honourable Japanese

[Marc Montgomery]

wikipeadia has an interesting reading on Japanese history textbook controversies.. It includes the following line
"Reflecting Japanese tendency towards self-favoring historical revisionism, historian Stephen E. Ambrose noted that "The Japanese presentation of the war to its children runs something like this: 'One day, for no reason we ever understood, the Americans started dropping atomic bombs on us.'"[4]

Here's an interesting link from Feb 07 2014

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...r-9115827.html

[Private_collector]

Marc,

That is simply hilarious! They may write it that way, but anyone over the age of gestation can find, read, watch, or listen, to all the information they can handle, courtesy of the internet. Japanese are world renown for their tendancy to travel (some even visited Hawaii, in December, 1941), and the world is full of reminders that disagree with the official writings.

I sort of recall Dad telling me Japanese had no word for Retreat. They considered it an 'Advance to the Rear'. That always cracked me up as well. Such an ego. Bushido indeed. More like Bullshido.

[motto (RIP)]

Come on guys you can't really be knocking the originators of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere where they charged through the Pacific spreading health, wealth and happiness whilst throwing off the white mans yoke and liberating millions. They were simply a little misunderstood that's all, a little bad press nothing more. Just ask them, they'll give you the story.

David

[Mike K]

Some of the Japanese atrocities were meant to terrorize the local populace into submission . In places like KL in then Malaya the Japanese authorities would round up a few innocent individuals and chop their heads off, the heads were stuck on poles and displayed at busy road intersections . The message to the locals being "if you want to misbehave, this is what happens "

[Marc Montgomery]

difference of cultures.. We realize that when you simply cannot win at all, surrender is preferable to a wasted death.. They- and others- believe that surrender is worse than death and that if you surrender you are of less value than pond scum.
Also I hate to say it, but racism is absolutely rampant, even other asians, Chinese, koreans vietnamese.are lower forms. (mind you, during WWII, we tended to portray Japanes as weak, poor eyesight, etc )

We see some of that thinking today.. We value life above all, but we see too many examples of other cultures where killing yourself- suicide bombers- is honourable and desirable
I remember an interview with the mother of a suicide bomber a few years ago.. she said she wished she had more sons so they could be suicide bombers too...
wow..what can you say to such thinking?? simply beyond our (my) comprehension.