Driving west toward Santa Cruz on Highway 17, she took a turnoff 25 miles from her home and parked on a steep gravel utility road within sight of the highway. 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. Robert Spencer / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT. The small, academically elite school has produced many Nobel laureates. "To see her on TV, defending 'Rape of Nanking' so fiercely and so fearlessly -- I just sat down, stopped, in awe," said Helen Zia, author of "Asian-American Dreams: Emergence of an American People" and co-author, with Wen-Ho Lee, of "My Country Versus Me: The First-Hand Account by the Los Alamos Scientist Who Was Falsely Accused. A report from the San Francisco Chronicle stated that news of her suicide had a strong impact on survivors of the Nanking Massacre and the Chinese community in general.[20]. ", He added, sadly, "I think if we had, I would have noticed earlier that things were going wrong.". Nearby, Bear Creek Road curled up the lonesome hills, thick with black oak. "No, no! In a funny kind of way, she was resolute, she was calm. "And then we stretched it to six, and then 'The Rape of Nanking' hit the best-seller list and she was out promoting it for almost two years. The pool, a turquoise rectangle surrounded by pines, sat at the center of the village-like complex. The first was John Rabe, a German member of the Nazi party who was living in the Chinese capital in 1937. "We set out a very big lunch -- meat trays and sandwiches and desserts," she said. Home Deep Cleaning . You have a young kid. Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968 November 9, 2004) was a Chinese American journalist, author of historical books and political activist. January 19, 2023 . how long does cyst removal surgery take to heal. Photos for a profile of Iris chang, a prominenet author and historian, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. "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. "She didn't like the idea that she was taking medicine," her father said. And she was determined not to be hospitalized again. "It's all for the sake of and in memory of my beloved daughter," Chang said. "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. But this time, "she appeared unhappy," the manager told investigators. ", That night, Iris and Brett followed their routine and went to sleep around midnight. So we finally started trying, and then we had our son in 2002. She hoped to gain access to a time capsule of audiotapes that was sealed within that tank after the war. We go through her and her husband's (Brett Douglas) house in San jose. ", When Zia and Iris met for the first time, they planned a quick lunch. He established an International Safety Zone in Nanking before the Japanese soldiers arrived from Shanghai. [20], On November 9, 2004, at about 9 a.m., Chang was found dead in the driver's seat of her Oldsmobile Alero car by a Santa Clara Valley Water District employee on a rural road south of Los Gatos, California and west of State Route 17, in Santa Clara County. Iris was "shocked and depressed" to see their living conditions in Nanking. "But he spoke to her mother on the phone and told Iris, 'Your mom is on the phone, so it's OK.' ". 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. Along with fear for her safety, Iris' illness generated feelings of self- blame. At 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, a county water district employee drove past the Oldsmobile. He returned to China and went on to develop its missile system. Getting ready for the trip, Iris went into overdrive. ", After studying the final results of the Santa Clara Country medical examiner's report, Baker closed his investigation March 1, 2005. Iris Chang. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking. At 14, Iris was studying advanced math and decided to join an all-boys computer club called Submit. As she wrote in the Salon piece, Kamen spoke to Chang by phone a few days before her death and was shocked to hear her normally upbeat friendwhose penchant for hours-long conversations could be exhaustingsound sad and totally drained. Chang ended the conversation by asking Kamen, should anything happen to her, to let people know what she was like before. I got more response [from the Salon piece] than any other articles Ive written combined, Kamen says. "She would just say, matter-of-factly, 'Japan is lying and here's why.' Now, the family rushed to learn everything they could about her illness. Doctors at Norton Hospital had diagnosed "brief reactive psychosis," her father said. His daughter recalled that in telling Iris this story, he got terribly worked up. Chang said she usually gives three reasons for her unconventional decision to write her daughter's biography: to commemorate Iris, to tell Iris' son, Christopher Douglas, all about the mother he lost at age 2, and to set the record straight about Iris' suicide amid media speculations. Born Iris Shun-Ru Chang, Mar 28, 1968, in Princeton, New Jersey; grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois; committed suicide, Nov 9, 2004, near Los Gatos, California; dau. On Nov. 9, 2004, historian Iris Chang was found dead on a rural California road just south of Los Gatos. asked Iris, knowing Martel had been saved from near starvation by the brushy mustache he wore. She liked to talk, so it's very fun to watch her talking," she said. She was 36. [19], When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. Before dawn, Iris awoke and got into her car. Looking back, Chang said she thinks Iris was just a workaholic who needed a break, and should have slept and eaten more, instead of taking psychiatric drugs. Kamen recalls once commenting on how thorough Changs filing system was: her friend replied, It has to be. Other parts were not. "There's a book I must do," she said. "Iris wanted to talk, and I said, 'You should go to bed, it's 2 in the morning.' This post was contributed by a community member. Classical AF dissonance between pride in her culture and inability to integrate. Months earlier, Iris had seized on a letter in her "book ideas" file about a Midwestern pocket of Bataan survivors, all members of two tank battalions. "She was very tired," her mother said. Later, he would tell police that she "seemed distracted or aloof.". He immediately called the police. "Twice I broke down and had to leave the room.". ", The book's popularity meant a lengthy book tour. The views expressed in this post are the author's own. She lived in San Jose, California in the final years of her life.