Contest to Kill 100 People with Swords.

1. Bryan
   July 1st, 2007 at 6:54 am

   "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang is a good book, if anyone's interested. "The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe" is another one. John Rabe was a man (a Nazi, specifically) who put himself at great personal risk to get Chinese citizens to designated safe zones.

   Alex, I think you've topped yourself on the "Decidedly Not Neat" posts.

2. pld
   July 1st, 2007 at 7:32 am

   Must be exhausting to decapitate 100 people with a sword, what a workout.

3. Jimbo
   July 1st, 2007 at 8:03 am

   Even with tons of artifacts remaining, Japan teaches that it is a hoax by China and reject any facts.

4. Adam Stanhope
   July 1st, 2007 at 8:05 am

   Iris Chang committed suicide two or three years ago as a young woman, allegedly in part due to emotional trauma she experienced researching the war crimes in Nanjing.

5. Jerse
   July 1st, 2007 at 8:29 am

   In "Flags of our Father", there was a story about the Nanking Massacre. I remember reading that the Japanese soldiers used to take pregnant women out into a field, make a bet on what gender their children were, and proceed to slice open her belly and decapitate both the mother and child.

6. Adam Stanhope
   July 1st, 2007 at 10:06 am

   I just stumbled across this, a Wikipedia article about the "contest" event itself:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to_kill_100_people_using_a_sword

7. Sid Morrison
   July 1st, 2007 at 10:09 am

   I read Chang's book as well, and it is a great one. It's too bad that sort of thing isn't covered in today's politically correct high school history classes.

   The story about the decapitation contest is a well-recorded one. If I recall correctly, both Japanese officers were later executed for their crimes. Don't quote me on that, though.

   Finally, I think Chang sadly killed herself after some severe bouts of depression while researching her latest writing project which concerned the Bataan death march. It's quite a shame, as she was so talented and so young (30s). She did what she did well, but I think the subject matter may have been a little too much for her.

   Straight talk from Sid.

8. Adam Stanhope
   July 1st, 2007 at 10:32 am

   hehe - sorry - I missed Alex's link to the Wikipedia article.

   Better late than never, I guess! hehe

9. Alex
   July 1st, 2007 at 11:32 am

   But it's interesting, isn't it, Bryan?

10. Inetgate
    July 1st, 2007 at 12:49 pm

    It's just only propaganda by china communist.
    Because it is impossible to kill 100 people with one sword.

    Do you believe communist?

11. SaxOne
    July 1st, 2007 at 3:58 pm

    Nanking massacre real, the two officers officers executions for war crimes may have been real. But the contest may have been propaganda. My feeling is it has a grain of truth, but has been embellished for effect. We see the same propaganda mixed with half truths in Iraq/Afghanistan.

    I know wiki isn't the best source but:
    "Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, who, in 2000, undertook one of the most comprehensive studies of the incident ever conducted, reached the conclusion that "the killing contest itself was a fabricated story", but served as a positive influence in Japanese culture, making the Japanese more aware of some of the wartime atrocities that had actually been conducted by the Imperial Japanese Army."

12. Sid Morrison
    July 1st, 2007 at 4:31 pm

    Just so some people don't get the wrong idea, though: The story of the killing contest, the newspaper article, pictures, etc. were all things in the *Japanese* press during the war. It may have been propaganda but (amazingly) it was pro-Japanese propaganda put out to stir up some good old Nippon bushido support on the homefront for the "police activity" taking place against the subhuman dog Chinese.

13. modifoo
    July 1st, 2007 at 5:01 pm

    I would suggest to take out the names of the officers. No need to keep the memories of these individuals in our collective mind.

    While it is important to remind us of the cruelty that mankind is capable of, we do not need to know their names, do we?

14. Adam Stanhope
    July 1st, 2007 at 6:19 pm

    Fuck 'em.

15. Ty
    July 1st, 2007 at 9:02 pm

    Geez, assholes.

16. Martin
    July 1st, 2007 at 9:22 pm

    Judgement day is not coming soon enough ... such atrosities against mankind and my country.

17. Kiwanda
    July 2nd, 2007 at 11:26 pm

    Chang's book was a good read-- I actually worked in the archives at Yale where some of her material was drawn from. Around 1992 the Japanese network NGK also did a major documentary on Nanking using the same sources. The most amazing documents we had were the diaries of a woman named Minnie Vautrin, who worked at Ginling College and helped shelter perhaps 20,000 Chinese women. She risked her life and health for months, then eventually killed herself after returning home to New York. Tragic.

    The stories in her diaries make this "sword battle" sound like child's play. The things the Japanese soldiers did to Chinese women really were unspeakable.

18. Chris
    July 4th, 2007 at 10:19 pm

    "Must be exhausting to decapitate 100 people with a sword"

    A good ancient Japanese sword was able to cut through 3 human corpses in 1 shot (that was the quality benchmark test).
    So, 100 necks? nothing.

19. Inetgate
    July 10th, 2007 at 11:40 am

    To Chris,

    I think you are loving Ninja Stories.
    And you know, Ninja Stories are fiction.
    If you check wikipedia "Katana" entry, you know that test you are mentioned is only in novels.

    To others:

    Iris Chang's book contains many photoshoped content.
    If you want to believe her assertion, you should check below book.
    "The Politics of Nanjing: An Impartial Investigation" by Kitamura Minoru.
    This book say author are trying to validate her assertion, but they can't find any evidence that proving her assertion.

    About Nanking issue, some Japanese politician made a proposal to investigate that issue is with Japan, China and third party county, for example United States are good for distinguishing what is fact.
    But China is reject this proposal.

    What kind of thing the China communist hide?

20. Alex
    July 10th, 2007 at 12:20 pm

    This review Jeff Kingston of the Japan Times by suggests that Minoru's book is anything but impartial:

    Professor Minoru Kitamura of Ritsumeikan University raises important questions about Japan's rampage in Nanjing in 1937-38, but sadly comes up with misleading, biased and unconvincing answers. Promises to the contrary, there is nothing impartial about his narrative. Much of it rests on innuendo and unsubstantiated interpretations he passes off as "common sense." [...]

    The discourse about Nanjing is very polarized in Japan. In one corner, you have the "Massacre School." It acknowledges horrific atrocities were perpetrated by Japanese troops and puts the death toll at around 100,000. In the opposite corner, there are the "illusionists." They deny the massacre happened and blame Chinese propaganda for unfairly blackening Japan's reputation.

    Kitamura describes himself as a centrist, but concedes he has an affinity for the "Illusionist School." This raises doubts about his impartiality and conclusions.

    I haven't read Minoru's book (it's not widely available in bookstores), but stories of Japanese atrocities during WW II are plentiful (the "comfort women" [wiki], for example)

    Like the Holocaust deniers, there will be people who deny that the Japanese did anything wrong during the war.

21. Inetgate
    July 16th, 2007 at 3:24 am

    Dear Alex:

    Do you think that soldiers who use house of comfort woman are doing atrocities?

22. Alex
    July 16th, 2007 at 1:00 pm

    Inetgate, "comfort women" are forced to work as sex slaves in brothels to service soldiers. So yeah, I'd say comfort women is a form of Japanese atrocity during World War II.

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT