Author: admin6

Iris Chang was born in Princeton, New Jersey, USA, to parents who had emigrated from China. Author of the 1997 blockbuster “The Rape of Nanking”, Iris came to be greatly in demand as a speaker and interviewee, known for tireless efforts in keeping the memory of the Nanjing Massacre alive at a global level. Iris served as an inspiration to many in Nanjing, so much so that upon her death, survivors of the Massacre held a service at the victims’ memorial hall in Nanjing at the same time as the funeral itself at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Cupertino, California on 12th November 2004.

As would later be revealed, Iris was a sufferer of bipolar disorder. Many had observed Iris’ complete devotion to all on which she would embark. As a writer she put a piece of herself into each story she covered. In everything she undertook, the Iris Chang philosophy was simple; think big. Really big; almost to the point of being naive. It was this drive that would lead her on to incredible accomplishments yet would also ultimately become her undoing.

While the atrocities of World War II have long been a national nightmare in China, receiving due attention from historians and academics over the years, prior to “The Rape of Nanking” little was known of the Nanjing Massacre in most other countries. Utilizing a recently discovered hidden Nazi diary chronicling the massacres in new detail, Iris had the energy, will and engaging writing style to make the subject matter come alive to a populist global audience. 

From her extensive travels through China and her challenging of the U.S. government to release long-classified documents, Iris was genuinely shocked at the atrocities she exposed. Her reaction with a pure, honest rage struck a chord with the people of Nanjing that would never wither. “The Rape of Nanking:The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II” was published on the 60th anniversary of the Massacre, and was motivated in part by Iris’ own grandparents’ recollections of their escape from the massacre.

In the coming years Iris was to start work on her forth book, but the stories she unearthed during her research of the Bataan death march, the forcible transfer of POWs by the Imperial Japanese Army in the Philippines during the Second World War, left her sad and totally drained. 

Finding herself unable to face the magnitude and controversial nature of the research, in August 2004 Iris suffered a nervous breakdown that left her unable to leave her hotel room in Louisville. With assistance she was hospitalized with paranoia and depression. Her parents believe that the medications she was prescribed worsened her state of mind, inducing suicidal thoughts.

On 15th March 1998, during her closing remarks in a presentation entitled “The Historiography of the Rape of Nanking” made at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., Iris said, “I believe the truth will prevail. The truth is indestructible and the truth recognizes no national boundaries or political allegiances… We, as human beings, have a moral responsibility to seek out the truth… to try to prevent atrocities like the rape of Nanking from ever happening again.”

On 9th November 9, 2004 Iris drove to a remote road south of Los Gatos, California, parked and shot herself in the mouth with a revolver. She was 36, a wife and mother of a two-year-old son. 

In 2005, the victims memorial hall at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial added a wing dedicated to the memory of Iris Chang.

The 13th December, 2012, shall mark 75 years since the Japanese army entered Nanjing at the start of the unfolding of one of humanity’s greatest atrocities. This year, as every year, air raid sirens across Nanjing shall once again mourn their annual cry for the loss of 300,000 souls in 1937’s Nanjing Massacre.

If you have not lived in Nanjing on this fateful day previous, the morning sounds that greet you on 13th December shall come of a bit of a surprise, and to those not accustomed to World War II, an frighteningly eerie shock.

For perhaps two hours the sirens shall continue to cry out; yet you will see local people carrying on their working lives largely in respectful silence; save for cursory words of explanation to their out of town colleagues.

The 1937 population of Nanjing was approximately 1 million, and so it is fair to say that with the loss of 300,000 people, to this day every family in Nanjing has a tragic story to tell.

Numbers of survivors of the Massacre who remain alive are quickly dwindling; some estimates now put it as low as 87. There are those however, who remain committed to preserving their memory. Last year, with the help of younger relatives, many turned to Weibo to bring the story to the growing numbers who are ill-informed over the tragedy. Zhao Zhenhua wrote on her micro blog: “The sirens are taking me back to that miserable historic period. I pray for my compatriots who died in the tragedy, and I hope they know that I am enjoying a happy life today.” Other posts had photos of relatives from the time of the massacre and some told how they managed to escape the carnage.

With the significance of the 75th anniversary, this year we can expect a memorial service of great proportions. For the 74th anniversary, students and teachers and dozens of Chinese and Japanese monks took part in a vigil where, by the light of 3,000 candles, monks chanted sutras to commemorate the victims. The following morning, survivors and Chinese and Japanese monks assembled in front of a wall inscribed with the names of victims of the massacre to mourn the dead and pray for peace.

Scientists have unveiled an unprecedented new look at our planet at night, while attending the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco that took place over the last few days.

“For all the reasons that we need to see Earth during the day, we also need to see Earth at night,” said Steve Miller, a researcher at NOAA’s Colorado State University Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere. “Unlike humans, the Earth never sleeps.”

Utilizing new technology made possible by VIIRS, nighttime views of the earth in magnificent detail are possible as never before. As the NASA website explains, “Unlike a camera that captures a picture in one exposure, the day-night band produces an image by repeatedly scanning a scene and resolving it as millions of individual pixels. Then, the day-night band reviews the amount of light in each pixel. If it is very bright, a low-gain mode prevents the pixel from oversaturating. If the pixel is very dark, the signal is amplified.”

The new family of pictures, taken from April to November 2012, show nighttime views places including the entire USA, South America’s Atlantic coast, Korea and the Yellow Sea, the Nile delta, Persian Gulk, California coast, London, South Asia as well as the whole view of eastern Asia and Australasia, in which Nanjing is situated not far from centre!

The photos make for wonderful desktop pictures that perhaps serve as a reminder of home. Ultra-high resolution versions of the photos are available for download from the NASA website.

On November 9th 2012 the second edition of