FF11: Author Profile

Iris Shun-Run Chang was a notable journalist and author of several historical articles and a handful of novels. She was a very outspoken young woman who felt her voice and words were her strongest power. She held very strong beliefs and was proud of her heritage as a Chinese-American woman. What made her significant was not necessarily the subjects that she chose to tell but the way in which she portrayed the scenarios and the dreadful truths that needed to be shared. Even within criticism Chang did not falter and continued her work until it ate her inside out, leading to her untimely death.

Iris Chang was born to be an intelligent and well-educated individual. She was born to two university instructors who like many other of Chang’s ancestors, emigrated from China. Chang attended the University of Illinois from 1985-1989 where she studied journalism. As she grew up she knew her passion would be within writing and she decided during college that she would do it through journalism. Something about gathering facts quickly and sharing it with the world enticed Chang. Most of the mentors she looked up to started out in journalism before becoming prolific novelist. As she continued with journalism she discovered a distinct style shared with another Chinese author. Much like Maxine Hong Kingston, Chang was interested in telling biographical stories through fictional methods. Iris Chang was very successful during her time in college, writing as a stringer for New York Times where she wrote six front-page articles in her first year. She loved her work as a journalist and just a few years after college she embarked on the research for her first book.

Thread of the Silkworm was published in 1995 and was well received by critics. In her first book it was already clear that Chang was insistent that her people’s history in relation to American history was not ignored nor neglected. In the book she discusses a Chinese professor, Dr. Tsien Hsue-shen, whom was a great help to American after World War II during the development of many missile experiments and debriefing Nazi soldiers. However, Dr. Hsue-shen worked during the Red Scare and was accused of being a communist. Thus, he was deported from the United States of America where he helped the Republic of China develop the Silkworm missile that would later be used in the war on Iran between Iran and the United States. Chang’s book put the United States blunder on the forefront and showcased the importance and power of the Chinese people. She would use her skills of uncovering historical truth not only to illustrate the command of her Chinese ancestors, but also to showcase their vulnerability.

Her most prolific and important book to date is The Rape of Nanking, a book that highlights the massacre of countless Chinese people by the Imperial soldiers of Japan. Change spent months interviewing survivors of the incident and researching the horrific events that took place. Chang got the idea to write the story on Nanking after listening to the stories of her grandparents who survived and escaped the ordeal. It was at this time that Chang became more and more depressed as she attempted to empathize with the horror stories she heard by imagining she was there. Her book was met with the most criticism of any of her other works. Some thought some of the passages she wrote were not historically accurate. However, Chang was the first author to write extensively on the occasion, which before had been understated. Before The Rape of Nanking, many Americans were not even aware of the incident. After the publication of her book she made many motions to the Japanese government to give reparations to the people and families of Nanking who were affected. Not only was Iris Chang becoming more famous, she was using her fame to assist her people.

Her last book, again in the vain of Maxine Hong Kingston, discussed the history of the Chinese in American in the book titled The Chinese in America. Chang discusses how the Chinese that came to America were a vital resource to the birth and progression of America, from the laborers that came during the gold rush to Chinese evading Communism in their country to finally when the United States formerly accepted the Chinese into the country. The most profound element of her final book was how Chang related and equated China to America’s culture. She explains how the Chinese have thrived in America with small and large businesses further implementing Chinese culture into America more greatly, even through the discrimination they faced.

While promoting The Chinese in America, Iris Chang was researching for her new book depicting the Bataan Death March. During the time she had several cases of depression, bordering on bipolar disorder. Like with The Rape of Nanking, while researching the Bataan Death March, Chang went into a contemplative state where she placed herself into the mindset of those who were a part of the tragedy. She had already been left emotionally weak by the research she did with Nanking, but the horrors she heard with Bataan left her emotionally distressed. On November 9, 2004, after several attempts with medication and psychiatric wards, Iris Chang was found dead. She shot herself through her head in her car.

Iris Shun-Run Chang was an extraordinarily incredible and massively significant author within the Chinese community. She had a resounding voice that helped the Nanking people to be heard. She shed light on some of America’s blunders in regards to a Chinese scientist who was wrongly accused for being a Communist. She illustrated how important the entire Chinese people were to the American culture and how today they prosper in the country they were once discriminated in. Though her death was tragic and heartbreaking, she did it while unearthing truth, providing closure, validating the nameless. Her legacy will live on through the stories she told and the people she represented.
　

