The Good Man of Nanking

The Good Man of Nanking

Taiwan, as known as Republic of China (ROC), the country where I was born and raised, is currently in a difficult situation both internally and internationally due to the complex relations between Taiwan, People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Japan. To understand the formation of the current situation and look for possible solution to the future, it is crucial to know the history between the three countries, especially the past hundred years. Besides, out of my curiosity for my well-respected grandfather, who was previously a general in Republic of China while it still represented the entire China, I want to learn the truth of the second Sino-Japanese war during WWII, which lasted eight years and caused millions of deaths. During the war, the most disputed tragedy was the “Nanking Massacre” and it is still a unresolved dilemma between Chinese and Japanese people as well as the government.

From Wikipedia: “Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanking during…”

The Chinese people are one of the most unfortunate groups since 19th century. (Some clarifications here. In this article, Taiwan is equivalent to Republic of China after the end of Chinese Civil War in 1949; whereas, China means People’s Republic of China, which is governed by the communist party. Before 1949, China is the equivalent of Republic of China. Racially, Taiwanese people are the same as Chinese people. However, ethnically, Taiwanese people are separated from Chinese people since 1949.) From the Opium War, China had been gradually separated into parts that are controlled by foreigners. Taiwan, in 1894, was recognized as the colony of Japan due to the loss of China in the first Sino-Japanese War. At this point, most of the Chinese people were seen as the inferior group regardless of where they are.

After Qing Dynasty was overridden by the Republic of China, the country was still disintegrated into spheres of influence, most of them controlled by various warlords, each in charge of his own private army. Before the second Sino-Japanese War outbroke in 1937, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek are the two main powers. Since 1927, Nanking had been China’s capital and was under Chiang’s control. It had a population of about 1.3 million. Siemens had built the city’s telephone system and the turbines of its electrical power. John Rabe, the director of the branch in Nanking, was a simple person who wanted to be no more than an honest Hamburg Businessman, who is always ready to help and warm-hearted. He had no clear picture of what had happened in Germany since his brief stay in 1930 because he learned everything about Hitler from North China Daily News and outdated German newspaper from home that were given little interest. The propaganda made him a loyal supporter of Hitler and think that Hitler wanted peace.

In The Good Man of Nanking, it includes excerpts from the tow volumes of his diaries, which he assembled during the war by combing selected documents and what he considered the most important entries from the private diary originally written for his wife and his family. He recorded what he observed and thought in detail during the entire tragedy from December 1937 to February 1938, when the misfortune of people in Nanking culminated and hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians were tortured to death. I selected this book because I want an unbiased and trustable source to understand the circumstances. Rabe, as a member of Nazi, has no reason to favor the Chinese against his allies and also the documents and diaries are the objective facts that he saw with his own eyes. The diary reveals how humanity is devastated when soldiers are suddenly released from the strong discipline enforced by the hierarchy and humiliation, and how Imperialism deteriorates the circumstances.

At the beginning, German advisors in the Chinese army had already pointed out that it is impossible to stop the Japanese troop from occupying Nanking. However, the Chinese troop did not give up. “I had an interesting conversation with Colonel Huang. He is absolutely against the Safety Zone. ‘Every inch of soil that the Japanese conquer should be fertilized with our blood.’ … I try to bring Mr.Huang around — to no avail. He is Chinese. What does he care about a few hundred thousand of his countrymen? They’re poor, and so all they can do is die” (Rabe 51). It is sad but true that the Chinese troops knew they would not be able to resist the Japanese, but they still tried to fight instead of retreating all the troops just to save some face. Matters became worse because almost none of the soldiers wanted to persevere and some chaos happened before the attack (although not comparable to the ones created by the Japanese troop). “By the eve of 13 December, Chinese soldiers were seen leaving private homes with food … Soldiers spent their last cents on these clothes, changed into to them out in the street, threw their uniforms away, and vanished as civilians” (72). There was almost no any sense of resistance despite that Colonel Huang wanted to fertilized the soil with Chinese blood. In theory, the “well-disciplined” Japanese troop should take over the city on the 14th and restore everything back into order.

It is what appeared to happen for people in Japan. All publication was strictly sanctioned in Nanking. Only positive word could be written about the Japanese army, so one could only see the articles and pictures about how Japanese kindly interacted with the civilians in Nanking or provided them food, and how the people in Nanking welcomed the troop. Even in the formal international reception in the Japanese Embassy, the general read a long speech from a manuscript, which addressed how Japanese army was famous for its discipline both in the Russo-Japanese War and in the Manchurian campaign. At the conclusion of the speech, the general refused to give a copy of the test of the speech because all of a sudden the speech was declared to be improvised.

Discipline seemed to exist on Japanese newspaper but was not seen at all outside the reality distortion field of the newspaper. The Japanese troop had advanced so fast that the supplies were not able to keep up, so the generals made their soldiers to loot the city for their own food. “The stage was all set for you to take over that area peacefully and let the normal life therein continue undisturbed until the rest of the city could be put in order … All 27 Westerners in the city at that time and our Chinese population were totally surprised by the reign of robbery, rapine and killing initiated by your soldiers on the 14th” (269). This is written in the letter to the Japanese Embassy from International Committee of the Nanking Safety Zone, which is also directed by John Rabe. The Japanese troop had advanced so fast that the supplies were not able to keep up, so the generals made their soldiers to loot the city for their own food.

