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What Japanese history lessons leave out: Why neighboring countries still hold a grudge against Japan
BBC ^ | By Mariko Oi

Posted on 08/15/2018 7:01:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

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. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia.

From Homo erectus to the present day - more than a million years of history in just one year of lessons. That is how, at the age of 14, I first learned of Japan's relations with the outside world.

For three hours a week - 105 hours over the year - we edged towards the 20th Century.

It's hardly surprising that some classes, in some schools, never get there, and are told by teachers to finish the book in their spare time.

When I returned recently to my old school, Sacred Heart in Tokyo, teachers told me they often have to start hurrying, near the end of the year, to make sure they have time for World War II.

[SNIP]

When we did finally get there, it turned out only 19 of the book's 357 pages dealt with events between 1931 and 1945.

There was one page on what is known as the Mukden incident, when Japanese soldiers blew up a railway in Manchuria in China in 1931.

There was one page on other events leading up to the Sino-Japanese war in 1937 - including one line, in a footnote, about the massacre that took place when Japanese forces invaded Nanjing - the Nanjing Massacre, or Rape of Nanjing.

There was another sentence on the Koreans and the Chinese who were brought to Japan as miners during the war, and one line, again in a footnote, on "comfort women" - a prostitution corps created by the Imperial Army

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Education; History; Military/Veterans; Society
KEYWORDS: history; japan; rapeofnanjing; worldwarii
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To: katana
The Nazi that Saved Chinese
21 posted on 08/15/2018 7:58:36 AM PDT by struggle
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To: SeekAndFind

What was the sentence, Ouch?


22 posted on 08/15/2018 7:58:45 AM PDT by longfellow (Bill Maher, the 21st hijacker.)
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To: granada

Or maybe just maybe some historical acts by some cultures are so shockingly horrible they cannot be forgotten

After all what has changed about the innate character of a Japanese or a German in just 70 years that can be taken as irrevocable change in their value of human life that is not of their own culture?

Just today I was reading about Auschwitz and learned things I had not known. Horrible. No it was not a small minority of Germans that produced a culture that could do those atrocities. Estimated 4 million dead at that camp in horrible inhuman ways. Look up Auschwitz injections and do some reading.

Rape of Nanking - bet the Japanese school groups dont go there. Author Iris Chang researched and wrote book - then committed suicide

Sorry you dont go from inhuman to human in 70 years. You just develop a veneer


23 posted on 08/15/2018 7:59:36 AM PDT by silverleaf (A man who kneels for the national anthem doesn't stand for much of anything)
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To: jaydubya2
The Battan Death March should be mandatory curriculum in Japan, and here, as should what happened in Nanking and the many POW camps. My young teen son read Unbroken this summer and was shocked by the inhumanity of the Japanese. I was going to give him the book on Nanking to read as a follow up, but decided that can come later. He's reading King Rat instead.

WWII is hardly spoken of in our schools today and it's been ignored for the most part in Japan. But they all manage to learn about the US internment of Japanese and Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I despise public education.

24 posted on 08/15/2018 8:04:06 AM PDT by Mase (Save me from the people who would save me from myself!)
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To: silverleaf
After all what has changed about the innate character of a Japanese or a German in just 70 years that can be taken as irrevocable change in their value of human life that is not of their own culture?

Based on Japanese and German porn, a candid window into their national soul, invading other countries is how their boys get dates.

25 posted on 08/15/2018 8:06:10 AM PDT by Reeses (A journey of a thousand miles begins with a government pat down.)
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To: Mase
There were still city blocks of smashed concrete in Yokohama and Sagamihara where we lived. Two houses north of our Yokohama house was a lot filled with broken stone, re-rod and broken glass. Our maid, Masako-san, said it had been a pharmaceutical manufacturer in war time. There were hundreds of tiny glass vials of liquid scattered about. We returned stateside when I was 13 years old.
26 posted on 08/15/2018 8:06:14 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Baseball players, gangsters and musicians are remembered. But journalists are forgotten.)
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To: SpaceBar

>>Perhaps a few articles on the seedier side of the chinese cultural revolution are in order.

