As some of you may know, a photo exhibit entitled, “GIs and the Kids - A Love Story” that was supposed to be held at the War Museum of Korea was recently cancelled. Well, I’ve gotten permission to post a letter from the coordinator of the project that discusses the cancellation and what it means. It includes an appeal at the end, suggestions about which might be appreciated.
Anyway, please read on below.
Photo Exhibit Cancellation
Hello :[name withheld]:
We knew from the beginning that one of the Generals in the administration of the War Memorial of Korea was opposed to the exhibit, based on its content, not on the quality of the material. Lower staff went over his head to the top official and had it approved. Seems this particular general, with strong political connections to minions in the Blue House, was able to get the exhibit cancelled at the last minute, citing reasons that had nothing to do with the exhibit itself. C’et la guerre.
One of the big shocks that I encountered in this research on the relationship of the GIs and the kids was the extent to which we were saving the lives of children most Koreans of the day would have left in the gutter to die. Lineage is everything to Koreans. These kids, lacking lineage were not a no-body. They were a nothing and “decent” Koreans were affronted by the expenditure of any public resources to help them. I asked one of the consuls in the office of the Consulate General of Korea in Seattle why the prejudice toward orphans in Korea, even today, and he looked at me with big eyes and an expression of incredulity indicating he couldn’t comprehend how I could be so dumb, replied “But you don’t know who their parents are!.”
When an army vehicle tragically killed two Korean girls several years ago tens of thousands of Koreans marched in the streets protesting against the presence of US forces in Korea. Yet, seemingly, none of them are interested in the fact that we American GIs saved the lives of over TEN THOUSAND Korean children during the war years. The difference? One knew who the parents of the two girls were but the orphans of the war years were without lineage and not worth saving. I have been told by Korean professionals and even by Korean diplomats, that this photo exhibit is insulting to many Koreans. I have tried to get them to explain why they deem it so and it always turns out that it, indirectly, portrays their own lack of interest in and compassion for the orphans.
Some of this embarrassment was expressed publicly during the Seoul Olympics when Korea was taken to task for the export of children without lineage or of questionable lineage (over 200,000 in the last 55 years!). I feel the Korean reaction to this photo exhibit is similar. They can’t stand seeing a picture of a little Korean girl hugging a GI with affection when “proper” Koreans wouldn’t even consider having that urchin allowed in the house. One of the orphans who I helped survive during the war asked me last year when we met for the first time in over 50 years that I never show her photo on my web site or give her name as she has kept her orphan status a secret from all and not even her children, now grown and educated in the US with professional degrees, knows of her background. She told me that if any one knew that their mother was a war orphan their professional careers in Korea would be ruined and they would never be able to marry into “good” families.
So now the question is what to do with the exhibit? Here is a wonderful statement of American values, values that, unfortunately, are not fully accepted by Koreans. My personal desire is that the exhibit stay in Korea. American servicemen and women have the right to see what their predecessors did and for which they can be proud. The nature, scale and scope of this rescue operation has never before been told. One or two stories, true, have been published from time to time but the larger picture has not heretofore been presented. I would like to have this exhibit shown on all the US bases in Korea so all our forces can have the opportunity to see it.
Further, I would like to see the exhibit shown in all the major cities of Korea now that it has Korean sub-titles for the photographs. This might be done with the aid of Christian organizations that subscribe to the ethic “as ye have done it for the least of these ye have done it for me.” Koreans of this generation need to be made aware of the American values of respect for life, even of the “least of these” and that, notwithstanding the tragedy of the death of the two girls several years ago, American armed forces always cared for the children in need.
Unfortunately I, a private citizen, long since retired (age 75) and living on a fixed pension, cannot continue to fund U.S. foreign policy efforts in this regard. I need to sell the exhibit for what it cost me to produce ($3,500 not including an immense amount of volunteer time) so I can make another copy for circulating throughout the USA. Have you any suggestions of who might be willing to help pay for the purchase of this copy? USIS? The American Chamber of Commerce? US Forces Korea? Military Spouses’ Club? etc?
