Historical NarrativeInvasion

This narrative took place in the Shanxi Province, in a village placed beside a lake in Shanxi (He Bian Chun). The story was written in the view of my grandfather as a five year old in 1940, right in the middle of WWII. The Japanese were invading China everywhere, not just Shanxi. The village’s soldiers left to defend or attack in other places throughout the country. Since the village had no defenders, the Japanese could just come, steal food and valuables, then leave unscathed. This story describes the villagers as they fled away from their village from a Japanese raid of the village. Over 30 million Chinese were either killed or injured in the Sinos war. The war began on 1937 and ended in 1945. The Chinese in the war was under equipped and unprepared for the attack. The Japanese invading lived in a train station near the village. So their way of transportation here and there were very simple and fast. A villager was elected to be placed on the very edge of the village to inform the villagers when they were coming. When the Japanese caught someone, they would sometimes slaughter them and hang them up somewhere in the village, just to

Author’s Note

scare the people who live there. School was still active during the war.

Grandfather (Otherwise, 5 year old child)

My Family Tree

Me

Here I am, a cute little child, or so Mama calls me, living in the village of He Bian Chun planted in the Shanxi province. Right in the midst of World War ll. The tiny, meager amount of food was set out onto the old, rusted wooden table, most of which was stolen by the Japanese soldiers. Attacks have become so frequent, that it seems almost woven into our lives. Air raid bombings rarely occur. Most attacks from the Japanese come by foot. Our meal was barely enough to even fill our bellies. Dinner was eaten in an unsurprisingly short amount of time. I hated the Japanese for stealing so many of our food and killing so many of the villages people. We walked down the hall and each collapsed on our beds, waiting for the school day tomorrow. The very next day in the bright sunny morning, the leaf covered, camouflaged man planted at the outskirts of the village to announce to the villages when the japanese were coming,

Invasion

sprinted into the middle of the small town with a ring of villagers surrounding him. I instantly knew that bad news had just arrived to where the mud covered camouflaged man was standing. The man took a moment to catch his breath. “They are coming,” panted the man in a rugged voice, clearly exhausted from his sprint from his hiding place. All the villagers were mumbling, rushing to get back to their house, hiding their food. “Quick, get the food under the beds” “Hide all the valuables, and quickly!” Everyone was sending whispers and quiet commands around the clearing. Panic quickly filled the air. All of them were returning to their homes, hurriedly hiding all valuables and food they have. And so are we. Me and Mama are gathering all the food we can find, and hiding it in the trapdoors dug below me and Mama’s bed. My mother heaved me upward, I grabbed onto her shoulders, and started running along with the crowd, to the east side, the mountains.

We ran through the dense undergrowth, with a freshness of the forest in the mountain. No time to enjoy that though, the airs filled with panic. Bumpiness was irritating me as we followed the crowd into the pit of the mountains. Every once in awhile my mother slowed down to catch her breath, but she kept up with the gigantic blob of people. Leafs and flowers were everywhere, brushing and smacking into our faces as we ran. The crowd moved through them as stealthily as they could, deeper and deeper into the pit of the mountains. Even thought nobody made a sound, I could still sense the hurriedness and desperate thoughts of getting away, into a safe distance where the japanese couldn’t possibly find us. After minutes of what seemed like hours of running, we arrived to a clearing, in a safe distance away from the village. Where the japanese were invading for the fun of it, searching for food and valuables. The

camouflaged man was setting out closer to where the Japanese was raiding, so that he could see and observe on whether they were leaving or not. Dense moisture was around me, the temperature was getting colder and colder as the the sun sank lower and lower below the horizon. We waited until the sky was pitch black, with no light source but the moon. Sweat and tension was reeking in the air. Hours have passed as we waited for the camouflaged man to return, with good news. My mind had grown tired with sleepiness. My thoughts were slipping into the unknown, embracing the idea of sleep, I closed my eyes. The process was interrupted by the sound of brittle branches snapping in half, the man returned. “They’re gone!” he whispered. Everybody was stirring, waking from their own dimension of sleep. People were more than happy to be able to get back to their beds. The thought of lying in a nice cozy bed covered in the

warmth of the blankets tantalized me. We were walking slowly back towards the village, entranced in a dark sleepy world. We arrived home with an house completely rummaged through, it seems like a little kid had thrown a tantrum. Otherwise, it was a complete mess. Drawers were open everywhere, clothes lying all over the place, cabinets opened and searched in, and many other details were adding to the mess of the house. That was the least of my concern. Though I still loathed the Japanese for all the killing and raiding. My top priority was to launch myself in a decent bed and prepare for the worst in the coming years.