Great point. The Chinese government is a direct descendant of Mao’s government, which means it’s still at the top of the leaderboard with over 75 million killed.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM


27 posted on 08/15/2018 8:06:38 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: jaydubya2

Thats because the people who actually suffered and the people who knew them are mostly dead now. My Dads best friend survived Bataan Death March and my Mom who just died at 92 would never own a Japanese car or appliance in her life.


28 posted on 08/15/2018 8:07:36 AM PDT by silverleaf (A man who kneels for the national anthem doesn't stand for much of anything)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

I went to school in both Sagamihara and Yokohama. Returned here when I was 12.5 years old.


29 posted on 08/15/2018 8:08:11 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: SeekAndFind

We spent a couple months in China when my husband was on a job assignment. We stayed on the executive floor set up for long term ex-pats. They had a dining room where they served breakfast in the morning and they had a lounge on the floor that was used in the evening.

You could sense the attitude of the hotel guests , who were Japanese, against the Chinese staff. The animosity was palpable from the Japanese toward the Chinese hostesses that worked in the hotel’s common areas set up for foreign visitors.


30 posted on 08/15/2018 8:08:43 AM PDT by Dawn53Fl
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To: silverleaf

So it was America’s fault.

If America hadn’t purged Japanese communists in post-war government and civil service, Japanese would have gone very far in self loathing.


31 posted on 08/15/2018 8:09:49 AM PDT by granada
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To: trisham

Did you go to school at Yo-Hi ?


32 posted on 08/15/2018 8:11:18 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Baseball players, gangsters and musicians are remembered. But journalists are forgotten.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The Steps:

1. Historical guilt orgy

2. Immigration

3. Cultural destruction

4. Destruction of the country

5. PERFECT, Eternal Global Bliss


33 posted on 08/15/2018 8:13:53 AM PDT by gaijin
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To: granada
In the 1950s, the reds were known as the Zengakuran Students Federation.

They staged snake-dances and held up traffic every year on May 1st. Americans were advised to stay indoors on on the base.

34 posted on 08/15/2018 8:14:16 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Baseball players, gangsters and musicians are remembered. But journalists are forgotten.)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

No. Saint Maur, now the Saint Maur International School.


35 posted on 08/15/2018 8:14:27 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: silverleaf

But if south korean government tries to use the historical issue as a political weapons, it will have nothing to do with humanity.

Just like black radicals demand compensation from whites for the slavery, or Biden told blacks:don’t vote for Republicans. They will put you all back in chains.


36 posted on 08/15/2018 8:18:12 AM PDT by granada
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To: Mase
I suggest your son watch the History Channel series “ Secrets of the Axis”
It’s sure an eye opener on the ties between Japan and Germany in the 1920’s and how the Japanese Secret Societies actually provided a model for the German organization that became the Nazi party
Also on the biological warfare program Japan developed and used against China ( largest in human history, tested on Chinese and US POWs) and planned to use vs California when they had a long range delivery system ( they were close)

A good book for his age about North Korea would be “The Aquariums of Pyongyang” most told from the perspective of a young boy who grew up in that system, was imprisoned in gulag when his family lost favor, eventually escaped as a young man

37 posted on 08/15/2018 8:20:20 AM PDT by silverleaf (A man who kneels for the national anthem doesn't stand for much of anything)
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To: SeekAndFind

I used to think that Asian mistrust of neighboring countries due to ancient and recent hatred a bad thing until I realized what power Asia would have if they were all on the same page. Just thinking about it scares me.


38 posted on 08/15/2018 8:21:45 AM PDT by Hillarys Gate Cult (politics)
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To: SeekAndFind

The Chinese, the Koreans, the Filipinos.... yeah, they’ve all got reasons to hold a grudge against the Japanese. Fairly recent reasons.


39 posted on 08/15/2018 8:22:28 AM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.)
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To: trisham

I went to 3rd and 4th grades at Yokohama International School, then back to Yo-Hi for 5th and 6th. The school was on the Bluff and was reached via a bus ride from our Sannotani house, across from Area 2 military dependents area.


40 posted on 08/15/2018 8:22:51 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Baseball players, gangsters and musicians are remembered. But journalists are forgotten.)
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