Keigo Higashino mentioned in "White Night": "In this world, people who cannot be looked at directly are not only the sun, but also the human heart." ”
If the sun makes it impossible to look directly at people because the light is too harsh to open their eyes; then the inability of the human heart to look directly is because the dark side of human nature will be more and more excavated because of the gaze of the gaze, which will make people's hearts more and more discouraged and more and more difficult to believe in human nature.
For a long time I believed that this was true, and the various vicious events that had occurred in society proved this sentence one after another, and it was even more amazing that Keigo Higashino's understanding of human nature was so profound.
But then I discovered that this concept is also biased, and the inability to look at the human heart is sometimes because of its obscurity, but sometimes it is because of the brilliance of human nature. The light is like the light of the sun pouring down, making all evil invisible, trembling, they roar, open their teeth and claws to cover it, because they are afraid of it, as long as there is such a glory, there will be more similar light to be induced, and finally shine all corners, so that every evil is invisible.
For example, Zhang Chunru, the brilliance emanating from her seemingly weak body, makes it impossible to look directly.
Many people question, when I call her Sir, someone always says that she deserves it? In terms of nationality, Zhang Chunru holds a U.S. green card, not a Chinese ID card. But if Zhang Chunru is a Chinese with red roots, it will not make people feel that there is anything wrong with it. After all, she has done more for China than some self-proclaimed "Chinese" people than those people have multiplied.
Born in 1968, Zhang Chunru was an irreputable second-generation Chinese American, with a gentle temperament, she spent a carefree childhood and adolescence in the company of her parents, and under the influence of her father who studied physics and her mother who studied microbiology, Zhang Chunru began to study computers, although her personality was gentle and quiet, but Zhang Chunru had a kind of agility and persistence in her bones. For some reason that could not be examined, Zhang Chunru, who originally read computers, did not consult with anyone and directly changed her major to journalism, even though she was only one step away from getting a computer science degree at that time.
Such a resolute and quiet girl can make achievements in any field. After graduating from the University of Illinois' Department of Journalism, Zhang Chunru first became a journalist and then earned a master's degree in writing from Hopkins University.
Zhang Chunru's first book focuses on Mr. Qian Xuesen. In order to write this book, Zhang Chunru returned to the motherland for the first time, and his original plan was to interview Qian Xuesen, but without success, he went to Qian Xuesen's ancestral home and former residence in Hangzhou, and then Returned to the United States Zhang Chunru wrote the book "Silk - Qian Xuesen, the Father of Chinese Missiles". The book was well received as soon as it came out, and it also won the MacArthur Foundation's "Peace and International Cooperation Program Award" (this MacArthur is not the same person as that Douglas MacArthur) and sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Pacific Cultural Foundation and other American social groups.
If there are no accidents, Zhang Chunru will continue on this road, marry an American, continue to engage in his own writing, and spend a happy and happy life in the eyes of outsiders.
But life always has such and such accidents. One day Zhang Chunru saw a photograph of the Nanjing Massacre in which a Japanese officer swung his saber over the neck of a Chinese, and the neck of the Chinese had not yet fallen.
The photo evoked some of her memories.
“...... A lot of people, I don't remember how many, but there were a lot of people anyway, and the Japanese drove them into a big pit, strafed them with machine guns, and when there was no one standing, they poured all the bodies on gasoline and burned them in one head..."
“...... Those people (referring to the Japanese soldiers) did not treat Chinese as human beings, and every day they dragged the stolen women into the barracks, and at the same time pushed out the dead women with carts, sometimes covering nothing..."
These are the words that Zhang Chunru's maternal grandfather, Zhang Tiejun, said to her.
History is in the sun, and there is no room for half a haze
When she heard this from her grandfather, Zhang Chunru could hardly have any sense of reality, because of the difference in age, when she was still young, she could not imagine that these things had actually happened. But when she saw the picture, what her grandfather had told her, the words that she thought had been precipitated in her memory and gradually blurred, became clear little by little like the dust blown away by the wind, and the details of some words that she had not even noticed when she first heard them became incomparably detailed and concrete. Zhang Chunru can even construct in his head the picture that his grandfather has described in words.
