Iris Chang (1968-2004)
Iris Chang is the Asian American author of three books including Thread of a Silkworm, a biography of Qian Xuesen, The Chinese in America, and The Rape of Nanking, which garnered her worldwide fame and established her as a human rights activist. Her detailed description of the atrocities and characterization of the massacre as a holocaust provoked backlash from Japanese rightists and denialists. She committed suicide in 2004 at age 36. At the time of her suicide, she was working on a book on the Bataan Death March.
From the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 to the mid 1980s, the 南京大屠杀 Nanjing Massacre, forty days of killing, looting, and raping by the invading Japanese military beginning on December 13, 1937, seemed to have vanished from public memory for Cold War political and other reasons. This changed in the 1980s when China began to nationalize and memorialize the Massacre. Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking, published in 1997 on the Massacre’s 60th anniversary, was timely in that it changed the cultural discourse on the Nanjing Massacre in the transnational context with its horrific descriptions of the atrocities and personal narratives of the victims. In her research, Iris Chang discovered the diary of John Rabe, a Nazi businessman who stayed in Nanjing after the Japanese invasion to help shield the Chinese. The eyewitness testimony of John Rabe and other foreigners added credibility to the atrocity accounts. The book became an international bestseller with over 500,000 copies sold, but not without controversy. History professors have accused Iris Chang of manipulating historical facts, exaggerating the numbers killed (200,000 to 300,000) and raped (20,000 to 80,000), comparing it to the Holocaust where many more were slaughtered, and other flawed scholarship.
A review of her papers at the Stanford Hoover Institute showed that a number of people had supported her writing by giving her their research. Communicating the extent of the atrocity drew strong support from the Chinese diasporic community. At the same time, she was hounded by Japanese rightists and called out by critics who were taken aback by the fame and attention she attracted, the sensationalism of her claims, and who called for more careful research of the subject. Others criticized her for her stereotypical depictions of the Japanese and for her lack of knowledge of Japan. When the Japanese ambassador to the US, Kunihiko Saito, stated the book was inaccurate and biased, Iris challenged him to a debate, which she handily won by pointing out that Japan had never apologized for the atrocities. Some of her opponents attributed her success to being a charismatic Asian woman speaking against Asian men.
Iris Chang was inspired to write about the Nanjing Massacre when she discovered Minnie Vautrin’s diary. Vautrin, an American missionary, turned the women’s college she ran in Nanjing into a sanctuary for ten thousand Chinese women and girls. Vautrin kept a detailed diary (Minnie Vautrin’s Diary 1937-1940) of what happened to the women and girls of Nanking. She suffered a nervous breakdown and returned to the US for medical help. A year after her return, Vautrin committed suicide. The 2009 biopic, Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking, drew parallels between Iris and Minnie Vautrin. The film showed Iris haunted by the horror of Vautrin’s diary, unable to sleep or let go. In her book, Iris Chang constructed Minnie Vautrin as the American “Goddess of Mercy” and venerated her work. At the The Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders 侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆, Iris Chang is linked with Minnie Vautrin as the revolutionary female martyr, standing for truth, peace, and humanitarianism, in opposition to Japanese right-wing revisionists who stand for denial, lies, and militarism.
The 2007 documentary Nanking was inspired by Iris Chang’s book and included many of the foreigners she wrote about. A Central China Television documentary series, Memories of the Massacre Nanjing 1937, tells Iris’ story in its first episode. After reading Iris’ book, Bright Sheng wrote Nanking! Nanking! a Threnody for Orchestra and Pipa and the symphonic ballet The Phoenix. The dance drama Nanjing 1937 was re-choreographed by Tang Ruirui for international performance as Deep in Memory features both Minnie Vautrin and Iris Chang. Performances are staged at annual commemorations of the Nanjing Massacre. A museum is dedicated to her in her ancestral town of Huai’an(淮安), Jiangsu(江蘇) province and a park in San Jose. Her veneration comes from the perception that she sacrificed her life to tell the truth and the crucial role that her book played in ensuring the Nanjing Massacre will not be forgotten in transnational memory.
Iris Chang was contacted by American POW survivors of the Bataan March to advocate for them. She wrote an op-ed criticizing the Bush administration for stopping a provision that would have allowed survivors to file civil lawsuits against Japanese companies that had used them as enslaved labor. The Bush administration feared that it would interfere with Japanese support for the War on Terror. She started researching for another book, taking testimony from survivors who served in the 192nd tank battalion–much of it as gruesome as the Nanjing Massacre testimony. While in Kentucky to conduct these interviews, she had an episode where she felt the television in her hotel room had been tampered with to show horrible atrocities. She also felt that someone was watching her and her room was wired. Her family sought psychiatric treatment for her depression, the same illness that Minnie Vautrin suffered from. She took her own life in 2004.
Although there is much reason to commemorate Qian in China, the Chinese have done the same with Iris Chang. More than two decades after her passing, they cite her determination to seek truth and justice, despite its tremendous personal cost. She brought Western attention to the darkest chapters of history. Like Qian, the government wants her to inspire a new generation of young people to do the same.
The Century of Humiliation, beginning with the First Opium War is a key component of the CCP’s historical narrative of China’s exploitation by foreign states and China’s ability to revive its sovereignty. The atrocities of the Sino-Japanese War figure prominently in this narrative and is monumentalized with the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. I would highly recommend taking the virtual tour. The twin of Iris Chang’s sculpture pictured above stands outside the hall and an exhibit explains her courage in bringing the Japanese atrocities to the West. Iris Chang continues to be memorialized as China.
