How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee

What is it about?

When the Japanese invade Singapore during World War II, young Wang Di is taken away from her home and forced to become a comfort woman. Many years later, Kevin loses his beloved grandmother – on her deathbed, she shares a secret with him that leads the young boy to unravel a family mystery spanning many decades.

Is it any good?

In September 2010, when I was still living and working as a journalist in Indonesia, I attended an exhibition opening of “Jugun Ianfu – Comfort Women” that told the stories of these Indonesian women and how being a comfort woman and the lasting trauma has irreparably affected both body and soul. Comfort women is a term referring to young women and girls who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. Back then, it was the first time I had ever heard the term “Jugun Ianfu”, but the exhibition – a portrait series by Dutch journalist and anthropologist Hilde Janssen and photographer Jan Banning, who also published a book on this topic together – stayed with me for a long time.

Jing-Jing Lee’s How We Disappeared is an emotional and heartbreaking read but it’s one of those books that truly matter. Wang Di’s time as a Comfort Woman is hard to stomach, yet I feel it is so essential to learn about the past; not only the atrocious abuse these women had to endure during World War II but also their experience after coming home again (if they ever made it home and weren’t killed before the end of the war). So often, these women were shunned not only by society, but also by their own families, who wanted to avoid the disgrace and cultural shame attached to the “sins” of their daughters/sisters, although they had clearly been abducted, raped and horribly mistreated. Many of the survivors already passed away or are very old today, yet they still remain reluctant to break their silence out of fear and humiliation.

The author draws on her own family history for her impressive debut novel; she tells the story through the eyes of Wang Di during wartime and the old Wang Di, who still struggles to come to terms with her past and irrevocable trauma, as well as young Kevin, who is the one who searches for clues and missing pieces decades later to bring the different storylines together. The chapters that follow young Wang Di draw a distressing and brutal picture of living in and through wartime and the aftermath; the passages of old Wang Di and Kevin are relatively slow-paced in comparison, yet they also address important issues: bullying and harassment at school, and Singapore’s treatment of the elderly.

Most memorable quote?

“Sometimes all you had to do to get someone to talk was to be silent.”

Conclusion? 

After reading this book, I searched for the article I wrote about the exhibition in Jakarta over a decade ago. In it, I quoted Hilde Janssen: “While [the Comfort Women] struggle with the physical and emotional impacts, the Japanese perpetrators have gone free. The circle of silence needs to be broken, the voices of the women no longer suppressed.”

And this is exactly the reason why How We Disappeared is such an important book. Even though Wang Di is a fictional character, she stands for hundreds of thousands of (mainly Korean) Comfort Women who were brutalized and raped in Japanese military-run brothels throughout Asia – some sources speak of approximately 200,000 women, others say the number goes up to 400,000. Is it harrowing to read? Yes, of course. But we need to educate ourselves about what happened, to make sure that it never happens again. The harm that the Comfort Women have experienced can never be undone – but their stories need to be told.

Trigger warning: rape, sexual abuse, violence, war, death, bullying

AT A GLANCE

Title: How We Disappeared

By: Jing-Jing Lee

Published by: Oneworld Publications (2020)

Pages: 343

Language: English