The ‘Comfort Women’ in China: Survivors and Their Sufferings Are Expected to be Invisible A documentary on the Chinese surviving ‘comfort women’ has become the voice of this voiceless group since it has been shown in August in China. The estimated number of the so-called ‘comfort women’ — who are forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II — ranges from 20,000 to as high as 360,000 to 410,000. However, there were only 22 known survivors in China when the director, Ke Guo, began to work on this documentary Twenty-Two in 2014. It is undoubted that Twenty-Two has become a milestone in Chinese documentary: its box office takings were the highest ever for Chinese documentary, the film and ‘comfort women’ issues became …show more content…
Different from most documentaries on the similar topics, Twenty-Two never asked these women about their painful experience directly, instead, it is a gaze at their current situations — peaceful, simple, and even hopeful and optimistic. They said, “The world is so wonderful. I will live to witness it even if it means eating only wild vegetation.” “I hope China and Japan can make peace with each other. No more wars. Once the war began, a lot of people would die.” It is a great progress that this documentary doesn’t try to attract attention to this group by simply treating them as vulnerable victims or evidence of the history, here they are ordinary and lovely grandmas. Just as the director hoped, audiences would accept and care about these women when they know them and love …show more content…
Women are required to be chaste and loyal to their husbands. Those who were sexually violated are thought to be ‘dirty’ and shameful, especially when they were violated by the enemies, which also means the humiliation of national dignity. It was not uncommon that the victims and the children born of rape were insulted and alienated by their own families and communities after they escaped from the comfort women center. Consequently, most surviving ‘comfort women’ are unwilling to talk about their experience for fear of stigmatization and discrimination. Under the huge pressure from the deeply-rooted gender biases, a large number of survivors intended to make themselves ‘invisible’ by concealing their experiences or move to another