"We set out a very big lunch -- meat trays and sandwiches and desserts," she said. "Most lived in dark, squalid apartments cluttered with the debris of poverty and heavy with mildew and humidity," she wrote. It was hard for her not to react every single time. Hoping to practice shooting, she asked the gunsmith to go with her to a nearby indoor firing range. Reporter Richard Rongstad eulogized her as "Iris Chang lit a flame and passed it to others and we should not allow that flame to be extinguished.". But Into the Numbers, by the Chinese-American playwright Christopher Chen, genuinely is. But all of them wanted the opportunity to talk about the massacre before their deaths. She had suffered from years of depression and constant sleep deprivation since her bestseller - full title The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War Two - was published in 1997. ", Barbara Culliton, now editor in chief of Genome News Network, was then director of the Johns Hopkins science writing program. ", Iris connected so well with these veterans because each of their stories mattered to her. We've seen a lot of suicides. At the time of her death, she had been taking the medications Depakote and Risperdal to stabilize her mood.[19]. She bought Derek Humphrys book on suicide, Final Exit, and sent boxes of her papers to three different archivesat the University of California at Santa Barbara, Stanford, and the U. of I.leaving Kamen a mountain of carefully organized materials to go through. Smith said the colonel spent only a short time with her. "Iris thought it was an injustice. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking. Generally, there's an apology. The couple have lived in California since their marriage. It was later discovered that she had left behind three suicide notes each dated November 8, 2004. I promise not to visit Web sites that talk about suicide. They approached the open casket, where they stopped, gazed at her for a final time and bowed three times, in Chinese custom. Her book is internationally recognized as the most detailed Western account of the 1937 Nanking . She attended University Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois, and graduated in 1985. Iris Chang wrote those lines in 1978, when she was 10, and 19 years before her harrowing book, The Rape of Nanking, brought her worldwide acclaim. Though Iris had previously suffered what her parents called "down" periods after bouts of intense exertion, the lows were never as extreme as what befell her in Kentucky. But soon Iris would write one of the most controversial books of the decade. The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Her second book, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997),[9] was published on the 60th anniversary of the Nanking Massacre and was motivated in part by her own grandparents' stories about their escape from the massacre. Chang's first book, "Thread of the Silkworm," a critically acclaimed and engrossing study of how Cold War hysteria influenced American foreign policy, tells the ironic story of Dr. Tsien Hsue-shen (). ", Christopher was born Aug. 31 that year. This put her under enormous stress. Her international best-seller, The Rape of Nanking, examined the slaughter, rape and torture of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers during World War II. One speaker called Iris "a hero for those muffled by injustice." "Talking to her, you felt like she was one of the family." "She was afraid of him when he showed up," Smith said. Irrefutably, Iris Chang won many battles in her fight for justice. From the terrace, the view was peaceful -- broad green fields and golden poplars. She would just laugh.". "It's baffling to me that the U.S. today has so little knowledge of the four months we held out," Martel told The Chronicle by telephone from his home in Wisconsin. Douglas, who is raising the couple's five-year-old son, Christopher, told Cheng the same thing he'd told every filmmaker who approached him for his late wife's story - to go through her things at the institute where she worked, talk to the people she'd interviewed, then get back to him if still interested. [19], When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. And that really took its toll on her, too.". When the American general surrendered on April 9, the Japanese forced the troops to walk 65 miles through sweltering jungle. He is an actor, known for The Young and the Restless (1973), Playing Mona Lisa (2000) and Cyber Bandits (1995). Consistent with the style of her earlier works, the book relies heavily on personal accounts, drawing its strong emotional content from their stories. Such harsh logic, symptomatic of the disease, rendered her unable to extend her own magnificent compassion to herself. That afternoon, she checked herself in to Norton Psychiatric Hospital in Louisville, with help from the colonel. Iris Chang, who has committed suicide aged 36, was one of the most promising historians in America and a vigorous champion of human rights. Birth announcement for Christopher Joseph Chang Douglas 2002. box 174, folder 2-6. Kamen loved Chang, but she was determined not to "write a Hallmark card," either. At 14, Iris was studying advanced math and decided to join an all-boys computer club called Submit. