Iris Chang commits suicide

[GeneChing]

A tragic loss for Chinese research and the SF Bay Area... (http://www.smh.com.au/news/Books/Author-Iris-Chang-found-dead/2004/11/11/1100131124415.html?from=top5&oneclick=true)

[Shaolinlueb]

can you copy and paste gene, you have to register to view stuff.

[GeneChing]

...or you can check out Iris' personal site (http://www.irischang.net/). I imagine they'll post something there about this soon. :(

[norther practitioner]

That's too sad.. I've actually heard of her. One of my friends recomended her first book to me.

[CFT]

Courtesy of the good ole' BBC:

Author Chang found dead aged 36 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4002289.stm)

Best-selling US author Iris Chang has been found dead at the age of 36.

The writer was discovered in her car on a highway near Los Gatos in California and had a gunshot wound to her head.

Authorities believe the injury was self-inflicted. Chang had recently been treated in hospital after suffering from depression.

Chang was renowned for her books about the Japanese occupation of China as well as the history of Chinese immigrants in the US.

She was best-known for her 1997 international best-seller The Rape Of Nanking, which described the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers during their occupation of the former Chinese capital in the 1930s.

'The best historian'

Chang started her career as a journalist, but left to pursue writing and published her first book at the age 25.

Thread Of The Silkworm told the story of Tsien Hsue-shen, the Chinese physicist who pioneered China's missile programme during the Cold War.

Her agent Susan Rabiner said she suffered a breakdown during research for her latest book about US soldiers fighting the Japanese in the Philippines.

She continued to suffer from depression after leaving hospital, and in a note to her family asked to be remembered for the person she was before she fell ill.

The late historian Stephen Ambrose described Chang as "maybe the best historian we've got".

"She understands that to communicate history, you've got to tell the story in an interesting way," he added.

[Shaolinlueb]

**** only 36 too. :(

[FuXnDajenariht]

maybe all the research finally got to her.....

poor girl.... taking on the weight of the world.

[GeneChing]

I referenced Chang's work in one of my archived e-zine articles (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=157) - to be honest I've not read that book all the way through yet and I'm not sure that I will. War atrocities are never easy reading.

[ngokfei]

She was a brave woman.
Her research is said to have alienated her from alot of her family and some in the chinese community who just wanted the past to rest.

Alot of japanese verterans hated her for bringing up the past. But then again have you seen their history books. Also see who their political learders have been for the past 50 years and you'll see their connections with alot of the crimes committed during WWII.

I'm suprised she survived this long not having a nervous breakdown.

Gene you should finish the book, it really puts life in perspective, at least for me.


Conspiracy theorists already at work on this one

[GeneChing]

...but I'll probably tackle Chinese in America first. War crimes just isn't light recreational reading, and I have to read so much heavy stuff for work (right now I'm chipping on soem Ming Dynasty short stories and a bunch of Buddhist sutras) I need something a little lighter...

[ngokfei]

gene

yeah guess you do. What no Dynasty Warriors break?

cool game, but boy do I suck. hey, I sucked at centipede too!!!


For a funny read try the book "steal my art" on TT Liang by S. Olson. Go to the "Old Rogue" section. man it was a trip down memory lane with similar stories I can tell from training under some old sifu's as well.

Some stories so funny I woke my daughter up. Others are kind of bizarre and embarassing.

on another note, CCTV is really cool. Just got it down here, and could you believe for free!!!. the politics they can keep but the episodes on travel, history is cool. MA's appears from time to time. this month they seem to be emphasizing Wu Dang.

back to work, I mean me.

later

eric

[ngokfei]

Also read that she was working on a new book:

re: the treatment of US Soldiers by the japanese During WWII.

Man she really knows how to pick some heavy topics.

could explain alot.

[Mr Punch]

I read Chang's book and think she deserves a lot of respect.

