June 19, 2009

China Notes #25

Greetings Friends and Family,

Spring semester is coming to a close, and as I look back it seems that this semester two rather different themes have been playing off each other in a kind of counterpoint.

The first theme consists of an intercultural communication course I teach every spring semester. The course focuses on how people of different cultures go about understanding each other and interacting with each other, and we spend a considerable portion of our time looking at what can go wrong when cultures collide. (Chapter titles from our textbook give you a bit of the flavor of the course, for example, “Where can we look to explain verbal misunderstandings?” “Why do so many people get treated so poorly?” and “How can we manage conflict in intercultural settings?”) Often our focus is on face-to-face encounters between individuals from different cultures, but we also get into the larger issues of interaction and conflict between groups and even nations.

The other theme consists of the Nanjing Massacre. As many of you know, this occurred in late 1937 when Japanese troops captured Nanjing and then went on a rampage of killing, rape, and looting that left over 200,000 Chinese dead and many more physically or emotionally wounded. This event has become better known in the West since the publication of Iris Chang’s 1997 book The Rape of Nanking, and more recently the book The Good Man of Nanking, which is actually the wartime diary of John Rabe. Rabe was a German businessman in Nanjing during the Massacre, and was chairman of a group of foreigners, mostly American missionaries, who organized a safety zone in the center of the city where Chinese were able to find a measure of protection from Japanese troops. The campus of Nanjing University, where I currently teach, was one of the main refugee centers in the safety zone, and another center, Rabe’s home, is one block down the street from where we live.

Despite the fact that this happened over 60 years ago, memories of the Massacre are still quite strong in Nanjing, and over the past few years it has been in the public mind even more due to several films made outside China that focus on the Massacre. It has been even more on people’s minds this semester because of two new Chinese-made films that have been released and widely seen in China. One of these focuses on John Rabe, and the other (“City of Life and Death” is the English title) looks at the Massacre through the eyes of a fictional Japanese soldier. This second film has generated quite a bit of controversy in China because while it certainly shows the full evil of what Japanese troops did, it also portrays at least some of these troops as human beings rather than demons; in fact, the young Japanese soldier who is the lead character eventually commits suicide because of his horror at what his army has done. (Interestingly, he is portrayed as a graduate of a missionary school in Japan, and the film hints he might be Christian.)

So, as we have been talking in class about understanding and peace between cultures and nations, the Massacre theme has been playing in the background. For example, the Massacre was in the back of everyone’s minds when we read in the textbook that better understanding between cultures won’t resolve all conflicts, and that at times we simply need to forgive. (I was surprised and impressed that the author of an academic textbook was even willing to talk about the issue of forgiveness, let alone emphasize it as much as he did.) There wasn’t much explicit mention of the Massacre during class discussion, in part because a teacher from Japan was auditing the class and the students liked her and did not want to make her feel uncomfortable. But Chinese anger toward the Japanese was mentioned from time to time during class, and the Massacre and its legacy was brought up more than once with me by students in after-class conversations.

What is your connection as Presbyterians to all of this? First, we were there when it happened. Some key institutions in the safety zone were fully or partially Presbyterian-supported, and some members of the Safety Committee were Presbyterian missionaries; in fact, Presbyterian missionary Wilson Plumer Mills was the person who first organized the Safety Committee, and he served as chairman after Rabe left. Another member of the Committee, George Fitch of the YMCA, was the son of Presbyterian missionaries. Today you can see the photos and biographies of all the members of the Committee displayed prominently in the Rabe house museum. Second, we are still here, and we are still part of this story. To be more precise, as Presbyterians you are still in China through the presence of PC(USA) co-workers. And I feel privileged that I am invited to join the conversation as my Chinese students continue to work through this memory and decide what to do with it.

Jesus taught that one of our callings as Christians is to build peace, and let me close with two thoughts about how to go about this. First, the best time to do this is not in the midst of a conflict that has already erupted, but before it erupts, when conversation is still possible. Second, to be part of the conversations that help build peace, we need to be present. I think it is no accident that when God reached out to us most dramatically, it was by becoming one of us and coming to live amidst us in the person of Jesus Christ. The fact that we as Presbyterians have been present in the China community for over a century gives our presence special meaning and our good intentions more weight.

God’s peace to you all,

Don and Wei Hong

The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 117