More Information on Iris Chang

An in-depth look at Iris Chang, author of “The Rape of Nanking” who killed herself last week. I don’t know Iris Chang, never met the woman, but I felt a strange pain in my heart when I heard she took her own life, and I feel that pain right now. Here’s my original post about her – a ton of people left comments.

The article I link to in this post describes how she uncovered the tale of horror which ended up being The Rape of Nanking.

She was relentless. She was unforgiving (because why should one forgive if the perpetrators of the crime won’t even admit that it happened?)

I just feel a pain in my heart, imagining her own despair, and realizing that she killed herself.

It sucks, is basically what I’m trying to say.

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21 Responses to More Information on Iris Chang

  1. David Foster says:

    Go take a look in the children’s history section of any bookstore…which is a pretty good indicator of what subjects are being assigned in school. It’s interesting to note the things that are missing. I’ve never seen anything that mentioned the atrocities committed by the Japanese Empire.

  2. spd rdr says:

    I should hope not, David.
    I’ll teach mine about the ugly history of mankind, when its time.

  3. susie says:

    I heard an interview about her death on NPR last week. They spoke with one of her friends who commented on the fact that she worked in an office that was wall papered with images of the atrocities that she so skillfully wrote about. Her research took her so deeply into the inhumane acts committed by people – against other people. This friend said that it affected her and, he believed contributed to the level of depression that she battled. I knew what he was talking about because for three months prior to the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building I had been immersed in research on hate crimes and the white supremacist/seperatist movement. I had spent hours and hours on hate sites and was devastated by how extensive and deep it goes. I was already feeling horrible and exhausted on a daily basis and then the bombing occurred. I couldn’t get out of bed. I could not move. The depression that I was already in became even more profound and it was hard to find my way back to joy.
    It is so sad that her wonderful and important work came at such a high cost. I hurt for her family and for her. The pain must have been excruciating for her to leave her child behind.

  4. buvery says:

    I have read the Washington Post article that you (I mean red) cited, and
    find it really unblievable.

    For example, the article cites the telegraph intercepted by US.

    >For years, some Japanese called the atrocities a myth. But Ms. Chang
    >discovered records at the Yale Divinity School of American missionaries
    >who were there, and in the National Archives, where an intercepted cable
    >from Foreign Minister Hirota Koki in Tokyo in 1938 said, “Verbal
    >accounts of reliable eyewitnesses and letters from individuals whose
    >credibility is beyond question afford convincing proof that Japanese
    >Army behaved and is continuing to behave in fashion reminiscent of
    >Attila and his Huns.”

    You do not have to go to the National Archives to watch the photocopy of
    thetelegraphs that Hirota Kohki sent. Here they are:
    http://www.history.gr.jp/nanking/hirotadenbun01.jpg
    http://www.history.gr.jp/nanking/hirotadenbun02.jpg

    They say:

    >From : Tokyo (Hirota)
    >To : Washington
    >January 19, 1938
    >
    >#206, Received from Shanghai as #175
    >
    >The night of the 16th, Toinpare, special correspondent of the
    >Manchester Guardian, was discovered by our censors as he was about to
    >send a communication as given in separate message #176**.

    >From : Tokyo (Hirota)
    >To : Washington
    >January 17, 1938
    >
    >#227, Received from Shanghai as #176
    >
    >Extra message.
    >”Since return (to) Shanghai (a) few days ago I investigated reported
    >atrocities committed by Japanese army in Nanking and elsewhere. Verbal
    >accounts (of) reliable eye-witnesses and letters from individuals whose
    >credibility (is) beyond question afford convincing proof (that)Japanese
    >Army behaved and (is) continuing(to) behave in (a) fashion reminiscent
    >(of) Attila (and) his Huns. (Not)less than three hundred thousand
    >Chinese civilians slaughtered, many cases (in) cold blood.

    The above “Toinpare” is actually “Timperly” who was a special
    correspondent of Manchester Guardian. These are translation of original
    telegraphs that Hirota sent in JAPANESE, and that is why US untercepters
    did not know the correct spelling “Timperly”. Timperly later published
    a book entitled “What war means.” In these telegraphs Hirota was
    speaking of intercepting (what he thought) lies of Timperly (“#227,
    Received from Shanghai as #176).

    In my opinion, the way Washington post describes the telegraphs is
    almost criminal. Hirota Kohki is QUOTING a news article, not SAYING it.
    Iris Chang also quoted the opinions of “Japanese right-wingers,” but
    that does not make them her opinion, doesn’t it?

  5. buvery says:

    >Go take a look in the children’s history section of any
    >bookstore…
    >I’ve never seen anything that mentioned the atrocities committed by the
    >Japanese Empire.
    >Posted by David Foster at November 16, 2004 07:37 PM

    I also do not find atrocities committed by United States of America or
    any othercountries, for that matter. Perhaps it is because they are too
    young to understand everything in detail?

  6. Ken Hall says:

    It does suck. I would say, hoping not to be taken as flippant, that it might lend weight to the old saw about looking too long into the abyss.

  7. red says:

    buvery: Do you know how old I am? I am very very old.

  8. red says:

    Susie:

    “it was hard to find my way back to joy”

    So perfectly put. I completely get that.

