#rape of nanjing

[lesbianamalvada]

First ARC I ever received and it was straight ass. I get dark romances and enemies to lovers are hot, like I get it. But I'll never understand writing a fantasy story based on THE WORST atrocity that ever happened to your people. Probably up there as one of the worst atrocities of all time. And you make the main character a spineless pick-me traitor who falls in love with a colonizer prince who commits the fantasy version of Unit 731. 0/5 stars.

[idohistorysometimes]

The Pawn Man Nanjing Photo album hoax: a complete response (from an actual Museum professional)

Please signal boost this.

And as a quick disclaimer, this post does contain a few graphic images. Specifically: a photo showing “death of 1000 cuts” and a beheading. Please be aware that this post, while educational, does have some gore in it.

Welp. Pawn Man (real name Evan Kail) has once again put out ANOTHER video regarding the whole photo album situation. And in this most recent video he cites “wokeness” and “cancel culture” as the reason he is getting the comments he is getting. 

While I do agree with Evan that online criticism, especially on sites like twitter, tends to cross over into the realm of harassment a LOT, I do not agree with him in the sense that all of the critique he is receiving is unwarranted or unfair. I do not condone harassment, doxxing, or other forms of targeted harassment. But I do condone being held accountable for your actions. And while I did give Evan the benefit of the doubt pretty early on, that goodwill has been snuffed out due to how he has responded to this situation.

Evan, if you are reading this post: you are not a victim here. And I am not saying this because I am some jumble of buzzwords you would like to assign me and my character. I am saying this because I am an actual museum professional who handles artifacts, you are not. You are a private collector who runs a pawn shop. And while I do not view private collections as an inherently bad thing; I want to point out that your insight and view into the history world as somebody who only participates in the facilitation of the sale of artifacts is not reflective of how the history world actually is. You have everything to gain lying because, given you are a vendor, lying stands to bring you profit. Meanwhile, if Museums lie (and some have) while we can gain from that, it only stands to destroy us both in terms of our reputation and our funding. If you want a good real world example of this: look at what happened to the Bible Museum run by the founders of Hobby Lobby. Its reputation has been destroyed on account of being found complicit in artifact trafficking from the Middle East as well as artifact forging. 

History is more than just optics. 

And with that said, let's do a deconstruction of the situation.

The Book itself

On September 2nd I had done an in-depth post addressing the authenticity of the photo album Pawn Man was claiming to be a personal photo album from a former US soldier containing unseen photos of the event commonly known as “The Rape of Nanjing”. 

Here is the photo of the book Evan is claiming to be that album:

And to give some further context as to what this artifact is, here is the inside cover:

Just from these 2 images we can gather the following information: this book belonged to a man by the name of “Leslie G Allen Jr” and he was on the ship the USS Henderson that crossed the 180th Meridian on December 28th 1938. And upon googling  “Leslie G Allen Jr “ we are able to find this:

This is the grave site of the same man who died in 1964. 

From the information we have here we know that the man who formerly owned this album was a member of the US Navy, was at the 180th Meridian on December 28th 1938, served in the US armed forces during WW2 and the Korean war, and died in 1964 at age 49. 

But lets look at things a little closer. 

This is the 180th Meridian on a map. You can eventually get to China crossing it if you keep going west from the US west coast. And if you are already in China and are going back to the United States through the Pacific Ocean you will hit it. So just knowing where this is we can a reasonable chance Leslie was in China or in the Pacific at the time the rape occured. He was at least in that general area of the pacific. But in order for those images to have been taken by Leslie we need to ask ourselves this: was the US Navy on the ground in China during WW2?

The Rape of Nanjing STARTED on December 13th 1937 and lasted for about 6 weeks after that (January of 1938). The certificate Leslie received from crossing the 180th Meridian was issued on  December 28th 1938. However, this is not the ONLY type of these certificates Leslie received.

Here is his second certificate. This one was issued on December 9th 1938. 

From what I can gather Leslie passed the Meridian for the first time on December 9th and then passed it again (presumably on the way back from where he was going) on the 28th. And this happened during the year 1938. 

HOWEVER

Leslie entered this area in December of that year. The rape itself took place in December but December of the year before, 1937. It did bleed over into 1938 but only into January of that year. Leslie is about 11 months too late.

But lets also look at the ship since that is interesting. 

The USS Henderson is a US naval vessel that has been used in both WW1 and WW2 as a transport ship. It was also converted into a hospital ship in 1943. But in the interest of keeping things specific to Leslie here, lets look at what this ship was doing in 1938.

Before Pearl Harbor this ship did not engage in combat, it was a transport ship. And it is also important to note it frequently went to Shanghai. 

Here is a map of China. Shanghai and Nanjing ARE in the same general location on this map. However, something important to note is that China is a large country. The distance between Shanghai and Nanjing is about 270 kilometers (168 miles). While it would not be unrealistic to say Leslie was in China at this time, it would be a bit of a stretch to argue that he was 168 miles inland away from his ship given he is a member of the US Navy. 

It is also important to note that during this time, the US had not yet been bombed by Japan. It was not engaged in the war. The only real reason it was in this area at the time was to transport cargo and to protect American interests and nationals. There were no troops fighting on the ground at this time. For Leslie to be THIS far away from his ship during a time of minimal military engagement from the US, enough to be present for the Rape of Nanjing, is a little unrealistic.

I have also seen people talking about the USS Augusta. While I have not been able to find specific evidence stating Leslie was on this ship (given his little Golden Dragon certificate states he was on the Henderson), both ships were in Shanghai around the same time. And given they were doing somewhat similar things, it is pretty possible that Leslie spent time on both ships. He probably did given how often crews got shuffled around. And even if both of these ships ping-ponged back and fourth across the Meridian multiple times outside of the 1 instance we have proof of, that still does not change the fact these ships were generally staying in a few select places are were not going inland far enough to reach Nanjing. And thus, Leslie would not have been in the area at the time of this happening anyway.

But enough on that, lets look at the book itself.

The following photos are all photos Evan (Pawn Man) has shown himself via Twitter.