And what these pictures brought her was a series of palpitations that were difficult to calm. His heart seemed to be tightly held by a large hand, and every breath was extremely difficult. She made a decision that would affect the rest of her life: she wanted to bring this history back to the world and let everyone face up to this massacre that could not be forgotten.
After the first book with the nature of testing the waters was really successful, Zhang Chunru thought that he should have enough ability to put the Nanjing Massacre in front of the eyes of the whole world through his own efforts. Admittedly, she already has such an ability in writing. But what Zhang Chunru didn't know at that time was that to face such a period of history with the strength of one person, it was far from enough to rely on the ability to write...
In order to restore that history as realistically as possible to the whole world, Zhang Chunru spent nearly three years before and after. During these three years, she traveled the world to visit survivors of the Nanjing Massacre. No less ignorant and ignorant than sitting in front of her grandfather's knee when she was young, Zhang Chunru at this time already has a very strong synaesthesia ability, but this is tantamount to a disaster for herself and those survivors: the survivors have to tear their scars apart again and show her the bloody facts; and she herself has to bear the pain of all the survivors alone because of the strong pain, and reorganize these injuries to restore the whole picture of history to the greatest extent...
Zhang Chunru interviewed many people, the information she looked for was even more vast, the information she collected included Chinese, Japanese, German and English alone, including a variety of unpublished diaries, notes, letters, original materials of government reports, she would consult the transcripts of the trial of war criminals in Tokyo, and even tried to contact Japanese World War II veterans to restore the truth of history from their mouths.
Later, when she found that the information could not provide her with enough information, Zhang Chunru traveled to Hong Kong and then took a train to Nanjing, where she was already ill on the train because of the water and soil. During her 25 days in Nanjing, she worked more than 10 hours a day. Because her Chinese level was not very good, she could only communicate in general, so she asked the translator Yang Xiaming to translate it for her word by word, repeatedly deliberating on words or sentences that might be ambiguous. When visiting the local survivors of the massacre in Nanjing, although she could not understand the dialect of the other party, she still persistently recorded it and went back to repeatedly deliberate. This persistence in her work made the people she worked with think that she was even a little paranoid.
This almost paranoid obsession also brought her due rewards. When she searched for various first-hand information, she found the very important "Rabe Diary" and "Wei Telin Diary", the authors of the two diaries, John Rabe and Minnie Weitlin, who were witnesses to the Nanjing Massacre, and tried to save tens of thousands of people when Chinese the Nanjing Massacre occurred, but unfortunately the two good people did not have the deserved ending: Mr. Rabe returned to China and fell into poverty and eventually died of a stroke due to worsening illness; Ms. Wei Telin suffered from severe mental depression because she witnessed the Nanjing Massacre. He chose to end his life after leaving China for one year.
Their deeds greatly inspired Zhang Chunru and made Zhang Chunru firm in his determination to finish the book. However, despite the support of such a belief, when Zhang Chunru combs through these historical materials alone in the middle of the night, she will still feel pain and anger because of those acts that have deviated from human nature, which spans decades of pain, anger and all negative emotions still have a strong force, and Zhang Chunru tortures her body and spirit all the time when collecting historical materials, sorting out and writing. In other words, from Zhang Chunru's collection of the first historical material to the completion of the last word, witnessing the substitutionary trauma caused by that history that people dare not look at has always accompanied her...
What is the so-called substitution trauma? Refers to a certain period of time to accept and understand the victim's cases, resulting in the degree of damage exceeding the psychological and emotional tolerance limits of the person, resulting in a variety of psychological and physiological abnormalities. This anomaly is the result of the witness's sympathy and empathy for the survivors' trauma, which can cause serious physical and mental distress to the witness himself, and more seriously cause the witness to have a mental breakdown. If you still feel that your understanding is not profound enough, we can pause here and search for text descriptions or picture content such as "Indonesian Chinese Exclusion Massacre", "Wenxi Fire", "Great Tunnel Massacre" and so on, I believe that after understanding it, you will have a deep understanding of alternative trauma.