Regards, and thanks for your help.
George F. Drake
George F. Drake, Ph.D., Coordinator
Korean War Children’s Memorial Project
1421Cornwall Ave. #B
Bellingham, WA 98225
35 Comments
Of course it was cancelled. We can’t expect Korea to portray USFK as helping Korean outcasts, now can we…that would be very un-Juche.
Though I am not an American I would love to contribute to this cause. Marmot, do you know any way we can get in contact with this fellow electronically? I would love to send him some money in appreciation for what he has done. I hope I will be able to see the exhibit one day as well.
For the love of….
Now I’ve heard of everything… this is just too sickening..
I have amazing telepathetic powers, I can clearly see this thread developing into an extremely one-sided flamewar.
If you watch AFKN, you will not too infrequently see stories of GIs today volunteering time at an orphange or an old folks home. It never makes it in the Korean press.
And it isn’t just an anti-GI thing.
Those are two sections of the Korean people that don’t get ??Ό?‘± treament. The old people thing is even more disturbing, because of the Confucian value of elders. It doesn’t seem to apply when those elders don’t have families of their own who can take care of them.
Flamewar, KrZ? Up to now nobody has flamed anyone - we’re all in agreement here (if you disagree, why not state your reason?)
One-sideness? We’re all commenting about the one-sided portrayal of American GIs in Korea.
If you disagree with any of this, we would welcome any additional information as edifying. If you are only interested in making snide remarks, we’ll just ignore you. Either way, there’s no reason to believe this will turn into a flame war at this point.
Relax. I agree this is total and complete bullshit and should be called out for what it is accordingly. I completely support this getting out there so the general public can, for once, have something that doesn’t depict Americans as evil incarnate. By “one-sided flamewar” I just meant that we would all be in agreement that this is complete bullshit; even Katz wouldn’t get in on the opposing side in this one. To tell the truth, I was just hoping to squeeze in the term “telepathetic” in my on-going goal to have the word adopted with the meaning, “Predicting that which is already easily forseeable”.
I agree with KrZ. This is gonna become another example of people who don’t understand, “Korean culture” critisizing it. And what would be wrong with that? After all,as beloved President Roh once said, “whats wrong with Anti-Americanism?” Ah right, Koreans, as well as disliking the acceptance of bastard children, can’t stand to be judged in the same way they judge others.
KrZ’s response is in fact a pre-emptive strike at those who would dare to critisize Korea, because he/she knows that it is coming, and that it is INDEFENSIBLE. THerefore, better to pass it off as a “one sided flamewar,” rather than debating the ISSUE. It is a tactic taken by Koreans (Don’t know if KrZ is Korean but the tactic is the same) when they know they don’t have a foot to stand on, but can’t stand being quiet on the issue. In the west we call this HYPOCRISY and those partaking are HYPOCRITES. (I wouldn’t be surprised if this word is translated into Korean in some glowing term like, “One who lies, and defames others for the pride of the country)
There is no end to the list of dumb things Koreans believe, Kimchi is why there is no SARS in Korea, Kill the dog by beating its head in with a hammer so that it dies terrified as this makes the meat more potent, Koreans don’t have AIDS, the US is a occupying force, and oh yeah, kids who are orphans are less than human, so send them away to other countries. Just for good measure, spread it in the press that these “rich countries” are I don’t know, stealing our babies. Yeah, then we can get rid of our problem, and berate those who are solving it for causing it. Sound like a familiar strategy?
KrZ, if you would allow it, a little advice. Let the issue go. There is no good that will come of it except for making Koreans, who already look like dog shit to many of the readers on this forum, look even worse.
Have a nice day!
I was just about to post on my own blog about this but now don’t feel the need.
It certainly does get you wondering as to exactly why it was canceled, esp when it was so close to happening.
Say what one may, I can easily see how the exhibit would not be welcome by anyone, any political party, in Korea. Just too painful any way you look at it, and for that reason perhaps to some it is annoying that the Americans would like to remind Korea of their good deeds at the expense of having to be reminded of a painful past. There is a whole lot of middle ground between pretending the Americans weren’t a big help (as some surely would like to do) and letting Americans put on an exhibit that could come across as distasteful and insensitive.