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking, and in 2003, The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. Now, it becomes our treasure. She planned to visit Harrodsburg, Ky., where several survivors lived and where an old Bataan-era tank stood sentry in the town square. She was 22. "She had never seen anyone for depression or anything before," her mother said. HANDOUT PHOTO/VERIFY RIGHTS AND USEAGE, memorial20_099_el.jpg Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking, ended her life with a pistol on November 9, 2004. Her first, Thread of the Silkworm (Basic Books, 1995)[8] tells the life story of the Chinese professor, Hsue-Shen Tsien (or Qian Xuesen) during the Red Scare in the 1950s. After Iris Chang's Oldsmobile was found off Highway 17 on Tuesday morning, Nov. 9, the California Highway Patrol was called to the scene. She asked if Iris had any friends there she could call for help. "Iris wanted to talk, and I said, 'You should go to bed, it's 2 in the morning.' Other parts were not. We go through her and her husband's (Brett Douglas) house in San jose. "There is no way that a family member could sort out all the details, let alone their own feelings, because they're connected to the person," Dr. Chang, with a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from Harvard University, had a scientist's career until her retirement in 2002. "We wondered what we did with all of our time before we had a son," Brett said, "because of the amount of time that a little one involves. But today Christopher is healthy. So she took a little bit and then she stopped -- and it shouldn't be stopped like that. She got very, very wound up in things," Finkbeiner said. I said, 'You need to go to bed.' Box. She was also promoting The Chinese in America. Rumors swirled in the early days after her suicide. This could be a one-time event or it could signal the onset of bipolar disorder, the doctors told them. Upon his return to China, Tsien developed the Dongfeng missile program, and later the Silkworm missile, which was used by the Iraqi military during its war on Iran and against the United States-led coalitions during the Persian Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But some scholars felt that she was a little too involved with her subject matter. Best of Chicago 2021About the Chicago ReaderReader Staff Reader CareersFreelance InformationContact UsBecome a memberDonate, AdvertiseSubmit/promote your eventFind the PaperSubscribeShop the Reader StoreContests/Giveaways/Promotions. The views expressed here are the author's own. I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. The cycle of mood shifts that distinguish the disease -- from manic highs to depressive lows -- differs with every sufferer. She was a journalism graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana and worked briefly as a reporter in Chicago before winning a graduate fellowship to the writing seminars program at The Johns Hopkins University. ", Iris called Rabiner. She didn't just ask what had happened, she asked what they had felt. Her parents saw her off that morning. Most of the calls were from women, said Betty Hong, executive director of the Oakland clinic. They attended lectures but Iris gave fewer talks; she was still recovering from the book tour. copy photo of a poster promoting Iris Chang's book "The Rape of Nanking" [2] Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Works 3 Public notability 4 Depression . Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968 - November 9, 2004) was a Chinese American journalist, author of historical books and political activist.She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking, and in 2003, The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. Although Tsien was one of the founders of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and for many years helped the military of the United States debrief scientists from Nazi Germany, he was suddenly accused of being a spy and a member of the Communist Party USA, and was placed under house arrest from 1950 to 1955. ", They had moved from a small apartment in Sunnyvale to the San Jose townhome. "Iris wasn't prepared and her publisher wasn't prepared. "It's amazing when you watch Iris do research," Brett said. Her last Bataan trip was scheduled for July 2004. "But as I was leaving, she got apathetic again. Those close to Iris had always seen her ups and downs as part of the natural cycle of a brilliant person with intense drive, passionate commitment and a capacity for hard work. Tsien left for the People's Republic of China in September 1955. The air was still, heavy with grief. This bustling city of 6 million glimmers. Chang is the subject of the 2007 biography Finding Iris Chang,[1] and the 2007 documentary film Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking starring Olivia Cheng as Iris Chang. Chang grew up hearing stories about the Nanking massacre, from which her maternal grandparents managed to escape. Paula Kamen digs deep into the ambitious life and tragic death of her most successful friend. The coroner's report, dated Dec. 23, 2004, stated: "Based on the medical investigator's report and the autopsy findings, Iris Chang, a 36-year-old Asian female, died from a self-inflicted intra-oral gunshot wound. "She was like a battalion commander," Meldahl said. Sixteen years later, and five days after her death, Brett sat in the living room of the San Jose town home they shared, surrounded by family photos. For Asian Americans