Did you know that there is a Japanese comfort station in Zhuhai?121

You may have been to Zhuhai, and you may have flown to Zhuhai Jinwan Airport, or you may have seen the air show in Zhuhai, but you may not know that in the town of Sanzo, where Zhuhai Jinwan Airport is located, there are still many traces of the Japanese army from back then. This was the base camp of the Japanese army, where the Japanese landed, massacred villages, built comfort stations, migrated for reclamation, and built schools for slavery education ...... Even today's Jinwan Airport was originally built by the Japanese as Sanzao Airport. 80 years ago, Sanzao Airport was a bridgehead for the bombing of South China, where Japanese warplanes took off and landed more than 19,000 sorties to bomb Guangzhou, Shaoguan, Shantou, Hong Kong and other cities.
I had been vaguely aware of the crimes committed by the Japanese on Sanzao Island for several years, but had never looked for and understood these historical relics in a more comprehensive way. It was only recently that I spent most of the day delving into the villages and countryside of Sanzao, searching for the traces of blood, tears and shame that I realised how heavy this land was.

In fact, this history is not too old. 81 years ago, on February 17, 1938, Japanese gunboats carrying more than 600 men landed at Liantang Bay on Sanzao Island and occupied the island for more than seven years until they surrendered on August 15, 1945.

During these seven years, the Japanese army burned and looted many times, and also built many military facilities, most of which no longer exist after 80 years of time, but a small part still remains.

This is a remnant of a Japanese ammunition depot, located at the junction of Golden Beach Road and Chungjin Road, on the way to the attraction Golden Beach.

This ugly building is unmarked and no one would associate it with the Japanese invasion of China 80 years ago if you didn't know or ask the locals.

The remains often-kilometre of the invading Japanese army on Sanzao Island are scattered within a ten kilometre radius, so if you too want to go in search of these historical sites, it is recommended that you first go to Shangmiao Village opposite Zhuhai Airport.

This is because at No. 12, Lane 5, Shangmiao Road, Shangmiao Village, lies a Japanese comfort house, one of the strongest evidence of the crimes committed by the Japanese on Sanzao Island.

This is a typical Lingnan building, originally a countryside "newspaper reading house". After the Japanese occupied Sanzao Island, it was used as a comfort house for women taken from Korea, Taiwan and Southeast Asia for the Japanese to have sex with.

The door to the comfort station was locked, but when I pushed it, there was a crack between the doors, so I could squeeze in.

It was dark and damp, with moss growing on the floor and some of the panels already mouldy.

The reason why I suggest coming here first is that there is a historical exhibition here, which gives a basic introduction to the crimes of the Japanese army on Sanzao Island and also gives an idea of what other historical sites remain.

This is where I learnt that not only did the Japanese use No. 12, Lane 5, Shangmiao Road as a comfort station, but No. 45 was also used as a comfort station and that the Tam Kung Temple in Liantang Village was also the site of the crime.

The Japanese set up many comfort stations in the occupied areas, which were decorated with Japanese murals and tatami mats, and each comfort woman's room was numbered and the Japanese had to buy a ticket to enter the room.

This photograph shows the queue of Japanese soldiers waiting in the comfort stations.

At 1 is on 11 April 1938, after the Japanese had occupied Sanzao Island, a villager from Sanzao, Wu Fa, led a group of 34 soldiers in a night attack on a Japanese barracks and killed 11 Japanese soldiers, and when the news spread, the chairman of the Guangdong Provincial National Government, Wu Tie Cheng, was so impressed that he issued a notice to all counties.

A day later, on 12 April, the Japanese army retaliated by sweeping 36 villages in Sanzao for 3 days, implementing the Three Light Policy, killing over 2,800 villagers on Sanzao Island.

After the victory of the war, overseas Chinese donated funds to build "10,000 people's graves", "1,000 people's graves" and "100 people's graves" in the central villages of Shangmaotian, Yuliang and Yulin Pioneer Hang respectively, for posterity. The tomb of a thousand, a thousand, and a hundred is built for future generations to pay homage to. At present, there are two old and two new "Ten Thousand Graves" on Sanzao Island and two "Thousand Graves" in Yuliang and Cao Tang villages.

The Japanese army had difficulties in collecting food, so they built an Okinawan immigrant village on Sanzao Island and changed the name of the village to Japanese.

The Japanese understood the importance of education and they set up two primary schools in Sanzao, the Hoya First and Second National Schools, for slavery education, requiring children from the age of seven to attend, mandatory Japanese language speaking in the school and daily singing of the Japanese national anthem to preach the spirit of Bushido.