Naturally anyone wanting to deny that an American ever did any good would want it canceled for political reasons, though, and the fact that there apparently hasn’t been any official explanation does make you wonder. I also wonder why the Chosun Ilbo isn’t all over this story, and if it never does try to use this story to attack Uri and sound the alarm by quoting another instance of official anti-Americanism then it might be because it (1) wasn’t official anti-Americanism (aw, darn!!) and (2) the idea was as I say potentially an uncomfortable blast from the past.
Of course with this here post at Marmot’s maybe it will get more attention and someone will get to the bottom of what happened.
Please don’t diss before you know what’s happening, it reminds me of garbage posts on Korean news portal sites.
Juan, is this:
Lineage is everything to Koreans. These kids, lacking lineage were not a no-body. They were a nothing and ?decent?? Koreans were affronted by the expenditure of any public resources to help them. I asked one of the consuls in the office of the Consulate General of Korea in Seattle why the prejudice toward orphans in Korea, even today, and he looked at me with big eyes and an expression of incredulity indicating he couldn?t comprehend how I could be so dumb, replied ?But you don?t know who their parents are!.??
not true?
What’s happening?
But, if it was due to antiamericanism, shame on Korea.
And mizar, while I agree that the Korean media could do better, that GIs are on the whole a minority and most Koreans don’t really care about a full dimension story on them. (Unless its polictical or something bad and juicy comes along.)
Its same with US media on Korea back in the States. Most of my friends know Korea only as 1. country divided with a mad man as a dictator, can’t remember wether the manman controlled north or south. 2. country full of hot headed violent students or workers always protesting.
Well most Americans aren’t interested about this small country somewhere around Asia (undless of course something bad and juicy comes along).
Well most Americans aren?t interested about this small country somewhere around Asia (undless of course something bad and juicy comes along).
Just as most Koreans aren’t interested in say, Togo, or Madagascar, unless Daewoo has a contract there to build power plants.
juan, the equivalency argument won’t work on this case.
If, say, American society were holding exhibits — both in professional establishiments as well as street preaching billboards — about Korean war atrocities in Vietnam, or if we could let our imaginations wonder and imagine Korea had fought in the American Revolution - and we had museums and street preaching or television documentaries about claims of Korean atrocities in that war — or say — if we had productions to depict the Koreans who were convicted and executed as war criminals on the side of the Japanese or depicted the stories about the Korean guards at Japanese POW camps —
and then some group wanted to do an exhibt of the Korean troops supporting the US in Iraq War II, but someone in government stepped in and killed the project….
…..maybe we would be getting within range of using the “its the same thing” argument.
Dogbert, I am talking about the reason the exhibition was cancelled. There were Koreans trying to make it happen and there were Koreans who didn’t want it to happen. The latter were stonger in this case and it got cancelled.
Now the Koreans who got it cancelled are perfect targets for criticism. Go right ahead. But reading the comments talking about juche and criticizing as if “all of Korea” is responsible for the outrage makes me sick.
Criticize the wrong doers, don’t generalize. This hole used to have a lot of constructive criticism for Korea (sans a few commenters who are obviously Korea haters). Now it is becoming a perfect place for Korean bashers to dump their raw emotional “excrement”.
Huh? usinkorea? I was not making an argument. I was merely stating the fact why GIs in Korea were not getting their “full” picutre taken by the Korean media. I did not say it was right or wrong. It just is. I think you misunderstood the reason for my comment up there. Please reread.
Baduk
Hey thanks for your interesting and insightful thoughts on the the widespread nature of racism. I guess somehow I failed to understand this during the TEN YEARS I WAS VISITING Korea. You really set me straight.
As for the exhibit, do it the same way most things get done in Korea, bribe someone.
