Throughout history, There are a lot of International Events that have been remembered,

and all of them has a same point, which they all caused a huge and wide influence on people.
International Events like Second Sino-Japanese War have been influencing not only the country
or the governments but also the individuals, even a lot more than the country or the government
itself. The war has influenced their life into the way that they never expected, along by some
psychic trauma that will never be cured. They are the one who would change a country’s fate, by
supporting the party or the organization that helped them the most in a nice way during their
most difficult time. Narrowing down to the topic, the Second Sino-Japanese War has influenced
people’s life, people’s emotion towards life or wars, and people’s attitudes toward their own
country’s government.

The Second Sino-Japanese War, which is the invasion of Japan to China during the time
period from 1931 to 1945. Starting from the northeastern part of China, Japan has totally
occupied and controlled the three main provinces there that have a lot of important resources:
Liaoning province, Jilin province and Heilongjiang province.​1​ During that time, the Kuo Min
Tang of China is the government that runs the whole country. However, instead of sending to
troop to the front line, Kuo Min Tang applied the non-resistance polity to the Japanese invasion
due to the influence of Jieshi Jiang, the leader of Kuo Min Tang.​2​ Although the Communist Party
tried their best to fight against, their power was too weak to make any positive process until the
Soviet Union sent their aid to China right after solving their conflicts with Germany, who is the
ally of Japan.​3​ With the strong help, Japan got driven out of China quickly, and China got their
lands that have been occupied back. Right after the surrender of Japan, the Kuo Min Tang army,
which was supported by the United States, began to send troops to the northeastern region that
was lost and recovered. It also accepted Japan’s surrender and attempted to manage major cities
and traffic trunks in the northeast of China. The Communist’s Party had too less power to fight
against the Kuo Min Tang until they got the captured equipment from the Japanese Army, which
promoted the growth of their power.​4​ Soon the conflicts between Kuo Min Tang and the
Communist Party starts mainly focusing on the scramble of important locations such as train
station etc. and provinces, which would help both the Party to unite the country after all if they
occupy those places as much as possible.

The interview with Yahzen Zhang and Qingzhong Zhang illustrated more information
about the Second Sino-Japanese War from a victim’s perspective. Yazhen Zhang, my grandma,
briefly talked about her story during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the beginning of the
Chinese Civil War. She was born in Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning province at the
eastern part of China that got influenced most. Her life was peace at first, but soon the war
started, which caused the death of her father due to serious diseases that might be caused by the
germs from the germ army or a type of contagion. While the war has become more and more
serious, Yazhen Zhang’s mom has to bring her brother and her to their grandma’s house, which
was located near a countryside train station next to Juliu River in Heilongjiang province. Life
was hard there too, but at least the life was guaranteed, which there was enough food for
survival.​5​ Soon the Soviet Army arrived and helped to fight against the Japanese, and forced
them to surrender. Peace came back to their village, but no one actually realizes it. They have
lost most of their hopes. Soon the Kuo Min Tang is here and starts the war with the Communist
Party, which no one wants that since they couldn’t understand the reason why people from the
same country have to fight too.​6​ However, for Qingzhong Zhang, things got luckier. He was born
in the countryside of Liaoning, where did not get that must influence from the war. Although
they have to prepare to fight for themselves at any time, their life was a lot better than what’s in
the city.​7​ Followed by the Chinese Civil War, the Communist Party came first into their lives and
influenced them a lot through different aspects such as.​8

The first thing noticed throughout the research is that the small wars happened around
individuals during the Second Sino-Japanese Wars would influence their life into its opposite
way. Just like Yazhen Zhang. As her family portrait when she was at the age of 3 in 1943
(Starting from the right: Yazhen Zhang, Yazhen's mom, Yazhen's father, Yazhen's elder brother)
shows that she used to have a happy family that consists of her brother and her parents. Everyone
in the picture was wearing nice clothes and standing or sitting close to each other in a nice room
looking into the camera in front of them without and fear or concern in their eyes.​9​ However, not
long after, her father died due to the germs that the germ army of Japan spreaded and her mom
died due to the overworking condition. “At that time, Shenyang was already in a difficult
situation, and soon, my father died… My mom got tuberculosis due to stress and hard works,
which led her to die soon. That really impressed me a lot.”.​10​ Nevertheless, all of her other
relatives died eventually due to the wars, which her brother and she officially became orphans
that could only live on those wild vegetables and week supports from their neighbors. Her life
changed from a happy life to the painful life, which is not what a 10-year-old girl should have:
“If there’s no invasion from Japan, I should have a stable family. I should never lose my parents.
And I would never...became an orphan. That’s...the truth. My family and I would still live in
Shenyang, with stable incomes and peaceful life; and it's impossible to lose any of my family
members and relatives. That's the situation opposite from the one with the war.”.​11​ Those painful
experience has formed shadows in her mind that could never be cured or removed, and lived
with her throughout the rest of her life.