The first image we see here is a group of Chinese women fighting. Pawn Man claims Leslie took this image along with all of the other images in the book. This however is not correct. This is not something unique to this photo album. 

According to Ablebooks (the site this image is also listed on for sale):

Original press photo, date stamped 21 Oct 1937 on the verso . Image of Chinese female soldiers. The caption on the verso states: “ Two of the Feminine Sharpshooters in the Chinese front lines near Lotien, Northwest of Woosung. These girls, whose existance is denied by official circles, have been very effective against Japanese troops”.

Assuming Ablebooks is presenting 100% factual information, this image was NOT taken during the Rape of Nanjing. It was taken 2 months earlier. And it was taken in a place called “Lotien” North West of “Woosung”. While “Woosung” in this case is referring to “Wusong”, it still does not change the fact that this is a subdistrict of Shanghai. As we have already stated before, Shanghai is over 100 miles away from Nanjing. 

Right year, wrong month, wrong location.

But what about these images?

These are still taken in Shanghai which is, again, 168 miles from Nanjing. But this is not something this image is trying to hide. It says Shanghai right on the page. However, the killer of these images will not be the location, thats pretty obvious. The killing blow are dates.

That first image has been posted to the internet before on a site called “Foto.com” which is a Chinese image sharing site. And yes, this upload predates the release of the album. And from what I was able to find of that first image, it was taken in 1927. This is a decade BEFORE the events of Nanjing. Given Leslie was 23 years old during his time on the Henderson, he would have been 13 if he was the person that took that first image. And while there have been many people who have lied about their age during WW2, there is not really a reason for a 13 year old to do that in 1927.

I am also going to make an educated guess and say that second image was taken during the Battle of Shanghai. While the distance is once again an issue, it also takes place between August and November. We are getting closer now but still not matching up. 

The last image we have already discussed.

Here is another page of the photo book. 

Both of these images are interesting because they show some pretty graphic material. In image number 1 we see somebody bound and dead. And in number 2 we see somebody being decapitated. 

Lets focus on image number 2.

The image is depicting an execution of a Communist in Nanjing. So, place adds up. However, this image was taken in 1927, 10 years too early. This photo is also pretty known to history. It is actually posted onto Alamy and the uploading of this image predates the tiktoks.

Look, there it is. 

But what about the really graphic image labeled as “Death by 1000 cuts”? Thats extremely graphic. It must be from the Rape of Nanjing!

No.

Here is the image in question. As you can see, it is very graphic. 

I would like to point out several things about this image that debunks Pawn Man’s claims. Firstly, this image is not unknown to history. This is actually the last instance of this torture and execution method being used by the Chinese in an official capacity before it was outlawed and is pretty well documented. Did this stop people from doing it ever? Probably not. But for the sake of making things clear, this is the last instance of it being used on this scale to this degree. It has happened since that date, but not by the same people. 

And since this image is pretty important to history, here is what we know about it:

This image is actually not one unique to the album either. It was taken in 1905 of  Fou Tchou-Li, a man executed by the death of 1000 cuts methods for murdering a Mongolian prince and also allegedly forcing himself upon the prince’s wife. And as previously mentioned this is the last instance of this practice being used at this level. And while countries close to China (like Vietnam for instance) I cannot find evidence of it being used by the Japanese during WW2 or otherwise. This photo was also taken in Bejing (over 500 miles away from Nanjing)

For this image to have been taken by Leslie, Leslie would have had to be born sometime in the 1800s, specifically the early 1890s or late 1880s for him to be old enough to be enlisted in the army (or at least fudge his age enough to trick the US Navy into letting him in as a teenager). Because without that being the case, there is no way Leslie could have taken this image. He would have been -10 years old in 1905. And if the first situation was the case, he probably would have been in his late 40s to early 50s going into WW2. And while older servicemen did exist, it would not make sense for him to be fudging his age this much even at that time. It just does not work.

There are also images Evan shared containing piles of dead bodies. I cannot find duplicates of these images, it seems either Pawn Man or Twitter itself has taken them down. I have found reuploads. And while I do not wish to post them here given their very graphic nature, I will talk about them since they are important to the story at hand. And I will admit, I was not able to find duplicates online of these specific photos. Does this mean they are not uploaded somewhere online outside of these images Pawn Man provided? No. There is a real chance, given how easy the other ones were to find, that these images are either being filtered out by online content filters (due to their graphic nature) or are hosted on a site/service I have not found.

But what really puts the nail in the coffin for this book being not what Evan is saying it is, is this:

This is a book called “My Oriental Album”. There are other versions of this book out there. This one (provided by Kansas State University) is not the ONLY version of this book to exist. There are many slightly different ones you can come across both in museums and in the 2nd hand market like on Ebay. But the point is; this book we are seeing is not one carefully put together by Leslie with photos taken by him personally. The book is a souvenir often given to sailors during their tours of duty. The pictures we see are pictures that either came with the album itself, or were purchased (likely at the ports) for the expressed purpose of being placed into this book. And for those wondering why such graphic images ended up in this book: there has always been this weird fetishiziation of Asian culture by Westerners. And this fetishiziation includes violence. Chinese torture tactics are exotic and scary. Chinese culture was new and foreign. The people were exotic. And Westerners ate that up. Even if there was racism at play in these assumptions, that still did not stop people from being curious about these things. And many saw this morbid and misplaced curiosity as a means of feeding their families during war time or get a little extra money. This was far from uncommon.

This also kind of explains why we never see any images of Leslie, his fellow crew mates, or any other slightly personal thing in the book other than the certificates from the Domain of the Golden Dragon. 

So to clear things up regarding the artifact itself: yes, this is something actually from WW2. Pawn Man was NOT lying about when it was from or its origin. It was Leslie’s album, it was on a ship owned by the US Navy, and the images we see inside of it ARE actual images from China taken at various points in history. However, these images were NOT taken by Leslie himself (or very few of them were) and many of these images were NOT of the Rape of Nanjing. They either took place too early, in the wrong place, or in some case both of those things at once. It is a real photo album. And it was from WW2. Its just not what Pawn Man is claiming it is. The images are graphic, they are upsetting, and they do take place in China. But all of those things at once do not equal photos of Nanjing.

