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Paper short abstract

This paper examines Haneda’s depiction of the long-neglected voices of the children and women of the Japanese settlers left behind in Manchukuo after Japan’s surrender. This paper contextualises Haneda's film within the recent Memory Struggles in Asia.

Paper long abstract

This paper seeks to re-examine the history of Japanese colonisation in Manchuria through the long-neglected voices of the children of the settlers who travelled to Manchukuo during the final years of the war and were left behind after the Japan’s surrender, as they are captured by Haneda Sumiko’s full-length documentary The Japanese Settlers to the Manchuria and Inner Mongolia of Mainland China (Aa manmōkaitaku-dan, 2008). This work is contextualised within the recent Memory Struggles that have proliferated in recent years in East Asia. Through the testimonies documented in the film, it will be discussed the ambiguous position of the Japanese settlers in the colonial enterprise: while they were part of the violent militarist structures in Manchukuo, they also ended up being victims of them. The topic is addressed within the broader revival of the memory concerning the Japanese settlers in Manchuria: first, it considers the involvement of the former settlers in a recent trial that took place in Tokyo aimed at establishing the Japanese government’s responsibility for the so-called “Chinese residual orphans” (Chūgoku zanryū minashigo); second, it examines the connections between the former settlers and the Chinese community at the Japanese Friendship Park, built by the Chinese authorities in Fangzheng. Why were these settlers recognised as victims by Chinese institutions before being acknowledged as such by Japan? Why most of the victims were women? Why were those who managed to repatriate decades later stigmatised in Japanese society? The presentation will cast light into these questions by focusing on historically neglected voices in this tragedy: the testimonies of women and the former children of the settlements. The research presented here has been carried out under the project TRAMEVIC (Transnational Memories in East Asian Visual Culture) funded by the Valencia Region Research Council Ref. CIGE/2023/066.