Juan
YOu are up against people who have lived in Korea, and I suspect that like myself, were sickened by the Hypocrisy and hateful expressions they saw there. It wasn’t just the hanchongryoung idiots, it was that there is a conterted effort in the media to make foreigners, everyone from US soldiers to Canadian English teachers look bad. Unfortunately, average Koreans didn’t think critically about the hateful things they saw and heard, and certainly didn’t think of critisizing fellow Koreans.
For everyone else, lanbasting Juan is counterproductive. He sounds reasonable and continuing to hack at him will only give him reason to think that maybe all of those KOreans who slander and libel foreigners, are perhaps right.
It has been a heck of a fast moving post.
it was that there is a conterted effort in the media to make foreigners, everyone from US soldiers to Canadian English teachers look bad.
Which country doesn’t do this to foreigners to some extent? Every media sells more when they bash “outsiders”. Koreans are very xenophobic and it is understandable if you study Korean history; we, Koreans, are f***ed by everyone in the neighborhood. And, we will get more in the future.
Unfortunately, average Koreans didn?t think critically about the hateful things they saw and heard, and certainly didn?t think of critisizing fellow Koreans.
I agree that Koreans are protective of another. Then, again if you consider Korean history….
By argument I mean a reasoned opinion on any issue X - not that you were trying to cause trouble or “arguing with” some. I mean argument in the sense of a debate.
And rereading the post, perhaps I did misunderstand what you were trying to say.
After rereading, however, I disagree somewhat with what you seem to be saying about the parallel between the US and Korea’s focus things. Korea spends a whole lot more time on why GIs are bad and USFK has too many problems and negative things (or imagined negative things) about the US relationship with Korea than American society spends thinking about South Korea.
Baduk
Poor strategic choice.
Which country doesn?t do this to foreigners to some extent? Every media sells more when they bash ?outsiders??. Koreans are very xenophobic and it is understandable if you study Korean history.
Yes, there are very few countries that can claim to belong to the club who don’t go for the easy foreign bash to sell more newspapers. Canada is one. I guestimate that there are perhaps a dozen in total where the standards of journalism, doesn’t allow this sort of thing. Furthermore, the sophistication of the people in these countries who have had education in critical thinking, also tend to be less likely to allow themselves to have their thoughts dicatated to them by a racist media, as they are aware of any such scapegoating.
Korea cannot claim to have such a media, as they always go for the easy critisism of foreigners whether the situation is real or imagined. See usainkorea’s site to get a nice review on the stories the KOrean media have made into issues that wouldn’t be if they involved Koreans. Unqualified foreign English teachers, polluting the environment, guys out huntin girls. When it is Korean who are unqualified teachers, or polluting the environment, or out lookin for a little, Koreans couldnt care less. When it is foreigners, well, the intolerant freaks really come out. Imagine an American going out and finding a Korean to pick a fight with so his buddies can film it and get it on TV.
The Korean media have the worst standards of journalism and all you can say is it is natural if you consider Korean history. Pathetic.
I agree that Koreans are protective of another. Then, again if you consider Korean history??.
No, Koreans are not protective of one another. Why do so many of your brothers try to avoid their military duty, or can’t be bothered with the lives of orphans, also Koreans, as was the original source of this thread. Instead, I think a quote from Michael Breen’s book,”The KOreans” is more appropriate. He says, “KOreans are very nationalistic, but not very patriotic.” This is corroborated by the fact that many “concerned citizens” who are ready to jump on a US soldier acting badly in public, are also the ones (Approximately 40% of the population) who say they would try to leave the country if war with North KOrea broke out.
Your opinion that this is normal considering Korean history is again, pathetic.
Now that’s blogging
Two great posts at the Marmot’s Hole; you may remember the flap about the singer who created the Fucking USA song coming up with a new song about MacArthur - well, Marmot tells us where the inspiration for these lyrics
I was in Toronto in 1980s and this bum came up to me and glared, “they let Chinks into this country”? He said it outloud so that passers-by can hear.
The same thing happened in Rhode island restaurant. I walked in and one patron said outloud, “they let Chinks into this restaurant?”, so that everyone in the restaurant can hear.