The fact checking

Shortly after Pawn Man released his first video regarding the subject, a lot of people were pretty supportive of what he found while others were rightfully skeptical. Given all of the evidence that was destroyed by the Japanese after the events of Nanjing, a find like this would rock the historical world. It is just that important. However, it became clear very quickly that Pawn Man was not doing a thing historians ALWAYS DO when finding an artifact: he did not fact check. 

Let's take a look at this Tweet for example.

Pawn Man mentions he is having the book looked at by several “prestigious people'' to tell him if the photos are authentic. Yes, those are real photos. And yes, those photos are from WW2. I can tell you that. But what is interesting to me here is that he is not naming institutions he is consulting or people. He is only using adjectives to describe their qualifications. 

To tell you a little bit about how this goes in the actual Museum world: if we need an artifact authenticated we usually go to experts on the topic that we can trace back to somewhere. Do they work for the Smithsonian? Do they work for University? Are they published anywhere? What makes them qualified to even be talking about what they are talking about? And while I am aware there is a level of irony involving me saying this given I intentionally keep myself anonymous. But if you, a person with a possibly historically significant artifact, are claiming to have a historically significant artifact, why bother being so cryptic with your sources? It is literally these people’s job to identify these artifacts. Why withhold credibility from yourself and the item you have by not putting all the cards you have on the table and showing your citations? Not doing this only hurts your case.

“Because of these trolls, particularly this one assclown, nobody will go near this thing now,” Kail claims in the video update. “I can’t get anybody to f*cking check it out. Every person in Minnesota I had lined up who had some kind of credential ghosted me. They want nothing to do with this because of the controversy.” 

This quote here I also find a bit suspicious. As a historian who works with other historians, I have seen situations like this happen once in a blue moon. We usually never turn away people on the basis of ‘trolling’, and we dont turn them away if we think their artifact is a forgery ethier. The only way in which I would see this response happening is if:

Evan was not willing to provide the artifact/let these historians actually see the artifact to authenticate it

He is asking Historians who do not have a background in military history, specifically the pacific theater in WW2 of Chinese history around this time to authenticate it

He is asking a historian to lie

I am not accusing Evan of doing any of these things I listed above. However, what I will say is that I do not feel “the trolls” is not a good enough excuse. It seems like a cop out to just not have it authenticated or buy yourself time to come up with an excuse as to why larger entities like the Smithsonian, The Nanjing Memorial Museum, or even your local universities were not contacted first. Or, and again this is just a theory, he did not plan to have it authenticated at all and was just lying to save face. Regardless of what is happening behind closed doors here: no citations beyond “I had a person look at it and they authenticated it” were given. So there so there is no way for us, the general public, to actually know if this book contained photos of Nanjing or not since not all of it was released publicly. All we know is from what we were shown, and that has been debunked by both myself and many MANY other Historians. 

There is something Evan is not saying. And I am willing to bet all this blame he is putting out and directing towards others is covering up for that thing he is not saying. 

The Award

More recently (like within the last month at the time of writing) Evan has now been claiming the Chinese goverment has noticed the book and he has made a deal with them so they can have it. If this book was what he was claiming it to be that should have happened anyway, but I digress. He claims he has now received one of the highest honors a non-Chinese citizen can receive for this book, and that he has met with Chinese officials to conduct this deal. 

But lets look at some evidence, starting with the communications he has posted regarding this deal.

This was a letter Evan wrote to the people meeting him, and also to the whole of China apparently. While I have many issues with this letter in general, I would like to stick with just the highlighted boxes. This is page 1.

That first box is there because, why is this relevant? While having a large social media following is nice, sure, there is no real reason to include this information. It provides nothing additional to the conversation. It does not mention follower count or even the account name. It just states “my videos are popular”. Why do these representatives need to know this given it does not add context into your find or lend you credibility. 

Secondly, notice what word he is using for Nanjing. He is using Nanking. And while this was the common English spelling till about the 1980s, it has since been standardized to Nanjing internationally in English

Thirdly, this statement is false. He did garner attention from the Historical community in the United States and probably in his area as well given what he was claiming. He even mentioned before that he had people lined up to look at the book that just ‘ghosted him because of the trolls’. That is attention. Either you did not have people ‘lined up’ or nobody took you seriously from the start. You cannot have both of those things be true at once.

Here is page 2 of that letter. 

Once again we have a lot of extraneous detail that does not need to be included in a formal letter. For example: why are we bringing up the fact you were dealing with trolls and that there were hoax allegations in this formal letter? Why are we bringing up the threats or how this book made you feel? While I understand artifacts like ones that have to deal with death make the viewer emotional, what does any of this have to actually do with the authenticity of the photos or what they depict? And why does it matter that Chinese people were visiting your store to visit you? A majority of this paragraph seems like ego-stroking at the very least.

This brings us to box 2 and 3, which are in my opinion more damning. 

Evan straight up admits that “a few dozen” of the photos he has are souvenir photos. This might not seem that bad till you remember all of the photos he has bothered to show people are these souvenir photos. He was calling people out for pointing out those were souvenirs earlier and claiming them to be trolls. He has also not showing a single original unseen image from Nanjing. The ones labeled as Nanjing have been debunked. And the rest take place at the wrong time, or in the wrong place.

This brings us back to the “Leslie problem”.

Leslie was in the Navy and was stationed on ships that spent most of their time either in Shanghai or delivering things to places along a pretty well established path. They never stopped in Nanjing and Nanjing itself is over 100 miles away from Shanghai. Unless Leslie is a time traveler who frequently goes awol he could not have taken any of the photos we are shown.

Bet lets also look at the letter he received before we get into the award proper.

This letter was sent to Evan by the former head of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. He has held several other positions as well but I think that is the most recent office he has held. 

It is very strange to me how the head of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (an entity that primarily deals with issues exclusve to Hong Kong) is commenting on this. While this person is specifically “Pro-Bejing” I still find it weird that this is the person Evan is getting a letter from especially since the people who he wrote to initially are never mentioned again. Zhao Jian, the Consol General located in Chicago, is missing and so is “Mr Chen” (who I THINK is Chen Futao, Minister-counselor for Science and Techonology at the Chinese embassy in the United States). It is all very strange. I would not take any of these letters/emails being presented as real UNLESS the actual public figures come out and state “I personally sent this message”. 

