Sound from 1937

24 ECHOES

Location: Nanjing Shi, Jiangsu, China

Visit YouTube to see the guide to the sound walk from a first-person perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVsWMxVgK0U

Visit my website to write a reflection and find out more about the scripts: http://23.230.134.45/

Visit my Podcast to listen to Soundwalk on Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/show/210VwCBaV0ixnkQqdOmRCK?si=2d16f97ed0e74e16

“Sound from 1937” use soundscape and “hot interpretation” to create a sound walk at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall， alongside with establishing an interactive website with a community, promote critical and reflective thinking about the nature of conflict and war, and encourage participants to discuss and commemorate this dark period of history from a variety of perspectives. eventually raise awareness of the Nanjing Massacre among young people aged 18-25.

0.1 “Escaped” Sculptures by Wu Wei-Shan

Before and after queuing up from Shuimen Street to enter the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, you will see twelve "escaped" sculptures Large-scale group sculpture creations, completed in 2005 ~ 2007 by Wu Wei-shan, director of the National Art Museum of China and Chairman of the China City Sculptors Association. Recorded the massacre of Nanjing citizens in the tragic death of the family, presenting the tragic experience of the unarmed civilians, and let people living in the present cherish the present peaceful life.

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0.2. The Memorial Square

The annual State Memorial ceremony is held here.The square is paved with gray backstones, creating a lifeless space.

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1. Archives Wall and 12 seconds space

This is the first part of the Preamble Hall, and the 12-second space is the only sound installation in the venue, all of which represents the dead in a unique way

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2. The historical gaze:Nanjing Massacre survivors photo wall

In this part, I use the news that the families of survivors will pay their respects here in 2023, hoping that the audience can understand the story of the decreasing number of survivors of the Nanjing Massacre behind this photo wall

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3. Nanking raid - Before the massacre

From the Japanese invasion of China on July 7, 937, until the total fall of Nanjing on December 13, 937, the Japanese Army carried out air raids on Shanghai and Nanjing, as well as atrocities against fleeing refugees

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3.Minnie Vautrin and Tse Shui-Fang Diaries of 1937-8-13 to 9-25

Vautrin and Tse's diaries recorded the exodus of Nanjing civilians, including foreigners, from Shanghai before the invasion began, disrupting transportation, communications, and teachers' salaries, and bringing the city to a standstill.

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4.Bloody battle Guang-Hua gate, the Japanese invasion of Nanjing

Combined with the sound effects of Rhawn Joseph's Nightmare of Nanking film, it Outlines how Japanese troops fought Chinese forces in December 1937. urging Chinese Nanjing Garrison Commander TangShengzhi to surrender unconditionally, finally broke the gates of Nanjing and occupied Nanjing.

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4.Diaries 1937-12-05 to 1937-12-13

Minnie Vautrin and Tse Shui-Fang's diaries from 1205-1213, detail how life in Nanjing in 1937 was devastated by the war, and how the approach of the Japanese army heightened the fear in people's lives.

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5. Massacre by the Yangtze River

With film sound of Director Wu Zi-niu's Nanjing 1937 (also known as Don’t Cry, Nanking), released in China as ‘Nanjing Massacre’ and City of Life and Death (2009), a detailed account of the atrocities committed by the Japanese army at Nanking

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6.Buried site 1937-12-15

Minnie Vaurtrin and Tse Shui-Fang's diaries complemented each other, recording the mass killings and victimization of refugees that took place on that day of 1937,1215.

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7.Sexual Violence 1937-12-16

Vautrin and Tse's diary tells of students, mothers and other females being snatched and raped, with other atrocities that Japanese soldiers did to the civilians.

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8. Robery and Arson 1937-12-19 and 12-29

Vautrin and Tse's diary from that day describes the looting and ruthless killing of civilians by Japanese troops.

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9.Humanitarian relief: Biographical sketches of Minnie Vautrin and Tse Shui-Fang

In the humanitarian relief area, I added biographical stories about the two protagonists in the story, especially how they helped Chinese citizens fight the atrocities of the Japanese army.

