j a d e d . t i n t

Subject:	h i s t o r y
Time:	12:10 pm.

Today I read about the Aum Shinrikyo and the Rape of Nanking. As an American I always chalk one nationality's hatred of another up to pure racism, but I realized that there are things that happen in other countries that I, living in the U.S., would never have heard about in history class. Of course, this should have been common sense, but I don't blame myself for never thinking about it. I know now, though.

Everyone in the U.S. knows about the infamous gas-attacks in Japan. They happened when I was very little, but I still knew about them. Either I didn't remember, or the news never said (which is unlikely), but the cult Aum Shinrikyo ("the truth about the creation and destruction of the universe") was responsible.

As for "the Rape of Nanking", I had never heard of this massacre. How could something so monumental have escaped my education? I guess I can forgive my history teachers for not being able to tell me EVERYTHING in high school, but I wonder how I could have lived 21 years and never heard of this barbaric cruelty during World War II. In a way, I can understand why so many of the Chinese that I know are not fond of Japanese people... but at the same time, I am an American, so all of my life I have seen and learned who hates who and why. Human beings do not give up grudges, and it seems almost harder to give up a grudge when it never involved you -- transgressions by another people to your own before you were born tend to hurt more, for some reason.

My Irish ancestors were poor and slaves, but I know that they were a happy people and I have not suffered for being Irish during my lifetime. So I can only sympathize with one nation for hating another over a massacre of their people so long ago. But I wonder what it is like... and I know that sometimes hate runs deep, and it saddens me that people who lived almost a hundred years ago can behave in such a way that makes their own ancestors shake their heads in shame. But what can they do? They are hated because someone who came before committed horrible acts in their own name.

Human beings disgust me. But I am one, so I have to keep living.

how do you watercolor the sky?

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