mary stayed at the place where the two first met, wearing the white dress she had met and the lace-rimmed gloves on her hands.
She picks up customers here day after day, year after year, and has almost become a "living signboard" here, and the locals call Marie "Yokohama Mary".
It wasn't until 1980 that a fire destroyed Mary's winery, and Mary had nowhere to go, but she didn't want to leave.
Mary took a chair and began sleeping in the streets of Yokohama.
Japan in the eighties
She was still wearing that set of white lace, but at this time, Mary was old and declining, and in order to make the American officer recognize herself, Mary could only paint her face with a thick pink.
She wore heavy makeup on her face, with a miserable white base, exaggerated eye shadow and crimson lipstick, and her original face could hardly be seen, and Mary was still wandering the streets of Yokohama in this posture.
At this time, Mary was like a monster, whether it was her terrible makeup or old age, so many people in Yokohama hated Mary.
The police also took Mary to the police station more than twenty times, each time to persuade Mary not to continue to be a street girl, to live her life well, and not to scare people on the streets like a wandering ghost.
But every time she was released by the police, Mary still did not change, Mary said to the police: "I used to be a prostitute, then I will always be a prostitute, I will always be a prostitute." ”
It wasn't until 1995, when Mary disappeared from the streets of Yokohama, that the Japanese began to miss the wandering Mary.
They began to inquire about Mary, who had decided to return to her hometown in 1995, and she went to a nursing home in her hometown, this time living under the name of Yukiko Nishioka.
When Mary left, the people of Yokohama seemed to be stunned, and they began to miss this old lady.
In 2001, Mary briefly appeared in front of the camera, at this time Mary no longer painted exaggerated makeup, she looked like an ordinary strong old lady.
In 2005, Mary passed away due to illness.
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Text | Poetry Rain
Editor|Cissy