Making Up for Lost Time

I feel terrible.  I've been neglecting this project for a couple of weeks now.  I went on vacation and did not have time to work on the book at all.  So this weekend, I've been playing catch up.

What's interesting to me in this process is when I began I thought would really enjoy the chapters about NaiNai and focus mostly on those.  But now, my favorites are the chapters about my great-grandparents.  I suppose it's the hopeless romantic in me.  I see their story is a love story.  It's the story of a family that was struggling under the hand of a repressive matriarch, so they escaped to start a life of their own.  I'm finding myself looking forward to these chapters the most.

Through reading these chapters, I'm discovering where NaiNai found her strength.  She got it from her mother, my great-grandmother.  Here was a woman who was betrothed to a man she had never met.  On her wedding day, he was not there.  Instead, she launched right into her life as the daughter-in-law.  Her mother-in-law was the head of the house.  She was a strict, traditional woman who believed her only goal in life was to produce as many sons for the Tao family as possible.  My great-grandmother was beaten, put down, and consistently humiliated by her mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law.  When my great-grandmother failed to give birth to a boy, she was essentially shunned from the house.  Aside from the work she was required to do, she was otherwise ignored.  When she was pregnant again, no one was around to help her.  She had to go through the childbirth alone.  Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, she lost her first daughter to disease.  Again, she was alone, this time in her grief.  My great-grandfather was away at school and her mother-in-law did not allow her to write him a letter, letting him know about their daughter's death.  Immediately after, NaiNai got sick as well.  My great-grandmother had to travel to Wuhan, a big city, all by herself to find a doctor for a cure.  Where did she find the strength?  Where did she find the courage?  Did I mention she was younger than I am now when she went though all of this?

I am meeting so many extraordinary women through this journey.  This makes me extremely proud to be a part of this family.  I know that my great-grandfather did amazing things as well and he was a very powerful man.  But I simply identify more with these incredible women who survived so much.  They fought for their families.  If I can have half as much fortitude as they did in my lifetime, I will consider myself very lucky.

 Here's my great-grandmother with some of her children.  NaiNai is on the far left.

Historical Context

I remember watching a documentary when I was young about an event I knew very little about. It's referred to as the Rape of Nanking or the Nanking Massacre. I remember being absolutely horrified at the atrocities being committed by Japanese soldiers.

Let me preface this by saying I, personally, feel no hatred or disdain for Japanese people. I understand what happened then has little to do with people now. However, I get asked a lot, why do Chinese people hate Japanese people? I believe this may be one of the reasons why. Keep in mind, this is simply a blog, not a historical text so much of this is opinion and events from my point of view.

In 1937, Japan invaded China and started taking over cities. Nai Nai's family was caught up in this and forced to move from city to city to escape the Japanese. They were brutal. If you type Nanking Massacre into google, you'll find numerous articles about the event. Some estimates say 300,000 Chinese people were killed during the 6 week period. I won't go into great detail here, but it is shocking to think of the viciousness and cruelty the Japanese soldiers were capable of. They went door-to-door, searching for women to rape. Not just young or middle-aged women, they went after elderly women, pregnant women, young girls, even infants. After they raped them, some gang-raped, they killed them, sometimes mutilating them first. I think what is most disturbing about all this, is the amount of documentation. I'm not talking about news articles or journals kept by people who lived through it, or even their personal accounts by memory. I'm talking about photos of Japanese soldiers holding up severed heads and smiling, standing over dead bodies looking pleased. What a dark time in China's history, and one that so few people know about.

When I watched the documentary as a child, I didn't make a connection to my own family living through that time. While my father's book does not discuss the violence directly, he makes reference to it. In fact, my great-grandfather, Nai Nai's father was a government official at the time who got caught in the middle. You see, Japan took advantage of a country that was already weak and torn. Japanese occupation only further ripped the country apart, with some supporting a military defense, others supporting negotiations. My great-grandfather was somewhere in between. He already left Chongqing, which is where the Chinese government was stationed during the war. That was viewed as a betrayal. Yet, he did not know if negotiations would be successful. Either way, he felt like he had signed a death sentence.

I just finished the chapter where my great-grandfather leaves his family in Hong Kong and goes to Shanghai to join the negotiations. He doesn't know if he'll ever come home.

 

 Nai Nai's family, my great-grandfather is on the right