Yesterday, social media was buzzing over photographs with possible historical and cultural significance. Since then the video has gone viral, which has now been liked close to 2 million times, the photo album has gotten international attention, and TikToker Evan “Pawn Man” Kai claims the Chinese Embassy has contacted him about acquiring the album. However, Kai explained earlier that he and the album’s owner had agreed to only sell it to a museum or archive.
“Here’s my dilemma,” he says via his TikTok video posted late Thursday, “the Chinese government wants it. I literally talked to the Chinese embassy today. What I don’t want to do […] is create an international incident, and it kinda looks like I accidentally did that.” He went on to say that while he wants as many people as possible to view these photographs, “What I don’t want them used for is a political agenda, and that’s what I’m afraid is going to happen.”
The album’s story is an interesting one. Kai originally posted a video on his Pawn Man TikTok channel asking for help with an intriguing and possibly historic photo album. Kai, the owner of a pawn store who also collects rare and historical memorabilia, said that an unnamed client had approached him about selling a family heirloom. As Kai went through the photo album that was apparently from the late 1930s, he came across numerous deeply disturbing pictures from one of modern history’s most infamous crimes against humanity, “The Rape of Nanking.”
On Dec. 13, 1937, some eight years before World War II officially began, Japanese forces invaded China, specifically targeting its capital city of Nanking. According to The History Channel, as the Japanese took control of Nanking, the Chinese leadership fled farther inland to Hankow. It was at this point that the invading army aimed to demoralize all of China in one brutal act, committing unspeakable crimes of violence against a mostly defenseless population.
Understandably, if the photos are indeed genuine, the Chinese government would want that album due to its cultural and historical significance to the country. However, Kai and his client seem keen on the album going elsewhere. “The customer and I agreed: a museum is the only one getting it. I don’t care how rich you are or how much you’re offering.”
The viral video has caught widespread attention, and social media has been enthralled with the debated photo album. However, some claim that while this is no hoax, the photos themselves are not as significant as Kai might believe. “[A]lthough the album is interesting, it is not an extremely rare album with even rarer photographs,” says Twitter’s Fake History Hunter.
To that, the Pawn Man replied, “Did you see the whole book? No, you didn’t ‘cause I didn’t publish it. Nice armchair detective work there.”
For his part, Kai said that while the jury is still out on the authenticity of the photos, the bigger picture is that it spurred an uncomfortable — but necessary — conversation about history.
“Even if it turns out that these photos are not genuine, this video and what I have done here has educated so many people about what happened in World War II. Some people didn’t even know that. I was shocked reading comments, like, ‘Wow, I never knew.’ Yeah, the Japanese were just as bad as the Nazi.”