Song Of The Azalea

ESCAPE TO LIFE
By Jan J.Solecki
Published by Jotolusa Trade & Management Inc. (1998)

In this book the author recreated a scenario as it happened in northern China in the years 1920-1939. The circumstances were multifaceted by the internal and external aspects. The local warlords supported by different foreign powers were still very active after the Kuomintang’s “Northern Expedition”, which did not completely gain control over the warlords in the area. Consequently the KMT’s troops were still fighting with the warlords in small wars. At the same time the Russians were encroaching from the north and the Japanese conducted mass migration into north-eastern China. Then adding to the chaos, on December 18, 1931 the Japanese troops literally marched into China’s north-eastern three provinces and part of the Inner Mongolia and thus created devastating situation.

How big were the three provinces that Japan had adopted? To give a sense of the land sizes of these provinces, the following numbers may be of interest.

The total land mass of China’s three provinces [Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning] is 305,003 sq. miles. Japan’s land mass is 145,883 sq. miles. The land size of the east-northern three provinces that Japan had adopted is twice the land size of Japan’s land mass and is the total land areas 304,734 sq. miles of U.K. and France.

(Reference: www.worldatlas.com)

The hideous 731 unit prison camp was set up near Tsitsikhar near the border of Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang using prisoners of men, women and children who were a mix of Chinese POW, peasants, local citizens and Russians for live chemical and biological warfare experiments. There was not a single survivor. When the news of Japan’s surrender on August 15, 1945 reached the head of 731 unit, they ordered to have all prisoners be killed and the whole establishment was burnt to ashes.

This book is based on factual occurrences as the author puts it: “The story presented in this book is a fiction, as are all the characters. However, the historical circumstances are represented as they occurred. Equally factual are the geographical and climatic features, which are reconstructed from memory by the author, who grew up in this region of China and lived there during the 1930, the years described in the book.”

Mr. Jan J. Solecki is a Polish-Russian descendant, but his dedication of this book is “To the people of China, who suffered invasion and oppression without ever giving up the fight for national freedom.” And his perceive of the Chinese as he wrote in the Introduction page: “The intent of this book is to provide a picture of the times; to place before the reader the spirit of a China which was as yet neither intensely nationalist nor communist but mainly intensely patriotic.”

I am thankful to Mr. Solecki who expresses his compassion and non-discriminatory description of the Chinese.

Mr. Solecki’s diverse life is full of colourful and interesting stories. He was born in Inner Mongolia and attended polish high school there. In 1939 he moved to Hong Kong to continue his study and in 1941 he joined voluntarily the Royal Artillery in defence of the British Colony. When Hong Kong fell in December 1941 he was captured and thrown into Sum Sui Po POW camp in Kowloon and was later taken to Nagoya, Japan for hard labour in a locomotive factory. After Japan surrendered, he went to England to continue his study and then he moved to Vancouver to further his study at UBC and later at University of Washington in Seattle. From 1964-1984, he taught at UBC; specializing in Economies of Russia and China. (Reference: back page of Escape to Life)

As the wartime population is reduced and the war history is gradually fading away, Mr. Solecki’s book makes up an important part which is missing in the history. I recommend this book for everyone who loves to learn history of WWII.

Historical information about 731 Unit Men Behind The Sun and AII POW-MIA Unit 731.

The Measure of A Man – Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah’s Book Club)
By Sidney Poitier

I was deeply touched by Mr. Poitier’s book; there are so many spiritual thoughts left to be contemplated. It is truly an excellent book to read.

In his early years there was a boundary which limited his dreams. As Mr. Poitier said: “…the outside world introduced itself to me and instructed me as to where the lines were drawn: what the style of my behaviour should be, where I should find a place to fit, and how I should rein in my expectations (never, ever reaching above the level approved for person like me, …)” This apparently showed in the making of the movie “The Heat of the Night.”

Mr. Poiter has come a long way through the dark era of racism; as a black citizen he learned to know his place but resisted constantly and strongly to be put down. He guarded his dignity and value as a human being even if it meant the possibility of loosing a movie contract. If such occurrences happened, he was very determined to find a job as kitchen helper or janitor instead of bending his principle.

From his life experiences, he has risen to a place where there is no hateful recount of the racist era he faced. I believe the positive way to deal with persecution is no hatred but forgiveness. Mr. Sidney Poitier stands as a strong example of the measure of a man.

He is one of my most respected American movie stars. In the early years of the 60s, as I recall, the left wing newspapers in Hong Kong had wrongfully accused Sidney Poiter of being a ‘negro vase’ who collaborated with Hollywood to decorate the equality between the white and the black. The leftists believed that such racial problems would lead to the collapse of America. Many have paid a price, including Mr. Poitier, to come to the present success of amalgamation.

More about Sidney Poitier:
Oprah’s Book Club
Biography.com
Wikipedia.org
IMDB Movie Database

Other reviewers:
The grits book club

Of interest, an aside:
Another blogger, Measure of a Man, Bono

Ten Green Bottles: Vienna to Shanghai – Journey of Fear and Hope
By Vivian Jeannette Kaplan
Published 2002 by Robin Brass Studio Inc.

Detailed stories illustrate the lives of Jews in Vienna during the era of WWII. It is a valuable record of the history of those years that the Jew’s freedom of livelihood was gradually taken away and worsened everyday until finally they were reduced to a life and death situation. Thousands had been sent to concentration camps, many of the Jewish businesses and properties had been confiscated by the Nazis. Since all bank accounts were frozen by the authority, the Jews were struggling to exist. Tensed and worried, they were seeking ways to escape this brutality and struggle. Very fortunately, the author and her family finally received help from an Austrian lawyer who risked his life to secure their exit documents and paid for the train and sea passage to Shanghai, China. The Austrian lawyer Herr Bergen had been arrested and shot in 1939.

Although given a new opportunity, the author seemed indifferent to the Shanghai Chinese who had suffered persecution, starvation and atrocities by the invading Japanese Imperial Army in January 28, 1932 and August 13, 1937. It was the same situation that the Jews had experienced under the German occupation in the areas of Vienna and others countries in Europe. One such example is as the author wrote: “Debarking from the ship and setting foot for the first time on the wharf, I am filled with overwhelming nausea. Heavy, sickly odours attack my nostrils. Thick hordes of people swarm the pier and coalesce into one throbbing dark mass, a monster with hundred of wriggling arms and legs that surrounds and threatens to devour us whole. Staring at my white skin and round blue eyes, the filthy, ragged strangers laugh and cajole in their unintelligible language.” How a foreigner can judge the local language as “unintelligible language”? Another such example is as the author wrote: “I am appalled and believe this to be the most uncivilized country on earth…” There are very few paragraphs and sentences that show the author’s passion for China and its populace.

There is also one fact that was not mentioned in the book and that was that there was a Chinese ‘Schindler’— “a diplomat who ushered more than 1,000 Jews out of Austria during the Second World War.” In fact, this Chinese diplomat was a Chinese Consulate General in Nazi occupied Vienna, Mr. Ho Fengshan, who resisted his own government’s will issuing more than 4,000 visa (the number was indicated by Ho’s daughter—reference Jerusalem Post) enabling the Jews and the defiant locals to leave Austria.

Of interest:

http://www.bibleprobe.com/ho_fengshan.htm

The Angel of Austria’s Jews:

http://www.members.tripod.com/~journeyeast/angel_of_austria_s_jews.html