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Air raid sirens commemorate 9/18
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YESTERDAY morning, air raid sirens sounded for three minutes in Shenyang and 13 other cities in northeast China’s Liaoning Province to mark the 87th anniversary of the September 18 Incident, the start of Japan’s invasion of China during the World War II.
On hearing the sirens, Ji Ning, a 42-year-old guide at the 9.18 Historical Museum in Shenyang, the provincial capital, knew that a large crowd of visitors would soon arrive and she would explain to them one of the darkest pages of China’s history.
The sirens on September 18 each year serve as a reminder of Japan’s aggression. The September 18 Incident occurred in 1931 when Japanese troops blew up a section of railway under their control near Shenyang and accused Chinese soldiers of sabotage as a pretext for the attack. They bombarded Chinese barracks near Shenyang the same evening, beginning a large-scale invasion of northeast China.
“In the early years, many people did not even know why there were wailing air raid sirens. But they have gradually come to learn the significance,” said Ji.
Ji has led four to five groups of people to visit the 510-meter-long exhibitions, including about 800 photos, 300 physical objects and several simulated war scenes, on almost every working day over the past 20 years. “There is one September 18 each year, but our routine work is all about ‘September 18,’” she said.
At the start of each tour, Ji begins with the September 18 Incident. “I prefer talking more about the Chinese army’ and civilians’ fight against Japanese invaders. It’s inspiring to recount stories of the wartime heroes.”
As a mother, Ji feels hurt whenever she recounts the story of Zhao Yiman, a legendary heroine who fought in the northeast and was captured and killed by Japanese forces at the age of 31.
Zhao left her final words to her son in a letter, saying she regretted not fulfilling her duty of raising her son and hoped he would remember that his mother died for the motherland.
“What made a mother abandon her son,” said Ji, adding that if people understand Zhao, they would have a good understanding of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.
Besides Zhao, there are many more nameless wartime heroes.
Since the September 18 Incident, China waged a war against Japanese aggression for 14 years and finally won the first full victory against foreign invasion since the Opium War in 1840 at the cost of more than 35 million military and civilian casualties.
Ji recalled that one woman in her 70s from another northeastern province of Heilongjiang once visited the museum, carrying an old letter from her father saying he would join the anti-Japanese volunteer army in Liaoning. She had been searching for her father for many years, but in vain.
Ji led her to the national anthem wall and told her the original song of the national anthem “March of the Volunteers” was written for the volunteer soldiers like her father. “After hearing my words, she burst into tears and then bowed three times in front of the wall,” Ji recalled.
The museum, which hosts 1 million visitors annually, has become a major place for China to host the activities in commemoration of the war against Japanese aggression. Air raid sirens have sounded in Shenyang each September 18 since 1995 to remind citizens of the war past.
In recent years, many other places in the country’s northeast and elsewhere also sound air raid sirens amid a spate of commemoration activities nationwide.
Yesterday, around 1,000 people from all walks of life in Shenyang attended a bell-striking ceremony, and vehicles on 27 main streets in the city stopped and honked their horns for three minutes to remember those who died in the war and pray for peace.
Similar air raid sirens sounded in Nanjing and other cities of east Jiangsu Province yesterday morning, and vehicles and pedestrians stopped in a silent tribute.
“To remember history is not to continue hatred. Commemoration of the September 18 Incident does not conflict with the development of Sino-Japanese relations,” Ji said.
Among the visitors, those from Japan and a former war prisoner have impressed Ji the most.
On September 18, 2006, former Japanese prisoner of war Fujihara Sukeo became the first Japanese to attend a bell-striking ceremony. He also took part in a three-minute silence to express his remorse.
In 1943, 22-year-old Sukeo came to China as a Japanese soldier. In 1945, he was captured by the Red Army of the Soviet Union in Liaoning. He was set free by the Chinese government and was repatriated to Japan in 1956.
“During the remainder of my life, I hope to tell my children and grandchildren the truth of war and history from my own experience. I will strive for Sino-Japanese friendship until the end of my life and hope there won’t be any war in the future,” Sukeo told museum staff through a translator before leaving.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship, and people of the two countries hope to get along well with each other.
“If the war had never happened, Zhao Yiman would surely have been a better mother and the volunteer soldier would have been a better father,” Ji said. “Today, we talk about the war and remember the sufferings in a bid to live a peaceful life.”
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