A Space "Out of Time"
On an early spring Friday evening, I cycled to an apartment building in Tokyo's northern district. The area was quiet, the lights dim. Taking the elevator to the fourth floor, I stepped into a small entryway cluttered with shoes. Glancing up, I noticed ten or so people already seated in the front row. The hallway was narrow, just wide enough for one person. I edged my way to the back, waiting for the clock to strike 7:30.
This was the living room of a modest apartment. Beige wooden bookshelves held posters and books related to women, and a few white folding chairs leaned against the wall. A black LCD TV screen stood before us.
This was also a space for conversation. In this "sparrow-sized" living room, more than twenty people had gathered to partake in an event called "The Weirdo," or the untimely.
"The Weirdo" is a well-known Chinese podcast. This gathering was akin to a "listener meetup." I wasn’t a devoted fan, but had come at the invitation of a new friend. We had connected recently, and I saw this as a chance to learn more about her. To better understand the context, I crammed the latest episodes like a student before a deadline. The online listening experience fueled my eagerness to be present in person. I was curious: What would unfold? Who would attend? What were these people concerned with?
Being There
The speaker, Wang Qing, is a journalist who has spent a decade in Europe. Not long after she began, she spoke about the importance of "being there." It was clear she was committed to telling more authentic, nuanced, and diverse stories of Europe. The ongoing global hotspot—the Russia-Ukraine war—was an unavoidable topic.
In the second half of 2023, Wang Qing, working as an independent journalist, traveled to Ukraine, interviewing a range of people, including government officials, scholars, human rights lawyers, and many ordinary citizens. As she navigated through the photos on the large screen with her phone, stories of everyday people unfolded: The couple who, on the first day of the war, embraced at their doorstep before heading to work, grateful for everything they had shared; the elderly woman who, feeling she couldn't abandon the land beneath her feet, hid in a zero-degree cellar for three days during an air raid; the young soldier who updated his social media daily—today he tried something delicious, donned a new uniform—until his friend noticed the "unread messages" that never changed.
"I ask everyone I meet the same question, 'Do you remember what you were doing on February 24, 2022?'" Wang Qing aimed to trace back to that shared breath, that collective fate, that piece of living history.
But many have now fallen silent forever.
"They might have been doctors, police officers, students, but they share the same fate—leaving this world on the same day." Wang Qing's voice was gentle, but the weight of her words was heavy. "Standing on that war-torn land, witnessing that living monument, I felt a profound shock. After World War II, monuments to peace abound, and we are thankful they are in the past. But this monument is too close to us..."
The Concrete and the Human
What is the significance of "being there"? Why venture into the storm, knowing the dangers?
Wang Qing recalled a time when she was about to interview a frontline female military doctor. Before setting out, she sent her "interview outline" to her male editor. He thought that following it would be a complete waste of the opportunity.
"I wanted to ask her how she felt when she arrived on the battlefield—was she cold, was she scared? What was it like for her during menstruation? But my editor was more concerned with combat strategies, resource allocation, and the chances of winning."
Before the war, this doctor was an accountant. At a temporary aid station, besides stopping bleeding and bandaging wounds, she had to make immediate decisions on who to send to the hospital, given the scarcity of beds and medical resources. In other words, the soldiers' lives were in her hands. Wang Qing could only imagine the immense mental burden she carried.
To Wang Qing, the tangible experiences and feelings of life are the "precious firsthand materials."
"War is fought by individuals with their own lives. Focusing on the concrete brings us closer to the essence of being human. But the way we imagine war, and the way we approach issues, remains male-dominated, with a tendency to focus on grand, abstract problems."
The seemingly mundane details of a soldier's daily life might not seem worthy of public discussion at first glance.
Forty years ago, the Nobel prize-winner Soviet personal narrative"The Unwomanly Face of War" shattered this notion, bringing to light the personal experiences and emotions of female veterans through raw, oral histories.
“I cannot… I do not want to remember. I was on the battlefield for three years… During those three years, I didn’t feel like a woman; my body felt dead, no menstruation, hardly any desires… And I used to be a beauty…”
They recalled not the war itself, but their youth—a time that belonged to them… Often, after a long day filled with words, facts, and tears, only one phrase lingered in my mind—oh, but what a poignant phrase it was!—“When I went to the front, I was just a foolish young girl. So, I grew up during the war!”
----The Unwomanly Face of War
The erasure of "the feminine" means that people are forced to adapt to the power structures of war—a system centered around male traits, celebrating strength, rationality, and victory.
"Feminism aims to expose structural issues."
Keiko Atsuta, who studies sexual violence in war and was the host of this event, joined the discussion. She spoke fluent Chinese.
"Let me tell you a story. A Japanese soldier who enlisted at the age of 15, full of enthusiasm, received his first order: 'Rape the women.' He resisted. His superior beat him nearly to death, leaving him with, 'If you don’t rape the women, how will you kill the enemy?'"
A man living in Austria shared, "In our region, which was a 'secondary line,' I once discussed the war with a Ukrainian friend. Most of it was 'macho' talk, about the big picture. But in the end, I asked him, 'What scares you most as someone from that region?'"
His friend replied, "I fear that people will lose their humanity."
When we strip away the specifics, when power structures abstract actions, what happens?
We might lose sensitivity and gain numbness; lose individual reason and gain collective obedience. Hannah Arendt, the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism, understood this well.
The Morality of Ordinary People
What lingers in my mind is that humanity matters most. In war, something more powerful than history controls people. I need a broader perspective—to write about the truth of life and death, not just the truth of war. To pose Dostoevskian questions: How many people live within a single person? And how do we protect that person’s essence?
----The Unwomanly Face of War
In the face of large-scale change, what can we do? What moral and ethical dilemmas do ordinary people face?
"On both sides of the Russia-Ukraine war, 5% are fighting on the front lines, 95% are fighting on TikTok." The humor in this statement sparked laughter.
Someone raised a practical concern, "After the war started, how do you transfer assets? I went through the 3.11 earthquake, and plane tickets were impossible to get."
A participant quietly shared a story relayed by a friend, "That morning, I went to the Ukrainian embassy in Minato to ask if they accepted donations. The staff asked me to wait while they checked. Soon after, they came back and said they couldn’t accept cash, but would release a public account that evening to receive donations."
Most participants lived in Tokyo. Social media had connected them to the other side of the globe, reminding them to prepare for catastrophic events, and encouraging them to make choices that aligned with their individual conscience.
A distant war can sometimes feel very close.
"When I visited Okinawa, I found that the islanders were very concerned about a possible war over Taiwan. The local residents would sit in protest or march against the U.S. military base." I was reminded of the recent earthquake in Hualien, and the panic it caused in Okinawa.
A man in the front row, originally from Taiwan, spoke of his experiences in mainland China and Hong Kong a few years ago, "As in-between people, how do we act as a cushion when major events occur?"
People on the move, crossing both physical and virtual borders, face the fracture of identity and the negotiation of moral narratives.
Epilogue
The specific, the micro, the human… are all just right.
War is a grand topic, but it is composed of countless individual "specifics."
"Feminism may not solve the problem of war, but it makes me focus on the details, on what’s tangible."
These details are within reach for all of us, and they are things we can all change.
In my heart, a fire was lit, burning steadily through the rainy spring night.
From that space, from those encounters, I gained an energy full of meaning. Now, I weave it into a net to present to you.
Original text in Chinese:
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