Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: rader

Hey all,

I just started reading Tower of Skulls as recommended by someone on the forum about the China-Japanese conflict and it's pretty good - recommend it so far!

I thought I would share two fun language facts (the first from the book):

1.) The German attaché to the Chinese army (Alexander von Falkenhausen) who was instrumental in organizing training and strategy for the Chinese forces conversed with Chiang Kai-shek in Japanese, because it was a common language they both spoke.

2.) When the Japanese organized their Co-prosperity Sphere meetings (Japan, Manchukuo, puppet China, Burma, "free" India, Philippine, Thailand), they were held in English because it was a common language.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

quote:

ORIGINAL: rader

Hey all,

I just started reading Tower of Skulls as recommended by someone on the forum about the China-Japanese conflict and it's pretty good - recommend it so far!

I thought I would share two fun language facts (the first from the book):

1.) The German attaché to the Chinese army (Alexander von Falkenhausen) who was instrumental in organizing training and strategy for the Chinese forces conversed with Chiang Kai-shek in Japanese, because it was a common language they both spoke.

2.) When the Japanese organized their Co-prosperity Sphere meetings (Japan, Manchukuo, puppet China, Burma, "free" India, Philippine, Thailand), they were held in English because it was a common language.

Hey rader-

I've been reading Tower of Skulls for a couple months now. A month or so ago, in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, I had to put the book down for a while, as it was depicting the abhorrent carnage and loss of life dealing with the fall of Nanking. I just couldn't read this. Then came the intentional breaching of the dikes on the Yangtze. 3.4MM deaths from that 'effort'. I put the book down again. Started reading again recently and it's going through Pearl Harbor now. Ugh. It's a disheartening slog for me because of the subject matter, but it's well written.