Over the past 14 years, Kou Aizhe, the host of the Chinese podcast Gushi FM (Story FM), has been searching for the midwife who delivered him. She was a Japanese woman who arrived in 1940 in the puppet state of Manchukuo, working at a hospital in Huadian County (桦甸县), Jilin Province.

In 1945, as Japan lost the war, her family of four attempted suicide — she and her husband strangled their two children before taking poison themselves. She was the only one who survived, rescued by local Chinese. She later married a Chinese man and remained in northeast China, where she became a respected obstetrician. After retirement, she worked as a midwife — delivering all four of Aizhe’s cousins.

In 1992, she and her husband returned to Japan. Since then, Aizhe’s family and their neighbours in China lost contact with her.

In 2024, Kou Aizhe travelled between Japan and northeast China seven times, searching for the midwife, interviewing Japanese and Chinese survivors, family members, neighbours, and researchers. He unearthed rare archives, photographs, and testimonies that reveal not only the tragic legacy of war for ordinary people — including Japanese civilians — but also the human connections forged between Chinese and Japanese individuals in the decades after the war.

2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Gushi FM presents a visual documentary and a companion podcast series, re-examining the war through a tumultuous personal story.

The film will be screened at the Blaues Haus Bibliothek in Hanover for the first time on 22 August. We will then take it to Berlin.

On August 30, 2025, Blaues Haus Stiftung will host a screening of this documentary at our Berlin Living Room. Kou Aizhe, the protagonist of the film and director of the eponymous audio documentary (podcast series), will also be present to participate in a post-screening discussion. The event is free of charge, but registration is required. Please see below for registration details.

Event Information

Date: August 30, 2025

Time: 15:00–17:00

Location: Blaues Haus Berlin Living Room (Address will be sent by email upon successful registration)

Registration: Due to limited space in the living room, if you would like to join this activity, please scan the QR code below and fill out the questionnaire to register. After successful registration, we will send the specific activity information to your email address. If you don’t hear back from us, we appreciate your understanding.

Film Information

Title: In Search of My Japanese Midwife

Director: Fang Manman

Release Year: 2025

Languages: Chinese & Japanese (with English subtitles)

Film Length: 53 minutes

Post-Screening Guest Speaker

Kou Aizhe is the protagonist of the film In Search of My Japanese Midwife and director of the namesake audio documentary. He is the founder of Gushi FM (Story FM), a Chinese audio documentary platform dedicated to real-life storytelling. He previously worked for Swedish National Radio and the Canadian Television Network’s Beijing bureau, with over 15 years of media experience, including 7 years as a foreign correspondent.