Q: What was it like when the chaos was there?A: When fighting with the Japanese, there was lot’s of bombs from planes, attacking. Sometimes Japanese people set fire to the village, and some put peoples dead bodies up crosses to scare people. They stole our things to eat, and when they come, we runs away, to hide.

(Where did you hide? (another question later on)

Q: What did you feel? (emotion’s) A: Scared, 4 to 5 years old grandfather. Japanese didn’t do a lot to children, when he was 8 years old, he forced to work for Japanese. (Forgot to ask what work did you do)

Q: What did you see?A: Crosses, with people on there, fire, when Japanese was here, bombs, etc. (Extra details in sensory section is, smelling lots of smoke)

Q: Any difference In the meals?A: (Grandfather led to this) Hid food in a place to protect from stealing.

(Where did you hide the food? Is a question asked and answered further on in this page.)

Q: What happened, did you run away?

Interview

A: Hid in a place, until Japanese went away.

Q: What did you do while the war was happening?A: Hid food, hid themselves with mom, not sure where grandfathers dad is. Still went to school

Q: How did the war effect you? A: Didn’t very much.

Q: Where were you when these events are happening to you? A: Shanxi province, China,

Q: What was the environment like? (When Japanese were coming)A: Lots people panic, there was lots of teamwork, can’t yell, otherwise Japanese will find them. Quietly hides.

Q: Where did you hide when the Japanese come? A: Mountain ditches, houses, tunnels, no tunnels there. Just hid in a deep ditch surrounded by mountains.

Q: Where did you hide the food? A: Trapdoor below bed, where they hid food in a dug hole below the bed.

Q: What was the place where you hid like? A: Trees, dirt, ditch with surrounding mountains

Q: How did you know the Japanese was coming? Sirens? Sight? etc.A: Sight, People were placed just outside the village borders to inform villagers when the Japanese were coming.

Q: What did the Japanese use to attack you? A: planes, bombs, warplanes, usually cars and people come to attack.

Extra info Grandfather told:Japanese kill people, gets people to hang on doors, trees, dead, etc.

China Army left Shanxi, Japanese controls village, no one can stop the Japanese, China didn’t have enough troops, the village was left for the Japanese to control. Japanese nearby lived in train stations, houses built by Japanese was at the train station, making it easy to go to village and back.

1. Warmerdam, Frank. "Second Sino-Japanese War." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 June 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War>.

2. Anonymous. "History - Historical Events." Second Sino-Japanese War. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2012. <http://history.cultural-china.com/en/34History7545.html>.

Bibliography

During this project, I faced many challenges in writing. Some of them is focusing on one small moment, or adding the right details in the right place. I also sometimes find myself struggling with weaving the information (smaller details) that my grandfather told me into the story. I learnt that I am very lucky among our older family members. The description of the war sounded horrible, but I couldn’t bear thinking about going through it. As I wrote this narrative I have grown greatly in terms of a writer. I improved in vocabulary, voice, and ideas. I have grown in my capability of writing good narratives/writing pieces. I think doing a project like this would be very important because it would certainly improve our writing and informs the teacher on how we are doing. I enjoyed writing the narrative because I like to look at the outcome of hard work in the end. I least enjoyed, as far as my mind can think back, nothing. I probably disliked something, but my brain just couldn’t conjure up the process. It would be hard to, considering that I translated chinese into english and if I had to introduce the narrative, I would have to translate the thing again. But I would probably translate the main idea into Chinese and send it through email.

Reflection