Tragedy

Just over a week ago, I embarked on a five day excursion to northwest China. It was one of the most fascinating journeys of my life and I am very excited to tell you all about it. I promise to get to that eventually.

But first, I want to express nothing but sympathy, support, and love for those affected by the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, as well as the bombings in Beirut, and the numerous other tragedies that have left the world in a state of shock and mourning over the past few days. In these times of unimaginable grief, we must remember the power of unconditional love and its ability to unite people from all nations and lift us back up, not through hate, but through compassion for one another. The Motto of the City of Paris is as relevant as ever:

Fluctuat nec mergitur  // She is tossed by the waves but does not sink 

I now want to provide insight into how the attacks on Paris are being received here in Nanjing as I believe that it is important from an educational standpoint.

The attacks in Paris occurred at about 10pm Friday night, Central European Time. China - which, by government mandate, operates on a single timezone - is seven hours ahead, so the reports of the attacks began coming in first thing Saturday morning. When I woke up, I did a routine Facebook check, and thereby discovered what was unfolding in Paris. As I went into town, everyday life here in Nanjing didn't seem to be too affected, but, because of the language barrier, I'm sure I missed numerous conversations on the bus and elsewhere about the ongoing events. What I found online relating to the Chinese reaction was unsurprising.

Immediately following the attacks on Saturday, the heads of the Chinese government joined the rest of the international community in vocal outrage. Chinese President Xi Jinping publicly denounced the attacks as "barbaric" and reportedly called Francois Hollande, the French president, to express his "deep condolences." Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei elaborated further saying, "Terrorism is a common challenge facing humanity. China resolutely supports France in maintaining its national security and stability in attacking terrorism."

Now, unlike the United States, China is not a historic ally to France and there has not been the outpouring of public support like we've seen in the States; however, I have seen a handful of posts on WeChat, which is the largest social media app here in China. Paralleling what I saw on Western social media, there were one or two xenophobic voices framing the problem in terms of a European immigration problem, but this was not the norm. Most were simply posting about the news itself and offered little commentary whatsoever.

As for public media, Chinese government-controlled news outlets have all been offering up coverage of the Paris attacks. All of what I have seen has been entirely sympathetic to France and those affected, but the news has not had the staying power that it has with Western sources. It seems the Chinese media - which, once again, is controlled by the government - has somewhat moved on, but this is not necessarily a representation of the Chinese people.

The Front Page of the English Version of the government-run online news site, Xinhua

That night, when I talked to my host brother for the first time following the attacks, after greeting me, the first words he said were, "Did you hear about France?"

I told him that I had. He then asked if I had seen the videos emerging on the internet: inside the concert hall, people fleeing the scene, police filling the Paris streets. When I said that I hadn't, he sunk away quietly, saying, "Horrible. So sad." I should note that Jerry is a student at an international school and is constantly on the internet. He is not representative of Chinese society as a whole, but then again, no one individual is.

It goes to show that, no matter where you live, the idea of living in terror is universally condemned.

Yesterday evening, I had dinner with my host dad and two of his friends. While the language barrier prevents me from understanding about ninety-five percent of what my host dad and his friends say when they're clipping along in their lightning fast, Nanjing accent, I could tell the conversation eventually shifted to the attacks in Paris. When it did, they were noticeably more somber than they had been a moment before.

What followed was thought-provoking; the conversation shifted to the topic of possibly the most infamous act of terror in modern Chinese history, what is known as "The Nanking Massacre."

"The Nanking Massacre" (also referred to as "The Rape of Nanking") refers to a six week period during the Second Sino-Japanese War when the Japanese invaded the city of Nanjing (then spelled "Nanking"). After capturing the city, which was the capital of the Republic of China at that time, the Japanese forces raped and murdered thousands upon thousands of Chinese civilians in the city. Because almost all of the Japanese military records were kept secret or destroyed, historians have had intense difficulty estimating just how many lives were lost -- the lowest estimations place the death toll at around 50,000 lives, while the Chinese government vehemently asserts that the actual mark is over 300,000.

Despite the fact that the massacre occurred in 1937, the events still have a real impact on Chinese and Japanese relations, especially in Nanjing, where an anti-Japanese sentiment still clings to life with the older generations. The first time that I encountered this was early on in my time here. We were at dinner with a handful of family friends and suddenly my host dad and one of his friends directed their conversation at me. Jerry explained to me that they were curious about what I thought of Japan. I sort of shrugged off the question and they didn't pursue my opinion any further, but then Jerry said something along the lines of, 'My father and grandfather don't like Japan. They think they're the enemy.' He said it in a very matter-of-fact way, like he was talking about a rival sports team, but it stuck with me and I was reminded of that moment at dinner.

Now, the history of the memory of the massacre is interesting within itself. Following World War II, the politics of the Cold War encouraged Mao Zedong to downplay the massacre in order to maintain positive trade relations with Japan. This started to change in the 1970s as China become more economically independent, but numerous leaders in the Japanese government still refuse to acknowledge the massacre at all. Just three years ago, the governor of Tokyo said that he believed the Nanjing Massacre to be wildly over exaggerated, claiming that it would have been impossible to kill so many people in such a short period of time. While the Japanese government has officially recognized the massacre, public statements from the minority - as well as scholarly debates over the extent of the massacre - continue to fuel the tensions.

In 1985, the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall was built in remembrance of the victims and to raise awareness to the tragedy. I had the opportunity to visit the hall with my classmates just last week. The Hall is dark and dramatic, meticulously documents the massacre, and uses intense, often graphic, imagery to convey a deep sense of mourning. The number "300,000" is a focal point throughout the museum and I found myself feeling both entirely sympathetic to the victims and skeptical of the government's use of the Hall as propaganda, especially as I observed that the majority of the visitors that day were middle-school students.

This sculpture of a woman holding a child in her arms stands at the entrance to the memorial site.

I'll admit that I expected to find an emotionally charged scene; I expected nothing less from the Chinese government who are nothing if not grandiose (see: Beijing Olympics), and yet I also found something that surprised me and I find particularly poignant as I reflect on the tragedies that have occurred over the last few days.

The back end of the hall focused heavily on a interview project conducted with former Japanese soldiers who expressed great remorse for what had happened. Furthermore, the text that accompanied these depictions of death and destruction were not as anti-Japanese as I had expected. In fact, the rhetoric used was much less nationalist and more about peace in general. The "Epilogue" in the final room of the Hall contained the following phrases;

"War is the scourge of civilization"

"War is a brutal machine...strangles humanity" and 

"Let's work together to prevent war and build a peaceful and harmonious world!"

Before I came to China, I had heard much about the controlling nature of the Chinese government -- of the Chinese Communist Party's brutality in suppressing political dissidents and "maintaining order." Since I arrived, I have heard that much of it is true; the Chinese government is certainly guilty of the atrocities leaked to the public. I do not mean to give undue praise an oligarchy that has trampled many of its own people on the road to relative prosperity.

That said, the Chinese government does not represent the feelings of the people. And regardless of where these messages of peace came from, they are an important reminder of what our goal truly should be in all of this political squabbling: to create a world where each nation coexists peacefully and where each individual is free to live the life he or she deserves.

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As always, thank you for reading my little blog. Here's a little preview of the upcoming post about my trip to the northwest.

At the Crescent Moon Oasis in Dunhuang