Amakusa: Islands of dread
As is commonly known, the term karayuki-san is a contraction of karahitoyuki (a person going to Kara, i.e., China, or abroad) or karankuniyuki (going to China, or a country overseas). It refers to the overseas prostitutes who, from the final stages of the Tokugawa shogunate in the mid-nineteenth century through the Meiji period (1868-1911) and until the middle of the Taisho period (1912-1925) at the end of World War I, left their native country behind and traveled north to Siberia or continental China, or south to the various countries of Southeast Asia, to sell their flesh to foreigners. These women came from all over Japan, but it is said the vast majority came from the Amakusa Islands and the Shimabara Peninsula.
