Comfort Woman

As I smiled and nodded whenever she took a breath, all I could think was: Is this the way she really remembers it? Her sincerity made me doubt my own version of events. Perhaps what I thought was true had been colored by the insecurities of a ten-year-old girl. At any rate, at that moment, looking at Tiffi chatting at me like we were the best of friends, I realized that not only could I not trust my mother's stories; I could not trust my own.

They [missionaries] were kind and praised me when I responded to the simple commands they issued in Japanese: sit, eat, sleep. Had they asked, I would also have responded to "close mouth" and "open legs". At the camps where the Japanese called us Jungun Ianfu, military comfort women, we were taught only whatever was necessary to service the soldiers. Other than that, we were not expected to understand and were forbidden to speak, any language at all.