But lets get into the fun stuff: the award itself.

This is the award Evan claims to have gotten from the Chinese Goverment. He claims, in fact, that this is the HIGHEST award a non-Chinese national can get and that heads of state usually get this. And from the words on the box he received this from “The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of The People’s Republic of China”. 

While I cannot find a source for the box itself, I can source the urn being presented here.

Its on Amazon! And this same urn can also be found on several Chinese online Marketplaces as well for much less. 

However, many people are claiming that the image we are seeing posted by Evan was the original urn (claimed to be from the Ming Dynasty) while the rest of the urns (the ones found online) are reproductions. This is also not true.

Because of issues like looting, theft, and bootlegging artifacts: China has recently banned the export of items that predate 1911. The Ming Dynasty ended in 1644. Since Evan is not a historian, is not affiliated with a museum or university, and has no qualifications other than being a pawn broker, why would they give him this? Why would the Chinese goverment ban other private collectors from getting these types of artifacts but not him? While I understand what he is claiming WOULD be an important find: it seems weird to me that something so important would not be reconized in an official goverment capacity by China itself through its more standard awards.

Along with this, there is no Chinese goverment award that involves giving urns/vaises to people that would fit the bill of what happened here.

The 2 highest awards a non-Chinese citizen can get from the Chinese goverment (that would apply) are the following:

The most recent one of these was given out in 2021 to an anthropologist from Tahiti (that is not Evan)

The most recent one of these was just given out in October of this year but to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (who is also not Evan).

Factually, Evan is not correct. He did not receive the highest award for the album. At best he received 10 dollar urn (marked up to 100 dollars on Amazon because, why not) from the actual administration printed on the box and at worst he went onto Amazon, bought this urn because it looked “historic enough”, got a box, and then pretended he got an award. Given 1 actual Chinese goverment official (Qin Gang) has acknowledged the album changing hands, I am going to be nice and say that the first situation is probably what happened.

Either way: he did not receive a formal award.

So what can we prove?

What we know is true:

Leslie Guy Allen was a real person who served in the US Navy during the years 1937 and 1938

Leslie was in China during the year of the rape (or at least in a boat that would frequently go to that area)

Leslie was on, if the album is 100% correct, 2 ships: the USS Henderson and the USS Augusta 

The photo album did belong to Leslie and he was about 23 at the time he crossed the Meridian (according to his birthdate matched with the date the certificate states)

All of the photos we see are real photos taken at some point during ‘recent’ Chinese history (from 1900-1940s)

The album is from WW2 and is actually that old

The rape of Nanjing is an event that did happen and coming across the images taken during it is extremely hard

What we cannot confirm due to lack of evidence:

How many photos were actually in the album and what they looked like

How many of these photos were actually taken in Nanjing proper

Who Evan talked to to authenticate the book (and if they were a real historian or not)

If Evan bothered to attempt to authenticate the book at all

If Leslie had any personal photos of himself or his crewmates in the book

If Leslie had a camera or was a photographer

The authenticity of the various letters and emails Evan has received from various Chinese officials (excluding the post made by Qin Gang on Twitter since that is his official page)

Why (or if) Evan got ‘ghosted’ by the entire domestic history community

Evan is being harassed in person because of the album

What we know is NOT true:

The photos in the book were taken by Leslie personally.

Several of the graphic photos are ones depicting a post-rape Nanjing

The photos were all taken around the same time and in the same general place

The men in the “Death by 1000 cuts” who are not being tortured are Japanese military officers or soldiers (and this took place in Nanjing in the 30s)

The photos depicting piles of bodies were photos of the rape of Nanjing

The yellow urn Evan received was an official award given by the Chinese goverment and is from the Ming Dynasty/is an authentic artifact

The urn is the highest award a non-citizen of China could receive

The people who said “these photos were not from Nanjing” were lying

The images Evan publically released are unique and can only be found in this album

But at the end of the day: a large bulk of the information we have regarding this entire situation comes from Evan directly. Evan is the source. The only 3 people who truly knows what is inside of that book are: the wife of Leslie Allen (who was the person who started out with the book), whoever took the book from Evan, and Evan himself. No 3rd party THAT WE KNOW OF AND CAN CONFIRM has looked at this book. It is just Evan’s word against the world. 

Other suspicious things that point to this being fake:

The book and its story has received little to no media coverage outside of the hoax allegations

Only 1 person connected with the Chinese goverment has acknowledged the book in some capacity and that was on Twitter

The Nanjing Memorial Museum has been given little access to the book itself and tried reaching out to Pawn Man but apparently did not get a response 

The Nanjing Memorial Museum (as of December 1st 2022) has added about 453 new artifacts, the album itself is not mentioned to be among these new additions. The album or its acquisition is also not mentioned anywhere on their official website or its news section. It is also not featured anywhere on the site where artifacts are shown.

Evan has seemed to only really respond to comments made by blogs/tiktok users calling his book fake. He has had minimal contact with news stations and has not done any in-person interviews (say for a few from local news stations in his area)

He states in his letter that the album contains several HUNDRED photos, states a few dozen of those are ones taken as souvenirs, but initially claimed 30 of these photos were of the rape. The book looks to be over around 2ish inches thick, but also has thicker paper. Either there are not several hundred photos in the book or the photos are extremely small. 

Evan has ALLEGEDLY made false claims about the artifacts he has before. However, a lot of these threads discussing this seem to have been scrubbed

Actual Chinese people are calling foul on his claims (specifically with the awards)

My thoughts

This situation is just error after error. And given how many weird discrepancies there are, there is a pretty large chance that Evan is not only aware he is misrepresenting what the album is, but was planning to do that from the start.

For one, as I have mentioned before, all of the information we have regarding the book comes from Evan and nowhere else. Although he claims to have had this book authentificated. To quote him in a now deleted tweet:

“I’ve had several prestigious people look at a small sample and tell me they think the photos are authentic. Once I have an in person opinion, I will post about it.”

