ONE STEP AT A TIME IS GOOD WALKING

China & Canada 1937-1997

The dust from the demolition hangs in the air like smoke, the noise of the wrecking ball as steady as the artillery that once pounded the city walls. Half-destroyed buildings, piles of rubble, and the remnants of a foundation crowd into my viewfinder, masquerading as the ruins of sixty years ago. It’s as if the past were trying to rematerialize in front of me, to fill my eyes and ears with what I have failed to imagine.

Not so much a déja vu as a jamais vu since I was already in a refugee camp in Hong Kong when the Japanese invaded Nanjing. Since I was no longer living on Taiping Lu when soldiers destroyed every shop on the street, including my father’s ink store and the two rooms at the back that were our home.

THE NANJING MASSACRE

Read a brief history of the massacre on The History Place (TM).

NANJING

Nanjing is the capital of Jiangsu Province in the southeast on the south bank of the Yangzi River. It has a rich history as a political center, as the capital of early regimes in the south and as the Southern Capital during the Ming dynasty, as well as the seat of the Nationalist Government in the 20th century.

The city has an extremely rich and complex history, derived from its position as a political and economic center for the agriculturally rich southeast China region. Habitation in the area goes back some 5,000 years, documented by the discovery of several prehistoric, Shang and Zhou era sites. During the Warring States period there was a walled city that had an armaments foundry there.

After the break up of the Han dynasty, Nanjing became the capital of a number of short-lived dynasties, especially for the southern dynasties during the 4th-6th century period of division between barbarian Northern and native Chinese Southern dynasties. At that time Nanjing was also a center for the propagation of Buddhism. When China was reunified under the Sui in the late 6th century, the Sui ruler established his capital at present day Xi’an and demolished all the old palace buildings at Nanjing. The building of the Grand Canal, however, aided the economic importance of the city, and it became a center of weaving, especially of brocade, and of metal foundries.

Nanjing’s decline lasted until the founding of the Ming dynasty, when it was established as the capital of the Ming by its founder, Zhu Yuanzhang (the Hongwu Emperor). Hongwu repopulated the city with in-migrant craftsmen and wealthy families from elsewhere in southeastern China, meanwhile deporting most of the resident population to far away Yunnan. He also undertook a massive building program, including an imperial palace and massive city walls, parts of which still stand. The city became an administrative center and the site of imperial examinations, as well as a manufacturing center.

The third Ming emperor, known by his reign title a the Yongle emperor, usurped the throne from his brother and moved the capital back to Beijing, close to his princely power base and the former capital during the Yuan. Nanjing continued as a secondary capital, with its own shadow bureaucracy, a site for an imperial university and metropolitan examinations, and an important textile production center. When the Manchus invaded north China Nanjing held out briefly as a center of Ming resistance, but eventually fell.

With the overthrow of the Manchus in 1911 and the establishment of a Chinese Republic, Nanjing again became the national capital. The unhappy and often violent history of the city continued, however, as it was the site of mass executions of Communists by Chiang Kai-shek in 1927, and of the infamous “Nanjing Massacre” by Japanese forces who occupied the city in 1937, when some 300,000 residents of the city perished. After 1945 Nanjing again became the capital of the Kuomintang government. After peace talks between the Kuomintang and the Communists held there in 1947 broke down, Nanjing was captured by People’s Liberation Army in 1949. Today it is an important industrial base for the automobile, electronics, and machine tool industries, petrochemical production and steel foundries, and aeronautical training.

This text was taken and more information is available from ChinaToday.com

Sun Yat-sen funeral in 1929.

Nanjing city wall and gate in the 1930's.

A public scribe like Wu Jiao, writing letters for others.

THE MEMORIAL HALL OF THE VICTIMS IN NANJING MASSACRE BY JAPANESE INVADERS (official translation engraved on marquee)

The Memorial Hall for Compatriots killed in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Forces of Aggression is located in the southwestern corner of Nanjing known as Jiangdongmen, which used to be one of the execution grounds and mass burial places of the cruel holocaust.

It is dedicated to the memory of the 300,000 victims of the massacre in 1937.  Built in 1986, it was enlarged and renovated in 1995. The buildings are fashioned out of black and white granite blocks, rendering a feeling of solemnity and reverence. It is an exhibition site with historical records and objects as well as architecture, sculptures and video and film projections to unfold a specific chapter of history concerning one of the ugliest experiences forced on mankind.

The memorial consists of three parts: the outdoor exhibits, the remains of the dead, and the museum which lies half buried in the ground like a colossal tomb.  Inside, an immense collection of pictures, objects, charts and photographs relate the horror of the Rape of Nanjing.

Past experience, if not forgotten, is the guide for the future. The Nanjing Memorial has become an important site for international communities to pray for PEACE as well as a site for historical and cultural exchanges.

from the official website of the Museum of Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders
http://www.nj1937.org/en/