Yohachi Nakajima went to northeast China's Heilongjiang province in 1942 with his family as members of "the Japanese settlers group" when he was only a one-year-old baby, and he became "orphaned" after the militaristic Japan surrendered at the end of World War II in 1945.
Nakajima's family was tortured by freezing winters and food shortage in a small county in the province of then war-torn China. His father was missing and his younger sister died of malnutrition in the winter of 1945, while he himself was too weak to return to Japan with his mother and was left to a Chinese peddler, who walked along the street looking for good souls to harbor the dying Japanese boy.
Sun Zhenqin, a local Chinese female peasant, adopted Nakajima, a child from the former enemy. She massaged Nakajima's belly and fed him with chewed food. Emaciated Nakajima was recovering under her care and in the next 13 years, Sun raised the boy although she married three times.
About 3,000 Japanese children, nicknamed the Japanese war orphans, were left in China after WWII.
"My adoptive mother was like clean water without any impurities, " Nakajima told Xinhua in an interview. The tearful old man showed a letter Sun sent to his mother in Japan which read "I promise that I will send Nakajima back to Japan when he grows up."
Nakajima, 73, put the faded yellow letter in his autobiography "Why I Have My Life," which depicts his 13-year life of being a " Japanese-Chinese" in Ning'an county of Heilongjiang. "She was a poor Chinese woman who knew I was a child of the enemy but still brought me up. Such love is selfless and I will never forget her."
He even noted in his book that the local government adopted a policy to shelter Japanese war orphans. One of the 15 war orphans in the small village was mocked by a Chinese boy as "little Jap," Nakajima recalled, adding that then authorities issued a notification later requiring schools to protect the Japanese children from being bullied.
Nakajima hoped more and more Japanese people could understand Chinese people's enthusiasm and kindness through his book, which the amateur writer dedicated to his adoptive mother, three step fathers and the Chinese he met and worked with.
"I'm not a writer so that straightforward style of writing is what I have to tell my story based on own memories, but sometimes plain narration is more powerful than colorful words and has its unique power to move readers," Nakajima said.
His first reader was Nakamura, owner of a small book store Yogakudo close to Nakajima's home. The book vendor told Xinhua that Nakajima's book was the first one that he read twice and recalled the scenario when Nakajima brought the book to his store.