Including Yazhen Zhang, thousand and millions of people would still keep their normal
life if there are no wars happening around them. According to the data, more than 10,600,000
people, including normal citizens and soldiers, died, wounded or missing due to the long-lasting
war.​12​ Many people lost their family members, the person they care and love the most throughout
their entire life. They all have to leave the place they grow up and forced to go to a totally
strange place to survive in the time full of dangerous. The changes in life brought by the wars are
irreversible, which everyone has to suffer from it without any defends.
 On the other hand, other than those negative ways such as losing lives, the Second
Sino-Japanese Wars would influence people’s lives in a positive way. That is, due to the war,
people’s enthusiasm for things like education will rise. According to what Qingzhong Zhang said
in the interview,

One of the most important moments was my elder brother, who had a great relationship
with the camp instructor. Due to the same age, they always exchange thoughts on
different things, which my brother got influenced by him a lot. Soon, my brother started
to go to school and became the first college student in my family, as well as the village
that we lived in. This village has never had a college student. He is the first college
student. So after he went to college, he had a great influence on the family, which 5 of us
​
in my family all went to school later to be educated.13

If the Japanese did not invade China, there’s no way for Qingzhong Zhang’s family to see the
Communist Party during the Chinese Civil War, who gather a lot of power from the captured
equipment during the Second Sino-Japanese War. And their family will never realize how
important learning knowledge is, which no one would go to college and get a better job in the
city that could earn more money from. They would still live in the countryside, farming all day
and earning little money from it. Breaking the stereotypes, wars does not only influence people
in a negative way, but also in a positive way that would benefit people.

The second thing noticed throughout the research is that the small wars happened around
individuals during the Second Sino-Japanese Wars would influence people’s emotional thoughts
towards their life and wars. During the peaceful time, people would focus more on how to make
their life better and happier. However, when the war came, what people are seeing every day is
death and hopelessness, which they have to live in fear all the time. Death like what was shown
the picture happens every day at any time during the Second-Sino Japanese War; during the
process of converting one measuring system to another system, many people died without their
head. The rest of their body had been throwing on the street randomly without anyone picking it
up and bury them, which was extremely cruel and bloody.​14​ And the scariest part is that people
get used to all of those wars and death. Throughout the interview, Yazhen Zhang described her
feelings during the wartime, “At that time, I got numbed to everything, including life and wars.
All that I was thinking about is how to survive, how to survive through the war.”.​15​ There’s no
time for people think about others but to think about ways to survive throughout all of those
tragedies. People become selfish in front of the great danger because without protecting
themselves from the death first, there’s no way for them to protect the person they want to
protect. Nonetheless, endless wars would also tire a normal citizen out. No one would actually
get used to war. All that they want is their peaceful life back. From Yazhen Zhang’s perspective,
“However, to the situation at that time, everyone helped to drive the Japanese out, and the Big
Nose was gone too. But now is Chinese to Chinese, which we really couldn’t understand why
they have to fight. Can we some all of these. That’s all that we wished, was to stop the war and
have a peaceful life back again.”.​16​ All what normal citizens want was peace. They were tired
from those endless wars and they want their country to be united instead of starting another
conflict between the same groups of people that have been fighting against those foreigners that
wants to invade their home together. The government has totally ignored their citizen’s emotion
toward wars. Instead, they only focus on the result they want, which has brought an indelible
menticide to everyone, especially children that have to accept all of those tragedies when they
were still too young to know and understand all of those.

Nevertheless, small wars happened around individuals during the Second Sino-Japanese
Wars would influence their attitudes toward their own country’s government. As everyone
knows, Kuo Min Tang, who was the most powerful government of China during the Second
Sino-Japanese War, lost the China Civil War afterward. As what Xueliang Zhang described
himself, “The government gave me the paperwork so that I could get solatium back in my
hometown. But my home is in the northeastern part of China, where am I gonna get them?.... We
lost our home and everything. People who died can’t get their solatium and people who lived
can’t go back to their home... The government is brutal.”.​17​ Overall, The Kuo Min Tang did not
treat people in the same way. People who are rich get the best treatment and people who are not
rich get the worst treatment. They believe that money could do anything, which is totally wrong
since money couldn’t fix people’s psychic trauma from wars at all. Also, Jieshi Jiang, the leader
of Kuo Min Tang ordered small troops to fight against the Communist Party in order to get rid of
those troops he sent, which everyone under that troop knows that and no one would like accept
that. They thought the followed a right leader, but the leader they followed did not treat them as
his follower but more like the war machine that could be used and thrown away at any time he
wants, which annoyed the Kuo Min Tang troop and changed their thoughts on being loyal to the
Kuo Min Tang.​18​ However, on the opposite side, the Communist Party get a lot of trust and
followers from citizens. Although they are not as powerful as the Kuo Min Tang, they still tried
their best to fight against the Japanese troops during the Second Sino-Japanese War,​19​ and finally
got the help from the Soviet Union, which they both forced Japan to surrender. Not like Kuo Min
Tang, who quickly occupied most of the important ports, rich lands, train stations etc. right after
the war, the Communist Party went to the countryside and helped people there since their life
was tough. Qingzhong Zhang’s family, who lived in the countryside, was the one that accepted
them in their home. That team of the Communist Party helped to clean the streets, horses around
their neighborhood and supported them supplies like food, winter clothes, education etc.
Everyone in my grandpa’s village likes them since they are so nice to everyone. They treated
everyone the same way, no matter you are rich or poor, which gained people’s trust on the
Communist Party.​20​ Due to all of those reasons above, Kuo Min Tang soon lost a huge amount of
followers, who have all became the follower of the Communist Party after all, and helped it onto
its way of victory. As a sum, each party’s actions throughout the wars could influence people’s
attitude towards them, which would eventually change a country’s fate.

