A wooden table used by Ma Juan's grandfather more than 70 years ago still bears a notch left by a Japanese sword. [Special coverage]
Between 1942 and 1944, her hometown Tengchong of southwest China's Yunnan province was occupied by invading Japanese soldiers. Her grandfather, only a boy then, fled to the countryside. When they returned after the war, they found the notch.
Ma's granddad was lucky. In the war against Japanese aggression, many people died. In Tengchong alone, population almost halved from 260,000 in 1942 to 145,000 three years later.
"After the war, China was reborn," Ma, 31, said. She is now the vice curator of a memorial hall of war against Japanese aggression in western Yunnan.
"In the following decades, China has grown stronger and the standard of living has improved constantly," she said.
China's first military parade to mark the anniversary of the end of WWII and the victory of the war of resistance against Japanese aggression, held Thursday in Beijing, will also be the first with foreign militaries participating. Troops from 17 foreign countries marched past Tian'anmen Square. Chinese leaders were also joined by some 23 foreign heads of state.
The great triumph of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression "opened up bright prospects for the great renewal of the Chinese nation and set our ancient country on a new journey after gaining rebirth," said Chinese President Xi Jinping on the Tian'anmen rostrum, where late Chinese leader Mao Zedong pronounced the birth of New China 66 years ago.
TURNING POINT
According to Wu Jianhong, curator of the memorial of the war against Japanese aggression and the acceptance of the Japanese surrender in Hunan, central China, the country was bullied by foreign countries throughout the century before victory in World War II.
"Losing the war, begging for reconciliation, ceding territory and offering compensation," he said. "The Sino-Japanese war was the first won for national liberation in modern times."
China's eight-year resistance against full-scale Japanese aggression started in 1937, but some historians view the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894, or the Jiawu War, as beginning of Japanese belligerence.
The war put an end to the modernization attempt of the Qing government. The Shimonoseki Treaty, signed to conclude the war, ceded the Liaodong Peninsula in northeast China, Taiwan and its annex, the nearby Penghu Islands, to Japan. China also paid Japan 200 million taels of silver (5.2 billion U.S. dollars today), which was about four years' revenue of the Japanese government at the time.
Wang Jianxue, vice president of the Society for Study for Modern and Contemporary Chinese Historical Materials, said China signed more than 1,100 similarly unequal treaties. "The loss of Jiawu War further dragged China into its darkest era," he said.
China won support worldwide while it was fighting the Japanese in WWII.
"By holding down large numbers of Japanese troops on the mainland, China was an important part of the overall Allied strategy," British scholar Rana Mitter wrote in his book "Forgotten Ally".
In 1943, leaders from the United States, Britain and China convened on November 27, 1943 in Cairo, agreeing that territories taken by Japan before the war should be returned to China.
"It was a turning point," said Wu Jianhong. "China shook off the shackles, and was able to move forward."
China became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council when it was established.
RISE OF THE NATION
After the liberation, reform and opening-up, people's lives were improved.
Ma Juan's parents got married in the early 1980s. "They had the first television, a black-and-white one that looked like a small box," she said.
When she entered middle school, Ma was given her first computer. Now, she couldn't live without computers, chatting, reading news reports, searching for data and investing in stocks.
In 2008 in Beijing, where the full-scale Japanese invasion began in 1937, China hosted its first Olympics, which boosted people's confidence.
In 2010 in Shanghai, where Chinese troops fought two battles against the Japanese, the International Expo was held, broadening the horizon of Chinese people.
Also in that year, China surpassed Japan to become world's second largest economy.
In 2013, China launched the Shenzhou-10 manned spacecraft, and Yutu, China's first moon rover, drew the world's attention, making China the third country to soft land on the moon.
In July, China won the bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Sun Jinkai, a farmer from the Chongli County, hopes the event can help boost his income. Another villager was grateful his children could watch the games in their hometown.
Ma Juan's parents only had less than six years' of schooling due to poverty in their time. She graduated from college a tourism major.
"For the victory of the war and the rise of China, so many people sacrificed their lives," she said. "Each time I talk with visitors in the memorial hall, I try my best to reach them emotionally. After retirement, I will be a volunteer, passing on wartime memories to our future generations."
