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Have you ever heard of the Nanking Massacre?

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I only found out about this today. I felt like I was going to be sick. Also known as "The Rape of Nanking". Going through education, there was shedloads of stuff on world war 2 and the Nazis. Hitler is a synonym for evil because of what happened. But I can't, and wouldn't want to, think of any single act worse than what happened at Nanking.

How come I've never heard of it before? If we want to remember humanities mistakes so we don't make them again, maybe we should take account of the consequences. 100,000 - 300,000 dead, how many were tortured, or....

I can't believe I've never heard of it before. :(
It is a horrible story to relate; I know not where to begin nor to end. Never have I heard or read of such brutality. Rape: We estimate at least 1,000 cases a night and many by day. In case of resistance or anything that seems like disapproval there is a bayonet stab or a bullet.
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yep I've heard of it, but then I do chinese, and know people from Nanjing itself. Although i know it as the rape of Nanjing rather than Nanking.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Never heard about it now, but seems as you mentioned it i'm reading about it and it seems quite interesting.

    A relative of mine was held in a Polish prisoner of war camp.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yes
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yep I've heard of it, but then I do chinese, and know people from Nanjing itself. Although i know it as the rape of Nanjing rather than Nanking.

    I think the city / town was called Nanking but then became Nanjing.

    It's truly horrific
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yeah I've heard about it. The U.S. had rest and recreation facilities behind their lines so troops off the frontline would have something to do. The Japanese had Nanking. From what I've heard the whole thing was very systematic.

    Hence why China and Japan still hate eachother.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The human race is an ugly bunch. I can't blame any aliens out there for wanting to give our little planet a wide miss. We're still centuries if not millennia away from becoming enlightened and civilised.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote: »
    The human race is an ugly bunch. I can't blame any aliens out there for wanting to give our little planet a wide miss. We're still centuries if not millennia away from becoming enlightened and civilised.

    screw em' they're missing one hell of a party!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    screw em' they're missing one hell of a party!

    Really?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You're right Shyboy its barely mentioned in British schools, even those teaching WW2. In fact the entire war in the east and our involvement is not usually covered by the curriculum.

    Still a touchy issue in relations between Japan and China. Made the news a couple of times recently, two instances I can remember:

    1) There was some massive "party"/orgy organised I think by a number of Japanese companies or some kind of Japanese business association where something like 500 Japanese businessmen rented an entire hotel, and hired 500 Chinese prostitutes. I think the Chinese police raided it and there was a massive outcry, with people comparing it to Manchuria/Nanking.

    2) There was an international incident because official textbooks used to teach history in Japanese schools removed the whole section about Japanese atrocities in China. This one was a major diplomatic crisis I think.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I suppose to be fair to schools history is an awful big subject and they can't cover everything Ancient Greeks, Rome, Anglo-Saxon Invasions, Viking Invasion, Norman Conquest, 100 years war, War of the Roses, Tudor Times, English Civil War, the British Empire, WW1 and WW2 and expect to do it any great depth, so things which are tangential to UK or world history often get missed
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I must have studied the home front loads tbh.

    Had a great south african teacher who taught us everything about British history from henry VII to the beginning of the industrial revolution.

    I suspect though, reading about it (and it is very hard to stomach) that the reason they don't teach it is it is too disturbing.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I suppose to be fair to schools history is an awful big subject and they can't cover everything Ancient Greeks, Rome, Anglo-Saxon Invasions, Viking Invasion, Norman Conquest, 100 years war, War of the Roses, Tudor Times, English Civil War, the British Empire, WW1 and WW2 and expect to do it any great depth, so things which are tangential to UK or world history often get missed

    As a post grad history student I'd say to anyone that the more you learn about history (even history limited to England) the more you understand that you can never teach but a minute, minute, minute fraction of what there is to know or understand, and the different paradigms needed to understand it.

    Teach kids the history in even a single specific area as, say, peasant communities in te 15th century, or womens role in the industrial revolution, for 13 years (aged 5-18) and they will only just begun to grasp how to explain these things, what happened, how they happened, or how certain we can be that they happened.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I suspect more that the British weren't involved and it wasn't a pivotal event in world history.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I suspect more that the British weren't involved and it wasn't a pivotal event in world history.

    I think it's an historic marker of human barbarity. Not pivotal in the sense that it didn't change the world, but certainly significant, particularly in demonstrating how... inhuman we can become.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I suspect more that the British weren't involved and it wasn't a pivotal event in world history.

