Gladys Aylward: The Second Sino-Japanese War

Starting in the early 1930’s, the Japanese began to display their great imperialistic dreams with ambition and aggression. Their goal was to create a "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere" where they controlled a vast empire in the western Pacific.1 In September of 1939, Japan signed the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis Treaty, allying themselves with Germany and Italy in an effort to safeguard their interests in China from the Soviet Union. Japan’s only major obstacle left lay in the significant size of the United States Pacific Fleet. To rid themselves of this, Japan attacked the United States Pacific Fleet in hopes of crippling it enough to prevent any further hindrance from the

Yun Abernathy was born Gao Yun in the popular city Beijing. Her parents were both artists types, with her mother being a dancer and her dad playing in the orchestra. Growing up Ms. Abernathy went to a boarding school in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, only coming home on the weekends. Being the eldest of two in a Chinese society every time she came home for school she had to cook, clean, do laundry etc. Most of Ms. Abernathy’s child consisted of a studying and going to school on a daily basis. Besides studying and going to school one fun pastime Ms. Abernathy remembered was visiting her grandparents on holidays. They lived on the sino-soviet border so winters there were extremely cold. She would make dumplings with them on cold days, and look at ice sculptures. On

Even though they started as allies they both wanted different things and never had an agreement. The one thing that they both wanted was control and dominance in the Pacific. Japan was thirsty for power after the First World War. If they had power in the Pacific they would have ownership of raw materials, which means they would not have to pay anything to have access to them. The Japanese were determined to make this an accomplished goal. The beginning of Japans and Chinas problems can be traced back to the invasion of Manchuria. In 1931the Japanese invaded Manchuria which part of China and renamed it Manchukuo. This was the start of it all and the reason for the Sino-Japanese War. The Sino-Japanese was lasted until the end of the Second World War (Iriye 4). When China made the decision to take on Japan, other countries got involved, the United States being one of them, who took the Chinese side under Chiang Kai-shek. The Japanese had a slogan: “the Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” which frightened the United States (Iriye 7). Just because the U.S. was known to be the

Known for her notable achievements in memoirs and fiction, Maxine Hong Kingston published China Men: a literature composed of stories about Chinese men in her family. One story distinguishes the heroic journey of grandfather Ah Goong. Ah Goong worked to build the railroad, but was driven out when it was completed in 1869; he then became a homeless wanderer in San Francisco. Upon hearing this fact, Kingston’s family called him Fleaman as “they did not understand his accomplishments as an American ancestor, a holding, homing ancestor of this place” (Kingston 151). What Kingston actually meant by Ah Goong being “an American ancestor” was that he had many accomplishments, but those achievements weren’t communicated to Kingston’s family. To support this claim, I will talk about how Ah Goong’s accomplishments were silenced by photography and by unfortunate circumstances.

This memoir of Ma Bo’s sent shock waves throughout China when it was published and was even first banned by the Communist Government. This passionate story paints a clear picture for what the Great Chinese Cultural Revolution was really like. Many Chinese living today can attest to similar if not identical ordeals as expressed in Ma Bo’s story. The toils of being a young Red Guard in inner China were experienced by many if not millions. The horrors and atrocities were wide spread throughout the country, not just in Inner Mongolia. The experiences illustrated in Blood Red Sunset uniquely belong to Ma Bo’s entire generation of mislead Chinese. As expressed in the books dedication the Cultural Revolution

The book is a written as conversational memoir between two women, Ye Weili and Ma Xiaodong about their experience during the first three decades of Mao’s era. The two women had gone through almost similar position and situations in their life, faced equivalent hardships, their approach or attitude towards those experiences in a completely different manner. This book is meticulous in its historical detail, making it a standout among similar memoirs of twentieth-century China. It also tries to add another dimension of the general perspective of historic events. The events are described in a chronological sequence and with the right amount of proper relevant information so the reader can understand the conversation.

In the late 1890s, tensions between China and Japan were growing. China’s power was growing into the early 1900s as it converted to Nationalism. Japan felt the need to expand and conquer because they had been forced into the modern age by the United States, and they believed it was their destiny to exert government over other nations (Chang 23-24). The Japanese felt the need to do something before China became “too powerful to be conquered” (Chang 28-29). This put Japan on the path to war with China (Chang 25).

Japan and America have been butting heads for awhile. When Japan was struggling economically, they thought gaining more territory would be the answer. Because of this, Japan declared war on China. This

“Japanese forces had been fighting in China sing July 1937 and by 1940 had taken over much of Southeast Asia. Japan’s next targets

In Xiaojian Zhao’s essay, “Chinese American Women Defense Workers in World War II,” the author focused on the development of Chinese American women’s accomplishments during World War II. Initially, after reading the essay, I felt a sense of pride and empowerment in my heritage as a half Chinese American woman. Zhao clearly states her thesis as the essay “focuses on the unique experience of Chinese American female defense workers in the San Francisco Bay Area.” I believe the author’s purpose is to educate readers of the World War II period which contributed to a large milestone in the progression of Chinese American women’s acceptance into American society.

When Clara was three years old she learned to read and her brother Stephen taught her arithmetic. She was very intelligent so her parents decided to send her to school. She excelled in school and her teachers told her she could do anything with her life. She

As China faced new international pressures and the change to a communist society, gender relations transformed women from servants of men to full independent workers, who finally became soldiers of the communist state. In Jung Chang’s novel, Wild Swans, the three women – grandmother Yu-Fang, mother Bao-Qin and daughter Jung Chang – exemplify the expected gender roles of each generation. I will argue that Confucian society presented few economic opportunities for women to support

country, and Japan had taken over parts of China. The United States of America was stuck in the

The Second Sino-Japanese war began on July 7th, 1937 and ended on September 9th, 1945. It was a military conflict which was fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. As part of the struggle against fascism, Japan invaded China. It is clear that, due to the restriction of its natural resources, Japan tried to increase by robbing resources from other countries. Japan used the conquered Manchuria as a launching base for their troops. Manchuria was an enormous region that consisted of three provinces- Liaoning in the south, Jilin in the middle and Heilongjiang in the north. In 1905, when Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese war, Russia, which used Manchuria for business and

One could say that Frederick T. Ward was a man of action, seeking the thrill of being an adventurer, and leaving his family and boring job behind in America to make use of his skills and experience as a soldier of fortune in China to make a name for himself. These were Ward’s motives, and to