However, the rest of what I'm about to say will not be popular. I think she got a lot wrong, and damaged the good work a lot of other researchers are trying to do to gain recognition of these atrocities. Unfortunately, I think she was a victim of her own nightmares.

Note, I do not agree with the revisionists, but here are a few things some people may like to consider before they try to tell me who is revising what. (http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=16772)

The great thing she did was bring the subject right out into the open again. Unfortunately she seems to have done at the expense of a few facts.

[ngokfei]

intersting paper, will have to take some time to read and disect it more.

In all we have to deal with the passing of time. many facts have been lost, forgotten and fabricated for the benefit of those arguing the case.

What is known is the abundant amount of attrocities committed by the Germans and japanese during WWII.

While attrocities are common place during war time, the extreme scale and situations of genocide show the overall belief of a country/society.

What is funny to me is how the US and the other allie countries took it upon themselves to help rebuild the countries of Japan and germany to a point where they exceed the standard of living we have in the US. today.

The nuremberg trials were very public and deep searching resulting in the execution of many top nazis but this is not the case in Japan. Many documented individuals involved in war crimes were not pursued to the same vigor as the nazi's.


Not to draw this out. That is the past and the future is uncertain. History repeats itself from the fall of the roman empire to the acts of ethnic and religous cleansing.

WE only ahve a short time on this plane of existance so we must make the most of it before time is up.

[Mr Punch]

Originally posted by ngokfei
In all we have to deal with the passing of time. many facts have been lost, forgotten and fabricated for the benefit of those arguing the case.

What is known is the abundant amount of attrocities committed by the Germans and japanese during WWII.

While attrocities are common place during war time, the extreme scale and situations of genocide show the overall belief of a country/society. Good post. But don't forget that as the victors write the history, the US have been engaged in many acts that could be described as atrocities, as has my country... the UK arguably invented concentration camps in the Boer War and until relatively recently (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1335961,00.html) maintained similar practises.

The overall belief of a country/society, or just the dark side in many of us?

[GeneChing]

I heard about this through our old TCEC (http://www.tigerclawelite.com/) supporter Kansen Chu.


San Jose: Park dedicated to Iris Chang could be delayed by Microsoft project (http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/11/05/san-jose-park-dedicated-to-iris-chang-could-be-delayed-by-microsoft-project/)

http://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/sjm-l-chang-1103-2.jpg?w=799
From left, Shau-Jin Chang, and his wife Ying-Ying Chang pose for a portrait at the site of the Iris Chang Memorial Park, named after their daughter, in San Jose, California on Wednesday, November 1, 2017. The park is delayed because Microsoft wants a water well for its new data center and it might be placed on the park land. (LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group)

By RAMONA GIWARGIS | rgiwargis@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: November 5, 2017 at 12:00 pm | UPDATED: November 6, 2017 at 12:49 pm

SAN JOSE — Not far from where best-selling Chinese-American author Iris Chang lived before she died in 2004, a vacant plot near an apartment-lined street in North San Jose that was planned to memorialize her is still covered in dirt and surrounded by an orange fence.

Two years ago, San Jose leaders agreed to build a new 3-acre park there named after the internationally recognized author. It was supposed to open this year.

But it hasn’t been an easy journey. First, the park’s debris-filled soil needed to be replaced, causing a year-long delay. Now, supporters worry, a proposal to build a water well on the site primarily to support a tech company could delay the park opening again.

“We feel very disappointed and upset,” said Ying-Ying Chang, Iris’ mother, who lives nearby in the same neighborhood as her daughter did. “We already waited a year. Now if the well is put on the site of Iris Chang Park, the whole design will be changed. It will destroy the aesthetic aspect of the park.”

