The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Liu has written this story in a documentary style, as if the participants are speaking into a camera, so each anecdote is told in the first person. There are major players, who advance the narrative, and anecdotes from “regular” people, representing the tide of public opinion, that alternate through the story.

Dr. Akemi Kirino and her husband, Dr. Evan Wei, found a way to go back in time, thanks to subatomic particles called Bohm-Kirino particles. They can only go back once, and then no one can go back to that point in time again.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War of World War II, there was an “Asian Auschwitz,” Unit 731 or Pingfang. There, in 1940, scientists tested biological and chemical weapons in the compound, killing between 200,000 and half a million Chinese prisoners. Evan plans to focus his and his wife’s time-travel technique on the atrocity, sending volunteers to bear witness.

The decision is fraught with controversy. One historian, Archibald Ezary says, “What role, if any, we wish to give the voices of the past in the present is up to us” (399), while Chung-Nian Shih of the National Independent University of Taiwan questions Evan’s decision to send volunteers rather than historians or journalists, especially since these moments in history can only be seen once. Lt. Ruming of Zhejian University points out that history is not a private matter, and many feel Evan is erasing their history without their consent, all for a western idea. Bill Pacer of the University of Hawaii at Manoa says that Evan Wei’s goal is to rescue history from China and Japan. He says that Wei’s project is based on the idea that society must hear individualized stories to move beyond the trap of history.

Victor P. Lowenson at UC Berkeley thinks Wei has crossed the line from historian to activist. With the Kirino Process, there is no way to confirm the veracity of the events. The moment can never be replicated, which means rational inquiry has become personal religion. Ienaga Ito from Kyoto University says narratives are subjective and that Evan was more radical than people thought, transforming historical narrative into memoir. In doing so, he has tried to introduce empathy and emotion into historical inquiry.

On the show “Crosstalk,” Ambassador Yoshida and Dr. Wei appear, butting heads about the issue. Dr. Wei wants Japan to acknowledge the truth; Yoshida claims it has. Wei challenges Yoshida to go back in time and see for himself; Yoshida refuses.

At a congressional hearing, Representative Hogart says there is no definite proof of the atrocities at Unit 731, except “the results of some sensational high-energy physics that no one present, other than Dr. Kirino herself, understands” (422). Japan is an ally of the US, and so Hogart opposes bringing forth a resolution. Representative Kotler says his colleague sounds like a Holocaust denier and points out that the US is not a disinterested third party: “We have sinned as well” (423).

Lillian C. Chang-Wyeth, a witness, tells of her aunt, who died at Pingfang, which is why she volunteered to go back in time. She took her first trip five years ago and arrived the day after her aunt’s capture. She witnessed her aunt’s rape, and the last moments of her aunt’s life as she was pregnant and dying of syphilis. Lillian wants the Japanese government to acknowledge its crimes and the US to apologize for shielding the criminals.

Shiro Yamagata is a former member of Unit 731, and he relates what he and his fellow officials did at Pingfang. He talks about how they performed scientific experiments on them, which included studying syphilis by forcing prisoners to have sex with one another and amputating limbs to study biological weapons: “I believe that the work we did on the women was very valuable and gained us many insights” (415). Eventually, the Communists took him prisoner, and he worked at a provincial hospital. He encounters a woman who he recognizes from Pingfang, and she recoils from him. He then understands what he had done. He returns to Japan in 1956. He has decided to speak out.

Following the hearing, Evan didn’t make tenure and received daily death threats but was most affected by threats to his wife. The couple moved away, but he couldn’t stay away from the fight. He became obsessed with taking on all his enemies, but it was never enough.

An issue of the Economist says that many of the men from Unit 731 moved on to prominent careers in medicine and research, making “all of us the unwitting beneficiaries of these atrocities” (440). Japan and China continued to create a wall between one another. The documentary explains that the US shut down Evan Wei’s machinery for national security reasons, while other countries demanded use of the machine. The Comprehensive Time Travel Moratorium is signed. Dr. Wei commits suicide by jumping in front of a Boston subway train.

Dr. Kirino never told Evan that her grandfather was the Director of Pingfang. She took a trip back to see him in Pingfang in 1941. She wishes she had told Evan instead of silencing her grandfather’s story. It is 10 years after Evan’s death, and she says that even with the Bohm-Kirino particles gone, the photons are still out there, acting as a permanent record out in the universe.