JAPAN PRIZE International Contest For Educational Media

JAPAN PRIZE 2006 Program Details

In Changchun, China, there is an apartment building called the China-Japan Amity House. It is reserved exclusively for housing of foster parents of Japanese children abandoned by their natural parents during the war. The China-Japan Amity House was established in 1990 by Japanese donors to show appreciation to such foster parents. Although they faced various difficulties, the foster parents adopted the Japanese children and raised them with care by stating “Children are innocent". They are revered and loved by the children from heart, and their family bonds got even stronger than those of blood relatives. However, when the Japanese children reached middle age and returned to Japan, family destiny changed.

Once determined to stay in wealthy Japan with the aim to invite their foster parents to live there, the children, who are already in middle to advanced age, face language barriers and joblessness, and 60 % of such returnees live on social welfare. On the other hand, having lost their beloved children, the foster parents left in China face lonely and insecure lives.

At one time during the war, and now again, the foster parents and the Japanese children are tossed about by the waves of the age. This program depicts the harsh reality of people living on edge and shows their graciousness and grief.

In this courageous and beautiful program, we see the less obvious ramifications of conflict, and its effects, which resonate through generations. An apparently simple and very specific story about the lives of two generations, conjoined and separated through war and peace, becomes a vivid illustration of the reality of many contemporary lives, which will be shattered through global or neighboring conflicts, or through other, more mundane aspects of family deterioration in the 21st century.

The program led us to reflect upon the fallout of war, the implications of family life, poverty, loyalty, honorable behavior and the difficulties of predicting where a decision may result in unexpected consequences and a painful Catch 22, caught between the immigration policies of two governments.

The jury felt it told its tale quietly but powerfully. The camera was unobtrusive and the story was captured touchingly and with fairness and honesty.

Toshihiko Sato
Program Director

Research for My Dear Child of the Enemy began with communicating with abandoned Japanese children who had returned to Japan, and then we further researched Chinese foster parents and abandoned Japanese children stayed in China. The life story told by each is full of ups and downs: a fatal encounter with an abandoned Japanese baby; severe living conditions after World War II; the love of foster parents; confusion during the Cultural Revolution… I listened to all of them attentively and didn’t notice the passing of time.

On the way back home after such talks, I always asked myself, “What is family?”, a simple and ordinary question. I noticed deep family love beyond blood ties and national boundaries between abandoned Japanese children and their foster parents. They all faced the same dilemmas, such as feelings toward separated families and who would take care of elderly foster parents. Actually, I had the same dilemma in my own family.

What we wanted was to show family bonds which survived despite difficult times between the two countries, China and Japan. That is the aim of this program, and nothing would make me happier than helping audiences feel these family bonds.