The First Secretary was a scholarly type. I asked him a few questions in order to better understand my situation, but he just replied, “Don’t worry. Be strong!” Nothing more. A few days later, he came to my room and gave me a document. “Read this and then sign it, please,” he said. The document was a personal letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Do not tell anyone for a while that the Japanese government helped rescue you, it said. Of course, I signed the thing on the spot, and the First Secretary went back to Beijing.
