Author ｜
Chia-cian Ko
Abstract ｜
During the fall of Penang in the Second World War, 8 teachers and 46 students of Chung Ling High School died, marking the painful history of Penang's intellectual community and the trauma and crisis of Chinese education. After the resumption of the school, a committee was set up to commemorate the martyrdom of the teachers and students of Chung Ling, and to memorialize, erect monuments and publish a book of grief. Applying the theories of the French historian Pierre Nora, this article discusses how the “field of memory” (les lieux de mémoire), which was formed around the martyrdom of the teachers and student of Chung Ling High School, has engraved the plight of the carving up of the culture and the severance of the culture, and in turn loaded the revival and continuation of the Chinese spirit. In this sense, the martyrdom of Chung Ling’s teachers and students, as a “feld of memory,” is already part of the national memory. When we examine how the “text” of war memory was constructed, the encounters and disasters of Chung Ling’s teachers and students are in fact embedded in the connection between Chinese education and Chinese national sentiment during the years of Japanese invasion in Malaya. The narrative and construction of the history of Chung Ling’s school is precisely how we perceive the collective memory of the Chinese during the fall, and the impact on Chinese education in particular. The critical position of Chinese teachers before and after the war is a reflection of the cultural identity and cultivation of a generation of Chinese teachers.
keywords ｜
Chinese school, Penang Chung Ling High School, Guan Zhenmin, traumatic memory, anti-Japanese