EXSeoulman, you were just a visitor to Korea. I am a bona fide citizen of the US and I go through this once in a while. So, stop licking your wounds and realize Racism is everywhere.
You can concentrate on these mental cases or you can ignore them completely. The more you travel, the better you can do this. The choice is up to you.
One New Yorker pushed an oriental lady into a coming train. He had been kicked out a rental housing because of late payments. The landlady happened to be a Chinese. So, he felt justified to take revenge. An Asian is an Asian. Don’t care about Chinese, Japanese or Korean.
Racism is a strong force coming from the fundamental human nature, “Herd instinct”. You say you are a logical, intellectual and educated, but you have this instinct as well.
Hate those who you must for necessity, but hating the whole country, including the good, the bad, the ugly and the innocent, is not logical.
Ahem,
For those truely concerned about doing productive things, perhaps we could discuss what we will all DO to help this elderly gentleman who has gone to so much work putting this exhibit together. Hacking on Korea in the traditonal fashion of ex-pats has its place but is in my opinion just poor taste here, though I understand many exorcise their personal demons by doing so.
Childish flamming doesn’t get this project, that you claim to support, anywhere. There is a good solid chance to do something good by trying to get in contact with the gentleman, send him some money in grattitude for his hard work and then do our best to promote the exhibit in Korea, and then both promote and attend it wether it be through churches, army bases..or whatever.
I know to cetain fellow Canadians who talk so much s**t, it is more fun to be an ass than to find a way to help. But let’s try and rise above that just this once since this is such a worthy cause, eh?
I ask again, Marmot…do you know if we can get in touch with this guy by email? Does he have a website?
Click on the link in the first paragraph of The Marmot’s post. It will take you to the guy’s web site….
The subject of Anti-Americanism in Korea is a big news in expat blogspheres. But what kind of responses are there in Korean cyber space?
According to one site, Oh My News, it hardly makes the top list. I mean, look at the most important talked about subjects right now in Oh My News:
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The MacArthur statue controversy only ranks at #10.
Oops, I missed #4 in addition to #10.
Post #16 says korean don’t criticize each other. I have to disagree. Koreans love criticizing each other. its only when they are criticized by non-koreans that they pull together, or if others are watching. This is why the government uses so many nationalistic issues to keep the criticism focused on other countries or groups. United we stand devided we fall, and to keep korea united they used anti-US and anti-Japan issues to keep people together.
I’m sorry that American guy was a dick to you Baduk. I didn’t realize there were people that stupid still in existence back in the homeland. Hopefully Darwin has caught up with that one by now and he died before reproducing.
KrZ,
Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate them.
I do not think the guy was particularly stupid. Even in 1980s, the US society was not quite open about racial groups and racial understanding. I, myself, had some racial hangups.
I am so glad that these days things are moving in the right direction in the US. People have more understanding of different racial groups and also accepting diversity in race.
Education, especially in terms of movies, has challenged and changed many people’s attitude. “Who’s coming to dinner”, “In the heat of the night”, “Karate Kid”, etc.. Sports and music helped as well.
nbsp
Is it just me or has anyone here noticed that anti-US sentiment is cyclical?
Baduk, one observation about racism. Like any other -ism (or -acy), it’s an illusion, an abstraction. Take Democracy - even the most totalitarian governments claim to be democracies. So what does it really mean? And yet we see people acting like complete idiots over it.
Racism is much the same. Insecurity takes many forms. The more habitual the troubled thought pattern becomes, the more it becomes rationalised into a system of thought that scapegoats a particular group. So “racism” can indeed be found in any country in the world. I’ sure we’ve all experienced it at some time.
But the issue is not whether or not racism EXISTS in one country or another. Rather, the issue is that many Korean people have a widespread misconception that white people, including Americans have a highly developed sense of racial superiority greater than that of other races or peoples.
Not only is this a false notion, but the opposite should be stated. There is a general collective sense of guilt over what is portrayed in films about historical racism that causes Americans to be more introspective, more sensitive and more generous about race than other peoples. In short, racism is just not nearly as pervasive in the US as in Asian nations like Korea or Japan.
