The Nanking Massacre

Most people in the world never seem to realize the mass number of raping or killings that are going on around them. Meanwhile, during the holocaust, no one understood how much it was happening around them then either, except for the people it was happening to. Most people are aware of the savagery that occurred during the holocaust in Germany, but few have ever even heard of Nanjing, much less the rape of Nanjing. Both genocides share very close similarities, and they both also share their differences.

Throughout The Rape of Nanking, the brutal massacre of thousands of innocent Chinese citizens is brought forth through the invasion of this ancient city taken over by the Imperial Japanese army. Iris Chang illustrates the graphic details of the murder and rape of these victims through the perspectives of different sides of the attack. Chang; furthermore, ties in the mass genocide and destruction displayed throughout the book with the example of the Japanese government’s desperate attempt to cover up the incident and the reluctance of the survivors to discuss it. In addition, the horrifying events of The Rape of Nanking only further motivated an uncontrollable desire for aggression, violence, and imperialism in the Asian community evidently

I do and do not believe that it is rational to act contrary to one’s self-interest. I believe it is rational when it pertains to career paths. On the other hand, I believe that it is irrational in the broad sense where it contains violence, stealing, and murder. A great example would be the Nanking massacre. This massacre occurred in late 1937, where the Japanese Army murdered thousands of people in a Chinese city called Nanking. Within this time, 20,000 to 80,000 women were sexually assaulted and killed (Rose, 2007, p. 103-105). This example relates to the general sense that contains violence and murder, which I find irrational and unsettling. “A fundamental problem of social psychology is the moralization of an individual by society in which he is born as a creature in which non-moral and egoistic tendencies are much stronger than other tendencies” (Gantt & Burton, 2012, p. 439). This quote is relative to Nanking massacre, for the Japanese army’s men were not acting morally and did such actions due to their ego and respect for their society or country.

This event displayed that each gruesome mass killing, “does not highlight, but instead blurs the distinctions between us” (Yew). Japanese troops were trained to believe the Chinese were inferior to them, therefore they must be killed. Similarly, the Nazis were trained to believe the Jews were inferior. The Nanking Massacre also showed how no

The Zong Massacre helped to grow and strengthen the abolitionist movement. In 1727 English Quakers began to articulate their disproval of the slave trade. From the 1750’s Britian’s American colonies also began to oppose slavery and called on English Quakers to take action with parliament. In the year of the second Zong trial (1783) the London Society of Friends presented its petition against the slave trade to parliament, influenced by publicity surrounding the Zong massacre. Subsequently they set up the Committee on the Slave Trade made up of six Quakers, which became the first abolitionist organization in Britain. The abolitionist movement expanded in size and influence in the late 1780’s and in 1787 the Society for the Abolition of the

Nanking was not the only place of Japanese Army atrocities. Nanking held the distinction of allowing foreigners to witness and survive the atrocities. I learned from the story that the Japanese Army would take drastic measures to eliminate a people, to systematically use every means available to eliminate your enemy, people that may not have been involved, people that got in your way and people you just took pleasure in killing. To even invite fellow military personnel who were not even involved to come and watch as if it is some side show. A sick pride in performing your duties.To knowingly kill people in many different possible ways, who are just scared and frightened, just to entertain yourself.

Words were spreading around that the Japanese had committed numerous brutal actions on their way though China. The Chinese soldiers in Nanking outnumbered the Japanese and had a lot of ammunition but they were very unorganized and poorly led. After four days of fighting, 90,000 Chinese soldiers surrendered and the Japanese thought of this as an act of cowardice and

Iris Chang the author of The Rape of Nanking was born in the United States from parents, “ Who has survived years of war and revolution before finding a serene home as professor in a Midwestern American college town” (7). As a child she learned the tales about the rape of Nanking from her parents. When Iris Chang graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana majoring in journalism she went straight into working as a reporter in Chicago. She worked as a reporter until she decided to go back to school and take her graduates degree in writing at Johns Hopkins University. Given all the facts we have on Iris Chang I can say that she is credible to write this novel because the degree’s she earned in college also all the accolades that she

