Japanese cattails (gama no nakama) and the legend of Okuninushi and the white hare of Inaba BeachShiromi Kagura, a unique act called shishitogiri (boar hunting skit) depicting life in the mountains, is hosted by Shiromi Shrine10000 yr old 8-rayed solar symbol in Macedonia – origin of solar symbol?A Background and Translation of the Nestorian SteleA JT article on the the pillaging of Ainu cultural artifacts and human remainsA study of rain deities and rain wizards of JapanA study of the coinage of Apollo and Ares and their emblems in the Hellenistic world, and comparing Babylonian and Hellenistic traditionsAbout Japanese superstitionsAbout this websiteAhura Mazda, the Iranian and Proto-Indo-European supreme sky god … possibly related to Amaterasu?Ama women divers – the probable origin of mermaid talesAmanohashidate — a vision of a concrete Heaven’s Floating Bridge on earthAmaterasu rites: Arousing or calling back the Spirit of the Regenerating Solar-Earth Mother, Rice Mother, or Rice Daughter?Amenokoyane and Koya-sanAn exploration of fish-phallic symbolism across culturesAn important treatise on “Archer Yi”, the “ten suns”, “three-legged sun-birds” and Mulberry Tree (World Tree) mythical storiesAncient matagi bear-hunting tradition of Japan dying outAncient Royal Horse Unearthed in IranArmenian tale of a Leviathan that causes earthquakes recall the quake-causing catfish myth of Kashima ShrineArrow divination and Yakudoshi concepts and custom in Japan“Japan and Inner Asia: Some Connections” by Mark RiddleBamboo good luck symbols, charms, taboos and superstitions and fairytales from Japan and the rest of AsiaBanier: Egyptian-Phoenician origins of the Roman phallic cult of Bacchus (and Dercetis/Atergatis/Adir-Dagon)Banishing demons one bean at a timeBeer was brewed in Jiahu, near Anyang, Henan in Northern China 9,000 years agoBlack & White Shamans, what’s the differenceBlack horse for rain, white horse for fair weatherBurmese myth of the incarnation of Phralaong in the Buddha has elements of the descent of a deity upon a mountain imagery and sacred union with a vestal virgin – Princess Maia’s immaculate womb conceptionCelebrating with the Lion DanceChina unearths ruined palace near terracotta armyChinese and Japanese Mythology source book referencesChristian motifs in East AsiaChurning of the Ocean of Milk – Mt Meru-Mandara and elixirs of ImmortalityCommon P-I-E mythical elements, role of AnatoliaResearchers identify present day Turkey [Anatolia] as origin of Indo-European languagesComparative survey of moon symbols and beliefs, and the likely derivation of “tamashii” jewel or soulComparing the red painted arrow of the Kamo shrine myth with the “arrow in the Hyperborean mountain”; The Arrow of Apollo and Abaris; the Cult of Apollo and the Hyperborean virginsCopyrightCould Kharkhorum, Kharkhorin or Khara Khuree hint of the remote Mongolic origins of Karakuni (via Korea)? … considering Mongolia’s prehistoric population linksCreation of mankind by Thakur Jiu – Santal creation myth may be prototype creation myths for Japanese and Korean creation mythsDescended from Wolves: Wolf Symbolism Around the WorldDog Days: The Isis-Nile-Star and Sirius dog-star connectionDog-headed deity indicates dog domestication, ritual worship and dog-diet closely relatedNotes: Early Turkic mythology and shamanismDid you know that Japan has its own tooth fairy too?Discovering the universality of Baba yaga and Yama-uba, the old mountain croneDoor guardian deitiesEast Asian, Native American, Hun and Scythian practices: Artificial deformation of the skullEggs as the Symbol of CreationEkijin petrel guardians against bad luck and the birthplace of setsubun: Yoshida Shrine, KyotoEnryakuji/Ishiyamadera: Walking in the enlightened footsteps of Mt. Hieizan monksExamining Fujian folk religionExperts believe they are on the point of ‘a breakthrough’ decoding a writing system called proto-Elamite, used between around 3200BC and 2900BC in a region now in the south west of modern Iran.Exploring griffin and dragon connections and origins in early prehistoric timesExploring Indian/Vedic sky and storm gods … were they blood-drinking storm-rain gods?Exploring Xi wangmu, Queen Mother of the West and the associated immortality motifsFloating and “Flying”Boats of the Dead and why dogs stand guard at the entrance of cemeteries or the UnderworldGiant prehistoric turtle and the Cosmic TurtleKorean Turtle ShipsGorinto | five-element-steleGyoran Kannon — the “fish basket bodhissattva”Halloween in JapanHandbook of Chinese mythology – origin of flood myths, Nuwa legends and brother and sister primordial pairHanging eggs, Cosmic Egg myths and excavated ostrich eggs across Near East, Old Europe and EurasiaHanna Matsuri, Queen Maya and the bathing of the Buddha on his birthdayHatsu Uma Festival commemorates the day that Inari, the grain deity descended upon Mt InariHina Matsuri / Doll Festival / Girl’s Day / March 3rdHindu Kush: Prototype Vedic/Tibetan deities and Kunlun’s mountain fairy and apsara legends of the ancient Kalash people?Hoori (Hohodemi) vs. Hohoderi (Hoderi)Horned demons of EuropeHorse and Griffin iconography of the Saka-Scythians in Altai-MongoliaHow astrology and superstition drove an increase in abortions in JapanHow to Read The Legends of Tono – A century after its publicationImages of Oni from Onmyodo doctrines and traditionsIn Search of Japan’s Hidden Christians….In search of the Roman Mithra in Miroku and MaitreyaIn the news: “Celtic”mummies may be the clue as to how European celtic culture and mythical elements crept into East Asian cultureIn the news: Pluto’s ‘Gate to Hell’ Uncovered in TurkeyIndo-European tongues traced back more than 8,000 years to present-day TurkeyIs Kunlun the same as the kingdom of Kalinga (aka Klinig, today’s Orissa)?Isora the sea deity and ancestor of the Azumi clanJAPAN HERITAGE Shikoku: 88 stops on the road to celestial joyKagamijishi – possession of spirit masks, the lion dance spirit and lion guardiansKam, Kami, Kamuy – proposed etymologyKame-iwa or Kame-ishi Turtle Rocks and Turtles that Hold Up the WorldKan’namesai – a harvest festival rite at the Ise Shrines celebrating the imperial lineage’s divine ancestry by offering first fruits to Amaterasu ŌmikamiKashima’s ancient rock of faithKing Yama Lord of the Dead: Comparing counterparts and cognates in Central Asia and Southeast AsiaKurohime – Tale of a “black princess” and a black dragonLegend of Oyama: Oyama-dera founder was baby carried away by eagle to NaraMarebitoMice-repelling shrine: Obara jinjaMount Meru and Mandala GeographyMystery Religions and fertility cults arrived from the west via the Indian-Bengal corridor, spreading through Tibet and Southwest China, Southeast Asia and JapanMystery: A dol hareubang spotted in Japan’s Kosenji Temple in Kusatsu Onsen resort town (Gunma Prefecture)Mythology of the tiger peoplesNara – etymologyNATURE IN SHORT / Foxes play spiritual, shape-shifting roles in Japanese societyNavigating between archaeological facts, legend and historical locations: Locating the Real Birthplace of BuddhaNihonji temple, the oldest Buddhist temple in Kanto, with the largest Daibutsu in JapanNimenseki: Stone With Two Faces of Good & EvilNotes & BibliographyNotes and readings on the Japanese hare in the moon and the Easter BunnyNotes and resources on Syriac Christianity and Nestorian Christians in Central and East AsiaNotes and resources: Tracing the roots and affinities of the Indo-Saka lineages of the early Japanese …to the Saka, Ashina, Khazarians and AshkenazimsNotes and source readings on when and how the Jews arrived in ChinaNotes on Bronze Age Eurasia: the Kura-Araxes Early Transcaucasian ‘Culture’ and the sudden emergence of the Maikop CultureNotes on Buddhism context: Ninth century AD antiquities found by archaeologists in Jharkhand (The Hindu Business Line)Notes on Celtic bird symbolismNotes on Chinese tomb horse sacrifices and chariot burialsNotes on early trident symbolism: Poseidon and his tridentNotes on etymology: AUR, OUR, OR, HORA….HORAI, HORAENotes on Iranian influences: Achaemenid kingship and governance styleNotes on Mahan (“mahthan”) and Rajput clan historyNotes on Mithraic legends, sanctuaries and influences in Dacian-Bulgaria and elsewhereNotes on related cultures: Xia-Erlitou cultureNotes on the Mighty Hunter: Nimrod, Nebrod-Nebros, Alorus, Belorus, OrionNotes on the title: “Ame-no” or Heavenly …Notes on the Zig Zag and triangle motifs of the Austronesians and of the Indo-EuropeansNotes on Womb of life Cave MythsNotes on: THE PLEIADES AS OPENINGS, THE MILKY WAY AS THE PATH OF BIRDS, AND THE GIRL ON THE MOON: CULTURAL LINKS ACROSS NORTHERN EURASIANotes: On cow symbolism in Parthia/IranNotes: A study of circles, triangles and “keyhole” motifs — Tanit-Astarte-Asherah symbolsNotes: Armenian tale of Night Mothers (snake witches) who race to catch the sunNotes: Comparative etymology – naos and naoiNotes: Descendants of the Iranic Pallavan or Parthian dynasty built the temples and cities of Dravidian MahabalipuramNotes: Early Neolithic Cis-Baikalian cemetery turns up strictly East Asian mtDNANotes: Eos – the Dawn goddess and the abduction of CephalusNotes: Gardens and mausoleums of early Japan were influenced by the Persian concepts of paradise…Notes: Golden woman(Zolotaya Baba) and Golden Goose (aka World Surveyor Man) of the Ob-Ugric or Finno-Uralic tribesNotes: Japan’s most common family or surnamesNotes: Location of Mt Ararat (landing of Noah’s ark) and the mythical notion of the descent upon the mountainNotes: Nara etymology, and the Legend of Nara and NarayanaNotes: Qiangic populations and their traditions and beliefsNotes: Queen of Sheba (Xiwang Mu?) — from her gold mines in Ethiopia to Yemen to Tibetan Mt. Kunlun?Notes: Resources on origins of the Greeks, Minoans and CretansNotes: Rocks, caves and sun-rooster shared symbols and the relatedness among the Mongolic tribes – Xianbei, Daur, Khitan (“Kara” Black Mongols), Tu(oba) peoples and the Chinese-Korean-Japanese peoplesNotes on the cock’s role in the underworld and on Jizo’s Central Asian originsNotes: Symbolism of the red dot on the forehead between the eyesNotes: The (Hindu) Legend of the Sami TreeNotes: The Altai Eurasian griffin or ouroboros-dragon-serpent eating its own tail iconsNotes: The Asena-Ashina “wolf” clanNotes: The Heavenly HorseNotes: The significance of the Maikop TreasureNotes: The Sumerian-Mesopotamian legacy to the worldNotes: The Ugra-Tara goddess and the cinasNotes: Yugra (a.k.a. Yuhra, Yura), the Yugrans or Ob-Ugrians and their Golden LadyNure onnaOkuninushi, kuniyuzuri and Izumo ShinkoOnda matsuri celebrates fertility of rice field and marital partnersOne eyed demons and ogresOni definitions and the Oni perspective in YumemakuraOnibaba – the fearsome legendary ‘Demon-hag’ of AdachigaharaOnna nueOrigin of the Hinomaru flagOrigin of the Pangu myth, the cosmic egg, the creation of Heaven and Earth and separation of Heaven and Earth imagery, Nuwa repairing the HeavensOrigin of the Three Hares motifOrigins of the Onigawara and the Kawara MuseumOrpheus & Eurydice vs. Izanami & Izanagi; Inanna vs Dumuzi ParallelsOsame Jizo FestivalOut of Africa – a survey of the legends and mythical motifs the world may have inherited from a common ancient ancestry with the Khoi-San peoplesOut of Anatolia came …Owl deity – Chikap Kamui, owls of Japan, owl tales and talismansWhy the Japanese like owlsPearls (tama-jewels), Plants and Elixirs and their Place in the Quest for ImmortalityPhallic worship around the world in ancient timesIn the news: Stone Age Phallus Found in IsraelPistol fireworks and more about the Yoshida shrinePlaces to which the gods descendPossible provenance of Japanese mythology and beliefs from the Rajput (Indo-Sakka) solar peoples of Northwest IndiaReincarnate fox of Mount ShitaRice festival at Fushimi Inari Grand ShrineRivers of death in Japanese myth and folklore and in other parts of the worldRooster rituals and sacrifices in various cultures and since ancient timesThe cock in the Japanese and Central Asian UnderworldRooster symbolismSacred Burmese texts on what happened to Buddha’s relicsSacred Cave of Rome’s Founders Found, Scientists SaySacred GrovesMiao cosmic pillar courtship danceUbusuna shrines, sacred groves, Tokiwa Gozen and other legends surrounding themSaiboku and a sacred cave on Mt FujiSainokamiSaka jinja, ShimaneSakaki FestivalSalt rituals in JapanSet a hill on fire to keep the ghosts awaySolving the mega-mystery of prehistory: Who were the Austro-Asiatic peoples(Australoids) and Austronesia peoples, and what migratory route did they take?Sources on Ashinanuchi(Ashina-adzuchi or Ashinaduchi), Tenadzuchi and Kushiinada-himeSources on TaoismStairway to heavenly HaguroStudy Notes: Academic discussions on Susanoo’s (and his slain dragon’s) provenance from Indo-Iranian or Indo-European storm god prototypesStudy notes: Bronze age donkey sacrifice in Israel where bridle bit found in the mouth evoking ritual chariot context and high status symbolStudy notes: Horse key figure of Turkic mythologyStudy notes: Investigating Sealskins, Selkies and Sea goddess folkloreStudy notes: Niuheliang relics – Mother goddess figurines and templeStudy notes: Sacred cave legends and the subterranean Netherworld myths — Greeks, Cretans, Minoans, Phoenicians, Karians and EgyptiansStudy notes: Slavic Sun deities and cosmologyStudy notes: The path of the birds across the sky motif — cultural links across EurasiaStudy notes: The worship of poles — Asherah’s Pole | The Cosmic Pole/PillarStudy Notes: Tracing the steps and lineage of Kumaraju (Kumarajiva)Study notes: What was the extent of the Greek-Hellenistic influence upon Iran (and the East beyond)?Study notes: Xiwang mu and the Rabbit in the Moon / Immortality and ParadiseAfrican tales of how the hare got to the moon … and how mankind lost immortalityStudy notes: Yamato Takeru, Sacred Swords and Atsuta ShrineTakachiho: Visit the epicenter of Japanese mythologyTales of Mystic Mountain: The Legend of the Levitating Monk of Mt HoraijiTamahime Shrine and the legend of Toyotama Princess Otohime of Ryugu CastleTametomo’s ferocity drives away smallpox demonTang dynasty influences on the Khitan empire and Daur population linksTasseography or Tasseomancy – tea-leaf reading in JapanTel Motza Discovery: Temple And Ritual Vessels Of Cult From King David Era Found Near JerusalemTengu and BuddhismThe ancestral people of the Yunnan Naxi Minority people who painted the Dongba Painting may have been connected to early Japanese lineagesThe color red and Jomon peopleThe Divine Forest / The Sacred GroveThe earliest evidence of the ritual practice of offering up the “ram burnt offering”in Israel?The eight-spoked wheelThe embracing Sky Father and Mother Earth and the Heavenly RopevineThe excavated finds of Darumaji, and the Legend of Shotoku Taishi and his encounter with the starving beggarThe Fox-Woman A Labrador Eskimo LegendThe Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T’ang Exotics … and other works by Edward H. SchaferThe Historical Significance of the Discovery of Large Scale Remnants of Buildings in the Makimuku Ruins, Nara Prefecture — the Yamatai KingdomThe horse and the ox, and their connection to sea or water gods (including the kappa spirit) and to the sun and moon (celestial heavens)The Indo-Iranian origins of the Torii gate as a perch for the Simorghian-PhoenixThe Japanese legend of the two hemp weaversThe legend of Jesus Christ in northern JapanThe legend of Lake Tazawako (Akita Prefecture)The meaning of hands (raised and clapping) in woven kilim of Anatolia and beyondThe miraculous ‘grass-cutting sword’ (Kusanagi no Tsurugi) of Yamato-dake no MikotoSwords excavated from the Kofun PeriodThe most ancient written document ever found in the Holy City – a tiny fragment of a letter thought to be addressed to Akhenaten, the “heretic” pharaoh who ruled Egypt during the 14th century B.C., possibly sent from the king of Jerusalem, Abdi-HebaThe ninth day of the ninth month – autumn harvest festivalsThe peach as a kami and Mother goddess, and symbol of fertility and immortalityThe perpetual life-giving wine and sennin heavenly immortals of Mt. DaimugenzanThe sacred fire ritual of Kibune Shrine … and othersThe sacred sword of Cape Fudo (Fudozaki)The She-Wolf and Werewolf Wife Tales and wolf shrines in JapanThe story of Ural-batyrThe symbolism and meaning of the top knot and the origin of the practice of wearing top knotsThe symbolism of cinnabar – “Dragon’s Blood”The symbolism of jade, jasper and the colour green to the ancientsThe Symbolism of Knots: to Knot or not to Knot … that is the QuestionNotes: Comparing musubi binding deities and the meaning of the binding powerThe Thracian-Bulgar legacy to the P-I-E and Hellenistic worldAt “Europe’s Oldest Town,” Unusual Fortifications Hint at Prehistoric RichesThe tree fairies, nymphs, she-devils, tiger-women of India, Tibet, the Hindu Kush and Tien ShanThe twin fish, state symbol of Uttar Pradesh and commonly found on ancient buildings of Ayodhya, is the biggest clue to the link and the route undertaken by Kaya (Kara/Gaya) royals to Korea (and Japan)Pair of Golden fish or Twin Kissing Fish SymbolismThe Weaver Fairy, Swan Maiden Myths, and “White Feather on His Head”The wish-fulfilling jewelThe Xiongnu and Mongol connectionThree crows of ArimaTibetan Sacred Horse SymbolismTooth blackening custom – origins and processes…Towadako: Lake so popular a dragon and serpent fought over itToyo no Kuni and the Spring of ImmortalityTOYOTA-MAHIME:NINGYO mer-creatures and the Yao Bikuni folktaleThe Legend of OTO-HIMEThe legend of Sayohime – the loving wife who turned into petrified rockWatasumi or Owatatasumi and the curious appearance of the crocodile “wani”Tracking down the origins of the teru teru bozu (てるてる坊主) sunshine doll traditionUsa Shrine – a ‘power spot’ for battle victory & luckWaterfowl symbolism and genetic links between Finno-Ugric Kanty-Mansi peoples and the Japanese, Buryats, Xiongnu, Yakut, other Northeast Asia populations and the Finnish peoples togetherWeaving goddesses of Japan and elsewhere in the worldWho is Lord Yama?Why Soma and Sake are both the drink of the godsWhy the jellyfish has no shell/bone and the clever monkey saves his lifeWhy thunder deities and thunder-beasts are attracted to Japanese children’s navelsWomb Mother and “Great Mother of Mercy and Love” of Bon and Mongol cosmology, and Tibetan influences upon southwest China and East AsiaXiwang mu Queen Mother of the West, her wild dancing women and rabbit pounding the elixir of immortalityYabusame (Horseback archery)Yagura CavesYi people and the legend of Pan hu
Blogroll
"A Hindu-Buddhist pantheon and the Japanese sky: Aspects of cosmology and ritual in pre-modern Japan". The University of Edinburgh, 13 Feb 2012 Ian Astley"A Natural History of Heaven"Mythical Stone: Volume 1 of Mythological Essays"Chthonic: From Beast to Godhead" by Vadge Moore This paper explores chthonic, earthy, primal infernal gods such as Set, Pan, Bacchus, and Dionysus, deities connected to the soil and rooted in the ground or soil. Chthonic represents the instincts that awaken the soul/wisdom and healing."Faces of the Hamitic People" By Khamit Raamah Kush"Gods of Myth and Stone: Phallicism in Japanese Folk Religion" by Michael Czaja A survey of Dosojin sculptures and their meaning and a pioneering work, the first book in English to deal comprehensively with the origins and meaning of Japanese phallicism and to stress its pivotal position in Japan’s folk religion — that foundation of"Handbook of Japanese Mythology" by Michael Ashkenazi Namazu, Nai-no-kami are Shinto quake deities who are paradoxically also associated with yo-naoshi renewal and bringers of wealth"Hemp & Japanese Culture" by Brett Paulhus"Kappa, river imp, water sprite" by Onmark Productions The Kappa is one of many Suijin(water kami, water deities) in Japanese mythology. Suijin are supernatural beings found in lakes, ponds, springs, wells, and irrigation waterways. They are often depicted as a snake, a dragon, an eel, a fish, a turtle, or a"Myth of the Northern Sub-Urals Folk Belief Today" by Tartu According to the legend, the primordial Duck Chozh crashed and became the Earth. Yen the Duck obtained human appearance and started creating the World"Primitive symbolism, as illustrated in phallic worship or the reproductive principle""Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations" By Karen Tate"Shinto: At the Fountainhead of Japan" By Jean Herbert"Snake, Turtle and Sword: Ancient Constellations Defined" by Stefan Maeder An important work to understanding the iconography of East Asia"The Hare in the Moon" from "Moon Lore" by Timothy Harley"The iconography of Cautes and Cautopates I" the data by John R Connells"The Mythology of Tibetan Mountain Gods: An Overview" by Xie Jisheng Oral Tradition, 16/2 (2001): 343-363 Tibetan mountain gods and the heavenly rope"The Serpent as Sexual Symbol" from The Cult of the Serpent: An Interdisciplinary Survey of Its Manifestations … By Balaji Mundkur pps 172-210 An examination of the various orphidian cross-cultural interpretations (and possible misinterpretations or overinterpretation) of the symbolism of serpent motifs (zoomorphic or abstract representational -triangular, zig-zag or spiral)) found in the art an"The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and its Heritage" by Arthur Koestler"Uighu Folklore and Legends" compiled by John Halsted"Vala and Iwato: The Myth of the Hidden Sun in India, Japan, and beyond"by Michael Witzel"When Gods Drank Urine" by Mike Crowley(Hungarian) Legend of the Wondrous Hind (Stag) by Fred Hamori28 Star Deities, 28 Moon Stations/Lunar Mansions and Big Dipper Mandala/Myoken worship5th century India, Faxian and Mahayana BuddhismA case study of the Taiwanese 18 Deities' Royal Lords cult – dog, underworld and water symbolismCOMMON SYMBOLS IN EURASIA-PACIFIC UNCONSCIOUS CULTURAL HERITAGE IJAPS, Vol. 7, No. 1 (January 2011) by Igor SitnikovA Chronology of Japanese History from the Age of Myths to the Present Time This is not the standard historical chronology but the one including the one found in ancient historical chronicles and records of JapanA Continent Lost In The Pacific Ocean | Riddle of the Submarine Ruins in the Ryukyu Islands by Masaaki Kimura Book reviewA general survey of Danba pillboxes Pillbox and stone coffin construction culture was the culture of the Ranlong tribes who originated from the ancient ethnic Yi tribes – they became the ancestor of the TibetansA Glorious Hindu Legacy: Indic influence in Southeast Asia.A History of EgyptA History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony 1581-1990 by James ForsythA History of Turkmenistan by the Weaving MuseumA PIE hypothesis from the Black Sea region to the Samarra area of Russian steppes to north of the Ural mountains A summary unravelling Proto-Indo-European and PIE culture developments across the Steppes and their movements east and westA SCROLL OF GLEANINGS FROM ANCIENT STORIES TOGETHER WITH A PREFACE BY IMBE-NO-SUKUNE-HIRONARI, LOWER GRADE OF THE JUNIOR FIFTH COURT RANKA Statue for the Deity Cult Images in Hittite Anatolia Art and cult images of the Hitttites in Anatolia (Turkey)A Stirring Monument to Immortality * "Churning of the Sea of Milk" bas-relief This 12th C. work although anterior throws light on the 8th c. record of Izanagi and Izanami “churning of the sea of brine” scenario, with an affiliated genetic signatureA summary of Roman religious beliefsA-UN, Alpha and Omega, the Name of God Intoned by Koma-inu at Japan’s Shinto Shrines -Part 1 Mark A. Riddle Provenance of stone lion ideologyAchilles-Heel-type folktales and legendsAesculapius, the healer in the UnderworldAino Folk Tales by Basil Hall ChamberlainAINO FOLK-TALES. by Basil Hall ChamberlainAinu Legends (PBS.org) Excerpts drawn from The Ainu and Their Folklore, by the English missionary Rev. John Batchelor (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1901)Ainu tale about the three characters: Grass person; Soil person; Oilcake personAinu Tales in Tapestries: Shizue Ukaji at the Philia Museum Alan Gleason The shimafukuro or island owl is a species of fish owl that dwells only on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido. With a wingspan that can reach two meters, it is the largest owl in the world. To the Ainu, the indigenous people of Hokkaido, the shimafukAkakura Daigongen "The White Haired Old Man"Akaruhime A.k.a. Himekoso no yashiro no kami (deity of the Himekoso shrine), and wife of AmenohibokoAltai Creation Story (Kara-han)Ama-no-Sakahoko The mysterious Ama-no-Sakahoko – the Heavenly Upside Down (three-pronged) Spear ” that is staked on top of the Mt. Takachiho-no-mine is thought to mark the spot where Ninigi-no Mikoto descended onto the sacred peakAmaterasu (image representation)Amaterasu myth – originsAmazons Eurasian Priestesses and Warrior-WomenAmbrosia Greek drink of immortality has Hindu cognate cognate – brought by dovesAmenohiboko 3rd or 4th c. legendary prince of Silla who settled in Japan during the era of Emperor Suinin, venerated at the Izushi ShrineAmenokoyane no Mikoto One of the chiefs who accompanied Ninigi during his descent from heaven, who performed divining, incantations and nori toAmong Our Earliest Amazons Eurasian Priestesses and Warrior-Women By Jeannine Davis-KimballAmyntas of Galatia was Jesus AmenAn Account of the Dionysiac Presence in Indian Art and CultureAn account of Zoroaster's arrival at the court of the King of IranAn Egg at Easter: A Folklore Study An exhaustive study of the symbolism of eggs in many cultures and periods. Among the topics are creation, fertility, sacrifice, Easter, and gameAn Illustrated Guide to Korean Mythology By Won Oh-ChoiAn Introduction to the Simorghian Culture and Mithraism in East Asia Miroku and Mithraism, one and the sameAn overview of the History of the Japanese LanguageANAT, MOTHER OF GODS BY JIMMY DUNN Variously known as ‘Anat’, ‘Anatu’, ‘Anath’ or ‘Anata’ to the Ugaritic, Hebrew, Akkadian, Egyptian and Phoenician cultures, and daughter of El or Re and consort of Seth or Baal. Regarded as a just and benevolent goddess of beauty, sexuality, and of the feAncestor worship in prehistoric-ancient times was globalAncient Buddhism in Japan | SUTRAS AND CEREMONIES IN USE IN THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES A.D. AND THEIR HISTORY IN LATER TIMES BY Dr. M. W. DE VISSERAncient egg found in farmer's field This article examines the mythical significance of egg and egg symbolism surrounding the stone eggs uncovered in VisokoAncient Egyptian death rituals Ancient Egyptians used a model boat which they believed could lead them to the other world. After the deceased person was put in the tomb and the tomb was filled with supplies such as couches, beds, boxes, chests, chairs, and weapons, the deceased will haAncient Felines and the Great-Goddess in Anatolia: Kubaba and Cybelemore By Miriam Robbins DexterAncient grain goddessesAncient historyAncient history of Indo-Europeans Eastern Iranic People ~ Bactrians, Saka Scythians and TochariansAncient Japan. Vol. 1 Cambridge Histories OnlineAncient Mystery ReligionsAncient Near East (Upper Mesopotamia and Transcaucasus) culturesAncient nomads, female warriors and priestesses by Jeannine Davis-Kimball ( Center for the Study of Eurasian Nomads) Useful information and details on the specific functions of these powerful priestesses and priestess-warriors of the early Eurasian nomads.Ancient Roman religionANCIENT TALES AND FOLK-LORE OF JAPAN by Richard Gordon SmithAncient Tales and Folk-lore of Japan by Richard Gordon SmithAnimals in Celtic Life and Myth By Miranda Jane Aldhouse-GreenANTHROPOGONlC MYTHS OF THE WA IN NORTHERN INDO-CHlNA By TARYO OBAYASHI* Given the similarity with Japanese myths of the emergence from caves of deities, of the primordial pair, jade tadpole symbolism, gourd tales, sacrifices to rice spirits, underworld worldview, was the wild Wa country perhaps connected to the Japan’s Wa couAnthropomorphic and Zoomorphic Miniature Figures in Eurasia, Africa and Meso-America by Dragos Gheoghiu and Ann Cyphers Figurine breakage as a substitute for sacrifice is a practice still performed in the villages of the Lower Danube area; binding funerary rituals of the Near East and Europe, esp. common among Semitic, Greeks and Romans.Ao, Anyang and Yin The historic Yin tortoise oracle. Famous for the Chariot burials and excavated items of Lady Hao’s tomb and other bronze itemsArchaeology News and Reports from JapanArmenian stele motifs and Sasanian art / Sogdian and Turk close connectionsAt Matsuo Taisha, turtles, sake and Hata clan Webpage of Green ShintoAuspicious omens in the reign of the last empress of Nara, Japan by Ross Bender The omen reporting and interpreting techniques found in Shoku Nihongi comprise only one component of a vast, multifaceted complex of ideas trickling into Japan for centuries from the Korean peninsula, China, India, and southeastern and western Asia for mAśvaka/Aspa/Assakenoi/Assacenii/Assacani horse-clans of the Kunar and Swat valleys (earlier Kafiristan— modern Nuristan)(near modern Kalash-Valley and Pakistani side of Nuristan) and in some part regions of Gandhara (today Peshawar valley), in presentAēšma and wrath – Zoroastrian demonology The Middle Persian Zoroastrian & Avesta’s picture of Aēšma “of the bloody club” , emphasize the attitude of fear and dread of the demon’s power. The yazata Sraoša, embodying religious obedience, discipline, and devotion, is the demon’s chie‘A new Paradise myth? An assessment of Stephen Oppenheimer’s thesis … Wim van Binsbergen debunks Oppenheimer’s Eden in the East and out of Sunda spread of myths hypothesis“Shiro Hannya (White Hannya) Mask a female serpent-demon filled with malicious jealousy and hatred… color of the flesh tones of the mask represents the social rank of the woman portrayed. For example a lighter complexion might indicate aristocratic status, light on top and red below ind“The Foundation of Myth” by Brian R. Pellar Sino-Platonic Papers, 219 (January, 2012) An exposition on key stars and constellations with the author showing that they are the same concepts across cultures, especially that of Taurus, the Ankh and spear of AnuBaal, God of Thunder The storm god, Baal, was a West Semitic import to Egypt. Late Bronze Age texts discovered at Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) on the Levantine coast, from which his cult spread, indicate that by 1400 BC, Baal had displaced the god El to become the most importaBanaras: Vision of a Living Ancient Tradition By Winand M. Callewaert, Robert Schilder Of Shiva lingams and yoniBato Kannon | Hase Dera Temple | ZoomInfo.comBear ritual of the Sami Bear cult shared by The Sami, the ancient Finns, the Tungus, the Gilyaks & other tribes of Siberia, the Ainu of Japan, and Native North American groups, such as the Algonkins and TlingitBear's Plaything on the Central Asian fabled origin of the jaw’s harp as aping the music made by the bear pawing the branches of a treeBotai DiscoveryBrigit (Celtic)British heritage – Celtic, Basque, Anglo-Saxon and Mediteranean and Middle Eastern haplogroupsBroken Images A famous folktale about Jizo saving children in limbo on the riverbank of Sainokawara and rescuing them from Shozuka-no-baba and her demonsBUDDHISM & SHINTŌISM IN JAPAN A TO Z PHOTO DICTIONARY OF JAPANESE SCULPTURE & ART By ONMARK PRODUCTIONSBuddhism and early states: Japan and TibetBuddhist, Islamic and Jewish Occurrences of the Three Hares (The Three Hares Project)Busha Sai Sacred Archery Festivals or Foot Archery FestivalsBussoseki Stone Footprints of Buddha Tracing the history of the stone footprints and the engraved symbols, including the swastika, found on the soles of these footprintsby E. Kuzmina, "The Eurasian Steppes: The Transition from Early Urbanism to Nomadism" and the papers by