Phantom Reborn

What do you feel when you first looking at the picture above? It certainly looks like a barren place, and oddly, a shadow of a somewhat slender lady is seen standing in the middle of this waste land.

This lady, as far as the poster is concerned, is metaphorically described as Iris Chang
, one of the bravest authors in the world. This movie astonished me so much, till I was trembling in the inside when I was watching this documentary cum movie, a produced records which revolve around the deadly massacre happened in Nanking, China, half a century ago in year 1937.

Iris was actually a successful writer who received many awards for her published books. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II is her second published book. I came to know about her a year ago when I was reading an article in the newspaper.

I could recall that I heard someone told me tiny bits of information about the shambles happened in Nanking moments ago, but I forgot who that was, and I also forgot how much details I could actually remember. This piece of article was like sparkling up my curiosity regarding this incident once again. After that, I kept telling myself to purchase this book one day and go through it all word by word for I was too fascinated by the description of the book, and also due to the death of the author, yes, Iris killed herself, and the reason why she died, hugely relates to the publication of this book. But then, I was running errands and focused on some other thing at that time. Consequently, I did not buy the book.

A sense of deja vu struck me out of a sudden. I bumped into the same issue all over again a few days ago, and I had the opportunity to actually watch the movie which was produced based on Iris' journey to Nanking, her records, as well as watching a number of heart-aching testimonials.

Iris had reminded the people in this world about the deadly incident which happened in Nanking. The world citizens recognize and knew all about how the Nazi had behaved toward the Jews, but not the Japanese in Nanking back then.

Due to certain circumstances, this piece of history has been kept well over the years, and for the sake of self reputation of Japan as well as the diplomatic ties between Japan and certain countries, this massacre has been wiped out from the history books of Japan.

Being an enthusiastic book writer, Iris went to Nanking, and did a series of interviews with the survivors of the massacre. Many of them were humiliated physically, and of course, all of them had lost their beloved family members during the infamous massacre which no man should ever face in their lives.

Iris seeked the truth, and was very determined in writing this book, to tell the people of the world about what had actually happened as part of the history. What really made me angry was how some of the government officers in Japan behaved. One of them, for example, was standing firm with his own stand, claiming that all the testimonials, all the diaries from the then Japanese army elites and members were merely fabrication, China was the one made it all up to put up a snare against them. I found that very incredible to believe in.

Iris' determination should be passed on to the nest generation, and of course, the upcoming generations to come. This piece of history cannot be wiped out from the memories of any man. Japan has to face it, feel remorse and mourn for the innocents, and admit what had really happened in the past. Not denying it for the sake of diplomatic ties or whatsoever.