Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Krusher on August 14, 2002, 02:31:20 PM
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TOKYO- The buzz of cicadas casts a soothing summer lull at Yasukuni Shrine. But next to its weathered worship hall lies a darker side - a sprawling war museum featuring rocket-propelled kamikaze planes, one-man "human torpedo" suicide subs and a history lesson on World War II from a distinctly Japanese perspective.
Every August, controversy swirls around the shrine, where nearly 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including executed war criminals, are worshipped as deities.
Thursday marks the 57th anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender during World War II, but Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi says he has no plans to pay respects at the shrine. His surprise visit last year sparked protests in China and South Korea, where Yasukuni is a painful symbol of Japan's militaristic past.
The shrine's Yushukan war museum opened its doors last month after a $33 million renovation that doubled its size and expanded its chronicle of Japan's military expansion.
Its lessons aren't those found in the typical American schoolbook.
It depicts 1930s China as overrun with anti-Japanese terrorists, portrays President Franklin Roosevelt as plotting to trick Tokyo into war and describes World War II as Japan's attempt to liberate Asia, rather than conquer it.
"This is where people can learn the real history of Japan," museum curator Yasuhira Noda said. "Today's generation doesn't understand the circumstances of the war. They only understand it in terms of Japan doing wrong."
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-asia/2002/aug/14/081400201.html
This is one museum I wont be vistiing.........
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Well I do remember a section from the book "Flying Tigers" where its mentioned that Roosevelt was talking with China about giving them 100 bombers if they use it to bomb Japan. The deal never went through of course. Politics, goto love it.
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japan calls WW2 a "trade dispute"
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Why wouldn't you visit? Sounds like a very interesting place.
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Ok MT here is why somebody might not like to visit!
I love it! I have been heartened by Japan's increasing warmth towards its wonderful militaristic past. First making the flag official, then making Kimigayo the offical anthem, the government's move to loosen restrictions on use of military force abroad, the visits to Yasukune, this museum, the continual justifications of the war in Japanese school books, and so many other wonderful things. We just need China to start some toejam and then Japan will show them all over again! Certainly I feel Japan should have a free hand in Asia. :D On to Nanking!
Can you see why this could be a troubling to place to some people?
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Hind sight ain't necessarily 20-20. Met some German tourists last week who insisted the holocaust never happened.
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Know thine enemy and he is yours.
Doesn't ever pay to keep your head in the sand.
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Oh I should add, China was already at war with Japan at the time or is it Japan was at war with China. Anyways what China got instead was the now famous FTs and those Perked P-40s.
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I would not miss the chance to see this museum if I were in the area.
What good is covering you eyes and yelling THIS IS NOT THE TRUTH THIS IS NOT THE TRUTH!
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Most people probably think about World War II less than once a month.
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Most Japanese never heard of the Rape of Nanking...this is just another chapter in "The war according to the Japanese".
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as a kid i was regailed with far too many horror stories of what japan and the japanese were like.. three close friends of the family were japanese pow's.. and they did not mice words, even around us little kids on the subject of the japanese.
as an adult, i learned to take what those old guys said with a grain of salt.. and also learned to check for other sources on items of intrest... and the japanese nationalistic culture of then, and even now is something that ought to be of extreme intrest to anyone wondering whats in store for us tomorrow.
As far as i am aware there exists nowhere on this planet a more racist, intolerant and hateful towards outsiders society than japan's. A fair term to describe their attutude towards racial impurity is 'rabid'.
Stalin and his purges, hitler, and his final solution, horrifying and shocking as they were and still are, both become mere human condition arberations in comparision to japan's 1000 year tradtion of racial hedgemony.
They, as a nation; have yet to apologise for their hideous and unforgivable treatment of prisoners of war.. their abject and disgusting treatment of the koreans (still ongoing) chinese and other asian cultures. Their souls were laid bare for the world to see in nanking.. their crimes in the phillipines, hong kong, singapore, manchuria, mainland china, taiwan and every god-damned place these vermin occupied during the war is without doubt the most repugnant disgusting episode in modern history.
frankly, japan should have never been allowed to reconstitute it's soverginity. If you don't think those lil rat bastards don't still consider all other people on this planet inferior to them, i invite you to live there for a year or two.. or work for a japanese run company. Ask a Japanese government official to explain Nanking.. or Baatan.
