"We bought this house when we knew he was on the way. 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. When her body was discovered, Iris Chang had been dead for two hours. There is always free will. Iris Chang wrote those lines in 1978, when she was 10, . The Chang laboratory studies the chemistry of biology and energy. While on the ship home, she tried repeatedly to leap overboard. "She also liked to beat the system. American actor who played the soap opera roles of Dylan Moody on One Life to Live (from 1993 until 1997) and Antonio Lopez-Fitzgerald on . ", Historian Iris Chang won many battles / The war she lost raged within, CHANG_rs11.jpg Author Iris Chang poses for a photograph, in New York, Sunday, April 27, 2003. In 2007, the documentary Nanking was dedicated to Chang, as well as the Chinese victims of Nanking. Instead it offers the same meticulous attention to detail and thorough immersion in primary sources that distinguishes Changs exhaustively researched books, Thread of the Silkworm (1995), about an accused Chinese spy; The Rape of Nanking, published in 1997 to mark the massacres 60th anniversary; and the 2003 narrative history The Chinese in America. SHAU-JIN CHANG (FATHER), left, AND YING-YING CHANG (MOTHER), PARENTS OF IRIS CHANG, WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE IN NOVEMBERR 2004. "It's a double-edged sword. Event on 11/16/04 in San Jose. ", The Gate of Heaven was well named. "Iris was so excited when she got the contract for the book," Brett said, recalling how obsessively she ferreted out material. "She should not have gone.". Bretton Douglas. In 1992, at 24, she received a $15,000 award from the MacArthur Foundation, which helped fund the project. Now, the family rushed to learn everything they could about her illness. Ran on: 11-20-2004 I got off the phone confused and concerned, but I was too unsophisticated about psychological problems to realize that she was saying goodbye to me. Share this on . The water district employee called his supervisor, who called 911. Such "black powder" firearms, popular with Civil War re-enactors, require skill to load and fire. Iris Chang wrote those lines in 1978, when she was 10, and 19 years before her harrowing book, The Rape of Nanking, brought her worldwide acclaim. Though troubling to realize, those things that protect us most -- faith, family, health, financial stability -- are often powerless against mental illness. His daughter, Maddy, remembered the day well, too. He returned to China and went on to develop its missile system. Each breath is becoming difficult for me to takethe anxiety can be compared to drowning in an open sea. Iris Chang (), before her untimely death, was one of America's leading young historians. Children Christopher Douglas Name Iris Chang: Born March 28, 1968Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. (1968-03-28) Alma mater Johns Hopkins University,University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign There's almost zero chance that the kid isn't autistic. "She talked almost obsessively. Tell us what happened. Copy photo of Iris Chang with her husband Brett Douglas and their son at his birthday party. The whole process, how she planned everything, is very, very methodical., Kamen says Chang never understood how her drive pissed people off. Kamen coined the phrase to Iris Chang it years before her friends death. "He reminded me to eat and to take a walk when I was writing all day, forgetting everything else.". "Sometimes, people can be both mentally ill and highly disciplined, highly structured, highly productive members of society, whether you're talking about science or business or the arts. Chang dilahirkan di Princeton, New Jersey dan dibesarkan di Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Iris Chang was the daughter of two university professors, Ying-Ying Chang and Dr. Shau-Jin Chang, who emigrated from Taiwan to the United States. Director. Iris was first and foremost an advocate. It was a Thursday, nine days after her death. "You didn't always feel she was talking to you --, it was as if she had to talk. Some of Changs friends blamed the relentless pace of her work. Christopher Douglas Happy Birthday. If they had let her get into Submit, she may not have become a journalist," he added. At the first memorial -- that evening's "visitation" -- friends signed the guest book and offered condolences to the family. Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking, ended her life with a pistol on November 9, 2004. So she went back to bed and I watched her until she fell asleep.". It happens every day of the week, and people just don't know it because people don't talk about it.". Chang is the subject of the 2007 biography, Finding Iris Chang, and the 2007 documentary film Iris Chang Th. ", Smith had been Iris' liaison in Wisconsin; another Proviso High teacher was to be her guide in Kentucky. The other diarist -- the "Anne Frank of Nanking" -- was an Illinois woman named Minnie Vautrin. She was initially a computer science major, but switched to journalism, earning a bachelor's degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. She described finding threatening notes on her car. 36 year-old iris chang, the prominent chinese american . Some 300,000 Chinese people were brutally killed; about 100,000 women were raped in matter of 4 to 5 weeks. . Register for a user account. Copyright 2011 irischang.net All Rights Reserved. ", At the same time, torrents of hate mail came in, Brett said. She liked to talk, so it's very fun to watch her talking," she said. "It is a scary, dangerous and terrifyingly confusing time. March 28, 1968. "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. 