Nanjing Massacre Remembered

December 13, 2008

The final sessions of this semester’s classes all past. Exams over and done with. Final research paper submitted, program assessment surveys filled out and turned in, in sum all outstanding responsibilities to the CIEE program that I’ve studied with for the semester taken care of. School’s out for the winter! Today, as my first day of winter break, started off in a carefree way. Despite having no early classes to attend (no more Taichi at 6:30 AM or language lessons from 8 until noon), despite having no need to wake up early, true to my nature and my annoyingly persistent sleeping problem, I woke up with Ayi at the crack of dawn (it’s hard to sleep through the roar of the blender she uses to make a morning thermos full of warm soy milk for the family’s breakfast anyways).

As the family wouldn’t be at home for lunch (my host sister and her mother would be eating at Grandma & Grandpa’s, my host dad having an annual reunion lunch with some of his high school classmates), Ayi didn’t have to start preparing food between 9 and 10 AM as she typically does, so she decided she was going to use her rare afternoon off to get a haircut. “Xiao Laowai (“Little Foreigner,” as she often calls me; while it may sound a bit crude, I assure you it’s not, but a sign of affection if anything), do you want to go get your hair cut too?” Ayi asked, originally as a kind of joke. But I considered, I haven’t gotten my haircut in… perhaps a year. I had no other engagements that morning and had kind of been wanting to experience a haircut in China anyways (I’ve been intrigued all along by the proliferation of barber shops and beauty salons in this part of the city, many rather sizeable and fashionable establishments with bright lights and floor-to-ceiling windows that allow you to look in and see the customers’ new do’s in progress).

“OK, hao ba,” I replied, to Ayi’s surprise. “I could use a haircut too.” Ayi had a coupon from a relative with a recommendation to go with it, so as soon as the supposed opening time got close, we set out on our quest to get a haircut. Arrived at 9:30. “Not open yet. Come back at 10:30,” we were told. So we walked back home to set out again to arrive a bit before 10:30, to beat the crowd (Ayi’s adamant attitude about using this coupon to get her haircut, to arrive early to be first in line, reminded me quite a bit of my grandma…).

While we waited around at home for the appropriate hour, Ma Yujie and I sat drawing around the living room coffee table. Suddenly, sirens started sounding in the distance, their eerie wails echoing across the city on this otherwise unremarkable Saturday morning.

Then, I remembered the date. December 13. This day, and the blaring sirens, mark the 71st anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre, a horrific incident that continues to this day to haunt the collective memory of Nanjing citizens and make many of them still wary of Japanese. The sirens signified the start of the massacre at 10 AM 71 years ago this day on December 13th, 1937. But the horrors still went on for weeks, at the end claiming the lives of an estimated 300,000 Nanjing residents, making the massacre among the worst atrocities of World War II.

An unfathomable bloodbath that brought out the most despicable depths and the greatest virtues of humanity, that claimed an incomprehensible amount of human lives… how did it all start? In the early 20th century, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the abdication of the “Last Emperor” in 1911, China was left a country confused by rivaling factions vying to fill the power void and wounded by years of exploitation by those blasted foreign imperialists. Japan, at the time rising in political and economic power like the red sun that still occupies the center of the country’s flag, took advantage of the chaos in China and invaded.

The city of Nanjing played an important role in all of this: in 1928, the Chinese Nationalist government moved the capital from Beijing to Nanjing. At the time the move was made, 80 years ago, the city’s population was around 250,000 (roughly 1/30th that of today!). In the matter of a few years, once the mid-‘30s rolled around, the city’s population had swollen to over 1 million, many of whom were refugees fleeing from the invading Japanese armies. After a drawn-out military campaign that further harmed an already-hurting China, the Japanese took Shanghai on November 11 of 1937. Afterwards, they advanced towards Nanjing from different directions. By early December, the Japan’s troops already had the city surrounded.

On December 9th, a massive offensive began. After 3 days of fighting and heavy losses on the Chinese side, the defending Chinese army pulled out of the city and retreated to the far side of the Yangtze River. On the 13th, 71 years ago this day, once the Chinese army was out of the way, the massacre began. For the following 6 weeks, the occupying Japanese forces engaged in an orgy of raping and pillaging and mass execution that in the end claimed an estimated 300,000 lives and ruined far more.

So that, in brief, reducing 6 excruciating weeks of suffering to a few paragraphs painless to read, is the story of the Nanjing Massacre. The Rape of Nanking, it’s also called, after the title of a book recounting the atrocity in in-depth detail.

Sitting there on the floor beside my host family’s coffee table drawing a picture of a rose for my host sister when the sirens started blaring in the distance, struck me into somber silence the chilling pictures I’d seen during my recent visit to the Nanjing Massacre Museum flashed before my mind’s eye. The rest of the household took pause too, but only for a second (“Oh, that’s right, today’s the anniversary of the massacre,” my host parents commented nonchalantly), and then went back about their business. After several minutes more of continuing to color my rose with an unsettled heart while the sirens still sounded, the time came for Ayi and me to head out again for our haircut.

Out on the streets, the city seemed to mirror en masse the response I’d found at home. People chatted and smiled and laughed and went about their normal business as though they were deaf to the wail of the sirens. By now, I guess, after 71 years have passed and the people of Nanjing have gotten used to this annual memorial, that kind of reaction is understandable. But to this newcomer to Nanjing, the haunting song of the sirens was rather harrowing and struck me into silence while they echoed across the city for what seemed like at least an hour.

After that unsettling walk back to the hair salon, still no luck: we arrived to find the lights still off and the doors still locked. But there was someone home: a chubby man sprawled out on the waiting room couch covered by towels. Ayi, adamant about getting her haircut, knocked on the door, and woke him up. After being told that it would still be a good hour and a half before people proficient in cutting hair would—maybe—arrive, Ayi proceeded to wait two hours before finding out that her coupon had expired and giving up. I gave up much sooner and returned home to write.