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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat Japanese history lessons leave out
Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia.
From Homo erectus to the present day - 300,000 years of history in just one year of lessons. That is how, at the age of 14, I first learned of Japan's relations with the outside world.
For three hours a week - 105 hours over the year - we edged towards the 20th Century.
...
There was one page on other events leading up to the Sino-Japanese war in 1937 - including one line, in a footnote, about the massacre that took place when Japanese forces invaded Nanjing - the Nanjing Massacre, or Rape of Nanjing.
There was another sentence on the Koreans and the Chinese who were brought to Japan as miners during the war, and one line, again in a footnote, on "comfort women" - a prostitution corps created by the Imperial Army of Japan.
There was also just one sentence on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21226068
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)and boycott every single product of theirs I can.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)Europeans forced them to open their borders. Japan didn't turn into a modern state by itself: The modernity was forced onto it. Similar after WWII.
The Japanese were sick of foreigners telling them what parts of their culture are okay, so they just stuck to a tradition as a signal of defiance: eating whale-meat. It's a young tradition without deeper cultural roots (and whale-meat isn't even that tasty), but it's the one where the Japanese have decided to draw the line.
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)My husband and I travel extensively and we won't even book a ticket that has a plane change in Japan. A very large portion of our charitable contributions goes to Sea Shepherd. I consider Japan's massacre of whales absolute evil.