An old guy I happen to respect, who saw first hand some of what they did.. said it like this.. "No nation in this world more deserved an atomic pasting.. and it's a gawd-damned shame they didn't keep right on pasting that stinking place with every freakin fissionable substance we could come up with till even the cockroaches cried 'uncle'."
I have yet to discover one freakin shred of evidence that his opinion; or mine, is unjustified.
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Hang,
I once had a Japanese girlfriend. She was well worth not-nuking.
OTOH, I must say that I have experienced more condecension and bigotry from Japanese and Vietnamese people than from any others I have dealt with over the years. Not generalizing, just my experiences.
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Originally posted by midnight Target
Hang,
I once had a Japanese girlfriend. She was well worth not-nuking.
OTOH, I must say that I have experienced more condecension and bigotry from Japanese and Vietnamese people than from any others I have dealt with over the years. Not generalizing, just my experiences.
lol on the "well worth not-nuking" thing...but I am curious about the comment regarding the Vietnamese. Where did you experience this? In Vietnam? Not judging you, or the comment...just curious. I haven't experienced this at all...and I'm married to one.;)
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Originally posted by midnight Target
OTOH, I must say that I have experienced more condecension and bigotry from Japanese and Vietnamese people than from any others I have dealt with over the years. Not generalizing, just my experiences.
Shocking! You sir are a racist and a biggot! No anecdotal evidence can bu used to support such evil thoughts. You are worse than Hitler!
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Hangtime FYI I believe Japan is something like 99.6% "Japanese".
I hope you you leftist diversity nuts take that hard...
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Well they are on an island for Gods sake and they did have trouble invading (Korea vs Japan) each other before modern times. Yeah, the world is full of strange people and they do strange things.
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Originally posted by midnight Target
Why wouldn't you visit? Sounds like a very interesting place.
It may very well be an interesting place, but I prefer to get my revisionist history from the democratic party :p
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Originally posted by Curval
lol on the "well worth not-nuking" thing...but I am curious about the comment regarding the Vietnamese. Where did you experience this? In Vietnam? Not judging you, or the comment...just curious. I haven't experienced this at all...and I'm married to one.;)
I managed the production line for a company owned by a Vietnamese immigrant. I would estimate about 60% of our 200 employees were also Vietnamese. All of the VN managers were arrogant jerks. Most of the employees were very nice and loved talking about their country.
It was pretty cool being the tallest person in the company by a good 5 inches though.
:D
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Doubt the Japanese could be much more racist than this tread.
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Originally posted by Thrawn
Doubt the Japanese could be much more racist than this tread.
Agreed! Did you see what MT posted?
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Did I say something racist?
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Yep, you used racist codewords....
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All of the Japanese people I have met have been very nice.
My study partner in my German language class was a Japanese national. I never got any sense that she was condecending towards me or other Americans.
Japan was, as of the mid-90s, the single biggest donor nation in the world. They donated more money than the USA even though the USA's GNP was, what, 5 times the Japanese GNP.
While I obviously don't know him, Mitsu seems like a genuinely nice fellow.
Yes, there is ingrained racisim in the Japanese national character, but Hangtime blows it way, way out of proportion. He also makes the mistake of assigning it to all Japanese people. Many, perhaps the majority, Japanese people are not racist. To so blackly condemn an entire people is abhorant and blatantly more racist than anything post-war Japan has done.
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I admit freely i am hugely biased in regards to the japanese. I have met many many asians; and not just in passing, I've had many dealings with quite a number of japanese folks in the process of doing my job and at one time during service to my country.. I do not harbor ill will towards any asain people.. but I have no warm feelings at all for japanese culture or society.
I have never been mistreated or insulted by a japanese... in english. My dating a japanese girl in japan ruined her.. literally. What she endured.. a Japanese, by god; just for being in my presence, under my escort as my companion is beyond belief.
Again.. I stand by my words; As far as i am aware there exists nowhere on this planet a more racist, intolerant and hateful towards outsiders society than japan's. A fair term to describe their attutude towards racial impurity is 'rabid'.
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By the way would you liberals consider somebodys opionon of the USA in the 1960s as being a racist society, a racist statement? Maybe also South Africa?
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GRUNHERZ,
I can't actually make out a question in that gibberish.
If you're asking if I (as a Liberal) would consider somebody a racist in the 1960s for describing the US the way Hangtime described Japan, the answer is no.
Here is why:
The US is not a race, therefore it is not possible to be racist against it.
What I would consider them is abhorantly biased and guilty of judging a great diverse nation on only the basis of its worst aspects while completely ignoring the plethora of wonderful and good things about it. I would consider their opinion as garbage.
South Africa is a different case. Post-war Japan (The only Japan I am talking about here) is in no way comparable to South Africa. Racism in South Africa was so deeply imbedded in the laws (not just the underlying culture) as to make any comparison with post-war Japan or the USA of the 1950s and 60s laughable. There are no racial laws in Japan that I am aware of, and everybody in the USA in the 50s and 60s was enfranchised (even if there were unpleasant hurdles to exercising that right in some locations).
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Originally posted by midnight Target
All of the VN managers were arrogant jerks. Most of the employees were very nice and loved talking about their country.
:D
Ahhh...here is the problem. It isn't a Vietnamese thing...it is the age old manager vs. worker issue...blue collar vs. white collar. Or, to put it another way...right wing radical racists vs. pinko leftist commie workers. (or liberals);)
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Originally posted by Curval
Ahhh...here is the problem. It isn't a Vietnamese thing...it is the age old manager vs. worker issue...blue collar vs. white collar. Or, to put it another way...right wing radical racists vs. pinko leftist commie workers. (or liberals);)
You are probably correct, except that this leftist commie was also in management. I always felt like the (not sure what the word for gringo would be in Vietnamese).
I did learn how to pronounce Nguyen properly tho :D .
And the food was very good.
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I studied with several Japanese exchange students while at uni. I even had two living on my corridor. They were cool, decent people. Friendly and with an outrageous sense of dress, there was no ill-feeling towards us. I think that the modern Japanese people share very little in common with the bastards running the POW camps, in the same way modern Germans share very little with the bastards running the concentration camps.
Also, I’ve friends who are teaching English in Japan and they are loving it. Not once have they mentioned any negative reaction to them – in fact it’s been positive all the way. They don’t want to come back.
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Originally posted by midnight Target
I did learn how to pronounce Nguyen properly tho :D .
And the food was very good.
lol...the wife's maiden name was Nguyen..kinda like the VN version of "Smith".:D
Food is good? eeeks I disagree. They eat some pretty weird stuff over there..in fact the Aquarium here is a living menu for my wife...she goes to the eel tank and all I hear out of her is "mmmmmm".:D
Anyway...sorry for carrying on a converation in someone else's thread...back to those awful Japanese!
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Originally posted by Dowding (Work)
I studied with several Japanese exchange students while at uni. I even had two living on my corridor. They were cool, decent people. Friendly and with an outrageous sense of dress, there was no ill-feeling towards us. I think that the modern Japanese people share very little in common with the bastards running the POW camps, in the same way modern Germans share very little with the bastards running the concentration camps.
Also, I’ve friends who are teaching English in Japan and they are loving it. Not once have they mentioned any negative reaction to them – in fact it’s been positive all the way. They don’t want to come back.
My biggest problem Dowding is the fact that they refuse to teach their own historic past...how can we prevent something like this occuring again if we do not learn from history. Putting ones head in the sand and saying it never happened (the elders over there that make the school ciriculum) is simply rediculous. In the US, we learn of idiotic things our Gov't has done, why not teach the historic past over there?
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My dating a japanese girl in japan ruined her.. literally. What she endured.. a Japanese, by god; just for being in my presence, under my escort as my companion is beyond belief.
-Hangtime
And this is diffrent from any woman, of any race, dating you?
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Excellent point.. 'Exchange students'.
Find me a non japanese 'exchange student' that went to school in japan..
Anybody??
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And this is diffrent from any woman, of any race, dating you?
henh. I fediddlein hate it when yer right. I withdraw my case.
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Originally posted by Curval:
lol on the "well worth not-nuking" thing...but I am curious about the comment regarding the Vietnamese. Where did you experience this? In Vietnam? Not judging you, or the comment...just curious. I haven't experienced this at all...and I'm married to one.
My brother was born in Vietnam. He was on THE last plane as Saigon fell. He is proud to be an American.
Curval
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Originally posted by Masherbrum
Originally posted by Curval:
My brother was born in Vietnam. He was on THE last plane as Saigon fell. He is proud to be an American.