[6][7]. So you see, she was really a fighter. "The boys came together to say, 'Crisis! "It's amazing when you watch Iris do research," Brett said. Still, the depression failed to lift. "But the side effect of psychiatric drugs changed her personality and prompted her to go that route.". theguardian.com. ", Rabiner, who later became an agent and represented Iris, said, "The book was beyond well reviewed -- it was a mega-best-seller that continues to sell. Between eulogies, a guitarist played "Let It Be." My sincere condolences to Mr. Douglas and to young Christopher. "He got the job, we went," Mrs. Chang explained. "She should not have gone.". Your Privacy Choices (Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads). "Iris scraped away the scar tissue of something that had been half forgotten and half healed over, and to this date, it's still a very raw wound, " said Orville Schell, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley. One picture she sent showed Iris hugging Martel and his wife. Their second child, Michael, was born in 1970. She wrote three books, which made her visible as a public figure. Her maternal grandparents had escaped just weeks before the Japanese arrived. Iris pushed herself "to be the best possible mother and the best possible writer," Brett said. Iris Chang, a best-selling author who chronicled the Japanese occupation of China and the history of Chinese immigrants in the United . "Iris can be a loner; it doesn't bother her." "She also liked to beat the system. The war she lost raged withinby Heidi Benson. She harbored hundreds of Chinese women and children there during the occupation. "Iris asked me to tell about atrocities," he said. He showed her how to load the gun and tried to give her basic safety and handling instructions. SHAU-JIN CHANG (FATHER), left, AND YING-YING CHANG (MOTHER), PARENTS OF IRIS CHANG, WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE IN NOVEMBERR 2004. Contents After a breakdown five months ago, Chang had been. he said, grinning. "She had never seen anyone for depression or anything before," her mother said. "You didn't always feel she was talking to you --, it was as if she had to talk. That night, she had dinner with her husband of 13 years, Brett Douglas. She was easily hurt, though sometimes she didn't show it. The medicine was probably not right for her.". Her husband, Shau-Jin, is a theoretical physicist. He framed it and hung it on a wall in his home. Kamen says that despite her worldliness, Chang never developed the distancing filters that aid many journalists. This could be a one-time event or it could signal the onset of bipolar disorder, the doctors told them. "But this time, I had assumed she was sleeping all day after working all night. We've seen a lot of suicides. She wrote, "The America of today would not be the same America without the achievements of its ethnic Chinese," and that "scratch the surface of every American celebrity of Chinese heritage and you will find that, no matter how stellar their achievements, no matter how great their contribution to US society, virtually all of them have had their identities questioned at one point or another."[12]. Iris Chang (Author, . You could see it in the steadiness of her voice and in her persistence," Zia recalled. The book signing will be held at Cupertino Community Hall on Saturday, Aug. 27 from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Well known since its 1997 publication is the global best seller,The Rape of Nanking. Along the way, she married Brett Douglas, whom she had met in college, and had one son, Christopher . She found the diaries of a pair of Westerners who were among the heroes of Nanking. Stress does not cause mental illness, but it can worsen the symptoms, doctors say. And maybe more than the first two books I wrote combined, too.. "Iris was suffering from clinical depression," she said, "and it deepened rapidly over a period of about three months. Christopher Douglas is known for The Onedin Line (1971), Early Travellers in North America (1992) and Crown Court (1972). In 2019, Iris Chang Park was inaugurated in the Rincon district of San Jose.[22]. He was a happy baby, with his mother's jet-black hair. Iris Shun-Ru Chang was born on March 28, 1968, in Princeton, N.J. She grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., where her father, a physicist, and her mother, a microbiologist, taught at the University . Chang said she usually gives three reasons for her unconventional decision to write her daughter's biography: to commemorate Iris, to tell Iris' son, Christopher Douglas, all about the. After publication of the book, Chang campaigned to persuade the Japanese government to apologize for its troops' wartime conduct and to pay compensation. Deep down I suspect that you may have more answers about this than I do. photo by Tim Kao/the chronicle, Event on 3/6/05 in San Francisco. Similar situation to my own. When her body was discovered, Iris Chang had been dead for two hours. iris changs family But it turned out she wasn't sleeping during the day either. Iris Chang received several other awards, including the Woman of the Year award from the Organization of Chinese Americans, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Program on Peace and International Cooperation Award. And Iris would buy lunch and dinner for everybody, and they all thought it was great. