80 years ago

[Randy W]

For six weeks, beginning Dec, 13, 1937 . . .

 

 

 

Nanjing Massacre Memorial Day 2017

South China Morning Post

Published on Dec 13, 2017

Survivors of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre attend memorial services in Nanjing to mourn over the victims.

 

 

 

[Randy W]

A CFL topic from 2011 - The Flowers of War

[Randy W]

. . . and the Sixth Tone

 

 

Remembering Tragedy in Nanjing

Art and architecture at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall remind us not to forget — and hint at ways to forgive.

 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Allon]

There are several issues that need updating from the days in 2011 when this subject was first posted. At the time of that post I was in China.

 

Indeed, the Japanese government has apologized a number of times in various ways and various official government leaders, including Herohito himself, for the atrocities that were not only committed upon China but all other countries in Asia. What centers on China's particular rage is that there have been no reparations, which would take governmental (the Diet) action, offered for the victims, specifically the Comfort Girls that were basically made sex slaves to the JIA. Korea's women were made Comfort Girls to a larger percentage and Japan formally apologized and did pay reparations. Other countries also received reparations. None of China's Comfort Girls received any reparations whatsoever. Nor did any of the families or victims who were affected by the infamous Unit 743, where prisoners were cruelly experimented upon, even vivisection was done, from freezing live victims, to amputating limbs while the victim was alive.

 

Further, what China, including its emigrants to the US, want further is a revision to the Japanese school system such that the curricula should include more emphasis upon what was actually done by the JIA, with less emphasis upon the Bushido code, the lands conquered by the JIA, or any manner of glorifying the invasions. Even current Japanese school books just pass over the war as almost a momentary thing. But the government until a few years back, in view of North Korea's belligerence, has changed its constitution so that more than 1% of its defense force can be mobilized or made standing.

 

In fact, some Japanese government officials have publicly said Japan should formally apologize for Nanking. Some of those that have were killed or in one case, attacked with a Samarai sword. The city of Nanjing severed ties to its sister city in Japan after their mayor questioned whether Nanking actually took place. The Japanese government formally complained when Xi Xinping said that 300,000 Chinese were massacred at Nanking. The Japanese said there were "far fewer."

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/01/14/national/history/japan-complains-after-china-says-300000-died-in-nanking-massacre/#.WjLXujRryic

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/world/asia/chinese-city-severs-ties-after-japanese-mayor-denies-massacre.html

Chinese leaders have acknowledged Japan's apologies, including Hu Jintao, who attended engineering school in Japan. There is a modest movement among Chinese to try and reach agreement on their differences. But it is many years away.

 

As to Iris Chang...I knew their family well. I have visited them several times in California. As I have been a writer, I was asked to review the archives that Iris Chang gave the Hoover Institute at Stanford with the eye toward finishing her last work on the tank units in the Bataan Death March, originally given to Joseph Galloway of We Were Soldiers...fame. I turned them down too.

 

There is much more there than she published in The Rape of Nanking. And much more that she gave James Bradley for his book, Flyboys. Several, especially one lieutenant and colonel, ate the livers of American flyers who had gone down near Chichi-jima, where George H.W. Bush was filmed being shot down and rescued. The war crime tribunals rewarded their meal with hanging, the topic of which was kept Top Secret until Iris Chang was given the actual transcripts by sources. They are in the Hoover Institute files but now publicly available elsewhere.

 

It's difficult for me to write this. I loved Iris and in many ways still do. But not a sexual love; more of one in admiration and respect. I followed her career from her first book about a Chinese scientist who helped found the JPL laboratory and was deported to China for "communist tendencies" during the McCarthy era. (He later helped create the Silkworm, a missile similar to the Scud. (See, The Thread of the Silkworm by Iris Chang, her first book.) She gave impetus to me finding a Chinese wife. She published The Rape in 1996, a year before my divorce became final. I could not read her book until early 2000, it was so dark. (I have PTSD.)

 

I heard of her suicide while driving down the road in November, 2004 and had to pull over. I still cry for her and her family, and wish them well. She was 36 years old. There is much more to her story as you might surmise.

[Randy W]

from the People's Daily on Facebook -

The "War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression", as it's known

People's Daily, China

Page Liked · 6 hrs ·

 

Quote

#OnThisDay: The ceremony for Japan’s surrender in the China Theater was held in the auditorium of the Central Military Academy in Nanjing on September 9, 1945, marking the end of the 14-year Japanese invasion of China. (L: China, R: Japan) #NeverForget #WWII

https://www.facebook.com/PeoplesDaily/photos/a.191212920930533/2700238950027905/

Edited December 13, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

The beginnings of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1931 were discussed here (CFL topic)

 

 

The July 7 Incident

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone

For Whom the Sirens Call: Life in a City Marked by Tragedy

• The Nanjing Massacre dominates discussions of the city's past; To what degree should it define the present?
  

