跨国婚姻里的爱心天使（初恋被战争拆散）

美国91岁韩战老兵曼恩（Duane Mann）与同为91岁的日裔初恋情人山口佩姬（Peggy Yamaguchi）失去联系近70年，他5月在网上发起寻人，到6月成功与昔日恋人重逢，成为当地佳话 在这温馨故事的背后，还少不了一位陌生人、23岁华裔女孩黄秀惠（Theresa Wong）的热心帮助，她花了一小时在网上查找资料，成功找到寻找山口佩姬的线索 这位幕后功臣接受美媒访问时称「我觉得这一切好神奇，因为我生命中的一个小时，竟是他70年的等待」，我来为大家科普一下关于跨国婚姻里的爱心天使?下面希望有你要的答案，我们一起来看看吧!

跨国婚姻里的爱心天使

美国91岁韩战老兵曼恩（Duane Mann）与同为91岁的日裔初恋情人山口佩姬（Peggy Yamaguchi）失去联系近70年，他5月在网上发起寻人，到6月成功与昔日恋人重逢，成为当地佳话。 在这温馨故事的背后，还少不了一位陌生人、23岁华裔女孩黄秀惠（Theresa Wong）的热心帮助，她花了一小时在网上查找资料，成功找到寻找山口佩姬的线索。 这位幕后功臣接受美媒访问时称「我觉得这一切好神奇，因为我生命中的一个小时，竟是他70年的等待。」

2022年5月2日，曼恩在Facebook发出一个寻人帖子，希望找到一名失去联络近70年的日本女生，因此引来当地媒体注意。

在韩战期间，曼恩1953至54年驻扎在日本，这位当时22岁、来自艾奥瓦州（Iowa）的士兵在军人俱乐部遇上了山口佩姬，两人经常在俱乐部内听着猫王皮礼士（Elvis Presley）、Tony Bennett的歌曲，然后翩翩起舞，曼恩回忆说道「她是多么漂亮的女孩，那么机敏与善良。」

两人堕入爱河，山口佩姬也怀上了孩子， 但是由于战争和时局动荡，他们失散了。

曼恩与山口佩姬在之后多年各自结婚生子，现年91岁、经历过丧妻的曼恩一直有个心结，「我担心她（山口佩姬）以为是我遗弃了她。」他想向她解释清楚。 他的儿子布赖恩（Brian Mann）也支持父亲寻找当年的爱人。

陌生的华裔女孩主动帮忙

曼恩的网上寻人启事引来了电视台KETV的注意，在新闻节目报道后，深深打动了一名来自温哥华的陌生人、23岁的华裔女孩黄秀惠（Theresa Wong）。在电视制作公司从事研究员工作的她，透过网络翻查昔日的旧报道，终于找到了线索，促成了曼恩与山口佩姬的重逢。 6月1日，曼恩前往密歇根州与山口佩姬会面，他起初非常担心，紧张地询问身边的人：「你觉得她会让我抱抱她吗？」 但他的忧虑很快消失。昔日爱人山口佩姬高兴地与他重逢，拥抱他，并问道「你还记得那些舞蹈吗？」

育有三子，现时与丈夫一起生活的山口佩姬回忆称，她从来没有感到遭到曼恩的遗弃。 这让曼恩终于放下了心头大石，他称「我现在感到平静了。」

以下是这个跨越70年的朝暮思念的真实故事：

他与初恋在朝鲜战争中被拆散，但陌生女孩帮助他们重逢。He was torn from his first love in the Korean War. Strangers just helped them reunite.杜安·曼恩得知他的前女友还以他的名字给她的大儿子取了名Duane Mann learned that his former girlfriend had named a son after him.

上图：91岁的Peggy Yamaguchi Sedenquist与91岁的Duane Mann重聚，后者已经寻找她70年了。两人在朝鲜战争期间约会了大约一年，当时在海军服役的曼恩驻扎在日本。（布莱恩·曼恩）

Peggy Yamaguchi Sedenquist, 91, reunites with Duane Mann, 91, who had been searching for her for 70 years. The two dated for about a year during the Korean War when Mann — who was in the Navy — was stationed in Japan. (Brian Mann)

正是她优美的舞蹈引起了他的注意。然后她的笑容和她的机敏让他坠入爱河。他从未见过像她这样的人。

It was her dance moves that initially got his attention. Then it was her smile and her quick wit. He’d never met anyone like her.

在1953年的朝鲜战争期间，来自爱荷华州的22岁水手杜安·曼恩（Duane Mann）第一次坠入爱河。

During the Korean War in 1953, Duane Mann — a 22-year-old sailor from Iowa, then stationed in Japan — fell in love for the first time.