This is a feeling that is difficult to imagine, compared to the tragic cases just told to you, Zhang Chunru is facing first-hand historical materials, and the Nanjing Massacre is an encyclopedia of human torture, she has to face any unimaginable content alone with the weak body of a 27-year-old woman, and she also has to narrate these contents...
No one can imagine how she spent the nights in the book, and in the memories of those around her, she lost her hair, insomnia, weight loss, shivered all night, and even gradually lost her human form. Her mother, Zhang Yingying, felt sorry for her and asked, "Why do you have to do this?" If you don't do it, someone else will always do it. ”
After listening to his mother's words, Zhang Chunru did not be hysterical because of his mother's incomprehension, but tried to control his emotions and said to his mother: "Western countries only know that the Nazis slaughtered Jews, did not know that the Japanese army invading China had frantically slaughtered Chinese in World War II, and international public opinion only condemned the atrocities committed by the Nazis in World War II, and rarely attacked the atrocities of Japanese militarism in World War II." It is because there is too little publicity about the relevant historical facts, and everyone thinks like you, then their atrocities will never be known! ”
No one could persuade her. Even if the road ahead leads to endless purgatory, the steps she has already taken will not hesitate for half a minute. The little girl who used to surround her mother's side somehow carried the power of never stopping in her weak body at this moment.
In 1997, "The Nanjing Massacre: The Forgotten Havoc of World War II" was published in the United States, the English version of the name "The Rape of NANKING", the book caused a sensation in the United States as soon as it came out, triggering the discussion of the Nanjing Massacre in leading American universities, including Harvard and Stanford, and entered the most important New York Times bestseller list in the United States within a month, and was named the most popular book of the year. Kirby, chair of harvard's history department, left this sentence in the book's preface:
"This is the first Chinese book to fully study the Nanjing Massacre."
As soon as this book came out, it shook the entire Western world. Zhang Chunru, with the efforts and courage of his lone brave, let everyone in the world truly face that tragic memory, and also let the Nanjing Massacre return to the eyes of the world.
Except for some people, the right-wing forces in Japan are entrenched.
The book's appearance in the United States first caused a great reaction, and the Japanese right-wing forces panicked and set up a special committee to accuse the details of the book of being untrue, and to accuse Zhang Chunru in public. And Zhang Chunru always encounters this situation, he will always fight back according to the historical data he has mastered, although the appearance is quiet, but every sentence of the exit can always hit the other party's key point. In September 2001, Zhang Chunru was the first to speak at an international academic symposium. Her speech won long applause from the attendees, but she was also attacked by the Japanese with ulterior motives. On the spot, two Japanese people stood up and attacked Zhang Chunru and arbitrarily raised the so-called "question", which Zhang Chunru immediately refuted according to reason, criticizing the two Japanese for incoherence. Many experts and scholars attending the meeting also stood on Zhang's side to criticize the Japanese, and the two Japanese had to leave the venue in a daze.
After a few times, Ms. Zhang was no longer confronted by the Japanese right, but by some unruly tactics: her home address was leaked, forcing her to move several times; she always received letters of unknown origin, including pictures of her family with red crosses, bullets, and mutilated animal corpses.
Not only that, but the long-term high-intensity work and the large number of alternative traumas experienced also severely hurt Zhang Chunru's spirit, making her have to rely on drugs to maintain mental stability. Her spirit was originally as tough as an iron bar, but the pressure and pain of her work and the persecution of the Japanese right wing were like two large hands holding the iron bars folded on both sides. After Zhang Chunru wrote her third book, "The Chinese in america", which reflected the Chinese situation in the United States, other forces participated in the surveillance and persecution of her...
On November 9, 2004, Zhang Chunru drove a white sedan to the side of a deserted highway and committed suicide by pulling out a pistol prepared in advance and drinking bullets. Before deciding to do so, she left everyone with a note: "I have lived a serious life and have sincerely dedicated myself to my goals, my writing, and my family. Her body was buried at The Gate of Paradise Cemetery at St. Anthony Ranch in Los Gedo, California, with the words on the tombstone: "Beloved wife and mother, writer, historian, human rights fighter." ”
If there is no light after that, the spirit you leave behind will be the only light in the world.