This "teacher" was later transferred by the district to positions and subject matter which severely restricted her ability to proselytize children.
Thus, I am not stating Wuli's experience was impossible, merely uncommon based on my own experience and, apparently, Eric's as well. I did not actually sit in a class, merely reviewed the text books.
I hope you’re right that it’s indeed uncommon. That said, though, considering how a lot of Japanese gaming companies and media for whatever reason think they should bash America to such an extent that we’re practically bad guys despite our defending them during the Cold War, and many times actually rooting for the Communists, the same guys who would probably nuke them out of existence if the Cuban Missile Crisis turned into a hot war, I am still a bit wary.
Like, for example: The Metal Gear series has Hideo Kojima using his games as a platform for anti-American statements since Metal Gear Solid 2, maybe even Metal Gear Solid 1 (since he DID have a character, Nastasha Romanenko, pretty much blame America for everything relating to nukes, offering little if any criticism for the Soviets or the Chinese having nukes, and this was despite her backstory being her being a survivor of Chernobyl). In Peace Walker and MGS4, plus MGSV and MGS2 to a certain extent, the American hatred was such that he was practically rooting for communist insurgents like the FSLN, the Gurlukovich Mercenaries (a Russian mercenary group trying to reestablish the USSR), an implied Maoist South American rebel group, and the MPLA, not to mention in the case of Peace Walker a lot of love for Che Guevara (who, BTW, was a large part of the reason why the Cuban Missile Crisis got as bad as it did, and he doesn’t even MENTION his ties to the CMC at all), while American patriots were largely depicted as evil or, in the case of The Boss in MGS3, more like nihilists even if they were technically good, while most of the “heroes” were anti-American in outlook. In the Guardian’s interview with Kojima, he even admitted he wanted to show America in the opposite of a heroic light, thinking not even Hollywood went far enough, and he also demonized GITMO by implying that literally everyone was merely “snatched up” random nobodies who got slapped with the term “terrorism” even when they never actually did anything like that (which is false). As a matter of fact, they also tended to blame America first for stuff like, say, drug-running in Central America, give IT the lion’s share of the blame, and yet they completely ignore, say, the KGB and FSLN not only being involved in the drug-running operation in that area as well, but that they if anything STARTED the whole drug running elements, get a free pass. I can tolerate America being blamed for drug running if we’re guilty of it, but what I do NOT tolerate is other parties who were involved in the drug running operation getting a free pass, especially if they’re the ones who started it. And no, Kojima’s not motivated by a love of Japan at all for his dissing America. Heck, if anything, he SUPPORTED the whole textbook controversy about exposing the ills of Japan during World War II, and MGS2 was written in part because of the whole textbook controversy. (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/18/hideo-kojima-interview-metal-gear-solid-phantom-pain; https://web.archive.org/web/20060813191032/http://www.mgstus.org/downloads/misc/MGS2_orginal_gameplan/metal_gear_solid_2_grand_game_plan.pdf; http://www.metalgearinformer.com/?p=25955; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJn4kFDDc4s; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9TTy8ABV1o; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usYtK3d2ydk; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKl6WjfDqYA; There’s a whole lot more in there than can be cited in this post. Just look up any gameplay video from MGS1, MGS2, MGS4, Peace Walker, and MGSV, also any Codec calls, many of which you can find on YouTube or even on the Metal Gear Wiki.)
And it’s not just Metal Gear. In Dead Rising, two of the games feature the American military in a very negative light, being responsible for the mess that happened in the game that resulted in the place becoming a zombie apocalypse, while the terrorists directly responsible for it are depicted sympathetically in terms of the story. Heck, Resident Evil has a similar problem to Metal Gear, where the heroes are either anti-American (Chris Redfield) or otherwise forced to do America’s bidding (Leon Kennedy). Resident Evil 5 in fact even had a condemnation against capitalism from Chris when he was talking to Sheva.
And Killer7 had the guy who created it pretty much stating that America was under the control of a shadow government since its founding. (http://suda51.wikia.com/wiki/Hand_in_killer7)
Don’t even get me started on Osamu Tezuka’s 1967 Astro Boy story arc dealing with the Vietnam War, where he had Astro Boy basically slaughter American soldiers and treat the North Vietnamese as being pure innocent souls that are being victimized by American “tyranny” when they were Communists who most likely WOULD murder even their own in the name of communism had we not gotten involved. Don’t believe me regarding Astro Boy? Read this: (http://apjjf.org/-Matthew-Penney/3116/article.html)
Probably the only Japanese people I can think of who DON’T bash Americans as being monsters right now or use their works as a platform to bash Americans are Tomonobu Itagaki, the creator of the Dead or Alive series (pretty much one of the few Japanese games that I can think of that actually ATTEMPTS to paint America in a decent light in the form of Tina Armstrong and her dad, at least they aren’t villains, and he certainly doesn’t try to use his games as a means to bash America.) and possibly Satoshi Tajiri and Mayumi Iizuka.
Seriously, with how those guys act towards America, even rooting for our enemies over us, sometimes I wonder, why are we even bothering to aid them or treat them as our allies, if they’re just going to continue knifing us in the back like that. I mean, go ahead, blame us for stuff we may have done wrong, but DON’T let people who did far worse deeds, or even the same deeds as us at the same time, get away scot-free (ie, don’t brush aside the FSLN or KGB’s role in the drug running in South and Central America during the 1970s, and don’t try to paint the North Vietnamese as good guys)!
So far as the actual statue in San Francisco that acts as the overall topic, to be honest, I’m not even sure why we even had a statue regarding the comfort women anyways, same as why there’s a Lenin statue in Seattle. That’s not part of American history, if anything that’s Chinese/Japanese history. If they really want a statue about that event, they should put it in China, since that’s part of their history. Now, if they had a statue of the American POWs at Iwo Jima, that I can understand since that IS our American history. As far as Harvey Milk, I’m not fond of that creep especially when he can’t keep his proclivities to himself, but to be fair, he IS ultimately an American citizen, so him getting a statue, while I wouldn’t like it, I’d ultimately tolerate since he IS part of our history whether I like it or not.