A proposal to build a memorial to Korean "comfort women" as part of program to honor the city's six sister cities comes before the Glendale City Council Tuesday night. But the council may well be sick of the topic by then.
If the mail that the opinion staff are seeing is an indication, a good bit of the Japanese populace -- and many Japanese Americans -- have decided to oppose this statue. In the last two months, we've received a trickle of letters each day asking the city of Glendale to quash this proposal. It's clearly part of a campaign as most of the letters are exactly the same.
Over the weekend, that trickle turned into a flood.
Why would they care about anything done in a small California city? Mostly because at the root of the "comfort women" story is the allegation of horrific war crimes and a dispute between two Asian countries -- Korea and Japan -- over World War II history. That and the fact that other cities have already erected memorials for "comfort women.
According to our story on the proposal last month: "'Comfort women' is the euphemistic term for what most historians estimate were up to 200,000 girls and women -- mostly Koreans, but also Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipina, Dutch (from the then-Dutch colony of Indonesia) and others -- who were rounded up and forced into brothels for the sexual gratification of Japanese soldiers."
Not so, say letter writers from across the Pacific, claiming it is anti-Japanese propaganda, that those women were prostitutes, not sexual slaves, and besides, most of them were really Japanese.
Below is an example of one of these opposition form letters.
"I hope this email finds you in excellent health.
Now, I learned the news that former Mayor Frank Quintero of Glendale City visited Korea, and approved to erect a "comfort women" memorial in Glendale public property.
HOW AWFUL THING IT IS!
Recent few years, Korean American's organizations that like to insult Japan are spreading anti-Japan propaganda persistently.
Korean's allegation is that during WWII the Imperial Armed Forces of Japan abducted approximately 200,000 young women and forced them into sexual slavery known as "comfort women".
But, that's Korean's allegation is NOT FACT!
Japanese government and South Korean government authorities jointly conducted a survey on comfort women issue in the 1990s. There was no evidence proving participation and forcing nature of the Japanese government and the Japanese military other than former comfort women's testimony. If you believe Korean's allegation as the fact, please present reliable primary source which will fully convince we Japanese.
In the first place, soldiers of Imperial Armed Forces of Japan in China at that time are approximately 1,000,000 maximum. WHY THEY NEED 200,000 PROSTITUTES?
Comfort women were not only Korean, but MORE JAPANESE!
First of all, The House of Representative Resolution 121 in 2007 is based on fabrication.
This expressed that the Government of Japan should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility for its Imperial Armed Forces' coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as "comfort women" from the 1930s through the duration of World War II.
But this Resolution is greatly based on Japanese author Yoshida Seiji's creation "comfort women" which later he confessed a fiction.
Similar resolution has adopted in NY,NJ,IL. All is based on Yoshida's fiction.
Besides, Korean American groups have already put up monuments of comfort women in the public properties in NJ (Editor's note: See photo at right) and NY. Japanese are greatly angry about this disgraceful situation.
Comfort women issue is between Japan and Korea's complicated problem. Therefore, I think that for the other countries like America it is difficult to understand."
Well, that's for sure. Another certain thing? This is going to be an interesting City Council discussion.