K. Jones-Bley, "Sintashta Burials and their Western European Counterparts" and "The Sintashta 'Chariots'")Catacomb culture connected with Indo-Aryans – catacomb burial ritual had roots in SouthWestern Turkmenistan from the early 4th millennium (Parkhai cemetery) THE SINTASHTA CULTURE AND SOME QUESTIONS OF INDO-EUROPEANS ORIGINS. S.A.GrigoryevCave Deities and their Symbols Chapter XIII of “Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe”, by Donald A. Mackenzie, [1917], at sacred-texts.comCedar of Lebanon as symbol of Christ Symbolic tree of the Middle East is representative of Christ l- longlived, majestic, with its soaring height, evergreen, it has also come to be associated with eternal life. For this reason, one often finds cedars of Lebanon planted in cemeteries.Cedars and Stars: Enduring Symbols of Cosmic Kingship in Abraham's Encounter with Pharoah E. Douglas ClarkCelestial ladders in Tibetan artCeltic wheel of Taranis, the thunder godCentral Asia Ancient DNAChapter 2 of John Heise's 'Akkadian language Sumerian is a so called agglutinating language, like Finnish and Japanese (and in fact like the majority of languages in the world). This is a term in the typology of languages that contrasts with inflecting languages, like the Indo-European and Semitic lCHAPTER XXXIII – THE MAN-TZE, I-REN, OR SHAN-SHANG-REN pp. 443-454 About the Shan Shang mountain people or Man-tze of Sze ChuanCHICKEN AND FAMILY PROSPERITY: MARITAL RITUAL AMONG THE MIAO IN SOUTHWEST CHINA by Xianghong Feng On rooster symbolism in the culture of the Miao (Hmong) peopleChinese Astronomy by S.Y. Ho Many Chinese myths and legends are related to astronomical observations of the skiesChinese creation myth Derk Bodde, believed the Pangu myth “to be of non-Chinese origin” (Bodde 1961:383) and linked it to the ancestral mythologies of the peoples such as Miao people and Yao people in southern China. Professor Qin Naichang, head of the Guangxi Institute for NaChinese fairies (xian)Chinese knot A short history on the origins of Chinese, Korean and Japanese knotworkChinese KnottingChinese Mythology from A-ZChinese PyramidsChristian Designs Found in Tomb Stones of Eastern Han Dynasty | www.chinaartnetworks.com 2002-08-02Designs on these ancient stones displayed the artistic style of early Christian times found in Iraq and Middle East area while bearing the characteristics of China’s Eastern Han times.Concept of asura demons, as seen in Kofukuji iconography of Nara, early JapanContemporary popular beliefs in Japan Yakudoshi, superstitions, maneki cat, omamori etc., are given treatment in this paperCorded Culture and Craniology | Races of Europe by Carleton Stevens Coon, Of interest to the Turkic history is the observation that Altaic people stem from the same anthropological trunk which generated IE peoples, that Corded Ware Culture was a European branch of the Altaic trunk, that the Turkic linguistical influences in thCosmic world treeCosmology and Cosmology of the Universe by Brent Meeker The cosmogony and cosmology of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece are studied and compared in this paperCow festivalCucuteni culture building techniquesCucuteni vertical loom, Ukraine is similar to that of Jomon cultureCult of the Serpent by Balaji MundkurCult to a syncretic Zeus-Mithra god of the Greco-Bactrian in Ai-Khanoum, Northern Afghanistan (and also to the Cybele-Tanit goddess)Cults of the Greek StatesCup-Marks and Pre-Historic Rock Carvings: Portals to Other Realms By Gary R Varner Sacred/fertility/rain stones used as altars, with “cup marks” that may have represented “passages through which dead souls entered the other world, as in the past the relatives of the deceased used to carve a small hole in the stone”.Dangun / Tangun mythologyDaoism Handbook by Livia KohnDeath and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism by Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter Buddhist funerary rites at every stage of evolution incorporated local religious, folkloric cultural beliefsDewi Sri in Village Garb – Nanzan Institute for Religion and CultureDiscoveries-in-Western-Tibet-and-the-Western-Himalayas-Essays-on-History-Literature-Archaeology-and-Art Tibetan Zhang zung polity, Tibet as repository of bon beliefs, and on the Upper Mustang “Mongolian” mortuary patterns (similar to Kofun ones)Divination and the interpretation of signsDivination systemsDivine Archer Hou-Yi, Xi Wang Mu, the Sun Palace and the Celestial Cock mythology – (From Myths and Legends of China, by E. T. C. Werner) Divine Archer Hou-Yi, Xi Wang Mu, the Sun Palace and the Celestial CockDog ancestor mythsDog-headed races Legendary creature, bestiary and bizarre people pt 1Dolmens of India Dolmens in Shillong look like those in Kyushu; Dolmens are found the Khasis in the North-East; the tribals in Jharkhand, dolmens called Sasandiris are still raised by the Austric Mundas, and Dravidian speaking OraonsDondon Yaki New Year Fire Festival in Shizuoka Originally, a fertility harvest ritual or folk tradition, now the Dondon Yaki fire festival in Japan is now a New Year tradition in, which every family brings their New Year’s decorations to set to the torch after Shinto ceremony as a wish for perfectDOSANKODEBBIE'S ETEGAMI NOTEBOOK Etegami website by Deborah DavidsonDosojin (Nakasendo.com website)Draco constellation: Facts about the dragonEarly and middle neolithic figurines – the migration of religious beliefs Addresses the custom of broken figurine from Precucuteni Starcevo sitesEarly Chinese Mysticism : Philosophy and Soteriology in the Taoist Tradition by Livia Kohn Kohn shows how the quietistic and socially oriented Daode jing was combined with the ecstatic and individualistic mysticism of the Zhuangzi, with immortality beliefs and practices, and with Buddhist insight meditation, mind analysis, and doctrines of karmEarly Japanese and Early Akkadian Writing Systems: A Contrastive Survey of "Kunogenesis" by Jun IkedaEarly Years to the Heian Era A Brief History of JapanEarth Store Bodhisattva (Jizo Bosatsu in Japanese) A good compendium on Jizo, Online Source: Unknown author, www.quangduc.com/BoTat/diatang/…/Earth_Store_Bodhisattva.docEaster Egg FolkloreEaster: A Study Of Folklore and Legend For Gnostics, Occultists and CraftersEastern Iranic People: Bactrians, Saka Scythians and TochariansEastre, was a pagan holiday celebrated by the Anglo-Saxons that was intended to be a festival celebration to welcome the spring season . During this celebration, the pagans would worship their Goddess of Offspring and Springtime, Eastre, through her earthly form – the rabbitEden, paradise Mt Meru, the Tree of Life and the CrossEgg (by Book Rag)Egg magic and Folklore by Patti WigingtonEgs of Unified Silla pagodas and stupasEgyptian belief of a funerary path to the Netherworld originated with the Sumerians Egyptian beliefs: Demons were warded from the passage of the Osiris by spoken curses…but his course would be quite safe for two reasons. First he lived by Ma’at, and so was a good man; secondly he knew the way from traveling the ‘bridge’ when heEn no Gyoja Regarded by all yamabushi as the founder and as their spiritual ancestor, En-no-gyôja was an ascetic-hermit who lived in the 7th century and got along with the bouddhic magic, and others… Called En-No-Ozuno which means “En (delivery: Japanese èn) “thEneolithic horse exploitation in the Eurasian steppes: diet, ritual and riding On the dietary and the ritual role of horses in the Eneolithic Western Eurasian steppes. Horses were strongly associated with the world of humans and had become an important symbol in mortuary rituals by about 5000 BC.Enkidu's vision of the Netherworld from the Epic of Gilgamesh: Tablet VII …he… and turned me into a dove, so that my arms were feathered like a bird. Seizing me, he led me down to the House of Darkness, the dwelling of Irkalla, to the house … where those who dwell, do without light, where dirt is their drink, their food iEnma and traditional death rites of JapanEnnin's Life and Journey Establishes the connection between Ennin’s teachings and Wutai taoist mountain ascetism and Kaifeng (where large Jewish & western community lived)Epic of Gilgamesh Aruru, the goddess of creation, created Enkidu to act as a counterforce to Gilgamesh…by taking some clay and forming a man. The Sin-Leqi-Unninni version of Gilgamesh says his father is Ninsun’s husband, Lugulbanda, but it is not clear if Lugulbanda isEsoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East AsiaEthnic History of the Usuns (Yu. A. Zuev)Etymology of Kam(i)-Kam(uy); Kam-boja; Kum, Kom;Cam-bay or Kam-baya or Kam-baet; Kama(sksrt); Cama-by or Cambyses or Kam-bhoj; KambalaEtymology of uma "horse" from "muma" ancient obsolete word of Paekche, Chinese originEurasian Warrior Women and Priestesses Petroglyphic, Funerary, and Textual Evidence for Women of High StatuEurasian World TreesEvidence of worship of the Horned God in early Celtic London Could the horned god and king of the underworld with his gods be remotely connected to the horned deities of Japan?Evolution of the Chinese dragon symbolFar Eastern goddesesFascinating Mural Stories from the Dunhuang Grottoes Stories behind the Mogao Cave Grottoes, the Dunhuang Cave shrinesFemale figurines (Pharaonic Period)Fertility and phallicism at Yaegaki Shrine (Green Shinto)Fertility Festival (Tsunakake sai) by Green ShintoFertility symbols of Ogata Shrine's Grand Festival (Hime no miya)Festival at Niu Kawakami Shinto shrine in Shimoichi-cho, Nara The revival of an ancient ceremony once held as a state festival in 763 — the Imperial court would present a black horse to the water deity at the shrine or a white horse to stop excessive rains=damage from the tsunami/typhoonFestivals and rituals of JapanFestivals, Feasts and Gender Relations in Ancient China and GreeceFinnish thunder god, Ukko Ukko’s sword; Ukko’s hammer, ax, and clubFinno-Ugrians – the Permian Animal Style Wikipedia on Permian animal bronzes of the Iron AgeFinno-Ugrians – the Permian Komis of Upper Kama RiverFinno-Ugrians – who were they? Description of the Finno-Ugrians in “The New Cambridge Medieval History” Volume 3, c.900-c.1024Finno-Ugrians: "Permian animalstyle"- bird and bear motifsFire in ancient Lithuanian religion and mythologyFish and Fishing in Holocene Cis-Baikal, Siberia 3000 to 2500 cal BP marks the arrival of pastoralists in Cis-Baikal (the Iron Age, followed by the Mongolian Time), who relied on a mixture of herding (sheep, goats, cattle, and horses), hunting, and fishing. Pastoralism persisted in the area …millet aFishy tales of the namazu (Silurus asotus) Five different namazu legends apart from the well-known Kashima catfish mythFlood Stories from Around the WorldFlood Stories From Around the World by Mark Isaak Flood stories from the world’s folkloreFolklore and Mythology Electronic Texts by D. L. AshlimanFolklore of China by Nicholas Belfield Dennys ebook on Chinese folkore and superstitionsFolklore of Orissa by Jphn BeamesFolklore of Orissa by K.B. DAS, L.K. MAHAPATRAFrog deities For instance, the Frog plays the important role of messenger in Zhuang myths of Guangxi province. The legend behind the huge Shang bronze drum adorned with six Frogs,FROM BIRTH TO BURIAL: THE CURIOUS CASE OF EASTER EGGS before the egg became firmly linked to Christianity, it was a symbol of life dating back at least 2,500 years. Our first historical records of egg symbolism in religion date to about 500 BC. In the Achaemenid period, the Iranian calendar was influenced byFrom frog to NuwaFrontier's of Anthropology "Some Diagnostic Traits of Sundaland Lore" About similarities between folkloric versions of chaos dragons, seven-headed serpents and dragonsFrozen tombs of the Altai (UNESCO document)Fu Do Sword CeremonyFumi-e and the ban on Christianity and persecution of Christians in JapanFumi-e, Koyasu Kannon covert magdaleneand the ban on Christianity in JapanFurther steps towards an aggregative diachronic approach to world mythology starting from the African continent by Wim van Binsbergen http://www.shikanda.net/ancient_models/further.htmFuxi, Nuwa, Shennong, Houyi, Yao, Shun, Yu: Prehistoric legends of early Chinese gods and sagesGenealogy of Religion Explorations in evolution, anthropology and religionGenetics Rewrites Pacific Prehistory Tlingit legends recount or “record” that strange people came from the Western OceanGenzu Mandala and MyokenGeorgian mythologyGerman Easter Bunny symbol and Dutch OsterhaseGeser, the National Epic of the Buryats Goldeneye duck and waterfowl elements of the Geser myth are seen in the haniwa of the Kofun period in JapanGilgamesh, the Cedar Forest and Mesopotamian History Aaron Shaffer Gilgamesh (aided by Enkidu) in his quest for immortality, cut down cedars in the sacred grove of the Cedar Forest which is the glorious realm of the gods of Mesopotamian mythology. It is guarded by the demigod HumbabaGod and Caesar in China On the four waves of Christianity (called the “Luminous” religion or jingjiao) into China in antiquity – including the monks of the Syro-Persian Church of the East (Nestorian monks) who had established their presence in the 7th-mid-9th c.; and possiblyGoddess Ostara | History of Easter Eggs | History of the Easter Bunny| Goddess Ishtar and the First ResurrectionGoddess Tara in Tibet, China and Japan Positing origins from Aphrodite-IshTAR-AsTARte?Gods and goddesses of Taoism / DaoismGolden woman of Ugra Mysterious goddess of the Khanty-Mansi peopleGreen Shinto Blog Green Shinto is a blog by John Dougill operating out of Kyoto which is dedicated to the promotion of an open, international and environmental Shinto. It seeks to celebrate the rich heritage of the tradition.Guanyin/Kannon (Kanzeon) introduced into China as early as the 1st century AD, and reached Japan by way of Korea soon after Buddhism was first introduced into the country from the mid-7th century.Hakone jinja or Hakone Shrine (by Green Shinto)Hanayomeningyo (Bride Dolls) Forms of spirit marriage are practiced in many regions of East Asia. In parts of Tohoku, as well as some other areas of Japan, kimono-clad bride dolls are dedicated to the souls of children and youths who have died before marriageHandbook of Chinese Mythology by Lihui Yang and Demin AnHandbook of Japanese Mythology by Michael AshkenaziHannya Hannya demonness is associated with folklore of Kyoto, and with Noh masks and bunraku theatreHappy Solstice! (Rock Cave Myth) by Green ShintoHarare and shubatsu ritualsHares in Mythology (BBC) One of the oldest myths in the world, the hare trail begins in Africa and Egypt and to the Celts to China from which it spread to the rest of the worldHARES JUXTAPOSED WITH GREEN MEN (Green Man of Cercles)Hayagriva The Horse-Headed Deity in Indian Culture Horse-headed avatar of Vishnu, seen as a white horse pulling the sun up to the heavens daily, bringing light to darkness; associations with the ocean; a demon in an alternative traditionhe Migration and Landtaking of the Magyars by András Róna-TasHeritage of Tibet by W. Zwalf Bon religion and other Tibetan cultural traits may be studied for their deep-in-time influences upon Japanese cultureHibara jinja and Amaterasu (Green Shinto)Hidden Christianity – truth or mythHimiko and Japan's Elusive Chiefdom of Yamatai by Jonathan Edward KidderHimiko and Yamatai legends are the context for latest Tomb Raider video gameHimukai Daijingu, (The Kyoto Ise)Hindu devas take a Silk Road trip to Japan!Hinduism and Buddhism: An Historical Sketch The full text (in three volumes). By Sir Charles ElliotHiraizumiHistory and language of the Saka people A Wikipedia resourceHistory of Sumo (sumo talk) This page describes some of the spiritual traditions and customs surrounding sumo wrestling , and their meaningHistory of the Cedar TreeHistory of the Korean Sword About the Hwarnag Warrior Knights heritageHistory of the Shimogamo and Kamigamo Shrines Bastions of e Kamo and Hata clansHistory of the Tatara Yamata-no-orochi mythHorse-headed Jvarasura fever demon, flanked by Sitala goddess of small pox A deity flying to escape the wrath of the Buddhist goddess, who is the destroyer of all disease and epidemicshttp://data.kdata.kr/page/Yeongoksabukbudo Kalavinka and Four Guardian Kings relief carving on Korean octagonal stone North Stupa of Yeongoksahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanoo-no-Mikoto His Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness on the spot changed Kushinada-hime into a many-toothed close-comb which he stuck in the august knot of his hair. Then he made Ashi-nadzuchi and Te-nadzuchi to brew eight-fold sake, to make eight cupboards, in each of thhttp://knottynotions.com/kt/japanese-knotting The histories of Japan clearly record the wrapping of a gift from China to the Japanese Emperor in 607CE which so impressed him with its elegance that it gave rise to the art of mizuhiki. Hanamusubi is obviously an art closely related to mizuhiki, althouhttp://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new/japanese-fox-weddingshttp://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/Chinese_Customs/Guan_Yin.htm Guanyin/Kannon was introduced into China as early as the 1st century AD, and reached Japan by way of Korea soon after Buddhism was first introduced into the country from the mid-7th century.Human Fertility Cults and Rituals of Bengal: A Comparative Study by Pradyot Kumar MaityHunter–gatherer migrations, mobility and social relations: A case study from the Early Bronze Age Baikal region, Siberia During the Early Bronze Age, the Little Sea area of the Baikal region saw entire hunter–gatherer families migrating there from other parts of the Cis-Baikal, such as the Angara and upper Lena valleysIcons of the Matrika Several key themes of the iconic woman repeat on a global scale: vulva signs, female figurines, ancestor megaliths, and ceremonial vessels in the form of women or female breasts. These recurring signs reflect the spiritual concerns and ritual life of theIcons of the Matrix IIIcons of the Matrix III: Breastpots Breast tripods were a common form of ceremonial chalice in ancient northeastern Asia, from China and Mongolia to southern Siberia. A clay tripod from Aginskoye in the Transbaikal bears narrow incisions of parallel vertical lines on the breasts. In neolithIdentification of Soma and notes on lexeme corpora of ancient Indian languagesimashiro Kofun sheds light on Kofun period architecture (blogger resource)IN GHOSTLY JAPAN By LAFCADIO HEARNIn Search of the Indo-Europeans Language, Archaeology and Myth by J. MalloryInana's descent to the nether world: translation From The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature resourceINANNAInanna/Ishtar Ishtar is Semitic for the goddess Inanna of Sumeria… the courtesan of the gods. She possessed a litany of weapons and one of her totems was the lion. Aka the Eye goddess, one of the oldest of these Eye Temples, dating back to about 3000 BCE, is at TellINARI / Oinari / Oinari-sama Shinto God/Goddess of Rice & FoodInari The Shinto Rice Kami by Becky YooseIndia's influences upon Japan (and other countries) in antiquityIndian creation legend (Oracle Thinkquest)Indian creation legend of Cosmic Egg, from which two halves emerged the Purusha (Iswara the Cosmic Male) or Prakiti (Iswani – Mother Earth) Google also “Purusha the Universal Cosmic Male and Prakiti the Mother Nature”Indian Mythology and Japanese Mythology By Open BaseIndian Mythology | The Gods of Sky and AirIndo-European and Semitic languages by Grzegorz JagodzińskiIndo-European Deities and the gveda by N. D. Kazanasindo-Iranian word Soma is the same as the Soma Uralic word for hewn wooden mortar bowl used to press dried agaric mushroom with stones into waterInner Asia at the Dawn of History The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Volume 1 edited by Denis SinorINTERLUDE III: Deguchi, Ueshiba and Omoto: Part 1: The First Suppression Pete Goldsbury’s examination of the origins of Omoto and the events leading up to the First Suppression of the organization in 1921Interpretations of Eurasian Archaeology The Bronze AgeInterpreting the symbolism of the lingaIs Japanese Related to Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic? By Martine Irma Robbeets See p. 32 – 35 on whether there was a horse-rider invasion or merely a continuous influx of waves of migrants fleeing the strife and war disturbances of the Korean Three KingdomsIse Journal; Sun Goddess's Sojourn (Will Shinto's Star Rise?)Isis Unveiled: A Masterkey to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology On the still earlier origin than the Egyptian and Chaldean assigned to the Virgin ” Mother of God,” Queen of Heaven. Isis is also by right the Queen of Heaven, and is generally represented carrying in her hand the Crux Ansata composed of the mundane crosIsmailism – what is it? and the extent of the Fatimid empire In search of what came before Ismailism, proto-Ismailists religion and cultureIzanagi (The Encyclopedia of Shinto)Izanagi and Izanami (Myths Encyclopedia)Izanagi and Izanami in video presentationIzanami (The Encyclopedia of Shinto)Izanami-no-mikotoIzumo mythsIzumo Taisha and its legendsIzumo Taisha and KojindaniJapan and Inner Asia: Some Connections By Mark A. Riddle Many of the Japanese legends preserved from ancient times have connections, not only with the neighboring cultures of EasternAsia, but with the cultures of people living in regions far removed from Japan. Riddle cites as evidence of those connections, iJapan's Creation Myth Kuniumi Shinwa By the Awajima Island Kuniumi AssociationJapan's Creation Myth Kuniumi Shinwa By the Awajima Island Kuniumi AssociationJapanese artefacts Photo GalleryJapanese Creation Myth A modern retelling of Tales from the Kojiki from Genji Shibukawa. Kojiki is Japan’s oldest chronicle, compiled in 712 CE by O No Yasumaro.Japanese Creation Story -as told in the KOJIKIJapanese folktale: Fistful of gratitudeJapanese HeraldryJapanese Knots Japanese knotwork may have originated from either the Chinese or Celtic knotJapanese Knotting: Mizuhiki & Hanamusubi The histories of Japan clearly record the wrapping of a gift from China to the Japanese Emperor in 607CE which so impressed him with its elegance that it gave rise to the art of mizuhiki. Hanamusubi is obviously an art closely related to mizuhiki, althouJapanese numerology and astrology The oldest form of Chinese Astrology is the so called Nine Star Ki astrology. Nine Star Ki belongs as a part of Feng Shui. The Nine Star Ki says which star stood centrally in the year of birth and these influence your most important character qualitiesJapanese related to the Greeks-theory is debunked Genetics Studies in the Greek Population vs PseudoscienceJapanese Shinto and Tibetan Bon teachingsJapanese Starlore and Astronomical HistoryJapanese swords Genbukan Tokyo ShibuJapanese Tide JewelsJaponic language relationship to Korean languageJar burial tradition in Southeast Asia A comparative survey of practices in SEA and East AsiaJewel in the Ashes: Buddha relics and power in early medieval JapanJingu Travel blog about the Ise Jingu shrineJizoJizo Bodhisattva Dictionary by Soka Gakkai InternationalJizo Sama (Daruma Museum Gallery)Jizo the Japanese equivalent of the Indian Khshitigarbha Buddhist sects and sectarianism By Bibhuti BaruahJizo's origins By Buddhist ArtworkJizo's various forms in India Article by the A-Z Photo Dictionary – Japanese Buddhist StatuaryKachikachi-yamaKalash mountain religion Possible common provenance of Indo-European-Iranic mythical traditions and mountain religious beliefs (sharing of rare Y-DNA haplogroup D)Kami – Combining Deities and Traditions An academic paper originally submitted by Brendon Newlon at UCSB, 2004Kami vs. Kamuy Independent Study by Eugenia Bucellato Prof. OzakiKanamara Matsuri – the Annual Penish Festival in Kawasaki City Festival The origins of this Shinto festival stem from an innkeepers daughter who had the misfortune of having a demon with sharp teeth fall in love with her. As demons are wont to do, the little bastard decided to take up residency in her vagina, and then wield hKanji characters and onyomi derived from Wu, Xian (Tang dynasty) and Old Chinese dialects similar-sounding to Hakka and CantoneseKannon, the goddess of mercy and pets Japan TimesKannon: the goddess of mercy and pets | The Japan TimesKara was the old Persian term referring to the Archaemenid warrior or warring armyKara-kum-kudukKasajizo (Japan Folklore)Kashima jingu enshrines the god of quake prevention in Ibaraki prefectureKasida – the ancient hunting-battle-funerary dance (of the Qiang and Tibetans)Khazaria GeneticsKhorezm – land of the sun Shares the same heritage as Japan as an early Kushan refuge for solar worshipping Saka-Iranic tribes, land of the sunKhorezm – land of the sun Shares the same heritage as Japan as an early Kushan refuge for solar worshipping Saka-Iranic tribes, land of the sunKii mountains and mountain asceticsKimono of the Edo period (1615-1868) In the Edo periodKing Mu and Queen Mother of the West The origin of Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West, has given rise to some fascinating speculations, and there are many tales about her. In the Shanhaijing (Book of Mountains and Seas) she is depicted as a fearsome creature with a leopard’s tail and tigKintaro (Japan Folklore)Kipchak beliefs and lifestyle Kipchaks regarded the wolf “bori” and the dog “It/ Kopec (
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In 1986, ex-prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone described Japan as being a "homogen eous" country. This is a widely held view, even today, not only by a few conserv ative politicians, but by Japanese society at large. The Ainu, an indigenous gro up in Japan, took offence to the prime minister's statements. When all of the fa cts are taken into consideration, this whole myth of homogeneity can no longer g o unquestioned.Take, for example, the approximately 700,000 North and South Korean national s dwelling in the country today. The majority of them were born and have grown u p in Japan. In fact, a considerable number of them are the third, and even the f ourth generation that have been brought up here. Yet, Japanese nationality is ba sed on lineage, meaning that these Korean descendants are not automatically awar ded Japanese citizenship.Furthermore, Koreans who have naturalized, and some children of Korean-Japan ese intermarriages have become Japanese nationals. Therefore an estimated 1% of the 120 million people in Japan are either North or South Korean nationals, or J apanese nationals of Korean descent; they serve as an excellent example of evide nce contrary to this so-called homogeneity.This essay will hopefully serve to dismantle the myth of homogeneity by prov iding an overview of the history and present situation of Koreans in Japan. By d oing so, it is also hoped that the essay will reveal the atrocities which lie be hind the myth, and serve to alert the reader to the need for change. To be more specific, I will focus on the following issues:The historical background of Koreans in Japan:- namely, the factors which mad e them come to Japan during Japan's colonial rule over Korea; the reasons why th ey had to remain in Japan even after Japan was defeated in 1945; what kind of Ko reans remained in Japan; and the way the post-war Japanese government treated th em.The current situation of young Koreans in Japan:- the lives of third-generati on Koreans in Japanese society; the degree of their retention of Korean ethnicit y; and their identity conflicts.Historical backgroundJapanese colonization of KoreaIt has been a common belief that the number of Koreans who were living in Japan before Japan annexed Korea in 1910 numbered a mere 790, and that most of them we re students. However, a recent study by Keizo Yamawaki[1994] revealed that quite a few Koreans had come to Japan even before 1910. They worked as laborers in co al mines or on railway construction sites, or as candy peddlers in Japan from th e latter half of the 1890s.Nonetheless, it was primarily Japan's colonization of Korea that influenced a large number of Koreans to migrate to Japan. After the annexation of Korea in 1910, Koreans were forced to become the subjects of Imperial Japan. The occupyin g colonial policy imposed severe control on Korea. The Japanese government confi scated a significant amount of land from Korean landowners from 1910 to 1918. Fr om 1920 to 1934, Japanese authorities initiated a project to increase rice produ ction in Korea, and exported the major part of the rice to Japan causing serious famine among Koreans.As a result, the life bases of many Koreans were devastated. Many Koreans le ft for Japan in search of jobs in order to escape the poverty at home. Koreans i n the southern part of the peninsula, Kyongsang-do, Cholla-do and Cheju-do, tend ed to migrate to Japan, whereas Koreans in the northern part tended to migrate t o the former Manchuria, which is currently the northeast region of China.Koreans who migrated to Japan faced severe Japanese discrimination, prejudic e and antagonism. For example, more than six thousand Koreans were massacred at the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. Nonetheless, the number of Korea ns who migrated to Japan in search of employment continued to increase. In many cases, male Korean workers left their families and migrated to Japan alone. Thos e Korean males who were married brought their families to Japan when their econo mic situation had become somewhat stable. Single Korean males went home to get m arried, then returned to Japan with their wives. There were many other Koreans w ho migrated to Japan through family and hometown networks. By 1938, about 800,00 0 Koreans were living in Japan.Between 1939 and 1945, many Koreans were forcibly brought to Japan to work u nder even more severe conditions [Park 1965]. During this same period, the Japan ese military forcibly brought many young Korean women to serve them as "comfort women" [Yoshimi 1995]. When Japan was defeated by the Allied Forces in 1945, it is estimated that there were approximately 2,300,000 Koreans in Japan.Enforcement of Japanese names: "Soshi-kaimei"During its colonial time and especially after the Pacific War broke out, Japan, using its military power, forced Koreans to completely assimilate to Japanese. A s a part of its assimilation policy, Japan forced Koreans to do "soshi-kaimei" ( adopt Japanese names instead of using their Korean ones). "Soshi-kaimei" was int ended to radically transform the Korean family system into that of the Japanese [Miyata et al. 1992]. The effect of "soshi-kaimei" is evident even today in a se nse, as the vast majority of Koreans in Japan still use Japanese names instead o f their Korean ones in their daily lives.However, many Koreans attempted to preserve their family roots by modifying their Japanese names. One of the findings from my interviews with Koreans in Jap an was that there are correlations between their Japanese names and their Korean surnames. For example, "Kim", a popular Korean surname, can be read "kane" in J apanese. Thus, those Koreans who were members of the "Kim" family tended to name themselves "Kaneda", "Kaneyama", and so on. Some Koreans made up Japanese surna mes referring to their "bonkwan" (which means the place where their ancestors or iginated). Other Koreans created Japanese surnames with words which expressed th eir family history. Regrettably, the wishes of the Koreans at that time to prote ct their ethnicity and national pride seem to have not necessarily been passed o n to today's young, third generation.From transient to resident: 600,000 Koreans remained in JapanOn August 15, 1945, Japan was defeated in World War II. This meant that Korea wa s liberated from Japanese colonial ruling. Many Koreans who resided in Japan at that time returned to