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The Japanese Daughter Left Behind in China: A Lifetime of Longing August 2, 1945—Japan was on the brink of defeat. A desperate Japanese couple knocked on the door of a Chinese farming family near Harbin. The Chinese couple didn’t understand their words, but when they saw the pregnant woman in distress, they took them in. That night, a baby girl was born. Ten days later, Soviet troops stormed into Manchuria. The Japanese parents made a heartbreaking decision. Begging the Chinese family to raise their daughter, they tearfully cut a small mark on her leg—to recognize her if they ever returned. The mother left a letter in Japanese, mentioning the father’s surname: Ikeda. She also left her coat behind. Then, they fled into the mountains. Gunfire soon echoed through the hills. When the Chinese couple found them, they were already dead. The baby girl grew up as Sun Yuqin, raised with love in her new home. She was not alone. More than 4,000 orphans, like Sun, were taken in by Chinese families when the Japanese empire collapsed. After 1972, many sought to return to Japan, but most never found their birth families. Sun spent decades trying to prove her origins, but Japan refused to recognize her. Now, at 80, she still imagines her parents' faces at night. After wearing her mother’s coat for decades, she repurposed it into a jacket for her grandson. But the faded letter remains by her side. She no longer longs to return to Japan. She knows that one day, in another world, she will see her parents again.