In the article The Rape of Nanking, the author Iris Chang discusses the ways the Japanese used their cruel tactics to torture the Chinese. In my opinion the Japanese should be held to the same standard of punishment as the Nazis. The author illustrates this when she describes, “The Rape of Nanking should be remembered not only for the number of people slaughtered but for the cruel manner in which many met their deaths.” This shows that, the Japanese had been torturing the Chinese in a cruel procedure that had forced them to meet their death. Furthermore, the Japanese were a cruel ethnic group of people due to the fact that, “Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers, as other family members watched.

Wild Swans by Jung Chang takes us on a journey through the multiple regime changes in China in the 20th century through the perspective of her grandmother, mother, and herself. Through their perspectives we get firsthand accounts on the events in China leading to the Communist Revolution. For the purpose of this paper I will be focusing on the events up to the Communist takeover of mainland China. The book is far from short on shock value as Chang provides the reader with grizzly accounts of the treatment of people under the Japanese. Her mother also describes her own rationale essentially for wanting to join the Communists in overthrowing the Nationalist government.

The rape of Nanking (Nanjing) was the Japanese breach of the former Chinese capital of Nanking in the late 1930’s. The Japanese committed extensive numbers of criminal misconduct against Chinese soldiers and innocent civilians. Some Japanese natives and citizens prefer to ignore it and believe that it never happened. The data and documentation that have come from it say otherwise. The Chinese were being punished without reason except for that, Japan wanted to take their land and supplies. Thousands of innocent civilians were being killed so Japan could take their land before the Chinese got to surrender. Some of the war criminal subjects were sent to prison or tried in front of other countries, but they were not punished harshly until the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. They were punished fairly well.

Whilst it may be shown that the self is a vessel of terror, it is not difficult to factor out some of the reasons that allow for the self to be terrorized or be susceptible to the element of terror. The self is influenced by a number of factors, and these factors determine how they react to fear within themselves, and whatever it is they are in fear of. These factors include the relationships they keep (Conrad and his Mother/Father in Ordinary People), their mental condition (Nina in Black Swan), as well as the environment and groups that they are a part of (The Soldiers in the Rape of Nanking). While these factors all have different impacts on the individual, they may all have similar outcomes if not catered to adequately. Due to a desire

The Nanjing Massacre was arguably more atrocious than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in terms of ongoing physical violence. The Japanese Imperial Army’s invasion in China prolonged the Nanjing Massacre. Moreover, arguably, it was more atrocious in their case because their own government and army abandoned them. A survivor named Jiang Genfu had to watch his parents and siblings get killed by Japanese soldiers, at the age of nine. The Nanjing Massacre was “hardly the unifying event that it has for the Chinese”. “No one could fathom the overall extent of the terror” by looking at confidential accounts and diaries from Chinese survivors.

The Nanjing Massacre occurred over a span of 6 weeks in 1937, after conquering the Chinese forces stationed in Nanjing, the Japanese troops began their infamous slaughter also known as the rape of Nanjing. This sequence of events not only affected Nanjing historically, but the effect is has on current day Nanjing is nothing less than astonishing. Throughout the six weeks an estimated 300,000 soldiers and civilians were killed (Controversial, Japanese say the number is significantly lower). The Nanjing massacre is known as one of the most destructive mass murders in history as it would take decades for the city and its citizens to recover from the horrifying attacks. (staff, 2009).

In 1937 300,000 soldiers and civilians were killed and almost 80,000 women were sexually assaulted, this was the Nanking massacre. The Japanese just defeated the Chinese in a bloody battle and now they were going after the capital Nanking. The leader of China was fearful of the Japanese as they were a strong army so he ordered the army to flee and left the untrained army. The Japanese quickly took over and tore the people and city to ruins. The Japanese saw the Chinese surrender as cowardice and an