Korea.It is likely that all Koreans who resided in Japan had a common desire to re turn to their homeland. However, between 500,000 and 600,000 Koreans remained in Japan, because they had no other choice.It is often said that those Koreans in Japan today are those who were forcib ly brought to Japan as laborers and their descendants. Even though there are som e such Koreans, this does not apply to the majority of Koreans in Japan today. T he vast majority of Koreans who were forcibly brought to Japan from 1939 to 1945 returned to Korea. The Koreans in Japan today are mainly the descendants of tho se who came in search of employment before the Imperial Japanese government star ted forcibly bringing Koreans to Japan.For the Koreans who were forcibly brought over, Japan must have been nothing more than a country against which to bear a grudge. Imagine being separated fro m your family against your will and brought to Japan. In Japan, they had no free dom, and were forced to work under severe conditions in coal mines, military pla nts, construction sites for airports and dug huge tunnels for military use. They saw many of their countrymen die one after another. Furthermore, they had been unable to contact their families in Korea, and they believed that their families were eagerly awaiting their safe return. There must have been no reason for the m to remain in Japan.On the other hand, those Koreans who had come to Japan earlier were differen t. As a result of their life bases in Korea having been demolished by Japanese c olonial policy, they made the choice to come to Japan and start over again. At f irst, they were single migrant laborers. Gradually, this pattern transformed as they brought their families from Korea to settle in Japan. Although the Japanese discriminated against them in wages and in working conditions, they somehow man aged to make a living. When Korea was emancipated by Japan's defeat in WWII, the se Koreans also would have liked to return to Korea. However, their families wer e in Japan now, and they had lost their economic bases in Korea. It must have be en very unlikely that they could return and start over again in Korea. It must h ave been a difficult decision, weighing up the natural dream to return, yet know ing that it was unlikely that they could lead a quality life at home. Between 50 0,000 and 600,000 Koreans decided to remain in Japan. Other factors such as soci al and economic disorder in Korea and the division of Korea into two countries f ortified this decision.Negation of both rights as Japanese citizens and as foreignersHow did the Japanese government treat Koreans compelled to remain in Japan after WWII? They treated Korean residents in as absurd a way as with their previous c olonial policy [Mintohren 1989]. The post-war Japanese government negated both K orean rights as Japanese citizens and as foreigners.For example, Korean schools were established in many places in Japan after t he end of WWII. They were built by Korean parents who wanted their children to l earn Korean language, history and culture in preparation for their future return to Korea. However, Japanese authorities suppressed these Korean schools, statin g that it was not appropriate that Korean children were educated as foreigners s ince they were Japanese citizens.2On the other hand, the Japanese government stripped Koreans residing in Japa n of their right to vote in December 1945. In 1947, Koreans residing in Japan be came subject to the Alien Registration Ordinance. The grounds for this treatment were that Koreans who did not have their "koseki" (family registration) in Japa n were not seen as "true" Japanese, even though they were Japanese nationals. Even after the San Francisco Peace Treaty was effectuated in 1952, the Japan ese government still treated unrepatriated Koreans outrageously. When the treaty came into effect on April 28, 1952, the Japanese government unilaterally stripp ed Korean residents of their Japanese nationality. They did not even give Korean residents a choice between a Japanese, or a Korean nationality.Moreover, as it obtained independence from the Allied Nations' control, the Japanese government awarded compensation to war veterans and the families of tho se who died. However, it was not awarded to those Korean veterans who were force d to become Japanese soldiers during WWII, nor to their families. This was on th e grounds that they were not Japanese nationals when the laws were established, even though they had been Japanese nationals during wartime.In addition, Koreans conscripted into the Japanese army were given orders to abuse captives of the Allied Forces by their superiors. These Koreans were pena lized and executed as war criminals even after they had their Japanese nationali ty stripped. The Japanese government and the Japanese Supreme Court rejected Kor ean protests relating to this unfair treatment, stating that despite the fact th at they were no longer Japanese nationals, those Koreans forced to commit war cr imes would be found guilty as "Japanese nationals", and there would be no exempt ion from punishment [Utsumi 1982].Japanese policy: not assimilation but oppressionIt is often said that the post-war Japanese government continued their assimilat ion policy toward Korean residents in Japan. However, there are some doubts conc erning this. There are four possible theories in regards to the nature of Japanese policy adopted after the end of WWII toward Korean residents:A policy to respect their human rights;An assimilation policy;An exclusion policy; orAn oppression policy.I would like to examine these four possible theories in order to conclude wh ich policy the Japanese government might have actually adopted.Firstly, if a policy based on human rights had been adopted, the Japanese go vernment would have regretted pre-war Japanese colonial policy in Korea. Further more, they would have avoided destroying and covering up pertinent documents, an d conducted a thorough investigation into the Japanese colonial policy in Korea, the forced labor issue and the "comfort women" issue. In addition to this, the Japanese government would have apologized and provided appropriate compensation to the Koreans whose lives were lost or ruined as a result of Japanese policy. T hey would have paid full wages for forced labor regardless of whether the Korean s had been forced to work in private companies, or for the Japanese Imperial gov ernment.Two choices should have been available to Korean residents: either to return home, or to remain in Japan. The government should have taken full responsibili ty by providing financial support for those Koreans who wished to return to Kore a. For the Koreans who wanted to remain in Japan, the Japanese government could have protected their basic human rights, and should have authorized and financia lly supported Korean schools in Japan. They should not have stripped the right t o vote from Korean residents, at least until they lost their Japanese nationalit y in 1952. Finally, the Alien Registration Law should never have been applied to them.In 1952, the government should have given Korean residents in Japan a choice of nationality. Permanent residency should have been awarded to those Koreans w ho did not want Japanese nationality, allowing them to go abroad and re-enter Ja pan without restriction and be free from the threat of deportation. Koreans shou ld not have been forced to have their fingerprints taken, or obliged to carry th eir Alien Registration Certificate at all times. There should have been no diffe rence between Japanese nationals and Koreans in voting rights, in social welfare , and in recruitment for public posts. The Japanese government should have encou raged a program to prevent discrimination against Koreans in marriage, employmen t, and housing. However, all evidence clearly shows that the Japanese government did not adopt any such policy of respecting Koreans' human rights.Secondly, if the Japanese government adopted an assimilation policy, surely Korean residents would have been encouraged to adopt Japan as their country, and become Japanese in both ethnicity and nationality.The Japanese government continued to create conditions which disadvantaged K oreans who wanted to maintain their ethnic identity. They continued to suppress Korean schools and Korean antagonism towards Japan continued to increase. In eff ect, the Japanese government executed an assimilation policy that promoted the d estruction of Korean ethnic identity altogether. It also restricted conditions b y which Korean residents could willingly identify themselves with the Japanese. Moreover, the Japanese government discouraged Korean naturalization by establish ing strict qualifications for applicants to obtain Japanese nationality. They de manded submission of numerous troublesome documents and conducted investigations and hearings which could have been considered harassment towards Koreans. All i n all, the Japanese government adopted neither a consistent nor a wise assimilat ion policy at all.The third hypothesis that I shall examine is a government adopted exclusion policy. This could be defined as a policy intended to rid the problem of Korean residents altogether by deporting all of them from Japan. In order to exclude Ko reans from Japan smoothly, it would have been necessary to make conditions unple asant for them to stay in Japan, and to then facilitate their return to South or North Korea. The irony here is that Korean residents were only in Japan as a di rect result of Japan's earlier colonial policy in Korea.The Japanese government should have prepared appropriate conditions so that those Koreans who wanted to return home could easily do so. However, in fact, Ja panese authorities restricted the amount of assets which Koreans could carry out of Japan. Also, for those Korean children born in Japan who were intending to r eturn to Korea, fluency in Korean would have been imperative. The Japanese gover nment, however, suppressed Korean schools. Overall, the Japanese government poli cy disadvantaged Korean residents, but did not facilitate for their return to Ko rea. Again, a policy inconsistent and unwise if the exclusion of Koreans from Ja pan was desired.The above evidence demonstrates that the Japanese policy adopted was neither that of human rights, assimilation, nor exclusion. The last possible theory is that of oppression, and the supporting evidence is overwhelming. The oppression of ethnic schools, the fingerprinting, the denial of rights, the general regard for Korean residents as nothing but "trouble" lead us to believe that the aim of the Japanese government was to oppress.The Japanese government has never attempted to improve the treatment of Kore ans in Japan to respect their human rights. It did, however, grant permanent res ident status to South Korean nationals in the agreement between Japan and South Korea in 1965. This was a mere "token" action on behalf of the Japanese governme nt, in an attempt to normalize relations between Japan and South Korea. In 1981, the Japanese government also granted permanent residency to North Korean nation als and accepted applications for social security and welfare from them and othe r foreign residents. But this was a measure which the Japanese government had to take in accordance with Japan's ratification of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.In 1991, the Japanese government awarded special permanent residency to thos e who lost Japanese nationality in accordance with the Peace Treaty in 1952 and their descendants. In 1992, permanent residents were exempted from fingerprintin g which was associated with foreign registration. Most of those who benefited fr om these new measures were Koreans in Japan. Although the Japanese government's treatment of Koreans in Japan has improved, it was not done of the government's own accord. The treatment of Koreans in Japan improved rather as a result of the movement against fingerprinting in the mid 1980s. The increasing importance pla ced on the protection of human rights internationally and the Japanese governmen t's consideration of its diplomatic relationship with South Korea have been cont ributing factors.The Japanese government still persists in the restriction of nationality in recruitment for all levels of government service, though it is not actually stip ulated in law. This policy is problematic for some local governments who support employing foreign residents. Even in the recruiting of teachers for public scho ols, the Japanese government discriminates against foreign residents even though they have come through the same school system as Japanese nationals.Koreans in Japan todayJapan as their permanent homeIn 1993, I conducted a survey of the ethnic consciousness of young South Koreans born in Japan in cooperation with Myung-soo Kim of Osaka University and members of the Korean Youth Association in Japan [Fukuoka & Kim, forthcoming]. The rese arch was conducted on South Korean nationals whose ages ranged from 18 to 30. Th e number of valid samples were 800 (47%). One limitation of this research is tha t young North Korean nationals were not included. However, I have attempted to m ake up for this limitation, with data from another set of interviews which I con ducted with approximately 150 young Koreans in Japan since 1988. These interview s included both South Korean and North Korean nationals and young Koreans who ha ve naturalized [Fukuoka 1993].In the survey conducted, 73.2% of the young Koreans responded that they feel an attachment to Japan; 6.7% responded that they feel no attachment to Japan; a nd 20.1% remained undecided. On the other hand, 38.1% responded that they feel a n attachment to South Korea; 24.4% responded that they feel no attachment to Sou th Korea; and 37.5% remained undecided.Today, the majority of young Koreans in Japan are the third generation. Whil e most of them do feel attached to Japanese society, not many of them feel an at tachment to South Korea. When the majority of Koreans in Japan were the first ge neration, they considered Japan as merely a "temporary home" and wished to event ually return to Korea. However, Japan has become a "permanent home" for the subs equent generations. The transformation of Korean perceptions demonstrates their increasing attachment to Japan, and is evidence that young Koreans are gradually losing their Korean ethnicity. Below, I would like to discuss the issues of the ir language, name, marriage and the sense of inferiority they feel.LanguageWhilst I was travelling in Korea with some young third-generation Koreans, the n ative Koreans described the young Koreans who had been brought up in Japan as lo oking completely Japanese, judging from their hair style, clothes, expression an d attitude. However, the fact that most of the young Koreans could not speak Kor ean seemed to be influential in this judgement.According to our investigation conducted in 1993, 40.4% of the young Koreans responded that they had no knowledge of Korean; 30.4% responded that they knew only a few Korean words; 14.6% responded that they knew a few greetings; 6.0% re sponded that they could exchange greetings in Korean according to situations; 6. 7% responded that they could speak and understand Korean in daily life; and 1.9% responded that they could discuss complicated issues in Korean. If the research had included young North Koreans, the percentage of those who have knowledge of Korean would increase, because more young North Koreans have studied at Korean schools in Japan. Nevertheless, the vast majority of young Koreans in Japan do n ot understand Korean.It should be noted that it is very rare that the issue of Koreans in Japan i s covered in Japanese schools. Thus, most young Japanese are ignorant of issues regarding Koreans in Japan. For example, I asked university students in my lectu res how they would behave if Koreans in Japan were present in the room. Many stu dents answered that they would make an effort to become friends if the Koreans c ould speak Japanese [Fukuoka 1992]. As illustrated in this example, young Korean s in Japan sometimes have experiences of being praised by Japanese who say to th em, "Your Japanese is good. Where did you learn Japanese?". As they have been ra ised in Japan, there are no young Koreans who have difficulty in communicating, reading or writing in Japanese. On the contrary, the majority of young Koreans i n Japan do not understand Korean. Most Korean children in Japan study in Japanes e schools, except a few who are sent to Korean schools. In Japanese schools, Kor ean children are treated as being Japanese, and few Japanese schools are engaged in ethnic education for Korean children. In addition, Japanese is the only lang uage used in most Korean homes. Information from mass media is all in Japanese. The native tongue of young Koreans in Japan is, therefore, Japanese. Korean is o nly the language of their "nation".On the other hand, young Koreans who are fluent in Korean are mostly those w ho have studied at Korean schools in Japan. As of 1993, Soren (Chongryon), the l argest organization of North Korean nationals in Japan, runs one university, 12 high schools, 57 junior high schools and 81 primary schools. There are Korean sc hools run by supporters of South Korea as well. These schools number one in Toky o, one in Kyoto, and two in Osaka. According to a study in 1986, there were 150, 000 Korean students in Japan. Among them, 130,500 (86%) were studying in Japanes e schools, 19,500 (13%) were studying in schools run by Soren and 1,600 (1%) wer e studying in schools run by South Korean supporters.There are other young Koreans who learn Korean in language institutions affi liated with universities in South Korea, or actually study at universities in So uth Korea. Presently, there are nearly 200 young Koreans studying in South Korea each year.Others learn Korean through a variety of ways, including Korean courses offe red on TV, radio, or at language schools in Japan. Some learn Korean from their grandparents and even though the level of their listening comprehension is good, they often have difficulty in speaking Korean. Sometimes their knowledge is limited to Korean dialects spoken only in the regi ons where their grandparents are from and they also have little knowledge of hon orific terms.3NameThe vast majority of foreign residents in Japan are Koreans. Nevertheless, many Japanese university students say, "I have never met a Korean". Although Koreans live in close proximity, they remain invisible to Japanese. One reason is that t here is hardly any physical differences between Japanese and Koreans in Japan. H owever, the main reason is that most Koreans in Japan use Japanese names, rather than their Korean names in daily life.In our investigation in 1993, 35.3% of the young Koreans responded that they use their Japanese name only; 30.3% responded that they use their Japanese name mostly; 12.6% responded that they use their Japanese name more often than their Korean name; 5.7% responded that they use their Japanese and Korean names equal ly; 3.8% responded that they use their Korean name more often than their Japanes e name; 6.0% responded that they use their Korean name mostly; and 6.4% responde d that they only use their Korean name. The respondents who use Japanese and Kor ean names equally are most likely to use the Japanese name when talking with Jap anese people and their Korean name with their countrypersons. It is assumed that over 80% of young Koreans pass as Japanese in their daily life by using Japanes e names, except when they tell their secret to close Japanese friends.Koreans who use their Korean name the majority of the time number very few. Those young Koreans who use Korean names generally have one of the three charact eristics outlined below. Firstly, there are those who have been sent to Korean s chools by their parents. Secondly, there are those Koreans who are involved in m ovements for the protection of Korean human rights, or issues relating to post-w ar compensation, such as Korean "comfort women". The third pattern regards Korea ns who are independent from the Korean network in Japan, but have been influence d by their parents who strongly conceive themselves as being Korean. There are a lso parents who give their children Korean names only to begin with. These Korea ns tend to consider it natural that Koreans only have a Korean name.It has long been said that Koreans in Japan use Japanese names in their life to avoid Japanese discrimination. However, our investigation in 1993 revealed a different reason why young Koreans use Japanese names. Being asked whether they agree or disagree to the opinion that Koreans inevitably use Japanese names to avoid discrimination, 26.2% agreed; 43.2% disagreed; and 30.6% remained undecide d. On the other hand, being asked about the opinion that it is natural to live w ith a name which one is accustomed to, whether it may be Japanese or Korean, 71. 3% agreed; 9.5% disagreed; and 19.2% remained undecided. From this data, it can be concluded that the main reason why most young Koreans use Japanese names is n ot to avoid being discriminated against, but because they are more accustomed to their Japanese names. Many Korean parents are afraid that their children will e xperience discrimination if they do not have a Japanese name. It may be true tha t Korean parents have given Japanese names to their children to protect them fro m discrimination. However, Korean parents themselves have always used Japanese n ames in their life and have called their children by their Japanese names. This process must have influenced their children to become more accustomed to their J apanese names, which were supposed to be mere "passing" names. Instead, their Ko rean names have become foreign to them.MarriageAt the time when first and second generations made up the majority of Koreans in Japan, it was expected that Koreans should marry their countrypersons to mainta in their "Korean blood". It was also a taboo among Japanese to marry Koreans. Ac cording to a statistic from the Japanese government, among the 6,892 marriages o f Koreans registered in 1970, 56.3% were with their countrypersons and 42.4% wer e intermarriages with Japanese.However, in 1991, amongst the 11,677 Korean resident marriages registered, 8 2.5% were intermarriages with Japanese and only 16.8% were with their countryper sons. Korean intermarriages with Japanese are partly influenced by a social phen omenon that Japanese men have difficulty finding partners among young Japanese w omen. The statistic thus should include certain numbers of marriages between Jap anese males and Korean females who were born in Korea. However, it is clear that the number of marriages between Koreans in Japan and Japanese have continued to increase in recent years.Marriages with Koreans are still a taboo among Japanese, although such taboo s are weaker compared with the previous generations. Even some young Japanese te nd to avoid marrying Koreans. Those young Japanese and Koreans who are free from such taboos often have parents that are very likely to disagree to intermarriag e. There are many cases in which intermarried couples separate as a result of fa iling to understand each other's experiences and situations, even though they lo ve each other.Nevertheless, the number of intermarriages between Japanese and Koreans is c ertainly increasing. Amongst the young Koreans in our investigation in 1993, 15. 0% responded that they want to marry their countrypersons; 20.0% responded that they want to marry their countrypersons if possible; 31.4% responded that they d o not prefer their countrypersons; and 33.7% responded that they do not prefer t heir countrypersons at all.Inferiority complexThe above descriptions may have given an impression that young Koreans, especial ly the third generation, accommodate themselves to Japanese society without diff iculty. However, this is not true. Although the results of our investigations ce rtainly indicate a high degree of assimilation, assimilation can also involve ps ychological conflicts.In 1993, 11.7% of our respondents stated that they have very often experienc ed a dislike toward the fact that they are Korean; 15.7% responded that they hav e often had such an experience; 36.3% responded that they have sometimes had suc h an experience; 22.0% responded that they have hardly ever had such an experien ce; and 14.2% responded that they have never had such an experience. In short, o ver 60% of young Koreans have experienced negative self-images in the process of their growth. This is due to an inferiority complex in terms of ethnicity. Acco rding to our multi-regression analysis, the factor which is most influential in the development of their inferiority complex are their experiences of being expo sed to discrimination (Beta=.28). Many Japanese tend to think that Korean childr en are born with inferiority complexes. However, statistical analysis of our dat a proves that Japanese discrimination and prejudice are the primary reasons whic h cause inferiority complexes in Korean children.ConclusionIn this essay, I have described the historical background and the present situat ion of Koreans in Japan. I have presented four new perspectives that are differe nt from those that have conventionally and inappropriately been illustrated on t his issue. Namely, they are:(1) Today, residents of Korean descent compose approximately 1% of the popul ation in Japanese society. It has conventionally been said that ethnic Koreans a re those who were forcibly brought to Japan during the colonial era and their de scendants. Needless to say, the formation of the community of Koreans in Japan w as a result of Japan's colonial rule over Korea. Historical facts prove that the majority of Koreans who remained in Japan after the war were in fact not those Koreans who were forced laborers. Rather, they were those who came to Japan in s earch of work before Japan started forcibly bringing Koreans to Japan, because t heir life bases in Korea had been destroyed as a result of Japan's colonial rule .These historical facts lead to the necessity for a comparative study of the formation of Koreans in Japan, or "old comers", and the problem of the influx of foreign laborers to Japan in recent years, or "new comers". It has been a commo n belief that Koreans in Japan were forced to come to Japan whereas current fore ign laborers have come to Japan voluntarily to work for a short period. However, this is not necessarily true. Although there is a difference between the two gr oups in their reason for migrating to Japan, there should be many similarities i n their process of settling in Japanese society.(2) Conventionally, Japan's colonial rule over Korea from 1910 to 1945 has b een covered most among the issues regarding Japan's absurd treatment of Korea. H owever, I would like to emphasize the fact that the Japanese government continue d to deny the human rights of Koreans who remained in Japan even in the post-war , so-called "democratic" period. Theoretically, Koreans possessed Japanese natio nality until the San Francisco Treaty came into effect in 1952. However, the Jap anese government denied the rights of Korean residents as Japanese nationals. Th e Japanese government did not respect their rights as foreigners, instead they c ontinued to oppress Korean human rights even after 1952, declaring "post-war dem ocracy" whilst hiding the truth. The Japanese should recognize that not only the Japanese government, but also Japanese individuals should take responsibility f or the difficulties imposed on Koreans in Japan.(3) The appearance of foreign laborers, or "new comers", is remarkable in Ja panese society today. They are in the streets, on the transit system and especia lly apparent in restaurants where they are engaged in customer service. However, Koreans in Japan are invisible though their population in Japan is greater than that of the "new comers". Koreans in Japan are virtually indistinguishable in p hysical appearance. Most of them were born and have grown up in Japan, and their mother tongue is Japanese. However, the main reason for their invisibility in J apanese society is that most of them use Japanese names, not Korean names, to pa ss as Japanese.It has been said that it is inevitable that Korean residents use Japanese na mes in order to avoid discrimination. However, the reason that Koreans in Japan use Japanese names can be further explained by a hypothetical process consisting of three steps which are described below. The first step is the enforcement of Japanese names on them during the colonial period. The second step is that Korea ns voluntarily used Japanese names to avoid discrimination, despite the fact tha t they recognized Korean names as being their real ones. The third step is that today's young Koreans in Japan are more accustomed to Japanese names than Korean ones, even though Japanese names were originally their passing name and Korean names were supposedly their real name. Of course, there are still some Japanese who are friendly only as long as a Korean resident uses his/her Japanese name. R elationships can turn sour quickly when a Korean starts using his/her Korean nam e. Nevertheless, more and more young Koreans in Japan feel unfamiliar with their Korean names, and have difficulty in recognizing Korean names as their real nam e even before they are faced with Japanese discrimination.One's name is a significant component which forms the core of one's ethnic i dentity. Thus, it seems that Koreans in Japan should more enthusiastically advan ce a movement to encourage the use of Korean names by Koreans. To establish a so ciety in which Koreans and Japanese can live together by respecting the differen ces between them, it is necessary for Koreans to use their Korean name. On the o ther hand, it is vital on the part of the Japanese to take the proper attitude, and respond positively to those Koreans who use their Korean names.(4) The majority of current young Koreans are of the third generation. Most of them can speak only Japanese and have not mastered Korean. The Japanese gover nment is greatly responsible for this situation, as they did not ensure the avai lability of ethnic education for Koreans. It is also a fact that Korean ethnicit y is gradually being lost as generations pass by. In reality, Koreans in Japan f eel less attachment to Korea and feel more attachment to Japan where they were b orn and have grown up. Intermarriages between Koreans and Japanese have also bee n rapidly increasing.The facts above may give the false impression that young Koreans in Japan ac commodate themselves in Japanese society without internal conflict. Many of them experience an inferiority complex as a result of their ethnicity and have had n egative self-images of themselves because of Japanese discrimination and prejudi ce.In my interviews with young Koreans, many of them seemed to have experienced identity crises. Hence, how do young Koreans overcome their identity crises and lead a prosperous life? I would like to discuss this issue in another of my wor ks, "Beyond Assimilation and Dissimilation: Diverse Resolutions to Identity Cris es among Younger Generation Koreans in Japan".This work was translated by A-kwi Seo (Graduate student, University of Toronto ), Steven Bouley (Undergraduate student, York University) and Paul Larsen (Excha nge student, Monash University - Saitama University).By definition, Koreans were Japanese citizens until the conclusion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty between the Japanese government and the Allied Nations.In Japan and Korea, to display respect to one's elders, one must use honorific terms when addressing the older generation.