This is not a condemnation of one society or another. It is quite natural that US society would be less racist given its history of diversity and the challenges it had to overcome in the development of human rights. Maybe someday Korea will get there too. It is simply too isolated and homogenous for this to occur quite yet.
Below is a story that appeared in Sunday’s Tribune. I copied the story becaused registration is required. In this story, the Chinese are reluctant to acknowledge that a foreign missionary saved thousands of lives during the Rape of Nanjing. The last sentence really finishes the story.
China salutes Illinois hero of massacre by Japanese
By Russell Working
Tribune staff reporter
Published September 25, 2005
BEIJING — When Japanese troops stormed into Nanjing in 1937, murdering 300,000 Chinese and raping thousands of women and girls, an Illinois woman was among a handful of foreigners who stood against the tide.
Minnie Vautrin, a missionary educator from Secor, near Bloomington, hung an American flag outside her missionary college, declared a safe zone and sheltered 10,000 women and children from death by gunfire, sword and bayonet. She held her ground when imperial troops aimed rifles at her, slapped her face, threatened her with death.
“How many thousands were mowed down by guns or bayoneted we shall probably never know,” wrote Vautrin, whom massacre survivors called a goddess of mercy. “For in many cases oil was thrown over their bodies and then they were burned.”
This summer and fall, in a rare turn of events, Beijing is commemorating the victims of Japanese war crimes through the eyes of a foreigner: Vautrin. In a communist country where the United States is often attacked in media and the arts, an official dance drama tells of the massacre in Nanjing as witnessed by the American woman.
Another former Illinois resident is also at the center of the production “Nanjing 1937.” The dance, which opened in Beijing this month and is slated to travel elsewhere in China, portrays Vautrin’s ghost guiding the research of author Iris Chang, who is revered here for writing a best-selling account of the atrocity, “The Rape of Nanking,” as the city was then known.
Choreographer Tong Ruirui, 28, said she was moved to learn that both women ended up committing suicide–belated victims, she believes, of the massacre. Vautrin suffered a nervous breakdown and killed herself in 1941 at age 53 in Indianapolis. Chang, who was severely depressed, shot herself in California last November. She was 36.
“I wondered what they would say to each other when they met in heaven,” said Tong, who directs the China National Chinese Opera and Dance Drama Company production.
Tong’s decision to use a foreign perspective to illuminate Chinese suffering is a rarity in a country known for its aggrieved nationalism on matters concerning Japan, whose defeat 60 years ago is being celebrated by operas, photo exhibitions and ceremonies of goose-stepping soldiers laying wreaths. The young choreographer even cast a Texan who is a longtime Beijing dancer as Vautrin.
The dance occurs at a time when a documentary and books have brought about a renewed interest in Vautrin, said Hua-ling Hu, the Carbondale-based author of “American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin.” An exhibition of Vautrin’s letters and photographs also opened in August in Beijing. Meanwhile in Illinois, Gov. Rod Blagojevich has declared Tuesday, Sept. 27, “Minnie Vautrin Day” in response to a request from a citizen.
Not a biography
Because of the fame of her book, Chang is even more revered than Vautrin here. Chinese officials, grateful for her contribution in bringing the massacre before a wide audience, are erecting statues of her. A bronze monument to Vautrin was established at her college in Nanjing in 2002.
But “Nanjing 1937″ takes a surprising perspective: It downplays Vautrin’s role in saving lives, said Aly Rose, who is dancing the Vautrin role. (Vautrin’s college was part of a larger effort by foreigners credited with saving some 250,000 lives by creating places of refuge in the city.) In one scene, Vautrin saves a girl from the Japanese, but the child is later killed.
“The focus of the story isn’t that Minnie Vautrin saved all these people,” Rose said. “The focus is that Minnie Vautrin witnessed all these people dying, and Iris Chang wrote about it, and now we’re going to tell you about it today. … I kept saying, `Could we at least have one part that testifies that she actually saved lives?’”