    True...although some things like this are taught (or can be taught) as part of the national curriculum. For instance I remember being taught (seemingly arbitrarily) about Aztec history at age 10, for 6 months. This was at a state primary school. Seems pretty obscure. Also there are hundreds of different paradigms/approaches taught in history the majority of which their respective scholars/experts claim were pivotal: e.g. history of technology, economic history, history of medicine, military history, post-colonial history, gender history, etc etc etc. Some of these are taught using different chronological frameworks (e.g. military history of WW1, economic history of the industrial revolution), some of them aren't ever mentioned.

    I suppose when choice is involved its going to come down to the personal interests and/or preferences of the teacher.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    I think it's an historic marker of human barbarity. Not pivotal in the sense that it didn't change the world, but certainly significant, particularly in demonstrating how... inhuman we can become.

    So does a large amount of our past Shyboy...unfortunatly there are way too many examples for anybody to cover and remain sane.

    Hegel described history as "a slaughter-bench." Most accurate single description I've read.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    carlito wrote: »
    So does a large amount of our past Shyboy...unfortunatly there are way too many examples for anybody to cover and remain sane.

    Hegel described history as "a slaughter-bench." Most accurate single description I've read.

    Well I'm glad I only know of a few then :(
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It's a disgrace that it isn't taught and yet the holocaust is. People don't realise who fucking awful the Japanese were in WW2, nor that there is a shrine which includes the war criminal that carried out this hateful crime...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It's a disgrace that it isn't taught and yet the holocaust is. People don't realise who fucking awful the Japanese were in WW2, nor that there is a shrine which includes the war criminal that carried out this hateful crime...

    MOK I agree that Japanese atrocities in China should at least be given a general level of teaching. After all it could only take two hour sessions (or maybe one documentary film) to cover in general what happened and why it is important today. (Shyboy how did you come across it? Taught in a class or came across it yourself?)

    However I don't think it should be taught as an equal or a comparison to the holocaust for reasons both practical and historical. Firstly there is an extremely limited amount of time dedicated to teaching history in schools as it is: it is more practical and evocative to teach children about an event that happened within a similar society (in economy, societal development, proximity, cultural norms etc etc) as our own and on a larger and more striking scale - i.e. the Holocaust. In historical terms the "rape of Nanking," the invasion of Manchuria and general Chinese/Japanese conflicts are not equivalent to the Holocaust in Europe, for many reasons: but mainly because the Holocaust is the primary and most obvious example of genocide and an advanced western society gone horribly, horribly wrong. It provides a stark example which has a wealth of European (and English language) scholarship dedicated to it and (if it is possible for any atrocity of the like) is most possible for elementary students of history to relate to.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It's a disgrace that it isn't taught and yet the holocaust is. People don't realise who fucking awful the Japanese were in WW2, nor that there is a shrine which includes the war criminal that carried out this hateful crime...

    Holocaust is different - not just in scale (6m vs 300,000), but awful though the rape of nanking was it wasn't an attempt by the Japanese to wipe out every single Chinese. The Holocaust was...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    carlito wrote: »
    (Shyboy how did you come across it? Taught in a class or came across it yourself?)

    I use a plugin called stumbleupon, came to some pictures of hiroshima, someone in the comments said images like hiroshima and the rape of nanjing were very powerful and it was important they were saved. Curiosity got the better of me, and I spent the next few hours in utter shock.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    carlito wrote: »
    True...although some things like this are taught (or can be taught) as part of the national curriculum. For instance I remember being taught (seemingly arbitrarily) about Aztec history at age 10, for 6 months. This was at a state primary school. Seems pretty obscure. Also there are hundreds of different paradigms/approaches taught in history the majority of which their respective scholars/experts claim were pivotal: e.g. history of technology, economic history, history of medicine, military history, post-colonial history, gender history, etc etc etc. Some of these are taught using different chronological frameworks (e.g. military history of WW1, economic history of the industrial revolution), some of them aren't ever mentioned.

    I suppose when choice is involved its going to come down to the personal interests and/or preferences of the teacher.

    At junior it was a bit random but seemed to cover things like Pompei, Norman Castles and what it would have been like living in a city in Victorian times (plus some local history as well).

    By highschool it was a bit more structured and by the time I'd got to 16 I'd covered Roman Britain, the Normans, then we missed out the Tudors and the Stuarts (but coming from Northern Ireland I'm not sure we needed school to tell us about King James and King Billy anyway), British Empire and Slave triangle (plus Rorkes Drift) and WW1 and WW2 - then we also did gandhi and women's suffrage.

