The decapitated heads of Chinese soldiers hang from poles. Women and young girls are kept as sex slaves, gang raped and their genitals are mutilated. Babies are stabbed with bayonets.
These are just some of the horrifying images and written accounts captured in "Nightmare in Nanking," Rhawn Joseph's documentary film about the Japanese Imperial Army's eight-week assault on the former Chinese capital during World War II that left nearly 300,000 Chinese civilians and 70,000 POWs dead.
"The history of the world is written in blood and gore," says Joseph, a San Jose neuropsychologist, author and filmmaker who spent the past 25 years researching atrocities in Nanking. "In the history of warfare, you conquer a city, and let the soldiers loose to rape and steal and kill. That's the reward for a battle well fought, but generally order is restored."
The Nanking Massacre, however, was unique in the history of humanity, Joseph says. Through his English-language film, Joseph argues that the Japanese took pleasure in committing crimes against humanity and had a "propensity toward violence" rooted in their education and culture.
Touring the Bay Area, Joseph will present his 77-minute film for two free viewings at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Aug. 10 at the Fremont Main Library.
An official at the Japanese Consulate in San Francisco said he was not familiar with the film and declined to comment on it.
Changing attitudes about love and marriage in rich Asian countries such as Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are pushing many desperate bachelors to seek out brides in other, poorer nations around the region.
Many Asian men, particularly those in rural areas, tend to seek traditional wives who will stay home, doing chores and raising children, says Mika Toyota, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore's Asia Research Institute, and other experts who study the region.
An economic boom in recent decades means women have options their mothers didn't. Better educated, they can have careers - and opt to stay single until Prince Charming shows up, if he ever does.
"Most Japanese women would prefer to live and work in the city," says Jeff Kingston, author of Japan's Quiet Transformation. "A guy out there in the boonies . has a tough job selling the wonders of being a farmer's wife."
Instead, the men increasingly seek women from countries such as China, Vietnam and the Philippines, where income levels are much lower. The practice has led to some complaints of abuse and exploitation, particularly when the unions are arranged by third-party brokers, although some couples say their marriages are as happy as any other.
The men "have more bargaining power" when they travel to poorer countries, says Gavin Jones, a sociologist at the National University of Singapore's Asia Research Institute. "Some of these men are looking for the sorts of women they can't find (in their own countries) - women to wash their clothes, submissive women."
The trend marks a significant shift in countries that have long been ethnically homogenous. Some local South Korean governments, eager to improve the birthrate in an aging country, even subsidize trips abroad for men seeking foreign wives.
In South Korea, the number of marriages in which one spouse is non-Korean tripled from 2001 to 2006, the U.S. State Department reports. Overall, one in eight South Korean marriages involve a foreigner, according to the Korean Statistics Office. In rural areas such as Gyeonggi, along the North Korean border, the figure rises past 30%.
In Japan, the percentage of mixed marriages rose from 1.88% in 1986 to 6.1% in 2006, according to the government's population survey that year.
Until a few decades ago, marriages in these countries were often arranged by local matchmakers who "would show pictures to a man and say, 'Which one do you want?' ," Kingston says.
These days, cultural and economic changes mean that "media and books tell everyone the wonders of love marriage," he says.
More than half of Japanese women in their late 20s are single, up from about 30% two decades ago. A survey by the Japanese insurance industry a couple of years ago found that most single women ages 35 to 54 have no plans to marry.
Marriage brokers charge up to $20,000 to fly lonely men to places such as Vietnam to inspect potential wives, says Mary Kim, vice president of the Inchon Women's Hotline, which offers language training and counseling to foreign brides.
"They meet each other in the morning and get married in the afternoon," Kim says. "Then they go to a hotel. It's a very abnormal way to get married."
In one newspaper ad, a South Korean broker advertises "very beautiful" Vietnamese women: "100% virgins with health certificates for husbands to check."
"It's a different kind of prostitution," Kim says.
South Korea passed a law in December cracking down on unscrupulous marriage brokers, imposing jail sentences for those involved in the sex trade.
However, Kim says, foreign brides are often too confused and frightened to complain to South Korean police when they are beaten at home.
The appeal for the women involved is usually economic, at least at first. Rachelle Lim earned $210 a month as a sales clerk in greater Manila until she was paired with a South Korean suitor. They met on a Friday, were married that Sunday, and she flew to South Korea when her visa came through three months later.
She didn't know what she was getting into. Her new home was cold, the language difficult. The pungent cuisine took some getting used to. And her husband's job as a factory manager kept him away from home six days a week.
"I cannot say I am happy now," says Lim, 29. "Sometimes I think I want to go back to the Philippines."
Culture clashes are frequent, says Fe Gimarino-Kim, a Filipina who married a South Korean in 1996.
In the Philippines, women often run the household and enjoy their own careers. In South Korea, "the man runs things. If you're a Korean wife, you must serve your husband."
