The attached 13-minute video describes the powerful and deep emotional impacts experienced by a Canadian teacher who participated in the 2008 “Peace and Reconciliation Study Tour to China” (also known as “China Study Tour”[1]).
The trip provided her an opportunity to meet victims of sexual slavery, military slavery, germ warfare, and the Nanking Massacre. Meeting these former victims humanized the war and strengthened her conviction that the millions of innocent victims should not just become casualties of history and that their story must be told. She cried tears of joy in seeing their survival, and tears of amazement at their courage to break their silence and retell their painful stories. She also asked herself whether she would have the courage to perform acts of self-sacrifice to be a humanitarian to save thousands from becoming victims as were done so many brave people, including foreigners such as the German businessman John Rabe and the American missionary Minnie Vautrin.
The trip also made her realize the strength and resiliency of the human spirit, and that we should not be looking at things that divide us, but at what we can accomplish when we put our differences aside and work together. She said that this trip far exceeded her expectations, and it will definitely benefit her as a teacher, but more importantly benefit the students in her classrooms.
This video was made by Amy Chan, the script writer and narrator, and Bang Ho, the film producer, both from Canada. I want to express my thanks to them for giving me permission to include their video in this website.
Because the size of the video file is very large, it may take a few minutes to access the video. We are providing two different sizes of the video. The first one is 51 MB and can be accessed faster (relatively speaking). The second one is 177 MB, and takes longer to access but has higher video quality.
The Journey Towards Peace & Reconciliation – Xvid 360×240 [51 MB]
The Journey Towards Peace & Reconciliation – Xvid 720×478 [177 MB]
To be able to view this video, you need to have the Xvid codec installed, which you can get a free download by clicking on this link: free download. I want to thank Eric Tow for converting the original video to Xvid format so that I can include the video in my website. If you have problem accessing this video, please send me an email at [email protected].
[1] For more information on the “China Study Tour,” see, e.g., the website of NJ-ALPHA (NJ-Alliance for Learning and Preserving the History of WWII in Asia): http://www.nj-alpha.org/.