[Reading] They deserve our attention

Last Saturday June 27th. at the Glamour Bar in Shanghai, I attended a book talk event.  U.S.  journalist and author Ms. Lynne Joiner previewed her upcoming new book “Honorable Survivor: Mao’s China, McCarthy’s America and the Persecution of John S. Service ” (Link on Amazon.com).

It turned out to be a great talk.  Before the talk, I have no idea of who is John S. Service (Jack Service).   Now I learned this American diplomat has played an important role regarding U.S. and China relations prior to and during the World War II, and then was McCarthy’s first victim.

I was a pure native Chinese, born and grew up in China.  From my experience, I believe Jack Service is relatively very unknown by Chinese people.  Some more popular known American diplomats in China during WWII are Patrick Jay Hurley (known as 赫尔利 in China) and John Leighton Stuart (known as 司徒雷登 in China), the two U.S. ambassadors to the Republic of China from 1944 to 1949, especially Mr. Stuart because Mao Zedong wrote an article named “别了，司徒雷登” (Farewell, Mr. Stuart), and the article was in the required Chinese courses of Chinese high school, so you can expect every Chinese high school student has learned the article, and then knew the name of Mr. Stuart.

This reminded me that there are a lot of important events and people which and who deserve attention and respect, but actually not.  For example, Nanking Massacre, such atrocities so imporant in the history, but relatively unknown in western world.  According to New York Times in 2004, Iris Chang‘s book, The Rape of Nanking:The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997), was the first English-language full-length nonfiction account of the atrocity itself.

I am not a historian, and have no intention to harbor resentment, but I always believe that we should remember those important people and events in the human being history.  They deserve our attention.

Anyway, for details of the new book, here is a good interview article:

At the Glamour Bar: Lynne Joiner, written by JFK Miller, posted on Wednesday, 24 June 2009.

Thank Ms. Joiner for the book.

Again:  Try to disclaimer because political history are almost always sensitive topic:
I am not a historian, and have no intention to harbor resentment.  I personally have not read this book.

One thought on “[Reading] They deserve our attention”

  1. geekmba360

    Great post.
    I once travelled with a Japanes classmate in business school. I showed him Rape of Nankin at the airport bookstore.
    He was completely shocked by what I was telling him — apparently, he had never heard about such a story. And this is a highly educated man — he attended one of the most prestigious univeristies in Japan, and studied history/political science.
    He immediately bought the book and read it. Lately he told me that he couldn’t believe what he just read — it was such a shock for him.
    It was very sad that Iris Chang killed herself — she had done so much to make an important part of history known to the world. Reportely, she suffered depression becuase the story she felt so sad about the story she was writing. Like you said, this type of books are very important to the humanity.
     

Comments are closed.