- 23 Sep 2005
- 1,295
- 76
So anyhow, i was browsing through Amazon.co.uk the other day looking at history books when i stumbled across the pretty famous book "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang. I already have this book however i decided to read the people's reviews of it none the less, in particular the reviews people gave the book which only gave a few stars or less.
Some of the comments people said in their low recommendations of the books surprised and intrigued me and made me think a lot more about the subject of the book in general. Here are some of the reviews in particular that interested me;
"Iris Chang's shocking description swept away some intellectual people's thinking ability. But if they lose such ability, they are no longer intelligent. On page 6, the author starts the shocking description. These torture stories are cited from Chinese books and testimonies, so I verified the credibility of the description with background information. The following shows shocking descriptions on page 6 and my verification.
"disembowel women" ... It is called pou-fu in traditional Chinese penalty. China had been executing unique cruel torture for a thousand years. A number of cruel torture methods were written as official methods until 1898, but similar cruel torture was still being implemented after that. For instance, the same methods were said to be implemented at 2-28 Massacre in 1947 and political clampdown during cultural revolution in 1970's. Pou-fu was written in the penalty book as the official execution method of China, and it was often executed in public eyes.
"slice off their breasts" ... It is a series of the slicing methods called luan, which basically slices off every body part. When the objects are ear and nose, these are specifically called ge-reng and ge-bi, respectively. "nail them alive" ... Utilization of nail or so-called zhui-zi was the flagship of traditional execution method of China. Whether they use knife or zhui-zi was often executor's own discretion. "Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers, as other family members watched." ... Though rape was not official method, the execution forced every female prisoner to remove all cloths and either impaled a stick, seamed genitalia, or sliced it off in public eyes, including those of their parents. It's certainly rape in a broad sense. "live burials" ... huo-mai is also traditional execution method in China. "castration" ... Gong-xing cuts genitalia off. It's not unknown that even Chinese officers had been forced castration by the government. "the carving of organs" ... Carving body parts was popoular among traditional execution methods of China. "roasting of people" ... The method called pao-luo roasts prisoners by copper columns. "hanging people by their tongues on iron hooks" ... jie-she specifically cut tongue off by iron hooks. "get torn apart by German shepherds" ... shou-yao let mad dog bite prisoners to death.
Though I researched over 100 historical materials about Japan, I didn't find any matching traditional Japanese torture. On the other hand, there are a number of historical materials about China that verifies these tortures as China's traditional methods. Though most of them are written in Chinese, these tortures had been implemented in public. Such contradiction casts a serious doubt on the credibility of this book.""
and;
"I can not understand at all why this book has become one of the best-sold books in U.S. One of the reasons is the information in here is extremely unreliable and lack of authenticity. I know many of them have already reveled to be forgery. For instance, the author cited the stories told by Mr. Azuma, the Japanese ex-soldier. But it is already known that his story about this incident was revealed to be his fiction. I also found all the photos listed here were not reliable. I want to insist that this book is filled with vicious forgery."
and;
"I found that this book has many historical errors. For example, on page 21, the author described that Tokugawa ruled Japan by the late fifteenth and early sixteen centuries. But even Japanese school-kids know that the Japanese government by Tokugawa started in 1603. The book not only manipulated the history for 100 years but also blurred basic, definitive historical event.
On the same page, she described, "Perry strode through the capital of the Shogun". But Perry actually arrived at a port in Yokosuka.
On the same page, she described that a single visit forced the Tokugawa to sign treaties. But the Tokugawa actually signed treaties next year.
Some prominent scholars have found that this book contained at least 90 errors in first 64 pages, and stopped the research due to overwhelming number of errors...."
Amazon product ASIN 0140277447
If you read these sorts of reviews, the book appears to be one of many inaccuracies and a very biased account.
I know the Rape of Nanking was a horrific incident that certainly did happen, but i'm now beginning to wonder if people are being presented a rather inaccurate and biased view of the events via this best selling book on the matter.
In particular, in the review where the reviewer lists that many of the practices of killing and torturing Chinese that the Japanese troops practiced, were actually methods of torture and killing that had long been practiced and known by the Chinese themselves- is this true? If so, you could say that the methods the Japanese were using were simply methods that were already practiced by the Chinese themselves in their own society- which begs the question, were the Japanese truly more barbaric than the Chinese? The Chinese are always painted as the victims, and they certainly are to a certain extent, but i think with always painting the Chinese as the victims and the Japanese as the evil barbarians, perhaps we forget that the Chinese could be just as evil at times to their own people.
