Amerasian
Fri, 2008-07-04 10:43 — mrb
MissB1 hits her fifth birthday tomorrow, and so far I'd say being mixed hasn't ever been a problem, and if anything gets her more positive attention. With that on my mind, this Ted talk popped up:
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I hadn't heard the term Amerasian before, but it's clear that for many of these children (adults now), it has been a burden not a bonus. Wikipedia defines Amerasian as 'a person born in Asia, to a U.S. military father and an Asian mother.'
I assume there must have been a number of mixed Japanese-Chinese children in Hong Kong after the second world war, though I've never heard it talked about. Unlike the Amerasians, they won't look obviously different from the people around them, but I wonder how their lives have been affected.
MrB
Amerasian
Hail to grandma - the grandest of them all. A very moving story indeed.
The Japanese invasion of Hong Kong is a horrible chapter in the city's history. My parents were married a few days before the invasion and they along with many evacuated inland where later I was born.
Growing up in Hong Kong, I didn't, or rather couldn't, notice people of Chinese-Japanese descent. I am sure they exist and as you said, look much alike the rest of the population. The Hong Kong situation was different from this Korean story, as the Japanese army was the invader and occupier, and it could be a shame or embarrassment to reveal them as part of one's own family. But nonetheless, the war and Man's irresponsibility left many victims behind.
One Japanese soldier stayed and became a beggar in my neighbourhood.
re: Amerasian
That's a surprising choice. I wonder what his story was?
I didn't note the link, but I recently saw a photo of a sign in one of Lamma's villages. It asked if anyone knew the whereabouts of a person that was a Japanese boy aged 5 at the end of the war, who they believed had got left behind here.
Amerasian
The beggar knocked on our door many times during the late 40s and early 50s. Grandpa, a long-time resident of the neighbourhood, told me that was a Japanese soldier. A deserter? sympathizer? or a soldier who missed his last boat out? We don't know.
Some accounts from my mother during their war evacuation:
Grandpa drank his own urine after he was hit by a Japanese bullet. He survived, but didn't want to tell the little boy more about it - generation gap, not wanting to relive the horror of the war herhaps.
On the shouting advice of my uncle, my mother duck fast to evade hails of bullets from the Japanese machine-guns or death was certain she would later tell me.