Japanese Teacher Terrorizes and Tortures Nine Year Old for Having American Great Grandfather

The Japan Times Online ^ | 09 OCT 03 | KYODO

[Mortimer Snavely]

Lawyers aid schoolboy harassed over American heritage

FUKUOKA (Kyodo) More than 500 lawyers have joined hands with a 9-year-old boy in a lawsuit filed Wednesday with the Fukuoka District Court demanding 13 million yen from his school and a teacher who repeatedly ordered the child to kill himself.

The boy, a fourth-grader who attends a municipal school in Fukuoka's Nishi Ward, suffers posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of his teacher's actions, according to the lawsuit.

In an effort to show solidarity with the pupil and to make him feel that he is not isolated, 503 lawyers from around the country have put their names to the lawsuit. It is rare for such a large number of lawyers to be involved in one case.

According to the suit, between May and June this year the 46-year-old male teacher repeatedly told the boy, whose great-grandfather is an American, to commit suicide, saying such things as: "Your blood is filthy, jump from your condominium and die," and "Haven't you died yet? Make sure you do today." The teacher has since been suspended from work.

Furthermore, the teacher injured him on several occasions by making the boy choose from five forms of punishment, when it came time to go home. In one such punishment, "Pinnochio," the boy's nose was pinched so hard that it bled, the lawsuit said.

Lawyers for the boy, who suffers convulsions and nausea and has said he wants to "change his blood" and that he does not deserve to live, made an appeal to colleagues nationwide asking for support.

The Japan Times: Oct. 9, 2003
(C) All rights reserved

[Centurion2000]

Maybe it´s better we stop this discussion. This is already offtopic.

agreed. We're WAY off topic already :)

[ASA Vet]

My kid doesn't know what he has because the school he goes to has a couple hundred Japanese girls"

Oh he knows what "he has".

He has his pick.

[Spok]

ALL I WANT TO KNOW IS WHY ISN'T THIS TEACHER CHAIRING A DEPARTMENT AT HARVARD OR COLUMBIA?

[sushiman]

" My problem was with Japanese men, who are frankly, disgusting in public, "

Yep . They grope women ( and sometimes men ) on the trains and elsewhere ( some Tokyo rail lines now have " women only " cars ! ) ...Pee anywhere they feel like it ...Spit anywhere they feel like it ...Fart anytime anywhere they feel like ... I hear ya !

[sushiman]

" are they disdainful of all 'gaijin' equally, both white AND black? "

The older generation is probably more disdainful of blacks , and the younger generation , whilst much more open minded than their parents , have equal disdain for both . Mind you , it is the men more than the women who are xenophobic .

[sushiman]

" any comments on the Bill Murray movie, Lost in Translation? "

Haven't seen it . When did it come out ? Perhaps I can rent it .

[SauronOfMordor]

I'm wondering where the pissed-off dad-with-sword was. (Or at least uncle-with-2x4)

[aruanan]

Haven't seen it . When did it come out ? Perhaps I can rent it

It just came out a couple weeks ago.

[FredTownWard]

DeinBabbes didn't do a very good job of communicating it, but he had a good point in here. If American students were taking out their perfectly justifiable anger at the German government's craven backstabbing of us over Iraq on a bunch of innocent German exchange students who were just trying to learn about America, that was both sad and stupid. However, if said German exchange students were mouthing the idiocies then being voiced by their government, methinks they got what they deserved. More details are required, and frankly, I suspect that BOTH were going on.

[Mortimer Snavely]

"In Germany we learn alot about the crimes our people did during that time."

Thank God for that. The Japanese don't. You gotta remember that Germany was de-Nazified. Japan wasn't. There was extensive reorganization, but there was no complete overhaul of the country's ideology.

I have learned in my travels that the quickest way to get one's butt kicked is to infer that a German is a Nazi, or to infer to a German that the Nazis were not all that bad.