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10.Post-war

The interpretation of the Nanjing Massacre verdict, statistics, Japanese denial, and the impact of geopolitical changes on these attitudes are discussed.

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11. Peace wall and Prayer space

The visit to the Nanjing Massacre Historical Facts Exhibition is coming to an end. At this time, standing in front of this huge "peace wall", we feel the preciousness of peace.

Through Vautrin, Tsen and... victims ‘s testimony, I'm sure you know now the firsthan the devastation and suffering that this dark history has brought. However, rather than perpetuating the memory of the war, which always sees Japan as the perpetrator and China as the victim, Sound from 1937 hopes that audience will learn from the past and use these experiences to move towards a unified future.

As a trauma of the city of Nanjing, the Nanjing Massacre brought great misfortune to the people who once lived here. Today, we should think critically and reflectively about the nature of conflict and war. At the end of your journey, open the Sound from 1937 website and answer the following questions: What was the event How did it happen? How did people suffer? How to recognize and solve these problems? And most importantly, we How can we learn from the past and create a better future without making similar mistakes?

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12-19. Exterior area

After walking out of the Nanjing Massacre Historical Materials Museum, pass the "Disaster of the Ancient City" sculpture, coming to the exterior area of the memorial hall.

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12.Mourning square and Copperplate road

Here we see a composite sculpture - "The Disaster of the Ancient City". It is made up of broken walls, broken sabres, the heads and arms of the victims and the pebbles that symbolize the bones of the victims. Now we walk through what is called the bridge of history. This means standing on the bridge of history, looking back at the ancient city of Nanjing in the 1930s, Here we see a composite sculpture - "The Disaster of the Ancient City". It is made up of broken walls, broken sabres, the heads and arms of the victims and the pebbles that symbolize the bones of the victims. Now we walk through what is called the bridge of history. This means standing on the bridge of history, looking back at the ancient city of Nanjing in the 1930s, a scene of human tragedy! a scene of human tragedy. Crossing the bridge of history, we came to the memorial Square. Face to see the stone wall engraved with Comrade Deng Xiaoping's handwritten inscription of the name of the museum, "Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre of the Invading Japanese Army". This is a copper-plated road named "Footprints of Historical Witnesses", which was completed on December 13, 2002. It is 40 meters long and 1.6 meters wide, with 222 footprints of Nanjing Massacre survivors and important witnesses. The two bronze sculptures on the Copperplate Road are Ni Cuiping and Peng Yuzhen, two elderly people who survived the Nanjing Massacre. Ni Cuiping was 11 years old when the Japanese army shot her parents dead, she was shot in the left shoulder, which broke her shoulder blade, leaving a large scar on her body, and her arm can never be lifted because of the wound. Peng Yuzhen, 19 years old, was shot by the Japanese army in the right hip, causing her right calf to be seriously deformed, her knee was raised, disabled for life, and she had to walk with a crutch. The Memorial Hall adopts this unique form to rescue the historical witness materials of the Nanjing Massacre and the painful history of the Nanjing Massacre is engraved here forever. This is not only an eternal memorial to the 300,000 compatriots who died, but also a powerful disclosure of the Japanese aggression atrocities. To the west of the memorial square, there is a bronze statue. This is a bronze statue of Iris Chang, a Chinese female writer. It was made and donated by the China Human Rights Foundation and designed by Wang Hongzhi, president of the Nanjing Oil Painting Sculpture Design Institute.

