Second Sino-Japanese War (Eastern Part of China)

Interview 1

Basic Information
Subjects: ​Qingzhong Zhang and Yazhen Zhang (grandparents)
Interviewer: ​Catherine Zhang
Translator: ​Catherine Zhang
Date/Time:​ 12/02/18
Type: ​Video Chat on Skype
Location: ​Subjects were in Beijing, China, Interviewer was in West Haven, CT
Topic: ​Second Sino-Japanese War (eastern part of China)
File: ​https://soundcloud.com/chenxi-cathy-zhang/sino-japanese-war-interview/s-y4O7h
Additional notes: ​Initial in Mandarin, translated in English for transcript. The transcript lacks
the greeting part and the ending part, which does not contain any helpful information.

Table of Contents
00:00-00:17 Greetings
00:18-00:42 Background history on the Second Sino-Japanese War
00:43-02:06 Qingzhong Zhang’s memory in the countryside of Liaoning Province
02:07-04:08 Yazhen Zhang’s memory of Shenyang, Liaoning Province
04:09-05:07 Yazhen Zhang’s memory of the death of her father
05:08-07:17 Yazhen Zhang’s memory of her mom and the way of escaping
07:18-07:54 Summary of Yazhen Zhang’s memories
07:55-09:40 Yazhen Zhang’s memory of life with her brother and grandma after the death of
her parents
09:41-10:30 Yazhen Zhang’s memory on Soviet Red Army
10:31-11:02 Background history on the Second Sino-Japanese War
11:03-11:40 Yazhen Zhang imagining the life without the war
11:41-12:20 Background history on the Second SIno-Japanese War
12:21-12:51 Yazhen Zhang and Qingzhong Zhang’s hope of the world
12:52-13:06 Ending

Transcript
[00:18-00:42]
Catherine Zhang​: Alright, time to start. The topic today is about the Second Sino-Japanese War
that happened in the eastern part of China. As what we’ve known so far, from 1931-1945,
Japanese army occupied the three eastern provinces of China, (where has a lot of resources):
Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang; which caused the life of the local residents has changed
dramatically. As two of the witnesses, you guys had the same experience, right?

[00:43-02:06]
Qingzhong Zhang​: True. I still have some dim memories and feeling when the Japanese army
occupied the three eastern provinces. I was born in a remote village in Liaoning Province in
1939. Without the hustle and bustle of the city, life there was quiet and peaceful. However, when
I was around 5 or 6 years old, I started to hear some roar of the aircraft and some motor sound of
the car. The elder people in my family told me that they are “the Old Hairy”1, or being called
“the Big Nose“2, had gotten into the war with the Japs3. It was the Soviets who helped the
Chinese to drive the Japanese invaders out of China. Also at the age of 5 or 6, I remembered my
father and my uncle told us to build the walls of our yard higher and bought some shotguns. The
Elder people said that it’s not only to avoid the damage from the war, but also to protect
ourselves from the Japs. That had given me a great impression.

[02:07-04:08]
CZ​: It seems that even the place that is farther away from the city had been affected. The war at
that time must have been very intense.

Yazhen Zhang​: That’s what happened. At that time, The eastern part of China was surrounded
by the explosive sound, including Shenyang4, which had been influenced a lot. When I was born
in 1940, when it’s 1940, as one of the important cities, Shenyang was not completely destroyed.
My family life was relatively stable. I have...my father, my mother, my elder brother and I, a
total of 4 people in my family. Life was quite stable at that time. My father and mother loved me
so much. I had a happy family.

CZ​: What a sweet family.

YZ​: Yep. However, the happy time didn’t last so long. Soon, the whole city of Shenyang was
surrounded by the sound of the explosion, which was done by Japan. So at that time, when
children were playing on the street, they shout something all day long, “We are not afraid of the
sky, we are not afraid of the land. We are only afraid of the time when the plane is shitting5.” So
in that situation, when there’s noise appearing, the aircraft would come, and the explosive sound

1
Soviet Red Army
2
Soviet Red Army
3
Japanese Army
4
Capital of Liaoning Province
5
The action of a plane throwing the bomb from the sky
would start sooner or later. That’s why all the window was covered by paper, in the shape of
“井”; is to prevent from frying. But it actually didn’t help that much.