1953年，曼恩在横须贺。（图片由Duane Mann提供）Mann in Yokosuka in 1953. (Courtesy of Duane Mann)

她的名字叫Peggy Yamaguchi，对他来说，她是完美的。

“她是个漂亮的女孩，非常敏感和善良，”现年91岁的曼恩回忆道，他在搬到东京的空军基地之前，在横须贺管理着一个航空供应仓库。“我们在一起很开心。”

Her name was Peggy Yamaguchi, and to him, she was perfect.

“She was such a pretty girl, and so sensitive and kind,” recalled Mann, now 91, who managed an aviation supply warehouse in Yokosuka before transferring to an air base in Tokyo. “We had so much fun.”

Mann snapped this photo of Yamaguchi, then 22, in Japan. (Duane Mann)

上图：曼恩拍下了这张当时22岁的山口在日本的照片。（杜安·曼恩）

两人在一家军官俱乐部相遇，山口在帽子检查室工作，曼恩在工余时间被聘为机械师和军士。而山口上英语课，她作为翻译帮助军人和当地人进行交流。

The pair met at a military officers’ club, where Yamaguchi worked in the hat check room, and Mann was hired as a mechanic and sergeant-at-arms in his off hours. Yamaguchi took English lessons, and she helped translate conversations between service members and locals.

俱乐部里有一个现场乐队，一天晚上下班后，“佩吉和我，我们开始跳舞，”曼恩说。

There was a live band at the club, and one evening after work, “Peggy and I, we started to dance,” Mann said.

“依我说，”他继续说，“这个女孩真的很会跳舞。

“And my word,” he continued, “this girl could really dance.”

他们开始每天见面，在俱乐部里总是留到最后才离开。

They began meeting daily, often until they were the only ones left at the club.

“人们会站在那里看着我们，”曼恩说。“把她抱在怀里，我会情不自禁地越搂越紧。”

“People would just stand and watch us,” Mann said. “Holding her in my arms, I just kept falling deeper and deeper.”

大约一年后，他们的恋情戛然而止，因为美国海军比预期更早地将曼恩送回了美国。

About a year later, their romance came to an abrupt halt when the Navy sent Mann back to the United States sooner than expected.

“朝鲜战争结束了，军队臃肿，所以为了省钱，他们很早就开始解雇人，”他解释说。

“The Korean War was over, and the military was bloated, so to save money they started discharging people early,” he explained.

当时，22岁的山口怀着他们的孩子。这对年轻夫妇想出了一个计划：曼恩回到爱荷华州，取出他存在银行账户里的钱——钱是以他父亲的名义存的，以防他在战争中丧生——然后把他的爱人接回美国。

At the time, Yamaguchi, then 22, was pregnant with their child. The young couple came up with a plan: Mann would go back to Iowa, collect the money he had saved in his bank account there — which he put in his father’s name, in case he was killed in the war — and bring his new love back to America.

“我想娶她，”曼恩说。

“I wanted to marry her,” Mann said.

当他回到家乡爱荷华州皮斯加（Pisgah）时，他的计划失败了，并发现他的父亲已经花光了他所有的积蓄。

His plan fell through when he arrived in his hometown of Pisgah, Iowa, and discovered that his father had spent all of his savings.

“（我父亲花光了我积蓄里的）每一分钱，”他说。“如果我知道我没有钱，我就永远不会回家。”

“Every bit of it,” he said. “If I would have known that I didn’t have any money, I would have never gone home.”

当他努力寻找解决方案时，这对爱人依旧通过信件保持着联系。曼恩开始在一家高速公路建筑公司工作 - 这是他能找到的最高薪的工作。

While he struggled to find a solution, the couple stayed in touch through letters, and Mann began working at a highway construction company — the highest-paying job he could find.

Mann kept this photo of Yamaguchi in his wallet for 70 years. (Courtesy of Rich Sedenquist)

曼恩把这张山口的照片放在钱包里70年了。（由Rich Sedenquist提供）

经过一个月的通信，山口停止了回复。曼恩后来知道了原因：他的母亲截获并烧毁了山口的信，因为她不赞成他们的关系，他说。

After a month of correspondence, Yamaguchi stopped replying. Mann later learned why: His mother intercepted and burned Yamaguchi’s letters, as she did not approve of their relationship, he said.