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13. Cemetery square

Now, we walk up the steps along the Copperplate Road and see the black characters of "Victims · 300,000" engraved in Chinese, English and Japanese characters on the wall, highlighting the theme of the memorial hall. Here is the cemetery square, a monumental cemetery building style. The cemetery square is paved with cobblestones, and the grass is not growing, symbolizing the numerous white bones, symbolizing death; The green lawns on both sides and the evergreen trees outside the walls symbolize vitality and the spirit of resistance. Life and death form a strong contrast here, and the themes of life and death are displayed between the lines. The few dead trees represent that one-third of the buildings in Nanjing were burned down and embellish the miserable atmosphere. On both sides, there are 17 small commemorative stone tablets of different shapes, such as Torpedo Camp, Zhongshan Pier and Grass Shoe Gorge, which are engraved with the inscriptions of the mass burial places of compatriots killed in the Nanjing Massacre. The city's 17 memorial sites for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre are on display here. On the left side, on the wall of the ruined walls is a group of more than 20 bronze sculptures composed of a "relief wall", which is divided into four groups "catastrophe", "Slaughter", "Capsize", "Libation".With a length of 70 meters and a height of 2.6 meters, it was created by Professor Qian Dajing of Nanjing University of the Arts. Here, the artistic technique of stone relief is used to reproduce the brutal acts of burning, killing and pillaging of the invading Japanese army.

In the square stands a 4-meter-high sculpture, made of granite, called "Mother's Call."It shows the image of a Chinese mother in the 1930s. The art is based on a moving picture of the Nanjing Massacre secretly shot by John Magee, an American missionary who stayed in Nanjing to protect the victims. In the picture, there is a prototype of a mother who walks around looking for her relatives with a bamboo stick. Her left hand was stretched out as if she were looking for and calling for her lost loved ones, and her right hand was clenched to show her anger. The original 43-meter-long and 3.5-meter-high granite stone wall is called the List Wall of compatriots in distress, and the people call it the "Wailing Wall".After the expansion in 2007, 2011, 2013 and 2019, the total length of the "Wailing Wall" has reached 69.5 meters, and it is engraved with the list of 10,655 Nanjing Massacre victims,

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14. Gallery of the remains of the victims

In front of it is a gallery of the remains of the victims, clad in bluish-grey marble and designed to resemble coffins. The remains of the victims, first excavated in 1984, are on display inside; And some of the remains of victims exhumed from mass graves. The exhibition cases display beer bottles, bayonets and soles, buttons and belt rings left by the victims of the Japanese invasion of China. The grey marble walls are also decorated with photos taken at the excavation site. some people came to the scene spontaneously, some news units interviewed the scene, and some Japanese experts and scholars such as Fujiwara Akira came to the scene to investigate and collect evidence. These are the hard evidence left by the Japanese invaders in the collective massacre of Jiangdongmen.

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15. Pit of osseous remains

This is a newly excavated pit of osseous remains from April 1998 to December 1999. The osseous remains are arranged in seven layers, with a surface of 208 pieces, covering an area of 170 square meters. These osseous remains are scattered, some seriously distorted, some have bullet puncture marks, men and women are old and young, the youngest is 3 years old, the oldest is more than 60 years old, after research by experts in law, medicine, archaeology and history, these bones are confirmed as the osseous remains of the victims of the Nanjing Massacre. On April 30 1998, after the remains of the "mass grave" site were found again in Jiangdongmen, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued the "Archaeological Excavation Certificate of the People's Republic of China". Subsequently, the archaeological staff of the Nanjing Museum Archaeology Department excavated and cleaned up the osseous remains. The forensic doctors of Nanjing Public Security Bureau Institute of Criminal Science conducted forensic identification of these bones, and the bone density was determined by Nanjing Gulou Hospital to be 1.803.and compared the data provided by forensic textbooks such as "Forensic Anthropology" and "Forensic Diagnostics" in China and Japan, it was determined that the bones had been buried for 60 years. Some of the witnesses who participated in the Jiangdongmen "mass grave" buried the body also testified on the scene of this batch of skeletons. After extensive research, the osseous remains were confirmed as those of the victims of the Nanjing Massacre. The scrivener of the Nanjing Notary Office carried out legal notarization of the bones unearthed at the scene and issued a notarial Certificate of Preserving Evidence.

