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On December 15, 2017, the Northeast Asian History Foundation's Institute of Japanese Studies hosted the second international academic conference on findings and remaining challenges from research on the Japanese military comfort women issue. Although officially deemed the second conference, the Foundation has so far hosted academic conferences in one form or the other every year to discuss the issue with Chinese and Japanese participants. Only at the conference in 2016 was it announced that an academic conference shall be regularly held each year to examine research progress and remaining challenges in comfort women studies. The conference in 2016 provided an occasion to share progress made in Korea, China, and Japan on studying the Japanese military comfort women issue and uncovering research material related to the issue. The conference in 2017 made a slight variation by also sharing victim testimonies and progress made through relevant campaigns.

Presentations Lacking a Practical Approach

In addition to presenting research findings from 2017, the conference also included presentations on experiences from studying oral testimonies by victims and operating campaigns in the United States to help resolve the Japanese military comfort women issue. The focus of each presentation varied depending on the presenter's familiarity with what was discussed at the conference the previous year. Participants who attended in 2016 focused on introducing research findings from 2017, whereas participants new to the conference covered the overall research trends and challenges that have emerged thus far.

The conference's purpose of discussing "progress made in research" seemed fairly broad since the presenters tended to be not only involved in research, but in campaigns for the Japanese military comfort women issue. For instance, during the first session, Korean participants presented as progress findings from government-commissioned research projects, while Chinese participants presented on the status of comfort women related material submitted for inscription on the UNESCO world heritage list as well as the status of comfort women victims and material related to the issue kept by several state-run archives. As for Japanese participants, they presented on the postwar discovery of and research done on comfort women material around 2012 when Abe Shinzo came back to serve his second term as prime minister and also introduced how such material is actually being used in campaigns.

This habit of offering introductory level presentations under a loosely defined thematic boundary has been repeatedly witnessed through other international academic conferences. It may be an issue endemic to conferences that are limited in terms of presentation opportunities, time, and human resources. Still, comfort women as a topic has had much more opportunities than others to be discussed at international academic conferences and considering that the presenters have been engaged in discussions for several years, it was unfortunate to witness the habitual problem surface at the recent conference. To those attending for the first time, the conference may serve as an opportunity to relatively easily grasp the trends and challenges in research and campaigns in each country. However, the conference turned out to be a rather fruitless event for those who have been repeatedly attending it as presenter or discussant or have participated in other comfort women related international academic conferences for several years. Differences that have so far been faintly revealed through exchange in recognizing and describing the comfort women issue or approaching it in association with each country's political interests were again pointed out as aspects that require further research, but discussions aimed at actually mitigating such differences failed to take place at the conference. Moreover, whether cases presented by different countries at conferences led to progress in research or campaigns was not examined through the recent international academic conference. As a fellow researcher in the field, it is understandable yet dreary to be involved in exchanges while continuing to avoid dealing with practical difficulties. While serving as a hub for various Korean, Chinese, and Japanese research experts and activists, the Northeast Asian History Foundation must have become aware of this situation enough to annually host an international academic conference. This seems all the more reason to critically review the second conference on findings from and remaining challenges for comfort women studies.

Actual Experiences Involving Victim Testimonies

The newly introduced topic "Victim Testimonies and Memories, History, Campaigns" for the conference's second session proved to be far more interesting. The presentations possessed strong, captivating narratives from being based on the actual experiences of each presenter. Unlike what was covered in the first session that left no choice but to be arranged and presented in a traditional format, the second session embodied the vigor of an ongoing accumulation of history. After previously focusing on victim testimonies alone, research based on testimonies has expanded its range over time to include the study of narratives by interviewees who tend to form a rapport with those being interviewed. Since many victims have passed away and even those still alive are growing too old to offer further oral testimonies, the experiences and stories of interviewees will become more meaningful for the purpose of passing on narratives about Japanese military comfort women from the victim's point of view. For this reason, it necessary to continue discussing in-depth on what it means to keep memories alive and leave records about such efforts as part of history.

One final point to relay from the conference's first session is that what we need is not "studies that increase the worth of victim testimonies as historical material" or "discovering historical material that serve as supporting evidence for victim testimonies." Considering how the Japanese government is evading its responsibility toward the comfort women issue by distorting or denying victim testimonies, there is no need to trap ourselves into studying such testimonies. Victim testimonies are unique, strong pieces of evidence on their own that prompt people to consider the underlying nature of the comfort women issue from a victim's perspective. The reason we seek other material related to the issue and conduct stereoscopic analysis is to amplify an individual victim's memory into a shared memory among us all and to describe it as part of a history of collective memory. This is perhaps why we should continue taking an interest in and discussing studies on oral testimonies.