Violation of Women"Pregnant with her first child, this 19-year-old woman was bayoneted when she sought to resist raping at the hands of a Japanese soldier. When admitted to a refugee hospital, she was found to have no less than 23 wounds," noted an American Missionary, John Magee, in his film, China Invaded. "Women were the main victims, indeed.... We would pick some sunny place, like around a storehouse for example, then make a screen by hanging up branches with leaves," answered Private Tadokoro Kozo of the 114th Division when interviewed by the Pacific War Research Group in 1971. "We would get a ticket called Sekken [Red Ticket], which had the company commander's stamp on, to wait for our turn with our loincloth off.""One day I was assigned a leader to kidnap women. When we showed up, all the women frantically ran off. It was hard to chase and catch them because we couldn't kill them yet.""There wasn't any soldier who didn't rape. After things were done, usually we killed them. We'd let the women go, they'd run off, and we'd shoot them from the back. We didn't want to leave any trouble behind. If the gendarmes found out, we would be tried by court-martial. So, although we didn't really want to kill them, we did it - though, in fact, there was hardly any gendarme in Nanjing. I served in Nanjing for about two months."Unlike the relentless mopping-up operations and the executions of the POWs that were in some cases recorded as a part of official military operations, the cases of rape naturally did not leave any documented evidence. As observed by the foreigners in the Safety Zone, however, without doubt many Japanese soldiers abducted Chinese women, sexually assaulted them and in many cases, in order to leave no evidence, they killed the victims after the acts.A poster to advertise Ianjo, or official brothels, on the North Chung Shan Road. "Chinese Beauties" "Designated by the Base Camp Authorities" "House of restful consolation" "At the No. 4 Hall for Japan-China friendship" "600 meters ahead from here along the bank of the stream" Although many former soldiers of the Imperial Army came forward to admit butchering Chinese captives and civilians in Nanking, many fewer veterans were willing to talk about their perpetration of rapes.In China many survivors of rapes began telling of their painful past in the last two decades, but probably a lot of rape victims have already passed away in the last 60 years, if not killed right after being molested.Theses conditions altogether make it rather hard today to grasp the scale of the violations of women committed by Japanese troops.However, the establishment of Ianjo, or official brothels (literally, "house of restful consolation,") in as early as late December 1937 by the Shanghai Expeditionary Force and the 10th Army, clearly indicates how desperate the Japanese government was to keep its troops away from raping and spreading venereal diseases among themselves.Today more than ten such institutions were known to have operated under the Japanese government in Nanking although the idea seemed to have had little effect in stopping the rape criminals for the first several weeks.LootingOn the day the Japanese troops entered Nanjing, the wholesale looting that was initiated by the retreating Chinese troops significantly escalated to the level of what Tillman Durdin of the New York Times called "plundering of the entire city."Once gaining a control of a district, the Japanese soldiers broke into shops, houses and other buildings and took away anything they wanted. The commander of the 16th Division, Lieutenant General Nakajima Kesago, wrote in his diary on Dec. 19:When we enter, the houses have generally been rummaged in by the Chinese troops, and many things are gone. Nevertheless, the army soldiers rush to break in and loot, whether it is their assigned district or not. This tendency is especially true about the houses in suburban areas. After all, those impudent gain the most....Although the plate stated "Division Headquarters," when I went into the building, every room had been ransacked including the government chairman's office. They [Japanese soldiers] took away everything, even the old displays....Supervising the privates wouldn't be of much help since, to my surprise, even high-ranking officers are candidly being thieves.Click here to see how the Nanking Atrocities were depicted in the U.S. propaganda documentary, Frank Capra's The Battle of China (1944). (RealPlayer required) Nakajima himself was not at all the exception. Apparently he did not have any guilt about looting Chinese property. On January 23, 1938, when asked about the furniture in the Nationalist Government Building by Matsui Iwane, the commander-in-chief of the Central China Area Army, Nakajima replied, "What is the matter of taking furniture when we are taking over a country and taking away people's lives? No one is going to be pleased even though we leave it there."Nakajima was later found stealing Chiang Kai-shek's treasures such as rugs and paintings and sending them to Kyoto in 23 boxes when he was serving as the commander of the 4th Army in Manchuria.As typified by Nakajima's attitude toward plundering, even commissioned officers joined the lower ranking soldiers to ransack every building in Nanking. No one tried to abide by the international law on wartime requisition, according to which one had to pay in military currency or leave a kind of promissory note when commandeering any article that could be later exchanged into real currency.Most soldiers just looted things and robbed people without a word. As observed by foreign journalists and missionaries, many times the Japanese troops shot the Chinese who tried to stop the plundering or resisted while being robbed. Some soldiers left the notes supplied by the Army, but as an accounting officer of the 9th Division recalled, those notes were written with no faith, having such false names as "Commander of the Retreating Unit, Chiang Kai-shek," or simply stating, "Idiot!"As a consequence, when the Chinese refugees who survived the most intensive reign of terror for weeks finally went back home, there was absolutely nothing left for them to start over their normal lives again.It is recorded that as early as the beginning of January 1938, the Japanese Army encouraged Chinese people to start business, trade money and produce food as a way to restore order in the city, but they had no stock to begin with, no money to spend, and no livestock or grain to grow.Interview: Wang Weixing"We should put our emotional feelings aside when discussing the Nanjing Massacre between the two nations," says Wang Weixing. Interview by author on March 30, 2000. Wang Weixing is a historian at the Jiangsu Academy of Social Sciences. He is also a member of the Research Center of Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese Aggressors located in Nanjing Normal University. He has recently published an essay on the psychological backgrounds of the Japanese troops in Nanking."There are four aspects we should always look at to understand why Japanese soldiers went on the rampage in Nanjing.""First, they were vindictive towards Chinese because of the large number of casualties in Shanghai and other places in China. They carried out reprisals against even ordinary citizens. For instance, one diary of a former soldier tells us that he avenged his brother's death in Northern China by killing many Chinese.""Second, they had to give absolute obedience. To Japanese soldiers it was a holy war. They were fighting for the Emperor. So they did whatever they were told to do. Considering that the massacres took place in many parts of the city during the same period of time by different groups or units of the Japanese troops, there must have been an order from the higher echelon of the Japanese Army.""Third, as a national policy, Japan was trying to be on a par with Europe and openly contemptuous of Asian countries. Their chauvinism as the Yamato race took a great role in their attitudes toward Chinese. They probably thought they could do whatever they want because they are superior to Chinese.""Lastly, it was an unexpectedly long war for Japanese soldiers. Japan took it for granted that the war in Shanghai would end soon. But in fact the war was long and drawn out. That made many soldiers mentally unstable. They were fierce, homesick, anxious and worn out. The only comfort and joy they could find was to murder prisoners of war and to rape women. It may sound strange but in a sense those criminal acts became their amusement....""But it should be noted that although killing prisoners of war was an order, the way to kill them depended solely on individual soldiers. I am against the idea to emphasize the insanity of the Japanese troops by pointing out grotesque ways of murder such as eating up internal organs, etc. There is no evidence to prove such things happened, at least not in Nanjing."
http://web.archive.org/web/20060427142732/http://www.geocities.com/nankingatrocities/Confession/confession_03.htm
Policy to Take No PrisonersBodies left unburied along the Yangtze River. Photo taken by a Japanese soldier, Murase Moriyasu, of the 17th Motorized Company of the Meguro Supply and Transport Regiment. "After that, we successively had a number of prisoners surrendering to us. It became a group of several thousands. The extremely enraged soldiers adversely reacted to the officers' attempts to restrain them and butchered the captives one after another," wrote Major General Sasaki Touichi, commander of the Sasaki Detachment of the 16th Division of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force, of the day his troops entered the city."Looking back at the last ten days of hardships and bloodshed that killed and wounded many of our buddies, though I am not a mere common soldier, I am in favor of saying, 'Kill them all!' We ran out of even a grain of rice and, though maybe there are some in the city, I am certain that our Army wouldn't have any extra to feed the prisoners."66The next day, on December 14, Sasaki officially commanded his troops not to take any prisoners unless ordered to do so.67In the past two decades in Japan, voluminous evidence of the Nanking Atrocities was unearthed and collected by many historians, some journalists and war veterans. But, surprisingly, one of the most dramatic episodes of the discoveries did not concern any researcher or journalist.In the late 1980s a chemical factory worker, Ono Kenji, who prefers to be called a "laborer," began investigating what had become of the Chinese prisoners of war captured by the Yamada Detachment of the 13th Division. Most officers and men of the unit came from Fukushima Prefecture where Ono's hometown is located.For the next seven years Ono interviewed about 200 war veterans and collected 24 wartime diaries and other historical materials.His work not only revealed how possibly the largest mass executions of POWs in the Nanking Atrocities took place near Mufu Mountain, but also showed how ordinary men were dragged into war and were transformed into numb-minded killers.68Bodies on the Yangtze bank. Photo taken by Murase. Another dramatic and perhaps the most significant contribution to the explication of the Nanking Atrocities came to pass when a war veterans' organization, Kaikosha, asked its 18,000-odd members for any information relating to the Battle of Nanjing for its newsletter, Kaiko, in the mid-1980s.The campaign was initially intended to refute the myth of the Nanjing Massacre, but ironically the organization received mounting evidence that incriminated the Japanese troops."There is no excuse for this mass illegal disposition [of the prisoners of war]," said war veteran Katogawa Kotaro, one of the chief editors of the publication, in the last issue of the 11-part series. "As a person relating to the Imperial Army, I can do nothing but apologize to the Chinese people. It was cruel. I am sincerely sorry."69Indeed, the accumulated evidence, namely wartime diaries, memoirs, field reports and official records of the military operations, all suggested that the upper echelons of the Imperial Army adopted a policy to "dispose of" - euphemism for "kill" - every captive. The commander of the 16th Division, Lieutenant General Nakajima Kesago, for instance, wrote in his diary on Dec. 13:To begin with, it is our policy not to take prisoners, so we decided to get them out of the way. But when it became a group of one thousand, five thousand, and finally ten thousand, we couldn't even disarm them all. We were safe simply because they had absolutely no will to fight back and followed us slovenly.... I have never imagined that we would have to deal with this large-scale disposition. The staff officers were extremely busy.I later learned the Sasaki Detachment alone disposed of about fifteen thousand; the one company commander assigned to guard Taiping Gate disposed of about thirteen hundred; seven or eight thousand gathered near Xianhao Gate and many others are still coming to surrender one after another. In order to dispose of these seven or eight thousand people, we needed quite a large trench but were unable to find one. My plan is to divide them into groups of one or two hundred, lure them to proper places and dispose of them there.70The adjutant to the commanding officer (Matsui Iwane) of the China Central Area Army (CCAA), Major Sumi Yoshiharu, told Kaiko that Lieutenant Colonel Cho Isamu, an information staff officer of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force and a general staff of CCAA, ordered the killing of a great number of POWs held in Xiaguan.71In his autobiography, Marquis Tokugawa Yoshichika wrote of an anecdote he heard from his friend to whom Cho himself apparently told the following story directly:A crowd of fleeing civilians including women and children, as well as a number of Chinese soldiers, was surging along the banks of Yangtze. Letting go the Chinese soldiers would affect the course of the war. So Lieutenant Colonel Cho ordered the troops who were holding machine guns at the front to shoot them.Since there were many civilians in the crowd along with some soldiers, the Japanese troops were hesitant and couldn't do it. Cho lost his temper. "You want to know how to kill people! Like this!" He slashed one of his troops down from the shoulder with his sword. Stunned at Cho, the other troops snapped and opened fire. That's how the massacre started.72A Chinese soldier captured by Japanese troops. In Nanjing, the remnants of the defeated army, whether they voluntarily surrendered or whether they got captured as they straggled, were mercilessly killed in the name of "mopping-up" operations.As observed by the foreign journalists and many Japanese journalists, the Japanese troops also conducted intensive searches for plain-clothes soldiers in the refugee camps.They looked into one house after another, assembled every able-bodied man and inspected each one for any sign of having been a soldier such as a helmet mark on the forehead, an imprint of a machine-gun strap on the shoulders or calluses on the hands.Through this arbitrary procedure, many civilians who were not even remotely connected to the Chinese Army were also selected and marched off to execution sites in many parts of the city and outside the walls.A naval officer, Okumiya Masatake, looked around Nanking on December 25 and 27 in search of dead bodies of missing navy pilots and saw "countless bodies of Chinese" discarded along the shore of the Xuanwu Lake near the Xuanwu Gate. On both days he also witnessed Army troops executing a number of Chinese people at the Xiaguan execution site.Wondering how they managed to bring so many POWs to the area without much difficulty, he asked a nearby soldier about the trick.Unburied bodies along the Yangtze. Photo taken by Murase. According to Okumiya's book, he replied, "We say, 'If you are hungry, raise your hands!' to the Chinese whom we forced to clean up the battle site inside the city walls. Then get those who raised their hands on a truck as if we would take them to a place to eat."73Executing POWs without any kind of military trial was already a violation of the Hague Regulations of 1902. But, at any rate, most Japanese troops did not have any intention to protect any human rights of the captives.Some soldiers, if not many, also wreaked their resentments on the prisoners. That was typically embodied in the brutal tortures before executions.Sergeant Masuda Rokusuke of the 20th Infantry Regiment of the 16th Division wrote in his memoirs:On the 14th, I went to the refugee camps organized by the International Committee to sweep the place.... Each platoon ransacked its assigned area house to house and checked every single man. Sergeant Maeda of the 2nd Platoon found a few hundreds of stragglers shedding their uniforms and donning civilian clothes inside a big building.I entered the building right away and saw a crowd of stragglers, a heap of Chinese swords and other weapons.... We dragged them out, striped them naked, inspected their possessions, and bundled them with an electric wire we picked up in the street...."You made us suffer!"... "You made us sacrifice our buddies!"... "You made Japanese people cry!" "You, little brat!" We kicked, whipped, and beat the heads, backs and other parts of the captives to give vent to our frustration. There were at least 300 of them....In the evening, we led nearly 600 stragglers to the Xuanwu Gate and mowed them down at one go.74Prisoners of War at Mufu MountainCharred bodies on the Yangtze bank. Photo taken by Murase. A correspondent for Asahi Newspaper reported that on December 13 and 14, 1937, the Morozumi Unit (the 65th Infantry Regiment of the Yamada Detachment in the 13th Division) took prisoners of 14,777 Chinese soldiers in the vicinity of the artillery fort of Wulong Mountain and Mufu Mountain that lay at the south bank of the Yangtze River.However, there had been no further follow-up report since then and for decades it was unknown what had become of those prisoners of war.In Japan one theory told that half of them were released, a quarter of them escaped and the rest started a riot and consequently got killed.Another theory told that all of the captives were dragged to the banks of the Yangtze and executed.In the late 1980s, as stated earlier (see the previous story, "Killing Prisoners of War"), a chemical factory worker in Japan, Ono Kenji, investigated the incident by interviewing 200 or so war veterans and gathering 24 wartime diaries and other historical materials.75Japanese troops throwing bodies into the Yangtze River. Photo taken by Murase. Ono's research made it clear that the 15,000 captives and additional 2,000 to 3,000 prisoners taken after the 14th were all massacred by military order.The mass executions of those POWs are possibly the largest in the Nanking Atrocities. They were conducted in two days on the banks of the Yangtze near Mufu Mountain.The dead bodies were quickly covered with gasoline and burnt. And many corpses were later thrown into the Yangtze River.Following are some quotes from the confessions Ono videotaped and the diaries he collected.Upon his and his interviewees' request, they are all assigned pseudonyms.Private Kurosu Tadanobu (Pseudonym):[Interview on the videotape] I joined the Army two days after I got the draft paper. I was determined to fight, but couldn't possibly tell my wife that I would most likely die. So I simply told her to keep our house intact. Those drafted for the first time were delighted to serve their country and the Emperor, but I knew that going to the front meant facing death. When I got on the train, I kept thinking that it was the last time to see my brothers and others. I couldn't help crying.76[His diary on November 25, 1937] Upon arriving the quarters we killed two big pigs. And now we are eating them. War is such fun. Those who like drinking could drink as much as they want. The weather has been, finally, pleasant for the last few days and so is our mind.77[His diary on December 16] We took about 5,000 prisoners of war, some of those we captured a couple of days ago, to the bank of the Yangtze and mowed them down by machine guns. Then we stabbed them with bayonets to our satisfaction. I probably bayoneted 30-odd hateful Chinese soldiers. Climbing up the heap of dead bodies and bayoneting them gave me a courage, which made me feel I could even vanquish ogres. I stabbed them with all my might while hearing them groan. There were some old ones and kids. I killed them all. I even borrowed a sword and severed a head. It was the most unusual experience I've ever had.78[Interview on the videotape] The next day there was another call [for an execution] but I wasn't assigned for it. I did it only once. I believe we killed all the prisoners of war our unit captured. I heard that we had some 20,000 in total... Before I crossed the river [to go to another front in China], I was shocked to see a long stretch of hundreds of charred bodies on the banks. Then I was sure we killed tens of thousands.... It [the Nanjing Massacre] is true, indeed. It is not a lie.... To be honest, I wanted the war to end in Nanking. I really wanted to come back [to Japan].79Private Kawata Senji (Pseudonym):[Interview on the videotape] I heard they [the captives] were conscripted soldiers. I saw various prisoners, from younger ones to really old ones.... There were 20,000 of them. We took them out to the bank of the Yangtze River and machine-gunned them. It took us two nights to finish it off. We threw the bodies into the river later on, but the stream was so slow that many of them didn't float right away.[Interview on the videotape] At the time I didn't think it was wrong. I was ordered to do so. After the war this story [of the mass executions by the Yamada Detachment] came up occasionally. Then I started asking myself, "Did I do something wrong?"80Second Lieutenant Endo Takaaki (Pseudonym):[His diary on Dec. 16] The prisoners of war amounted to 17,025. In the evening received military order, took out one third of them to the banks and the 1st Battalion shot them.81[His diary on Dec. 17] At night sent out five soldiers for the execution of the 10,000-odd remaining prisoners.82A cenotaph to those massacred near Mufu Mountain. These kinds of memorials can be found at major execution sites in today's Nanking. Second Lieutenant Takayanagi Shinichi (Pseudonym):[Interview on the videotape] We tied them [the captives] up and began dragging them [to the execution site] in the morning.... It took all day to get them there. Then at night we machine-gunned them all.... There was corpse after corpse. Had it been in the daylight, I don't think I could have faced the scene straight. I went back there to dispose of the bodies the next day. They were all charred and smelled awful. Even now I remember the smell.[Interview on the videotape] The order to 'do it' came through all the way from the top.... Those high-rankings don't know what it was like. They just order and never come to the scene.... I don't know how they could talk about it. They haven't even seen it. We, noncommissioned officers and men, were the ones who actually carried it out.... I wonder who on earth are those people to claim that such a miserable incident was "fabrication".... Well, those "professional Army officers" were always behind the scene.83Sergeant Kawashima Noriyasu (Pseudonym):[Interview on the videotape] I had experienced so much combat before Nanking. Compared with those, the Battle of Nanking was nothing. The Chinese soldiers were gone out of sight pretty quickly.... They [prisoners of war] were not all soldiers. I don't remember clearly but I might have seen a few women, even.... Of course it was an order from above [to execute all the captives]. It wasn't like five or ten captives.... I was not in a position to know the whole picture, but it was an official order.84Private Hayashi Junzo (Pseudonym):[Interview on the videotape] I made the pedestals to mount the machine guns. It was about one meter [3 feet 4 inches] high.... I did it [killed the prisoners] on the second day at the foot of Mufu Mountain.... I fired some 200 bullets in about ten minutes and that was it. I was allowed to go back and was lucky enough not to be assigned to dispose of the dead bodies.85Private Taniguchi Toshimitsu (Pseudonym):[Interview on the videotape] Many groups of 100 or 200 Chinese soldiers came from here and there to surrender while hanging out a white cloth or something of that kind. I didn't count them by myself, but I heard we had about 18,000 to 20,000.... I am sure that other units, like the 6th Division, have done the same.... I don't think it could be 300,000. I guess it was probably about 80,000 to 100,000.[Interview on the videotape] Well, in retrospect we were crazy. When I was taking them [to the execution site], I knew I was going to kill them. But I didn't feel any guilt. Of course I can't imagine doing it now.86Noncommissioned officer Yamazaki Kohei(Exact title not to be revealed / Pseudonym):[Interview on the videotape] There were many prisoners of war who survived the machine-gunning. So we bayoneted those who were moving.... Some screamed like mad men when I stabbed them. It was so loud. Their voices haunted me for a week since then.... I heard that there were a few female prisoners of war. But I don't think there was any elderly or children. They were all soldiers.... We just did what our superiors told us to do.... We burnt the bodies and they stank so badly.... I didn't think much about it [the cruelty] at the time. I just thought war was like that.87Interview: Ono Kenji88"If you read his [Mr. Kurosu's] diary, you know it is something that you can't easily talk about," says Ono. Interview by author on March 11, 2000. "I think those former soldiers used to have racial hatred toward Chinese. Many war veterans I interviewed still unconsciously use the word, Chankoro [derogatory term in Japanese literally meaning, "Chinese brat"], or something of that kind. But at the same time, many of those who committed the massacre have been tormented by their consciences for more than 50 years....""I became really close to Mr. Kurosu (pseudonym) through my research. I visited his house quite often and talked a lot. He seemed deeply repentant.... I was really surprised and couldn't say a word when he gave me his wartime diary, which, he'd been telling me, he ditched before he landed in Japan. It was one and a half years after we met and made friends! Then I realized how hard it was for him to come to terms with the past. If you read his diary, you know it is something that you can't easily talk about....""These [former soldiers'] diaries are candidly describing how normal, average persons had developed their animosity through combat and how they became mentally anesthetized through slaughtering captives and looting houses on the way to Nanjing. Once those cruel acts became their daily lives, they no longer had inhibitions...."Ono collected 24 wartime diaries in the course of his investigation. "After all, they were following orders from the Army. Most of those who massacred Chinese were noncommissioned officers and common soldiers. For them the orders were absolute.... Of course I feel compassion for the victims. But now I know the perpetrators were also psychologically scarred....""A veteran told me that he couldn't forget the face of one prisoner he killed in Shanghai. He executed thousands of POWs on the banks of the Yangtze River later on, but those victims were already faceless for him. But the one he killed in Shanghai for the first time, he still dreams of the face once in a while. I think it really tells something about the psychological state of the soldiers in the Yamada Detachment in Nanjing."
