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Sandakan Brothel #8: An episode in the history of lower-class Japanese women | 
 enlarge | Author: Tomoko Yamazaki
Creator: Karen Colligan-taylor
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $19.95
You Save: $6.00 (23%)
New (17) Used (9) from $15.57
Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 356604
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.7
ISBN: 0765603543
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.742095953
EAN: 9780765603548
ASIN: 0765603543
Publication Date: November 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Large paperback - New - Shelf wear - Frayed edges
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
This is a pioneering work on "karayuki-san", impoverished Japanese women sent abroad to work as prostitutes from the 1860s to the 1920s. The narrative follows the life of one such prostitute, Osaki, who is persuaded as a child of ten to accept cleaning work in Sandakan, North Borneo, and then forced to work as a prostitute in a Japanese brothel, one of the many such brothels that were established throughout Asia in conjunction with the expansion of Japanese business interests. Yamazaki views Osaki as the embodiment of the suffering experienced by all Japanese women, who have long been oppressed under the dual yoke of class and gender. This tale provides the historical and anthropological context for understanding the sexual exploitation of Asian women before and during the Pacific War and for the growing flesh trade in Southeast Asia and Japan today. Young women are being brought to Japan with the same false promises that enticed Osaki to Borneo 80 years ago. Yamazaki Tomoko, who herself endured many economic and social hardships during and after the war, has devoted her life to documenting the history of the exchange of women between Japan and other Asian countries since 1868. She has worked directly with "karayuki-san", military comfort women, war orphans, repatriates, women sent as picture brides to China and Manchuria, Asian women who have wed into Japanese farming communities, and Japanese women married to other Asians in Japan.
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| Customer Reviews:
Memorable, thoroughly researched, poignant! November 4, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The remarkable, memorable and poignant story is about Brothel Number 8 in Sandakan, a port town 1200 miles from Hong Kong in the South Seas, where young Japanese women were trafficked into prostitution, hence, the lowest class of women. In 1968, author Tomoko Yamazaki, began her journey into Amakusa to learn about the karayuki-san and encountered Osaki, born in 1909, and by age 10 was sold to the brothel. Too young at first, she worked as a house-maid, then by 12, selling her body.
For 3 weeks, Tomoko lived with Osaki in a rustic, poverty stricken home, with dirt floors, no outhouse, and barely any food. She had to sleep on the same mat that was used for servicing many many men. Tomoko's mission to document the story of life in the brothel is not known to Osaki at first, and furthermore, particularly in the village, karayuki-san is not discussed publicly. The veil of secrecy remains throughout while Osaki tells the curious villagers that the new woman seen is her daughter-in-law.
With extreme caution to hear and document the story, and with utmost privacy about the subject, we learn about Ofuni, who was a manager of a brothel, whose kindness to the girls was never forgotten. The suspense occurred when speaking with Ofuni's family, and how, with no other choice and with extreme urgency, author Tomoko broke down to steal the photographs from the album.
This is well-documented, thoroughly researched story to the end, and with impressive notes, references, historical and geographical information, and photos. Also included is a complete index. The translation is excellent, it conveys many moods depicted.
Sandakan Brothel No. 8 is the first of a trilogy by the author and includes two other books, The Graves of Sandakan and The Story of Yamada Waka. She has authored numerous books.
The book was the basis for the foreign film that was nominated for an Oscar in 1975, Sandakan No. 8; it may also be titled Brothel Eight and possibly difficult to find. But it lost to tough competition, a remarkable Kurosawa gem, Dersu Uzala, which I recommend. .....Rizzo
The water trade November 15, 2005
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book is the heartrending story of a Japanese child prostitute. She was sold by her family at the age of 8 to a sex slave trafficker, shipped to North Borneo (port of Sandakan) and forced to work in the sex business at the age of 12, even before she had her first menstruation.
The roots of the trafficking system were religious, economic and political.
On the religious front, the Confucian system of patriarchy determined the social duties of women. They were told to obey first their fathers, than their husbands and ultimately their sons. The social superiority of the male permitted the exploitation of women financially, physically, sexually and emotionally.
Economically, high taxation rates for the farmers (60 % of the yield went to the landlord) provoked poverty and famine: 'There were days when I would have nothing to swallow but water from morning 'til night.'
Starving peasants felt compelled to sell their daughtes in order to save the rest of the family.
The main character in this book, Osaki, agreed (?) at the age of 8 to be sold in order to permit her brother to buy farmland.
This poverty was aggravated by the settlement policies of the government provoking a burgeoning population in the region.
More, the Japanese government did nothing against the traffickers. On the contrary, it needed the foreign currency sent back by the sex slaves in order to become, as it said, a strong nation.
The selling of children in Japan has only been abolished in 1959.
After the exploitation by the government and the landlords, the children were milked by the traffickers, who took 50 % of their earnings and compelled them to redeem with the rest their original inflated 'investment'.
Having heavily supported the Japanese nation with their bodies, the sex workers were looked upon as 'Boule de Suif's' by the rest of the population when they could come back home. They tried to avoid to be recognized in order to escape their social 'stigma'.
Osaki survived prychologically nearly unscathed and without guilt her harsh experience.
This book is a profound human document about the struggle for survival. It is excellently introduced by Karen Colligan-Taylor.
Highly recommended, not only for Japanese scholards.
I also recommend the autobiography of the geisha Sayo Masuda, as well as the work of Robert Van Gulik 'Sexual Life in Ancient China'.
What is a Life? January 29, 2000
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
Sometimes when reading or thinking or, simply, being direct witness to the casual cruelty that God is so evidently fond of, we feel a small bubble become loosened in the vicinity of our inner soul and, rising and expanding, it reaches surface and our faces spontaneously contract and our eyes fill with tears and we must sit quietly for a moment and, in my case, wish that we could smash that God squarely in it's hellish face. But it passes and we are again back in the normal universe where we understand that things just are. The reader of this book has more than one opportunity for such experience. The slightly elitest tone of the author does not detract but, somehow, offers some hope that we may grow up. The translation, as well as I can judge having lived only four years in Hiroshima, is superb.
What is a Life? January 29, 2000
5 out of 22 found this review helpful
Sometimes when reading or thinking or, simply, being direct witness to the casual cruelty that God is so evidently fond of, we feel a small bubble become loosened in the vicinity of our inner soul and, rising and expanding, it reaches surface and our faces spontaneously contract and our eyes fill with tears and we must sit quietly for a moment and, in my case, wish that we could smash that God squarely in it's hellish face. But it passes and we are again back in the normal universe where we understand that things just are. The reader of this book has more than one opportunity for such experience. The slightly elitest tone of the author does not detract, but offers some hope, that we may grow up. The translation, as well as I can judge having lived only four years in Hiroshima, is superb.
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