But even though he is claiming this, we never actually see any 3rd party separate from Evan (museum or historian) come out and say “this book is legit ''. But also at the same time Evan cites his lack of blatant authentication on trolls driving away all of the entities that could actually give us a clear answer. Which is it? Was it authenticated or was it not? All we have to go on is his word and his word alone. And even then there seems to be some contradiction in Evan’s testimony as to what is actually true. 

This is the biggest rookie mistake you can make handling an artifact. 

When you have something like this book and you think it is something THAT historically significant, you do not just go out saying “hey MAYBE could be this thing” and then treat that artifact as if it was that thing. You go have it authenticated first. You could go to a museum, you could go to a historian who specializes in the subject matter of your artifact, you could go to both and get multiple opinions. But regardless of what that process might look like, you still need to go have your discovery checked. Because, more often than not, you as a private collector or person who just casually enjoys history are not qualified enough to make those calls. Unless you are published, unless you have credibility backing you beyond “I like history”, you need to go to a 3rd party and get things authenticated by them.

This is why Evan was presenting a WW2 souvenir album as a 1 of a kind artifact depicting some pretty serious historical events. To Evan, he had probably never seen some of these images before, saw the word Nanjing (or Nanking in the book) and connected the 2. Asian people + brutality + photos of dead people = the rape of Nanjing images. And while these images are upsetting to look at, they are not what they are being presented as. And the defensiveness makes me think either Evan knew this fact but kept digging his heels in anyway because he still had some people who were believing him hook, line, and sinker. Or, he did actually believe that is what those images were and is deeply uncomfortable that his assumption, while well intentioned, might be wrong. He is doubling down because he does not want to be wrong.

But even then that does not explain the urn being passed off as an award. It does not explain the questionably sourced letters or the other claims he is making. It does not explain shrodingers historian and shrodingers authenticator. It does not explain the bizarre letter Evan made wrote and then posted that focused a lot on stroking his own ego and little about what was in the actual book. There is just too much that cannot be explained or that can be debunked for me to confidently say Evan is credible. He is not. And while in the history world there often are a lot of dead ends, those dead ends are usually not caused by the historian fudging information to fit a narrative. It exists because sometimes context is missing. It exists because the puzzle pieces needed for that additional conext are ones we have simply not found yet. We might someday, but in the meantime we work with what we have.

While Pawn Man once had my good will and some plausible deniability: he does not anymore. In the face of a mistake all he did was dug his heels in more and muddy the waters more. All he did was put his own ego and pride above his discovery, his integrity. History seldom remembers follower counts after all, it remembers things you did. And I would not want to be remembered for something like this. 

It's all deeply disappointing given it is piggybacking on one of the worst war crimes in modern history. And yes, I am aware people are going to make comments saying “but China did this, China did that”, yeah, I know. I don't understand why people feel the need to discredit tragedies in history or in the present day because others have had it worse. The Chinese government has done some horrific things as of late but I do not think that means the Rape of Nanjing never happened or that it is somehow justified. And given how genocide denialism is becoming more and more common: I worry that clout chasing attempts like this will just make those issues worse. The historical waters around the Rape of Nanjing are already muddy because, beleive it or not, most of the photographic evidence was destroyed by the people who committed these acts to cover their tracks. A discovery like the one Evan claimed to have had would be huge. But lying about that only hurts the rest of what is out there. It puts a stain on the reputation of the people trying to get that story out there and make it known. It gives those deniers fuel to keep pushing the fact “it never happened”.

I honestly am in awe that this situation happened in the first place. Nothing about it just does not sit right no matter how generously you look at it. However, I would not say I am surprised given the current state of the world and how we deal with information, fact checking, and social media in general. Its just all really disturbing and I am deeply disappointed in everybody involved.

Unless we see this book in the hands of a 3rd party NOT connected with Evan, I would heavily discourage taking anything posted by Evan as fact. Its clear a sensitive topic is being used to view and like farm. And until that stops happening (which I do not think it will) Evan will only just have more reason to keep pushing this blatant lie. 

If you want to educate, do that. Do not use education as an excuse to make claims that are blatantly untrue and then claim everybody who says otherwise is racist, a sheep, a troll, or is trying to cancel you. Thats not how we do that. And that is not respectful to the thousands who have died in the tragedy you so blatantly use as a shield. 

[littlegildedswallow]

I'm 5 feet tall with a delicate build, and I work out regularly. No amount of body-building changes the fact that the average man could easily wrap his entire fucking hand around my neck and EASILY choke me to death, or break my wrists or my fucking spine. That terrifies me. It terrifies me than in a real one on one fight to the death, I'd probably be the one dying. I'm thinking of that video where a woman stabbed a guy with a big knife like 15 times, and he still kept fighting, whaling on her. What the fuck are those tiny "self defense" blades supposed to accomplish ? My best bet would probably be to slice his jugular or push my thumbs into his eye sockets, but how the fuck am I supposed to do that if he's restraining my arms. It TERRIFIES me that I can't fight, and even if I could, I'd probably not stand a chance against the average man, and definitely not if there were more than one.

Do any of you know self defense tips that ACTUALLY work? No convoluted moves. If a brute has got me in a fucking chokehold, I won't be thinking about the steps of popular self defense moves. I'll be panicking, losing strength and consciousness. The way i see it, my best bet would be carrying a fucking dagger, but even that requires intense training to learn how to use efficiently.

[frida-kahl-of-the-rocky-horror]

History repeats itself

[ayx79]

[sharkneto]

My review of The Poppy War: Would rather have just read a book about the Second Sino-Japanese War instead of the fantasy version of it

[boricuacherry-blog]

I am being sued for defamation for Okinawa Notes. During the Battle of Okinawa, the Japanese military ordered the people on two small islands off of Okinawa to commit suicide. They told them that the Americans were so cruel that they would rape the women and kill the men. They said they were better off killing themselves before the Americans landed. Each family was given two grenades. On the day the Americans landed, more than five hundred people killed themselves. Grandfathers killed sons, husbands killed wives. I argued that the leader of the defending troops stationed on the island was responsible for those deaths. Okinawa Notes was published almost forty years ago, but about ten years ago a nationalistic movement began that seeks to revise history textbooks in order to erase any mention of the atrocities Japan committed in Asia, during the twentieth century, such as the Nanjing Massacre and the Okinawa suicides. Many books have been published about the Japanese crimes in Okinawa but mine is one of the few still in print. The conservative faction wanted a target, and I became that target. Compared to when the book was published in the seventies, the current right-wing attack against me seems far more nationalistic, part of a resurgence in emperor worship. They claim that the people on the islands died out of a beautifully pure feeling of patriotism for the emperor.