City leaders are considering placing the well on the park land to accommodate plans for a nearby Microsoft data center, which needs a groundwater well. Putting the well on the site would require a park redesign and would delay its opening for months. A spokesman for Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment.

https://i0.wp.com/www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/sjm-l-chang-11xx-32.jpg?w=620&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C9999px
Famed author Iris Chang as she appeared in 2003. Chang, best known for “The Rape of Nanking,”� died in 2004, committing suicide in Los Gatos after suffering from depression briefly at the end of her life.” (Courtesy Jimmy Estimada)

Iris Chang became a worldwide heroine after her 1997 best-seller “The Rape of Nanking” detailed the atrocities of the 1937 Nanking massacre, when the Japanese army brutalized thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

San Jose officials say that while Iris Chang Park is one of the best options for a new well, other remain under consideration. A final decision on the well site is expected by the end of November. A data center needs water to cool off the equipment. The proposed well would be a backup water source for Microsoft and the area’s residents.

“The location has good water quality and that’s one of the reasons it could be a good site for a well,” said Matt Cano, assistant director of the city’s Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services Department. “Right now, we are considering this as a possibility, but no decision has been made.”

Cano said Iris Chang Park — which sits between Epic Way and Coyote Creek — would be delayed by four to six months if it’s selected as the site for the well.

The San Jose City Council last week approved a special-use permit for Microsoft’s proposed data center on 64 acres northwest of Highway 237 and McCarthy Boulevard. The 376,519-square-foot facility, which is Seattle-based Microsoft’s first project in San Jose, includes six buildings and would employ 40 employees. The company has had a Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View for more than 15 years. But Microsoft has asked that the well be secured before the project moves forward.

“We’ve been having a discussion about water supply in North San Jose for a number of years,” said Nanci Klein, the city’s assistant economic development director. But she acknowledged the issue has become more urgent since Microsoft chose to locate its data center in San Jose, a city that calls itself the “Capital of Silicon Valley” and has sought to lure more technology industry. “You’re seeing more attention now because of Microsoft.”

Chang’s father, Shau-Jin, worries that Iris Chang Park is the easiest choice for a well site because it’s city-owned land. Though North San Jose needs to expand its water supply to support future growth, Chang’s family believes there are better options for Microsoft’s new project.

“They should look into other places they can use — just leave the park alone,” said Shau-Jin Chang.

Several lawmakers have joined the fight to protect Iris Chang Park, urging the city to look elsewhere for the 10-by-20 foot well.

State Assemblyman Kansen Chu, who came up with the idea to name the planned park after Iris Chang when he served on the San Jose City Council, wrote a letter opposing changes that take away land from the park.

“The proposed well at the site of Iris Chang Park would involve redesigning the park with less public space and trees without sufficient outreach to the neighboring communities,” Chu wrote.

The councilman for the district, Lan Diep, says placing the well on Iris Chang Park land should be the last resort.

“I don’t support having it there if there are other options,” Diep said. “But if there are no other options and Iris Chang turns out to be the best spot, I think I’d be open to that.”

https://i2.wp.com/www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/sjm-l-chang-1103-3.jpg?w=620&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C9999px
The site of the Iris Chang Memorial Park sits across the street from the Epic apartment complex and is adjacent to the Coyote Creek Trail in San Jose, California on Wednesday, November 1, 2017. (LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group)

Since Iris Chang’s death, her parents have continued her mission of shedding light on the Nanking massacre, which killed 300,000 Chinese civilians and has been called “the Forgotten Holocaust.” By telling historical truths, Chang believed humanity could secure justice for victims and prevent countries from repeating the mistakes of the past.

An elegant memorial hall opened in China last May honoring Chang and her cause. A life-size statue of her sits in the Nanking Massacre Memorial Hall in China. Several movies have been made about her life.

In November 2004, after privately battling depression, Iris Chang drove to an isolated road near Los Gatos and committed suicide. The Chang family hopes the park in North San Jose breaks ground soon — and helps keep their daughter’s courageous legacy alive.

“People remember Iris because she pursued the truth of the history,” said Chang’s mother. “The right-wingers in Japan tried to deny this part of history and she’s the one who told the world what happened in 1937. I think people consider her a champion for truth and courage.”