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Xinlu Liang

In a high school classroom in Hong Kong, a student asks a survivor of the Nanking massacre if she has ever thought about taking her own life.
Dressed in traditional Chinese clothing, her white hair neatly combed, 95-year-old Xia Shuqing calmly answers.
“I didn’t think about it. I just wanted to be brave and speak up more for justice – I wanted to live on,” Xia says.
It is a candid conversation, made possible by an innovative artificial intelligence project.
Using a mobile app, the students are engaging in dialogue with the interactive testimony of a survivor of the massacre, which took place over six weeks from December 13, 1937, when Japanese troops captured the city that is now known as Nanjing, in eastern China.
The project aims to preserve the testimonies and legacy of “comfort women” – wartime sex slaves – and survivors of other atrocities, including the massacre.

Tuesday’s pilot session came three days before the annual national memorial day was held to remember the Nanking massacre. Estimates of fatalities vary from 30,000 up to 300,000, as Japanese troops stormed the city – which was then the Chinese capital – killing, raping and looting.
“The anniversary every year keeps talking about the past, but how can we envision future education … when all the survivors are gone?” said Simon Li Ka-ho, executive director of the non-profit Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre, who is leading the AI project.
There are just 32 registered survivors still alive, including eight comfort women, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The Hong Kong centre has collaborated with the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation to document some of the darkest periods in history in the project, called Dimensions in Testimony. It features interactive testimonies from people who have survived atrocities including the Holocaust and Nanking massacre.
“The ability to engage in natural, bilingual conversations with these testimonies – something unimaginable just a few years ago – is revolutionary for our field,” said Li, who is also a senior fellow at the USC Shoah Foundation.
“[The] testimonies create a deeper emotional connection for our local students, making the history of atrocity more relatable and impactful.”
Li moderated the session on Tuesday at United Christian College (East Kowloon) in Kwun Tong.
Students and educators heard Xia’s story – she was only eight when Japanese soldiers invaded her home, killing her entire family except for her four-year-old sister. Xia survived, despite being stabbed three times, after hiding under a table for 10 days. She was the first Nanking massacre survivor to testify in Japan, in 1994, and took part in a national memorial day ceremony with President Xi Jinping in 2014.
The pilot session also heard from 95-year-old Peng Zhuying, whose hometown of Yueyang, in the central province of Hunan, was bombed by Japanese forces in 1938, killing her mother and younger brother and leaving Peng blind. In 1944, when she was just 15, Peng was brutally abducted and forced into sexual slavery as a “comfort woman”.
Li said the survivors may not fully grasp the technology used in the AI project, but they wanted to take part so that their experiences would not be forgotten. He said there were also those who denied that atrocities took place and who accused them of being “paid actresses”.
“They want to refute these claims while they’re still alive, fearing that after they are gone, the denials will become even stronger,” he said.
Xia travelled from Nanjing to Los Angeles to record her testimony at USC in 2016. She answered more than 5,000 questions over the course of five days, with 116 cameras used to capture images from multiple angles for a more immersive experience in the mobile app.
Peng’s testimony was recorded remotely from her home three years ago.
While the technology can seem like magic to those who gave testimonies, the young students are glued to the AI survivors, according to Li.
“The more reserved Chinese students … felt more comfortable asking questions of the AI survivor than they would have with a live speaker,” he said. “It seemed to reduce their fear of asking ‘silly’ questions.”
Li said students were unaware there were also “comfort women” in Hong Kong, and they did not know some of the survivors were still alive.
But he said the technology enabled them to freely explore the wartime stories, spending an average of more than 45 minutes per session and asking the survivors about their experiences and resilience.


Another goal of the project is to educate Hong Kong teachers on how to introduce the Nanking massacre to the classroom in a way that “brings students safely into the topic and brings them safely out”, Li said.
Primary school pupils in Hong Kong have reported feeling distraught after being shown graphic footage from the massacre, with the Education Bureau urging teachers to use their professional judgment when deciding whether to use learning materials.
Li acknowledged the topic was disturbing and highlighted the need to share stories of “light in the face of darkness” such as that of “good Nazi” John Rabe, who set up a safety zone for Chinese refugees during the massacre.
He said the project would seek to engage with students at international schools in the future, since the content is available in Mandarin, Cantonese and English.
“What makes this project unique is its potential for fostering cross-cultural understanding,” he said, noting that foreign students at international schools would be able to engage with the testimonies by asking questions in English.
“The AI system is not just translating words – we’re translating experiences,” he said. “Serious history education can thrive in spaces where young people already gather. We’re not just preserving testimonies; we’re creating living digital spaces where history breathes.”