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16.Altar

This is the altar.In front of the black granite stone monument, the eternal flame of the dead is burning, and the two sides of the altar are broken and letter-free monuments, which symbolize the bodies of the victims who were deprived of life. Every year, the "candlelight ceremony" is held here, where people lay wreaths and observe silence to express their sorrow for the victims and their belief in opposing war and praying for peace.

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17.Quiet Speculation Hall

This hall is the Hall of Quiet Speculation. Engraved on the exit is "six let two", that is, "Let the bones sleep, let the souls of the dead sleep."Turn the butcher's knife into a warning bell, and engrave the dead as a historical mirror. Let the child no longer fear, let the mother no longer cry. Keep war away from mankind and let peace prevail."The Quiet Speculation Hall is a reflective granite veneer that creates a thought-provoking mourning environment.

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18.Peace Park

After stepping out of the meditation hall and coming to the landscape platform, a light suddenly appeared, as if from darkness to light. The view of the Peace Park can be seen on the left, with a gentle stretch of water in the middle, the Victory Wall on the right, and the tall statue of the "Goddess of Peace" in the distance. The relief wall on the right is called the Wall of Victory. It was also created by Professor Wu Weishan, The relief on the wall extends to both sides with the V-shaped symbol of victory as the centre, shaping the image of a Chinese soldier, vividly highlighting the theme of victory; The whole relief is 140 meters long, giving people a visual shock with the majestic artistic technique. The ever-green symbolizes life The evergreen symbolizes peace. The peace park, which consists of green lawns, shrubs and tall trees such as cedar, whitebark pine, ginkgo biloba and metanoia, creates a vibrant and peaceful scene. This is a sculpture of peace made of white marble. It is created by a famous sculptor in China, Professor Sun Jiabin of Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang. It consists of a mother holding a dove and a child wishing for peace. In the form of art, it expresses the wish of the Chinese people to hate war and slaughter, pursue peace and development, and hope for a better future for mankind.The sculpture is 30 meters high, symbolizing the memory of 300,000 compatriots who were killed in the Nanjing Massacre. There are 9 steps on the front, symbolizing humanity's journey towards lasting world peace.

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19.Zijin Grass Garden

This is the Zijin grass garden. purple goldZijin grass grows under the Zijin Mountain in Nanjing, Nanjing people call it "February orchid".In the spring of 1939, a Japanese army doctor, Kotaro Ichi Yamaguchi, came to Nanjing. He saw the ruins and devastation everywhere in Nanjing. One day, he accidentally found Zijin mountain in full bloom of small wild purple flowers, he did not expect in the desolate land, there could be such an unknown purple flower stubborn bloom. So he picked the seeds and brought them back to Japan to plant. Yamaguchi Seitaro did not remember the name of "February orchid", but remembered the purple mountain in Nanjing, so he named this small flower "Zijin grass".

After the war, Yamaguchi Seitaro, out of remorse and repentance for the war of aggression against China, devoted himself to promoting the planting of shikoshi throughout Japan. Since then, Every year, he would fill a cloth bag with flower seeds, take a train, and scatter them out of the window along the way, hoping that the purple grass would bloom throughout Japan. Today, shikimia blooms all over Japan and is considered the "flower of peace."In August 2007, Mr. Hiroshi Yamaguchi, son of Seitaro Yamaguchi, She was donated to build this "purple grass garden", and purple grass returned to its hometown. These flowers of peace, which embody the wishes of the Chinese and Japanese people for peace and friendship, bloom here year after year and bear seeds year after year. In 2008, peace and friendship people in Japan once again proposed and donated money to build a bronze statue of the "Purple and Golden Flower Girl" in the Purple and Golden Grass Garden. The bronze statue is 1.17 meters high, showing A little girl of seven or eight years old from Nanjing, her thin body standing on a rock surrounded by purple and gold flowers, looking at this once-war-torn city with wide eyes, and her naive face covered with a layer of light sadness.

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