Nanjing (Nanking)

At the risk of sounding like I have no life whatsoever, I'm going to talk about books once more. Yey, Emily! You're all the way in China and updating us about your book list again? Go out and explore, you idiot! In my defense, I DO have a life (ask my Dad who emailed me last night that said '3:20AM on Skype? Go to bed!'). It's just that this particular book has to do with my current travel plans. So hush critics and hear me out!

My current book is called 'The Rape of Nanking'. Obviously, with that daunting of a title and the intensity of the cover, you can pretty much infer that it's not the happiest of stories. The book is one of the most complete and historically accurate accounts of what is called 'The Nanking Massacre'. Nanjing is a large city in the South East part of China near Shanghai. It used to be called 'Nanking' but for clarification purposes I'm going to refer to the city with it's modern day name. Nanjing used to be one of the four ancient capitals of China. It was a very prosperous city and one with great historical artifacts. It was known for culture and it's unique setting near the Yangtze River. However, in 1937 one of the worst cases of mass torture, execution, rape, and destruction happened known to history. After the fall of Shanghai the Japanese set their sights on Nanjing. With Nanjing at their mercy, Japan thought their success at taking hold of China would be eminent. But things went really, really wrong.

Even though the Chinese army in Nanjing outnumbered the Japanese, most of the soldiers were unskilled and as young as twelve years old. Therefore, when the Japanese offered peace and fair treatment to the Chinese who surrendered, many did. The problem was the Japanese were never planning on treating the Chinese with any sort of respect and within seven weeks between 300,000 and 450,000 men, women, and children were exterminated. This was also the site of one of the worst mass rapes known to man. 90,000 women were raped... it is said that women were carried off at all hours of the day, some as young as six and as old as eighty. As rape is not sanctioned by the rules of war, the commanders encouraged the soldiers to kill the women (and most of the time - their entire family) to keep them quiet. It was a period of absolute terror, chaos, and brutality.

What is absolutely amazing about this atrocity is that it is not taught very often in the Western World, and let alone Japan. While we focus our efforts in learning everything we can about the Nazis, Hitler, and the German Holocaust, we spare a couple of pages in history books covering Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima / Nagasaki. It is completely unbeleviable that so little is learned about a major crime against humanity. Although the numbers estimated that were killed varies, nobody can debate the severity of the situation. Some Japanese still deny this ever happened, but then again - there are still those who refuse to believe that Hitler's Holocaust existed as well.

I haven't quite finished reading the book and doing research, so my knowledge on all of this is still growing. However, I have a two day holiday next week and just bought train tickets to go visit Nanjing! It's a crazy feeling reading about a place that seems so far away and then being able to click a couple of buttons online and get there in less than a week! The 15 hour train ride gives me time to finish the book, and probably talk Tom's ear off about all the facts, dates, and people. I'm really interested to visit the Nanjing Massacre Museum and see another one of China's beautiful cities.

Sorry about the not-so-uplifting post! But if you're a history buff, or just into reading about new things - definitely go out and get this book. It's eye-opening and really well written.

xo
Em