Director of Education Simon Li visited the John Rabe House in Nanjing and met with the House’s director Mr Yang Shangyou. They had a fruitful discussion on pedagogical approaches to teaching about the rescuers during World War II in Asia such as John Rabe.

In Nanjing this summer, HKHTC Director of Education Simon Li interviewed one of the few remaining Nanjing Massacre survivors Ms Ai Yiying (艾義英), who witnessed the bloody atrocities in her village when she was 9. Since experiencing the atrocities in her childhood, she had nightmares about being chased by Japanese soldiers and got nowhere to hide. She still has wartime nightmares today 80 years later. There are now less than 100 registered Nanjing Massacre survivors today. Ai Yiying is one of them.

On July 17, HKHTC Director of Education Simon Li discussed about Minnie Vautrin and Ginling Women’s College (金陵女子大學) at the actual campus site with the college’s Nanjing Massacre expert researcher Prof Qi Chunfeng (齊春風教授).

During WWII, this women’s college harboured more than 10,000 women in buildings designed to accommodate between 200 and 300 people. Since they sheltered a majority of women, Japanese troops frequently haunted the college and attempted to rape the women inside. The college’s acting principal Minnie Vautrin guarded the college with the motto: “Whoever wants to go through this gate will have to do so over my dead body.”

HKHTC Director of Education Simon Li recently visited an elderly hospital in Quzhou, China to meet with Mr and Mrs Fang, victims of the Japanese germ warfare, to discuss their painful experiences during the anthrax attack by the Japanese soldiers in Quzhou.