  9. John says:

    Buvery, although it’s not a widely covered subject, some of the atrocities commited by the Nazis are pretty well described in “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” about the Terezin camp in Bohemia. That is in the children’s history section. In Taiwan and China the atrocities of both the Japanese and the Nationalists (the 2 / 28 massacre) are covered in children’s books. In Taiwan, the Communists get a good spanking in front of the kiddies, too.

    It is kind of a tough topic to introduce, though. My parents let me see the pictorial essays in the Time Life WWII books at about age 7 or 8. I don’t think that’s too young for some kids, for others it might have been too much.

  10. David Foster says:

    buvery…”I also do not find atrocities committed by United States of America or
    any othercountries, for that matter”…..HUH? There is book after book on the internment of Japanese-Americans by the U.S. government. There are many books on the Holocaust. There are many books on the mistreatment of the American Indians by the U.S. government. There is book after book on the bombing on Hiroshima, and these books are required reading in many schools.

    I’m not objecting to any of these, but just observing that certain atrocities do not seem to be of any interest…

  11. red says:

    I’m still stuck on the fact that buvery probably thinks I’m about 22 years old.

    My birthday is next week. Ouch.

  12. Ken Hall says:

    David Foster has it right. Google “Lidice” some time and see whether it puts certain recent events into perspective.

  13. Dave J says:

    And you’re going to be in Ireland for your birthday, right? Have fun, grandma. :-p

  14. red says:

    I’ll be a grandma drinking Guinness with pale-faced blue-eyed Irish lads … Yes. God, I can’t even believe it’s actually going to happen.

    Get me the hell out of here!!! Until I touch down in Dublin, I won’t believe it’s real

  15. buvery says:

    Happy birthday red!

    I do not know your age, and I am not supposed to ask the age of ladies, I suppose.

    Actually, I do not think age is important in the discussion. Reason and knowledge are what matters to me.

  16. red says:

    buvery:

    Thanks for the birthday wishes. And yes – my age is a state secret. Well, not really. But I’ll never tell.

    But –

    If you want to talk about “reason and knowledge” – it seems rather unreasonable to assume that just because a person expresses sadness that Iris Chang killed herself it doesn’t mean that that same person has no idea of the atrocities in her own country, etc. etc. and has no idea about anything out in the world.

    That seems unreasonable and a bit condescending.

    However – it may just be a matter of not being able to get tone-of-voice, etc., into the typewritten form. Highly possible – lots of misunderstandings happen that way.

  17. buvery says:

    John:

    Thank you for your input.

    Since my kid is two year old, it appears that we have different ideas of
    “school materials.” I am trying to become an expert of pre-K education
    these days.

    In all books that I read for my kid, George Washington is a great man,
    and people trusted him because he was an honest man. Remember the
    cherry tree? Fine. However, no book says that he owned slaves. The
    slave master was also an expert of leading genocidal war against those
    who had treated colonists with turkeys and goodwill.

    In my opinion, this is a matter of symbolism, or manipulation of
    impression. For some people, “USA” can be told in the words of
    “Woodened Knee or genocide of the natives, black slavery, Village of
    Sommi or atrocities elsewhere in the world.” For others, as you might
    well know, “freedom and democracy.” The reality is a strange mixture of
    these things and not simple “pure white or black.”

  18. buvery says:

    Red:

    I have no idea why you think I think you are juvenile. Personally I do
    not think this “you think I think” game is healthy for any body. If you
    have questions, you can ask.

    By the way, what do you mean by “perpetrators” in your original post?
    Those who are fighting the deadly war in Nanjing in Dec 1937 are 99%
    dead already. They should be 85 or older now.

  19. John says:

    Buvery, child soldiers were common, then. My father-in-law is 77, and he fought in that campaign. A 15 year old constript in 1937 is only 72, now. There are plenty of perpetrators left in Japan, too, parading in their Hi No Maru black busses to Yasukuni. True, the generals are dead, but a lot fo the who fixed their bayonets to slaughter civilians are still around.

  20. buvery says:

    John:

    If your father-in-law is 77 now, he was 10 in 1937. Are you sure
    that he was in Nanjing offense? Besides, 15 year old conscript in
    1937 should be 82 now.

    In Japan, the age of conscription was 20 in 1937. Therefore, if there is
    a 15 year old soldier in the battle ground, they have to be Chinese, and
    I do not where they are now.

  21. John says:

    You’re right about the ages for 1937, my bad. Yes, my father-in-law is Chinese. However, the military apprentice schools took boys from public school in Japan at age 14. The law in Japan was that a boy was eligible for conscription from age 15, men stopped being eligible at 45. The average age at initial conscription was 19.
    I met Nomonhan vets in Japan who were 16 or 17 when they fought the Russians in 1939.

    My FIL is a veteran of the campaign, not the battle of Nanjing. He’s from much further north. He was conscripted by the Japanese as a messenger for their rail system out of school because he was one of the few Chinese who spoke Japanese. The Nationalists threatened to kill his family if he didn’t make copies of the messages (mostly troop and munitions shipments) and pass them on. His GMD commanders put him in uniform a few years later and he served in his batallion commander’s bodyguard fighting both the Japanese and the Communists.

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