Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

What Japanese history lessons leave out
BBC News ^ | 14th March 2013 | Mariko Oi

Posted on 03/14/2013 3:16:42 PM PDT by the scotsman

'Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s.

The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history.'

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Japan
KEYWORDS: china; japan; korea; worldwar2; worldwarii; wwii
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-28 next last

1 posted on 03/14/2013 3:16:42 PM PDT by the scotsman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: the scotsman

A lot of it is pretty horrific.


2 posted on 03/14/2013 3:19:58 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: driftdiver

Or that even though invited T. Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet did not sail all their ships into Tokyo Bay because of the Japanese reputation for sneak attacks and undeclared war such as the raid on Port Arthur?

Or that from 1905 and Russo-Japanese War that nobody considered them trustworthy and many U.S. Military planners including King and Halsey were not the least bit surprised by Pearl Harbor?


3 posted on 03/14/2013 3:29:16 PM PDT by Sequoyah101
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: the scotsman

4 posted on 03/14/2013 3:34:52 PM PDT by colorado tanker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: the scotsman

One thing which interested me is that during WWI, the Japanese were on the Allied side against Germany. The German prisoners they captured were treated so well that many of them stayed in Japan after the war.

20 years later they turned into mainly monsters.


5 posted on 03/14/2013 3:36:14 PM PDT by yarddog (Per Ardua Ad Alta.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sequoyah101

The Koreans hate em. The Japanese took young Korean ladies and forced them to be camp prostitutes. If the girls got a disease or pregnant they would put a rifle inside them and shoot.

I spoke with an old man who had been on a japanese work crew. The supervisor died from a lead infection (shot) and then replacement refused the job and died the same way. So when they asked this guy if he wanted the job he took it.


6 posted on 03/14/2013 3:36:17 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: the scotsman
Rape of Nanking:


7 posted on 03/14/2013 3:36:39 PM PDT by colorado tanker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: the scotsman

I had a Japanese friend who was here in America in 1986 for a year. He said that no one in Japan really talks about WWII and what they did (Pearl Harbor, prison camps, brutality, etc.) to the enemy.

There are no AMVETS or VFW clubs in Japan . . . their veterans are shamed . . . they don’t want to talk about the war because of the devastation that they created and the fact that they lost so unceremoniously.

I took him to our USS Cod, docked in Cleveland’s downtown Naval port. When I pointed out the numerous Japanese flags pasted on the side of the submarine, he was very quiet.


8 posted on 03/14/2013 3:39:16 PM PDT by laweeks
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: the scotsman

9 posted on 03/14/2013 3:39:19 PM PDT by colorado tanker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: colorado tanker

Here in Seattle the Japanese have big celebrations on Pearl Harbor Day


10 posted on 03/14/2013 3:40:35 PM PDT by angry elephant (Endangered species in Seattle)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: colorado tanker
The only thing the Japanese are taught about WWII is that the U.S. should not have dropped the bombs, not why they were dropped or the history that lead up to them.

Pretty much the same education as an American liberal.

11 posted on 03/14/2013 3:41:48 PM PDT by colorado tanker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: colorado tanker

The islamonazi’s of their time....


12 posted on 03/14/2013 3:50:05 PM PDT by Amberdawn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: the scotsman

Nice article but it barely scratches the surface. They need to talk about all of the horrors that regime inflicted: the atrocities against the Filipinos, the Chomorros, the Vietnamese, the Okinawans and of course, all of its prisoners. A major crime the Japanese should address was the one done against itself - what people can survive when they blindly sacrifice a huge portion of their young men to suicidal tactics? Besides the moral aspects, think of the genetic loss for all time. It’s a sort of self-genocide.


13 posted on 03/14/2013 3:53:55 PM PDT by Chainmail (A simple rule of life: if you can be blamed, you're responsible.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: the scotsman

For many Japanese, World War Two began on August 6, 1945.

Before that, Japan was engaged in a Pacific-wide armed struggle to liberate their fellow Asians from British & American imperialism, and to bring to their fellow Asians all the benefits of incorporation into the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”. For this, the Chinese, Koreans, Philippinos and Vietnamese have been most ungracious in their lack of gratitude for the sacrifices made by the brave soldiers of the Empire of Japan.

;^)


14 posted on 03/14/2013 3:55:10 PM PDT by elcid1970 ("The Second Amendment is more important than Islam.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: driftdiver
In the 1980’s, I took a three week vacation in the Far East visiting Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, PRC, Macau, Bangkok, and Singapore. Where the Japanese occupied countries, the reaction to them was still the same — they were despised and hated. The same was true of the Philippines and Guam. They loathed Japan.

The reason why: the Japanese do not teach anything about the history of the run-up to WW2 and the Pacific War in their schools. Older Japanese that lived through the war do not speak of it. It is like a 20-year national collective amnesia that afflicts the country.

When Clint Eastwood filmed “Letters from Iwo Jima”, he used actors from Japan. In order to portray Imperial Army soldiers accurately, the actors had to learn history they were not taught. They were dumbfounded to learn what Japan had done. They were very sobered by it and many realized that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only way to end the slaughter.

15 posted on 03/14/2013 3:56:25 PM PDT by MasterGunner01
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: the scotsman

I know that the Japanese are very smart and hardworking. But there is a hubris at the core of their being that says that they are superior to everyone else on the planet. I do not blame them for this. It is a Shakespearean tragic flaw in their character.


16 posted on 03/14/2013 3:56:43 PM PDT by HChampagne
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: the scotsman

My understanding is they teach their children that nothing unusual happened December 7, 1941. I’ve seen young people from Japan who could tell you the exact time “Little Boy” went off and the names of the Enola Gay’s crew, but knew nothing about that date. And we were a half-hour drive from Pearl Harbor at the time.


17 posted on 03/14/2013 4:08:14 PM PDT by Cyber Liberty (I am a dissident. Will you join me? My name is John....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: the scotsman

Chinese and North Korean atrocities have been more recent.


18 posted on 03/14/2013 4:13:50 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative ("Progressives" toss the word "racist" around like chimps toss their feces)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: HChampagne

Most asian cultures are the same.


19 posted on 03/14/2013 4:41:20 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: the scotsman

Here are some Japanese atrocities that not everyone might be familiar with, some only revealed fairly recently.

http://compunews.com/gus/massacres.htm#pacific


20 posted on 03/14/2013 4:46:50 PM PDT by ansel12 ( August 29,2008 A Natural Born Reformer inadvertently unleashed within palace walls, change ensues.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-28 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson