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