F11: Book Review - The Rape of Nanking

            The book under examination for this review is The Rape of Nanking written by Iris Chang. Before Chang’s untimely death she wrote three prolific novels over the span of her adult life including Thread of the Silkworm and The Chinese in America. The choice for this non-fiction work was made based on the fact that unlike the rest of Chang’s work, this one presents the most controversy and significance. The work depicts the events of Japanese soldiers that invaded and destroyed the physical and psychological being of the Chinese people in Nanking and the cover up attempted by Imperial Japan afterwards. Their vicious attacks laid waste to over three hundred thousand people, a death count exceeding that of both atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. Chang’s book has met much criticism from scholars and historians who say she embellishes and misinforms her readers. This review will summarize the proceedings depicted within the text to identify the truth and falsehood.

            The book follows the succession of Japanese soldiers and their path through Nanking by way of eyewitness accounts and memoirs. The soldiers tore through the city where they systematically killed soldiers and civilians they claimed were soldiers masquerading as civilians and raped women and took them as sex slaves. For weeks the men and women of Nanking were drenched in fear and anguish under the raid of the Imperial Japanese army. During the Rape there were foreigners who created neutral safety zones for the refuges being persecuted. They included a businessman, surgeon and educator who work tirelessly working with no assistance to keep Japanese soldiers at bay.

            After three hundred thousand deaths and the end of the Second World War, the Japanese retreated back to their homeland where most faced criminal war crimes. Chang discusses how the immunity of the Emperor of Japan led to the cover-up of the Nanking incident. She warns the dangers of unchecked power and ignoring genocide. Those who had fought so bravely against the Japanese to this day have not been compensated, nor have the Japanese issued a formal apology. Chang tries to paint a gruesomely detailed picture of the incident to inform a caution to an occurrence like this happening again and to attempt to have the Chinese recognized in a war that has only highlighted the plight of Jewish people in Europe.

            The book is divided into three major perspectives: that of Japanese soldiers, Chinese civilians and Westerners that occupied Nanking at the time. Most know of the massacre that happened in Europe between the Germans and Jewish people known as the holocaust but few know of Nanking. Though Chang never directly compares the two it can be gathered that this was China’s holocaust, if not worse. Chinese refugees reported others being hung by their tongues, dug into the earth and left to be eaten by dogs, starved to death until they dropped dead, husbands were forced to rape wives and children, civilians were used as bayonet practice and much more. One unlikely hero of Nanking stemmed from that of a Nazi soldier.

            John Rabe was a German businessman who proclaimed himself part of the Nazi party but aligned more with its socialist beliefs than its anti-Semitism. Chang retrieved Rabe’s memoirs, which showcased his protection of the Chinese in Nanking. Chang likens Rabe as the “Oskar Schindler of China” and at a point he even called off bombing raids by way of Adolf Hitler himself.

            The Japanese were not all monsters during the invasion of Nanking, however. Matsui Iwana, the leader of the Japanese troops during the invasion was too ill to continue the invasion and handed powers over to his unprepared successor, Asaka Yauhiko. When Iwana found out about the carnage that took place in Nanking he attempted to tell other military leaders that action needed to be taken against the Japanese soldiers in Nanking including Yasuhiko. After the war, Iwana was charged with war crimes, which he did not commit because he was sick and away from the city. He did take responsibility for Yauhiko’s actions and was thus executed.

            Chang faults the Japanese over years of their government’s leadership and education of its young men. She states that their identity to the samurai, who believed that to die for their emperor was the greatest honor continued through to the Second World War where they had a similar mentality. Toyshops in Japan were filled with weapon-toys as well as schools that convinced its young men that expansion to the west was the right thing to do, much like Manifest Destiny in that of America. Chang also faults the Japanese military for not having a check and balance system within its ranks that could have ended the mayhem before it got three hundred thousand people out of hand. She spends extensive time discussing the way in which the soldiers raped the refugees including how the soldiers forced fathers to rape dead wives, brothers rape sisters, sons rape mothers and other combinations.

            In conclusion, The Rape of Nanking is a graphic and difficult piece of non-fiction to swallow but it’s a slap in the face the world needs to read. Genocide still happens in the present and the lessons of this book relate to today’s world as well. It takes uncommon heroes to make a difference and it takes good leaders to prevent such acts. This book is the most criticized of Chang’s work for its exaggeration of the incident; however, it was the story that needed to be told. She made sure the forgotten Holocaust of World War II would never be forgotten.