History – Asian Lands – Page 6 – education and deconstruction.com

Butterfly in the Rain

The Book of the Week is “Butterfly in the Rain, The 1927 Abduction and Murder of Marion Parker” by James L. Neibaur, published in 2016. This short ebook recounts a gruesome crime and the aftermath, that occurred in late 1927 in Los Angeles, California.

The fame of this sensational case was comparable to that of O.J. Simpson’s. However, the newspaper, rather than television, was the medium through which the nation was riveted by the unfolding story. The case involved a child and plenty of controversy. Read the book to learn the details.

Fu-Go

The Book of the Week is “Fu-Go” by Ross Coen, published in 2014. This book describes the precursor to modern-day drones.

During WWII, extensive research in meteorology, materials science, engineering, physics and statistics was required to send the explosives-laden hot-air balloons about 6,000 miles from Japan to America. In 1942, the Japanese began the campaign with the goals of boosting its own national morale and taking a swipe at its enemy; more specifically, to start forest fires in the Western United States, and create terror among American civilians. This would prompt America to divert its war resources to the quell the distraction. Japan lacked the funds to continue this initiative until late 1944.

The parachutes portion was made of paper from blackberry trees, and pasted together by thousands of middle school and high school girls whose education had lapsed due to the war. They performed unhealthy manual labor at a school gym and a factory. Miraculously, with significant improvement in balloon design, a few hundred of the drones landed in Washington state, Idaho, California and Montana in rural areas. There was controversy over whether to warn civilians of the danger, as this might tell the Japanese how well its campaign was working, and reveal the flaws in its system. American authorities met with the Canadian government, and pressured the media into keeping silent for a long time.

Read the book to learn whether Japan achieved its goals with this seemingly minor yet creative plan of attack.

Gudao, Lone Islet

The Book of the Week is ” Gudao, Lone Islet– The War Years in Shanghai” by Margaret Blair, published in 2008.

This slim volume tells of the WWII traumas suffered by a little girl in a British/Scottish/Chinese household in the International Settlement section of Shanghai, occupied by the Japanese in 1943.

Born in 1936, the author lived in a neighborhood of expatriates originally from the United Kingdom. Her Scottish father was a detective in the British police. The political entity was not a British colony, but was a protectorate subject to British law.

In 1943, the assets and liabilities of the British sector of the International Settlement was sold via a treaty between Great Britain and China, to the Shanghai Municipal Council (i.e., Chiang Kai Shek’s political party, the Nationalists– (non-Communists, but no less corrupt and power hungry). In this way, the British government knowingly allowed its citizens to stay in harm’s way. The Japanese occupied the area that year, and the author and her family became prisoners of war.

Before and during the war, the Japanese took various martial actions that resulted in atrocities and deaths far greater than would the atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the war’s end. The Axis power militarily occupied Korea, Manchuria, and committed the worst brutalities in Nanking, China. There occurred millions of deaths there (according to this book), while Hiroshima and Nagasaki saw only about 120,000 deaths. Additionally, Japanese prisoner of war camps had higher death rates than camps of other nations in the war. The Japanese never did pay reparations for its war crimes.

Prior to the war, Blair lived an idyllic life of social events and familial closeness in the cosmopolitan Shanghai of the 1930’s. All of that was changed radically by the war. Read the book to learn of the traumas caused by the war at large, and the hardships the author faced on a day-to-day basis.

The Lightless Sky

The Book of the Week is “The Lightless Sky” by Gulwali Passarlay and Nadene Ghouri, published in 2015. This is the suspenseful, extreme story of an Afghan boy who embarks on a life-threatening journey in order to flee his violent homeland.

Born in 1994, Passarlay was a year old when the Taliban took over Afghanistan. He lived in a multi-generational household where the main source of income was herding. In 2002, the United States occupied the country. The author and his brother were sent to live briefly with his aunt in Waziristan, near the Pakistan border where there was fighting between the Pakistani military and the Taliban. In autumn 2006, the family paid a network of people-smugglers to try to save the life of the author and his brother, by spiriting them out of the country.