[/img]

Students attend a memorial ceremony for victims of the Nanjing Massacre in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, Dec. 13, 2018. Du Yang/CNS/VCG

Every year on the morning of Dec. 13, the shrill cry of air raid sirens pierces the cold winter air above the eastern city of Nanjing. Down below, the city’s residents stop whatever they’re doing to observe a moment of silence for those who died during the Nanjing Massacre, a roughly six-week slaughter carried out by Japanese soldiers after occupying the city this day in 1937.

The wailing sirens — traditionally a warning of imminent attack — are meant as a reminder of the suffering and bloodshed that took place all those years ago. Growing up in Nanjing, I remember my whole school abruptly falling silent once the sirens howled. Teachers stopped talking mid-lecture, and the whole class stood up and waited quietly for the haunting sounds to fade.

We were never overtly taught to hate the Japanese in school, but we were also never allowed to forget the magnitude of the atrocities they committed. Both my primary school graduation ceremony and the ceremony to mark my graduation from the Young Pioneers were held at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, which itself is built atop a mass grave. When well-known director Zhang Yimou began filming his Nanjing Massacre epic “The Flowers of War,” he held auditions for extras at my high school. And I still remember my math teacher remarking one year, as the sirens tapered, that she didn’t care for Japanese.

It was hardly a stunning admission. Anti-Japanese sentiment persists nationwide, but it can be particularly potent in Nanjing, where the massacre is such a fundamental part of the city’s — and its residents’ — identities. It’s only natural, then, that impressionable young students pick up on and seek to mimic these feelings.

 . . .

What we all shared was a belief that it was our duty as Nanjingers to tell our city’s story. Last year, the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall published a speech given by a Nanjing high school student preparing to study abroad in the U.S. Speaking for his fellow Nanjingers, he says, “We have a responsibility to be ambassadors for peace and to share the collective memory of what happened here with our peers around the world.”

Sometimes, I wonder if we put too much emphasis on the second half of that sentence. Internationally, the massacre tends to be the one thing people know about my hometown. The events of 1937 continue to define the city — and, by extension, those of us who grew up there.

[Randy W]

from Gabrielallon on Adv_CFL (Allon on CFL)

Let's not forget Iris Chang who drew the attention of the West to the massacre in her book The Rape of Nanking. (Yes, we know it is Nanjing now.)
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.nHtw35tS7L8u4Zz3c8M9ygHaFD%26pid%3DApi&f=1

Hope the link works. Cut and paste if you have to. It is worth the trouble. She was one helluva woman.

[Randy W]

90 years ago on September 18, the War of Resistance against #Japan started.
Countless people died in Japan's brutal aggression.
Today, sirens were on throughout #China to mark the 90 anniversary.
Young generations know China's painful, war-torn history, and we won't let it happen again.
#neverforgethistory #antiwar

from Talk It Out with Li Jingjing on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/TalkItOutWithLiJingjing/videos/242231514361837/

根据人民防空法规定，自治区人民政府定于2021年9月18日10:00-10:15试鸣防空警报，请广大市民听到警报后保持正常的工作和生活秩序。

According to the provisions of the Civil Air Defense Law, the People's Government of the Autonomous Region will test the air defense alarm from 10:00-10:15 on September 18, 2021. The general public is requested to maintain normal work and life order after hearing the alarm.

[Randy W]

In front of the darkly-dressed crowd, China’s national flag flew at half-mast as the country held its eighth national memorial ceremony Monday for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre.
The Nanjing Massacre took place when Japanese troops captured the city on Dec. 13, 1937. Over six weeks, they killed more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers in one of the most barbaric episodes of World War II.
In 2014, China’s top legislature designated Dec. 13 as the national Memorial Day for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre.
Eleven survivors of the massacre have passed away this year, reducing the total number of registered survivors to 61.

from China Pictorial on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ChinaPic/posts/4415152065276815

Edited December 13, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

China commemorates war against Japanese aggression

People attend a ceremony to commemorate the September 18 Incident and the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression at the 9.18 Historical Museum in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, Sept. 18, 2022.

Source: Xinhua  Editor: huaxia  2022-09-18 22:22:45

Quote

 

As the sirens howled in the city, pedestrians stood in silent tribute, and vehicles honked. Since 1995, Shenyang has sounded the air-raid alarm on this occasion to commemorate the September 18 Incident for 28 years in a row.