Hang in there, mein Freund. National Socialism is alive and well and thriving in Japan these days, not in Germany.

[Mortimer Snavely]

Yep.

[Dustbunny]

Amazing! This guys elevator does not go to his top floor and he is teaching young impressionable children.

I have not had much respect for the Japanese since I learned of how cruel and heartless they were to the POW's they captured. So, in a way he is just acting Japanese.

[Mortimer Snavely]

"...in a way he is just acting Japanese."

Yep. Got it in a trice!

[AmericanVictory]

Why does Asian racism not get labelled for what it is?

[DeinBabbes]

DeinBabbes didn't do a very good job of communicating it

Ok i admit it^^ I should have used other words.

However, if said German exchange students were mouthing the idiocies then being voiced by their government, methinks they got what they deserved. More details are required, and frankly, I suspect that BOTH were going on.

According to what i know about exchanges with the US they should have arrived in your country right before the iraq issue reached it´s climax and i doubt they wanted to spread Schröder´s words in the USA. There´s so much they want to see in your country when they start their journey, there´s no room for politics. Trust me, when i was in grade 10 my class was about to have an exchange with an american school as well so i think i know what exchange students are thinking when they´re about to go to the US. Too bad this american school lost interest in this exchange.

[Cronos]

Points 1 and 2. Quite correct -- the Russian army had rolled back the German advance from Stalingrad. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Germans lost more soldiers on the Eastern front htan on the West and those on the Eastern front considered the Western front to be a cakewalk.

Stalin pushed back the Nazis BUT he did do it with American monetary and military aid.

[DeinBabbes]

You´re right, i almost forgot all the the armor and ammunition the sowjets received from Britain and the US. The Nazis didn´t loose the war at Stalingrad. This is only a myth. They lost the war against the Sowjets when Hitler postponed Wehrmacht´s Operation Zitadelle which gave the Russians time to prepare a defensive line against this huge attack. As far as i know over 3 Million german soldiers where involved in this operation. Thank God Hitler was a lunatic who decided to wait for a handful of soldiers before he decided to attack. A successful Operation Zitadelle would have prolonged WWII and we would have suffered from a nuclear strike. Sorry if i´m again offtopic.

[Cronos]

Pretty well put. In fact, I'd say Hitler was the greatest enemy of the German people, giving them a shame on future generations and getting ethnic Germans from all over Eastern european states driven out (reverse Liebenstraum effect) and almost nullifying the great creations of earlier Germans like Beethoven, Goethe, etc. etc.

[Don Joe]

Japan is a deeply racist society and there is no internal incentive to change

It's not just Japan.

Years ago, I owned a camera store. One of my customers was in the shop, chatting with me. He was a college professor, political science, very prominent in his field, regularly held conferences that dignitaries from all over the globe would attend.

He was born in Korea.

While he was there, another customer came in. He was a very prominent scientist, employed by a world famous chemical company. He was the inventor of a type of plastic that is used in everything from packages to home construction. (I am purposely leaving out clues, but everything I've said is true.)

The second customer chatted with me for a while, and then left. The first customer stood there silently for the duration.

After the second customer left, the first customer walks up, looks me in the eye, visibly tense, and in a very gruff, angry tone of voice, asks, "That man... was he Japanese?"

[4MORE-YEARS]

Don Joe, I agree with your first statement that deeply ingrained Racism is not only in Japan but you cited a case involving an individual whereas in Japan, it is institutionalized to a great extent. The examples are just too numerous to mention (I lived in Japan for several years and taught at a college outside of Tokyo so I have first hand experience). It is worth noting that when you go through immigration at Narita airport, you are greeted with warnings telling foreigners to behave and obey the law during their stay in Japan and a big sign cheerfully urging "Lawful Internationalism" which is the Japanese government's way to say, "Hey, we have to let you foreigners into our country but we don't really trust you so do us a favor and don't break any laws our we will put your butt in prison".