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking. Their mothers helped to plan the wedding. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate. On August 31, 2002, Christopher Douglas, their son, was born. An excerpt from an interview with author Iris Chang held during her appearance at the New York State Writers Institute on April 14, 2004. By now, Brett had taken a job with a Santa Barbara engineering firm. Iris Chang was the daughter of two university professors, Ying-Ying Chang and Dr. Shau-Jin Chang, who moved from mainland China to Taiwan and eventually emigrated to the United States. When you do not, you live not just by the day but by the minute. "Iris was a phenomenon," said one of her former teachers at Johns Hopkins, Ann Finkbeiner. "Then we came home, and that was our last weekend together," he said, fighting back tears. The revolver lay on her left leg. "I knew Iris was not right," her mother said. He could see the travel was taking a toll on her. But Kamens book, unlike, say, Truth & Beauty, novelist Ann Patchetts controversial memoir of her thorny friendship with the late writer Lucy Grealy, relies very little upon navel-gazing rumination. "Over a year and a half, she visited 65 cities," Brett said. Chang also experienced several miscarriages all said to influence the onset of bipolar disorder. On the day of Iris Chang's death, word spread quickly over news wires and the Internet. "She contacted people who'd been lost for years, dug up records that nobody ever knew existed. "I believe Iris in heaven would want me to do this, to channel my sadness into something positive.". Liz Mangelsdorf / The Chronicle, iris chang at Bataan tank in wisconsin courtesy of the bataan commenorative research project, Iris Chang at 7 years old courtesy the chang family, iris changs senior picture from university high The views expressed here are the author's own. ", Her mother added, "She was in therapy all the time, but it didn't help, and she took the medicine on and off. The Highway Patrol then called the Santa Clara Sheriff's homicide unit and detective Sgt. Scope and Contents note One compact sound cassette. " Iris was sometimes teased for her earnestness. At the first memorial -- that evening's "visitation" -- friends signed the guest book and offered condolences to the family. "He reminded me to eat and to take a walk when I was writing all day, forgetting everything else.". Most of the calls were from women, said Betty Hong, executive director of the Oakland clinic. "She was in on more than one occasion," said Reed's manager, Pat Kalcic, a tall outdoorsman. Brett set up a home gym in the basement and coached her through hourlong workouts with hand weights. She helped Iris write a proposal and the project was quickly put under contract. . Iris Shun-Ru Chang born March 28, 1968 Princeton, New Jersey died by suicide on a road south of San Francisco, near Los Gatos, November 9, 2004 father Shau-Jin Chang, a physics professor at the University of Illinois mother Ying-Ying Chang, a microbiology professor at the University of Illinois brother Michael Chang "During the massacre some had received physical injuries so severe they had been prevented from making a decent living for decades. Ultimately, three notes were found, all dated Monday, Nov. 8, 2004. "There is an aspect of paranoia in the majority of suicides," Baker said. "Statement of Iris Chang" stated: I promise to get up and get out of the house every morning. "It's a double-edged sword. "When we first got married, we said we were going to start trying to have a child after four years," Brett said. Published by Basic Books on December 1997 (the 60th anniversary of the massacre) and in paperback by Penguin in 1998, "The Rape of Nanking" the first, full-length English-language narrative of the atrocity to reach a wide audience remained on the New York Times bestseller list for several months, became a New York Times Notable Book, and was cited by Bookman Review Syndicate as one of the best books of 1997. "Why did he have to toy with me like that?" NANKING-02/B/19JULY98/SC/TK=IRIS Chang autographing "Rape of Nanking" Sunday at the Treasure Island exhibit. I believe my detention at Norton Hospital was the government's attempt to discredit me. Brett Douglas was a tall, low-key redhead, nearly two years her senior and an engineering graduate student when they were introduced at a Sigma Phi Delta fraternity party on campus. We . Event on 11/16/04 in San Jose. "She had so many bookings, she could easily be on the road for 2 1/2 weeks before coming back home. Her mother hoped Iris would take on a lighter topic for her next book, especially with a baby in the house. Iris Chang March 28, 1968 - November 9, 2004 As a student of history & a literature hound, Iris Chang's death in 2004 came as a shock. (Photo/Robert Spencer)on 5/5/03 in New York. The book, "Thread of the Silkworm," was published in 1995. He had only recently retired from the family farm in central Illinois that had been in the family for five generations. Success! In her book, Kamen recalls how Chang approached an editor on one of her first days at the U. of I.s Daily Illini and asked simplywithout small talk or polite conversationHow do I get your job? She passed the iron gates of Calvary Catholic Cemetery, where marble statues of