{"id":4257,"date":"2016-06-21T03:00:24","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T07:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/?p=4257"},"modified":"2016-06-21T22:45:29","modified_gmt":"2016-06-22T02:45:29","slug":"torn-memories-of-nanking-a-must-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/2016\/06\/torn-memories-of-nanking-a-must-read\/","title":{"rendered":"“Torn Memories of Nanking” – A Must Read"},"content":{"rendered":"
As we approach the 80th anniversary of the Rape of Nanking and the time when all the perpetrators and survivors of the Rape of Nanking have passed away, the immense value of recording the testimonies of these perpetrators and survivors cannot be overestimated.\u00a0 Not only that they are needed for historical accuracy, but they provide a cornerstone to build true friendship and peace between China and Japan, as well as for the rest of the world, a cornerstone for perhaps the very survival of humankind.<\/p>\n
Faced with conflicting information about the Nanking Massacre when she was a youth and a young adult, Tamaki Matsuoka, a Japanese elementary school history teacher, spent almost 30 years of her adult life, trying to find out just exactly what happened in Nanking, China during the short period of about six weeks to two months during the end of 1937 and the beginning of 1938.\u00a0 Enduring a long, difficult, challenging, and dangerous journey, she exhibited courage, dedication, commitment, and sacrifice to achieve her objective.\u00a0 Among other accomplishments, she interviewed over 250 former Japanese soldiers who participated in the Nanking Massacre and over 300\u00a0 Chinese survivors of the Nanking Massacre.\u00a0 Through these testimonies, she has presented an undeniable case for the existence of the Nanking Massacre as one of the most horrific atrocities in the history of humankind.<\/p>\n
A summary of her life-long project has just been published in the English book Torn Memories of Nanking<\/em><\/span> [1], which should be a must-read book for everyone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How Did This Project<\/strong> Begin and Carried Out?<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 Tamaki Matsuoka was born in Japan in 1947.\u00a0 When she was growing up in Osaka, Japan, and even when she was a young adult working as an elementary school history teacher, she heard and read all kinds of different comments and reports about what happened in Nanking during the Nanking Massacre at the end of 1937 and the beginning of 1938.\u00a0 Were a lot of Chinese, including women and children, massacred?\u00a0 Were a lot of Chinese women and girls raped and then killed?\u00a0 Were there a lot of looting, burning, and horrible executions?\u00a0 With what happen just a natural consequence of war?\u00a0 Was the so-called Nanking Massacre fabricated and exaggerated by the Chinese?<\/p>\n Starting around 1988 or a little earlier, she decided to try to find the answers to those questions.\u00a0 An ambitious and formidable task even for a person working full-time on that project.\u00a0 But Tamaki had to earn a living working full-time as an elementary school teacher, and also together with her husband raising a family with two sons.\u00a0 She was able to work on this project only during the summers, school holidays, or weekends.\u00a0 Initially she only had herself to work on this project, and she had to pay for any incurred\u00a0 expenses (e.g., travel expenses between Japan and China).\u00a0 Furthermore, she endured a lot of criticisms and attacks from the Japanese right wing.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, during these 30 years, through her dedication and commitment, Tamaki courageously faced and overcame all these obstacles.\u00a0 Even after establishing some initial contacts with former Japanese WWII veterans after posting an announcement in Japanese newspapers, she had to overcome significant cultural and political reluctance to talk about this sensitive subject.\u00a0 Again it took months or even years of building friendship with these veterans and gaining their trusts in the importance of the project that the veterans were willing to open up and discuss these long-held memories which they had not discussed with anyone else (including their immediate family members) for over half a century.\u00a0 Similarly, she had to overcome significant reluctance for the survivors to revisit the long suppressed terrifying dark memories of the past, including cultural reluctance to discuss being raped, and political reluctance to discuss atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers when at times the Chinese government was trying to establish friendlier relationship with the Japanese government.<\/p>\n By comparing notes of the perpetrators and victims, Tamaki matched up records and compiled testimonies of the mass slaughter, rape, arson, destruction, plunder and other unimaginable violence committed to the Nanking residents including women, elderly and children.