    At A'level it was British histroy 1871-1945, then Germany, Italy and Russia for the same period (but in less depth).

    of course the other trouble with history teaching is that once you start to look at something in depth you realise quite how little the school actually teaches you. Take WW1 school seemed to concentrate on the Somme and on certain war poets to create a sense of disillusionment and high command incompetence, but it doesn't examine things like the 100 days (where the British basically broke the German army in 1918) or the evolution of combined arms tactics by Haig, Monash and Allenby amongst others.

    At the end of the day I've learnt more outside school on history than ever did in it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    At junior it was a bit random but seemed to cover things like Pompei, Norman Castles and what it would have been like living in a city in Victorian times (plus some local history as well).

    By highschool it was a bit more structured and by the time I'd got to 16 I'd covered Roman Britain, the Normans, then we missed out the Tudors and the Stuarts (but coming from Northern Ireland I'm not sure we needed school to tell us about King James and King Billy anyway), British Empire and Slave triangle (plus Rorkes Drift) and WW1 and WW2 - then we also did gandhi and women's suffrage.

    At A'level it was British histroy 1871-1945, then Germany, Italy and Russia for the same period (but in less depth).

    of course the other trouble with history teaching is that once you start to look at something in depth you realise quite how little the school actually teaches you. Take WW1 school seemed to concentrate on the Somme and on certain war poets to create a sense of disillusionment and high command incompetence, but it doesn't examine things like the 100 days (where the British basically broke the German army in 1918) or the evolution of combined arms tactics by Haig, Monash and Allenby amongst others.

    At the end of the day I've learnt more outside school on history than ever did in it.

    I think that gives a flavour of how people are taught...however when (where your taught) and where (were you taught)? History teaching (predictably) follows from where and how you're taught.

    I realise your interest (and speciality) is militrary history (and inevitably the sub-disciplines around it), not only from this thread but others. Its difficult to communicate the diversity and strength of other approaches: I'm sure you personally appreciate this but for the ever increasing amount of people who are not taught or do not educate themselves about interpretations of the past: understand that there are many ways pf interpreting these events (if indeed they ever enter your consciousness) and that whilst your interest or understanding of particular events (or series of events) is admirable, people with the same "facts" and "political" viewpoint as you will draw very different conclusions...

    It goes without saying that Flashman has the right direction....learn what you can in your limited years (as long as you find a balance between the disturbing and the enlightening/encouraging). What history should teach you is to take a critical and inquisitive approach to any particular subject: which I am ecouraged about in general on this board at least. Question and respect.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Still though, I think a massacre on such a scale at least deserves a mention. I mean, we didn't go into it in detail but Stalin's Siberian labour camps were at least mentioned.
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    Off topic: Was this poster's name always Flashman's Ghost? I could have sworn it was Fisherman's... :o
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    Still though, I think a massacre on such a scale at least deserves a mention. I mean, we didn't go into it in detail but Stalin's Siberian labour camps were at least mentioned.

    Shyboy I agree...i.n fact I think it deserves some kind of explanation.

    On the same note "Stalin's" gulags were never mentioned once in my education...

    ...like I say there are many terrible acts/episodes which have ocurred in history: let alone in the 20th century which was the bloodiest and most brutal, by any historical standards on record.

    I agree with you that it deserves a "mention" because I think "history" (the most interdisciplinary subject currently conceivable) deserves many more hours spent in the curriculum than it does now...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Off topic: Was this poster's name always Flashman's Ghost? I could have sworn it was Fisherman's... :o

    No:

    Correct me if I'm wrong but its based on George MacDonald Fraser's "fictional" character who was an actor in every British (and European) venture since 1832...

    The epitome of an "anti-hero." For the original see "Tom Brown's Schooldays."
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Off topic: Was this poster's name always Flashman's Ghost? I could have sworn it was Fisherman's... :o

    I was originally NQA, but got bored and changed into to Flashman's Ghost after Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC KCB KCIE, soldier, scoundrel, lover and linguist.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I was originally NQA, but got bored and changed into to Flashman's Ghost after Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC KCB KCIE, soldier, scoundrel, lover and linguist.

    Poor: you forgot equestrian, his second talent ;)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    carlito wrote: »
    Poor: you forgot equestrian, his second talent ;)

    I had horseman but I couldn't think of a second word beginning with 'h', so dropped it.

    I also missed that he has 'San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth, 4th Class' amongst his decorations :thumb:
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