Ha Jin: "Nanjing Requiem"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-11-21/ha-jin-nanjing-requiem
Gingling College, 1937
Courtesy of Random House
Minnie Vautrin was an American missionary and dean of the Jinling Women’s College in Nanjing during the japanese invasion in 1937. She opened the campus to more than 10,000 women and children and saved many Chinese lives. The people of Nanjing called her the Goddess of Mercy, but her regret over not saving more lives eventually led her to suicide. Many Chinese during and after the Cultural Revolution grew up unaware of the heroism of some Westerners during this tragic time in history. Award-winning Chinese-American author Ha Jin wants to put the record straight. He joins Diane to discuss his latest novel, "Nanjing Requiem." A fictional account of Minnie Vautrin's story, he says it's an attempt to "put her soul in peace.”
Guests
Ha Jin
author
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Program Highlights
Growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, writer Ha Jin first heard of the Nanjing Massacre, but he did not become aware of the heroic role some westerners played until he read Iris Chang's book "The Rape of Nanjing." His latest novel centers on Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary who saved thousands of Chinese lives. In an introductory letter, Ha Jin writes, "she suffered and ruined herself by helping others, but she became a legend. At least her story has moved me to write a novel about her. If I succeed, my book might put her soul in peace."
Giving Up on Writing the Book - Twice
Because Jin's protagonist, Minnie Vautrin, was a real historical figure, Jin couldn't invent any happenings for her as a character. He also struggled with creating enough narrative drive for the novel. He made many revisions - at least 30 - and when he sent the manuscript to his editor, he realized the book just didn't gel. In the end, though, he saw the project through to publication.
Growing up in China During War Time
Jin didn't have what he calls "a concrete picture of war," but he has some vague memories. He recalls being taken to a mine in former Manchuria, the northeast region of the country, where he and others were shown a lot of bones. "The Japanese used a lot of miners to get coal, and so a lot of people died in those mines," he said. He also saw some photographs detailing the Japanese soldiers' brutality towards the Chinese, including some of naked women who he knows the soldiers raped and killed, their bodies mutilated.
Telling Minnie Vautrin's Story
Vautrin grew up in a poor family in Illinois. She graduated from the University of Illinois, and some missionaries who had just returned from China persuaded her to go there to educate Chinese girls. She started a girls' school in China, taught for many years, and eventually became the dean of Jinling Women's College. When the Japanese invasion happened in 1937, the campus was eventually used as a refugee camp, and Vautrin did everything she could to help the women and children there."And she suffered a lot," Jin said. "She was traumatized by it and eventually she had a breakdown...eventually she took her own life."
Japanese Feeling Some Remorse
Jin used some accounts from Japanese soldiers' diaries to help create his story. "There are a lot of Japanese who really felt very guilty about this," he said. Once the soldiers entered Nanjing, all order collapsed, and, Jin said, "all the evil was unleashed." One soldier wrote in his diary that there was so much killing, the soldiers were having trouble finding clean water to drink because the water was red with blood. Some veteran Japanese soldiers have since traveled to Nanjing, to the museum of the massacre, to express their regret.
You can read the full transcript here.
Comments
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I lived in Shanghai from 2004 to 2009, and in August of 2005, there were massive demonstrations near the Japanese embassy because Japan had just taken any reference to the Nanjing massacre out of their history books . It struck me then, that most of the world has no idea about what happened in Nanjing, or about the almost 39 million Chinese people who died at the hands of the Japanese. It also struck me, when I went to the Nanjing Massacre Museum, that most Chinese people have no idea that the same amount of people, 39 million, starved at the hands of Mao's policies.
When i moved to Shanghai, i had to leave all your books, Ha Jin, in storage in the US because they were deemed offensive to the PRC, according to our relocation advisors. One of the first things I did, after settling in, was go to an English language bookstore, and one of the first books I saw was In The Pond!
After my Chinese friends became comfortable with me (and after I had a base level of Mandarin) I was continually struck by how many times my friends would ask me questions about China's history, and by how much they wanted to tell me their stories. Do you think China will ever allow open dialogue and freedom of expression?
