| Sandakan Japanese Cemetery | |
|---|---|
サンダカン日本墓地 Tanah Perkuburan Jepun Sandakan | |
 Stairs towards the cemetery. | |
 | |
| Details | |
| Established | 1890 |
| Location | |
| Country | Malaysia |
| Coordinates | 5°50′39″N118°07′29″E / 5.84417°N 118.12472°E /5.84417; 118.12472 |
| Type | Cemetery |
Sandakan Japanese Cemetery (Japanese:サンダカン日本墓地;Malay:Tanah Perkuburan Jepun Sandakan) is an old graveyard inSandakan,Sabah, Malaysia. Located on a hill about 2 kilometres from the town's central business district, it is a cemetery where the remains are buried of many Japanese female prostitutes calledKarayuki-san from poverty-stricken agriculturalprefectures inJapan who were sold into slavery at a very young age years beforeWorld War II which also include recentcomfort women during the war.[1] It is part of theSandakan Heritage Trail.
The cemetery was founded in 1890 byMadam Kinoshita Kuni (born 7 July 1854) from Futae Village,Amakusa County,Kumamoto Prefecture,[2] a successful Japanese female manager of Sandakan's lucrative 'Brothel No. 8 (サンダカン八番娼館,Sandakan hachiban shōkan)' for Japanese prostitutes who died in the business with most of the graves belonged to women.[3][4] Madam Okuni is a very influential and kind woman who fluent inEnglish with manyYamato nadeshiko (Japanese girls) sought her guidance and protection with the treatment as a human beings of the girls in herbrothel were much better than in the other Japanese brothels in Sandakan where she is called as the "Okuni" ofSouth Seas.[4] Herself was raised from a poor family before becoming the mistress of anEnglishman inYokohama at a young age. When her husband returned toEngland, she moved to Sandakan and opening a general store including a brothel.[4]
In 1891, there were already 20 brothels and 71 Japanese prostitutes in Sandakan.[4] The cemetery built by Okuni is for to pray for the souls of Japanese who died in Sandakan where herself had a place reserved in the cemetery when she is still alive; showing that she intended to lived permanently in Sandakan and did not want to return to Japan with all of the grave stones in the cemetery were directly ordered from her homeland country.[4] The cemetery subsequently become famous among Japanese visitors, including those fromJesselton andTawau as they will stop on the cemetery to pray for the deceased before proceeding their journey.[4] A book published in 1972 by Japanese writer Tomoko Yamazaki made a mention that the cemetery used to have hundreds Japanese graves which include a monument erected in 1989 for fallen Japanese soldiers during theWorld War II as an addition to the cemetery.[2][3][5]
A majority of the cemetery are belong toKarayuki-san, mainly daughters of poorJapanese people with nosocial status or value as female where they been exported overseas asmaids to work before being forced intoprostitution activities.[1] Those who buried in the cemetery are with their feet pointing towards the direction ofJapan as a posture or gesture that condemns their ancestral home that abandoned them or exhorted them to support their country war efforts which is considered as an ultimate insult.[1]
Media related toSandakan Japanese Cemetery at Wikimedia Commons
