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Japan and Russia do battle at Port Arthur, 1904****
Lushun today (Port Arthur) today showingChinese naval vessels at anchor
Would Hank have "done it" this a way?
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It's a fair guess that Hank Williams -- traveling musician though he was -- never made it to the city of Dalian in Northeast China.Could this Honky Tonk singing preacher known as "Luke the Drifter" have made head or tails of the convulsions this part of China has lived through in the last century?
Some Honky Tonk preaching
What music would he have written if he experienced these sights and sounds?
Surely he would return home with "a picture of life's other side."
Damn, Hank would have enjoyed today's night clubs.
Hank would have enjoyed Honky Tonk China
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It was different when the Japanese took Dalian from China in 1895.
Japan was then forced to give Dalian and Port Arthur to Russia in 1898.
But Japan seized the area back during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904.
And held onto it pretty much until 1945 when the Russians took it back following World War II.
And finally returned it to China in 1954.
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Forty miles south of Dalian is the naval base of Lushun, once known as Port Arthur.At night the screaming ghosts of Chinese civilians massacred by Japanese troops in the Sino-Japanese war of 1895 can still be heard.
Reporting on "a tale of darkest massacre" was Canadian/American journalist James Creelman -- writing for Pulitzer's "yellow" New York World.
His eyewitness account of Japanese soldiers shooting and sabering some two thousand Chinese civilians shocked the world.
Creelman blew open Japan's retreat into sadistic barbarism -- a barbarism which was to reemerge in World War II.
This writer has described Creelman as "the father" of modern human rights reporting.
James Creelman*****
Japan at first denied the atrocities -- but later admitted them and apologized for them to James Creelman's boss, Joseph Pulitzer.In 1904 Japan foreshadowed its attack on Pearl Harbor by beginning its war against Russia with a surprise attack at Port Arthur -- finally winning the naval battle of that name.
The carnage at sea was hardly enough.
Japanese troops charging up at Russian land fortifications at Port Arthur have had their suicidal assault immortalized in a 1980 Japanese film.
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Russo--Japanese War Memorial at Port ArthurToday all is peaceful.
Hank relaxes in a hotel, visits an airport, rides a bus and enjoys the beauty of China's scenery.