Nanking's greatest fear, which explains the sudden evacuation of the capital despite the fact that the Japanese troops are still 110 miles east of the city gates, is looting by Chinese troops - not fear of bombardment from Japanese warships," wrote a correspondent for the Chicago Daily News, but, according to Time magazine (January 10, 1938), the dispatch was censored by the Chinese government led by Chiang Kai-shek.It goes without saying that not only the Japanese government but also the Chinese government imposed a strict media blackout and carried on active propaganda against Japan throughout the Sino-Japanese War.The above article, for instance, included the following sentences but they were all slashed out by the Chinese authorities.Inside the Chinese lines the utmost confusion prevails.... Chinese troops have not been paid since August.... There is severe lack of food for front-line troops.... Demoralization had resulted from lack of attention for the Chinese wounded....Then, too, might be added the strong resentment of the Chinese front-line troops at the fact that while they are under constant aerial bombings from Japanese bombers no Chinese bombers have appeared during daylight hours, although every Chinese soldier had been given to understand that Chiang Kai-shek's chief threat to Japan consisted in his air force.... What now? Japan has succeeded in plunging China into chaos which will take several years, perhaps decades, to straighten out....With China's near collapse understood, neither Russia nor any other nation will feel desirous of giving China military assistance.International Department of the Board of InformationThe headquarters of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. December 13, 1937. "It was not necessary for the [Chinese] Ministry of Propaganda to tell the outside world about the Rape of Nanking," wrote a member of the Special Defense Unit of the U.S. Department of Justice, William Daugherty, in 1942."It was the foreigners - Americans, British, Germans - who gave to the outside world the shocking account that they had been forced to witness."According to Daugherty, even the official Chinese Board of Information in Hankow (Chiang Kai-shek moved the military headquarters from Nanking to Hankow before the city was taken over by the Japanese) learned of the orgy of bloodshed from foreign sources in Shanghai.97Once they found out about the atrocities, however, the Board of Information availed themselves of the golden opportunity to publicize their cause in the Second Sino-Japanese War to the world.In the United States the Board was in close contact with numerous relief organizations and pressure groups that sympathized with China such as American Friends of the Chinese People, American Committee for Non-Participation in Japanese Aggression, Associated Boards for Christian Colleges in China, United Council for Civilian Relief in China, and China Information Service led by Frank Price of the Theological Seminary at the University of Nanking, which was established in September 1938 in Washington D.C.98Their propaganda efforts soon caused the stories of brutal Japanese conduct brought by those missionaries and others in Nanking to be widely circulated nationwide through newspapers, magazines and books.The Board of Information was founded in November 1937 as an agency of the Nationalist Government of China.99 Headed by Dr. Wang Shih-chieh, an official of ministerial rank, it was made up of two subdivisions, one for domestic propaganda and the other for foreign publicity.The film made by an American Missionary, John Magee, was shown all over the United States. Hollington K. Tong, a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and a famous journalist known as "Holly" among correspondents in China, became the head of the latter subdivision called the International Department of the Board of Information. Based in the new capital of Chungking, the International Department was engaged in various propaganda activities.James L. Shen, or "Jimmy," commanded the organization's English section in Chungking with six other Chinese writers, all of whom graduated from American missionary institutions in China. They published a number of bulletins, special handouts, state documents, speeches by the Generalissimo for a monthly magazine in English, China at War.Warren Lee, a former teacher in a Chinese School in Rangoon, was in charge of the photographic section. Frederick J. Chen, or "Freddy," headed the business section. Along with the National Military Council, the Board also briefed their "news" at the regular weekly press conference in Chungking to foreign correspondents, visitors and embassy officials.100Outside of China, the International Department established bureaus in London, Montreal, Sydney, Mexico City and Singapore and employed advisors for "intelligence," "liaison" and "public relations" in those countries.101 The Board hired Harold John Timperley, a China correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, and sent him to Europe. Earl H. Leaf, a former China correspondent and the Far Eastern Manager of the United Press, also worked for the Board, advising various China groups in New York.Accounts of the Nanking Atrocities: Harold John Timperley and Hsü ShuhsiBodies left unburied along the Yangtze River. Photo taken by a Japanese soldier, Murase Moriyasu, of the 17th Motorized Company of the Meguro Supply and Transport Regiment. Probably the first comprehensive description of the ruthlessness and inhumanity demonstrated by the Japanese soldiers in Nanking was compiled and edited by Timperley in a book titled What War Means (in America it was titled The Japanese Terror in China).The book featured the official statements, protests and some private letters written by the members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. It was translated into other languages and published as early as July 1938 in London, New York, Calcutta, Paris and Hankow.102Case after case of plundering, rape and mass executions in the book not only confirmed the news stories formerly reported by Tillman Durdin of the New York Times and Archibald Steele of the Chicago Daily News but also provided more vivid imagery of what actually happened after all the foreign correspondents had left Nanking.Although Timperley was working as an advisor to the Chiang Kai-shek's propaganda organization, it seemed he was motivated by his strong conviction against war rather than his personal sympathy with Chinese.In fact, Timperley took the trouble to pay homage to his two anonymous Japanese friends in the forward of What War Means. One of the two Japanese, a friend who was of "rare fineness of intellect and feeling,"103 Matsumoto Shigeharu, the Shanghai bureau chief of Domei News Agency, recalled Timperley talking about the publication of the book with scruples to those Japanese who deserve "admiration and respect."104After the publication of the book, Timperley actively wrote essays and articles whose themes were to make sense of Japan's "indigenous chauvinism" and "the generation of an aggressive military spirit."105 In his works such as "Yoshida Shoin Martyred Prophet of Japanese Expansionism," an essay for Far Eastern Quarterly, and Japan: A World Problem, he advocated drastic internal reforms in Japan and international peacekeeping arrangements for the Far East.106An old woman killed by a Japanese soldier outside Nanking near Tse Hsia Shan. Photo taken by an American missionary, Earnest Forster. According to his obituary in the Times (London) and the Manchester Guardian, in 1943 Timperley started seven years of service with the United Nations and its specialized organizations including UNRRA and UNESCO.107A political scientist and advisor to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hsü Shuhsi, also had an access to the reports and letters sent from Westerners in Nanking. On behalf of the Council of International Affairs, an officially subsidized association operating in Chungking, Hsü published The War Conduct of the Japanese in 1938 which featured some documents of the Safety Zone such as the report written by Miner Searle Bates on December 15108 that described "grim tales of massacre, looting and rape during Nanking's capture."109The following year, he compiled the records of the International Committee's work in a book titled Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone. The book contained numerous accounts of the atrocities written by the foreign witnesses and provided more substantial evidence in volume than Timperley's What War Means. It was widely distributed in the United States through Chinese governmental organizations and their sympathizers to arouse international support.110As a demonstration that these organizations succeeded, the library of the University of Missouri-Columbia where Hollington K. Tong, the head of the International Department of the Board of Information, graduated from holds copies of the above two books as well as A New Digest of Japanese War Conductwritten by Hsü in 1941.Of the three books, the first two were given by the Council of International Affairs to the University and the other by China Information Service, the organization headed by Frank Price of the Theological Seminary at the University of Nanking.Propaganda and Resistance in NankingA Chinese propaganda poster on the wall that shows "Cruelty of the Japanese Devils!" Photo taken by Murase. The atrocities committed by the Imperial Army naturally resulted in widespread resentment and fierce defiance toward the Japanese soldiers by Chinese citizens. Inside the walled city and its vicinity, thousands of peasants voluntarily formed organizations called "Red Spear Society" and ambushed the enemy soldiers.A certain group of resisters secretly printed leaflets that called for strong patriotism, some of which read "Show your conscience, fellow countrymen," or "The National Army will attack Nanking in a few days and kill all the Japanese devils and [Chinese] traitors." Those leaflets were distributed in schools, movie theaters and buses in Nanking.The Nationalist Government and the Communist Party also covertly, and sometimes overtly, established, instructed, and armed anti-Japan organizations inside and outside of the city. Once in a while those armed groups struck the Japanese troops occupying the city. Especially some underground communist rebels and the New Fourth Army were effectively deployed and fought against the invaders throughout the city's occupation.111Even in the early days, there were unprompted subversive activities in the Safety Zone by Chinese soldiers in hiding. For example, the New York Times reported the following incident with the headline, "Ex-Chinese Officers Among U. S. Refugees; Colonel and His Aides Admit Blaming the Japanese for Crimes in Nanking," on January 4, 1938:SHANGHAI, Jan. 3 - American professors remaining at Ginling College in Nanking as foreign members of the Refugee Welfare Committee were seriously embarrassed to discover that they had been harboring a deserted Chinese Army colonel and six of his subordinate officers. The professors had, in fact, made the colonel second in authority at the refugee camp.The officers, who had doffed their uniforms during the Chinese retreat from Nanking, were discovered living in one of the college buildings. They confessed their identity after Japanese Army searchers found they had hidden six rifles, five revolvers, a dismounted machine gun and ammunition in the building.The ex-Chinese officers in the presence of Americans and other foreigners confessed looting in Nanking and also that one night they dragged girls from the refugee camp into the darkness and the next day blamed Japanese soldiers for the attacks. The ex-officers were arrested and will be punished under martial law and probably executed.112Dr. Robert Wilson, medical doctor at the University of Nanking, jotted down the circumstances in his diary when Japanese soldiers found buried weapons in a refugee camp. From December 30, 1937, the diary read:Today some poor fool who was annoyed at the man in charge of one of the refugee camps in the Sericulture building brought some Japanese soldiers around and showed them where a half a dozen rifles had been buried on the grounds. There was an unholy row and four men were taken away, one being charged with the heinous crime of being a colonel in the Chinese Army.113Interview: Kasahara Tokushi114Japanese troops and Chinese street vendors in Nanking. Kasahara Tokushi is a professor of History at Tsuru University. He has published various books and articles on the Nanking Atrocities (see Works Cited). He has also served as a visiting professor at Nanjing Normal University where the Research Center of Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese Aggressors is located."Of course there were propaganda activities and some resistance in Nanjing against Japanese troops. Japan invaded their land, killed their loved ones and took away their properties. Without doubt there were some Chinese who sought an opportunity to give the Japanese troops a blow.""But it was not systematic enough to threaten the Imperial Army. There was rather sporadic resistance. At any rate, it does not give any excuse for illegal executions, let alone rape, looting and other atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese troops....""Some 'deniers' argue that Nanjing was much more peaceful than we generally think. They always show some photographs with Chinese refugees selling some food in the street or Chinese people smiling in the camps. They are forgetting about Japanese propaganda. The Imperial Army imposed strict censorship. Any photographs with dead bodies couldn't get through. So photographers had to remove all the bodies before taking pictures of streets and buildings in the city....""Vautrin [Minnie Vautrin] wrote of an occasion when a photographer told Chinese people to smile. Another member of the International Committee for the [Nanking] Safety Zone recorded that one day the Army gave out candies to kids before they took photos. Even if the photos weren't staged, the refugees had no choice but to fawn on the Japanese soldiers. Acting otherwise meant their deaths....""I am certain that there were Chinese vendors in the street and even some thieves who stole things they needed. We shouldn't forget that the refugees were struggling to survive no matter what. Had it not been for Japanese invasion, they wouldn't have needed to go through such a horrible period in the first place."Five Western Journalists in the Doomed CityWar damage in the southern section of Nanking. Photo taken by an American missionary, Ernest Forster, in March 17, 1938. "Wholesale looting, the violation of women, the murder of civilians, the eviction of Chinese from their homes, mass executions of war prisoners and the impressing of able-bodied men turned Nanking into a city of terror," wrote Frank Tillman Durdin of the New York Times on December 17, 1937, two days after he escaped from the "reign of terror" aboard the U. S. S. Oahu.Archibald Steele of the Chicago Daily News called the siege and capture of Nanking "Four Days of Hell" in his dispatch on Dec. 15.C. Yates McDaniel of the Associated Press jotted down the following sentence in his diary on Dec. 16, which was wired to the United States the following day, "My last remembrance of Nanking: Dead Chinese, dead Chinese, dead Chinese."Although there were a number of foreign correspondents in the capital of China before the siege, most of them fled Nanking along with ambassadors and other foreign senior officials by Dec. 11.To this day, the only foreign journalists known to have stayed in the doomed city during the siege and the first few days of Japanese occupation are the three correspondents mentioned above, L. C. Smith of Reuters, and a Paramount newsreel cameraman, Arthur Menken. Consequently they all witnessed the beginning of the carnage."Orgy of Burning": China's Scorched-Earth PolicyA village outside Nanking in 1936. Forster noted that the village was destroyed by the Chinese military for strategic reasons in December 1937. "The advance of the Japanese beyond Kuyung was the signal for an orgy of burning by Chinese troops," described Durdin on China's military strategy known as the "scorched earth" policy.The principle behind it was not to leave anything that could be useful to the conquerors. As they beat a retreat from Jurong (Kuyun), about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Nanking, Chinese troops apparently set torches to not only buildings but also "trees, bamboo groves and underbrush."Within the distance of 16 miles (26 kilometers) between Tangshan and Nanking, the New York Times reporter saw whole villages burned to ruins, including barracks, mansions in Mausoleum Park, and numerous other buildings. Durdin estimated the loss caused by "Chinese military incendiarism" at $20,000,000 to $30,000,000.Inside the city wall the Chinese troops continued to set fire to shops and houses. Even the most ornate building in Nanking, the Ministry of Communication, which, according to a correspondent for the Times (London), cost £250,000, was set ablaze.Though not in Nanking at the time, the Times reporter later interviewed foreign eyewitnesses, who told him that the building was filled with munitions and the explosions caused a "tremendous racket." McDaniel also recorded the finest edifice in Nanking blowing up and blazing away in his diary on Dec. 12.City under ProjectilesClick here to see how Japanese troops attacked the walled city of Nanking as filmed in the U.S. propaganda documentary, The Battle of China. (RealPlayer required) Since the beginning of the siege on Dec. 10, Nanking had been caught in the rain of bombs and shrapnel. "From a point of vantage today I watched shell after shell burst into Nanking's central and southern districts. They came at the average of four a minute," wrote Steele on Dec. 11.The same day, as the battle of Nanking was entering a critical phase, the defense commander, General Tang Sheng-chi, declared via the military headquarters in Hankow that Chinese morale was still high and the situation favored their side. According to the Chicago Daily News on Dec. 11 (no byline), he also insisted that he would defend Nanking "to the bitter end."But in reality, heavy artillery was brought up and the constant explosions of projectiles shook the ancient city day and night. McDaniel reported to have seen the Purple Mountain being "sprayed by shrapnel" on Dec. 12, one day before the city fell into the hands of the Japanese troops.Retreat in PanicRetreating Chinese troops shed their uniforms, firearms and other supplies. A scene from a Japanese propaganda documentary, Nanking. As it became definite that the Japanese Army would conquer the city in a matter of time, panic swept through the city.When Nanking's defense commander, General Tang Sheng-chi, finally ordered his men to retreat at about 5 o'clock in the evening on Dec. 12, it only threw the military into uproar and created confusion since many troops had already been running away toward Xiaguan (Hsiakwan) riverfront, the northern port suburb, and the only way to escape from the city without encountering the enemy.By late evening the unorganized retreat became a rout. Frank Tillman Durdin of theNew York Times and Archibald Steele of the Chicago Daily News saw many of the Chinese troops loot shops for food and other supplies, cast away their arms and shed their uniforms in the street.Some of them donned civilian clothes, sometimes by robbing civilians of their garments, and others ran away in their underwear. "Streets became covered with guns, grenades, swords, knapsacks, coats, shoes, and helmets," wrote Durdin.However, at Yijiang (Ichang) Men (Gate), the northwest gate of the city leading to the riverfront that foreign correspondents called Hsiakwan Gate in their reports, the 36th Division of the Chinese Army, which had formerly been ordered to stop any retreat, confronted those who tried to go through the tiny openings of the gate.The streets toward the Yijiang Gate became congested with thousands of retreating Chinese soldiers and civilians. Soon panic followed as the crowd fought to squeeze through the only path to the wharf.Yijiang Men (Gate) after the fall of the city as filmed in the documentary,Nanking. To make matters worse, the Chinese Army fired machine guns at the retreating soldiers. Many were killed in this fashion and others fell and plummeted to death while attempting to scale the walls near the gate with makeshift ropes made of clothing.Those who made it to the Yangtze riverbank were ordained to face another tragedy. There was little or no transport to get them across the river.Tens of thousands of people fought over scarce vessels, quite a few dove into the cold water of winter and drowned, and many others frantically reentered the city, taking a risk of encountering the Japanese troops who were about to complete the encirclement at the Yijiang Men (Gate).Once back inside the city walls many soldiers turned themselves into the Safety Zone, the refuge camps organized by the remaining Westerners, so that they would be treated as noncombatants by the Japanese troops.It turned out, however, to be a futile effort.Instead of answering an ardent plea for mercy put forward by John Rabe, the chairman of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, the invaders began systematic mopping-up operations the moment they entered the city.Relentless Search for StragglersOn December 13, 1937, the Japanese Army completed the encirclement. They opened the Zhongshan (Chungshan) Gate, the eastern pivot of China's defense, and made a triumphal entry into the city."After the complete collapse of Chinese morale and the blind panic which followed, Nanking experienced a distant sense of release when the Japanese entered, feeling that the behavior of the Japanese could not possibly be worse than that of their own defeated army," wrote Steele. "They were quickly disillusioned."Japanese troops intensively searched for stragglers and plain-clothes soldiers. A scene from Nanking. The Japanese soldiers did not show any sign of mercy. What the New York Times reporter called "a tremendous sense of relief" soon transformed into an immense fear of death, rape and robbery. As soon as they entered the city, the Japanese troops began an intensive search for stragglers and ex-soldiers."The helpless Chinese troops, disarmed for the most part and ready to surrender, were systematically rounded up and executed," noted Durdin.They entered into the refugee camps, assembled any able-bodied men for capricious inspections, and marched off the suspects to execution sites. As most historians indicate today, many of the "suspects" probably had no connection with the Chinese Army.The streets were littered with bodies including some old men who could never have been harmful. Japanese soldiers frequently shot anyone running in sight on the spot and searched house after house in the course of hunting plainclothes soldiers.Steele saw scores of those "plainclothes suspects" being shot one by one while "their condemned fellows sat stolidly by, awaiting their turn.""This afternoon [I] saw some of the soldiers I helped disarm dragged from houses, shot, and kicked into ditches," read the diary report of C. Yates McDaniel of the Associated Press on Dec. 15.Looting in the Entire City and Rape All OverThe Japanese soldiers plundered the entire city and looted anything they pleased in Nanking. "Nearly every building was entered by Japanese soldiers, often under the eyes of their officers, and the men took whatever they wanted," reported Durdin."I saw Chinese troops looting shop windows, but later I saw the Japanese troops outdo them in a campaign of pillage which the Japanese carried out not only in the shops but in homes, hospitals and refugee camps," wrote Steel.McDaniel saw one soldier collecting some $3,000 by threatening poor civilians in the Safety Zone with a bayonet.They robbed Chinese houses and shops, ripped off refugees and occasionally broke into the foreign properties. The Times (London) reported that the Japanese soldiers paid a visit to the American-operated University Hospital and "robbed the nurses of their wrist watches, fountain pens, flashlights, ransacked the buildings and property, and took the motor-cars, ripping the American flags off them." According to the diaries and letters of remaining Westerners (see Reign of Terror), their houses were also sporadically invaded.A woman being carried into the hospital for gunshot wounds inflicted by a Japanese soldier who threatened to rape her. Photo taken by Forster. Many Chinese women were molested freely and violently. However, because the five foreign journalists fled Nanking within three or four days after the collapse of the city, they could not possibly grasp the extent of rape cases. Compared to the relentless executions and looting by the Japanese troops reported in their articles, rape cases were mentioned rather briefly.It was the Western members of the Nanking Safety Zone who first revealed the countless rape cases committed by the Imperial Army soldiers to the world.Many years later, long after the war ended in 1945, a number of Japanese journalists (see Reign of Terror) and former soldiers (see Confessions) also came forward to speak up about what they had seen or what they had done in Nanking.As urged by Japanese authorities, Durdin, Steele, Smith and Menken were evacuated to Shanghai on Dec. 15th aboard the gunboat Oahu, on which they had telegraphed their first reports on the Nanking Atrocities. McDaniel stayed a day longer and headed for Shanghai on the Japanese destroyer, Tsuga.http://web.archive.org/web/20050325115933/http://www.geocities.com/nankingatrocities/Fall/fall_01.htm
Five Western Journalists in the Doomed CityWar damage in the southern section of Nanking. Photo taken by an American missionary, Ernest Forster, in March 17, 1938. "Wholesale looting, the violation of women, the murder of civilians, the eviction of Chinese from their homes, mass executions of war prisoners and the impressing of able-bodied men turned Nanking into a city of terror," wrote Frank Tillman Durdin of the New York Times on December 17, 1937, two days after he escaped from the "reign of terror" aboard the U. S. S. Oahu.Archibald Steele of the Chicago Daily News called the siege and capture of Nanking "Four Days of Hell" in his dispatch on Dec. 15.C. Yates McDaniel of the Associated Press jotted down the following sentence in his diary on Dec. 16, which was wired to the United States the following day, "My last remembrance of Nanking: Dead Chinese, dead Chinese, dead Chinese."Although there were a number of foreign correspondents in the capital of China before the siege, most of them fled Nanking along with ambassadors and other foreign senior officials by Dec. 11.To this day, the only foreign journalists known to have stayed in the doomed city during the siege and the first few days of Japanese occupation are the three correspondents mentioned above, L. C. Smith of Reuters, and a Paramount newsreel cameraman, Arthur Menken. Consequently they all witnessed the beginning of the carnage."Orgy of Burning": China's Scorched-Earth PolicyA village outside Nanking in 1936. Forster noted that the village was destroyed by the Chinese military for strategic reasons in December 1937. "The advance of the Japanese beyond Kuyung was the signal for an orgy of burning by Chinese troops," described Durdin on China's military strategy known as the "scorched earth" policy.The principle behind it was not to leave anything that could be useful to the conquerors. As they beat a retreat from Jurong (Kuyun), about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Nanking, Chinese troops apparently set torches to not only buildings but also "trees, bamboo groves and underbrush."Within the distance of 16 miles (26 kilometers) between Tangshan and Nanking, the New York Times reporter saw whole villages burned to ruins, including barracks, mansions in Mausoleum Park, and numerous other buildings. Durdin estimated the loss caused by "Chinese military incendiarism" at $20,000,000 to $30,000,000.Inside the city wall the Chinese troops continued to set fire to shops and houses. Even the most ornate building in Nanking, the Ministry of Communication, which, according to a correspondent for the Times (London), cost £250,000, was set ablaze.Though not in Nanking at the time, the Times reporter later interviewed foreign eyewitnesses, who told him that the building was filled with munitions and the explosions caused a "tremendous racket." McDaniel also recorded the finest edifice in Nanking blowing up and blazing away in his diary on Dec. 12.City under ProjectilesClick here to see how Japanese troops attacked the walled city of Nanking as filmed in the U.S. propaganda documentary, The Battle of China. (RealPlayer required) Since the beginning of the siege on Dec. 10, Nanking had been caught in the rain of bombs and shrapnel. "From a point of vantage today I watched shell after shell burst into Nanking's central and southern districts. They came at the average of four a minute," wrote Steele on Dec. 11.The same day, as the battle of Nanking was entering a critical phase, the defense commander, General Tang Sheng-chi, declared via the military headquarters in Hankow that Chinese morale was still high and the situation favored their side. According to the Chicago Daily News on Dec. 11 (no byline), he also insisted that he would defend Nanking "to the bitter end."But in reality, heavy artillery was brought up and the constant explosions of projectiles shook the ancient city day and night. McDaniel reported to have seen the Purple Mountain being "sprayed by shrapnel" on Dec. 12, one day before the city fell into the hands of the Japanese troops.Retreat in PanicRetreating Chinese troops shed their uniforms, firearms and other supplies. A scene from a Japanese propaganda documentary, Nanking. As it became definite that the Japanese Army would conquer the city in a matter of time, panic swept through the city.When Nanking's defense commander, General Tang Sheng-chi, finally ordered his men to retreat at about 5 o'clock in the evening on Dec. 12, it only threw the military into uproar and created confusion since many troops had already been running away toward Xiaguan (Hsiakwan) riverfront, the northern port suburb, and the only way to escape from the city without encountering the enemy.By late evening the unorganized retreat became a rout. Frank Tillman Durdin of theNew York Times and Archibald Steele of the Chicago Daily News saw many of the Chinese troops loot shops for food and other supplies, cast away their arms and shed their uniforms in the street.Some of them donned civilian clothes, sometimes by robbing civilians of their garments, and others ran away in their underwear. "Streets became covered with guns, grenades, swords, knapsacks, coats, shoes, and helmets," wrote Durdin.However, at Yijiang (Ichang) Men (Gate), the northwest gate of the city leading to the riverfront that foreign correspondents called Hsiakwan Gate in their reports, the 36th Division of the Chinese Army, which had formerly been ordered to stop any retreat, confronted those who tried to go through the tiny openings of the gate.The streets toward the Yijiang Gate became congested with thousands of retreating Chinese soldiers and civilians. Soon panic followed as the crowd fought to squeeze through the only path to the wharf.Yijiang Men (Gate) after the fall of the city as filmed in the documentary,Nanking. To make matters worse, the Chinese Army fired machine guns at the retreating soldiers. Many were killed in this fashion and others fell and plummeted to death while attempting to scale the walls near the gate with makeshift ropes made of clothing.Those who made it to the Yangtze riverbank were ordained to face another tragedy. There was little or no transport to get them across the river.Tens of thousands of people fought over scarce vessels, quite a few dove into the cold water of winter and drowned, and many others frantically reentered the city, taking a risk of encountering the Japanese troops who were about to complete the encirclement at the Yijiang Men (Gate).Once back inside the city walls many soldiers turned themselves into the Safety Zone, the refuge camps organized by the remaining Westerners, so that they would be treated as noncombatants by the Japanese troops.It turned out, however, to be a futile effort.Instead of answering an ardent plea for mercy put forward by John Rabe, the chairman of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, the invaders began systematic mopping-up operations the moment they entered the city.Relentless Search for StragglersOn December 13, 1937, the Japanese Army completed the encirclement. They opened the Zhongshan (Chungshan) Gate, the eastern pivot of China's defense, and made a triumphal entry into the city."After the complete collapse of Chinese morale and the blind panic which followed, Nanking experienced a distant sense of release when the Japanese entered, feeling that the behavior of the Japanese could not possibly be worse than that of their own defeated army," wrote Steele. "They were quickly disillusioned."Japanese troops intensively searched for stragglers and plain-clothes soldiers. A scene from Nanking. The Japanese soldiers did not show any sign of mercy. What the New York Times reporter called "a tremendous sense of relief" soon transformed into an immense fear of death, rape and robbery. As soon as they entered the city, the Japanese troops began an intensive search for stragglers and ex-soldiers."The helpless Chinese troops, disarmed for the most part and ready to surrender, were systematically rounded up and executed," noted Durdin.They entered into the refugee camps, assembled any able-bodied men for capricious inspections, and marched off the suspects to execution sites. As most historians indicate today, many of the "suspects" probably had no connection with the Chinese Army.The streets were littered with bodies including some old men who could never have been harmful. Japanese soldiers frequently shot anyone running in sight on the spot and searched house after house in the course of hunting plainclothes soldiers.Steele saw scores of those "plainclothes suspects" being shot one by one while "their condemned fellows sat stolidly by, awaiting their turn.""This afternoon [I] saw some of the soldiers I helped disarm dragged from houses, shot, and kicked into ditches," read the diary report of C. Yates McDaniel of the Associated Press on Dec. 15.Looting in the Entire City and Rape All OverThe Japanese soldiers plundered the entire city and looted anything they pleased in Nanking. "Nearly every building was entered by Japanese soldiers, often under the eyes of their officers, and the men took whatever they wanted," reported Durdin."I saw Chinese troops looting shop windows, but later I saw the Japanese troops outdo them in a campaign of pillage which the Japanese carried out not only in the shops but in homes, hospitals and refugee camps," wrote Steel.McDaniel saw one soldier collecting some $3,000 by threatening poor civilians in the Safety Zone with a bayonet.They robbed Chinese houses and shops, ripped off refugees and occasionally broke into the foreign properties. The Times (London) reported that the Japanese soldiers paid a visit to the American-operated University Hospital and "robbed the nurses of their wrist watches, fountain pens, flashlights, ransacked the buildings and property, and took the motor-cars, ripping the American flags off them." According to the diaries and letters of remaining Westerners (see Reign of Terror), their houses were also sporadically invaded.A woman being carried into the hospital for gunshot wounds inflicted by a Japanese soldier who threatened to rape her. Photo taken by Forster. Many Chinese women were molested freely and violently. However, because the five foreign journalists fled Nanking within three or four days after the collapse of the city, they could not possibly grasp the extent of rape cases. Compared to the relentless executions and looting by the Japanese troops reported in their articles, rape cases were mentioned rather briefly.It was the Western members of the Nanking Safety Zone who first revealed the countless rape cases committed by the Imperial Army soldiers to the world.Many years later, long after the war ended in 1945, a number of Japanese journalists (see Reign of Terror) and former soldiers (see Confessions) also came forward to speak up about what they had seen or what they had done in Nanking.As urged by Japanese authorities, Durdin, Steele, Smith and Menken were evacuated to Shanghai on Dec. 15th aboard the gunboat Oahu, on which they had telegraphed their first reports on the Nanking Atrocities. McDaniel stayed a day longer and headed for Shanghai on the Japanese destroyer, Tsuga.
