Home Issues Past Issues MCS 2018 Issue 2 Wang Jingwei before Fleeing and Chen Bijun in Prison: A Reading of The Diary of Chen Kewen
Wang Jingwei before Fleeing and
Chen Bijun in Prison:
A Reading of The Diary of Chen Kewen
Abstract: Studies of diaries for the understanding of modern China has increasingly drawn more attentions, due to the special nature of diaries. The publication of The Diary of Chen Kewen provides some private, individual, fragmentary, emotional, psychological, yet important sources for certain issues that could not be seen from archives. This eclectic essay, based on the reading of The Diary of Chen Kewen, focuses on Wang Jingwei and his wife, Chen Bijin, who were prominently and continuously mentioned in The Diary by Chen Kewen who was very close to Wang Jingwei before Wang’s flee to Hanoi, and who after the War communicated with Wang’s family to help Chen Bijun. Chen Kewen’s private records hence provides less political and more individual observations of Wang and Chen. In addition, dental diseases, hence their treatments and sufferings are rather vividly described by Chen Kewan, which arouses the author’s interest too.