[Spoon]

China is a big country inhabited by many chinese

I live in the Netherlands, watch Dutch news and talk to Dutch people, this doesn't make me an expert on Dutch-German relations by default. Because the portion of people I could possible talk to in my surroundings doesn't exactly make up a large percentage of the total population.

I'd also take Chinese news with a fairly large grain of salt.

[Ypoknons]

Hong Kong has cultural ties to Japan in terms of popularity of Japanese food and entertainment (anime is popular especially), but anti-Japanese sentiment exists too, not to the same extent as there appears to me to be on the mainland.

[karajorma]

China is a big country inhabited by many chinese

I live in the Netherlands, watch Dutch news and talk to Dutch people, this doesn't make me an expert on Dutch-German relations by default. Because the portion of people I could possible talk to in my surroundings doesn't exactly make up a large percentage of the total population.

I'd also take Chinese news with a fairly large grain of salt.

Yes but if this hatred isn't on the net, isn't in the mass media, and isn't expressed by the population of any of the many provinces I've been to and talk to, the question that has to be asked is “Where is it then?" You'd have thought that having lived in the country for 4 years, I might have heard it once if it's as widespread as people are claiming.

When the wikipedia article lists a football rivalry as the main issue, it's probably not as big an issue as they have with the Japanese.

[SypheDMar]

Hong Kong has cultural ties to Japan in terms of popularity of Japanese food and entertainment (anime is popular especially), but anti-Japanese sentiment exists too, not to the same extent as there appears to me to be on the mainland.

my father loves sushi bars and reads manwa from Japan since he was a kid.

[karajorma]

And.....

Japanese soldiers needed to rape women.


The guy has all the tact of throwing a brick through a window.

[Black Wolf]

And.....

Japanese soldiers needed to rape women.


The guy has all the tact of throwing a brick through a window.

In fairness, it looks like this guy is from the Japanese equivalent of One Nation or the BNP - right wing reactionary populists. That said, I'm not getting the impression that he's super far out from the Japanese mainstream either - they've got more than 10% of the lower house seats in Japan...

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Hong Kong has cultural ties to Japan in terms of popularity of Japanese food and entertainment (anime is popular especially), but anti-Japanese sentiment exists too, not to the same extent as there appears to me to be on the mainland.

I'd like to point out that, even beyond China and it's Special Administrative Regions, few people are happy that the Japanese "liberated" them from their colonial masters. When we are taught bits and pieces of Singapore history in primary school, the main focus is on the amount of suffering the civilian population went through during the Japanese Occupation. In addition, many of the senior citizens here still dislike the Japanese for what they did during the war.

Most of the younger generation (me included) are fence-sitters who, despite being taught the above and reading up on our own history (which frequently highlights this), still bear no animosity for Japan and its people. I guess it does make a difference between reading it up in a book and experiencing it first-hand.

[NGTM-1R]

In fairness, it looks like this guy is from the Japanese equivalent of One Nation or the BNP - right wing reactionary populists. That said, I'm not getting the impression that he's super far out from the Japanese mainstream either - they've got more than 10% of the lower house seats in Japan...

Japan's demographics warping its politics there.

[MP-Ryan]

And.....

Japanese soldiers needed to rape women.

The guy has all the tact of throwing a brick through a window.

...and this is what results when you let an aggressor who treated enemy combatants, invaded civilian populations, and pretty much anyone but their own citizens with absolute barbarity think they are the victim.

Like I said earlier, this is the legacy of the atom bombs - a modern democracy that thinks of itself as a victim that has done nothing wrong despite engaging in some of the most heinous acts of war documented in modern history.

[Lorric]

And.....

Japanese soldiers needed to rape women.

The guy has all the tact of throwing a brick through a window.

...and this is what results when you let an aggressor who treated enemy combatants, invaded civilian populations, and pretty much anyone but their own citizens with absolute barbarity think they are the victim.

Like I said earlier, this is the legacy of the atom bombs - a modern democracy that thinks of itself as a victim that has done nothing wrong despite engaging in some of the most heinous acts of war documented in modern history.

These are the significant words from the article to me:

"On Tuesday, Japanese ministers tried to distance themselves from his remarks."