Prisoners being buried alive[71] Skeletons of victims in Nanking massacreThe casualty count of 300,000 was first promulgated in January 1938 byHarold Timperley, a journalist in China during the Japanese invasion, based on reports from contemporary eyewitnesses.[citation needed] Other sources, including Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking, also conclude that the death toll reached 300,000. In December 2007, newly declassified U.S. government archive documents revealed that a telegraph by the U.S. ambassador to Germany in Berlin sent one day after the Japanese army occupied Nanking, stated that he heard the Japanese Ambassador in Germany boasting that Japanese army killed 500,000 Chinese people as the Japanese army advanced from Shanghai to Nanking. According to the archives research "The telegrams sent by the U.S. diplomats [in Berlin] pointed to the massacre of an estimated half a million people in Shanghai, Suzhou, Jiaxing, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Wuxi and Changzhou".[78]The most conservative viewpoint is that the geographical area of the incident should be limited to the few km2 of the city known as the Safety Zone, where the civilians gathered after the invasion. Many Japanese historians seized upon the fact that during the Japanese invasion there were only 200,000–250,000 citizens in Nanking as reported by John Rabe, to argue that the PRC's estimate of 300,000 deaths is a vast exaggeration.However, many historians include a much larger area around the city. Including the Xiaguan district (the suburbs north of Nanking, about 31 km2 in size) and other areas on the outskirts of the city, the population of greater Nanking was running between 535,000 and 635,000 civilians and soldiers just prior to the Japanese occupation.[79] Some historians also include six counties around Nanking, known as the Nanking Special Municipality.The duration of the incident is naturally defined by its geography: the earlier the Japanese entered the area, the longer the duration. The Battle of Nanking ended on December 13, when the divisions of the Japanese Army entered the walled city of Nanking. The Tokyo War Crime Tribunal defined the period of the massacre to the ensuing six weeks. More conservative estimates say that the massacre started on December 14, when the troops entered the Safety Zone, and that it lasted for six weeks. Historians who define the Nanking Massacre as having started from the time that the Japanese Army entered Jiangsu province push the beginning of the massacre to around mid-November to early December (Suzhou fell on November 19), and stretch the end of the massacre to late March 1938.
Various estimates
Japanese historians, depending on their definition of the geographical and time duration of the killings, give wide-ranging estimates for the number of massacred civilians, from several thousand to upwards of 200,000.[80] The lowest estimate by a Japanese historian is 40,000.[81]Chinese language sources tend to place the figure of massacred civilians upwards of 200,000.[80]For example, a postwar investigation by the Nanking District Court put the number of dead during the incident as 295,525, 76% of them men, 22% women and 2% children.A 42-part Taiwanese documentary produced from 1995 to 1997, entitled An Inch of Blood For An Inch of Land[82] (一寸河山一寸血), asserts that 340,000 Chinese civilians died in Nanking City as a result of the Japanese invasion: 150,000 through bombing and crossfire in the five-day battle, and 190,000 in the massacre, based on the evidence presented at the Tokyo Trials.China and Japan have both acknowledged the occurrence of wartime atrocities. Disputes over the historical portrayal of these events continue to cause tensions between Japan on one side and China and other East Asian countries on the other side.
Cold War
Before the 1970s, China did relatively little to draw attention to the Nanking massacre. In her book Rape of Nanking Iris Chang asserted that the politics of the Cold War encouraged Mao to stay relatively silent about Nanking in order to keep a trade relationship with Japan. In turn, China and Japan occasionally used Nanking as an opportunity to demonize one another.[citation needed]
Debate in Japan
The major waves of Japanese treatment of these events have ranged from total cover-up during the war, confessions and documentation by the Japanese soldiers during the 1950s and 1960s, minimization of the extent of the Nanking Massacre during the 1970s and 1980s, official Japanese government distortion and rewriting of history during the 1980s, and total denial of the occurrence of the Nanking Massacre by some government officials in 1990.[91]The debate concerning the massacre took place mainly in the 1970s. During this time, the Chinese government's statements about the event were attacked by the Japanese because they were said to rely too heavily on personal testimonies and anecdotal evidence. Aspersions were cast regarding the authenticity and accuracy of burial records and photographs presented in the Tokyo War Crime Court, which were said to be fabrications by the Chinese government, artificially manipulated or incorrectly attributed to the Nanking Massacre.[92]During the 1970s, Katsuichi Honda wrote a series of articles for the Asahi Shimbun on war crimes committed by Japanese soldiers during World War II (such as the Nanking Massacre).[93]The publication of these articles triggered a vehement response from Japanese right-wingers regarding the Japanese treatment of the war crimes. In response, Shichihei Yamamoto[94] and Akira Suzuki[95] wrote two controversial yet influential articles which sparked the negationist movement.
Apology and condolences by the Prime Minister and Emperor of Japan
See also: List of war apology statements issued by JapanOn August 15, 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the Surrender of Japan, the Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama gave the first clear and formal apology for Japanese actions during the war. He apologized for Japan's wrongful aggression and the great suffering that it inflicted in Asia. He offered his heartfelt apology to all survivors and to the relatives and friends of the victims. That day, the prime minister and the Japanese Emperor Akihito pronounced statements of mourning at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan. The emperor offered his condolences and expressed the hope that such atrocities would never be repeated. Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking, criticized Murayama for not providing the written apology that had been expected. She said that the people of China "don't believe that an... unequivocal and sincere apology has ever been made by Japan to China" and that a written apology from Japan would send a better message to the international community.[10]
Denials of the massacre by public officials in Japan
In May 1994, Justice Minister Shigeto Nagano called the Nanjing Massacre a "fabrication".[96]On June 19, 2007, a group of around 100 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmakers again denounced the Nanjing Massacre as a fabrication, arguing that there was no evidence to prove the allegations of mass killings by Japanese soldiers. They accused Beijing of using the alleged incident as a "political advertisement".[97] [98]On February 20, 2012, Takashi Kawamura, mayor of Nagoya, told a visiting delegation from Nanjing that the massacre "probably never happened". Two days later he defended his remarks, saying, "Even since I was a national Diet representative, I have said [repeatedly] there was no [Nanjing] massacre that resulted in murders of several hundred thousands of people."[99][100] On April 1, 2013, Kawamura said his position remained unchanged when the issue came up during an election debate.[101]On February 24, 2012, Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara said that he also believes that the Nanjing massacre never happened. He reportedly claims it would have been impossible to kill so many people in such a short period of time.[102]Effect on international relations
The memory of the Nanking Massacre has been a stumbling block in Sino-Japanese relationssince the early 1970s. Bilateral exchanges on trade, culture and education have increased greatly since the two countries normalized their bilateral relations and Japan became China’s most important trading partner.[103] Trade between the two nations is worth over $200 billion annually. Despite this, many Chinese people still have a strong sense of mistrust and animosity toward Japan that originates from the memory of Japanese war crimes such as the Nanking Massacre. This sense of mistrust is strengthened by the belief that Japan is unwilling to admit to and apologize for the atrocities.[104]Takashi Yoshida described how changing political concerns and perceptions of the "national interest" in Japan, China, and Western countries have shaped collective memory of the Nanking massacre. Yoshida asserted that over time the event has acquired different meanings to different people.[105]Many Japanese prime ministers have visited the Yasukuni Shrine, a shrine for dead Japanese soldiers of World War II, including some war criminals of the Nanking Massacre. In the museum adjacent to the shrine, a panel informs visitors that there was no massacre in Nanjing, but that Chinese soldiers in plain clothes were "dealt with severely". In 2006 former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi made a pilgrimage to the shrine despite warnings from China and South Korea. His decision to visit the shrine regardless sparked international outrage. Although Koizumi denied that he was trying to glorify war or historical Japanese militarism, The Chinese Foreign Ministry accused Koizumi of "wrecking the political foundations of China-Japan relations". An official from South Korea said they would summon the Tokyo ambassador to protest.[106][107][108][109]
As a component of national identity
Takashi Yoshida asserts that, "Nanking has figured in the attempts of all three nations [China, Japan and the United States] to preserve and redefine national and ethnic pride and identity, assuming different kinds of significance based on each country's changing internal and external enemies."[110]
Japan
Main article: Japanese history textbook controversiesIn Japan, the Nanking Massacre touches upon national identity and notions of "pride, honor and shame." Yoshida argues that "Nanking crystallizes a much larger conflict over what should constitute the ideal perception of the nation: Japan, as a nation, acknowledges its past and apologizes for its wartime wrongdoings; or . . . stands firm against foreign pressures and teaches Japanese youth about the benevolent and courageous martyrs who fought a just war to save Asia from Western aggression."[111] Recognizing the Nanking Massacre as such can be viewed in some circles in Japan as "Japan bashing" (in the case of foreigners) or "self-flagellation" (in the case of Japanese).The majority of Japanese acknowledge the IJA committed atrocities during the Nanking Massacre. Some denialists and Japanese officials have openly denied the incident, claiming it to be propaganda designed to spark an anti-Japan movement. In many ways, how "atrocious" the massacre was is the touchstone of left/right divide in Japan; i.e., leftists feel this is a defining moment of the IJA; rightists believe Perry's opening of Japan and the atomic bombings are far more significant events.
China
The Nanking massacre has emerged as a fundamental keystone in the construction of the modern Chinese national identity.[112] Modern Chinese (including citizens of the PRC, Taiwan, and overseas) will refer to the Nanking Massacre to explain certain stances they hold or ideas they have; this 'national unifying event' holds true to middle-school educated peasants and to senior government officials alike.In December 2007, the PRC government published the names of 13,000 people who were killed by Japanese troops in the Nanking Massacre. According to Xinhua News Agency, it is the most complete record to date.[117] The report consists of eight volumes and was released to mark the 70th anniversary of the start of the massacre. It also lists the Japanese army units that were responsible for each of the deaths and states the way in which the victims were killed. Zhang Xianwen, editor-in-chief of the report, states that the information collected was based on "a combination of Chinese, Japanese and Western raw materials, which is objective and just and is able to stand the trial of history."[117] This report formed part of a 55-volume series (Collection of Historical Materials of Nanjing Massacre (南京大屠杀史料集) about the massacre.Quote: "The Japanese Army, one million strong, has already conquered Changshu. We have surrounded the city of Nanking... The Japanese Army shall show no mercy toward those who offer resistance, treating them with extreme severity, but shall harm neither innocent civilians nor Chinese military [personnel] who manifest no hostility. It is our earnest desire to preserve the East Asian culture. If your troops continue to fight, war in Nanking is inevitable. The culture that has endured for a millennium will be reduced to ashes, and the government that has lasted for a decade will vanish into thin air. This commander-in-chief issues [b]ills to your troops on behalf of the Japanese Army. Open the gates to Nanking in a peaceful manner, and obey the [f]ollowing instructions."Battle of ShanghaiClose combat in the city of Shanghai. Photo used by P. R. Dept. of the China Expeditionary Force of Japan. Precipitated by a skirmish between Japanese and Chinese troops at Lugouqiao (Lu-kou-ch'iao), or the Marco Polo Bridge, on the outskirts of Beijing on July 7, 1937, the bilateral conflict between the two nations developed into a full-scale war.During the early stage of the "North China Incident," the Imperial forces of Japan quickly captured major cities in northern China and advanced southward.By mid-August the mutual hostility, which had been growing since Japan's conquest of Manchuria in 1932 and the subsequent formation of the puppet Manchukuo regime, inevitably goaded the two countries into another war in central China as well, involving one of the most developed, international cities in Asia, Shanghai.At this point the Second Sino-Japanese War that eventually bogged down the two neighboring countries in a bloody, eight-year-long war became irreversible.Having tasted easy victories in northern China, the Japanese Army and Navy apparently underestimated the Chinese troops in Shanghai, but that expectation soon proved to be a wrong one.That August the Japanese troops found themselves at a major standstill as they encountered stern resistance by the Chinese main forces, while the Japanese government clung to the hope that the Chinese forces could be easily subdued.Japanese troops marching about 12 miles (20 km) north of Shanghai. House-to-house fighting broke out, bombs detonated in the war-shattered city and naval gunfire backed up the infantry units. Both sides continuously reinforced their troops in order to make up their losses.The war in Shanghai was indeed a decisive battle that caused both sides exorbitant damages, left them with a deep-rooted loathing for each other, and begot vengeance.Many historians today say the Battle of Shanghai nurtured the psychological conditions for Japanese soldiers to go on a berserk rampage in Nanking later on.A sergeant from the Amadani Detachment of Japan's 11th Division, for instance, described what he saw when the unit made a landing at Wusong on September 3. His postwar memoirs partly read:I crawled up onto the embankment at Wusong and beheld the sight of perdition. It was brutal. A bloodbath in the battlefield of Ashura [a demon who is eternally fighting] couldn't have been merciless like this. As far as my eyes could see, there was corpse after corpse on top of the embankment, heaps of which covered the entire ground.The bodies of thousands of soldiers were all piled up in a jumble just like blue-fin tuna in a market. A nauseating stench of death assailed my nostrils. This was what had become of the officers and men of the 3rd Division from Nagoya.... They must have been mowed down the moment they landed. These soldiers must have died without knowing what was happening to them....Due to the decay of the internal organs, all the bodies were in ferment and swollen up, and the soft parts of the bodies had gushed out by pressure, such as the eyeballs bulging five or six centimeters [about 2 inches] out of their faces.The fierce battle in Shanghai ended in mid-November when a successful landing of Japan's 10th Army at Hangzhou Bay in the south, and of the 16th Division at Baimaokou in the north, threatened the Chinese forces' flank and forced them to withdraw to the west. The General Staff Headquarters in Tokyo, which had been concerned about the exhausted troops and their declining military discipline, decided not to expand the war front any further.Japanese troops marching toward Nanking. However, on November 19, the 10th Army led by Lieutenant General Yanagawa Heisuke cabled to the Headquarters, "The group [the 10th Army] commanded [its troops] to put on a spurt in pursuit [of the retreating Chinese] to Nanking."The second in command of General Staff, Lieutenant General Tada Shun, was surprised to receive the message. He immediately ordered a stop to the arbitrary act, which turned out to be of no avail.Three days later, the Central China Area Army (CCAA) that supervised the 10th Army also sent a report that emphasized the necessity to attack Nanking. On December 1, 1937, the Imperial Headquarters, which had just been established as the highest authority on strategic matters in the "China Incident" in late November, finally ordered the CCAA to capture "the capital of the enemy state."Meanwhile the Imperial Headquarters reappointed General Matsui Iwane as the commander-in-chief of the Central China Area Army and newly appointed Lieutenant General Prince Asaka Yasuhiko, Emperor Hirohito's uncle, to take command of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force that made up the CCAA along with the 10th Army.From Shanghai to NankingWhen the Imperial Headquarters gave ex post facto, or retroactive, approval to the CCAA on December 1, 1937, both the 10th Army and the Shanghai Expeditionary Force had already been marching westward, heading for the capital city of Nanking, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) northwest of Shanghai.As yet, there was no declaration of war, for Japan feared that such a declaration would activate the Neutrality Act of the United States, which would unavoidably result in a suspension of trade on raw materials for munitions and other war supplies. The ambiguity of the war aim and the unexpected expansion of the conflict made the Japanese troops restless both physically and mentally.Japanese troops heading toward Nanking. The CCAA held a number of army reserves who had wives and families back home. When the prolonged battle of Shanghai was finally over, those exhausted soldiers had hoped of going home.When ordered to advance westward instead of crossing the Sea of Japan, the Imperial Army soldiers began wreaking their inflamed animosities on Chinese soldiers and civilians throughout their march to Nanking, which, according to many historians, was a prelude to the massive atrocities that would later take place in Nanking.In his memoirs, journalist Matsumoto Shigeharu, the Shanghai bureau chief of Domei News Agency, recalled a circulating rumor among his colleagues. "The reason that the Yanagawa Corps [the 10th Army] is advancing [to Nanking] quite rapidly is due to the tacit consent among the officers and men that they could loot and rape as they wish."A novelist, Ishikawa Tatsuzo, vividly described how the 16th Division of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force committed atrocities on the march between Shanghai and Nanking in his fictional novel, Ikiteiru Heitai [Living Soldiers], for which he interviewed the troops in the vanquished city in January 1938 (see alsoThe Reign of Terror I: What Japanese Journalists Witnessed).The Imperial Army swiftly rushed toward the ancient city in parallel formation. By December 8, columns of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force and the 10th Army converged from the east and south, taking over the pivotal Chinese defense.On December 9, while its troops surrounding the walled city, Japanese airplanes dropped leaflets to urge China's Defense Commander Tang Sheng-chi to capitulate within 24 hours. The leaflet was written under the name of the commander-in-chief of the Central China Area Army, General Matsui Iwane, in both Japanese and Chinese. Part of it read:The Japanese Army would be kind and generous to innocent civilians and to Chinese troops with no sign of enmity, but would be relentlessly enraged by those who resist. If we do not receive any response by the deadline, the Japanese Army has no choice but begin attacking Nanking.Japanese troops entering the suburbs of Nanking. General Tang rejected the ultimatum by commanding his troops to throw in their lots with the city and by forbidding them to retreat.Meanwhile, remaining Westerners in the walled city, who had created the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, also contacted Tang and suggested a plan for three-day cease-fire, during which the Chinese troops could withdraw without fighting while the Japanese troops would stay in their present position (see also The Reign of Terror II: The Safety Zone and American Missionaries).Tang agreed with this proposal if the International Committee could acquire permission of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who had already fled to Hankow where he temporarily shifted the military headquarters two days earlier.A German businessman and the chairman of the International Committee, John Rabe, boarded the U.S. gunboat Panay on Dec. 9 and sent two telegrams, one to Chiang Kai-shek by way of the American ambassador in Hankow, and one to the Japanese military authority in Shanghai. The next day he was informed that Chiang Kai-shek, who once ordered Nanking be defended "to the last man," had refused to accept the proposal.At around 12 o'clock on December 10, outside of Zhongshan Gate in the eastern wall, a senior officer on the Japanese general staff, Colonel Muto Akira, and others were waiting for a Chinese envoy. If the Nanking Defense Army was to accept Japan's "exhortation of capitulation," the envoy should appear at the gate at noon."I felt personally responsible because I translated it, so I was hoping to see an envoy with a flag of truce," translator Okada was quoted as saying by a historian, "but no one showed up even ten minutes past noon." At one o'clock, Matsui commanded his troops to launch an all-out attack on the walled city of Nanking.
