Some 400,000 women were forced to be "comfort women" for the Japanese army, and nearly half of them were Chinese, according to the Research Center for Comfort Women at Shanghai Normal University. When asked to describe the life of "comfort women" survivors, he used the word "hardship". In 1982, the 29-year-old Zhang decided to research the issue and started interviewing "comfort women" survivors in his spare time. In August, the last of the 127 women Zhang had interviewed, Cao Heimao, died at the age of 97. On Saturday, the Comfort Women Justice Coalition presented an award to Zhang for his contribution to seeking justice for "comfort women".