winged angels, their heads bowed in prayer . "She was like a battalion commander," Meldahl said. What made it much easier is that we did have a wonderful nanny to help. Chang was born in Princeton, New Jersey and raised in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. "When I was obsessed about Iris, my husband and my son suggested taking me to see a therapist, but I said no," said Chang. Chang, 36 . Iris Chang always outdid Paula Kamen. She came alive before crowds -- she loved to share, and she was interested in other people's lives. Anthony Meldahl, a supply sergeant with the Ohio National Guard who had admired Iris' work. Robert Spencer / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT, iris chang and bataan march survivor ed martel and his wife courtesy ed martel, THIS IS A HANDOUT IMAGE. Home; Features; Services; About; Contact; Login; Get Free Demo; christopher douglas iris chang She wasnt a jealous personality. christopher douglas iris chang; christopher douglas iris chang. She would just laugh.". "These people wanted their story told for a long, long time, and they knew that because Iris had success as an author, she'd be able to do a very good job," Brett said. She was an able journalist, but she allowed herself to become deeply involved emotionally in her subjects, which gave her accessibility. After he and his fellow soldiers had been starved and beaten for months, a Japanese guard knocked him to the ground, piercing his chest with his bayonet. Meanwhile, they decided they had put their plans for a family on hold long enough. ", Their son, who had turned 2 years old in August, became aware of a change. They lived on a leafy country road named Einstein Drive. Iris Chang was an American journalist, human rights activist, and author. It is far better that you remember me as I was -- in my heyday as a best-selling author -- than the wild-eyed wreck who returned from Louisville . She was very depressed." When Martel read in a newspaper about her death, he asked his daughter, "Is that our Iris? On a cloudy Monday morning in early November, author Iris Chang, 36, drove her white 1999 Oldsmobile Alero down Alum Rock Avenue toward the green foothills of East San Jose. But Kalcic and his employees did not know how unusual Iris Chang was: a world- renowned author whose work had stirred international controversy. She parked in front of Reed's Sport Shop, a redwood-shingled emporium that sells fishing, cycling and hunting gear. In loving commemoration of Iris Chang-A Powerful Voice for Victims of the Forgotten Asian Holocaust. "Iris was much in demand and gave many talks," Brett recalled, adding with a laugh, "she was schmoozing the whole time." When Brett woke to find Iris gone early Monday morning, he called San Jose police, reporting that she was missing, on medication and a suicide risk. $ 4.69 - $ 6.59. ", Iris had convinced her doctor to reduce her dosage. 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. Smith said the colonel spent only a short time with her. "Clearly, Iris was a strong, smart and directed young woman," Rabiner said. After two years at Princeton, the family moved to a Midwestern college town, Champaign-Urbana, in Illinois. Event on 11/16/04 in San Jose. Iris arrived at the gunsmith's at about 2 p.m., carrying a Reed's Sport Shop Bag. The number of calls to Asian Community Mental Health Services spiked in the days after Iris Chang's death. It explores the story of Iris Chang, who killed herself . Soon she exceeded the dreams of every student in the program by getting a book contract from a major publisher while still in school. She told him she had an old revolver that was unsafe to shoot. Then, a larger-than-life video image of Iris appeared on a wide-screen monitor: She was speaking as an expert witness in a mock grand jury trial of Emperor Hirohito, filmed at the 2003 Youth Conference at San Francisco City College, which the Nanking Redress Coalition sponsored. We go through her and her husband's (Brett Douglas) house in San jose. So, in return for performing a short, Chaplinesque shuffle, he would be rewarded with a handful of scallions. To soothe the pain of her loss, it would be tempting to seek a single, simple explanation for the suicide of Iris Chang. Iris Chang loved life, her mother said: "I want people to know Iris, not just her suicide. PLEASE VERIFY RIGHTS. She wanted to be independent, to think for herself. So she went back to bed and I watched her until she fell asleep.". LOS ALTOS, CA - NOVEMBER 19: (L-R) Brett Douglas, husband of Iris Chang, walks behind a hearse carrying her body with her brother Michael Chang, mother Ying-Ying Chang and father Shau-Jin Chang during funeral services November 19, 2004 at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Los Altos, California. 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. A book packager wanted to publish a children's version of 'The Chinese in America. "First they gave her an antipsychotic, to stabilize her," her mother said. Speaking of the night they met, Brett said, "Iris was beautiful, vivacious -- and sober. "Iris wasn't prepared and her publisher wasn't prepared. 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. 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. Grandparents had escaped just weeks before the Japanese soldiers arrived from Shanghai mustache he.. The morning. really a fighter three notes were found, all dated Monday Nov.. Future, you think in terms of generations and years Iris pushed herself `` to be independent, to her! Village-Like complex and inability to integrate everything else. `` Iris write a proposal and the possible... Did he have to toy with me like that? Nov. 9, 2004 pride in her and! 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