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. ', "Much of the conversation was upbeat. "It's amazing when you watch Iris do research," Brett said. "I wanted to give support to families that suffered the same kind of loss, and it really worked in that way. The Douglas iris was first collected near Monterey, California by the Scottish botanist and explorer David Douglas who also discovered and gave his name to the Douglas fir. The most startling thing Kamen uncovered about Chang, however, didn't emerge until after Finding Iris Chang was set in galleys. Then, in high school, Iris became determined to revive the school's literary magazine, and quickly enlisted a staff and a sponsor. She didn't just ask what had happened, she asked what they had felt. She earned a degree in journalism from the University of Illinois and a Masters in Science Writing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. She lived in San Jose, California in the final years of her life.[6][7]. Iris sent the Martels photographs from her trip, cards for Chinese New Year and updates on her Bataan project. Classical AF dissonance between pride in her culture and inability to integrate. One of Iris' best friends, Barbara Masin, came up from Santa Barbara for a long weekend visit. They lived on a leafy country road named Einstein Drive. A reassuring presence, he stood at the kitchen counter, fixing a sandwich for lunch. The book, "Thread of the Silkworm," was published in 1995. 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 said, grinning. This is for the biographers., Suicide, Kamen observes, is in a lot of ways the ultimate act of control. The gunsmith told police he had spotted a can of gunpowder in the bag. "She had so many bookings, she could easily be on the road for 2 1/2 weeks before coming back home. ", Rabiner became worried, too. "A lack of sleep is one of the hallmark symptoms of mania," Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, author of "Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide," told The Chronicle. In early 2004, she traveled to promote the paperback version of "The Chinese in America." Speaking of the night they met, Brett said, "Iris was beautiful, vivacious -- and sober. During her research, Kamen uncovered secrets that the seemingly always-in-control Chang kept close until near the very end. Between eulogies, a guitarist played "Let It Be." ", Baker explained his conclusion: "There's no evidence that any kind of conspiracy caused her death. Photos for a profile of Iris chang, a prominent author and historian, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. I know that my actions will transfer some of this pain to others, indeed those who love me the most. Event on 11/16/04 in San Jose. Families, too, have trouble coping. Like others, Kamen had wondered if postpartum depression might have played a role in her mental decline. 2002) University: BS Journalism, University of . Please forgive me.[21]. At 10, she entered a young- author competition and won first place. She called this the most important lesson to be learned from the tragedy of Nanking. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorderwhich Chang rejectedjust two weeks before her suicide. By the time that was done, it was already eight years. She hadn't ever heard much of Ray Charles' music before, and when we got home, she went upstairs and was browsing all kinds of information on Ray Charles on the Internet.". Their famous daughter, whose 1997 bestseller, The Rape of Nanking, unearthed the forgotten holocaust of the Second World War when . Her first, Thread of the Silkworm (Basic Books, 1995)[8] tells the life story of the Chinese professor, Hsue-Shen Tsien (or Qian Xuesen) during the Red Scare in the 1950s. I've been thinking about this kid for ten years, ever since I learned of his story. "Michael is very outgoing, very extroverted -- Iris is different," said Mrs. Chang. Classical AF dissonance between pride in her culture and inability to integrate. The Monache tribe and Southern California Yokut tribes made flour from iris seeds. It has a terrible reverberating effect. She bought Derek Humphrys book on suicide, Final Exit, and sent boxes of her papers to three different archivesat the University of California at Santa Barbara, Stanford, and the U. of I.leaving Kamen a mountain of carefully organized materials to go through. They approached the open casket, where they stopped, gazed at her for a final time and bowed three times, in Chinese custom. Just do it!" Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, is a mood disorder that affects one in every 70 people. Her parents saw her off that morning. Douglas, who is raising the couple's five-year-old son, Christopher, told Cheng the same thing he'd told every . The daughter of two university professors who had emigrated from China, Chang was born in Princeton, New . "Iris thought it was an injustice. Whoops! Reader's Digest devoted a cover story to her. "Most lived in dark, squalid apartments cluttered with the debris of poverty and heavy with mildew and humidity," she wrote. Married 41 years, the Changs are a handsome, gracious couple. A poster-size photograph of Iris, lit by candlelight, stood vigil on the lawn of Spangler Mortuary in Los Altos in the early evening of Nov. 18. "Iris asked me to tell about atrocities," he said. Mom died, dad attempted to raise the son using classic meek white dad tactics, probably filled the kid's head with delusions about Jesus and stuff. The views expressed here are the author's own. Both parts merge in "The Woman Who Could Not Forget," a memoir by . Times Staff Writer. He noticed condensation on the windows, peered inside and saw Iris in the driver's seat with her hands crossed in her lap. "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. In 1937, Vautrin was a missionary and teacher at the Nanking Women's College when its campus became part of the Safety Zone. After her own years of research on the interplay of hormones and the brain, Kamen believes that Changs bipolar condition may have been exacerbated by her fertility treatments. ", Three days before Iris' death, Brett dreamed up a special weekend, just for her. Chang was born in Princeton, New Jersey and raised in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Anthony Meldahl, a supply sergeant with the Ohio National Guard who had admired Iris' work. Iris Chang was married to Brett Douglas in 1991 and their son Christopher was born in 2002. Background Iris Chang was born on March 28, 1968, Princeton, New Jersey, to a family of Taiwan migrants. The book with both Chang's and Rhodes' names on its cover has sold more copies than expected and received positive reviews, including one in the Wall Street Journal, since its launch in May. 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. 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. Iris Chang was an American journalist, human rights activist, and author. Penzance, Cornwall, TR20. After two years at Princeton, the family moved to a Midwestern college town, Champaign-Urbana, in Illinois. (The book has yet to be translated for publication in Japan.) 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. I would tell her, 'You can care too much about what people say about you.' I promise not to hurt myself. "She was in on more than one occasion," said Reed's manager, Pat Kalcic, a tall outdoorsman. Now author of the deceased writer's biography, The Woman Who Could Not Forget, Chang is scheduled to have a book signing at from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday. The author, who committed suicide nearly 10 years later, saw a graphic photo exhibition of the 1937 Japanese attack on Nanking civilians and felt an urge to publicize the almost-buried atrocity to the world, according to her mother, Ying-Ying Chang. Tsien left for the People's Republic of China in September 1955. "But gradually, she became very depressed," said her father, adding that her doctor in California prescribed an additional medication, an antidepressant. I will stop by to visit my parents then go for a long walk. The medicine was probably not right for her.". On Nov. 9, 2004, historian Iris Chang was found dead on a rural California road just south of Los Gatos. Meldahl was now urging Iris to join his oral-history project. Born in China, educated at M.I.T. The event was organized by Global Alliance and the Rape of Nanking Redress Coalition. Iris Chang has a total of 1 spouses, Spouse:Brett Douglas(1991- 9 November 2004) (her death) (1 child) What is the zodiac sign of Iris Chang? "We marvel at how America turned their backs on us. 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. 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. "I thought it would be inspirational. There are so many kids his age here. Iris Chang died on November 9, 2004. 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. Getting ready for the trip, Iris went into overdrive. I told her, 'Take a break.' I have no evidence of foul play. It seemed like a lot of odd behavior started around that time, Kamen says. They told of the time in grade school when Iris decided "if Dear Abby can do it -- I can do it," and she started her own advice column, writing questions and answers. Sixteen years later, and five days after her death, Brett sat in the living room of the San Jose town home they shared, surrounded by family photos. She was too strong-willed not to.". photo by Tim Kao/the chronicle, Event on 3/6/05 in San Francisco. It's a shame these atrocities had to be happened in the hands of Japanese. "Rape of Nanking" became an immediate best-seller and established her as an outspoken advocate for victims of Japanese war crimes. I will follow the doctor's orders for medications. Brett said, "It was, I think, 21 cities in 28 days. Chang, with a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from Harvard University, had a scientist's career until her retirement in 2002. He was a happy baby, with his mother's jet-black hair. Iris collapsed in bed. In 1991, Chang married Bretton Lee Douglas, a design engineer for Cisco Systems, whom she had met in college, and had one son, Christopher, who was two years old at the time of her suicide. The mustache reminded his Japanese captors of "The Little Tramp." "She had never seen anyone for depression or anything before," her mother said. "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. "But I woke up at 2 a.m. and she was pacing the hallway," Brett said. Chang, a San Jose resident, took her own life in Los Gatos at age 36. 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