The boys faced a series of traumatic, life-threatening hardships on their long, multi-lingual, multi-national sojourn. Passarlay began it as a Pashtu-speaking Sunni adolescent– a product of his insular culture. Read the book to find out the radical psychological changes wrought by his environments and experiences as a victim of the profit motive in the potentially life-saving operations involving the transport and accommodation of illegal refugees.

The Broader Way

The Book of the Week is “The Broader Way” by Sumie Seo Mishima, published in 1953. This is a depressing personal account of the Japanese author’s experiences during and after WWII.

The author studied in the United States at a university in the mid-1920’s. She returned to Japan before the war, married a divorced professor who already had four children. A feminist of sorts, she worked near Tokyo as a teacher and tutor, and could afford to hire a maid. Still, a major strike against her included her gender, especially in the workplace. Women had traditionally held the roles of wife, mother and household maintainer in Japan’s economically feudal system– of inheritance and property ownership by males only.

Toward late 1940, in preparing its people for war, the Japanese government politically divided the country into neighborhood associations on a very local level. This imposed egalitarianism on everyone, as all walks of life were lumped together. During the war, civilians were forced to cooperate in distributing rationed food, as, of course, there were severe shortages, reducing some to subsist on only a cornmeal-like substance for the war’s duration. Black markets sprung up everywhere. Teens were sent to work for the war effort– munitions factories and airfield construction sites for the boys, and quarries and opticals for the girls.

American warplanes flew over Tokyo starting in late 1944, and the destruction of the city reached its peak in March 1945. The homes of many people, including eventually, the author, were hit by bombs. The Japanese people had been miserably deceived by the military leaders. They had been told that the imperial armed forces were superior to the enemy. After the war, the Occupation authorities (i.e., the United States, in Japan’s case– for five years) allowed free discussion of different political views, even Communism. A new National Constitution was drafted, that supposedly was to afford equal rights for men and women. This was a radical change from Japan’s previous political system, whereby males had all the power.

Postwar Japan suffered not only starvation, but skyrocketing inflation. Luxuries included beef, chicken, eggs and apples. The Occupation forces supplied canned ham, bacon, sausage and butter in summer 1946. DDT was sprayed liberally on all buildings and gardens, in an attempt to head off pestilence and epidemics. The year 1947 saw entrepreneurial Japanese civilians become street vendors, which quickly fell victim to organized crime. Many women were forced into prostitution to survive, and they protected their territory through cooperating.

In the summer of 1946, the author worked as a translator at the International Military Tribunal, commuting by tramcar, which was stuffed to the gills all the time. After every ride, her clothes were “… ripped and stained with grimy handmarks… The Japanese people had lost all class distinctions and sunk into practically uniform poverty and sordidness.” Young boys sold newspapers and peanuts on the street and bartering for school supplies was not uncommon, for the lucky few who could afford a basic education. Young girls worked as seamstresses. The author’s family was comparatively wealthy, residing in a house, but even they became a multi-generational household when the kids married.

The concept of Communism was in the air, as its propagandists pointed to the Russians as an example of where the political system was working. Impressionable youths traumatized by the war and deprivation were easily persuaded of its benefits.

Read the book to learn a wealth of additional details on the political, cultural and social changes wrought by WWII in Japan.

From Exile to Washington

The Book of the Week is “From Exile to Washington” by W. Michael Blumenthal, published in 2013. This tome describes the historical times of the author, with some autobiographical bragging thrown in.

Blumenthal, born in 1926 in Germany, happened to have a Jewish last name when Hitler came to power. He endured the hardships of living in Shanghai as a refugee when his family fled Germany on the eve of WWII. After the war, as a Displaced Person, he waited years for permission to live in the United States. When the Jews in Shanghai learned of the atrocities that had been committed against their fellow religionists, they considered the terms “Germany” and “Germans” anathema. No one wanted to go back to Europe. The most sought after destinations were Palestine, America, Australia or South America.

The author became Americanized but his life experiences gave him a unique perspective on his homeland and China that not many people had. In 1960, he, like many other Americans, was inspired by President Kennedy’s language of idealism and sacrifice to volunteer to help his country through government service.

Read the book to learn about the lofty corporate and government positions held by the author, and the historical backdrop of his life.

