CHINA, SOCIETY, FEATURE STORY: My Nanjing
[This is a prologue to and an installment in a series entitled: On the Road to Shanghai.... The editors]
By Lianne Li
After three-and-a-half hours of tumbling in the train, I was jammed into a crawling bus full of passengers bound to the youth hotel at Fuzi Temple, where I had a bed reserved.
My first stop in Nanjing was to neither the tomb of Zhongshan nor the remaining city walls of the Ming Dynasty, but the Memorial Hall of the victims of Japanese Invasion. Since it was Friday, and the memorial hall was open everyday from eight to five except Monday for free, I felt lucky to be in time.
The number 300000 carved on the stone overhead flashed before my eyes like a lightning bolt. Below it, a sculpted skeleton desperately looked up from a heap of pallid pebbles as if to cry out its mere existence.
I walked a curved path among the stone slabs in memory of countless people massacred in various bulwarks, street alleys, homes and riverbanks. Soldiers and civilians, old and young, men and women, died in the battles, or were herded and stabbed, shot and buried alive.
There was not a single number without shocking zeros. Scattered in the pit where Japanese soldiers buried people alive, chilling bits of unearthed skeletons and bones struck me with crushing pain at the memory of the generation of my great grandparents that migrated from Nanjing. Almost all pieces of bones had a serial number signifying its assumed identity, but their names were buried and eliminated, leaving only the mass number of 300000.
"The crimes committed by Japanese invaders cannot be witnessed by one person alone. What I saw was that the brook was red, and the river was also red," said a witness of the massacre, whose words were exhibited in the museum of historical records. What I saw were pictures of an infant crying in the debris of a destroyed house, women assaulted by barbarism, blood-rusty sabers used in the competition of man-killing, and black, shocking grenades that exploded in the middle of crowds.
I witnessed what disasters had befallen my ancestors, and went through some of the throbbing terror they experienced. Restraining tears, I was afraid I would not have enough sorrow to spare. Everyone who died was my kin. What atrocities! As if it were not enough, the world remains a powder keg.
What memorial hall can bring those dead souls to life again, even at the wishes of a nation? What was there to do for all of the visitors with restrained tears except to remember the past with the hope of peace?
"To forget the massacre is to commit the second massacre to Najing," wrote Iris Chang. But to remember the massacre is not to retaliate against Japan, but for the prevention of such massacres in the future, because the pain our nation suffered was enough for the world.
Whatever the past may be, there is always a way for the two nations to befriend each other; if only all of the people can remember history, and think with a cool head.
"Every year, some Japanese visit the memorial hall," said a guide as he pointed to the green pines growing at the side of the paths. "And these were planted by visiting Japanese organizations pleading their guilt."
By Lianne Li
After three-and-a-half hours of tumbling in the train, I was jammed into a crawling bus full of passengers bound to the youth hotel at Fuzi Temple, where I had a bed reserved.
My first stop in Nanjing was to neither the tomb of Zhongshan nor the remaining city walls of the Ming Dynasty, but the Memorial Hall of the victims of Japanese Invasion. Since it was Friday, and the memorial hall was open everyday from eight to five except Monday for free, I felt lucky to be in time.
The number 300000 carved on the stone overhead flashed before my eyes like a lightning bolt. Below it, a sculpted skeleton desperately looked up from a heap of pallid pebbles as if to cry out its mere existence.
I walked a curved path among the stone slabs in memory of countless people massacred in various bulwarks, street alleys, homes and riverbanks. Soldiers and civilians, old and young, men and women, died in the battles, or were herded and stabbed, shot and buried alive.
There was not a single number without shocking zeros. Scattered in the pit where Japanese soldiers buried people alive, chilling bits of unearthed skeletons and bones struck me with crushing pain at the memory of the generation of my great grandparents that migrated from Nanjing. Almost all pieces of bones had a serial number signifying its assumed identity, but their names were buried and eliminated, leaving only the mass number of 300000.
"The crimes committed by Japanese invaders cannot be witnessed by one person alone. What I saw was that the brook was red, and the river was also red," said a witness of the massacre, whose words were exhibited in the museum of historical records. What I saw were pictures of an infant crying in the debris of a destroyed house, women assaulted by barbarism, blood-rusty sabers used in the competition of man-killing, and black, shocking grenades that exploded in the middle of crowds.
I witnessed what disasters had befallen my ancestors, and went through some of the throbbing terror they experienced. Restraining tears, I was afraid I would not have enough sorrow to spare. Everyone who died was my kin. What atrocities! As if it were not enough, the world remains a powder keg.
What memorial hall can bring those dead souls to life again, even at the wishes of a nation? What was there to do for all of the visitors with restrained tears except to remember the past with the hope of peace?
"To forget the massacre is to commit the second massacre to Najing," wrote Iris Chang. But to remember the massacre is not to retaliate against Japan, but for the prevention of such massacres in the future, because the pain our nation suffered was enough for the world.
Whatever the past may be, there is always a way for the two nations to befriend each other; if only all of the people can remember history, and think with a cool head.
"Every year, some Japanese visit the memorial hall," said a guide as he pointed to the green pines growing at the side of the paths. "And these were planted by visiting Japanese organizations pleading their guilt."
3 Comments:
At 11:24 PM , Anonymous said...
What? No stories about June 4th, 1989? Huh??
At 3:00 PM , lianne said...
I believe there will be stories like that. Please do trust us. We are not being pressed to keep back any thing. And we will try to be as fair and balanced as possible.
At 12:05 AM , crg said...
I am an English guy, and I lived and worked in Nanjing for a year, so i feel i have a good understanding on the emotions felt by the Chinese towards what happened in Nanjing. However, it also worries me. One of my first visits in Nanjing was to the memorial, and I had one abiding memory. Not the bell, not the rock garden, not the skeletons, not the pictures of people being shot in the head, mutilated with bayonets or buried alive....no, my memory was the last set of photos, of the chinese leaders visiting their tombs, and adding their opinion to the events. The point was clearly made how terrible the events of 37 were, so it was not necessary to add these final political points. Actually, it lowered the impact, and made me not angry with the Japanese, but with the chinese leaders, for trying to get some political capital out of these terrible events. The incident should be laid to rest as a testament to the horrors of war, and should be remembered next time war seems close. It should not be used to stir up the feelings of normal chinese people to hate japan, and express dangerous and rash nationalism....i think this is an insult to the people who suffered.
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