Can I Still Go on Being Chinese?

In this three-part series, the ChinaSource team presents stories that trace the longing for home, identity, and grace across borders. Through encounters with people once considered Chinese—and others who longed to be—the author reflects on what it means to belong when history, memory, and faith tell different stories.

Since leaving my hometown of Shanghai, I’ve traveled to many places. I’ve met a Canadian who speaks fluent Shanxi dialect, considers himself Chinese and hopes to “return to his roots.” I’ve met old Nationalist veterans, sent-down youth (zhiqing, 知青) from Shanghai, and young Red Guards who could never return home. I’ve even met a Japanese war orphan left behind in China after World War II, who, with tears in her eyes, asked me in confusion, “Can I still go back and be Chinese again?”

From Harbin to Tokyo

While studying in Japan, I was once invited to a Chinese painting exhibition. After admiring several skillful works, I couldn’t help saying, “I never imagined a Japanese artist could paint traditional Chinese art so masterfully.” My friend burst out laughing and said she had to introduce me to this Japanese artist. That’s how I met one of the most unforgettable Japanese people I’ve ever known.

She was an elderly single woman. One weekend, she invited several international students to her small apartment to make dumplings. When I arrived, I was startled to find such a humble, dilapidated neighborhood in Tokyo—perhaps even worse than Shanghai’s old Tianshan housing blocks. As we gathered around the table to prepare the filling, someone asked her a question.  She began to tell her story.

She was born in Harbin, China, though her adoptive mother told her their ancestral home was in Hokkaido, Japan. Her birth parents had worked at Harbin Station of the South Manchurian Railway (Mantetsu). Near the end of World War II, when Soviet troops suddenly entered northeast China, her mother, in a panic, entrusted her infant daughter to a Chinese coworker—her future adoptive mother—asking her to care for the baby until the Red Army passed.

Adopted and Abandoned

Her adoptive mother later told her that those days were hell itself. From the Japanese quarter of Harbin came endless gunfire and the terrified screams of women day and night. When the noise finally stopped, nearly everyone was dead. Outside the White Russian district, even in Chinese neighborhoods, women were too afraid to leave their homes. Her birth parents never returned.

As she recounted her story, her tone was calm, as if describing a scene from a film. Her face betrayed no emotion. You will not find such details in any Chinese history book.

Later, the Soviet Army finally withdrew, and soon the Nationalists and Communists began fighting across the northeast. While the railway was still operating, her adoptive parents—both railway employees—took the family and fled south to Beiping, where they waited for the new regime to take power.

Her adoptive family had once included an older brother and her grandparents. But because her adoptive father had worked for the Japanese during the war, the family suffered greatly afterward. He was executed as a collaborator, her grandparents died soon after of grief, and her brother also passed away for reasons no one ever explained.

By the time she reached school age, only she and her adoptive mother were left. At this point in her story, her voice began to tremble. She kept wiping her eyes with hands still dusted in flour, looking for a moment like a clown from a Peking opera—but no one could laugh.

When she first started school, she used her adoptive mother’s surname. One day she asked why everyone else shared their father’s family name while hers was different. Her adoptive mother, who was working as a laborer at the time, burst into tears and could not answer. The little girl was frightened and never dared to ask again.

Years later, near the end of the Cultural Revolution, she was sent with her classmates to the countryside. There she learned from official records the truth about her identity. She could hardly believe it, but she didn’t dare question the authorities. When she finally returned to Beijing and confronted her mother face to face, the two of them clung to each other and wept for a long time.

From that moment on, she was never the same. The bright, open-hearted girl she had been turned into a withdrawn, melancholy woman. The words “Japanese” and “Harbin” became the two she feared most. But fate seemed determined to mock her. She was assigned to a rural post in northern Heilongjiang. Whenever she returned to Beijing, she had to change trains in Harbin.

Becoming Chinese, Becoming Other

She never knew whether her Japanese identity was a blessing or a curse. Her boyfriend left her because of it. After China and Japan normalized relations, she was reassigned to a factory job in Beijing, which allowed her to reunite with her adoptive mother. Still, fearing discrimination, she rarely went out and spent her days quietly painting at home.

When Japan later began repatriating Japanese war orphans left behind in China after World War II, her adoptive mother came forward to testify on her behalf. Eventually, her true identity was confirmed, but she refused to leave China—Japan’s policy did not allow her to bring her adoptive mother with her. She cried for days. Her mother kept urging her to go, saying, “You’ll have a better life there. In Beijing you’ll always be just a factory worker.”

She was torn. Her adoptive mother was her only family in the world. Yet as a Japanese living in China, she had endured pressures and humiliations few could imagine. She even despised herself for being Japanese instead of Chinese. Her mother’s greatest wish, though, was simply that her daughter might live a better life.

At this point, she stopped kneading the dough, sat down at the table, and stared into space, her lips moving slightly. One of the Malaysian students asked gently, “Did you ever bring your mother to Japan later on?”

She said, “After I came to Japan, I settled in Tokyo and never returned to Hokkaido. The government gave us repatriated war orphans with small, nearly free apartments and a monthly stipend of sixty thousand yen, along with language and job training. So, like many others, I stayed in Tokyo. But having lived all my life in China, my habits were completely Chinese. People here never see us as truly Japanese, and it’s hard to find decent work.”

“Later, when China began to open up, I wanted to apply for my mother to come to Japan, but I never had enough money. I only managed to return to Beijing once—to attend her funeral.”

At that, she began to cry. Everyone stopped what they were doing, searching for towels and cups of water to hand her.

In the end, she said that only as she grew older did she grasp how hard it had been to live in China as a descendant of those pejoratively called “Japanese devils.” Though she had come to Japan as her adoptive mother wished—hoping to live with a bit more dignity—over the years she felt she had become “a Chinese in Japan in name only,” which, to her, was no easier than being Japanese in China. As she said this, her body began to tremble.

 “Maybe I should just go back to China and end my days there. But my mother is gone—what would I go back for?” Then she turned toward me, her face full of confusion, and asked, “Can I still go on being Chinese?”

I didn’t know. I truly didn’t know what the answer could be. I was afraid—because any careless reply might wound her already broken heart.

The Unanswered Question

Thirty years have passed since that day. In 2012, a man in Xi’an was beaten during anti-Japanese protests simply for driving a Japanese car. In March 2024, Nongfu Spring’s stock value dropped by twenty-seven billion Hong Kong dollars after one of its products was accused online of having “Japanese-looking” temple designs. Has forgiveness and reconciliation drawn nearer—or further away?

I don’t know where she is today, or if she might ever read these words. But I can still remember the look in her eyes when she asked me that question

Editor’s note: This article was originally written in Chinese and published by New Territory. It was translated and edited by the ChinaSource team with permission.