The story between Iris and me is rather "dramatic"-dramatic in the way that I've never met her in person but I've kept fantasizing over her life, we are connected by UIUC (how cliche!), and the first time I got to know about her was, actually, from her obituary.
That was a friday in the spring of 2005. I was rushing through the Stuart Hall in Purdue. In the corner of the hall way, I was stopped by an Asian boy who then bowed to me, said something in Korean, and handed me several magazines. I did not have time to explain that I was not Korean nor Korean American. So I just left with his gifts. That afternoon, I read those magazines in the Union. They turned out to be publications from the Korean American community and one article caught my eyes- a talented Chinese American female writer suicided. My first instinct was "Gosh, she was so pretty! Why did she choose to die!" (sorry, but that was the quality of my thoughts). Her face, associated with the red cover of "The Rape of Nanking", was thereafter engraved in my mind. I was also wondering why this was published in a Korean Americans' magazine: because Iris was Asian American, just as themselves? Or because they felt the same painful for the war?
I read two very unhappy books in the summer of 2005. The first one I bought in the bookstore in Pudong airport, when I got off the plane to Shanghai. It was "Life and Death in Shanghai" which was once recommended by Winston. It was about a piece of traumatized history- represented by a mother and a daughter's tragic lives in the Cultural Revolution. So I read it over during the whole summer in Huangshan and suffered enough hedache from the miserable history accounts and the dry narratives. In the year of 2005, looking back to see how China has been going through 40 years ago, I found it to be so ridiculous, heavy, and overwhelmed- why people hated each other? Why there was such strong resentment? Why humans are so easily to be manipulated? Why is the humanity so fragile?
The second book I picked was unfortunately "The Rape of Nanking". This time I bought it in the bookstore of Pudong airport on my way back to the States. On the plane, sitting beside me was an American white male. Seeing me reading this book, he said "Don't read this book. It's so unhappy. I'm never able to finish it." I thought he was pathetic-after all, it was just a one-hundred-page-or-so booklet! But it turned out to be my fate too. I felt so hard to just swallow hastily the atrocious facts and to really relate it to the world surrounding me. I guess I could not read it because the fear that crept up on me- the fear to know what the world really is. And how astonishing it was that this incredible courage came from a female-the pretty girl on the cover (sorry for my bloody gendered stereotype)!
Now she is dead,for reasons so obvious yet so unknown.
Uncle Larry just sent me an e-mail, saying Taiwan is abbreviating the acounts of Nanjing Massacre in their school history books because it happened in China - a "foreign" country, thus it's no necessary to elaborate on it. I'm rather speechless. I bet Iris would feel sad, too, if she was still alive, because she herself was, according to the "definition", a Taiwanese American. It cost her a life to dig out the truth. And it cost a night for Taiwanese government to deny the fact (the fact that we were at least the same country at that time). History witnesses the ironies of itself. Not we human beings are manipulated, but even the history cannot avoid to be slaughtered.
2 comments:
Taiwanese abbrevating it is one thing. But I think that is nothing compared to what the Right Wing side of the Japanese government has tried to do. Even today, they still try to write text books that make it look like Japan did nothing wrong in World War II. The worst part is, occasionally one or two schools in Japan will actually accept these modified historical textbooks to teach children from.
While Japan's relations with the rest of Asia have been problematic, the newer generation of Japanese youth may not be ready to face up to Japan's past. Last time I was in Japan there was interviews on the street with high school kids about how they feel about Japan's relations with other countries, and most of them said they don't care, or that other countries should leave Japan alone.
Sadly I don't think there will be a big improvement in Japanese relations with the rest of Asia because of the attitude of the Japanese government and the ineptitude and bureaucracy that surronds the education system.
I think part of the reason my dad left his job at a Japanese public university was the inability to change its ways.
On a side note, sorry for the long post, I tend to rant and ramble a lot. Also if you are taking EALC classes, you might want to sit in on Dr. Goodman's EALC 398 (possibly 498 now). It is called Japan at War and Peace. It tells of Japan during World War II, a lot on the war crimes, and then Japan's attempt to industrialize and move on and forget the horrors of their countries past.
The tragedy of Iris Chang death is still a mystery until today. I couldn't help of flipping over all the obituary/media reports trying to dig out any reason she committed suicide. She left a cute baby and beloved husband.
Interesting enough that there are reports indicate that she found no solution for her research and by ending her own life is the only way out. I have been wondering of what kind of questions pondering her mind, so puzzled, so fragile and so completely giving herself up. Until one point that she inserted the gun into her mouth in her car. I could imagine she was sitting there for that long night and meanwhile still keep questioning all the unsolved puzzles. What a real couraged thinker, sacrifies herself to find a way out!? ops, can't agree of her act though.
As a Christian, when i looked back all the major historical massacre acts in human histories including Nanjing Massacre mentioned here, and of course others like Jews Masscre, i was trying to find any of these events tight closely to the Will of our Almighty God in Heaven, who creates we human beings giving completely freedom of will.
Freedom is a double-face animal, it brings development, it brings fourish; on the other hand, it brings infinite disasters and unimagined destructions. How would one limit the freedom from hurting others, stealing other live as a result of his own Empirism desires? Anyone can simply justify there is no wrong in their acts with no regret. Yes, even regret takes courage and people don't bother take such a courage. After all, I think it is the Will of God to "allow" these tragedies happen -- Chinese learns this good lesson and Japanese learns similar lessons here too.
Let be gone be by gone. If anyone wants to pursue or find any justification via historical path, it would only be a painful, bitterness and unforgetful experience. This world is not harmony enough already and will never be, any act of nuturing the growth of hatred will eventually bring disasters. Human needs God and only God can clean out our souls and minds with his truth, hope, and life.
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