Death and Cloth in Nanjing

Our time in Nanjing, as time has it, was fleeting and coming to an end. The semester was winding down and everyone had finals on their minds. But the program was not about to let us go without one last field trip. Our destination for the day: History!
Two museums were on the menu, conveniently located directly next to each other. The first one was the Nanjing Massacre Museum. Jenn and I had visited said museum soon upon arrival in Nanjing, but were ushered out in a rush as the museum was closing. So this was a good opportunity to revisit the museum.
The building itself is impressive. It is an ominous grey/black structure which gives on the feeling of looming darkness and a city in ruins. I can only imagine that this was intentional. The entrance area of the museum features multiple statues. One of these is the statue of a raped mother and her killed baby in the attitude of utter despair. Every statue has a caption written on its base, giving impressions from those living through the massacre.
A quick explanation: the Nanjing massacre refers to the time Japanese troops attacked and prevailed against Nanjing in one of the wars between China and Japan. Following the victory of Japan over Nanjing, countless atrocities were committed, including every single conceivable way of murdering and inflicting suffering on the local people; soldiers, children and parents alike. It was a truly dark time and the incident still pains a lot of Chinese, especially locals to Nanjing and makes liking Japan very difficult for them.

Family Ruined
Never returns the son killed
Never returns the husband buried alive
Sorrow drowns the wife raped
Heaven...

The museum very clearly and exhaustively explains the timeline and all the suffering that went on in Nanjing during that time in the 1930's. It does a very good job at not only educating visitors about the history of the massacre but communicating the horror of the events. The inside of the museum is very dark and gloomy and there are multiple exhibits visualizing the staggering amount of civilian casualties. I believe it is good to educate people about the horrible things that happened, but as a German I am somewhat sensitive to these kind of things. The museum is very well designed, but it is clearly biased. The tone of the museum and the exhibits inside, including the descriptions of events, is nowhere near to neutral and often refers to Japanese soldiers in the derogatory term of the time. While I understand the bias, and the Japanese did indeed do horrible things in Nanjing, I also appreciate when a museum seeks to display and show facts, just as they are without adding too much blame and feeling to it. This is just my opinion. The situation is also made more complicated by the fact that Japan, to this day, has not officially taken responsibility and apologized for this event, according to my understanding.

December 13th, 1937
Began the inhuman massacre!
Bare-handed civilians,
Flee,
The only hope to survive

My dear poor wife!
The devil raped you, killed you...
I'm right after you!

The devil has sent the bombers again...
The poor orphans,
Frightened by the vicious laugh of the brutal devils,
Terrified by the corpses piling up in the alley,
Have lapsed into numbness..

Run!

The devils are coming...

A thirteen-year-old carrying his
grandmother who has died in a bomb,

Flee-flee-flee

My dear mother in the eighties,
Hurry up! Run away from the bloody hands!

Never will a holy soul bear the
humiliation of the devils!
Only to die!
Only to die!
Only death can wash the filth away!

Frigidity and horror have frozen this crying baby!
Poor thing
Not knowing mum has been killed
Blood, milk and tears
Have frozen, never melting

They rob and rape,
They set fire and bury people alive...
They even kill my three-month-old little grandson

Ah,
Close your eyes,
Rest in peace!
You innocent soul!

***

The second part of the visit was much more lighthearted and, dare I say it, boring. We went to a museum showcasing Nanjing brocade, a specialty to the region. Basically, the building displayed A LOT of old robes woven out of silk with raised patterns from gold, silver and multicolored threads. Some of it was quite pretty. My favorite part was the building itself (it looked very Chinese) and the looms, which had people actually working at them. No matter how hard I tried, I could not make sense of the countless threads, wooden bars and pedals that were used to operate the loom. I am very impressed with whoever came up with that machine!

And thus it ends! The last of the official Flagship field trips was over. I have to say, Nanjing is a cool place!