"She got used to the fact that there is a Web site called 'Iris Chang and Her Lies.' Through a third party, the colonel declined to be interviewed. Then she got back up again. That afternoon, she checked herself in to Norton Psychiatric Hospital in Louisville, with help from the colonel. She was seeing a therapist two to three times a week, Brett said, but fought against having family members participate. Martel cried, "You son of a bitch! Deep down I suspect that you may have more answers about this than I do. The Rape of Nanking, about the 1937 massacre of as many as 350,000 soldiers and civilians by Japans imperial army, had been denounced by the Japanese ambassador to the U.S., and caricatures of Chang appeared in right-wing Japanese newspapers. His daughter recalled that in telling Iris this story, he got terribly worked up. "There's a book I must do," she said. Back in her car, she slipped the gun and owner's manual into a cardboard box labeled "Real Estate Documents" that lay on the passenger seat. Newsweek ran an excerpt, and soon Iris was a familiar face on TV news shows. "Iris asked me to tell about atrocities," he said. ", Her father patted the tabletop. The Memorial Hall, which collects documents, photos, and human remains from the massacre, added both a wing and a bronze statue dedicated to Chang in 2005. At the same time, her foes said her suicide proved that "Rape of Nanking" was nothing but lies. ", During two years of research, Iris made significant historical discoveries. After her own years of research on the interplay of hormones and the brain, Kamen believes. "The onus is on us, as Western medical professionals, to be aware of cultural influences -- and to be proactive in educating family members and the patient when there is a first encounter with mental illness," he said. Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968 November 9, 2004) was a Chinese American journalist, author of historical books and political activist. "The boys came together to say, 'Crisis! After the interview, they kept up an active correspondence. Her last, widely-acclaimed book focused on Chinese immigrants and t heir descendents in the United States their sacrifices, their achievements and their contributions to the fabric of American culture, an epic journey spanning more than 150 years. Paula Kamen digs deep into the ambitious life and tragic death of her most successful friend. 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.Chang is the subject of the 2007 biography Finding Iris Chang, and the 2007 documentary film Iris . Lo explained. "Every time we set a rule, she always tried to find some way to get around it. It seemed like a lot of odd behavior started around that time, Kamen says. "But gradually, she became very depressed," said her father, adding that her doctor in California prescribed an additional medication, an antidepressant. iris during college years with mr and mrs chang and brother michael courtesy chang family, Event on 11/16/04 in San Jose. Iris would be working solo. Iris Chang. She walked through the whooshing automatic doors and turned right. Your Privacy Choices (Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads). box 314, folder 4 . Everything points to suicide.". There, Iris had lengthy conversations with then-President Bill Clinton and gave him a signed copy of "The Rape of Nanking.". At 11:56 a.m., Iris presented her driver's license and counted out $517 in cash -- she was carrying nearly $4,000 -- and left the store with an ivory-handled Ruger "Old Army" .45 replica revolver. The cycle of mood shifts that distinguish the disease -- from manic highs to depressive lows -- differs with every sufferer. . Chang also experienced several miscarriages all said to influence the onset of bipolar disorder. Her long-distance engagement to Brett entered its second year. CHANG2-C-29APR03-DD-HO.jpg She got very, very wound up in things," Finkbeiner said. Rumors swirled in the early days after her suicide. SHAU-JIN CHANG (FATHER), left, AND YING-YING CHANG (MOTHER), PARENTS OF IRIS CHANG, WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE IN NOVEMBERR 2004. PLEASE VERIFY RIGHTS. She was a journalism graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana and worked briefly as a reporter in Chicago before winning a graduate fellowship to the writing seminars program at The Johns Hopkins University. of a professor of physics (father) and a microbiologist (mother); graduated in journalist from University of Illinois, 1989; attended Johns Hopkins University; m. The small, academically elite school has produced many Nobel laureates. ", He added, sadly, "I think if we had, I would have noticed earlier that things were going wrong.". They are the ones who brought her up." Chang dil She attended University Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois, and graduated in 1985. It happens every day of the week, and people just don't know