Learn from the past to build a better world, ‘comfort women’ historian urges young Chinese
Amid Hong Kong oath-taking row, founder of museum dedicated to girls and women forced to work in wartime brothels urges understanding of country’s history
Young Chinese, including those in Hong Kong, must learn from history if they truly want to make the world a better place, says the founder of Shanghai’s first “comfort women” museum that opened at the weekend.
“It’s always important to learn from history,” said Professor Su Zhiliang of Shanghai Normal University, who spent more than two decades researching the issue of comfort women – a euphemism for girls and women forced to work in Japan’s wartime military brothels.
“For the young generation, it is an empty promise to make the world better without an understanding of history,” Su said.
“It’s advisable for the younger generation in Hong Kong to learn more about Chinese history since 1840. It will eventually benefit the long-term growth of Hong Kong if the young people understand this history.”
It is an empty promise to make the world better without an understanding of history
The public opening of the Chinese “Comfort Women” History Museum on Saturday – at present the only such museum on the mainland – came amid a continuing row about oath-taking in Hong Kong’s legislature, where two young legislators pronounced China as “Chee-na”, similar to the “Shina” reference used by Japan for the country and deemed derogatory since the Sino-Japanese wars.