-Kenzaburo Oe, 2007

[ilovegirlssomuch123]

Holy shit check the rbs op is going to bat for literally north korea

It’s incredible just how quickly you find racist shit when looking through a terf account

[troythecatfish]

Self Proclaimed “Cultured Weebs” when you ask them what they know about the Rape of Nanjing & Unit 731:

[valkyries-things]

IRIS CHANG // ACTIVIST

“She was a Chinese-American activist, historian and bestselling author. Her writings and teachings memorialised the stories of Chinese immigrants and their descendants, and continue to be invaluable sources on human rights, WWII and Cold War history, the Asian-American experience, Sino-American relations and the future of American civil liberties. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanjing Massacre, The Rape of Nanking, and in 2003, The Chinese in America: A Narrative History.”

[hantenguclonesimp-minuszoha]

Little bit history. Yay! Not.

I just learned about the Rape of Nanjing.

I will never look at Japan the same way again.

[flufflepuff-reads]

Tԋҽ Pσρρყ Wαɾ (Spoiler Free Review)

Aυƚԋσɾ: R. F. Kuang Rҽʅҽαʂҽ: 1st May 2018 Gҽɳɾҽ: Grimdark Fantasy Rαƚιɳɠ: 5 stars

"𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠"

Pɾҽɱιʂҽ:

War orphan, Fang Runin, tries to avoid being sold to an old man by applying to Nikara's most elite military academy. When she gets in, it is not the end of her struggles, at school she is faced with racism and abuse, all while a new war looms on the horizon.

"𝗪𝗮𝗿 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼'𝘀 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁. 𝗪𝗮𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀."

Rҽʋιҽɯ:

The poppy war is probably one of the best built up fantasy novels of all time. It is a beautiful display of great world building, wonderful and real, complex characters and beautiful writing. This story has meaning, it has purpose and it does what other authors have shyed away from. However this story is NOT for the faint of heart. It is, although sometimes funny, first and foremost a war story. It is ugly, disgusting, brutal and it's real. It is real, because this war happened.

The poppy war is an alternative retelling of the 2nd Sino-Japanese war, set in a fantasy world that is HEAVILY based on china and it displays The Rape of Nanjing, one of the ugliest and darkest massacres in human history, in great detail. The gods and magic might not be real, but this war was. I have never ever heard or read something as vile in any other sort of media, this isn't a typical hero story. Kuang does not shy away from the undescribable horror that this massacre was and she does not lessen war in any way in this book. Trust me, this is not what you are used to.

Eventhough I felt the book was perfect, I struggled with the moral question of wether or not using a real massacre like this in a fantasy novel was ethical for a very long while. Who knows. I am not the authority to decide this matter, but here are some of my thoughts:

Kuang is by far not the first author to base a fantasy novel on real events and real wars, perhaps the most famous example would be J. R. R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings, however there is a fundemental difference in the way they do. Tolkien makes it a typical hero story, he poses no question wether or not war is right or wrong, he doesn't make it possible for you to question who the good guy is, because the Orcs are made specifically to kill and destroy, they live no other life, they serve no greater purpose. He may not be romanticising war, but he definetly lessens your understanding and expections of and around it. Kuang does the opposite, she shows you a real war. Nobody in her story is right and without fault, nobody gains anything from this war, all it brings is pain, death and suffering in abundance. To me, reading this book felt like a wake up call, suddenly I had to realise that war was nothing like I imagined, because no matter how hard I'd have tried, I could never have imagined these horros. These horrors which were the ends of real peoples lives, not too long ago. I think this understanding of things and our own world is important. In a very rough way this book educated me on a matter I had unknowingly closed my eyes on, and to me that is worth something. I think this book has a far greater purpose than just entertainment and if you think you can stomach it, I think you should read it.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Journal pages:

[pb-dot]

Film Friday: Godzilla Minus One

I never quite know what to think about Godzilla. The big radioactive bastard has held about every possible point at the Hero - Antihero - Villain spectrum at one point in his storied career of going ham on Tokyo. More well-read minds than me could probably write some rather insightful stuff about what has motivated the various shifts that has seen Godzilla be both a terrifying metaphor for the atomic bomb and a friend to children fighting enemies of humankind together with his amazing growing robot friend (and accompanying jazzy soundtrack.) Me, I have no idea, and basically only perk up when someone does Horror Movie-ass Godzilla again, such as today's movie, the somewhat confusingly numerated Godzilla Minus One.

It may not come as an incredible surprise to those of us familiar with world history that Japan 1945 wasn't a great place to be. Failed kamikaze pilot, if not "lapsed" is the correct term, Koichi knows this more than most. Not only did he chicken out of blowing himself and a big, but not cripplingly big, chunk of American naval equipment to kingdom come, his stop over at a pacific repair station turns into quite the clusterfuck as a local Cryptid known as Godzilla comes a'stomping. It might be sparse consolation that it's nothing to the Plus Sizes Fuckamajig that arises when US nuclear weapon tests causes Godzilla to grow to Tokyo-smashing size, strength and proclivity. It's now up to Koichi and his rag-tag band of post-war minesweepers to come up with a solution, before something larger and more merciless than they could imagine takes from them everything they know and love... again.

If I can fault the movie for anything, it does feel like it pulls its punches a mite in the moral greyness inherent to the setup. I recognize that a factually honest depiction of the Rape of Nanjing or some of the other shit that went down in Manchuria and Korea maybe isn't quite the path you go down in your big Atomic Lizard Smash movie, although I am undeniably reminded of how Godzilla in GMK is a vessel for vengeful WW2 soldiers. It does, however, tint the experience ever so slightly that basically every male character is ex-military, and a honorable, if demoralized lot.