Tong insists that the point of the dance is to commemorate the suffering of those who died, not to provide a biography of one woman. “It’s from her perspective that we’re witnessing all the women being killed and raped, that we see the evil,” Tong said. “So we’re using her eyes, but not her life story.”
Vautrin’s relatives say they are honored by the production, even without an explicit reference to her saving thousands of lives. Cindy Vautrin–a Mt. Pleasant, Mich., great-granddaughter of Vautrin’s brother–saw the production earlier this summer and believes the play both alludes to the Illinois woman’s courage and powerfully captures the emotions of the massacre.
Vautrin would have been a remarkable woman even without her heroism in Nanjing. Born in Secor in 1887 in the family of a French immigrant blacksmith, she received degrees from what is now Illinois State University and the University of Illinois before going to China as a missionary educator. Vautrin undertook a round-the-world study of education that brought her to the post-revolutionary Soviet Union and other countries. She helped found Ginling College in Nanjing, where she was dean of studies at the time Japan attacked in 1937.
As Japanese troops approached, Vautrin refused to be evacuated by the American embassy. Shell-shocked refugees crowded the campus, and she had to contend with a lack of food and poor sanitation. She and other foreigners who established safe zones had only their flags to protect them.
In her accounts of the massacre, later read by Chang, she described the mayhem.
“There probably is no crime that has not been committed in this city today,” Vautrin wrote. “Thirty girls were taken from the language school last night, and today I have heard scores of heartbreaking stories of girls who were taken from their homes last night–one of the girls was but 12 years old.”
Vautrin’s 94-year-old niece, Emma Lyon, who lives in Shepherd, Mich., recalled in a phone interview how her aunt’s letters described the war zone.
“She told about how bullets went through her office windows,” Lyon said, “and how the [Japanese] would come to the campus. She would defy them not to touch one of her girls, and they would slap her.”
Vautrin suffered a nervous breakdown in 1940 and returned to the U.S. Lyon planned to visit Indianapolis to introduce Vautrin to her children in 1941, but the troubled missionary begged her not to come. That weekend, she sealed up her kitchen, turned on the gas in an unlit stove and killed herself.
“She didn’t think that she had amounted to anything and that she had accomplished anything,” Lyon said. “It wasn’t her anymore. No, it just wasn’t her.”
Chang was born in Princeton, N.J., in 1968 and raised in Champaign-Urbana. She worked briefly as a reporter for the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune before leaving journalism to write books.
Chilling dances
Recently, the dance company gathered to practice for their Beijing opening. It could have been a rehearsal hall anywhere, with rails along the walls and mirrors reflecting the men and women in tights. But a huge red banner hung along the ceiling urged dancers to “fervently serve the plan that’s in alignment with the government,” in the dancers’ translation.
The company was working to depict the rapes that gave the massacre its name. (Japanese nationalists insist that Chinese and Western rape and death estimates are grossly exaggerated.) Four leering male dancers stick out their tongues as they grab female partners and bend them about; the women grimace as if in agony.
There is a chilling power as Rose circles the duets, pleading with Japanese soldiers, who shove her aside.
It has been an emotionally exhausting season for Tong’s dancers. Every day, they must weep as they dance. When they sleep they suffer from nightmares: murders, gang-rapes, soldiers in dance halls beheading the women.
While performing in Nanjing, the dancers visited a memorial to the massacre. One photograph showed a pregnant woman whom Japanese soldiers had gang-raped and then cut open, killing her baby before her eyes as she died, Rose said. She is Jewish and her grandfather’s family lost relatives in the Holocaust. She is inspired by Vautrin’s courage amid another wartime mass murder.
In Rose’s view, the reasons are complex for downplaying Vautrin’s role in saving lives.
It is hard to acknowledge the heroics of non-Chinese amid a national tragedy. After all, Chinese troops failed to protect Nanjing against the Japanese.
“It would really be asking a lot to show that Minnie Vautrin saved all these people,” Rose said. “It’s a challenge because she’s not Chinese.”