What many people, especially in the West, don't realize is the regrettable fact that there are ultra-nationalistic Japanese, to this day, who insist that these women were simply willing prostitutes, instead of women who were forced, coerced or tricked into sex-slavery for the Japanese soldiers. The Japanese government's official response has also been muted and repatriations to the surviving victims of sex-slavery has been very reluctant and minimal, since the end of Japan's defeat in WW2.
Thank you Dr. Jin for writing this book. Didn’t Chiang Kai-shek present Minnie Vautrin with the Order of the Blue Jade (highest award for heroism for a foreigner)? IS that award in a museum now?
My grandparents were American Methodist missionaries at Nanking Theological Seminary 1933 to 1951 (Dr. Hubert & Helen Sone) and were friends of Minnie Vautrin. My mom was reared in Nanking from near birth to before WWII when she was evacuated back to the USA in 1939. They witnessed the rape of Nanking tragedies and Hubert Sone received the Order of the Blue Jade Chiang Kai-shek for saving thousands of Chinese. I am very proud of what my grandparents did.
Place guns in the hands of young men and women, train them to hate, and atrocities will eventually occur. This is not an attempt to minimize the responsibility of the Japanese for what happened in Nanjing, but it was and is not just a Japanese problem.
We would do well to remember this as we debate the direction of public policy today.
In 1938, the region was invaded by Japanese forces, and Aylward led 94 orphans to safety over the mountains, despite being wounded herself.
Here's the movie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inn_of_the_Sixth_Happiness
I had the honor of teaching modern Chinese history in a Chinese university last year. Part of my students' assignment was to compare many of the history books in the university library to the books written abroad by Western and Chinese scholars. We discovered that much of modern Chinese history has been neglected in their textbooks. Virtually ALL the books ignored the complex and mostly noble roles of Western missionaries in China...especially women missionaries, who represented more than half of all missionaries.
Marjorie King, Ph.D.
University Associate, University of Arizona
Author of China's American Daughter: Ida Pruitt (1889-1985)
Chinese University Press
thought you were talking of rape of Nanking... time does heal all... as US forgets by newer tradgedies...
OCCUPY
stop the SGI(Soylent Green Industries) process for children TODAY
I find the Japanese actions totally appalling during WWII; however, I think their behavior is not very different from the southern slave owners in the US, and the subsequent Jim Crow laws that allowed lynchings and burnings of Blacks. Untold horrible stories unfolded in the south of the United States. The complete truth has never been told about that situation.
I found this fascinating and I realize I am but 3 degrees of separation from many of the principal characters in these historical events.
My grandparents were Presbyterian missionaries in China from 1910 through the war in a little village on the Yangtze called Gong-Yin.
In the late 30's my father went to Shanghai American School with Harriet Mills, who became a distinguished professor of Chinese history at U of Michigan, where my father also taught. We were great friends with her during my childhood. Her father, Wilson Plumer Mills, was a significant figure in the events of the Nanjing massacre. I have not read this book but I suspect he is a character in it!! He is credited with the idea of the Safety Zone, which became a refugee area, and involved collaboration with various foreign missions, including the Germans. Mills's bio is here and notes that he was a recipient of the Order of the Green Jade, the highest honor the Chinese granted, in recognition for his work in Nanjing.
http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/m/mills-wilson-plumer.php
And here is a review that Harriet Mills wrote of a book about the Diaries of John Rabe:
http://articles.latimes.com/1999/jul/25/books/bk-59260
Incidentally, Harriet herself went back to China on a Fulbright scholarship during the 50's and was imprisoned by the Communists, suspected of being a spy (she wasn't!) She was an amazing woman, as was her father!!
As for my grandparents, during the Japanese occupation they were sent to Shanghai and imprisoned in camps for over four years. Eventually, the camps were liberated, and they were returned to the U.S. But a year or so later, after the Communists came into power, they returned to China, but were turned away. The only property they ever owned was a little cottage in the hills near Kuling, where they had planned to retire. They felt China was their home.