As a conclusion, individuals have been influenced a lot on aspects including their life,
their emotions and their attitudes towards their country from the Second Sino-Japanese War.
They are the one who does not know anything about the details about those events, including the
reason, the effects, the actions and so on. There might be some benefits from the war if we look
generously at it, but that’s just for a small part of people who were luck. Most of the individuals
could only suffer whatever falls on them without any choices or the chance to change, no matter
it will bring them the positive stuff or the negative stuff, and all of those will change their life
forever. Therefore, in exchange, the country or the government should care more about their
citizens' minds instead of the benefits for a whole country before starting the war with other
countries since they are the one that will get influenced the most between two or more countries’
conflicts; and the one who has enough power to change the country into the way they like.
 Endnotes

1. "Second Sino-Japanese War," Wikipedia, accessed December 5, 2018,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War.

2. "Zhang Xueliang," Wikipedia, accessed December 5, 2018,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Xueliang.

3. "Sino-Soviet relations," Wikipedia, accessed December 5, 2018,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_relations.

4. Yazhen Zhang and Qingzhong Zhang, "Sino-Japanese War Interview 2," by Catherine
Zhang, wav audio file, 17:28, Soundcloud, posted by Catherine Zhang, December 9,
2018, accessed December 13, 2018,
https://soundcloud.com/chenxi-cathy-zhang/sino-japanese-war-interview-2/s-ZqAmE.

5. Yazhen Zhang and Qingzhong Zhang, "Sino-Japanese War Interview," by Catherine

Zhang, WAV audio file, 13:06, Soundcloud, posted by Catherine Zhang, December 2,
2018, accessed December 4, 2018,
https://soundcloud.com/chenxi-cathy-zhang/sino-japanese-war-interview/s-y4O7h.

6. Zhang and Zhang, "Sino-Japanese War Interview 2," wav audio file.

7. Zhang and Zhang, "Sino-Japanese War Interview," WAV audio file.

8. Zhang and Zhang, "Sino-Japanese War Interview 2," wav audio file.

9. Family Portrait of Yazhen Zhang, 1943, photograph.

10. Zhang and Zhang, "Sino-Japanese War Interview," WAV audio file.

11. Zhang and Zhang, "Sino-Japanese War Interview," WAV audio file.

12. "Second Sino-Japanese," Wikipedia.

13. Zhang and Zhang, "Sino-Japanese War Interview 2," wav audio file.

14. Brett Sheehan, "Photographs and Political Narratives of the Tianjin Incidents During the
Sino-Japanese Conflict, November 1931," European Journal of East Asian Studies, 2nd
ser., 7 (2008): [Page 32],
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23615403?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=S
ino-Japanese&searchText=War&searchText=poster&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasic
Search%3FQuery%3DSino-Japanese%2BWar%2Bposter&refreqid=search%3A0c8b597
7f998275e16e5f039c2d2fb2f&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents.
15. Zhang and Zhang, "Sino-Japanese War Interview," WAV audio file.

16. Zhang and Zhang, "Sino-Japanese War Interview 2," wav audio file.

17. Xiue Xu, "张学良点评 国民党为何打不过共产党？" [Xueliang Zhang's Comments:

why Kuo Ming Tang couldn't beat the Communist Party?], Chinatimes, December 27,
2014, accessed December 16, 2018,
https://www.chinatimes.com/cn/realtimenews/20141227002311-260409.

18. Xu, "张学良点评 国民党为何打不过共产党？,".

19. Zhiqiang Li, "中国共产党是无可非议的抗战中流砥柱" [The communist party of China

is the undisputed mainstay of the Second Sino-Japanese War], Xinhua News, September
18, 2018, accessed December 16, 2018,
http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018-09/18/c_1123447467.htm.

20. Zhang and Zhang, "Sino-Japanese War Interview 2," wav audio file.