[04:09-05:07]
YZ​: Well, for me, the largest impact on my family is my father. At that time, it was said to be
affected by the poison gas, or an infectious disease, the one from Japan; pustules were all over
my father’s body, with fever, high fever. Pustules were around his mouse, too. Because of being
my dearest father, I had a deep impression on that. Plus, due to the explosion outside, my father
couldn't stay at home. We could only put him at the passway of the basement. I didn't know a lot
about it, but I remembered it’s especially dark down there. When my dad shout out the word,
“thirsty”, I would give him some water. There's no one to be found outside, neither the water. So
I could only keep a little water in the tank for use. At that time, Shenyang was already in a
difficult situation, which soon, my father died…

[05:08-07:17]
CZ​: Sorry to bring up such unpleasant memories.

YZ​: No worries. It’s part of the history; and it’s been so many years since then, more than 70
years. It would be good to recall it sometime. So, when my father passed away, my mom
couldn’t take care of us in Shenyang anymore, in that kind of difficult situation. So she brought
my brother and I escaped from Shenyang to Jiliu River6. Right before our way of escaping, my
mother shaved away all of our hair, just like other families, including girls and boys. Women
would put their hair up with a scarf to pretend to be an old woman. That’s what my mom did,
like every woman at that time. Sights I saw along the way were very miserable. Crops were
gone, farming lands were destroyed, all packed with people who were escaping. Men were
forced to work for Japs, women were forced to be part of the Japanese army, and children were
being kidnaped for experiments of the Germ Army. That made everyone nervous, including my
mom. So to protect my brother and I, she brought us to her mom’s house. Things got changed
again at my grandmother’s house, where life was hard. My mom got tuberculosis due to stress
and hard works, which she passed away soon. That really impressed me a lot.

[07:18-07:54]
CZ​: Em… It seems that the impact of war on a family is enormous. A warm and sweet family
has gone due to the conflicts between the two countries. Nevertheless, normal citizens life has
been influenced a lot. Women, Children, Men died and got injured; and the peaceful life was
gone forever. People became numb, became no longer emotional, and became accustomed to the
war. So… Were there any other changes after?

[07:55-09:40]

6
In Heilongjiang Province
YZ​: After I lost my mother, I was really sad. My brother and I became orphans, lived like
orphans, with a little help from our relatives. 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.
My only relative, my grandma.... my grandma was old with small feet7 and got injured too. So at
that time, I did not only have to avoid those bullets outside to protect myself but also had to go
out and look for food. Although I was little at that time, I could still remember it until now, the
helpless life I had at that time. To survive, my brother went and dig some wild vegetables and
onions for food. But one time, he hit a hidden bomb. That bomb exploded immediately, and my
brother’s leg got injured with a lot of blood running out, a lot of blood running out.

[09:41-10:30]
YZ​: At the same time, the Soviet Red Army, who we called “the Big Nose” at that time. Because
of having Japs around, we also considered “the Big Nose” as our enemy too. But “the Big Nose”
had treated us a lot better than the Japs. My mother’s death had made me very sad, and my head
was full of sores, without any hair. The Soviet gave me some medicine to put on my head, which
my head got recovered soon. That’s the situation and the tragic life I had during that time period.

[10:31-11:02]
CZ​: Yep. Due to the influence of Jieshi Jiang, the Chinese government applied the
non-resistance polity to the Japanese invasion. Finally, although the Soviet Red Army helped to
take the eastern part of China back due to the eagerness of revenging Japan, their action still
helped people that lived there. So, if the Chinese government did not make that decision, which
is the non-resistance policy, would your childhood back then change?

[11:03-11:40]
YZ​: Of course. 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.

[11:41-12:20]
CZ​: I agree with you. Although the war had helped each country to achieve its intended purpose,
it was built on the suffering of thousands of normal people. As the data shows, during the
Sino-Japanese War, more than 35,000,000 died or got injured, including normal citizens,
soldiers, germ related experiment participants, and government-related people. The war has
influence millions of families in China, and cost Chinese government a lot, which it could not
return to its original status for such a long time

[12:21-12:51]

7
A tradition for women in QIng Dynasty, where women were forced to make their feet as small as
possible.
YZ​: It is true that recalling some of those memories are painful, but the reason why we still want
to tell it out loud is to hope that people would learn from it and stop to war from destroying more
and more families, from people losing their homes. We do not want this to happen again. And we
hope the world will be peaceful forever.

QZ​: True. We do not want the tragedy to happen again, and we wish the world will be peaceful
forever.