\u00a0 Her work produced numerous presentations, research articles, films and several books, including winning the “Japan Congress of Journalists Prize” in 2003.\u00a0 Thanks to her and others, the true picture of Nanking Massacre is gradually being revealed to the world with irrefutable evidence.<\/p>\n What<\/strong> Happened During the Nanking<\/strong> Massacre?<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 The Second Sino-Japanese War started on September 18, 1931 when Japan invaded and took control of Manchuria, the northeastern part of China.\u00a0 But massive military battles between Japan and China did not erupt until after July 7, 1937 when Japan crossed the Marco Polo Bridge and invaded Beijing (the Marco Polo Bridge Incident). The Japanese Imperial Army engaged a long, hard-fought battle lasting more than three months and took control of Shanghai near the end of November 1937.\u00a0 Then it was relatively easy for Japan to march into and took control of Nanking, the then-capital of China, on December 13, 1937, since most of the Chinese Nationalist army was already retreating westward, eventually to Chongqing, which became the war-time capital of China.<\/p>\n The best way to get a good sense of the Nanking Massacre is from interview statements that Tamaki recorded from Chinese survivors and Japanese soldiers.\u00a0 Here is a small sampling from her recently published English book.<\/p>\n How and Why It Happened?<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 How could humans use such atrocious treatments toward other humans?\u00a0 Although a complete explanation may not be found from the interview statements, they do mention many of the reasons.<\/p>\n What Is Its Significance for the Future?<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 More than 70 years have elapsed since the end of WWII and close to 80 years have elapsed since the Nanking Massacre, yet Japan still has not officially acknowledged and apologized for the massive and inhumane atrocities that the Japanese Imperial Army inflicted all over Asia.\u00a0 Yes, some parts of the Japanese government have on a few occasions voiced their regret over those past actions, but invariably, those announcements were negated by subsequent announcements by the Japanese government.\u00a0 In addition, no such announcement has ever come from her National Diet, the highest organ of state power in Japan.\u00a0 Furthermore, the actions of the Japanese government are far from being consistent with such acknowledgment and apology.\u00a0 For example, Japan’s prime ministers have paid tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 convicted and executed Japanese WWII Class A War Criminals are enshrined, and Japan for many years has revised her textbooks so that generations of their students would know nothing about this part of history. China and Japan are the second and third largest economic powers in the world.\u00a0 True friendship between China and Japan are crucial for establishing peace in Asia, as well as in the world.\u00a0 However, if such important part of history is denied, then there could not be true friendship and peace between China and Japan.<\/p>\n That is why Tamaki’s work is so important.\u00a0 Her reconstruction and correlation of the testimonies of former Japanese soldiers who were stationed in Nanking and Chinese survivors of the Nanking Massacre have established irrefutable evidence on the existence and scale of the Nanking Massacre.\u00a0 Here are examples of their testimonies:<\/p>\n I want to end this article with a February 23, 2015 quote from Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito “It is important today, when memories of the war are fading, to look back humbly on the past and correctly pass on the tragic experiences and history Japan pursued from the generation which experienced the war to those without direct knowledge.”<\/p>\n ———————————-<\/p>\n [1] Torn Memories of Nanking<\/em><\/span>, by Tamaki Matsuoka, ALPHA Education, 2016, ISBN 978-0-9920550-I-1 (paperback).\u00a0 Parts of this English book, plus other material, have previously been published in several other books in Japanese and Chinese by Tamaki Matsuoka.<\/p>\n [2] Nanjing is just another spelling of Nanking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As we approach the 80th anniversary of the Rape of Nanking and the time when all the perpetrators and survivors of the Rape of Nanking have passed away, the immense value of recording the testimonies of these perpetrators and survivors cannot be overestimated.\u00a0 Not only that they are needed for historical accuracy, but they provide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4257"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4307,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4257\/revisions\/4307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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