it because people don't talk about it.". "There is an aspect of paranoia in the majority of suicides," Baker said. -- Did her single-minded determination, her habit of working beyond exhaustion, contribute to her death? Others wondered if Changs choice of subject matter was somehow to blame. Stories about Chang's grandparents' harrowing escape were part of her family legacy and prompted her to embark on this ambitious project, for which she interviewed elderly survivors of the massacre and discovered thousands of rare documents in four different languages. Education "Iris told me now was not the time to go on with the Bataan project. But Rabiner had been looking for someone conversant in the sciences and in Mandarin to write a biography of Hsue-Shen Tsien. She told him she had an old revolver that was unsafe to shoot. In the end, the war she could not win raged internally. "She's very strong- willed," her mother said. She went to the Chicago Tribune instead, but didn't enjoy "politicking for assignments," Brett said. The motorist who went to investigate the white Oldsmobile parked off highway 17, which runs between San Jose and Santa Cruz in northern California, was a . Robert Spencer / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT. That is, successful and invulnerable. Worse, Chang had started out as a computer science major and switched with Kamens encouragement. Photos for a profile of Iris chang, a prominent author and historian, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. he cried. Register for a user account. She was very depressed." A local veteran, Arthur Kelly, who was assisting her research helped her check into Norton Psychiatric Hospital in Louisville, where she was diagnosed with reactive psychosis, placed on heavy medication for three days and then released to her parents. 1968 - 2004 . Upon his return to China, Tsien developed the Dongfeng missile program, and later the Silkworm missile, which was used by the Iraqi military during its war on Iran and against the United States-led coalitions during the Persian Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The gunsmith told police he had spotted a can of gunpowder in the bag. "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. Aps obter o Mestrado em Letras, pela Johns Hopkins University, dedicou-se carreira de escritora . Scope and Contents note One compact sound cassette. ', "Much of the conversation was upbeat. We called him every day, sometimes two or three times a day. 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. It was obvious she wasn't the same person that she was before," he said. On the day of Iris Chang's death, word spread quickly over news wires and the Internet. "Yes!" By now, Brett had taken a job with a Santa Barbara engineering firm. Iris Chang was a young child when her parents first told her stories about a slaughter of the Chinese people so horrible as to be almost beyond belief. And that really took its toll on her, too.". . These were considered her finest traits. She committed suicide on November 9, 2004. [4] During her time in college she also worked as a New York Times stringer from Urbana-Champaign, and wrote six front-page articles over the course of one year. It didn't take him long to propose, but their 1989 engagement stretched out while Brett finished grad school in Urbana. Mom died, dad attempted to raise the . [10] Based on the book, an American documentary film, Nanking, was released in 2007. They made an appointment. Her last, widely-acclaimed book focused on Chinese immigrants and t heir descendents in the United States their sacrifices, their achievements and their contributions to the fabric of American culture, an epic journey spanning more than 150 years. This post was contributed by a community member. "She would go into a town -- and with Tony Meldahl's help, it was even better. Iris Chang found the inspiration for her new book in 1994 when she came face-to-face with poster-size photographs of Nanking war crimes at a conference in Cupertino. Success! She went back to bed. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking. Please forgive me. I told her that I wanted her to call me the next night and every night after that until she worked out the details. " Iris was sometimes teased for her earnestness. She preferred to meet someone in each town who could introduce her to the veterans and their families. As that November afternoon darkened into evening, the Changs sat at their Danish-modern dining room table and told stories about Iris, speaking sometimes in past tense and sometimes in present tense. "We saw cartoons where she was portrayed as this woman with a great big mouth," Brett said. Her husband, Shau-Jin, is a theoretical physicist. As a teacher's assistant, she taught a class in creative writing. We . "We set out a very big lunch -- meat trays and sandwiches and desserts," she said. Please forgive me.