Money is often a problem, too: Many foreign brides want to send money to their parents and siblings back home; if their husbands refuse, they sometimes do so surreptitiously. "They keep secrets and send money to their families," Gimarino-Kim says.
Gimarino-Kim formed the Filipino-Korean Spouses Association to lobby on behalf of foreign brides. Four years ago, she successfully lobbied for a law ensuring South Korean citizenship for foreign brides who get divorced after being beaten by their husbands.
Some mixed couples try hard to make their marriages work. South Korean autoworker Kang Ho Kyu, 40, doesn't speak a common language with his Filipina wife of six months, Marilon Royo - so they often communicate using an electronic English-Korean translator.
"We try to work things out," Kang says as his wife, seated next to him, breaks into a beaming smile.
Gimarino-Kim says she's one of the lucky ones, too. She has been in a happy marriage with a South Korean for more than a decade: "It's a gamble," she says. "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose."
There is no way that Selin Tamtekin could be described as even remotely low-life. Immaculate, groomed to perfection, she walks towards me on perfectly unscuffed heels, without a gleaming hair out of place or a single microfibre of dust on her pristine white shirt.
At 33 she looks after the private clients of a Mayfair contemporary art gallery, organising dinner parties for collectors and inhabiting a glittering world that thinks nothing of dropping £40,000 on a painting. Her father is Yuksel Tamtekin, one of Turkey's most revered consular-generals.
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Yet she has caused outrage in Turkey after the British publication of her debut novel. The Turkish Diplomat's Daughter is a racy roman à clef, chronicling sexual affairs with a Bangladeshi landlord, a sailor and a Freddie Mercury-obsessed fantasist.
When Turkish newspapers got hold of the book, Tamtekin admitted her identity (it is written under the pseudonym Deniz Goran) and was so roundly pilloried that worried friends dubbed her "the female Salman Rushdie". Splashed on the front pages of at least four national newspapers, she was derided as a "high-class Mayfair prostitute" who was writing about her own thinly veiled sexual experiences. The media were astonished that not only a Turkish woman but one from the highest echelons of society had written so frankly about her sexuality.
A public witch-hunt went on to name and shame members of the Turkish elite whose sexual peccadil-loes were supposedly outlined by the novel. Tamtekin went into hiding for three weeks, horrified by the uproar.
Despite the title, she insists that the novel is not about her experiences.
"It's not an autobiography, although there are people and situations in it that have inspired me. In society, women are expected to play the game according to the rules. Well, I wanted to create a character who does as she pleases. It's not common for women in Turkey to be so overtly sexual," admits Tamtekin.
Although she concedes she has not received death threats, the examples of not only Rushdie, but also Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker murdered for Submission, his transgressive film about women and sex in Islamic society, are a reminder that artistic expression as social critique is not easily accepted in some Muslim countries, even the secular ones.
Tamtekin is unbowed and is furious about the hypocrisy. "It's not as if no one has sex in Turkey. Of course women have sexually active lives, but they always make sure that no one hears about them. Women aren't able to stand out as individuals and talk openly about sex or fancying men," she says.
Turkey might pride itself on its secularity, but it seems as if the notion of a sexually active woman is as utterly taboo there as it is in far more fundamentalist Muslim countries. Tamtekin, who has a BA in history of art from University College London, is the first Turkish Muslim woman to publish a sexually explicit book. The reaction to what would seem pretty mainstream in Britain and the rest of Europe, where even such salacious series as Sex and the City have become accepted, shows how wide the gulf in attitudes still is between Turkey and its neighbours.
The process of Turkish accession to the European Union may well require a wholesale modernisation of the country's attitudes to women and freedom of expression. "There are no tele-vision programmes where people just chat about sex, for example," says Tamtekin. "Where I am from in Istan-bul, it's not that restrictive. I come from a secular, liberal background. But a high number of people living in Turkey regard virginity as crucial and would not contemplate the idea that their daughter might have sex before marriage."
As her book roundly attests, this morality is often utter hypocrisy; Tamtekin vividly describes a society where young women may well be sexually active but who are encouraged to visit a back-street doctor for a bit of "corrective" surgery before marriage.
She writes of a society where in remote rural areas incest is an unspoken but present horror and where, even among the middle classes, "sex, especially female sexuality and homo-sexuality, is still regarded as taboo - it's always done in a highly intricate manner behind closed doors".
From the subsequent furore, one can only surmise that many of her observations on Turkish society are spot on; even her father, the worldly wise diplomat, has stopped speaking to her since her book came out. "When a female Turkish author writes about sex in such a big way, that's a big issue," says Tamtekin sadly.
Given all the fuss, why did she go on with the publication of her novel in Turkish, which is now imminent? "Before signing the Turkish agreement I did have my doubts," she admits. "But if you have an idea and have created something, you have to take a stand and go all the way. I'm not insisting on imposing my own ideas, but everyone has a right to an opinion. I believe I have a right to publish this book in Turkey. And I will stand by my book."