At the 9.18 Historical Museum, nearly 300 people from all walks of life gathered and held a ceremony to commemorate the September 18 Incident and the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

Flanked by the honor guards of the People's Liberation Army, 14 representatives from various sectors struck a huge bell 14 times at around 9:18 a.m. in commemoration of the 14-year-long bitter war against Japanese invaders.

On Sept. 18, 1931, Japanese troops blew up a section of railway under their control near Shenyang and accused Chinese troops of sabotage as a pretext for the attack. Later that night, they bombarded barracks near Shenyang.

 

 

[Randy W]

The Forgotten Films That Helped Reset Sino-Japanese Relations

Soon after China and Japan normalized relations, a group of filmmakers began work on a project that dealt directly with the tortured history between the two nations.

Read more: http://ow.ly/YonK50KY4hc

 

 

The Forgotten Films That Helped Reset Sino-Japanese Relations
Soon after China and Japan normalized relations, a group of filmmakers began work on a project that dealt directly with the tortured history between the two nations.

A poster for the 1982 film “The Go Masters.” From Douban

Quote

 

Fifty years ago today, on Sep. 29, 1972, representatives from Japan and China signed the Japan–China Joint Communiqué, normalizing diplomatic ties between the two countries after a 20-year break. Six years later, the Treaty of Peace and Friendship Between Japan and China laid down the political and legal foundation for an even closer cultural, economic, and political relationship.

But in the 1970s, the success of this rapprochement was far from guaranteed. Realizing the promise of a reset took years of work by committed individuals in a wide range of fields. Perhaps no industry better exemplifies this than film — and no film better exemplifies the challenges of reestablishing cultural contact between China and Japan than “The Go Masters.”

“The Go Masters” — the Chinese title, “Yi Pan Meiyou Xiawan de Qi,” literally means “An Unfinished Game of Go” — was initially proposed as a domestic production by Chinese filmmakers, with work on the script beginning in 1978, just two years after the end of the Cultural Revolution. The film centered around the tale of two go players, one Chinese and the other Japanese, whose friendship is thrown into turmoil on multiple occasions as a result of the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s.

After reading the original script, Xia Yan, the Chairman of the China-Japan Cultural Exchange Association and China Film Association, suggested that it be made a joint international production. 

 

A Japanese poster for the 1982 film “The Go Masters.” Courtesy of the author

Edited October 3, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Today marks the 9th of China's National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims.
85 years ago today, the Japanese invaders made a horrific massacre.
We should never forget history. #Nanjing #History

from iChongqing on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/iChongqing/photos/a.1152396818241348/2521984381282578

 

 

 

 

[Randy W]

On 9/18/2021 at 11:47 PM, Randy W said:

90 years ago on September 18, the War of Resistance against #Japan started.
Countless people died in Japan's brutal aggression.
Today, sirens were on throughout #China to mark the 90 anniversary.
Young generations know China's painful, war-torn history, and we won't let it happen again.
#neverforgethistory #antiwar

from Talk It Out with Li Jingjing on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/TalkItOutWithLiJingjing/videos/242231514361837/

根据人民防空法规定，自治区人民政府定于2021年9月18日10:00-10:15试鸣防空警报，请广大市民听到警报后保持正常的工作和生活秩序。

According to the provisions of the Civil Air Defense Law, the People's Government of the Autonomous Region will test the air defense alarm from 10:00-10:15 on September 18, 2021. The general public is requested to maintain normal work and life order after hearing the alarm.

I keep forgetting this until I hear the sirens in the morning - I'll have to start putting it on the calendar.

Wikipedia said:

When exactly the war began is subject to debate. The conventional start date is 7 July 1937, with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Other historians consider the 18 September 1931 Mukden Incident, which led to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, to be the beginning of the war.

 . . .

In China, the war is most commonly known as the "War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression" (simplified Chinese: 抗日战争; traditional Chinese: 抗日戰爭), and shortened to "Resistance against Japanese Aggression" (Chinese: 抗日) or the "War of Resistance" (simplified Chinese: 抗战; traditional Chinese: 抗戰). It was also called the "Eight Years' War of Resistance" (simplified Chinese: 八年抗战; traditional Chinese: 八年抗戰), but in 2017 the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a directive stating that textbooks were to refer to the war as the "Fourteen Years' War of Resistance" (simplified Chinese: 十四年抗战; traditional Chinese: 十四年抗戰), reflecting a focus on the broader conflict with Japan going back to the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Randy W (see edit history)