A Chinese soldier at heart(2)

Sato was assigned to a hospital in Fengcheng, Heilongjiang to take care of wounded Chinese soldiers. Due to his outstanding service, he was chosen by the PLA to be the team leader of a medical team. The PLA taught Sato revolution theory, self-criticism and Chinese, different to the militaristic education he had received back home.

But worried that his Japanese identity might bring him trouble in China, Sato was instructed by the PLA to tell Chinese people that he was Mongolian.

By 1949, Sato had somewhat grown accustomed to life in China. And then, one day, upon a visit to an elderly woman's home in the countryside of Hunan Province, where he had been moved to work at another hospital, he fell under heavy questioning regarding his identity by her and several other villagers.

But after learning that Sato, a Japanese soldier had joined the PLA, they eased up and eventually let him go after telling him of the crimes that Japanese troops had committed in their village.

Sato spent a total of nine years in China before returning to Japan in 1953, four years after the birth of a new China.

His time away from home was influential on him and later led him to set up the Japan-China Peace and Friendship Association in Fukushima in 1997.

Even today, Sato, who has been back to China several times over the years to visit the places where he once joined forces with Chinese people, still considers China his second home.

Complex ties

In spite of steps taken by both sides over the years to repair ties, the Sino-Japanese relationship has always been a complicated one, and recent disputes over the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea have only stirred up tensions again.

The anti-Japanese sentiment in China exploded last year when thousands of Chinese people across the country took to the streets in protest against Japan's claims to the islands.

In Japan, stories like Sato's are rarely heard, partly in fear of retribution from national extremists.

But 94-year-old Japanese war veteran Ryokichi Kawashima surprised his people last year when he decided to run for a parliamentary seat and told the Tokyo Times that he had "had enough of nationalism talk in Japanese politics."

Like Sato, Kawashima fought during the war and said that Chinese people had helped him to get through the post-war years.

MRCN's Cheng, who befriended Sato when the two met 10 years ago at a local university Sato was invited to talk at, said that the exhibition has been warmly received by both Japanese and Chinese visitors.

"I hope that this personal exhibition will last forever, so that when people visit it they can learn an important part of history through Sato," said Cheng.