Chinese psychotherapist working in Japan seeks to build ties between the peoples of the two countries

It was perhaps inevitable that Su Lei's life would be linked with Japan. His grandfather studied post-doctoral courses there in the 1930s and was later in charge of a prison in Xian that housed Japanese prisoners of war. He turned the camp into a school and the prisoners into students. Su, who has studied and worked in Japan for 22 years and married a Japanese woman, is a psychotherapist based in Tokyo. His clinic has served more than 100,000 clients since it opened in 1994. However, Su, 42, says he has no plans to apply for Japanese citizenship; like many Chinese, he has strong views about Japan's wartime aggression.

My grandpa Wang Dajie was born in Shenyang in China's northeast. He attended universities in Japan. His best friends and his most respected teachers were all Japanese, but his post-doctoral studies on the history of Japan at Tokyo Imperial University were interrupted by the Marco Polo Bridge Incident when Japanese troops began the invasion of China. He returned to his motherland in 1937 and in the autumn of 1938 was appointed head of a prison in Xian that held Japanese captives. Due to his background in education, he made incredible efforts to transform that prison into a school and he named it the Datong Garden with the wish to promote harmony among the people of the world.

Initially the Japanese captives refused to co-operate. They felt ashamed that they had been captured and many tried to commit suicide. My grandpa persuaded the authorities and managed to turn the prison into a school. The high walls were torn down. A basketball court and a swimming pool were built. A credit co-operative was established for students to deposit their savings. Teachers taught the history and culture of Japan and China and told stories about the battles between Germany and France that had brought huge damage to the lives of ordinary people. My grandpa even had a Japanese "comfort woman" take care of his one-year-old son, who was my father. The woman turned out to be a very kind babysitter. More and more students changed their mindset and joined anti-war activities. That's the experience my grandpa felt most proud about in his life. He hoped that people from the two nations could treat each other with friendship and avoid the tragedy of war.

I grew up in Beijing with my ears filled with anti-Japanese songs. But I also got the chance to observe frequent visitors and friends from Japan who came to see my family during my childhood. The visitors all behaved calmly and respectfully, not only to our family, but seemingly to every small thing in our home, even to a tea cup. My feelings towards Japan were complicated from the very beginning. I went to a language school in Tokyo at the age of 20 before studying religious psychology at Chiba University. As a psychotherapist, I have combined meditation and many Chinese cultural elements, such as Zen and Taoism, in healing people.