"Mr Hashimoto is the co-founder of the nationalist Japanese Restoration Party, which has a small presence in parliament and is not part of the government."

"He was the youngest governor in Japanese history before becoming mayor of Osaka, and last year said Japan needed "a dictatorship"."

Every country has people like this. Don't let this guy tar your opinion of a whole nation.

[Lorric]

I found this link from the link above. It's an interesting read:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21226068

"What Japanese history lessons leave out"

[niffiwan]

yup, many people that I know in my parents generation are bitter about the history taught in Japanese schools, and WW2 Japanese behaviour in general.  Then again I had (until she recently passed away) a Sandakan widow in my extended family, so perhaps that's not a good population sample to be drawing conclusions from.

[karajorma]

Every country has people like this. Don't let this guy tar your opinion of a whole nation.

Except that in most other countries, someone saying **** like that would be forced to apologise or step down. In Japan even their country's leader can hold similar opinions and get away with it.

[Mongoose]

What's truly notable is how hyper-sensitive Japanese culture is to anything resembling public shame or scandal, to the point where actors and singers get flat-out dumped from labels just for having an affair.  The fact that people can make statements like these without any repercussions at all suggests pretty strongly that most people are fine with this view, at least amongst the older generations.

[Lorric]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't American politicians often say horrible things and nothing happens to them? There's just some hand wringing and complaining on the internet and that's it?

[BloodEagle]

What's truly notable is how hyper-sensitive Japanese culture is to anything resembling public shame or scandal, to the point where actors and singers get flat-out dumped from labels just for having an affair.

That sort of thing happens from time to time in the U.S., IIRC.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't American politicians often say horrible things and nothing happens to them? There's just some hand wringing and complaining on the internet and that's it?

No. They get made fun of on The Daily Show, as well. 

[karajorma]

Name one occasion where they haven't been forced to apologise.

It might be some two-faced apology which no one believes, but it's pretty rare this kind of crap is allowed to actually stand. Hell, Obama had to apologise for saying a woman was attractive a while back.

[Lorric]

Name one occasion where they haven't been forced to apologise.

It might be some two-faced apology which no one believes, but it's pretty rare this kind of crap is allowed to actually stand. Hell, Obama had to apologise for saying a woman was attractive a while back.

I don't know about apologies, but I wasn't even thinking apologies, apologies are nothing.

Now, here's a video I once found, I ended up finding it when someone basically said rape is a gift from God and I started digging around. Took me a while to find it again. He has a short list of things some people said. I don't know if they all had to apologise or what, or whether you think they should apologise. I'll let you judge for yourself. I've put it to the relevant part:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm7K926BYzc#t=3m20s

[karajorma]

I don't know about apologies, but I wasn't even thinking apologies, apologies are nothing.

So you've basically missed the entire point I was making. i.e that you're not allowed to say that stuff on the record and not be forced into humiliating backtracking if you want to keep your job.

More importantly, your comment was that we shouldn't judge a country on the words of one politician (Correct) but that you ignore the fact that it is acceptable to judge a country on the fact that they completely fail to react in a negative fashion to the words of that politician. That's quite a huge distinction to miss. You can point to American politicians saying stupid ****, but your own link points to people calling them out on that.

[Lorric]

I don't know about apologies, but I wasn't even thinking apologies, apologies are nothing.

So you've basically missed the entire point I was making. i.e that you're not allowed to say that stuff on the record and not be forced into humiliating backtracking if you want to keep your job.

More importantly, your comment was that we shouldn't judge a country on the words of one politician (Correct) but that you ignore the fact that it is acceptable to judge a country on the fact that they completely fail to react in a negative fashion to the words of that politician. That's quite a huge distinction to miss. You can point to American politicians saying stupid ****, but your own link points to people calling them out on that.

Did all these people have to apolgise? I don't know.

I don't speak Japanese. So I don't know if I could find a Japanese person somewhere complaining on the internet about this guy. But I'd be willing to bet they are there. And don't forget the article I posted, which shows general public Japanese are simply ignorant of the facts rather than agreeing with them. And the Japanese also seem to have a mentality to just ignore problems and hope they go away. I wish I knew where the video with that guy talking about that was.