Look, I'm not one to dictate how a country looks back at its history, with warts or without, I can only own the thoughts and associations that pass through my own labyrinthine head, and as such I will prepare to do so. From the little I've read on the topic, honoring dead WW2 soldiers is somewhat of a contentious topic in Japan, with the right-wing political figures in particular making somewhat of a show of it, and a degree of war crime denialism such an action requires. Whether this is in deference to tradition or in an attempt to drum up support of Japan forming their own army or whatever myopic yearning for a prelapsarian past the semi- and full fascists are on about in that particular corner of the world, I am sure I don't know as I lack context.

In light of this political pricklyness, I suppose it's good that the little bit we see from the end of WW2 is in the Pacific Theater. If nothing else because I suspect that experience sucked way harder for Japanese troops than anything on the mainland (also this isn't to suggest there weren't atrocities committed in the pacific theater, as what little research I have done suggest this is quite far from the truth.) Similarly, I do like how the movie seems set on rebuking the "honorable warrior's death"-idea that fueled the kamikaze attacks on a thematic level, rebuking the whole idea as the cold-hearted attempt to maintain authoritarian might with streams of lives that need not end. It's not amazingly nuanced stuff, but I do enjoy the "It's trivially simple to die for something. Choosing to LIVE for something is harder" -vibe that does a good job at selling a baseline humanity to the whole thing, especially as protagonist Koichi starts wondering if doing a kamikaze run on Big G himself is how he should atone for his cowardice in war.

Anyway, prickly political subtext handled with as much care as I can manage, let's close the chapter on that and get to the man of the hour, big G himself. The various ways in which Godzilla has been portrayed through the year are varied and exciting, but I do like the -1 version an awful lot. He's huge, for one, any Emmerichian attempts at tuning down the sheer leviathan mass of Godzilla is discarded in favor of the shock and awe of a creature so massive that it just moving breaks shit around it. And his Atomic Breath? Oh wow. Care has been taken to make this most B Movie Schlock-y of his ability something beyond mere biology. His spines glow with atomic power as he charges up the devastating attack, and although I will concede it maybe oversells the point slightly as these spines pop out and lock in as some kind of futuristic over-animated space gun ready to, if you pardon the ancient meme, fire his lazer. In short, the classic "Godzilla destroys the city" stuff has never looked better, and while I do consider it a bit of fan service that is perhaps in some ways incongruous with the tone the movie's trying for, the original Godzilla soundtrack still sounds chilling over scenes of amphibian megaviolence.

Speaking briefly on the non-godzilla, non-warcrime part of the movie, the story finds its heart with Noriko, a young woman who invites herself into Koichi's life in a way that feels very Haruki Murakami to me. She moves in to the ruins of his house after some business with a child switch-a-roo, and Koichi very pointedly doesn't kick her out. It's a Schroedinger's Relationship of sorts that forms. To all appearances Noriko and Koichi are living what might pass for a post-war domestic family life, but they're not married, not together in a romantic sense, and the child they raise aren't related to either of them by blood. It's a clever little touch to, I think, mirror how Japan is also built back together from the disparate pieces that are left after the destruction of WW2. It's also a frustrating new level to "Oh come on stop trying to fake date her and date her" kind of thing, as Koichi, deep as he is in his PTSD and survivor's guilt, refuses to commit himself to this ramshackle family he's ended up with. It's frustrating not because Koichi is acting out of character or like a jerk, even if he's a bit of one if I'm honest, but because we the audience have empathy for his ailments and want to see him get better. While the road this subplot takes is a bit fraught, it does lead to a rather sweet and satisfying ending as Koichi finally sheds the guilt and allows himself to live and love again. What can I say? I love Creature Feature-centered therapy.

So in short? Give Godzilla Minus One a look. It's perhaps the closest match to the 1951 original in tone that I've seen, and it wields a bevy of modern cinematic techniques in its quest to have that giant lizard fuck up Tokyo for the first time, again. There's also a brief bit that feels a bit like Jaws if the shark was Megalodon-sized and also radioactive, and who among us doesn't want to see such a thing?

[radfemsiren]

The things happening in Khartoum are nearly identical to the Nanjing Massacre in 1937. Idk if you’ve read about that but it seems that people are, in a horrific way, repeating history.

Yes, it’s very horrific and upsetting. We can never forget about the women of Sudan, we have to keep talking about it, drawing attention to it… mass rape and torture absolutely do repeat over and over again, and women and children are always the primary victims. There are still new photos revealed about the evil that happened in nanjing, and it makes me wonder what will be revealed years from now about Sudan…

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 13 December 1937, the Nanjing massacre began when Imperial Japanese troops captured the city which was then the capital of China (Content note: graphic descriptions of sexual and physical violence). They then initiated six weeks of murder, looting and rape which left 40,000-300,000 people dead. Japanese media at the time covered a contest between two army officers to see who could be the first to kill 100 people with a sword. After they surpassed the figure, they began another contest to see who could kill 150. Tens of thousands of civilians and surrendered soldiers were machine-gunned and thrown in the Yangtze River, blown up with landmines, or burned or buried alive. In addition to murders, around 20,000 people – children and adult and elderly women – were raped by Japanese soldiers: many of them were gang raped, and assaulted by being penetrated with bayonets, bamboo or other foreign objects. Despite the fact that Chinese victims widely reported the atrocities, foreign eyewitnesses, Japanese participants and even Japanese generals and other officials, as well as being filmed and extensively photographed, many Japanese politicians and ultra-nationalists today try to deny that the massacre even took place. After hearing of the massacre, dockworkers in Australia refused to load pig iron onto ships delivering materials to Japan. Pic: An article on the "Contest to kill 100 people using a sword" published in the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2159793420872463/?type=3

[boricuacherry-blog]

Japanese armies invaded China's northern provinces and quickly captured the ancient Chinese capital Peking (now called Beijing), where Pamela Werner was murdered in 1937 [before the Japanese invasion - the case is still unsolved]. In this war, the Japanese enjoyed overwhelming superiority in numbers, training, and weapons.