“她不希望我娶一个日本女孩，”曼恩解释说，并补充说，他的妹妹最后把山口给他寄来的最后一封信（从妈妈那里）给偷了出来，这封信是在寄出的几个月后才收到的。信里说她失去了他们的孩子，并与威斯康星州的一名美国空军结了婚。“我被彻底击垮了。”

“She didn’t want me to marry a Japanese girl,” Mann explained, adding that his sister snuck him one last letter from Yamaguchi, which arrived a few months later. It said she had lost their baby and married a member of the U.S. Air Force from Wisconsin. “I was devastated.”

一种强烈的内疚感在曼恩心中膨胀起来。它徘徊了七十年。

A strong sense of guilt swelled up inside Mann. It lingered for seven decades.

“我担心她以为我抛弃了她，”丧偶的曼恩说。

“I was worried she thought I abandoned her,” said Mann, who is widowed.

当曼恩继续他的人生——创办了一家成功的农产品企业，结了两次婚，生了六个孩子——山口从未离开过他的脑海。

As he moved through life — starting a successful produce business, getting married twice and fathering six children — Yamaguchi never left his mind.

直到今天，他还把她的两张照片藏在钱包里。他说，他试图追寻她，但他从来没有遇到好运气。

To this day, he has kept two photos of her tucked in his wallet. He tried to track her down, he said, but he never had any luck.

“我想让她知道我不会抛弃她，”曼恩说。

“I wanted her to know that I wouldn’t abandon her,” Mann said.

为了尽最后的一丝努力去找到她，曼恩于5月1日在Facebook上发布了一个请求，分享了他为她拍摄的照片以及整个故事，并写道“他对发生的一切感到非常沉重”。

In a last-ditch effort to find her, Mann posted a plea on Facebook on May 1, sharing a photo he’d taken of her along with the whole story, writing that he carried “a very heavy heart because of what all happened.”

朋友，陌生人和互联网侦探们都各出奇招，当地新闻频道KETV7也报道了这个故事，帮助曼恩将请求扩散出去。

Friends, strangers and internet sleuths weighed in with suggestions. A local news channel, KETV7, picked up the story, spreading Mann’s plea even further.

就在那时，温哥华的一位年轻女子收到了有关曼恩困境的风声。

That’s when a young woman in Vancouver caught wind of Mann’s plight.

“我无法把它从我的脑海中抹去，”23岁的黄秀惠Theresa Wong说，她在历史频道工作。“杜安显然在七十年来一直在追求一个完美的结局。我无法想象这对一个人来说得承受多大的压力。

“I couldn’t get it off my mind,” said Theresa Wong, 23, who works at the History Channel. “Duane has clearly been looking for closure for seven decades. I can’t imagine how that must weigh on a person.”

Theresa Wong, 23, was instrumental in helping Mann find his long-lost love. (Courtesy of Theresa Wong )

23岁的黄秀惠Theresa Wong在帮助曼恩找到他失散已久的爱情方面发挥了重要作用。（图片由Theresa Wong提供）

她决定加入搜索， 她在 newspapers.com 上输入了“Peggy Yamaguchi”，希望能找到某种结婚公告。一篇很有希望的文章出现了，标题是“东京新娘喜欢埃斯卡诺巴的生活”。

“它似乎与一切吻合，”Wong说。

She decided to join the search. She typed in “Peggy Yamaguchi” on newspapers.com, hoping to find a marriage announcement of some sort. A promising article, with the headline “Tokyo Bride Likes Life in Escanaba,” appeared.

“It seemed to line up with everything,” Wong said.

她与KETV7分享了她的发现，然后该电视台在密歇根州找到了有一个已婚人士的名字和地址。一名记者联系了山口的儿子Rich Sedenquist。

She shared her findings with KETV7, and the station then had a married name and address in Michigan to go on. A reporter contacted Yamaguchi’s son, Rich Sedenquist.

起初，66岁的塞登奎斯特（Sedenquist）对这个消息感到困惑，但当他向他91岁的母亲山口佩姬（Peggy Yamaguchi Sedenquist）展示曼恩的老照片时，她说：“我记得他。”

At first, Sedenquist, 66, was puzzled by the message, but once he showed his 91-year-old mother, Peggy Yamaguchi Sedenquist, old photos of Mann, she said, “I remember him.”

山口（Yamaguchi Sedenquist）几乎压抑了对曼恩的记忆，但突然之间，舞蹈的感觉就像昨天（才发生的）一样，她说。她形容她当时的男朋友“帅气，高大，非常诚实”。

Yamaguchi Sedenquist had mostly suppressed memories of Mann, but suddenly, the dancing felt like yesterday, she said. She described her then-boyfriend as “nice-looking, tall, and very honest.”

