In a Sea of Bitterness

The Japanese invasion of Shanghai in 1937 led some thirty million Chinese to flee their homes in terror, and livein the words of artist and writer Feng Zikaiin a sea of bitterness as refugees. Keith Schoppa paints a comprehensive picture of the refugee experience in one provinceZhejiang, on the central Chinese coastwhere the Japanese launched major early offensives as well as notorious later campaigns. He recounts stories of both heroes and villains, of choices poorly made amid wars bewildering violence, of risks bravely taken despite an almost palpable quaking fear. As they traveled south into Chinas interior, refugees stepped backward in time, sometimes as far as the nineteenth century, their journeys revealing the superficiality of Chinas modernization. Memoirs and oral histories allow Schoppa to follow the footsteps of the young and old, elite and non-elite, as they fled through unfamiliar terrain and coped with unimaginable physical and psychological difficulties. Within the context of Chinese culture, being forced to leave home was profoundly threatening to ones sense of identity. Not just people but whole institutions also fled from Japanese occupation, and Schoppa considers schools, governments, and businesses as refugees with narratives of their own. Local governments responded variously to Japanese attacks, from enacting scorched-earth policies to offering rewards for the capture of plague-infected rats in the aftermath of germ warfare. While at times these official procedures improved the situation for refugees, more oftenas Schoppa describes in moving detailthey only deepened the tragedy.