While fighting was happening in Northern China, the Japanese launched a second front on the city of Shanghai, on the eastern coast of China. They captured Shanghai also in 1937. They were then able to move up the Yangtze River and lay seige to the Nationalist capital Nanking (now called Nanjing).

By the time of Nanking's capture, the Japanese already controlled large sections of China, and war crimes against the Chinese became commonplace.

This all took place during the Sino-Japanese War, in particular, the second Sino-Japanese war between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan, with the first war having taken place in 1894.

When Nanking fell to the Japanese troops, they immediately slaughtered thousands of Chinese soldiers who had surrendered to them, as well as civilians. For six weeks, life for the Chinese in Nanking became a nightmare. Bands of drunken Japanese soldiers roamed the city, murdering, raping, looting and burning the city at whim. At least twenty thousand Chinese women were raped in Nanking during the first four weeks of the Japanese occupation, and many were afterward mutilated and killed.

**Warning: Disturbing Content**

******************

When the bodies of murdered Chinese turned the gutters and the Yangtze River red with their blood, the Japanese were forced to refine their methods of slaughter in the interest of preventing the spread of disease. Batches of Chinese civilians were sent to slaughter pits, where they were buried alive, hacked to death with swords, used for bayonet practice, or poured with petrol and burned alive. The Japanese even posed with their dead victims - burned corpses, bayoneted babies, headless bodies, and disembowled women. Sons were forced to sodomize their own mothers and then were usually murdered. Unlike the Nazis, who tried to hide or at least obscure the scope of their atrocities on civilians, the Japanese flaunted theirs in full view of horrified foreigners with cameras, most of whom tried futilely to stem the slaughter, even as they recorded it on film.

"The Japanese took souvenir pictures of what they did, particularly to the women. Many were forced into pornographic poses before, after or during mutilation and death," said Iris Chang, the author of bestselling book The Rape of Nanking. "I had to omit the worst pictures from my book because I feared they might cause it to be banned from school libraries. And school libraries are where I want it most to be."

In fact, the ritual gang-rapes perpetuated by the Japanese Army would have only been hearsay if not for the photographs the soldiers themselves took of their crimes to send back home as souvenirs.

Though her grandparents managed to escape just before the Japanese entered Nanking, Chang found herself consumed with documenting the massacre before the last of the survivors passed away. In Nanjing she located 10 survivors, including one who was a pregnant teenager when the city was sacked.

"She actually fought off the Japanese soldiers who tried to rape her," said Chang. "They bayoneted her 37 times. She was photographed afterward at the hospital. She lost the baby, but somehow lived through it. She's obviously a very strong woman."

One woman, who was eight at the time, remembers her father being shot, and she and her mother being raped by soldiers. She still suffers to this day from the brutal attack.

Following the massive destruction of Nanking, China's capital was left in ruin. The Japanese government installed a puppet government headed by General Matsui Iwane (who declared the attack on Nanking) and his lieutenant, Tani Hisao, to rule over Nanking, where they maintained power until the end of World War II, after which both Matsui Iwane and Tani Hisao were tried and convicted of war crimes, leading to their execution. Unfortunately only a few Japanese were tried for their crimes against humanity in Nanking, with Japan refusing to even acknowledge the massacre even happened, as well as most people outside of Asia never having heard of it.

One week after the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur - the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers - ordered the arrests of Japanese suspects, including General Hideki Tojo. Twenty-eight defendants, mostly Imperial military officers and government officials, were charged. Seven defendants were sentenced to death by hanging and 16 defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment.

The defendants were:

Sadao Araki

Kenji Doihara

Kingoro Hashimoto

Shunroku Hata

Kiichiro Hiranuma

Koki Hirota

Naoki Hoshino

Seishiro Itagaki

Okinori Kaya

Koichi Kido

Heitaro Kimura

Kuniaki Koiso

Matsui Iwane

Jiro Minami

Akira Muto

Osami Nagano

Takasumi Oka

Shumei Okawa

Hiroshi Oshima

Kenryo Sato

Mamoru Shigemitsu

Shigetaro Shimada

Toshio Shiratori

Teiichi Suzuki

Shigenori Togo

Hideki Tojo

Charges were dropped for Shumei Okawa because he was found to be mentally unfit for trial. Two defendants, Yosuke Matsuoka and Osami Nagano, died of natural causes during the trial. Six defendants were sentenced to death by hanging. One defendant, Matsui Iwane, was sentenced to death. On December 23, 1948, the defendants were executed at Sugamo Prison with Allied Council as witnesses. Six defendants were sentenced to life in prison. Koiso, Shiratori, and Umezu died in prison while the other 13 were paroled between 1954 and 1956.

Eleven countries came together to form the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), convened on April 29, 1946 to try the leaders of Japan for joint conspiracy to start and wage war.

*Japanese History*

Before the massacre, Japan had recently been Westernized and modernized - but in weaponry alone - as they themselves were less than a century out of their Samurai past, with each soldier still reeling from the harsh authoritarian regime under which they served. Japan was an extremely isolated country and the general attitude was overwhelmingly nationalistic.

Living in isolationism for hundreds of years, the old world Japan of 1853 had been shocked into modernization by U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry, who - with just four modern steam warships - had entered Tokyo harbour, trained his canon on the Emperor's place, then demanded and received from the Japanese government precisely the trade treaty that American politicians had long required. Japan's highly militaristic Imperial culture spent the next few years importing into their island as much Western weaponry as they could, taking advantage of the new Western technology to revive its Samurai informed ultra-authoritarianism both at home and abroad.

Right before the Japanese captured the Chinese city of Peking, overt hostilities were felt, due to the Marco Polo Bridge incident of 1937, when shots were exchanged between the Chinese and Japanese on Peking's outskirts. Thereupon full-scale hostilities began between the two nations.

There were the Nationalist Chinese and the Communist Chinese. Nationalist Chinese leadership had been holding their forces in reserve for a future struggle with the Communist Chinese, which hindered them in repelling the Japanese. By contrasts, the Communist Chinese, from their base in North Central China, began an increasingly effective guerrilla war against the Japanese troops in Manchuria and North China.