to write nonfiction about Asia or Asian America was relatively new. Christopher Douglas is known for The Onedin Line (1971), Early Travellers in North America (1992) and Crown Court (1972). The Committee of 100 is a national non-partisan organization composed of American citizens of Chinese descent who have achieved positions of leadership in the United States in a broad range of professions. She asked me if I was religious -- I said I wasn't, not at all. I got off the phone confused and concerned, but I was too unsophisticated about psychological problems to realize that she was saying goodbye to me. "She was in on more than one occasion," said Reed's manager, Pat Kalcic, a tall outdoorsman. theguardian.com. "She contacted people who'd been lost for years, dug up records that nobody ever knew existed. December 8-9, 2007, The Weekend Australian. "You didn't always feel she was talking to you --, it was as if she had to talk. It showed that at times history has to be written by a member of the community, out of a passion the author shares with the community. (The family would not name specific drugs.). Iris Shun-Ru Chang was a Chinese-American historian and journalist. Is the Stanley Quencher tumbler worth its TikTok hype? Martel cried, "You son of a bitch! So you see, she was really a fighter. Iris Chang interview, Barbara Simpson show, KSFO radio, San Francisco, California 1998 November 8. Christopher Douglas was born on 26 August 1969 in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. He immediately called the police. Their famous daughter, whose 1997 bestseller, The Rape of Nanking, unearthed the forgotten holocaust of the Second World War when . Some became overwrought with emotion during the interviews and broke down into tears. Christopher Douglas Retweeted. "Most authors are worn out after five or six cities." Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968 November 9, 2004) was a Chinese American journalist, author of historical books and political activist. As that November afternoon darkened into evening, the Changs sat at their Danish-modern dining room table and told stories about Iris, speaking sometimes in past tense and sometimes in present tense. Iris Chang (), before her untimely death, was one of America's leading young historians. More at IMDbPro Contact info Agent info Resume Add to list Known for The Onedin Line 7.6 TV Series Samuel Onedin 1977-1980 32 eps Early Travellers in North America TV Series Anthony Trollope 1992 4 eps Crown Court 7.2 They met again at Taiwan University -- and yet again when each won a science scholarship to Harvard in 1962. January 19, 2023 . Stress does not cause mental illness, but it can worsen the symptoms, doctors say. She was assigned to the AP office in Chicago. Andrew Nickolds obituary. She was initially a computer science major, but switched to journalism, earning a bachelor's degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. She liked to talk, so it's very fun to watch her talking," she said. It didn't take him long to propose, but their 1989 engagement stretched out while Brett finished grad school in Urbana. ", Seeing how the survivors lived was as harrowing as hearing their stories. She was trying to be a top-notch mother and she was also trying to prepare for her trip.". It was just after nine on a November morning in 2004 and he had spotted a female driver who was either asleep or in trouble. 2006. Soon she managed to call her mother. 1968 - 2004 . This is for the biographers., Suicide, Kamen observes, is in a lot of ways the ultimate act of control. As a teacher's assistant, she taught a class in creative writing. Box. He left China in 1935 to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The report stated that Iris had been taking two medications: the mood stabilizer Depakote, an anticonvulsant similar to lithium; and a smaller dosage of Risperdal, an antipsychotic drug commonly used to control mania, which is also thought to reduce suicide risk. "Iris was really good at putting her best face forward, even when she was totally exhausted, so I didn't really perceive that there was a real problem," Brett said. and Cal Tech, Tsien became a professor at both universities and a brilliant space age pioneer. But when Brett and Iris were invited back the next year, the young couple took a different tack. Iris Chang found the inspiration for her new book in 1994 when she came face-to-face with poster-size photographs of Nanking war crimes at a conference in Cupertino. It also showed publishing houses that there is a market for books about the Chinese experience. Now, the family rushed to learn everything they could about her illness. They are the ones who brought her up." "It's been too short.". But just before Iris left for Kentucky -- the last week of July 2004 -- a family emergency forced the teacher to cancel. Soon they were both teaching and conducting research at the University of Illinois. Mom died, dad attempted to raise the . I have no evidence of foul play. On top of that, she wasn't sleeping. ", The book rocketed Iris into the pantheon of American intellectuals. Forgive me because I cannot forgive myself.". At 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, a county water district employee drove past the Oldsmobile. She said she had never thought she would write a book unrelated to science, and in English, her second language, but she did. ", Between