Curval
Mash..
The wife, her 5 siblings and her pregnant mother made it out on the last South Vietnamese navy ship...they couldn't get on the planes...too many people, so they went to the docks instead. Six months of living in a refugee camp on Guam...then managed to get to Canada. She certainly had a very different 1975 than I did!
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One of my VN co-workers told me of his escape.
His father was a well to do factory owner in Saigon(made soap), and he had been educated in Paris. When the Communists took over he was placed on a crew digging a canal.... by hand! He said he would always try to stay behind the tractor, that way he avoided the land mines.
Since he was educated as an accountant he asked to help in the office and eventually won the trust of the communists. After almost 2 years of this he asked for a vacation to visit his grandparents.
He then left his wife and son behind and walked across Cambodia (just like in the Killing Fields). He made it almost to the Thai border, when he was captured by the Cambodians. A Red Cross aid worker was nearby, and offered 2 bags of rice for his release.
My friend Tuan often jokes that his life is only worth 2 bags of rice. He is a wealthy man now, CPA & CFO. He purchased the freedom of his wife and son after 8 years in this country.
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My biggest problem Dowding is the fact that they refuse to teach their own historic past...how can we prevent something like this occuring again if we do not learn from history. Putting ones head in the sand and saying it never happened (the elders over there that make the school ciriculum) is simply rediculous. In the US, we learn of idiotic things our Gov't has done, why not teach the historic past over there?
Strangely enough, I never got to question them about it. It's not as though I could simply walk up to them and say "Nice weather we're having. By the way, what are your thoughts on the conduct of Japanese troops in Nanking during the war?" Or at the dinner table "Pass the salt, will you. Ever heard of the Bataan death march?"
Never had the opportunity. Although I would have been interested in what they had to say.
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Curval, I think YOU can imagine the fights and brawls my brother and I have been in. It was usually arrogant amazinhunks trying to impress friends, lost in life, what have you. Looking back I'm glad these happened, why? We NEVER lost one fight, almost did once. What for? Because after all of these years, mankind has yet to face the hard cold fact in life. There is still this "social hierarchy" based on the color of skin!
again to you Curval.
I might be at next year's con and hope to meet you.
Karaya2
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Originally posted by Dowding
Strangely enough, I never got to question them about it. It's not as though I could simply walk up to them and say "Nice weather we're having. By the way, what are your thoughts on the conduct of Japanese troops in Nanking during the war?" Or at the dinner table "Pass the salt, will you. Ever heard of the Bataan death march?"
Never had the opportunity. Although I would have been interested in what they had to say.
Understandably. I've worked with some Japanese in the past that came to America as citizens, and I *did* have the opportunity to ask, none of them ever learned much of WW2, anything having to do with Japan and WW2 is basically non-existent in the Japanese schools, and I'm sure Mitzu and others could verify this (of course, this was 1989, so things may have changed)
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"I can't actually make out a question in that gibberish.
If you're asking if I (as a Liberal) would consider somebody a racist in the 1960s for describing the US the way Hangtime described Japan, the answer is no."
Of course you could Karnak, you made out the question perfectly, but thanks for the insult anyway.... Very much in line with the behavior of you liberals on the BBS the last few days. :rolleyes:
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GRUNHERZ,
OK, re-reading your question now that I'm awake it does make sense. At 2 AM last night it seemed to be lacking key parts of a question.
Sorry.
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I lived in Hawaii for a year. Hawaii has a very high concentration of Japanese tourist. The one, and only tourist place that I ever visited in Hawaii that was void of Japanese was the Arizona Memorial...
You do the math.
eskimo
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I'm sure you just missed them them by a second......
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"I don't think it glorifies war," said 25 year old Kazunori Kajiwara, whose great uncle fought in the Japanese Imperial Navy. "But I can't help but wonder if all those young people with bright futures really wanted to sacrifice their lives."
Spoken like a true Asian racist, huh, guys? What the hell is your point? That entire World War Two generation has nearly passed on in history- Asian and American alike. What the hell do you want out of modern Japan today? If this museum gets this response from its visitors then I don't give a damn WHAT it says about WW2. Anyway it's not like the winners don't write the history books right?
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What the hell do you want out of modern Japan today?
umm.. how about 'choke on yer dumped here below cost toejambox mitsubishi's and die'??