Chinese are Pissed!

[Theocrat]

Saw in the news today that the Chinese are pretty pissed at the Japs.
It's because of some history book where they mention their genocide, and medical experiments of the chinese as being merely incidental?

How stupid can you get?.. I meen, When there are still underlying tensions between the two countries.

[mordenkainen]

Oh well you know...most countries don't even mention their crimes at all...or call them glorious victories or necessary action.
I'm not going to give examples.
ahem.

[Theocrat]

I have a book by a Japanese psychiatrist called the Art of Lying! The idea is that in Japanese culture telling lies is considered to be a polite way of avoiding harsh truths and smoothing over impolite activities. I wonder if that idea is at the root of it all.

Probably.. I also heard that the Japanese behave one way with western people and another with their own people.

Strange.. Reminds me a discussion we had at work. Where colleagues would behave totally different at work than they do at home.. WHY is this?
I find it very weird!...

[PsychicWarVeteran]

...colleagues would behave totally different at work than they do at home.. WHY is this?
I find it very weird!...

So I can keep my job! :lol:

[Theocrat]

...colleagues would behave totally different at work than they do at home.. WHY is this?
I find it very weird!...

So I can keep my job! :lol:

I don't mean ass kissing! *lol* I mean the otherway around..

[mordenkainen]

Some of my ancestors may have collaborated with the nazi invaders. Some of my ancestors may have owned slaves, sold slaves, or been slaves. Some of my ancestors may have tortured people in the colonies. Some of them may have burnt witches, killed jews, raped arabs. Lots of them certainly beat their wives and children. Some of them had each other for breakfast.
Most of them have oppressed women, hated strangers, scorned progressists etc.
Do I really have no other choice than being either proud or ashamed of them?
Do I really not have the option to NOT GIVE A FUCK about all the dead bastards?

[mordenkainen]

Of course. Historical awareness is fundamental if you want to take your real responsibilities - those you have re: the future.

[Theocrat]

Well.. We Swedes or 'scandinavians', weren't that pretty or nice all the time either.. But i find pride in some of their stuff. We once owned a large part of scandinavia, and let norway go only yesterday. Vikings where just badass pagans who invented and traded stuff. Although it mean't taking lives during raids to uphold some sort of economy.

It's funny that we 'should' be living after "the death of history."

I see world history as roughly cyclic even though we claim to be getting stronger. I always say to those who see no point in history, "To know where we are going. We must know where we have been."
But no matter how much we keep trying.. History always has it's ghosts..

[Doc]

In Gestalt therapy there is the idea that people tend to confuse themselves by putting on social ?masks? and then end up leading inauthentic lives. I got very interested in this idea and tried to put it into practice. I tend to like it and have gotten some good feedback about it. I try to be honest most of the time but I can get a bit raw now and again. However, mostly I enjoy being funny and getting along with people, so it works well. Meanwhile, I suspect that social masks work well for aggressive people as they temper their natural attitudes and whatnot.

Sorry to interject-

Adlerian, have you ever read Erving Goffman? He's relatively famous for dramaturgical analysis. He's a bit of an odd duck in that he was a sociologist, but claimed some Gestalt psychologists and several cultural anthropologists as his only real influences.

His main idea is that all of social life is an act, one in which all of us participate and produce. The parallels with Gestalt psychology may interest you a little. You would probably like Asylums most of all, as it has to do with socialization into total institutions, including mental hospitals and prisons. The part on mental hospitals is like a real-life One Flew over the Coukoo's Nest.

[Groakes]

It's not just the Chinese - many of the peoples from Asian countries that suffered under the Japanese invasions of the 30s and 40s - and that includes Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma feel quite a great deal of animosity toward the Japanese, chiefly because the Japanese have never admitted or apologised for the attrocities their forces committed.

The school text book thing is not new either. Japanese school history texts have long been "guilty" of what in the west we would call "revisionist" history. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly (so its about 50 50 on this one) I seem to recall a controversy in Japan during the 80s when a school history text did actually talk about Japanese attrocities during the war. There were protests etc (someone probably got into a fight in the Diet) and the book was withdrawn from schools.

Can you imagine the outcry if a school history book in Germany did not mention the Holocaust?

[Theocrat]

It's not just the Chinese - many of the peoples from Asian countries that suffered under the Japanese invasions of the 30s and 40s - and that includes Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma feel quite a great deal of animosity toward the Japanese, chiefly because the Japanese have never admitted or apologised for the attrocities their forces committed.