So are we really dealing with good and evil here, or simply different extremes of evil that has long been known and practiced by both sides?
Some of the comments people said in their low recommendations of the books surprised and intrigued me and made me think a lot more about the subject of the book in general. Here are some of the reviews in particular that interested me;
"Iris Chang's shocking description swept away some intellectual people's thinking ability. But if they lose such ability, they are no longer intelligent. On page 6, the author starts the shocking description. These torture stories are cited from Chinese books and testimonies, so I verified the credibility of the description with background information. The following shows shocking descriptions on page 6 and my verification.
"disembowel women" ... It is called pou-fu in traditional Chinese penalty. China had been executing unique cruel torture for a thousand years. A number of cruel torture methods were written as official methods until 1898, but similar cruel torture was still being implemented after that. For instance, the same methods were said to be implemented at 2-28 Massacre in 1947 and political clampdown during cultural revolution in 1970's. Pou-fu was written in the penalty book as the official execution method of China, and it was often executed in public eyes.
"slice off their breasts" ... It is a series of the slicing methods called luan, which basically slices off every body part. When the objects are ear and nose, these are specifically called ge-reng and ge-bi, respectively. "nail them alive" ... Utilization of nail or so-called zhui-zi was the flagship of traditional execution method of China. Whether they use knife or zhui-zi was often executor's own discretion. "Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers, as other family members watched." ... Though rape was not official method, the execution forced every female prisoner to remove all cloths and either impaled a stick, seamed genitalia, or sliced it off in public eyes, including those of their parents. It's certainly rape in a broad sense. "live burials" ... huo-mai is also traditional execution method in China. "castration" ... Gong-xing cuts genitalia off. It's not unknown that even Chinese officers had been forced castration by the government. "the carving of organs" ... Carving body parts was popoular among traditional execution methods of China. "roasting of people" ... The method called pao-luo roasts prisoners by copper columns. "hanging people by their tongues on iron hooks" ... jie-she specifically cut tongue off by iron hooks. "get torn apart by German shepherds" ... shou-yao let mad dog bite prisoners to death.
Though I researched over 100 historical materials about Japan, I didn't find any matching traditional Japanese torture. On the other hand, there are a number of historical materials about China that verifies these tortures as China's traditional methods. Though most of them are written in Chinese, these tortures had been implemented in public. Such contradiction casts a serious doubt on the credibility of this book.""
and;
"I can not understand at all why this book has become one of the best-sold books in U.S. One of the reasons is the information in here is extremely unreliable and lack of authenticity. I know many of them have already reveled to be forgery. For instance, the author cited the stories told by Mr. Azuma, the Japanese ex-soldier. But it is already known that his story about this incident was revealed to be his fiction. I also found all the photos listed here were not reliable. I want to insist that this book is filled with vicious forgery."
and;
"I found that this book has many historical errors. For example, on page 21, the author described that Tokugawa ruled Japan by the late fifteenth and early sixteen centuries. But even Japanese school-kids know that the Japanese government by Tokugawa started in 1603. The book not only manipulated the history for 100 years but also blurred basic, definitive historical event.
On the same page, she described, "Perry strode through the capital of the Shogun". But Perry actually arrived at a port in Yokosuka.
On the same page, she described that a single visit forced the Tokugawa to sign treaties. But the Tokugawa actually signed treaties next year.
Some prominent scholars have found that this book contained at least 90 errors in first 64 pages, and stopped the research due to overwhelming number of errors...."
Amazon product ASIN 0140277447
If you read these sorts of reviews, the book appears to be one of many inaccuracies and a very biased account.
I know the Rape of Nanking was a horrific incident that certainly did happen, but i'm now beginning to wonder if people are being presented a rather inaccurate and biased view of the events via this best selling book on the matter.
In particular, in the review where the reviewer lists that many of the practices of killing and torturing Chinese that the Japanese troops practiced, were actually methods of torture and killing that had long been practiced and known by the Chinese themselves- is this true? If so, you could say that the methods the Japanese were using were simply methods that were already practiced by the Chinese themselves in their own society- which begs the question, were the Japanese truly more barbaric than the Chinese? The Chinese are always painted as the victims, and they certainly are to a certain extent, but i think with always painting the Chinese as the victims and the Japanese as the evil barbarians, perhaps we forget that the Chinese could be just as evil at times to their own people.
So are we really dealing with good and evil here, or simply different extremes of evil that has long been known and practiced by both sides?
. 
).
