Hunan University in Changsha, Hunan province, marked a somber anniversary last week by revisiting the role its campus played in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45).
On Sept 18, the 94th anniversary of the September 18 Incident that marked the start of the war, students and faculty gathered at the university's historic Red Building, where Japan's surrender in the Changsha-Hengyang-Yueyang region was formally accepted in 1945. The three-story structure, then known as the Science Hall, remains the only Chinese university site to have hosted such a ceremony.
Guiding students through the building, Long Bing, a professor at the university's School of Marxism, described how Hunan University endured repeated bombings after Japanese forces pushed toward Changsha in 1938. Classes were suspended, teachers and students evacuated, and some faculty members were badly injured.
Reminders of that period still stand nearby. Just a short walk from the Red Building, four Ionic columns rise from the former site of the university library, destroyed in April 1938. Completed only five years earlier, the library had been celebrated for its scale and design, said Li Yuwei, an assistant professor at the School of Architecture and Planning. Today, fragments of the columns remain in place, while sections of two were moved to the main campus gate as a memorial.
Across the grounds, traces of artillery fire can still be found on historic buildings tucked among trees and newer construction. For Long, such scars are not just relics but lessons. "Remembering is not about nurturing hostility toward other nations," he said. "It is about drawing courage from the past and cherishing the peace we have today."
Peng Yi, a doctoral student, said the visit deepened her appreciation of the university's wartime sacrifices. "It is essential for young people like us to remember our wartime heroes, and carry forward the spirit of resistance," she said.
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