Before the age of five, Gao Fengqin's life was filled with darkness. After Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II in 1945, her Japanese birth mother, stranded homeless in China, hid her in a cold, damp coal shed until she was adopted by a Chinese couple. From then on, the "once-abandoned child" became the beloved daughter of her new family.
With heartfelt sincerity, Gao expressed deep gratitude to her adoptive parents: "Thank you both so much for your kindness in raising me—for your love that guided me into adulthood, and for teaching me what it means to be kind and to love."
In her seventies, Gao returned to Japan, yet her family there never accepted her. Having drifted through life between two homelands, it is the waves of the Songhua River that stir her deepest longing. "I must live well," she says, "otherwise, many people will never know the story of us Japanese 'war orphans.'"
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