Learning about how the world was from the people there, then

What started as a phone call to my grandfather for his 95th birthday turned into a lesson for my 9-year-old about the value of learning about history from those who lived it.

一切始于在我祖父95岁生日时打给他的一通电话，这通电话给我的9岁女儿上了一课，让她明白向历史亲历者学习历史的价值。

Lily didn’t know much about World War II until she learned on the phone that her great-grandfathers had both fought in it.

莉莉对第二次世界大战了解不多，直到她在电话里得知她的曾祖父们都参加过那场战争。

She was amazed. She didn’t know anyone in our family had ever joined the military, let alone volunteered to fight in faraway lands as the world seethed with combat.

她感到震惊。她不知道我们家有人曾参过军，更不用说在世界战火纷飞的时候志愿到遥远的地方去打仗了。

Both my grandfathers, who lived just three miles apart in rural northern Michigan but didn’t meet until my parents met decades later, signed up during the war to become fighter pilots — an extremely dangerous job then.

我的两位祖父住在密歇根北部的乡下，相隔只有三英里，但直到我的父母相遇几十年后，他们才见面。在战争期间，他们为了成为战斗机飞行员而入伍——当时这是一项极其危险的工作。

But they were too tall for the cockpits and — in what Lily calls “the coincidence of all coincidences” — both instead became airplane mechanics.

但是，由于他们对驾驶舱来说个子太高了——莉莉称之为“巧合中的巧合”——他们都转而成为了飞机机械师。

She’d always liked her great-grandpa Nilsson. (My mother’s father died before she was born.)

她一直很喜欢她的曾祖父尼尔森。(我母亲的父亲在莉莉出生前就去世了。)

But after the call, she had a newfound respect for what he’d lived through and what he’d done during such extreme times.

但在那通电话之后，对于他的经历和他在那样极端的时期所做的事，她产生了新的敬意。

“I’m glad I live in China, today,” she said, as I explained the war after we hung up.

“我很高兴我现在生活在中国，”当我挂断电话后，向她解释那场战争时，她这样说道。

She has recently become obsessed with history. And her unique upbringing means she pores over books about both Western and Eastern, and especially Chinese, history.

她最近迷上了历史。独特的成长经历使她对西方和东方的历史都有深入的研究，尤其是中国的历史。

As such, she’s learning about WWII differently than I did.

因此，她对二战的了解和我不同。

I don’t remember learning about Japan’s invasion of China in school and only encountered it as a brief aside during university.

我不记得是否在学校里学过关于日本侵华的知识，只是在大学期间偶然接触过。

Although the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war, US society has since focused mostly on the European Theater and especially the Nazis.

尽管日本轰炸珍珠港一事促使美国开战，但自那以后，美国社会就主要聚焦欧洲战场，尤其是纳粹。

I myself only learned about the Japanese invasion of China after moving to Beijing.

我本人是搬到北京后才了解到日本侵华事件的。

That’s especially in 2007, when I interviewed the parents of Iris Chang, the author ofThe Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of WWII, who later committed suicide after spending so much time researching the horrors of what happened in Nanjing. And in 2005, I interviewed two surviving relatives of Minnie Vautrin — who saved thousands of Chinese women in Nanjing.

特别是在2007年，当时我采访了《南京暴行:被遗忘的大屠杀》一书的作者张纯如的父母。在花了大量时间研究南京大屠杀的恐怖之后，张纯如自尽了。还有，2005年，我采访了明妮·魏特琳的两位在世的亲属，她在南京拯救了数千名中国妇女。

By an incredible coincidence, two of Vautrin’s two surviving relatives lived just a few houses from my home in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. And Vautrin is also buried nearby.

一个难以置信的巧合是，魏特琳的两位幸存的亲属的住处和我在密歇根州芒特普莱森特的家仅相隔几栋房屋。魏特琳也被埋葬在附近。

How precious an opportunity it is for my daughter to be able to learn about the war from a family member who fought in it, since there will be no veterans left in just a few years.

对我的女儿来说，能从参加过战争的家人那里了解战争是多么宝贵的机会，因为再过几年就没有退伍军人了。

How I wish I’d asked my other grandfather, who went to the Philippines to fight Japan (Grandpa Nilsson was mostly stationed in Italy), more questions while I still could.

我多希望，在我还有机会的时候，能向我的另一位祖父问更多问题，他曾前往菲律宾和日本作战(尼尔森祖父大部分时间驻扎在意大利)。

I remember he told me he couldn’t eat rice afterward because it reminded him of corpses.

我记得他告诉我，他在战争过后不能吃米饭，因为米饭会让他想起尸体。

“We have to remember the past to understand the future,” Lily said as we talked that night.

“我们必须铭记过去才能了解未来。”那天晚上我们聊天时，莉莉说道。

“Where’d you hear that?” I asked.

“你从哪儿听说的?””我问。

“I just thought of it now,” she responded.

“我这会儿才想到的。”她回答道。

“And we should respect older people. What Great-Grandpa did then made our family what it is today. And other people in his time made the world the way it is today.”

“我们应该尊重老年人。曾祖父当年的所作所为造就了今天的我们一家。他那个时代的其他人造就了今天的世界。”

Respect for elders is a Chinese virtue I admire.

尊敬老人是我所敬佩的中华民族的美德。

This is shamefully absent in much of the West and especially the United States, where younger people often regard the elderly with derision for being “out of touch” — e.g., “OK, Boomer” vs the Chinese tendency to address seniors as “teacher”.

在西方国家，尤其是美国，年轻人常常嘲笑老年人“脱离社会”——例如，“好吧，老家伙”，这种现象很可耻。然而，中国人则倾向于称呼长辈为“老师”。

Age brings experience, and experience brings wisdom. That doesn’t mean we must agree with elders’ viewpoints.

年龄带来经验，经验带来智慧。这并不意味着我们必须同意老一辈的观点。

But we should respect that they have lived through much we haven’t in the past, built the world we live in today and have insights about the future we don’t.

但是我们应该尊重他们，他们经历了很多我们在过去没有经历过的事情，造就了我们今天生活的世界，对未来有着我们不具备的深刻见解。

By Erik Nilsson

erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn