73-year-old Japanese war orphan Nakajima Yuhachi came to Mudanjiang to pay homage to the graves of his Chinese foster parents.
Mudanjiang in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province is the place where he was brought up by his Chinese parents.
“Thanks, China!” Nakajima wrote in his memoir published at his own expense. With Japan's defeat in World War II in 1945, Nakajima's family all became refugees. His birth mother gave him to a Chinese vendor who went door-to-door to find Nakajima a new home. A peasant woman Sun Zhenqin agreed to adopt him even though she knew Nakajima was a Japanese descendant.
Little Nakajima was quite skinny due to dyspepsia. His foster mother fed him with the food she chewed, and massaged his belly every day. His condition got better and better. In the following 10 years, his foster parents brought him up until he left China for Japan at age of 16. “I am a Japanese descendant, but they brought me up. What good hearts my foster parents have. ”
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