Ogura Nobu in Fuqing: the 1930 Consular Police Report
This consular police report provides information on 28 women encountered by the police officers, ranging in age from 21 to 61, most in their thirties; and on "twenty women whose residence here is certain but whom we were unable to find." Consul Tamura glossed this to mean that "either the women conceal themselves or they are being confined." The report also indicates that an additional eight women "are believed to be residing there." The report thus mentions a total of 56 women, not all by name.
Ogura was not the only Japanese woman in Nanshi village. 21-year-old Kobayashi Ichi, from Tokyo's Asakusa, was also in the house of a certain Chen Jianjia (perhaps a member of the same extended family as Chen Zhaopin). She asked the police officers to extricate her, which they did. Most of the women interviewed did not express any intentions of returning to Japan. To Consul Tamura, the women's reluctance was due to shame, resignation, and poverty. A closer examination of the archival records and related sources suggests a far more complex set of stories.
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