
| People marks Iris Chang, author of the Rape of Nanking in Los Altos, Nov. 9, 2014. |
Starting this autumn, 4 million primary and middle school freshmen in 14 provinces of China will use a new version of a Chinese history textbook published by Language & Culture Press. According to the publisher, excerpts about the Rape of Nanking written by Chinese-American Iris Chang will be included in the new version.
The addition triggered heated debates when the story was first disclosed. Some people mistakenly thought that all information about the Nanjing Massacre was going to be excluded. However, the Language & Culture Press clarified this misunderstanding on Monday on their official microblog; rather than deleting information about the historical event, they have replaced the section, which was previously written by Wen Shulin, with excerpts written by Iris Chang. They have also renamed the section “Si li tao sheng,” which means “to escape death.”
The publisher explained that the new text not only describes the brutality of the massacre, but also includes the story of a woman who bravely fought against Japanese invaders. The moving story demonstrates the Chinese nation’s determination, even in the face of aggression.
One more planned change to the textbook is that a story from “Water Margin,” one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, will be replaced with a different story since the original one was considered too violent.
The new textbook will still retain about 60 percent of its original texts, while the other 40 percent will be updated. The total number of texts will also be slightly reduced. Ancient poems and traditional Chinese culture will receive more thorough coverage.
The 14 provinces that will use the new textbook include Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei and more.
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