WW II Museum

This weekend I visited the World War II Museum in Tengchong.

The entryway. All those dots on either side are helmets.

Tengchong was one of the regions of China that was invaded by the Japanese during World War II. Unfortunately, this means there's even more anti-Japanese sentiment here than in many other parts of China. I have had students draw Chinese and Japanese fighter jets engaged in battle and a teacher's son told me that Japan was "our worst enemy". One always wants to be tactful, but I tried to say something about that was a long time ago and isn't true anymore.

There is a surprising amount of English throughout the museum. Although it was clearly never reviewed by a native speaker, the meaning is generally clear and peculiarities of the Chinese narrative come through. The punctuation and word choice is often quite amusing. I've rarely seen so many exclamations outside of the internet. Here is a quote from the plaque at the entryway.

"The Anti-Japanese War in Western Yunnan" formed an integral part of the battles against fascists worldwide, in which the Chinese civilians and armies showed to the world the power and unyielding soul of the nation, and cast, with their blood and flesh, the sword of justice and the shield of protection. These battles are a monument that will stand forever in the long and rich history of the Chinese nation!

At the time of World War II, China was not yet communist. The Nationalist and Communist parties paused their own civil war in order to fight off the Japanese. This museum is apparently one of the few places in China that still openly displays the Nationalist flag.

Interestingly, although foreigners in Tengchong and Baoshan are pretty rare now (most of them are TFC fellows), Americans came to this part of China in the 1940s to help fight the Japanese. They were a group of volunteers, officially part of the Chinese Air Force since the US hadn't entered the war yet. They were known as the Flying Tigers. My own school's bell (used when we don't have power or for things other than the scheduled electronic bells) is made from part of a Flying Tiger's plane.

On the left is a symbol of Chinese-American cooperation, on the right, a symbol of the flying tigers.

This is a poster of some old photos of Americans and Chinese people interacting, some with amusing captions.
The last one, for example, reads: "Hi, kid, do you know what it is that we are sitting on?"

The museum also has some interesting statistics on the impact of the war. Although the number of deaths attributed directly to the war, many died of disease, and the impact on the countryside in various other ways was severe. They have statistics on the number of houses, amount of grain, cattle, horses, pigs, chickens and ducks lost. Tengchong was one of the hardest hit regions.

The museum houses various objects left behind by the British in Burma including mantle clocks and trophies.

The trophy in front says something about "Men's Single's Handball Winner". 

Another set of artifacts that I found interesting were the assorted bills, particularly different denominations including Cents and Rupees issued by the Japanese government. I'm not sure how this works exactly.

Here are a few other interesting artifacts.

This stone tells the story of a well that dried up when the
Japanese invaded, but then started up again when they left.

A letter.

The second floor is mostly empty, but has a few modern pictures of the Chinese armed forces and the following assertion.

For more information on the Diaoyu islands, see Wikipedia.

It was an interesting glimpse into history, propaganda, and the Chinese national narrative.

A decorative wall next to the museum.