No comments about Ezra Pound and Japan: Letters and Essays.

No comments about Mitsui Madhouse: Memoir of a U.S. Army Air Corps POW in World War II.

No comments about Mad Wives and Island Dreams: Shimao Toshio and the Margins of Japanese Literature.

1 comments about My Time in Hell: Memoir of an American Soldier Imprisoned by the Japanese in World War II.

1. In 1942 Andrew Carson, who had joined the military to make a better life for himself, found himself taken prisoner by the Japanese as they began their conquest of the Philippine Islands. Starving, sick, and beaten, Carson survived a series of prison camps until he was finally liberated in 1945.

   Carson provides chilling details of life in Cabanatuan in the Philippines and the harrowing voyage on a hell ship to Japan. His memoir is grim but never self-pitying. A true testament to the will to survive.

No comments about Japanese Portraits (Images Across the Ages).

No comments about East Meets West: Life Story.

No comments about Reflections: Memoirs of Japanese American Women in Minnesota.

No comments about Kokoro: Japanese Inner Life Hints.

4 comments about Escape from Heng Yang: The Memoir of a Six-Year-Old Refugee Girl.

1. It was the memoir of a six-year-old girl. The story started off with a happy family and childhood. Her parents, her and twin brothers were forced to leave upon the Japanese invasion with the brutal policy of - Kill all, Loot All and Burn All. - in WW II China.
   
   They left their beloved hometown and encountered a lustful Japanese soldier hungry for woman. The kids screamed and cried to stop the draft. I closed my eyes in tears with the horror of the Rape of Nanking 1937 in mind. The round-spectacled Japanese officer intervened out of the image of his own family and his boy at home. Obviously, Confucius's golden rule "do not do onto others what you do not want others do on to you" superimposed Bushido.
   
   Further down the journey, they hid in the hen house with her uncle family and baby cousin to avoid Japanese troops. The uncle tried to stop the crying by strangling the baby to the shock and horror of the little girl. It was heart wrenching in this family tragedy. It is a crime against humanity for Japanese to wage aggressive war against her neighbors.
   
   In dodging Japanese bombs, the family chanced Chinese retreating army and Captain Tsang on a huge brown horse by a dirt road. Captain Tsang recognized the fleeing parents were not farmers but intellectuals. Somehow, the porters and the two boys were lost. The anxiety and stress filled the next two chapters.
   
   With the troops left, they found themselves in an abandoned city in despair. The parents tried to end their lives by jumping into the river. It was the girl's cry for life called up parents' will and hope to come back even stronger as a family. My tears and admiration go with their faith and courage.
   
   The Chinese greater family of fraternity warmed the heart from an old magistrate to offer the family support and father as a private tutor. As Japanese troops were pressing in, they decided to go on their journey after three days. The train ride miraculously met a searching soldier with message of the boys in Captain Tsang's custody. It was exciting to see the dramatic family re-union.
   
   However, subsequently, her mother was hit by malaria in a strange town. It was fortunate for her father to meet his former favorite student, a local faculty capable to help. Soon, all had to head upstream by sampan. Settled in a small town, the father had to settle by selling yams. Moving on, they met Uncle Zhai and headed west. Creatively, they did stage plays with their yam selling experience. "It was a tiny story distilled out of the sentiment from peoples forced to leave their home after witnessing atrocity after atrocity that was systematically displayed by the invading (Japanese) forces" (P.100)
   
   As they made their final distance by mule carts and donkey to Chong Qing (Chung King), people were running and shouting, "Japanese Emperor has surrendered! We Win! We Win!
   
   This personal story shared the readers the horror and courage in the Japanese invasion and occupation. Originally written in Chinese, it was translated by Eugene Lo Wei in making it available as the Chinese counterpart "The Diary of Ann Frank". The family escaped from Heng Yang in a long, dangerous journey to freedom. The kids walked, rode in baskets, on horse back, on jam packed trains, on sampans and on mule carts. Between fortunes and misfortunes, there always was a guarding angel. It was their courage, endurance and survival to witness the final day of victory and peace.
   
