Second- and Third-Generation Returnees from China Who Are Forgotten and Seen as ‘Others’— Seminar Series on Migration History and Multicultural Understanding in Japan

Many Japanese people who had moved to China before World War II were unable to return after Japan’s surrender, and many children and women remained displaced in China. The issue of the “returnee from China” including these children and women is almost forgotten in Japanese society today. Yamazaki opened his talk with an example of how the issue is now fading into oblivion even among the third generation, whose grandparents were once displaced children or women. At the end of 2021, Yamazaki was surprised to be asked what “Daichi no Ko” is by a 23-year-old third generation during an interview survey. Daichi no Ko is a TV drama series based on a novel by Yamasaki Toyoko about a Japanese child left in China, whose life is full of ups and downs. It was aired by Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK), Japan’s national broadcasting corporation, in 1995 and became greatly popular. Our speaker of the day, Yamazaki, felt that how a descendant of the displaced children does not recognize this TV series shows that so much time has gone past. The media and publications have often used the phrase “the displaced children today” but from which point in time is “today” actually today? Isn’t it “today” from the perspectives of media reports from the 1980s in which Japanese children and women who remained in China began to be widely reported in the Japanese media? Yamazaki raised such questions and talked about the various situations confronted within society by members of the second and third generations when fewer and fewer people remember World War II and the returnees from China.

Latest statistics of MHLW show that the number of people who returned from China with public funding is around 20,000. However, when those who were brought over to Japan by private funding and those who were born in Japan are added, this number is said to go up to somewhere between 80,000 and 150,000. For these people, what do their roots in children and women once displaced in China mean? Yamazaki shared the insight he gained through interview surveys on members of the second and third generation. For instance, many members of the second generation were born in China and arrived in Japan with the first generation, that is, their parents. Therefore, they faced many difficulties like being bullied because they were “Chinese” even when they went by their Japanese names or not being able to secure themselves stable jobs. By contrast, the third generation was born in Japan and many of them seem to have blended in Japanese society as “ordinary” Japanese people, and became “invisible.” This is because by the time the Japan-born third generation became adults, the first generation had aged greatly, and on top of that, the timing overlapped with the significant decrease in media coverage on the children and women once displaced in China, making it difficult to pass on the experience of the returnees. Yamazaki shared some examples that highlight reality. An interviewee of the third generation was aware that his grandmother was once displaced in China but did not identify himself as third generation. Another person became certain that his grandmother was once displaced in China, only after starting college. Yamazaki remarked that we can understand through such comments from the third generation that although they faintly know their grandparents were once displaced in China, they did not know of any words that could categorize the identity of themselves or their families, and had no need to be aware that they are family members of the returnees.

In the Q&A session, there were so many questions that the lecture ran out of time. Question topics included issues around taking care of elderly returnees, support from the Japanese government to members of the second and third generations, networks across the second and third generations, and differences in how members of each generation identify themselves.