In fact, as the way one of the Americans put it, the Safety Zone has turned into a public house for the Japanese soldiers. Solely on the night of December 16th, which is the third day of chaos, “up to 1000 women and girls are said to have been raped, and about 100 girls are at Ginling College alone. You hear of nothing but rape. If husbands or brothers intervene, they are shot” (77). All the virtue of our stereotype for Japanese people, polite, ordered, discipline and honest were gone. Instead, only the extreme brutality, bestiality, rudeness, turmoil, disorganization and immorality existed. It is extremely hard to believe what actually happen during this three-month period, and I used to have a hard time to believe it, but the following is what really happened:

Some Chinese soldiers were tied on bamboo sticks and used as live targets for sword practice. Some were poured with gasoline and set on fire. Foreign eyewitnesses have attested that the Japanese lured a good number of Chinese soldiers out of the Safety Zone by promising they would not be harmed or even given work, only to execute them. A Japanese soldier saw a bowl of watery rice soup, which was a humble meal for a family of six, and urinated in the half-full bowl and laughed as he went his merry way. Some Japanese even took pleasure in the killing of Chinese soldiers by posing for snapshots and save them for mementos. Moreover, there was a competition between generals of how many people one could behead. Children did not have a better fate. The Japanese slaughtered children as indiscriminated as adults. In some reports, they made Chinese boys chase pigs and bayoneted those who were not quick enough. The bowels of one of the victims are hanging out of his body.

One of the reasons for all these humiliation of Chinese people could be the extreme pressure from the people above the Japanese soldiers in the hierarchy. Once two foreigners saw a Chinese being bayoneted in the neck by a drunken Japanese soldier; when they hurried to his aid, they were attacked by the soldier. One of the foreigners was tied up and the soldier was reported. As Rabe sped to investigate what happened, he found “the soldier being slapped around by a Japanese general who just happened while Mr.Tanaka from the embassy was present” (86). In the other cases, whenever Rabe shout “Deutsch” and “Hitler”, the Japanese soldier would turn polite. Japanese soldiers were extremely obedient to those who had higher position in the hierarchy and even got slapped, which could be considered as humiliation. Therefore, they release the frustration, anger and pressure from the superior to Chinese people, who were inferior in the hierarchy.

Female from 5 years old to even over 70 are constantly being raped. This is one of the typical report of looting and raping:

“On December 13th, about thirty soldiers came to a Chinese house at №5 Hsing Lu Koo in the southeastern part of Nanking, and demanded entrance. The door was opened by the landlord, a Mohammedan named Ha. They killed him immediately with a revolver and also Mr.Hsia, who knelt before them after Ha’s death, begging them not to kill anyone else. Mrs.Ha asked them why they had killed her husband and they shot her dead. Mrs.Hsia was dragged out from under a table in the guest hall where she had tried to hide with her one-year-old baby. After being stripped and raped by one or more men, she was bayoneted in the chest, and then had a bottle thrust into her vagina. The baby being killed with a bayonet. Some soldiers then went to the next room, where were Mrs.Hsia’s parents, aged 76 and 74, and her two daughters aged 16 and 14. They were about to rape the girls when the grandmother tried to protect them. The soldiers killed her with a revolver. The grandfather grasped the body of his wife and was killed. The two girls were then stripped, the elder being raped by 2–3 men, and the younger by 3. The older girl was stabbed afterwards and a cane was rammed into her vagina. The younger girl was bayoneted also but was spared the horrible treatment that had been meted out to her sister and her mother. The soldiers then bayoneted another sister of between 7~8, who was also in the room. the last murders in the house were of Ha’s two children, aged 4 and 2 respectively. The older was bayoneted and the younger split down through the head with a sword.

After being wounded the 8-year-old girl crawled to the next room where lay the body of her mother. Here she stayed for 14 days with her 4-year-old sister who had escaped unharmed. The two children lived on puffed rice and the rice crusts that form in the pan when the rice is cooked. It was from the older of these children that the photographer was able to get part of the story, and verify and correct certain details told him by a neighbor and a relative. The child said the soldiers came everyday taking things from the house; but the two children were not discovered as they hid under some old sheets. All the people in the neighborhood fled to the Refugee Zone when such terrible things began to happen. After 14 days the old woman shown in the picture returned to the neighborhood and found the two children. It was she who led the photographer to an open space where the bodies had been taken afterwards. Through questioning her and Mr.Hsia’s brother and the little girl, a clear knowledge of the terrible tragedy was gained. The picture shows the bodies of the 16 and 14-year-old girls, each lying with a group of people slain at the same time. Mrs. Hsia and her baby are shown last” (281)

There are thousands of such reports during the span of three months and there were a lot more which were simply not reported. Also, a good number of young girls are selected in daily basis because the Japanese wanted to set up a large military bordello. As long as a person was Chinese during the three months, the most terrifying torture happened on the person no matter who he or she was. The examples are only an extraordinary insignificant part of all the crimes committed by the Japanese troop in China during WWII.

Japanese troop has committed one of the most brutal and heartless crimes in human history. The process was so monstrous that it was even hard to keep on reading, but my eagerness to know the history prevailed. Unfortunately, unlike the German, they have never admitted the crime even nowadays. Any public media related to the negative comments about the Japanese Army during WWII are still strictly sanctioned in Japan, including the publication of the movie Pearl Harbor and John Rabe, which is the movie originated from this diary. Not only the Japanese become immoral during wars, but also Chinese people had one of the cruelest dictatorships of human history during Taiping rebellion and even caused more death. Moreover, the Chinese Civil War and the most disastrous event in human history, the Cultural Revolution both cost comparable or even more loss and damage to the country than the Sino-Japanese War. From the lesson in history, everyone in the world should make the best effort to ensure a peaceful state and eliminate any possibility of war. Maybe admitting the fault and honestly facing the truth is the first step. May the world peace.