大连与日本之间的历史－Dalian's History with Japan

I came across a book on the 'Rape of Nanking' during my first week in China. The more I travel the more disillusioned I get with the Australian history curriculum. My reading of this book further emphasised this as despite being overseas Chinese I really had no idea of the details of such an atrocity that has been brought to life with recent news reports of Japanese Prime Ministers refusing to not visit the graves of apparent war criminals and the altering of Japanese history text books to emit this incident from their national history. This stimulated a greater interest in finding out more about Sino Japanese history and ironically I discovered that Dalian is a perfect place to start.

The first truly historical experience came about from Dad and I took a day trip to see the historical city of Lushun which is about an hour from Dalian. Lushun is one of the worlds few natural deep water harbours and its position on the Liaoning peninsula makes it one of great strategic importance. As such at the moment it plays home to a major Chinese naval base. Trusting Dad to brush up on his history he also revealed to me its historic significance.

North Eastern China was granted to the Russians after the Opium Wars. The Japanese had other ideas and after first taking over Korea, first attacked the Chinese at Lushun just before the turn of the century to gain control of the area. They won but the Russians not being happy used international pressure to force the Japanese to give this back.

In 1904 the Japanese had had enough and then attacked the Russians in a Pearl Harbour dress rehearsal where they pre-emptively took out the Russian Navy at Lushun and then proceeded to storm the city. They won in a pretty bloody campaign.

From Lushun, the Japanese then planned their entire offensive into North Eastern China where the end result was the overthrowing of the last emperor and the establishment of the puppet government of Manchukuo of which Dalian was a part of. Dad and I spent a good hour in the old Japanese house that served as this headquarters. It blew my mind that the entire campaign of the Japanese occupation of China during the 20th Century was planned from a small town just an hour from where I lived (although don’t go saying this to any Chinese from the area). This continued up until the end of the Second World War with the Japanese surrender.

What was sad to see was that an area of such historical significance to both China, Japanese and Russia, is mainly sealed off to foreigners (Dad and I got in cause of our Chinese looks haha another bonus) and the museums and historical sites are badly preserved and exhibited. In fact the significance of the area remains unknown to most despite the fact that it is only 1 hour from Dalian. However once again, the complexity of history comes into play cause it depends very much on who you talk to and the perspective changes whether you talk to Japanese or Chinese. It does provide an insight however into the nature of the relations between these countries.

The ironic thing about Dalian is that despite their distrust of the Japanese, there is a very significant legacy in Dalian from those times. Japanese architecture, shops, restaurants and companies are abundant and you could be forgiven in some areas for thinking that you were in a Japanese town. However whilst the Chinese here understand the reliance on Japan (a significant number of university students here speak Japanese or study it) whilst they may accept their existence here in Dalian, in many cases there is no forgiveness of the pain that past relations brought.

当我刚来大连的时候，我买了一本书叫《南京大屠杀》。尽管我是华侨，但是直到现在我都还没听说过这件事，所以我感到很意外。我越来越明白为什么那么多中国人不喜欢日本人。看了这本书以后，我对中国的历史有了广泛的兴趣。

我的爸爸告诉我，大连的附近有一个县级市叫旅顺。他说这个地区也有很多中国历史。所以他来大连的时候我安排我们一起一次去旅顺旅行。旅游以前我研究了一下旅顺的历史。我发现旅顺的很多地方经常不让外国人进去看. 但是我的中国朋友告诉我，因为我们的样子都像中国人如果我们不说话的话他们肯定不知道我们是外国人。

如果你开车的话，从大连到旅顺只需要两个小时。尽管旅顺离大连很近，但是我发现很多外国人没有去过。因为他们不知道旅顺有什么地方值得他们去看。去旅游的时候我们发现这个地方拥有很多关于战争的回忆。

十九世纪末的时候中国东北有俄罗斯来治理。但是日本不喜欢这个情况所以在1904跟俄罗斯发生战争。因为旅顺的重要地位，所以日本率先攻占了旅顺。日本赢了但是却有很多人死了。

日本计划将旅顺做为它进一步攻占中国东北的基地。所以去旅顺的时候我和我的爸爸看到很多有中国和日本历史的地方。因为旅顺是日本第一治理的地方，所以旅顺在中国历史中非常重要占有的城市。大连也是。

直到今天大连仍然有日本的影响。在大连市内，日本的建筑，商店，饭店和公司都有。而且很多大连的大学生会说日语或者要学日语。不过当我跟我的中国朋友聊天儿的时候，他们告诉我，虽然中国人接受日本人存在于一个城市但是大部分中国人不会忘记那么可怕的历史。因为他们的家人曾经被深深地伤害过。

我觉得如果你出生在和平的国家，你不能全部明白这样的情感。我也是这样。可是我相信中国政府需要让别人知道这个历史。我不理解为什么他们不让外国人看看像旅顺一样非常重要的地方。我认为，如果更多人能知道和明白这样的历史，可能我们的世界会变得更好的地方。