CRI听力:Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Helps Educate People

Chinese lawmakers are debating a plan to turn December 13th into a memorial day to commemorate the Nanjing massacre in 1937.

CRI's Su Yi hit the streets to gauge reaction to the plan.

Reporter: The draft legislation comes more-than seven decades after Japanese imperial forces captured the then Chinese capital, and committed one of the worst atrocities of World War II. 300-thousand civilians and captive soldiers were brutally slaughtered.

But the documentation of witness accounts, and of domestic and foreign film footage, is seriously lacking.

Most young people today shy away from talking about the massacre at all because they have not been adequately exposed to the facts.

Zheng Dingshan, a 28-year-old construction engineer, says the Memorial Day could be used to educate people about the massacre.

"I don't think the day should be marked with a lot of activities. It's a sad and solemn day and as such people should take the occasion as a learning incentive and walk away with a bit more historical knowledge."

Similar memorials have been held annually at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland, Russia's World War II Memorial Stele and the Pearl Harbor Memorial Museum of the United States.

Wang Wan, a government employee who used to study and live in Japan, says the right-wing element in Japan needs to be warned about its behavior.

"Japan's government doesn't show much leniency when it comes to hurting other nations' feelings. China, South Korea, and many other Asian countries have so far followed a passive rhetoric. Expressing regrets falls short to be a warning, at least not a strong one."

The latest row between Japan and its neighbors follows Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, where a number of A-class war criminals are memorialized.

More appallingly, a governor of Japan's public broadcaster, NHK, bluntly disputed whether the Nanjing Massacre ever took place.

Such self-righteousness in the worshipping of its war dead, and denials of its horrific past wrongdoings, now regularly feature among the Japanese cabinet.

It exasperates 58-year-old Wang Liping, who owns a cafe in western Beijing.

"Talking about the Nanjing massacre makes me feel sick. It defies any feeble rhetoric, it's pain. Those who were butchered there need to be put to rest. I guess any compassionate human being would observe some kind of mourning, even if it's just a few seconds of silence."

Asked if marking the massacre on a national level could fuel the hatred of ultra-nationalists in Chinese society, Wang Liping said such a day is too sad for that. Observing Memorial Day would educate people of the damage and hatred that ultra-nationalism brings.

For CRI, I'm Su Yi.