Crescent & Star – Turkey Between Two Worlds

The Book of the Week is “Crescent & Star – Turkey Between Two Worlds” by Stephen Kinzer, published in 2001. This repetitive volume recounts the recent history of Turkey. Of course the country has changed significantly since the publishing of this writing, which was prior to 9/11.

The individual was considered less important than the collective– family, village or clan, not the nation. The media were censored on topics such as the Kurds, Islam, the Armenian genocide of 1915, relations with Greece and Cyprus, etc., etc. Three major controversies in Turkish society included: the tribal conflict between Turks and Kurds, the religious conflict between Sunni Muslims and Alevis, and the hotly debated question of whether religion should be practiced in public life (such as female students’ wearing of veils at university). “The Turks are still gripped by two ancient Middle Eastern taboos. One is the taboo against change, which they equate with admitting failure. The other is the taboo against dialogue, compromise and negotiation.”

In the mid 1980’s, the Kurds formed an anti-government military organization called the PKK to try to subvert the government through violence. Excessive blood was shed with the government’s response against these separatists.

The August 1999 earthquake was a particularly trying time for the nation. There was plenty of unnecessary death and destruction. The disaster was a cluster screw-up. In years prior, unschooled, capital-poor Turks started unscrupulous home-building businesses that constructed flimsy apartment buildings. After the quake, arrogant and indifferent top officials of the government relief agency, Kizilay, who had been playing fast and loose with the organization’s checkbook, responded slowly to aiding the victims. Nevertheless, tens of countries around the world, including Greece, aided Turkey in its time of need. The disaster served as an excuse, a tipping point for the nation’s resuming diplomatic relations with Greece. Besides, the events surrounding the earthquake served as an additional impetus for younger Turks to agitate for political and cultural change.

Read the book to learn about additional factors that were affecting the people’s push for change, such as worship of Kemal Ataturk, the 1996 Susurluk scandal and the military’s role in governing the country.

An Irishman in China

The Book of the Week is “An Irishman in China” by Zhao Changtian; Yang Shuhui and Yunqin, translators, published in 2014. This is the career story of Robert Hart.

Hart, originally from Northern Ireland, visited various ports of the world via ship before settling in Shanghai, China in autumn 1854 as an interpreter, a non-official member of the British consular service. In his early twenties, he started at a time of anti-government rebellion by two groups, Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and Small Sword Society. British merchants– angry about having to pay taxes when other nations’ traders, such as France, America and Portugal didn’t– were supplying the rebels with arms. Coastal cities produced ample rice, silk and tea. Unsurprisingly, there was corruption at the customs house.

Hart stayed at the British Consulate in Ningbo. He hired a cleaning boy, cook and an English tutor who taught him the Chinese language. Employed by the Chinese government, he moved up through the ranks serving Western merchants in the customs department. In March 1858, he was transferred to Guangzhou because Anglo-French forces attacked the city. He was skilled in diplomacy, and through the years, made friends in high places in the Chinese government. As for his social life, a colleague told him he could get a mail-order bride of sorts, a non-prostitute who was “…trained in music, chess, calligraphy and painting.” Nevertheless, he met someone on his own, and started a family.

Read the book to learn of Hart’s personal and professional relationships over the course of half a century; how he protected British interests in China and had an impact on China’s foreign policy, especially during armed conflicts among its own peoples and other nations.

Jawaharlal Nehru

The Book of the Week is “Jawaharlal Nehru, An Autobiography” originally published in 1936. This book on Indian history shows the reader yet again, that there is nothing new under the sun.

Born in 1889, Nehru, who had much older sisters, grew up in a wealthy, multigenerational Hindu family of Kashmiri origin. After completing his elitist legal education, following in the footsteps of his father, he became an Indian civil servant and political activist in Bombay. He wrote, “All the bureaucrats in New Delhi do are gossip about promotions, leave and rules, furloughs, transfers and scandal.”

In the mid-nineteen teens, the Indian populace began agitating for Home Rule (also called “swaraj”)– breaking the yoke of British colonialism, and making peace among believers of Hinduism and Islam– two major Indian religions (amid violence in the Punjab in 1919, and other areas such as Bengal). In a nutshell, “India is supposed to be a religious country above everything else, and Hindu and Moslem and Sikh and others take pride in their faiths and testify to their truth by breaking heads.”

