People often imbue their names with what they take pride in.

This may have been the case with a village named Ohinata-mura (Ohinata literally means a “large sunny place”), which was located in the Minamisaku region of Nagano Prefecture.

The village, nestled in a gorge, stretched east to west. Despite being in a deep mountainous area, it reportedly received less rain and enjoyed longer hours of sunlight.

This mountain village came into the historical spotlight in 1938 during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Under the national policy of “Man-Mo Kaitaku" (Manchurian-Mongolian Development) that promoted colonizing and developing Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, nearly half of the village's........

© The Asahi Shimbun