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China-Japan relations

A ceremony is held for Nanking massacre victims during national memorial day on Friday. Photo: Xinhua

Simon Li Ka-ho, executive director of the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre, is leading the AI project. Photo: David Wong

Japan’s flag flutters outside the Great Hall of the People. Photo: Reuters

Police and security personnel stand outside the entrance of the Japanese embassy in Beijing. Photo: AFP

Japanese troops in Nanking after the city’s conquest. Dated 1937. Photo: Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

Primary school students use black pens to “repaint” names on the “Wailing Wall” of the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanking massacre. Photo: Xinhua

Families of China’s WWII ‘comfort women’ seek Japanese compensation, apologies in landmark lawsuits

A collection of images of Chinese ‘comfort women’ on display at a Shanghai museum. Photo: AFP

Hong Kong genocide educator’s race against time to document some of the darkest episodes in human history

From the Nanking massacre to Unit 731’s lethal human experiments, to the Khmer Rouge to the Holocaust, Simon Li, director of education at the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre, collects and recounts survivors’ tales

Three Chinese civilians in Chungking witness a Japanese air-raid. Second Sino-Japanese War/ World War 2. Ca.1937-45. [02DECEMBERL2017 FEATURES]

Joy in Tokyo after the capture of Nanking by the Japanese, 1937 [07DECEMBER2017 FEATURES]

Handout image shows USmissionary Minnie Vautrin, who saved thousands of Chinese women and children during WWII. [07DECEMBER2017 FEATURES]

This photograph shows 89-year-old Ai Yiying. Ai was only nine years old when she witnessed a Japanese soldier kill two villagers near Nanjing in the winter of 1937. Ai ran home to tell her father, who instructed her, her younger brother and mother to flee at dawn the next day and promised they would see each other again soon. FOR BERNICE Photo : Courtesy of Simon K. Li [07DECEMBER2017 FEATURES]

Fang Jiabei (husband) and Ye Saizhou (wife) from Quzhou, suffered from the Japanese military's anthrax attack in war-ridden Quzhou during the Sino-Japanese war in China. Fang Jiabei, 86, and his wife Ye Saizhou, 89 ive in Quzhou city, Zhejiang province, which was attacked over the course of two years by the Japanese using biological weapons such as cholera, lice, plague and anthrax. Ye recalls October 1940, when she was 12 years old and saw planes making two passes over the city, dropping parcels. Residents assumed thought they were food and other supplies from the Red Cross, but they were in fact canisters of lethal toxins. Days later, Ye saw dead rats everywhere and people started becoming ill – they had the plague. FOR BERNICE Photo : Courtesy of Simon K. Li [07DECEMBER2017 FEATURES]

A "comfort station" in Shanghai where Japanese soldiers used Chinese women as sex slaves. Some comfort women in Shanghai are still living in what used to be a brothel for Japanese soldiers, says Simon Li,, a genocide educator, adding that the ticket booth for admission, now a rusted metal shell, remains outside the compound as a painful reminder. One of the women explained why they continue living there: if they leave the building, Japanese design features on the walls may be destroyed – a loss of evidence that the troops had been there. FOR BERNICE Photo : Courtesy of Simon K. Li [07DECEMBER2017 FEATURES]

John Rabe, historian of Nanjing University.

Simon Li, director of education at the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre, in Beijing with Gao Xiongfei, who was only four years old when he lost his arm after Japanese Imperial Army bombed his hometown of Yongan.

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China

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Project allows students to engage in dialogue with interactive testimonies, including from ‘comfort women’ and Nanking massacre survivors


Project allows students to engage in dialogue with interactive testimonies, including from ‘comfort women’ and Nanking massacre survivors.


Hong Kong's second world war history

Chinese history

Artificial intelligence