Coming from a Korean's perspective:Originally Posted by smig
(I've used double quotation marks whenever appropriate, meaning that although the "pejorative word" might be there, I do not necessarily subscribe to what it represents.)
As I recall, the historical Japanese, the "Wae" people, are depicted in Korean elementary schools as "uncivilized, cruel, and greedy pirates" who would raid Ancient Korea's coastal villages in search for food supplies when there was famine. We are taught of the atrocities of the Japanese invaders during the Choson-Japanese Wars during the 1600's, and how bravely Koreans fought off these "abnoxious war mongers." We are taught of the inhumanity of the Japanese rule of Korea from 1910, and how "deservedly" Japan was defeated by the US, "by the two Atomic Bombs that wiped out two rural cities."
In high school, these "subhuman" images of Japan and its people only get reinforced, while most students never have a chance to know Japan, its people, or its culture on a personal level. It is difficult to imagine for a pre-college school kid that what he/she is being fed in school may have been screened or manipulated to satisfy the needs of the older generations, because of the trust that exists between teacher and student.
My turning point from the systematically planned "anti-Japanese" values came when I started making Japanese friends. One Mr. Nada, a second generation Japanese American, told me that his father left Japan for good because his father could not agree with the government's "policy of agression." One Japanese-American classmate I've known for a year would consistently engage in historical research of Japan's "ignoble role" in Asia before, during, and after the 2nd WW which amazed me at first. I also learned of the many Japanese dissdents, some religious, some political, some consciencious, who perished in the jails for opposing to Japan's colonist and discriminatory policies during that period. This experience thaught me that wholesale Japan bashing is pure nonsense. Just like in any country, everybody is different, and so are the Japanese. Some good, some bad, and the majority that goes along. Not at all alike.
Now coming to the question that you raised, I am more hesitent to raise a positive voice in favor of Japan. In a mixed language class composed of Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, and European students, history often became the topic for free discussion. And you could probably guess what students from Korea and Taiwan would want to know; WWII and the role of Japan and Germany. The German students were both knowledgeable of and apologetic for their country's military agression and the damage it caused. I am quite sure that's not enough for a Jewish student, but for me, it did symbolic justice. It was a start for Germany, and there might be a strong chance that it (invasion, expulsion, Auschwitz) would never happen again. But one Japanese classmate's response was rather shocking. I can't remember the exact wording, but it went something like this;
"I don't know what you are talking about. I never heard Japan did anything bad. Now I want to talk about something else."
I could not believe my ears. I have never expected such "trash," or insincere language, to come out of a civilized person's mouth. The funny thing was nobody could get mad outright because this Japanese student had a clean slate of conscience. I don't know about the Taiwanese students, but we got mad after class. Still it was difficult to decide to whom the anger should be directed. We just kept repeating "oh, the Japanese!" It was one of those wierd experiences that stuck to my head. Obviously schools in Japan weren't teaching much about WWII.
The only possible reason I can think of is this: the magnitude of shock the two atomic bombs have left on Japanese' minds was so great and so painful that they decided to forget everything leading to the two explosions. (I found subtle traces of the A-bomb in films such as Akira or Gozira, but Barefoot Gen was more outspoken.) Wiping out all the messy details of the war and what lead to it, including the late 19th c. expansionist activities, human experiments at Guandong unit 731, and the Nanjing massacre were all coveniently covered up. Possibly the moral responsibility was too grave to bear, especially with Mr. Hirohito's active role during the most atrocious years.
One novelist known for his historical fiction "Maruta" interviewed several medical ex-empolyees of unit 731 in the course of his writing. He confessed in the forword: "I drew a rather dramatic picture of the Japanese at unit 731, tormented by the cruelty offered to the human subjects. The reasaon I did this is simple. I know of no way to create a piece of art that is indifferent to another human being's suffering. Therefore I humanized them; in reality no one that I interviewed had any sense of remorse about it. They were simply doing their jobs as professionals. I had to create a couple of conscience-torn figures to make the story work, and that was the most fictional part of my story."
I know that the medical experts from 731 were re-empolyed by the US occupation forces to convey their research results from human experiments to the US, and were given amnesty for their services. I learned in a college course that such information not only contributed to the advancement of US medicine but was also the source of the Hanta virus, supposedly dropped over lower Manchuria by the US just before/after(?) the Chinese invasion of Korea in 1953. I feel betrayed by the historical process that uses Chinese, Korean, and dissident Japanese civilians as guinea pigs to develop a biological weapon that ends up on their very heads in less than 10 years. The dead to not speak of course, but quite a few S.Koreans have suffered and died of this deadly virus; I do not know how many N.Koreans or Chinese died of it.
If what I've read is true, then the US, with its active interest in the NW Pacific costal Asia, had its fair share of responsibility by playing God, condemning (fat-man & little boy) or forgiving (doling out amnesty for Mr. Hirohito, medical experts, etc.) at whim. So I could say that the Japanese during the US occupation were reluctant to record the details of its recent past, and that this trend was reinforced by the US occupation sending a subtle message that "as long as you cooperate with us, we'll let you forget everything. We gave you the A-bombs, and we're not sorry about it. So why should you be sorry about what you did?" I don't know if this makes a lot of sense, but that's what I think. I do not think that consciencious individuals are nonexistent in Japan, however, it will take a quantum leap for their voices to become mainstream. Yes, I believe the Japanese did suffer tremendously, and they were the first to get hit with Einstein's monster. There was no precedent. It is difficult to judge them when I think about that.
(This is another topic, but the Russians have been testing nuclear bombs in NE Siberia which nearly wiped out the aboriginal Chukchis. This is disturbing, too. See http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/chukchis.shtml)
Merry Christmas, SMIG!
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