当她得知曼恩正在寻找她时，“我非常惊讶，”山口佩姬在埃斯卡诺巴的家中说，她在那里抚养了三个儿子，并且仍然与她在1955年结婚的丈夫住在一起。

When she learned Mann was searching for her, “I was very surprised,” Yamaguchi Sedenquist said from her home in Escanaba, where she raised her three sons and still lives with the husband she married in 1955.

她说，与曼恩的恐惧相反，山口没有任何怨恨。当他离开日本时，“这（对我来说）很难，”她回忆到，但考虑到他在军队里，“当他必须走的时候，他必须得走。”

Contrary to Mann’s fear, Yamaguchi Sedenquist did not harbor any resentment, she said. When he left Japan, “it was hard,” she recalled, but given that he was in the military, “when he had to go, he had to go.”

曼恩知道她还活着，他坚持要亲自见到山口。曼恩的长子，63岁的布莱恩·曼恩（Brian Mann）加入了他的旅程。

Knowing she was alive, Mann was adamant about meeting Yamaguchi Sedenquist in person. Mann’s eldest son, Brian Mann, 63, joined him for the journey.

在成长过程中，布莱恩·曼恩和他的兄弟姐妹们听说过他父亲失散已久的爱情故事，并支持他去寻找她。

Growing up, Brian Mann and his siblings had heard stories about his father’s long-lost love, and supported his efforts to reunite with her.

当这对父子俩从爱荷华州开车约14个小时到密歇根州参加6月1日的见面时，老曼恩充满了焦急的期待。“你认为她会让我拥抱她吗？”他胆怯地问道。

但当他见到山口的那一秒，他的担忧就消退了。

As the father and son drove about 14 hours from Iowa to Michigan for the June 1 meeting, the elder Mann was filled with anxious anticipation. “Do you think she’ll let me hug her?” he asked timidly.

The second he saw Yamaguchi Sedenquist, his worries subsided.

Mann and Yamaguchi Sedenquist embrace on June 1. (Brian Mann)

上图：曼恩和山口在6月1日拥抱。（布莱恩·曼恩）

“她站起来给了我一个拥抱，并在我的脸颊上留了很多吻，”曼恩说。

“She got up and gave me a hug, and I got a lot of kisses on the cheek,” Mann said.

山口对曼恩说的第一句话是：“你还记得那次跳舞吗？”

The first thing Yamaguchi Sedenquist said to Mann was: “Do you remember the dancing?”

他们花了几个小时回忆，曼恩得知山口以他的名字命名了她的一个儿子。她的大孩子迈克被取了中间名杜安（Duane）。

“这真让人激动，”曼恩说，他现在住在爱荷华州伍德拜恩。

They spent hours reminiscing, and Mann learned that Yamaguchi Sedenquist named one of her sons after him. Her eldest child, Mike, was given the middle name Duane.

“That was really a thrill,” said Mann, who now lives in Woodbine, Iowa.

Mann and Yamaguchi Sedenquist plan to stay in touch. (Brian Mann)

上图：曼恩和山口计划保持联系。（布莱恩·曼恩）

“这是一次特殊的经历，”山口说，并补充说她向曼恩保证，她从未感到被他抛弃过。

“It was a special experience,” said Yamaguchi Sedenquist, adding that she assured Mann that she never felt abandoned by him.

他们的家人也见面了，每一个人都很合得来。

Their families also met, and everyone hit it off.

“我对我认为它会是什么样子有一些先入之见，但实际上它远远超出了我的想象，”布莱恩曼恩（男主的长子）说。

“I had some preconception of what I thought it was going to be like, and it went way beyond what I thought,” said Brian Mann.

“这真是太棒了，”Rich Sedenquist（女主的儿子）回应道。“他们是非常好的人。

“It was wonderful,” echoed Rich Sedenquist. “They are very good people.”

“我只是希望我（的生命）能再坚持一两年，让我更好地了解他们，”曼恩补充道。

“I just hope I can hang on for another year or two and get to know them better,” added Mann.

然而，优先于一切，他首先想要做的是解释清楚当年究竟发生了什么。七十年后，他终于做到了。

“我现在内心安宁了，”曼恩说。

What he wanted above anything, though, was to explain what had happened. After seven decades, he finally did.

“I’m at peace with it now,” Mann said.

不过，“我很想和她再跳一支舞，”他继续说，“只要再跳一次。”

Still, “I would love to dance with her again,” he continued, “just one more time.”