August and November, Iris saw two different therapists before finding one who seemed a good fit. Iris Chang. She was best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking . Open sky surrounds broad, rolling lawns at the crest of a hill. She didnt really know a way of living or managing something where it wasnt a matter of sheer force of will., Kamen notes that Chang applied the same careful determination to her suicide as she did to past goals. Like others, Kamen had wondered if postpartum depression might have played a role in her mental decline. Then, after 15 years of extraordinary achievement and major contributions to American military defense, he was branded a Communist and deported to China where he revolutionized the Chinese missile program and developed the Silkworm missile that later threatened American armed forces. Kamen coined the phrase to Iris Chang it years before her friends death. . She hadn't ever heard much of Ray Charles' music before, and when we got home, she went upstairs and was browsing all kinds of information on Ray Charles on the Internet.". 36 year-old Iris Chang, the prominent Chinese American author and journalist who wrote the best-selling . Her head rested against the window. This post was contributed by a community member. Many families sent me emails after reading my book," said Chang, citing an example of a couple shocked by the suicide of their daughter, a Stanford graduate who seemed to have a bright future. It may be true that Iris Chang committed suicide. I was worried. He thought Iris was improving.". Later, he would tell police that she "seemed distracted or aloof.". But lunch lasted through dinner. I will stop by to visit my parents then go for a long walk. After a breakdown five months ago, Chang had been. She's very much a perfectionist. She harbored hundreds of Chinese women and children there during the occupation. When I read The Rape of Nanking, I was struck by the parallels in the lives of these two women, Minnie and Iris, Kamen writes. Chang said she did some research on the psychiatric drugs and the antidepressants Iris took in the months between a temporary nervous breakdown and her suicide. The book hit the stores at Christmas, a tough selling season for serious nonfiction. I promise not to hurt myself. First she thought it would be a couple of weeks" before she improved, "but we tried to convince her that it would be several months, because that is what the doctors said. She was an able journalist, but she allowed herself to become deeply involved emotionally in her subjects, which gave her accessibility. Meanwhile, Iris was one of a dozen journalism undergraduates chosen for an accelerated Associated Press training program. 1837 brunswick rifle They went to bed at midnight. And maybe more than the first two books I wrote combined, too.. About the suicide of her own daughter, Chang believed it was probably the side effects of psychiatric medication that led Iris to end her life. "There were up and down periods," he said. "When anybody questioned the validity of what she wrote, she would respond with overwhelming evidence to back it up. After dinner Monday night, Iris returned a call to her agent. When her body was discovered, Iris Chang had been dead for two hours. Kamen recalls once commenting on how thorough Changs filing system was: her friend replied, It has to be. He recalled telling Iris about the worst of his Bataan experiences. When Martel read in a newspaper about her death, he asked his daughter, "Is that our Iris? box 314, folder 4 . Iris Chang, you had done a lot to fully expose the Nanjing Massacre happened 70 years ago. "She was so driven," Brett said, "she just wouldn't take time off." We always had to argue all the exceptions she could think of. She finally agreed that she would talk to me. "She would go into a town -- and with Tony Meldahl's help, it was even better. Success! Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan really blew the doors open for fiction writers. Robert Spencer / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT. Worse, Chang had started out as a computer science major and switched with Kamens encouragement. Together, Mr. and Mrs. Chang answered the door of their quiet, two-story townhouse in San Jose. ", Iris took her advice, though the book she began was enormously ambitious. His daughter recalled that in telling Iris this story, he got terribly worked up. It was very painful for me to think about, even then. She described finding threatening notes on her car. ", Rabiner invited Iris to spend a week or so at her home in Westchester County, N.Y. "I figured we'd take a week off and just relax, walk the woods up here. Fields and golden poplars house in San Jose townhome was hard for her best-selling 1997 account of the family not... A market for books about the Chinese experience Chinese-American playwright Christopher Chen, genuinely is show, radio. Chang interview, Barbara Simpson show, KSFO radio, San Francisco, California 1998 November 8, 2004 for... Amazing when you watch Iris do research, '' Brett said, `` that... Their marriage interview, Barbara Culliton, now editor in chief of Genome News Network, then. Distracted or aloof. `` that she had to argue all the exceptions she could think of answered the of..., when you watch Iris do research, '' she said professor both... 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