She says that when writing it she just let her imagination wander. "I mean, why do people make such a big deal of it," she says. "We all have sex, everyone does. Sex is part of life and we should come to terms with it. From an early age, my father always taught me there was no taboo in art. And so I took him at his word."
Somehow I suspect that did not go down too well with the former consular-general. "Well, I sent him a letter reminding him that he always told me I was an artist with a great imagination. Of course, my mother asked me why I didn't write a novel all about flowers and birds."
Her novel is a lively gauntlet thrown down by a single woman championing casual sex. It encourages women to indulge in sex openly and freely and even dares to cast a sceptical look at marital fidelity. And it's not just about Turkey.
As she writes: "I never seem to understand why society considers sexually liberated women as such a big threat. Even in London, as a woman you need to play down your sexuality, otherwise people see you as some sort of a nuisance. I find it insane that there is still a majority out there who actually believe men . . . have a much higher sexual drive than women."
While The Turkish Diplomat's Daughter (Burning House, £10.99) may not be perfect literary fiction, the ideas that it suggests are quietly revolutionary. "I would like to be able to change opinion a bit," says Tamtekin. "I am not saying every woman should be leaping around, but they should have more freedom to do so if they wish to. And be open about it."
According to astrologists and prophets, the next year of the Yellow Metal Tiger will not be easy. Researchers of Nostradamus’s predictions talk about some mysterious Virgin whose death is wanted and about the appearance of some “heartless, blood-thirsty” leader who will rule with “sword and fire.
” Pavel Globa, a famous Russian astrologist, thinks that the year will be easier for Russians, but Europe and the USA can expect another economic downturn.
Researchers of Nostradamus believe that his predictions for the year 2010 can be found in X quatrain of X century.
The passage speaks about some mysterious Virgin, whose death is wanted, problems with trade, and appearance of some “heartless, blood-thirsty” leader who will rile with “sword and fire.” There is also a mentioning of “Satan’s arch of fury.” Interpreters think that it might be a ballistic missile.
Famous Nostradamus specialists think that his quatrains contain the following information for 2010: - Possibly, World War III will start in November, and bacteriological and chemical weapons will be used. - There will be conflict between Western Europe and the USA. - There will be conflict between Great Britain and France. - There is a possibility of armed military conflict on the Crimean peninsula. - Europe will suffer an economic downturn. - There will be a catastrophe in the Black Sea involving sulphuretted hydrogen. Will the financial crisis end? One of the famous astrologists predicted that economic problems in 2010 will grow. Many large companies will declare bankruptcy. This will cause hunger, religious and ethnical conflicts, and ecological problems. Global warming will greatly damage agriculture. An armed conflict is possible in Central Asia.
Russian “prophet” Pavel Globa believes that the year will be easier for Russians, while Europe and the USA can expect another economic downturn. This will happen because Russian officials will change their financial policy.
In September, predictions of a psychic named Ekaterina were spread on Russian websites. The predictions were as follows:
- Russia will suffer from a wave of earthquakes. One of them will destroy a huge building. - Many cataclysms will take place in the US. - On November 11, 2010, a war will be waged between two large countries. Only those who will be able to hide in the East or Caucuses will survive. 50 million Russians will die. There will be a short period of peace after the war. - Four kings will clash in a battle, and another World War will commence. - A large bird will fly over the USA, Satan himself will lay a bomb, and people will cry bloody tears.
What do futurologists think about it? In the end of the 20th century, a group of specialists formulated the following scientifically-based predictions for 2010:
- Solar activity will drop. - There will be a large flood in South-East Asia - Birth-rate in Europe will decrease. - Russia and Belarus will experience economic upturn. - An era of matriarchate will commence to last for 23 years. - A new union will be formed involving the US, Europe, and countries of the Pacific basin - New political and economic theories will start to form, and they will drastically change the future. - New robots-androids will appear and will be introduced to day-to-day life - Scientific evidence of the existence of soul will be discovered. - Hadron collider will crash and form a black hole of artificial origin. Predictions of Lev Melnikov, Russian futurologist. - A possibility of development of virtual human nature will be researched. - Cloning will be banned. - A cluster computer of the world scale will be introduced. - Households will use robots to help with chores. - The UFO mystery will be solved, and our planet will be visited by guests from other planets.
The majority of predictors are inclined to believe that although years of the Tiger can be tough, they bring about many changes that are necessary to move forward. Let’s hope this happens again.
These are just some of the horrifying images and written accounts captured in "Nightmare in Nanking," Rhawn Joseph's documentary film about the Japanese Imperial Army's eight-week assault on the former Chinese capital during World War II that left nearly 300,000 Chinese civilians and 70,000 POWs dead.