   This book is a good high school reading material. The masterpiece drawings by artist Ling Shan make the story alive and impressive. It would be helpful if Eugene explained more in some of the italic Chinese for English readers. A book list will help readers to the subjects such as Flying Tigers, Rape of Nanking, Germ Warfare, Unit 731 and Comfort Women
   
   As Japanese government still whitewash, distort and flatly deny their history of aggression, peace loving citizens have to work together so as to prevent Japanese crime against humanity from happening again.



2. Chung Yao created a reminiscence of the Japanese Imperial Army invasion and occupation of China through the eyes of a small child. Eugene Wei takes up the challenge of bringing her story to life for the English-speaking world. This is a history almost unknown in the US. For whatever reasons, the atrocities and war crimes committed by the Japanese Imperial Army, and the suffering of the Chinese people are not in our memory of WW II.
   
   The war ended in 1945 with the Japanese surrender. Yao's diary covers this one year of the war, from the viewpoint of a young girl who has only a glimmer of understanding of the complete tragedy boiling around her. Her parents do their best to protect the family.
   
   Understanding the invasion through the eyes and ears of a six-year-old asks that we lay aside our own concepts and vision of these events, and imagine instead this history a child might see. In original Chinese, Yao records scenes that we know to be horrific. But Yao describes them with compelling innocence and a matter-of-fact tone. Wei's translation seals in the story of courage and determination to escape to the relative safety of Chongqing for US readers.
   
   The final chapter is the news of the Japanese surrender in 1945, and the peace this brings. But can the family return to the innocent carefree prewar days? Can one ever forgive and forget the unimaginable suffering of being driven from home and cast on an uncertain journey without a future?
   
   The author compares this work to another child's diary of WW II. While Anne Frank is known throughout the world, little is recorded of the numberless families, such as the Yao's, who bore the brunt of the Japanese Imperial Army savagery. Wei's translation offers a chance to make these stories personal. It will appeal to younger readers who can more readily interpret a child's view of these events.



3. Chung Yao is the pseudoname or nom de plume of a very well-known author in Asia. Most Chinese born in the 50-60-70s (even 80s may be?) grew up with her novels filled with eloquent Chinese poetry & melodramatic storylines about feudalistic influences causing conflicts in big families and young people's lives. This book is a translation of the first chapter of the author's autobiography, documenting, in her usual dreamy and passionate style, her early experiences of following her parents across several war-torn provinces, and in the most edge-of-seat situations that anyone born during peace time can take. Eugene Wei did a superb job in conveying that sense of innocence and surprising turn of events to the English-speaking world. Due to great political, social and economic turmoils that happened in China immediately following WWII, historical truth & human tragedies were muted & unknown to the Western world - the horrendous atrocities in cities such as Nanjing, biological warfare and violations of the most basic of human rights are only documented and circulated among history lovers, and conscientious pursuers of historical truth. It is my sincere wish that this book helps boost the efforts of the Global Alliance in preserving historical truths in sharpening the Western world's awareness of the horrific deeds that humans are capable of during war times. After all, one can only learn from history if history is made known! Great job, Eugene Wei.



4. This is a true story told by Chung Yao, an acclaimed writer in Chinese who was a refugee girl in the Sino-Japanese war. Great writing, and the war became so personal and real once it is told by someone who really has experienced it, especially as a child. I have read the author's biography in Chinese when I was young, and it is refreshing to read it again in English. Mr. Wei's translation is true to the original and it is great that this book is now available to English readers. Highly recommended for someone who is interested in learning about the Sino-Japanese war, or simply reading a well-told, true story.

No comments about Kitamura- That Departed This Worldlater Generation ( Minerva Critical Biography Election In Japan) Japanese Language Book.