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20 June 2010
by Admin
Do
Not Forget the Past
In
Memory of May 30 Movement
来者勿忘
The following is
the English translation of an excerpt
from the article The Wind of May
(五月暖风)
by Jian Ping
(简平),
an award-winning author of children's
books, award-winning film producer,
television script writer and journalist
in Shanghai:
The tender breeze in May
is so pleasant; when you go out your pace
would be little slower and you fell like
to linger a bit longer in the open air.
This May, thanks to the World Expo, there
are more people out on streets than in
previous years.
Bathing in the refreshing
wind, your memory of the past would also
be refreshed. One day, I went out for a
walk and passed a newly constructed road
named New Coordination Road (Xintongxin
Road: 新同心路), and noticed a stone
stele by the roadside. On the stele there
were engraved words reading, “The
Memorial Site to Honour Those Lost their
Lives on May 30 (五卅烈士墓遗址)”.
The
memorial stele dedicated to the martyrs
of the May 30 Movement
(Photo by Jian Ping)
From the text on the sign
fixed on a column next to the stele, I
learned that I was standing on a site
where once there was a common grave built
in the spring of 1928. The grave sat in
the north facing the direction of sun;
and in the front of the grave there was a
square pavilion housing a memorial tablet
dedicated to the memory of the Chinese
died on May 30, 1925; and on the tablet
there were four carved Chinese
characters: “来者勿忘”, meaning “Visitors
to this site, do not forget the past.”
The grave was, however,
destroyed by Japanese Army in 1939 when
it invaded China and occupied Shanghai. Now this plot of land is
shared between a residential district and
a primary school, and has been
redeveloped into gardens and a children’s
playground, with the stone stele being
the sole remaining trace of the past.
But maybe this is exactly
what those martyrs would be proud of and
pleased to see. The purpose of their
sacrifice is for the late generations of
Chinese to be able to live with dignity
and in peace, isn't? China has never been
short of heroes who are willing to fight
and die for their fellow countrymen and
for the nation. It reminds me a song The
Flowers in May. Yes, only in the warm
breeze of May, the flowers will blossom
in full.
The
excerpt of original article by Jian Ping
in Chinese:
五月的暖风真好，出门去也多了一份从容。这个五月，因了世博会，出门的人格外多，但没有燠热难忍，所以就特别的舒爽。
在五月的暖风中，怀念会很绵长。那天，我出去散步，走过一条新筑不久的马路，叫新同心路，蓦然发现路边有一块石碑，上面写着“五卅烈士墓遗址”。原来，在1928年的春天，这里有一座烈士墓竣工，墓坐北朝南，有一正方形纪念碑亭，碑上直书“来者勿忘”四个大字，之后将1925年在“五卅运动”中牺牲的死难烈士安葬于此。1939年，烈士墓被占领上海的日本侵略军强行拆除。而今，这里已属一个居住小区和一所小学共有的一部分了，有绿地，有操场，如果没有这块石碑，已找不到任何一点旧迹。
我忽然想，那些英灵们要是看到人们在这里安宁地生活，他们一定会很高兴的。他们当初的英勇捐躯，不就是为了后人吗？这样为未来、为明天的捐躯者向来前仆后继。我想起那首叫《五月的鲜花》的歌来，是啊，只有在温暖和煦的五月风中，鲜花才会如此盛放。
The entire
article in Chinese can be viewed at the
following link:
www.jping.com/jpwork/list.asp?id=547
Background
Information: The May 30 Movement:
The May Thirtieth Movement
(五卅运动)
occurred in 1925 during the Republic of China under the Nationalist
Party that is now a provincial
administration governing Taiwan. By then the big chunk of
urban Shanghai was colonised by the
aliens and ruled under Shanghai Municipal
Council with the members all from the
West, including the UK, the US, France and Germany. The local Chinese were
excluded from the Council board.
Such outrageous
arrangement was forged between the
Western Powers and the Manchurians who, as alien invaders
from Siberia, regarding the locals being
their number one enemies and famously
proclaimed that they’d rather to see
China to be occupied even destroyed by
foreign powers than to return it to
Chinese people (宁赠友邦不与家奴).
But
by then the Manchu’s Qing regime had
been overturned for 10 years and the
legitimacy of such arrangements was
questioned, rightly, by the local
Shanghainese from time to time.
Since
February 1925 the conflicts between
Chinese workforce and Japanese managements in 22 Mill
factories run by Japanese, reputed for
their cruel treatment of their workers,
intensified. On May 15, Japanese at No. 7
Mill shot dead protest leader Gu
Zhenghong (顾正红) and injuried a dozen.
The assault further angered Chinese, and
20 million workers from 11 Japanese-run
Mills held strikes, protesting against
foreign-run industries, particularly that
of Japanese.
The
newly established Chinese Communist Party
urged the Chinese people to support the
workers. In response to CCP's call,
leftist students came to the streets to
raise donations for the victims and their
families and to promote the course of
justice. But some students were detained
by the Municipal police for the reason
that they had created the disruption to
normal everyday lives of the foreign
residents.
On
May 24, ten thousand people went to Gu
Zhenghong's funeral at Worker's Club in
Western District of Shanghai, which
resulted another four arrest of the
students when they passed the
International Settlement on their way
home.
On
May 30, the day the Municipal Council was
going to put the arrested Chinese on
trail, leftist student groups organized
the biggest anti-imperial demonstration
the city had ever seen in history on Nanjing Road and The New World. The
march was confronted and attacked by the
Municipal police and over a hundred
people were detained.
When
the news about the foreign police
crackdown on Chinese protest spread,
thousands Shanghai residents surrounded
the Old Gage Detention Centre (老闸门捕房)demanding the release of
the arrested. The British police opened fire on the
unarmed protesters, killing 13 with
dozens injured.
June
1, Shanghai Workers Union was established
and declared a general strike. 200,000
workers walked off the job, and 50,000
students walked out of class. The strike
lasted for more than two months and
bought the whole city to stand still.
The
anti-foreign occupation movement quickly
spread across China with 17 million
Chinese workers, students and merchants
taking part in the strike. Before long
the wave of the protest reached the
Chinese communities and beyond in more
than 100 countires and was responded
widely. In Mosco, 500,000 Russians held a
rally to show solidarity with Chinese
people in Shanghai; and in Briton, the
workers refused to load cargo for ships
bound for China.
The
May 30 Movement became a landmark event
in China's struggle for national
sovereignty and workers' rights which
eventually led to the establishment of
the People's Republic of China that eliminated all
foreign concessions in China, including
in Shanghai. Well ...
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