After the Japanese occupied Sanzao Island, they took over 3,000 labourers to build Sanzao Airport, making it a bridgehead for the bombing of South China. Before surrendering in 1945, the Japanese blew up Sanzao Airport to destroy evidence of their crimes.

Squeezing back out the door, I breathed a long sigh of relief that a history of blood and tears from 80 years ago was hidden in such a cramped village alley.

Another dilapidated earthen house in the same lane is another of Zeng's ancestral homes that were used as a comfort station.

A Japanese bunker is still preserved halfway up a hill from a construction site near Shangmiao village.

Leaving Shangmiao Village, a short distance away is Liantang Village, where the Tan Gong Ancestral Hall was commissioned by the Japanese army to run a supply and sex trade project for the FUKUDA Company. A group of foreign children were playing and they happily said that an uncle was taking pictures, could you take one for us.

I took a picture for them and they were very happy, they certainly did not know how much suffering the generation living on this land, born 100 years earlier than them, had gone through.

Next to the Tam Kung Temple is an ancient cottonwood tree, a banyan tree twisting up and climbing on top of the cottonwood, the banyan tree with its lush branches and the cottonwood tree with its sparse foliage. Wasn't it this ancient cottonwood tree with sparse branches that was China in those days, and wasn't it the banyan tree that sucked the nutrients and sunlight from the cottonwood tree that was the Japanese invader of China?

A stone pillar of the shrine still stands at the site of the former Japanese Second School of Xing Ya, which was the site of the Hai Cheng Primary School in Zheng Miao Village, next door to the Tan Gong Shrine, where all students attending the school were required to visit the shrine on the premises every week.

The Zhongxing Primary School in Chunghuan Village, on the other hand, is the former site of the Japanese Army's Xingya First National School, with two of the original school's hemp stone gate pillars remaining.

Halfway up the mountain to the eco-park at Haicheng Village, there is still a cliff with Japanese writing.

The Japanese writing cliff is located on the path opposite the second pavilion on the right after going up the hill (the pavilion has been demolished and there is only an open space left). After the Japanese surrendered, they blew up the Sanzao airport but left this trace of their invasion of China in the mountains.

The text is divided into four groups, the first in large cursive characters "Consolation", the second and third in Japanese, recording the deaths of 44 Japanese at Sanzao airbase, and the third and fourth in Chinese characters with the names of 44 Japanese inscribed vertically.

After the victory of the war, the villagers and overseas Chinese who managed to escape collected the remains of the murdered villagers and built some graves, among which there are two "Ten Thousand Graves", the old Ten Thousand Graves is located in Martian Village, in 1948 Sanzao overseas Chinese collected the bones of the dead and built Ten Thousand Graves in the east of Martian Village, the present one was rebuilt in 1969.

In 1979, the mass graves were moved to the slope of Zhulich Hill, which is now next to Qinshi Road and is one of the most famous relics of the Japanese invasion of Sanzao Island.

This mass grave has a pagoda, two pavilions built in 1986 and a memorial to the victims of the March 13 Incident.

The Cao Tang Village mass grave is located in Yin Xing Garden in the villa area. In 1948, the surviving people collected the remains of nearly 1,000 villagers who were killed in Cao Tang Village and buried them in Cao Tang Bay Shagang, which was relocated here in 1986.

The village of Yulong was one of the villages where the Japanese suffered heavy casualties during the "Three Lights", and on the 12th day of the 3rd lunar month in 1938, more than 400 villagers were imprisoned by the Japanese with wire through their hands, and then killed. Two pavilions were built in 1982.
The above are the main relics of the Japanese invasion of Sanzao Island that are listed in the National Key Cultural Heritage Protection Units, but there are still a few missing. 80 years is not a long time, not even compared to the average life expectancy of the Japanese, but this history has been forgotten by most people.
Bunkers, ammunition depots, comfort stations, mass graves ...... These horrific and humiliating relics are hidden in a corner of the bustling Special Economic Zone. You may have been to Sanzao hundreds of times, you may live in Sanzao town, but you may not really know this history. I have searched for these relics and formed words, not to make people hate Japan and boycott Japanese goods, but just to I just want to tell you that there was a time of slavery and brutality between human beings in this land. Under the baton of fascist militarism, the evil of human nature will be fully aroused and no one can escape, and ordinary workers and peasants will be transformed into murderous executioners.