Yeah. I remember my mom used to tell me about 'the Singaporian dislike for the Japanese' when we where living there.

Well I think that should at least say that they are sorry. But thats not in their agenda with other nations. I despise the 'Toyota model of Production'. And the way it spurns workers into stress and apathy of emotion.

I think that the Japanese left their Samurai culture only too breifly, and that it's still affecting their mentality and emotion. This might be a generalisation but I think it's a trend that is slowly dying down amongst the populace. One thing that is left is their attention to 'effeciency', not real cooperation. And that idea has spread to every corner of the developed world. If new smaller revolutions keep spreading towards new ideas of social and individual conduct i think the japanese will mature out of their servile nature and stop being victimized by their business elite.

[M-A_19]

the incident of nanjing

My friend lives in Japan and has a Japanese girlfriend, what strikes me when I talk to them is that pretty much everything that is reported in the west about how "the Japanese" feel about any given subject is either totally wrong or applies to such a small section of Japanese society as to be irelevant.

There's definitely a "freak show" element to the west's observation of the Japanese as well. I've often heard phrases like "Herd Mentality" being used to describe how the Japanese "Work like Machines" the language is all about them not being like "us".

The actions of US troops on Okinawa in particular shows the underlying comtempt that still exists for the Japanese in Western sensibilites. US troops used to get away with raping local women, because after being "dishonoured", they would kill themselves. With no-one to give evidence no charges could be pressed.

The sterotype of the Japanese Male who kills himself because his company has made losses is a generation behind. Kanada from Akira gives a better picture of a modern Japanese, dissafected youth without the automatic respect for authority that his forefathers had.

No-one should forget the rape of Nanjing but the soldiers who commited the crimes did not do them because they were Japanese. You need only look to Uganda today to see that such acts of amazing brutality do not stem from "the samurai culture" and that ignoring or forgetting such acts is not peculiar to "the Japanese mentality"

[mordenkainen]

-nods-

I was wondering how to put that politely.
Well said.

[L'Etranger]

Re: the incident of nanjing

No-one should forget the rape of Nanjing but the soldiers who commited the crimes did not do them because they were Japanese. You need only look to Uganda today to see that such acts of amazing brutality do not stem from "the samurai culture" and that ignoring or forgetting such acts is not peculiar to "the Japanese mentality"

I understand this, of course, but what if, in an analogy, cosmetic changes were applied to history books for school children in Germany saying, for instance, that the atrocities of the Nazis were "mere incidents"?
Or in a more likely way "corrections" gave the impression the Nazis were a bunch of Marsians and not the Germans and Austrians who carried and supported this regime? Wouldn't Dutch, French, Polish, Chech people, Gypsies and Jews and all the others who suffered rightfully be "pissed" - as the title of this thread calls it?

It is a little more complicated, because the Chinese don't tell their own people in full accuracy what went on during their own darker, and more recent, periods, but that is another story and doesn't make the "corrections" in Japanese school books less problematic. The fact that young Japanese might grow up without a fuller comprehension of their country's legacies is as worrying as everywhere else.

Finally, I would feel bereft of a truth as a Japanese or German or whatever, if I would not be given the chance to confront these issues to find my own position.

[M-A_19]

Ok, The BBC are currently reporting that these text are part of a series that are only used in about 1% of Japanese schools.

Japanese school children also have free access to the global media if they wish to read how other people feel about their countries conduct during the war. Chinese school children do not have this luxury.

My point being that its hardly an organised campaign of forgetfullness by the Japanese people.

The fact that young Japanese might grow up without a fuller comprehension of their country's legacies is as worrying as everywhere else.

This, I'm afraid, is this future.

I'm 27 and very untypical in knowing any detail about my countries activities in the world wars. for the current generation of youth Monte Carlo is a casino, Normandy a holiday destination, Flanders a character from the Simpsons. Ignorance is the norm.

Finally, I would feel bereft of a truth as a Japanese or German or whatever, if I would not be given the chance to confront these issues to find my own position.

I do feel somewhat cheated that in my own education, the British empire and any and all of its wrongdoing was not covered at all. It took me untill adulthood, to discover the facts from Kipling and Orwell. Just as a fascination with the machinery of war had led me to truths such as Dresden and Hiroshima.

I'm not defending the Japanese texts, I'm just questioning the part that such books actually play in creating the mindset of the new generation. These truths are not hidden, in the way that Chinese abuses are hidden by the govenment. Those who wish to "find their own position " have the facts at their disposal.