Nehru’s father became a follower of Gandhi, who led the powerful, non-violent movement of civil disobedience, satyagraha. In the early 1920’s, a few million people participated in non-cooperation protests at Gandhi’s behest. Many, including Nehru were jailed with sentences of one to three years, sometimes with early releases, on and off into the mid-1930’s. Their civil rights of assembly, speech, etc. were severely curtailed, as was their ability to defend themselves in “show-trials” against the British authorities’ hastily conceived, arbitrary legislation outlawing the dissident political groups and their activities. [Side Note: Authorities in South Africa (a former British colony) behaved the same way as the British authorities fifty (!) years later, against dark-skinned political dissidents under apartheid.]

Nehru recounted an ugly episode involving his mother. She was peacefully marching in a protest when police arrested her and bloodied her head, beating her with their batons. “That night a false rumour spread in Allahabad that my mother had died. Angry crowds gathered together, forgot about peace and non-violence, and attacked the police.”

As well, the spirit of the times involved youth groups and workers’ trade unions, who met to talk late into the night about the social and economic problems of the day. Socialism and Marxism were in the air. Nehru and other political dissidents urged peasant farmers to initiate a rent strike against their landlords. Gandhi launched a few attention-mongering hunger strikes in his attempts to effect political change.

During 1930, there were negotiations for Indian independence. A new Constitution would have to be drafted with provisions on national defense, foreign affairs, financial and economic policy, and on what was to be done about India’s indebtedness to Britain.

Funny, in the mid-1930’s, Nehru could have been writing about current American politics: “It is very unfortunate that foolish and ill-informed criticisms of a personal nature are made, because they divert attention from the real issues.” Across the Atlantic, there was a “…Europe in turmoil, fearful of war and tumult and with economic crises always on the horizon.” At that time, India’s people were not alone in their suffering. There was more violence and death around the world due to fascism, nazism, imperialism and colonialism than now. Nevertheless, Nehru asked a question that is still relevant, “Were there any principles, and standards of conduct in this world, or was it all sheer opportunism?”

Read the book to learn Nehru’s answer, and about Indian history in the 1920’s and ’30’s, as seen through Nehru’s eyes.

Without You, There Is No Us

The Book of the Week is “Without You, There Is No Us” by Suki Kim, published in 2014. This is the personal account of a Korean journalist who, in 2011, went to Pyongyang, North Korea to teach English to male college students.

In both of the Koreas, “… daughters-in-law worked year round, cooking. cleaning and washing, never mind being perpetually pressured to produce a male heir.” North Korean society is extremely group-oriented. People are never alone at their residences, taking meals and playing sports. All men except those in the upper class, are required to serve in the military for about ten years, and women for about seven years, starting at 17. North Koreans never take vacations; there are no holiday getaways.

The North is a military dictatorship in which anyone who utters anything negative about the Great Leader, will face serious consequences, and possible death. “All the students’ skits ended, regardless of plot, with a song of gratitude to either their leader or their party.” There is power in secrecy. The government is obsessed with spying on its own people– eliminating all of their secrets, thereby keeping them powerless.

The government is also obsessed with promoting the idea that North Koreans alone excel at all areas of life– a declaration based on nothing but empty boasting; the same kind of fascistic mentality put forth by Hitler, Mussolini and Mao Tse Tung. The irony is that “…their culture was saturated with messages about killing South Koreans and Americans and references to horrifically gruesome acts… yet they needed to learn English and feed their children with foreign money…”

In 2011, a new North Korean government program had just been initiated, that brought in foreigners to teach lessons in English to the kids of the elite (doctors, scientists and government party hacks), for no pay. Kim taught at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, although science was missing from the curriculum. The school had a buddy system, pairing up students. But they were switched each term so that no alliances became too loyal for too long. They were forced to perform various “patriotic” acts, such as manual labor, digging and hauling water to plant trees in October, cleaning bathrooms, and “guarding” shrine-like buildings in freezing cold weather (but they weren’t really guarding anything).

Read the book to learn more about the stress experienced by the author with her immersion in North Korean culture, and her shock at how extremely obedient and clueless her students were about everyday life in the rest of the world.