Gavan McCormack > Quotes

“Liu was taken at bayonet point from his Shandong village in 1944 and sent to work in the Showa coal mine in Hokkaido. Unlike those at Hanaoka who rose up in rebellion, he fled into the mountains. He escaped in July 1945, just about one month before the end of the war, but he was so terrified that he remained in hiding, living off grasses and nuts, and occasionally descending to the remote coastline to collect seaweed, less afraid of bears than of human beings, and with no knowledge that the war was over, until he was by chance discovered by a rabbit trapper in 1958. When he emerged, not only was the war over, but Kishi Nobosuke, the Tojo Cabinet's Minister for Commerce and Labor, who had been responsible for the forced-labor program, had become prime minister. When Kishi's government ordered an investigation of Liu on suspicion of illegal entry into the country, Liu published a famous statement of protest and then returned to China. As of the early 1990s, he was still pursuing his case for justice against the Japanese government, and still waiting for a response from it.”
― Gavan McCormack, The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence