How Can I Forget?

I am drinking because I know this is going to be hard. I need to warn you that the pictures you see here might give you nightmare, a nightmare every generation Chinese have lived with ever since.

Yesterday over lunch I was told by a 20 something, white, Jesus looks like, Canadian boy to forget, forgive and move on, as well as some other vague lines like 'Don't hold grudge', 'Can we just all get along'... He also claimed that he got some relatives who died fighting the Nazi during WW2, but he has forgiven and moved on. He should really be proud because his relatives died as solders for a justified cause. I don't even want to comment on the comparison he brought between the violence in the Middle East now and what I am going talk about here, (I am a little drunk now, but I still know a better way to waste my time). I looked at him with rage and sorrow. I was angry because the worst days of his life probably was the days back in high school when he wasn't so popular. I was sad because I was too weak to stop the humiliation to the people half century later after they were slaughtered. I know I am not much better than him. What do I know? All I have suffered was couple of racial discrimination in Calgary and Phoenix, a sleepless summer night in Beijing back in 1989 with gun shots echoed through out the night which knowing some of the people I and my family knew probably were never coming home.

I admire Judaism, a faith that doesn't believe in forgiveness, whose God loves and cares as hard as he hates and punishes. I admire Jews who make sure that everyone hears and nobody forgets what happened, who believe that some wounds should never heal, so that they would hurt forever to remind. Let me show you a little piece of forgotten history. From December 1937 to February 1938, over 300,000 Chinese were brutally murdered in Nanjing. It was just couple of months of the 8-year war, it was just one city of the thousand cites in China, and it was just 300,000 people among the 4 million dead Chinese, who were murdered only because they were Chinese! Nanjing was the capital city of China in that era, and it is a beautiful mid-size city close to my father's home town.

When the German president got on his knees apologizing, Japanese government was busy re-writing their elementary school textbooks to cover up the history. We never ever got an apology. Do you believe the criminals who never admit their fault wouldn't do it again? I wouldn't count on that. This Canadian guy was right. I wasn't even born yet when it happened, and why do I care so much?! It is a funny thing to be a Chinese. The thousand years of history is glory, but it is also a huge baggage that weights tons on every Chinese's chest. We are billions, but we are also one. I died through their death, and they are still living through my life. How do we know good if we don't know evil? How do we forgive if we don't know suffering? Everyone knows the holocaust, but other than Chinese who knows that holocaust times a thousand actually happened in China, in Asia?

Let's not be fatally naive to talk about peace until justice is served. Let's not forget when the dead are still not resting in peace. I am not a violent person, and I don't believe in violence. All I am asking of you is not to forget. How can I forget? I don't dare to, because the moment we forget the history will repeat itself, because the moment I forget they all died in vain.

If you are not Chinese and you have a weak heart, you probably should stop reading on now. If you are a Chinese or at least you think you are, you own your people this one.

(Google Nanjing Massacre for more information)