南京大屠殺The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of
Nanking, was a mass murder and war rape that occurred during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanking (Nanjing), the former capital of the Republic of China, on December 13, 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. During this period, hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army.[1][2]Widespread rape and looting also occurred.[3][4] Historians and witnesses have estimated that 250,000 to 300,000 people were killed.[5] Several of the key perpetrators of the atrocities, at the time labelled as war crimes, were later tried and found guilty at the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal, and were subsequently executed. Another key perpetrator, Prince Asaka, a member of theImperial Family, escaped prosecution by having earlier been granted immunity by the Allies.The event remains a contentious political issue, as various aspects of it have been disputed by some historical revisionists and Japanese nationalists,[2] who have claimed that the massacre has been either exaggerated or wholly fabricated for propaganda purposes. As a result of the nationalist efforts to deny or rationalize the war crimes, the controversy surrounding the massacre remains a stumbling block in Sino-Japanese relations, as well as Japanese relations with other Asia-Pacific nations such as South Korea and the Philippines.An accurate estimation of the death toll in the massacre has not been achieved because most of the Japanese military records on the killings were deliberately destroyed or kept secret shortly after the surrender of Japan in 1945. The International Military Tribunal of the Far East estimates more than 200,000 casualties in the incident;[6] China's official estimate is about 300,000 casualties, based on the evaluation of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal. Estimates from Japanese historians vary widely, in the vicinity of 40,000–200,000. Some historical revisionists even deny that a widespread, systematic massacre occurred at all, claiming that any deaths were either justified militarily, accidental or isolated incidents of unauthorized atrocities. These revisionists claim that the characterization of the incident as a large-scale, systematic massacre was fabricated for the purpose of political propaganda.[7][8]Although the Japanese government has admitted to the acts of killing of a large number of noncombatants, looting and other violence committed by the Imperial Japanese Army after the fall of Nanking,[9][10] a small but vocal minority within both the Japanese government and society have argued that the death toll was military in nature and that no such crimes ever occurred. Denial of the massacre (and a divergent array of revisionist accounts of the killings) has become a staple of Japanese nationalism.[11] In Japan, public opinion of the massacres varies, and few deny the occurrence of the massacre outright.[11] Nonetheless, recurring attempts bynegationists to promote a revisionist history of the incident have created controversy that periodically reverberates in the international media, particularly in China, South Korea, and otherEast Asian nations.[12]In 1937, the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun and its sister newspaper the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun covered a "contest" between two Japanese officers, Toshiaki Mukai (向井敏明) and Tsuyoshi Noda (野田毅), both from Island troops, the Japanese 16th Division, in which the two men were described as vying with one another to be the first to kill 100 people with a sword before the capture of Nanking. From Jurong to Tangshan (two cities in Jiangshu Province, China), Toshiaki Mukai had killed 89 people while Tsuyoshi Noda had killed 78 people. The contest continued because neither of them had killed 100 people. When they got to Zijin Mountain, Tsuyoshi Noda had killed 105 people while Toshiaki Mukai killed 106 people. Both officers supposedly surpassed their goal during the heat of battle, making it impossible to determine which officer had actually won the contest. Therefore (according to the journalists Asami Kazuo and Suzuki Jiro, writing in the Tokyo Nichi-Nichi Shimbun of December 13), they decided to begin another contest, with the aim being 150 kills.[36] The Nichi Nichi headline of the story of December 13 read "'Incredible Record' [in the Contest to] Behead 100 People—Mukai 106 – 105 Noda—Both 2nd Lieutenants Go Into Extra Innings".After Japan surrendered, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda were arrested and executed by shooting in Nanking with the criminal charge “Civilized Public Enemy”.[37]Photo taken in Xuzhou, showing the body of a woman profaned in a similar way to the teenager described in case 5 of John Magee's movie.Case 5 of John Magee's film: on December 13, 1937, about 30 Japanese soldiers murdered all but 2 Chinese of 11 in the house at No. 5 Xinlukou. A woman and her two teenage daughters were raped, and Japanese soldiers rammed a bottle and a caneinto her vagina. An eight-year-old girl was stabbed but she and her younger sister survived. They were found alive two weeks after the killings by an elderly woman shown in the photo. Bodies of the victims can also be seen in the photo.[38][39]The International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated that 20,000 women were raped, including infants and the elderly.[40] A large portion of these rapes were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped.[41] The women were often killed immediately after being raped, often through explicit mutilation[42] or by stabbing a bayonet, long stick of bamboo, or other objects into the vagina. Young children were not exempt from these atrocities, and were cut open to allow Japanese soldiers to rape them.[43]On 19 December 1937, Reverend James M. McCallum wrote in his diary:I know not where to end. Never I have heard or read such brutality. Rape! Rape! 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 ... People are hysterical ... Women are being carried off every morning, afternoon and evening. The whole Japanese army seems to be free to go and come as it pleases, and to do whatever it pleases.[44]On March 7, 1938, Robert O. Wilson, a surgeon at the American-administered University Hospital in the Safety Zone, wrote in a letter to his family, "a conservative estimate of people slaughtered in cold blood is somewhere about 100,000, including of course thousands of soldiers that had thrown down their arms".[45]Here are two excerpts from his letters of 15 and 18 December 1937 to his family:The slaughter of civilians is appalling. I could go on for pages telling of cases of rape and brutality almost beyond belief. Two bayoneted corpses are the only survivors of seven street cleaners who were sitting in their headquarters when Japanese soldiers came in without warning or reason and killed five of their number and wounded the two that found their way to the hospital.Let me recount some instances occurring in the last two days. Last night the house of one of the Chinese staff members of the university was broken into and two of the women, his relatives, were raped. Two girls, about 16, were raped to death in one of the refugee camps. In the University Middle School where there are 8,000 people the Japs came in ten times last night, over the wall, stole food, clothing, and raped until they were satisfied. They bayoneted one little boy of eight who have [sic] five bayonet wounds including one that penetrated his stomach, a portion of omentum was outside the abdomen. I think he will live.[46]In his diary kept during the aggression against the city and its occupation by the Imperial Japanese Army, the leader of the Safety Zone, John Rabe, wrote many comments about Japanese atrocities. For 17 December:Two Japanese soldiers have climbed over the garden wall and are about to break into our house. When I appear they give the excuse that they saw two Chinese soldiers climb over the wall. When I show them my party badge, they return the same way. In one of the houses in the narrow street behind my garden wall, a woman was raped, and then wounded in the neck with a bayonet. I managed to get an ambulance so we can take her to Kulou Hospital ... Last night up to 1,000 women and girls are said to have been raped, about 100 girls at Ginling College Girls alone. You hear nothing but rape. If husbands or brothers intervene, they're shot. What you hear and see on all sides is the brutality and bestiality of the Japanese soldiers.[47]There are also accounts of Japanese troops forcing families to commit acts of incest.[48] Sons were forced to rape their mothers, fathers were forced to rape daughters. One pregnant woman who was gang-raped by Japanese soldiers gave birth only a few hours later; although the baby appeared to be physically unharmed (Robert B. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun). Monks who had declared a life of celibacy were also forced to rape women.A boy killed by a Japanese soldier with the butt of a rifle, because he did not take off his hat.Following the capture of Nanking, a massacre was perpetrated by the Japanese army, which led to the deaths, estimated by several, of over 250,000 residents in the city, a figure difficult to calculate precisely due to the many bodies deliberately burnt, buried in mass graves, or deposited in the Yangtze River by the IJA.[49][50][51] Japanese ultra-nationalists have strongly disputed such death tolls, with some stating that only several hundred civilians were killed during the massacre.[52] B. Campbell, in an article published in the journal Sociological Theory, has described the Nanking Massacre as a genocide considering the fact that the residents were still unilaterally killed in masses during the aftermath, despite the successful and certain outcome in battle.[53] On 13 December 1937, John Rabe wrote in his diary:It is not until we tour the city that we learn the extent of destruction. We come across corpses every 100 to 200 yards. The bodies of civilians that I examined had bullet holes in their backs. These people had presumably been fleeing and were shot from behind. The Japanese march through the city in groups of ten to twenty soldiers and loot the shops (...) I watched with my own eyes as they looted the café of our German baker Herr Kiessling. Hempel's hotel was broken into as well, as almost every shop on Chung Shang and Taiping Road.[54]On 10 February 1938, Legation Secretary of the German Embassy, Rosen, wrote to his Foreign Ministry about a film made in December by Reverend John Magee to recommend its purchase. Here is an excerpt from his letter and a description of some of its shots, kept in the Political Archives of the Foreign Ministry in Berlin.During the Japanese reign of terror in Nanking – which, by the way, continues to this day to a considerable degree – the Reverend John Magee, a member of the American Episcopal Church Mission who has been here for almost a quarter of a century, took motion pictures that eloquently bear witness to the atrocities committed by the Japanese .... One will have to wait and see whether the highest officers in the Japanese army succeed, as they have indicated, in stopping the activities of their troops, which continue even today.[55]On December 13, about 30 soldiers came to a Chinese house at #5 Hsing Lu Koo in the southeastern part of Nanking, and demanded entrance. The door was open by the landlord, aMohammedan named Ha. They killed him immediately with a revolver and also Mrs. Ha, who knelt before them after Ha's death, begging them not to kill anyone else. Mrs. Ha asked them why they killed her husband and they shot her. Mrs. Hsia was dragged out from under a table in the guest hall where she had tried to hide with her 1 year old baby. After being stripped and raped by one or more men, she was bayoneted in the chest, and then had a bottle thrust into her vagina. The baby was killed with a bayonet. Some soldiers then went to the next room, where Mrs. Hsia's parents, aged 76 and 74, and her two daughters aged 16 and 14. They were about to rape the girls when the grandmother tried to protect them. The soldiers killed her with a revolver. The grandfather grasped the body of his wife and was killed. The two girls were then stripped, the elder being raped by 2–3 men, and the younger by 3. The older girl was stabbed afterwards and a cane was rammed in her vagina. The younger girl was bayoneted also but was spared the horrible treatment that had been meted out to her sister and mother. The soldiers then bayoneted another sister of between 7–8, who was also in the room. The last murders in the house were of Ha's two children, aged 4 and 2 respectively. The older was bayoneted and the younger split down through the head with a sword.[56]Pregnant women were a target of murder, as they would often be bayoneted in the stomach, sometimes after rape. Tang Junshan, survivor and witness to one of the Japanese army’s systematic mass killings, testified:The seventh and last person in the first row was a pregnant woman. The soldier thought he might as well rape her before killing her, so he pulled her out of the group to a spot about ten meters away. As he was trying to rape her, the woman resisted fiercely ... The soldier abruptly stabbed her in the belly with a bayonet. She gave a final scream as her intestines spilled out. Then the soldier stabbed the fetus, with its umbilical cord clearly visible, and tossed it aside.[57]According to Navy veteran Sho Mitani, 'The Army used a trumpet sound that meant "Kill all Chinese who run away"'.[58] Thousands were led away and mass-executed in an excavation known as the "Ten-Thousand-Corpse Ditch", a trench measuring about 300m long and 5m wide. Since records were not kept, estimates regarding the number of victims buried in the ditch range from 4,000 to 20,000. However, most scholars and historians consider the number to be more than 12,000 victims.[59]
Extrajudicial killing of Chinese POWs
On August 6, 1937, Hirohito had personally ratified his army's proposition to remove the constraints of international law on the treatment of Chinese prisoners. This directive also advised staff officers to stop using the term "prisoner of war".[60]A Chinese POW about to be beheaded by a Japanese officer with ashin gunto during the Nanking Massacre.Immediately after the fall of the city, Japanese troops embarked on a determined search for former soldiers, in which thousands of young men were captured. Many were taken to theYangtze River, where they were machine-gunned. What was probably the single largest massacre of Chinese troops occurred along the banks of the Yangtze River on December 18 in what is called the Straw String Gorge Massacre. Japanese soldiers took most of the morning tying all of the POWs hands together and in the dusk divided them into 4 columns, and opened fire at them. Unable to escape, the POWs could only scream and thrash in desperation. It took an hour for the sounds of death to stop, and even longer for the Japanese to bayonet each individual. Most were dumped into the Yangtze. It is estimated that at least 57,500 Chinese POWs were killed.[citation needed]The Japanese troops gathered 1,300 Chinese soldiers and civilians at Taiping Gate and killed them. The victims were blown up with landmines, then doused with petrol before being set on fire. Those that were left alive afterward were killed with bayonets.[61] F. Tillman Durdin andArchibald Steele, American news correspondents, reported that they had seen bodies of killed Chinese soldiers forming mounds six feet high at the Nanking Yijiang gate in the north. Durdin, who was working for the New York Times, made a tour of Nanking before his departure from the city. He heard waves of machine-gun fire and witnessed the Japanese soldiers gun down some two hundred Chinese within ten minutes. Two days later, in his report to the New York Times, he stated that the alleys and street were filled with civilian bodies, including women and children.[62]According to a testimony delivered by missionary Ralph L. Phillips to the U.S. State Assembly Investigating Committee, he was "forced to watch while the Japs disembowled a Chinese soldier" and "roasted his heart and liver and ate them".[63]
Theft and arson
One-third of the city was destroyed as a result of arson. According to reports, Japanese troops torched newly built government buildings as well as the homes of many civilians. There was considerable destruction to areas outside the city walls. Soldiers pillaged from the poor and the wealthy alike. The lack of resistance from Chinese troops and civilians in Nanking meant that the Japanese soldiers were free to divide up the city's valuables as they saw fit. This resulted in the widespread looting and burglary.[64]On 17 December, John Rabe wrote as chairman a complaint to Kiyoshi Fukui, second secretary of the Japanese Embassy. The following is an excerpt:In other words, on the 13th when your troops entered the city, we had nearly all the civilian population gathered in a Zone in which there had been very little destruction by stray shells and no looting by Chinese soldiers even in full retreat ... All 27 Occidentals in the city at that time and our Chinese population were totally surprised by the reign of robbery, raping and killing initiated by your soldiers on the 14th. All we are asking in our protest is that you restore order among your troops and get the normal city life going as soon as possible. In the latter process we are glad to cooperate in any way we can. But even last night between 8 and 9 p.m. when five Occidentals members of our staff and Committee toured the Zone to observe conditions, we did not find any single Japanese patrol either in the Zone or at the entrances![65]
Nanking Safety Zone and the role of foreigners
The Japanese troops did respect the Zone to an extent; no shells entered that part of the city leading up to the Japanese occupation except a few stray shots. During the chaos following the attack of the city, some were killed in the Safety Zone, but the crimes that took place in the rest of the city were far greater by all accounts.The Japanese soldiers committed actions in the Safety Zone that were part of the larger Nanking Massacre. The International Committee appealed a number of times to the Japanese army, withJohn Rabe using his credentials as a Nazi Party member, but to no avail. Rabe wrote that from time to time the Japanese would enter the Safety Zone at will, carry off a few hundred men and women, and either summarily execute them or rape and then kill them.[66]By February 5, 1938, the International Committee had forwarded to the Japanese embassy a total of 450 cases of murder, rape, and general disorder by Japanese soldiers that had been reported after the American, British and German diplomats had returned to their embassies.[67]"Case 5- On the night of December 14th, there were many cases of Japanese soldiers entering houses and raping women or taking them away. This created panic in the area and hundreds of women moved into the Ginling College campus yesterday."[67]"Case 10- On the night of December 15th, a number of Japanese soldiers entered the University of Nanking buildings at Tao Yuen and raped 30 women on the spot, some by six men."[67]"Case 13 – December 18, 4 p.m., at No. 18 I Ho Lu, Japanese soldiers wanted a man's cigarette case and when he hesitated, one of the soldier crashed in the side of his head with a bayonet. The man is now at the University Hospital and is not expected to live."[67]"Case 14 – On December 16, seven girls (ages ranged from 16 to 21) were taken away from the Military College. Five returned. Each girl was raped six or seven times daily- reported December 18th."[67]"Case 15 – There are about 540 refugees crowded in #83 and 85 on Canton Road... More than 30 women and girls have been raped. The women and children are crying all nights. Conditions inside the compound are worse than we can describe. Please give us help."[67]"Case 16- A Chinese girl named Loh, who, with her mother and brother, was living in one of the Refugee Centers in the Refugee Zone, was shot through the head and killed by a Japanese soldier. The girl was 14 years old. The incident occurred near the Kuling Ssu, a noted temple on the border of the Refugee zone (...)"[67]"Case 19 – January 30th, about 5 p.m. Mr. Sone (of the Nanking Theological Seminary) was greeted by several hundred women pleading with him that they would not have to go home on February 4th. They said it was no use going home they might just as well be killed for staying at the camp as to be raped, robbed or killed at home. (...) One old woman 62 years old went home near Hansimen and Japanese soldiers came at night and wanted to rape her. She said she was too old. So the soldiers rammed a stick up her. But she survived to come back."[67]It is said that Rabe rescued between 200,000 – 250,000 Chinese people.[68] [69]
Causes
Jonathan Spence writes "there is no obvious explanation for this grim event, nor can one be found. The Japanese soldiers, who had expected easy victory, instead had been fighting hard for months and had taken infinitely higher casualties than anticipated. They were bored, angry, frustrated, tired. The Chinese women were undefended, their menfolk powerless or absent. The war, still undeclared, had no clear-cut goal or purpose. Perhaps all Chinese, regardless of sex or age, seemed marked out as victims."[70]
Nanjing 1912 is like the Xintiandi in Shanghai.
THE Chinese character jing, meaning "capital city," is now used in the names of only two cities in China: one is Beijing, today’s capital city, and the other one is Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province in the south. Other ancient capitals such as Xi’an and Luoyang are no longer called jing because of historic changes. (Nanjing is literally “southern capital,” while Beijing is “northern capital.”)As the only other city honored with jing in its name, Nanjing has a long and prosperous history as China’s onetime capital city and a flourishing cultural heritage.During the Three Kingdoms (220-280), Sun Quan of the Wu Kingdom relocated his capital to Jianye, today’s Nanjing, in AD 229. Since then, the city has always been at least an economic and cultural center for southern China.After the Three Kingdoms, several dynasties such as Jin (265-420), Southern Dynasty (420-589), Ming (1368-1644) — before it relocated the capital to Beijing — and the Republic of China (1912-49) chose the city on the Yangtze River to be the political center.While Nanjing lost its spot as the most important city in China, economic and industrial development has changed it into a modern city. With the Second Asian Youth Games being held in the city this month, starting on August 16, many visitors will get a chance to see its modern stadium and infrastructure. However, historic sites in Nanjing and their cultural influence still remain a great attraction of this ancient city.Qinhuai RiverIf you want to start the trip around Nanjing from its most prosperous spot, Qinhuai River is the place. As Nanjing’s mother river, Qinhuai River is the birthplace of its economy, culture and history.Starting with the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420), the banks along the Qinhuai River were the place that the most powerful and noble families in the city and the whole country lived. Countless commercial boats sailed along the river, many scholars and poets gathered there, and lanterns of big mansions on its bank glowed all night long. The river soon became the most prosperous and bustling place in China. The Wang and the Xie families were among the prominent who lived there. Many spots along the river got their names from them. For example, Taoye Du (Taoye Ferry) got its name from a concubine of Wang Xizhi, the greatest calligrapher in Chinese history.During the dynasties of the Ming as well as the Qing (1644-1911), Qinhuai River reached its peak. A famous red-light district was established along the river. The Confucius Temple was built on the busiest spot along the river, as was Jiangnan Examination Hall, the largest hall for imperial examinations in ancient China. During that time, painted boats with red lanterns shuttled along the river, attracting many writers to pay a visit here and create poems about the luxurious life and the beauties on the river.Today, the area along Qinhuai River is still one of the busiest commercial areas in the city. The streets around the Confucius Temple have become a colorful pedestrian area where local people and visitors can buy all kinds of products and souvenirs. A cruise along the Qinhuai River, especially at night, is a must-try activity in Nanjing. Stepping into a painted boat — similar to the ancient ones dating back hundreds of years ago, is like stepping into history itself. Stages are built along the river bank, on which Peking Opera and traditional Chinese dance are performed.For a Chinese visitor, the journey can be overwhelming as all the poems and stories learned about the old days suddenly come to life. The city walls, ancient bridges and gardens are almost the same as they used to be hundreds years ago, exactly like what Chinese ancestors used to see.But looking up, tall buildings with modern restaurants, cafes and bars appear as a backdrop to the ancient river, creating mixed feelings of old and new.Ming Xiaoling MausoleumZhu Yuanzhang (1328-1398), the Emperor Hongwu, first emperor of Ming Dynasty, was the most influential emperor in Nanjing’s history as China’s capital. He chose scenic Zhongshan (Zhong Mountain), only 5 kilometers from today’s downtown Nanjing, as the place he would rest after his death.Departing from the city center, it takes only about 20 minutes to reach the forests of Zhongshan. With the 600-year-old city wall (also built by Zhu Yuanzhang) on one side of the road and tall pine trees on the other, the trip to Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum itself was relaxing and refreshing. Meihua Mountain (Plum Blossom Mountain), near Ming Xiaoling and inside the Zhongshan Hill Scenic Area, is one of the most popular places in China to enjoy spring plum blossoms from February to March, offering its natural beauty to the emperor’s final resting place all year long.After entering the serene entrance of Ming Xiaoling, I found myself standing in front of the 1,800-meter-long Shendao, or Sacred Way. All the other sacred ways in Chinese emperors’ mausoleums are straight and direct, but the one in Ming Xiaoling has a curving shape, looking like a large “C” and divided into two parts, the Elephant Road and the Wengzhong Road. The reason for the deviation from the common standard goes back some 1,700 years: it was built around the tomb of the city’s first emperor, Sun. Zhu Yuanzhang decided not to follow the principle when he built his own tomb, in order to show respect to Sun Quan, who he regarded as a hero. So today, whoever wants to visit Ming Xiaoling must pass Sun’s tomb first.Twelve pairs of six kinds of animals — lions, xiezhi (mythological animals with a lion’s body and sometimes a unicorn-like horn), camels, elephants, qilin (mythical hooved creatures) and horses, and four pairs of ministers and generals, all carved from enormous stones — guard the way to the emperor’s tomb. Their simple lines and serene expressions create a quiet and majestic mood.Many buildings in Ming Xiaoling, such as the main Sacrificial Hall, were destroyed in the wars during Taiping Rebellion and rebuilt in the late Qing Dynasty and modern times. According to the stone foundation from the Ming Dynasty that is still visible, what we can see today covers less than one fourth of the original buildings. Fortunately, the 16-meter-tall wall in front of the tomb is still well kept after 600 years.Climbing onto the top of the wall, which has a similar structure to the city walls in Nanjing, visitors can get a bird’s-eye view of the whole area. Take a deep breath of the fresh air and look back to the mountain at the trees. Zhu Yuanzhang was buried under those trees, deep in the mountain.Since the city suffered from times of war from the late Qing Dynasty to the middle of the 20th century, many historic sites in Nanjing were burned to ground and no longer exist. The most important evidence of the historic capital city might be its city walls and the tomb of Zhu Yuanzhang and his empress, never opened or even touched in more than 600 years. The Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.The Presidential PalaceThe Presidential Palace in Nanjing is a unique place in China’s mainland where the history of Republic of China and Kuomintang is displayed. Entering the palace is also like entering a special time capsule, in which a very long and turbulent time in Chinese history is preserved.In the Ming Dynasty, two dukes’ palaces were built on the location of the palace, then in the Qing Dynasty, the palace was used as the official government building of Liangjiang Zongdu, or the governor of Liangjiang, who was in charge of today’s Jiangsu, Anhui and Jiangxi provinces — the richest part in China. When the Taiping rebels captured Nanjing in 1853, the palace was made into the Palace of Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan. After the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, Dr Sun Yat-sen was sworn in here as the provisional president of the Republic of China. He and Chiang Kai-shek both worked here as president.With all the changes the palace has witnessed in more than 600 years, every spot there has a story to tell. The central area covers 90,000 square meters, including the government office building, the presidential office, the residential area of the president and the gardens. You can easily spend a whole day wandering in the palace if you want to see everything here.The palace, with its large square structure, light color and simple decoration, exudes an elegant vibe. Its appearance during the Ming and Qing dynasties cannot be seen since almost everything in the palace is kept in a strong minguo (Republic of China) style. The wide stone stairs in the building, the old elevator, the large meeting rooms decorated with old-style armchairs, even the tea cups on the tables are true to the way they were almost 100 years ago. The Flag of the Republic of China is displayed in many rooms, which is rare in China’s mainland.Since it was the last time Nanjing was the capital city of China, the Republic of China period has greater influence on this city than any other in China’s mainland. It has many republic period buildings and some of its main streets were built during that time. The Presidential Palace is the best representative of the period.
While it is clear that the Japanese played great hosts to the Jewish refugees in Kobe, it is less obvious that exceptional treatment of the Jews was no accident. Beyond the simple compassion of the general public, the government had far more calculated reasons for begin to hospitable to the Jews. First, there was a feeling of indebtedness to the Jewish people, as the financier of theRusso-Japanese War was a Jewish New York banker by the name of Jacob Schiff. Japan needed money to fight the war in 1904, and few banks in Europe were willing to take such a risky venture. No one thought Japan had a chance to defeat Russia, a major Western power. Schiff, however, agreed to grant Japan loans that amounted to over $200 million, when no one else would help.[4]This money led to Japan's victory and after the war, Schiff was treated like a hero in Japan and became the first foreigner to receive the Order of the Rising Sun from the emperor.[5] Therefore, the Japanese already had a quite favorable impression of Jews, as Schiff was a symbol of international Jewish wealth and power and the Japanese felt indebted to him.
The area comprises the present-day Russian areas ofPrimorsky Krai, southern Khabarovsk Krai, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast and Amur Oblast. Another Chinese claim also adds the island of Sakhalin.
His escalation of anti-Jewish policies sought to ignite "popular antisemitism", which portrayed the Jews as "Christ-killers" and the oppressors of the Slavic, Christian victims.
Joseph Trumpeldor, the most decorated Jewish soldier in theImperial Russian Army for his bravery in the Russo-Japanese War
Victim of fanaticism. Painting by Nikolay Pimonenko. 1899. The painting does not depict a pogrom, but actually documents an event in Ukraine, that the artist read about: a Jewish woman was attacked by members of her (Jewish) community for falling in love with a Christian convert. The townspeople are raising sticks and objects, and her parents are shown to the right, denouncing her.
Lenin was supported by the Labor Zionist (Poale Zion) movement, then under the leadership of Marxist theorist Ber Borochov, which was fighting for the creation of a Jewish workers' state in Palestine and also participated in the October Revolution (and in the Soviet political scene afterwards until being banned by Stalin in 1928). While Lenin remained opposed to outward forms of antisemitism (and all forms of racism), allowing Jewish people to rise to the highest offices in both party and state, certain historians such as Dmitri Volkogonov argue that the record of his government in this regard was highly uneven. A former official Soviet historian (turned staunch anti-communist), Volkogonov claims that Lenin was aware of pogroms carried out by units of the Red Army during the war with Poland, particularly those carried out by Semyon Budyonny's troops,[38] though the whole issue was effectively ignored. Volkogonov writes that "While condemning anti-Semitism in general, Lenin was unable to analyze, let alone eradicate, its prevalence in Soviet society".[39] Likewise, the hostility of the Soviet regime towards all religion made no exception for Judaism, and the 1921 campaign against religion saw the seizure of many synagogues (whether this should be regarded as antisemitism is a matter of definition—since Orthodox churches received the same treatment).
Yet, according to Jewish historian Zvi Gitelman: "Never before in Russian history—and never subsequently has a government made such an effort to uproot and stamp out antisemitism."[40]
At the same time, the economic position of the Jewish population in USSR was not good. Soviet laws offered hardly any economic independence to artisans, and none whatever to traders. For many Jewish artisans and tradesmen, Soviet policies led to loss of their property and trade.
According to the census of 1926, total number of Jews in USSR was 2,672,398—of whom 59% lived in Ukrainian SSR, 15,2% in Byelorussian SSR, 22% in Russian SFSR and 3,8% in other Soviet republics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast
In 1897 General Jewish Labour Bund (The Bund), was formed. Many Jews joined the ranks of two principal revolutionary parties: Socialist-Revolutionary Party and Russian Social Democratic Labour Party—both Bolshevik and Menshevikfactions. A notable number of Bolshevik party members were ethnically Jewish, especially in the leadership of the party, and the percentage of Jewish party members among the rival Mensheviks was even higher. Both the founders and leaders of Menshevik faction, Julius Martov and Pavel Axelrod were Jewish.
Because some of the leading Bolsheviks were ethnic Jews, and Bolshevism supports a policy of promoting international proletarian revolution—most notably in the case of Leon Trotsky—many enemies of Bolshevism, as well as contemporary antisemites, draw a picture of Communism as a political slur at Jews and accuse Jews of pursuing Bolshevism to benefit Jewish interests, reflected in the terms "Jewish Bolshevism" or "Judeo-Bolshevism".[citation needed] The original atheistic andinternationalistic ideology of the Bolsheviks (See proletarian internationalism, bourgeois nationalism) was incompatible with Jewish traditionalism. Bolsheviks such as Trotsky echoed sentiments dismissing Jewish heritage in place of "internationalism".
Soon after seizing power, the Bolsheviks established the Yevsektsiya, the Jewish section of the Communist party in order to destroy the rival Bund and Zionist parties, suppress Judaism and replace traditional Jewish culture with "proletarian culture".[26]
| Jewish Autonomous Oblast | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Еврейская автономная область (Russian) | |||
| — Autonomous oblast — | |||
| |||
 | |||
| Coordinates: 48°36′N 132°12′ECoordinates: 48°36′N 132°12′E | |||
| Political status | |||
| Country | Russia | ||
| Federal district | Far Eastern[1] | ||
| Economic region | Far Eastern[2] | ||
| Established | May 7, 1934[3] | ||
In 1928, there was virtually no settlement in the area, while Jews had deep roots in the western half of the Soviet Union, in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia proper. In fact, there had initially been proposals to create a Jewish Soviet Republic in the Crimea or in part of Ukraine but these were rejected because of fears of antagonizing non-Jews in those regions.
In 1932 the first scheduled figures of the region development were considered and authorized.[by whom?][29] The Organization for Jewish Colonisation in the Soviet Union, a Jewish Communist organization in North America, successfully encouraged the immigration of some US residents, such as the family of George Koval, which arrived in 1932.[31]
On May 7, 1934, the Presidium of the General Executive Committee accepted the decree on its transformation into the Jewish Autonomous Region within the Russian Federation. In 1938, with formation of the Khabarovsk Territory, the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR) was included in its structure.[29]
According to Joseph Stalin's national policy, each of the national groups that formed the Soviet Union would receive a territory in which to pursue cultural autonomy in a socialist framework. In that sense, it also responded to two supposed threats to the Soviet state:
- Judaism, which ran counter to official state policy of atheism
- Zionism — the advocacy of a Jewish national state in Palestine — which countered Soviet views of nationalism.
The Soviets envisaged setting up a new "Soviet Zion", where a proletarianJewish culture could be developed. Yiddish, rather than Hebrew, would be the national language, and a new socialist literature and arts would replace religion as the primary expression of culture.
Stalin's theory on the National Question regarded a group as a nation only if it had a territory, and since there was no Jewish territory, per se, the Jews were not a nation and did not have national rights. Jewish Communists argued that the way to solve this ideological dilemma was by creating a Jewish territory, hence the ideological motivation for the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Politically, it was also considered desirable to create a Soviet Jewish homeland as an ideological alternative to Zionism and the theory put forward by Socialist Zionists such as Ber Borochov that the Jewish Question could be resolved by creating a Jewish territory in Palestine. Thus Birobidzhan was important for propaganda purposes as an argument against Zionism which was a rival ideology to Marxism among left-wing Jews.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin cofounder of 1998 google
given;
 | |
| Type | Public (KRX: 035720) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet |
| Founded | February 12, 1995 |
| Headquarters | Seoul, South Korea |
| Key people | Lee, Jae Woong, (Founder) Choi, Se Hoon (CEO) |
(Given;
Naver Corporation is an Internet content service operator headquartered in Seongnam, South Korea. Established in 1999 as NHN Corporation, it operates the Naver search portal and Hangame gaming services.)
Naver Corporation is an Internet content service operator headquartered in Seongnam, South Korea. Established in 1999 as NHN Corporation, it operates the Naver search portal and Hangame gaming services.)
Soviet Jews took the opportunity of liberalized emigration policies, with over half their population leaving, most for Israel, the United States,Germany, Canada, and Australia.
The Soviet Union and Zionism[edit]
Main article: Soviet Union and the Arab–Israeli conflict
Marxist anti-nationalism and anti-clericalism had a mixed effect on Soviet Jews. Jews were the immediate benefactors, but long-term victims, of the Marxist notion that any manifestation of nationalism is "socially retrogressive". On one hand, Jews were liberated from the religious persecution of the Tsarist years of "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality". On the other, this notion was threatening to Jewish cultural institutions, the Bund, Jewish autonomy, Judaism and Zionism.