[21]. The war she lost raged withinby Heidi Benson. Christopher Douglas is known for The Onedin Line (1971), Early Travellers in North America (1992) and Crown Court (1972). "Iris was a phenomenon," said one of her former teachers at Johns Hopkins, Ann Finkbeiner. Memorial service at Gate of Heaven Cemetary for IRIS CHANG Kamen says that despite her worldliness, Chang never developed the distancing filters that aid many journalists. [5] She then embarked on her career as an author and lectured and wrote magazine articles. 1837 brunswick rifle Iris Chang (), before her untimely death, was one of America's leading young historians. Iris was "shocked and depressed" to see their living conditions in Nanking. Among other things, the compulsively well-organized Chang began losing credit cards every couple of weeks, according to Douglas, and in her last year she became paranoid about everything from viruses attacking her computer to attempts by the government to recruit her, a la The Manchurian Candidate. Now, the family rushed to learn everything they could about her illness. She wrote her thesis on "The Poetry of Science." Iris Chang. I know that my actions will transfer some of this pain to others, indeed those who love me the most. The correspondent was Sgt. What made it much easier is that we did have a wonderful nanny to help. Later, Brett learned that the nanny had urged Iris to cancel the trip. It's very hard to believe that there is something wrong with your mind," said Dr. David Lo, director of Santa Cruz Mental Health Services and former director of Chinatown Mental Health Center in San Francisco. At the time of her death, she had been taking the medications Depakote and Risperdal to stabilize her mood.[19]. ", On her trip to China, she met with survivors from Nanking. And often, he added, "people think they've wronged everybody and can't possibly do anything to make up for what they think they've done wrong. But there has to be dialogue about how to do that in the long term., In All in My Head, Kamen documents how she learned to slow down and come to terms with a life of chronic pain. in champaign- urbana- 1985 courtesy mr and mrs chang, CHANG_rs1.jpg Author Iris Chang speaks at a panel at the twelfth annual conference of the Committee of 100, at the Waldorf-Astoria, in New York, Saturday, April 26, 2003. "It was family lore. "Iris wasn't prepared and her publisher wasn't prepared. FINDING IRIS CHANG: FRIENDSHIP, AMBITION, AND THE LOSS OF AN EXTRAORDINARY MIND She was 36. Iris' reluctance to take medication may indicate the difficulty she had accepting her illness as an illness. On Nov. 9, 2004, historian Iris Chang was found dead on a rural California road just south of Los Gatos. I knew immediately I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.". Their famous daughter, whose 1997 bestseller, The Rape of Nanking, unearthed the forgotten holocaust of the Second World War when . ", The book rocketed Iris into the pantheon of American intellectuals. She spent her childhood in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. But all of them wanted the opportunity to talk about the massacre before their deaths. The foyer was filled with enormous bouquets sent by well-wishers. Tsien was a top physicist at Cal-Tech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who was deported during the Red scare of the 1950s. A reassuring presence, he stood at the kitchen counter, fixing a sandwich for lunch. 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. 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. 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. She was an able journalist, but she allowed herself to become deeply involved emotionally in her subjects, which gave her accessibility. That essay, How Iris Chang Became a Verb, serves as a graceful and insightful eulogy for the best-selling author, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on a lonely stretch of road outside San Jose, California, in November 2004. Reader's Digest devoted a cover story to her. $ 4.79 - $ 21.29. The medicine was probably not right for her.". 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. Copy photo of Iris Chang with her husband Brett Douglas and their son at his birthday party. But soon she found herself drawn to a subject just as dark. So, in return for performing a short, Chaplinesque shuffle, he would be rewarded with a handful of scallions. Iris would be interviewing them, somebody else would be filming them, somebody else would be photocopying records, and somebody would be sending documents down to UPS. "She couldn't eat or drink. ", Seeing how the survivors lived was as harrowing as hearing their stories. This is for the biographers., Suicide, Kamen observes, is in a lot of ways the ultimate act of control. Her mother said American documentary film, Nanking, unearthed the forgotten holocaust of the second war! 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