(Ecns.cn)-- A recent TV program showing WWII Japanese troop orphans and their Chinese foster parents has moved many in the country into tears, said ifeng.com on Friday.
In the program, the last foster parent alive in Changchun, the capital city of Jilin Province in northeast China said that "when it comes to life, we let go of the war and the hatred," which caught the immediate attention from the media.
Five thousand orphans left by WWII Japanese troops in the Northeast and Inner Mongolia were adopted by local residents at the time. "Many of the ill or disabled children had been abandoned at the train station, in ditches, or even in refuse storage areas when their parents evacuated to Japan at the end of the war," said Cao Baoming, a folklore expert in Jilin. These children had been adopted by local residents despite the widespread poverty haunting them due to the war.
Most of these children returned to Japan in the 1980s since the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Others stayed for various reasons including not being able to locate their natural parents in Japan. Duan Jiqin, 67, told the TV show that she didn't realize that she was a Japanese orphan until her foster father unveiled the secret before he passed away and left her with a house in his will.
"I would choose to stay even if I knew the truth. They gave me my second life," said Duan.