Political Zionism was officially stamped out for the entire history of the Soviet Union as a form of bourgeois nationalism. Although Leninism emphasizes "self-determination", this did not make the state more accepting of Zionism. Leninism defines self-determination by territory or culture, but not religion, which allowed Soviet minorities to have separate oblasts, autonomous regions, or republics, which were nonetheless symbolic until its later years. Jews, however, did not fit such a theoretical model; Jews in the Diaspora did not even have an agricultural base, as Stalin often asserted when attempting to deny the existence of a Jewish nation, and certainly no territorial unit. Marxian notions even denied a Jewish identity beyond religion and caste; Marx defined Jews as a "chimerical nation".
Lenin, claiming to be deeply committed to egalitarian ideals and universality of all humanity, rejected Zionism as a reactionary movement, "bourgeois nationalism", "socially retrogressive", and a backward force that deprecates class divisions among Jews. Moreover, Zionism entailed contact between Soviet citizens and westerners, which was dangerous in a closed society. Soviet authorities were likewise fearful of any mass-movement independent of monopolistic Communist Party, and not tied to the state or the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.
Without changing its official anti-Zionist stance, from late 1944 until 1948 Joseph Stalin had adopted a de facto pro-Zionist foreign policy, apparently believing that the new country would be socialist and would speed the decline of British influence in the Middle East.[55]
In a 14 May 1947 speech during the UN Partition Plan debate, published in Izvestiya two days later, the Soviet ambassadorAndrei Gromyko announced:
As we know, the aspirations of a considerable part of the Jewish people are linked with the problem of Palestine and of its future administration. This fact scarcely requires proof... During the last war, the Jewish people underwent exceptional sorrow and suffering...The United Nations cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference, since this would be incompatible with the high principles proclaimed in its Charter...The fact that no Western European State has been able to ensure the defence of the elementary rights of the Jewish people and to safeguard it against the violence of the fascist executioners explains the aspirations of the Jews to establish their own State. It would be unjust not to take this into consideration and to deny the right of the Jewish people to realize this aspiration.[56]
Soviet approval in the United Nations Security Council was critical to the UN partitioning of the British Mandate of Palestine, which led to the founding of the State of Israel. Three days after Israel declared independence, the Soviet Union legally recognized it de jure. In addition, the USSR allowed Czechoslovakia to continue supplying arms to the Jewish forces during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, even though this conflict took place after the Soviet-supported Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948. At the time the U.S. maintained an arms embargo on both sides in the conflict. See Arms shipments from Czechoslovakia to Israel 1947–1949.
By the end of 1957 the USSR switched sides in the Arab–Israeli conflict and throughout the course of the Cold Warunequivocally supported various Arab regimes against Israel. The official position of the Soviet Union and its satellite states and agencies was that Zionism was a tool used by the Jews and Americans for "racist imperialism".
As Israel was emerging as a close Western ally, the specter of Zionism raised fears of internal dissent and opposition. During the later parts of the Cold War, Soviet Jews were suspected of being possible traitors, Western sympathisers, or a security liability. The Communist leadership closed down various Jewish organizations and declared Zionism an ideological enemy. Synagogues were often placed under police surveillance, both openly and through the use of informers.[citation needed]
As a result of the persecution, both state-sponsored and unofficial, antisemitism became deeply ingrained in the society and remained a fact for years: ordinary Soviet Jews often suffered hardships, epitomized by often not being allowed to enlist in universities, work in certain professions, or participate in government. However, it should be mentioned that this was not always the case and this kind of persecution varied depending on the region. Still many Jews felt compelled to hide their identities by changing their names.
The word "Jew" was also avoided in the media when criticising undertakings by Israel, which the Soviets often accused of racism, chauvinism etc. Instead of Jew, the word Israeli was used almost exclusively, so as to paint its harsh criticism not as antisemitism but anti-Zionism. More controversially, the Soviet media, when depicting political events, sometimes used the term 'fascism' to characterise Israeli nationalism (e.g. calling Jabotinsky a 'fascist', and claiming 'new fascist organisations were emerging in Israel in 1970s' etc.).
See also: rootless cosmopolitan, Doctors' plot, Soviet Anti-Zionism, and Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public
Emigration to Israel[edit]
A mass emigration was politically undesirable for the Soviet regime. As increasing number of Soviet Jews applied to emigrate to Israel in the period following the 1967 Six Day War, many were formally refused permission to leave. A typical excuse given by the OVIR (ОВиР), the MVD department responsible for the provisioning of exit visas, was that persons who had been given access at some point in their careers to information vital to Soviet national security could not be allowed to leave the country.
After the Dymshits-Kuznetsov hijacking affair in 1970 and the crackdown that followed, strong international condemnations caused the Soviet authorities to increase the emigration quota. From 1960 to 1970, only 4,000 people left the USSR; in the following decade, the number rose to 250,000.[57]
In 1972 the USSR imposed the so-called "diploma tax" on would-be emigrants who received higher education in the USSR.[58] In some cases, the fee was as high as twenty annual salaries. This measure was possibly designed to combat the brain drain caused by the growing emigration of Soviet Jews and other members of the intelligentsia to the West. Though Jews made up less than 1% of the population, some surveys have suggested that around one-third of the emigranting Jews had achieved some form of higher education. Furthermore, Jews holding positions requiring specialized training tended to be highly concentrated in a small set of specialties, including medicine, mathematics, biology and music.[59] Following international protests, the Kremlin soon revoked the tax, but continued to sporadically impose various limitations.}
At first almost all of those who managed to get exit visas to Israel actually made aliyah, but after the mid-1970s, most of those allowed to leave for Israel actually chose other destinations, most notably the United States. In 1989 a record 71,000 Soviet Jews were granted exodus from the USSR, of whom only 12,117 immigrated to Israel. At first, American policy treated Soviet Jews were refugees and allowed unlimited numbers to emigrate, but this policy eventually came to an end. As a result, more Jews began moving to Israel, as it was the only country willing to take them unconditionally.
In the 1990s, the liberal government of Mikhail Gorbachev allowed unlimited Jewish emigration, and the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1991. As a result, a mass emigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union took place. Since the 1970s, over 1.1 million Russians of Jewish origin immigrated to Israel, of whom 100,000 emigrated to third countries such as the United States and Canada soon afterward and 240,000 were not considered Jewish under Halakha, but were eligible under theLaw of Return due to Jewish ancestry or marriage. Since the adoption of the Jackson–Vanik amendment, over 600,000 Soviet Jews have emigrated.
Russia today[edit]
Jews make up about 0.16% of the total population of Russia, according to the 2002 census. Most Russian Jews are secular and identify themselves as Jews via ethnicity rather than religion, although interest about Jewish identity as well as practice of Jewish tradition amongst Russian Jews is growing. The Lubavitch has been active in this sector, setting up synagogues and Jewish kindergartens in Russian cities with Jewish populations. In addition, most Russian Jews have relatives in Israel.
Since the dissolution of the USSR, democratization in the former USSR has brought with it a good deal of tragic irony for the country's minorities, especially the Jewish population. The absence of Soviet-era repression exposed the remaining Jews to a resurgence of antisemitism in the former Soviet Union. However, there has not been a return to mass antisemitic incidents in Russia or anywhere else throughout the former Soviet Union.
There are several major Jewish organizations in the territories of the former USSR. The central Jewish organization is theFederation of Jewish Communities of the CIS under the leadership of Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar.
A linguistic distinction remains to this day in the Russian language where there are two distinct terms that correspond to the word Jew in English. The word еврей ("yevrey" - Hebrew) typically denotes a Jewish ethnicity, as "Hebrew" did in English up until the early 20th century. The word иудей ("iudey" - Judean, etymologically related to the English Jew) is reserved for denoting a follower of the Jewish religion, whether ethnically Jewish or not; this term has largely fallen out of use in favor of the equivalent term иуданст. For example, according to a 2012 Russian survey, евреи account for only 32.2% of иудансты in Russia, with nearly half (49.8%) being ethnic Russians (русские),[60] although many of these ethnic Russians could be Subbotniks of entirely non-Jewish background. An ethnic slur, жид (borrowed from the Polish Żyd, Jew), also remains in widespread use in Russia.
Antisemitism is one of the most common expressions of xenophobia in post-Soviet Russia, even among some groups of politicians.[61] Despite stipulations against fomenting hatred based on ethnic or religious grounds (Article 282 ofRussian Federation Penal Code),[62] antisemitic pronouncements, speeches and articles are not uncommon in Russia, and there are a large number of antisemitic neo-Nazi groups in the republics of the former Soviet Union, leadingPravda to declare in 2002 that "Anti-Semitism is booming in Russia".[63] Over the past few years there have also been bombs attached to antisemitic signs, apparently aimed at Jews, and other violent incidents, including stabbings, have been recorded.
The government of Vladimir Putin takes an official stand against antisemitism, while some movements parties and groups are explicitly antisemitic. In January 2005, a group of 15 Duma members demanded that Judaism and Jewish organizations be banned from Russia.[64] In June, 500 prominent Russians, including some 20 members of the nationalist Rodina party, demanded that the state prosecutor investigate ancient Jewish texts as "anti-Russian" and ban Judaism. An investigation was in fact launched, but halted after an international outcry.[65][66]
In Russia, both historical and contemporary antisemitic materials are frequently published. For example a set (calledLibrary of a Russian Patriot) consisting of twenty five antisemitic titles was recently published, including Mein Kampftranslated to Russian (2002), which although was banned in 2010,[67] The Myth of Holocaust by Jürgen Graf, a title byDouglas Reed, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and others.
Antisemitic incidents, mostly addressed to extremist and nationalists groups, have ranged from random acts of violence against Jews and vandalism acts against Jewish institutions to the detonation of explosives in Jewish communities. Most of the antisemitic incidents are against Jewish cemeteries and building (community centers and synagogues) such as the assault against the Jewish community's center in Perm on March 2013[68] and the attack on Jewish nursery school in Volgograd on August 2013.[69] Nevertheless there were several violent attacks against Jews in Moscow in 2006 when a neo-Nazi stabbed 9 people at the Bolshaya Bronnaya Synagogue [5]
Attacks against Jews made by extremist Islamic groups are rare in Russia although there has been increase in the scope of the attacks mainly in Muslim populated areas. On July 25, 2013 the rabbi of Derbent was assassinated and badly injured by unknown person near his home, most likely by a terrorist. The incident sparked concerns among the local Jews of further acts against the Jewish community.[70]
After the passage of some anti-gay laws in Russia in 2013 and the incident with the "Pussy-riot" band in 2012 causing a growing criticism on the subject inside and outside Russia a number of verbal anti-Semitic attacks were made against Russian gay activists by extremist leftists activists and anti-Semitic writers such as Israel Shamir who sited the "Pussy-riot" incident as the war of Judaism on the Pravoslavic church.[71][72][73]
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast continues to be an autonomous oblast of the Russian state.[74] The Chief Rabbi ofBirobidzhan, Mordechai Scheiner, says there are 4,000 Jews in the capital city.[75] Governor Nikolay Mikhaylovich Volkovhas stated that he intends to "support every valuable initiative maintained by our local Jewish organizations".[76] TheBirobidzhan Synagogue opened in 2004 on the 70th anniversary of the regions founding in 1934.[77]
Today, the Jewish population of Russia is shrinking due to small family sizes, and high rates of assimilation and intermarriage. This shrinkage has been slowed by some Russian-Jewish emigrants having returned from abroad, especially from Germany. The great majority of up to 90% of children born to a Jewish parent are the offspring of mixed marriages, and most Jews have only one or two children. The majority of Russian Jews live in the Moscow metropolitan area, with another 20% in the Saint Petersburg area, and the rest in large cities with a population of at least 1 million.[78]
Demographic Data for Russian Empire and Soviet Jews[edit]
| Year | Jewish population(including Tats) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1914 | More than 5,250,000 | Russian Empire |
| 1926[79] | 2,672,499 | First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union
A result of border change (secession of Poland and union of Bessarabia with Romania), emigration and assimilation.
|
| 1939[80] | 3,028,538 | A result of natural growth, emigration, assimilation and repressions |
| Early 1941 | 5,400,000 | A result of the annexation of Western Ukraine and Belarus, Baltic republics, and inflow of Jewish refugees from Poland |
| 1959 | 2,279,277 | See the Holocaust and immigration to Israel. |
| 1970 | 2,166,026 | A result of natural population decline (death rates being greater than birth rates), emigration, and assimilation (such as intermarriage) |
| 1979 | 1,830,317 | Decline for the same reason as for 1970 |
| 1989 | 1,479,732 | Soviet Census (1989). Final census in the entire Soviet Union. Decline for the same reason as for 1970. |
| 2000[81] | 460,000 | A result of mass emigration, natural population decline, and assimilation. |
The Jewish population in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast of the Russian Far East as of 2002 is 2,327 (1.22%).
The Bukharan Jews, self-designating as Yahudi, Isroel or Banei Isroel, live mainly in Uzbek cities. The number of Central Asian Jews was around 20,800 in 1959. Before mass emigration, they spoke a dialect of the Tajik language.[82]
The Caucasian Mountain Jews, also known as Tats or Dagchufuts, live mostly in Israel and the United States, with a scattered population in Dagestan andAzerbaijan. In 1959, they numbered around 15,000 in Dagestan and 10,000 in Azerbaijan. Their Tat language is a dialect of Middle Persian.[84]
The Crimean Jews, self-designating as Krymchaks, traditionally lived in theCrimea, numbering around 5,700 in 1897. Due to a famine, a number emigrated to Turkey and the U.S. in the 1920. The remaining population was virtually annihilated in the Holocaust during the Nazi occupation of the Crimea, but Krymchaks re-settled the Crimea after the war, and in 1959, between 1,000 and 1,800 had returned.[85]
Historical Demographics[edit]
| SSR | 1897 | 1926 | 1939 | 1959 | 1970 | 1979 | 1989 | 2002[87] | 2010[88] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Russian SFSR/Russia | 250,000[89] | 539,037 | 891,147 | 880,443 | 816,668 | 713,399 | 570,467 | 265,000 | 159,348 |
| Ukrainian SSR/Ukraine | 2,680,000[90] | 2,720,000[91] | 2,700,000[92][93][c] | 840,446 | 777,406 | 634,420 | 487,555 | 100,000 | 71,500 |
| Byelorussian SSR/Belarus | 690,000[94][c] | 150,090 | 148,027 | 135,539 | 112,031 | 24,300 | 12,926[95][d] | ||
| Moldavian SSR/Moldova | 250,000[96] | 95,108 | 98,091 | 80,193 | 65,933 | 5,500 | 4,100 | ||
| Estonian SSR/Estonia | 4,309[97] | 5,439 | 5,290 | 4,993 | 4,653 | 1,900 | 1,800 | ||
| Latvian SSR/Latvia | 95,675[98][b] | 95,600[97] | 36,604 | 36,686 | 28,338 | 22,925 | 9,600 | 6,454[99][e] | |
| Lithuanian SSR/Lithuania | 263,000[97] | 24,683 | 23,566 | 14,703 | 12,398 | 3,700 | 3,050[100][e] | ||
| Georgian SSR/Georgia | 30,534 | 42,300 | 51,589 | 55,398 | 28,315 | 24,834 | 5,000 | 3,200 | |
| Armenian SSR/Armenia | 335 | 512 | 1,042 | 1,049 | 962 | 747 | <100 th=""> | <100 th=""> | |
| Azerbaijan SSR/Azerbaijan | 59,768 | 41,245 | 46,091 | 49,057 | 44,345 | 41,072 | 7,900 | 9,100[101][d] | |
| Turkmen SSR/Turkmenistan | 2,045 | 3,037 | 4,102 | 3,530 | 2,866 | 2,509 | 600 | 200 | |
| Uzbek SSR/Uzbekistan | 37,896 | 50,676 | 94,488 | 103,058 | 100,067 | 95,104 | 6,000 | 4,500 | |
| Tajik SSR/Tajikistan | 275 | 5,166 | 12,435 | 14,627 | 14,697 | 14,836 | 100 | <100 th=""> | |
| Kirghiz SSR/Kyrgyzstan | 318 | 1,895 | 8,632 | 7,687 | 6,879 | 6,012 | 900 | 600 | |
| Kazakh SSR/Kazakhstan | 3,548 | 19,240 | 28,085 | 27,676 | 23,601 | 20,104 | 4,500 | 3,700 | |
| Soviet Union/Former Soviet Union | 5,250,000 | 2,672,499 | 3,028,538 | 2,279,277 | 2,166,026 | 1,830,317 | 1,479,732 | 460,000 | 280,678 |
| Historical Russian Jewish population | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Pop. | ±% |
| 1897 | 250,000 | — |
| 1926 | 539,037 | +115.6% |
| 1939 | 891,147 | +65.3% |
| 1959 | 880,443 | −1.2% |
| 1970 | 816,668 | −7.2% |
| 1979 | 713,399 | −12.6% |
| 1989 | 570,467 | −20.0% |
| 2002 | 265,000 | −53.5% |
| 2010 | 159,348 | −39.9% |
Source:
| ||
| SSR | % 1926 | % 1939 | % 1959 | % 1970 | % 1979 | % 1989 | % 2002[87] | % 2010[88] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Russian SFSR/Russia | 0.58% | 0.81% | 0.75% | 0.63% | 0.52% | 0.39% | 0.18% | 0.11% |
| Ukrainian SSR/Ukraine | 6.55%[103][c] | 2.01% | 1.65% | 1.28% | 0.95% | 0.20% | 0.16% | |
| Byelorussian SSR/Belarus | 6.55%[104][c] | 1.86% | 1.64% | 1.42% | 1.10% | 0.24% | 0.14%[95][d] | |
| Moldavian SSR/Moldova | 3.30% | 2.75% | 2.03% | 1.52% | 0.13% | 0.11% | ||
| Estonian SSR/Estonia | 0.38%[97] | 0.45% | 0.39% | 0.34% | 0.30% | 0.14% | 0.13% | |
| Latvian SSR/Latvia | 5.19%[98][b] | 4.79%[97] | 1.75% | 1.55% | 1.13% | 0.86% | 0.40% | 0.31%[99][e] |
| Lithuanian SSR/Lithuania | 9.13%[97] | 0.91% | 0.75% | 0.43% | 0.34% | 0.10% | 0.10%[100][e] | |
| Georgian SSR/Georgia | 1.15% | 1.19% | 1.28% | 1.18% | 0.57% | 0.46% | 0.10% | 0.08% |
| Armenian SSR/Armenia | 0.04% | 0.04% | 0.06% | 0.04% | 0.03% | 0.02% | <0 .01="" th=""> | <0 .01="" th=""> |
| Azerbaijan SSR/Azerbaijan | 2.58% | 1.29% | 1.25% | 0.96% | 0.74% | 0.58% | 0.10% | 0.10%[101][d] |
| Turkmen SSR/Turkmenistan | 0.20% | 0.24% | 0.27% | 0.16% | 0.10% | 0.07% | 0.01% | <0 .01="" th=""> |
| Uzbek SSR/Uzbekistan | 0.80% | 0.81% | 1.17% | 0.86% | 0.65% | 0.48% | 0.02% | 0.02% |
| Tajik SSR/Tajikistan | 0.03% | 0.35% | 0.63% | 0.50% | 0.39% | 0.29% | <0 .01="" th=""> | <0 .01="" th=""> |
| Kirghiz SSR/Kyrgyzstan | 0.03% | 0.13% | 0.42% | 0.26% | 0.20% | 0.14% | 0.02% | 0.01% |
| Kazakh SSR/Kazakhstan | 0.06% | 0.31% | 0.30% | 0.22% | 0.16% | 0.12% | 0.03% | 0.02% |
| Soviet Union/Former Soviet Union | 1.80% | 1.80% | 1.09% | 0.90% | 0.70% | 0.52% | 0.16% | 0.10% |
a^ The Jewish population data for all of the years includes Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, Bukharan Jews (or Central Asian Jews),Krymchaks (all per the 1959 Soviet census), and Tats.[81]
b^ The data is from 1926.
c^ The data is from 1941.
d^ The data is from 2009.
e^ The data is from 2011.
b^ The data is from 1926.
c^ The data is from 1941.
d^ The data is from 2009.
e^ The data is from 2011.
Russian Jewish diaspora[edit]
See also: Russian diaspora
Israel[edit]
Main articles: Russian immigration to Israel in the 1970s, Russian immigration to Israel in the 1990s, and Jackson–Vanik amendment
| Year | TFR |
|---|---|
| 2000 | 1.544 |
| 1999 | 1.612 |
| 1998 | 1.632 |
| 1997 | 1.723 |
| 1996 | 1.743 |
| 1995 | 1.731 |
| 1994 | 1.756 |
| 1993 | 1.707 |
| 1992 | 1.604 |
| 1991 | 1.398 |
| 1990 | 1.390 |
The largest number of Russian Jews now live in Israel, not in Russia. Israel is home to a core Russian-Jewish population of 900,000 and an enlarged population of 1,200,000 (including halachically non-Jewish members of Jewish households, but excluding those who reside in Israel illegally).[106] The Aliyah in 1990s accounts for 85–90% of this population. The population growth rate for Former Soviet Union (FSU) immigrants were among the lowest for any Israeli groups, with a Fertility rate of 1.70 and natural increase of just +0.5% per year.[107]The increase in Jewish birth rate in Israel during the 2000–2007 period was partly due to the increasing birth rate among the FSU immigrants, who now form 20% of the Jewish population of Israel.[108][109] 96.5% of the enlarged Russian Jewish population in Israel is either Jewish or non-religious, while 3.5% (35,000) belongs to other religions (mostly Christians) and about 10,000 messianic Jews.[110]
The Total Fertility Rate for FSU immigrants in Israel is given in the table below. The TFR increased with time, peaking in 1997, then slightly decreased after that and then again increased after 2000.[107]
As of 1999, about 1,037,000 FSU immigrants lived in Israel, of whom about 738,900 immigrated after 1989.[111][112] The second largest ethnic group (Moroccans) numbered just 501,000. From 2000–2006, 142,638 FSU immigrants moved to Israel. While 70,000 of them emigrated from Israel to countries like the U.S. and Canada, bringing the total population to 1,150,000 by 2007 January (Excluding illegals).[1] The natural increase was around 0.3% in late 1990s. For example 2,456 in 1996 (7,463 births to 5,007 deaths), 2,819 in 1997 (8,214 to 5,395), 2,959 in 1998 (8,926 to 5,967) and 2,970 in 1999 (9,282 to 6,312). In 1999, the natural growth was +0.385%. (Figures only for FSU immigrants moved in after 1989).[113]
An estimated 45,000 illegal immigrants from the Former Soviet Union lived in Israel during the end of 2010, but it is not clear how many of them are actually Jews.[114]
Currently, Russia has the highest rate of aliyah to Israel among any other country. In 2012, 3,451 people, or 20% of all olim, immigrated to Israel from Russia.[115] It has been estimated that some 30% of the Russians who immigrate to Israel are not Jewish but eligible under the Law of Return.[116]
Notable recent immigrants from FSU include Natan Sharansky, Boris Gelfand, Natasha Mozgovaya, Avigdor Lieberman,Roman Dzindzichashvili, Anastassia Michaeli, Haim Megrelashvili, Victor Mikhalevski, Evgeny Postny, Maxim Rodshtein,Tatiana Zatulovskaya, Maria Gorokhovskaya, Katia Pisetsky, Aleksandr Averbukh, Jan Talesnikov, Vadim Alexeev, Michael Kolganov, Alexander Danilov, Evgenia Linetskaya, Marina Kravchenko, David Kazhdan, Leonid Nevzlin, Vadim Akolzin,Roman Bronfman, Michael Cherney, Arcadi Gaydamak, Sergei Sakhnovski, Roman Zaretski, Alexandra Zaretski, Larisa Trembovler, Boris Tsirelson and Margarita Levieva.
United States[edit]
The second largest population is in the United States. According to RINA, there is a core Russian-Jewish population of 350,000 in the U.S. The enlarged Russian Jewish population in the U.S. is estimated to be 700,000.[2] Most noticeable FSU Jews in the U.S. are Leonard Blavatnik, Dmitry Salita, Sergey Brin, Regina Spektor, Eugene Mirman Anthony Fedorov, Mila Kunis, Avi Kaplanand Gregory Kaidanov. Large Russian-Jewish communities include Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay in the Brooklyn borough of New York City; Fair Lawn and nearby areas in Bergen County, New Jersey; Bucks and Montgomerycounties near Philadelphia; Pikesville, Maryland, a predominantly Jewish suburb of Baltimore; Washington Heights in the Sunny Isles Beachneighborhood of South Florida; and West Hollywood, California.
Germany[edit]
The fourth largest Russian-Jewish community exists in Germany with a core Russian-Jewish population of 119,000 and an enlarged population of 250,000.[117][118][119]
In 1991–2006 period, approximately 230,000 ethnic Jews from FSU immigrated to Germany. In the beginning of 2006, Germany tightened the immigration program. A survey conducted among approximately 215,000 enlarged Russian Jewish population (taking natural decrease into consideration) indicated that about 81% of the enlarged population was Jewish or Atheist by religion, while about 18.5% identified as Christian. That gives a core Russian Jewish population of 111,800 (religion Jewish, 52%) or 174,150 (religion Jewish or Atheist).[120][121]
Notable Russian Jews in Germany include Valery Belenky, Lev Kopelev, Wladimir Kaminer, and Maxim Biller.
Canada[edit]
The fifth largest Russian Jewish community is in Canada. The core Russian Jewish population in Canada numbers 30,000 and the enlarged Russian Jewish population numbered 50,000+, mostly in Montreal and Toronto.[122] Notable Russian Jewish residents include Mark Berger and the musical group Tasseomancy.
Australia[edit]
Small number of FSU Jews exist in Australia (Core population of 10,000 constituting 33% of all Russian born and 25% of all Ukrainian born citizens in 1996 Census. Enlarged population around 20,000).[123]
Finland[edit]
Hundreds of Russian Jews have moved to Finland since 1990 and have helped to stem the negative population growth of the Jewish community there.[124] The total number of Jews in Finland have grown from 800 in 1980 to 1,200 in 2006. Of all the schoolgoing Jewish children, 75% have at least one Russian born parent.
Other countries[edit]
The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Finland, Belgium, New Zealand, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland also have small populations of Russian Jews. The addition of Russian Jews have neutralized the negative Jewish population trends in some European countries like The Netherlands and Austria. Notable Russian Jews in France include Anatoly Vaisser, Leon Poliakov, Alexandre Koyré, and Lev Shestov. Some other important Russian Jews are Gennadi Sosonko (Netherlands), Anna Smashnova (Israel), Viktor Korchnoi(Switzerland), and Maya Plisetskaya (Spain). In Argentina, Jewish immigrants used to be pejoratively called "rusos", meaning "Russians", no matter their ethnicity.
See also[edit]
- Jewish history and Jewish diaspora
- Timeline of Jewish History
- History of the Jews in Poland
- History of the Jews in Carpathian Ruthenia
- History of the Jews in Bessarabia
- Lithuanian Jews – Galician Jews – Georgian Jews – Bukharan Jews – Mountain Jews
- Antisemitism in Russia
- Antisemitism in the Soviet Union
- Antisemitism in Imperial Russia
- History of antisemitism
- Sect of Skhariya the Jew
- Jews and Judaism in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast
- Jewish Cossacks
- World Jewish Congress
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Two Hundred Years Together
- Regional history
