{ Shantung Compound (DAY 462) }

A few months ago I was telling a friend that I needed an excellent book so that I wouldn’t waste all my free time on completely frivolous things and she said she would lend me one.  When she mentioned the name, Shantung Compound, I wasn’t so sure but then she began to describe it and I was certainly curious.  Maybe it was the fact that I am fascinated by human nature and why people do what they do.  This book certainly gives you a unique slice into the true minds and hearts of people.  You see this book is about an internment camp in China run by the Japanese during WWII.  They took about 2,000 foreigners that were still in China and stuck them together in a camp.  Talk about a crazy experiment.  Thankfully there was no torture or anything of the kind in this book.

This diary of a young 20 something man chronicles the lives of the people, both young and old of all classes and beliefs, forced to reside in this tiny camp for years.  They had to develop their own laws and society from scratch and along the way the moral dilemmas and human nature are vividly portrayed.  What I found especially interesting was how the way the author expected people to act was usually quite the opposite of how they did indeed act or react to the environment.  As the story advances you begin to ask yourself questions about your own life and circumstances.  What happens when the niceties of life are stripped away?  Who are you then?

Essentially by the end of the book I was wanting to underline every page.  The journey the author takes you on from the early insane days when they were dumped in the camp to the final days of finding freedom are poignant and insightful.  “The question uppermost in the minds of the Labor Committee and the managers was no longer, ‘Has he the skill to do his job?’ but rather, ‘Has he the honesty to be trusted with those supplies?’ For the skill, while important, could be learned, but the integrity could not. However highly developed our technology might have been, a technique was of no real service in the hands of a dishonest man.”  I highly recommend you find a copy of this true life account and read it.  Stories change us and this one I believe will change you for the better.

P.S.  I need a new book to read so what are your recommendations?  Please let me know in the comments below! 🙂