"The Japanese have always been rather paternal toward Dalian," said Gao Wei, general manager of the Dalian Software Park. "There aren't the tensions here that there are in the rest of China."
Tokyo native Mami Imamura, who opened Dalian's first Japanese-owned beauty salon seven years ago, learned of the abuses only after she arrived in China.
"I feel really sad about what the Japanese did here," she said. "But there is nothing I can do about the past."
She feels the weight of Dalian's historical anger.
Men who come to her shop refer to her as that "little Japanese" and taxi drivers have repeatedly uttered offensive Japanese phrases memorized from old war movies.
"I've felt harassed," she said. "But Chinese friends have explained to me that the men often don't even understand the words they are saying."
For his part, Ito says that although many of his countrymen here celebrate the city's lack of Japanese formality, China's anything-goes culture can create problems.
Some business call centers have cut back on hiring Japanese-speaking Chinese because some had offended customers in Japan by failing to use proper honorifics. Now, they're bringing in young native speakers from Japan.
"In the Japanese workplace, rules are strictly followed . . . ," Ito said. "Many people don't understand Japanese culture. But they're learning."
Ito has learned a few lessons himself: Thanks to Yang, 42, he said, he felt more Chinese every day, starting with the small things.
He used to pay five times as much for bananas because he was Japanese. "Now, I get the local price," he said.
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john.glionna@latimes.com
Eliot Gao in The Times' Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.
