What do Japanese think about Americans? - We are as different as people can be. Japanese relate much more to Europeans, especially the British.
They wear our clothes, watch our movies, talk on our phones, eat our KFC, and use our Windows XP, but when they see a white man on the street, they stare and say "Oh! Gaijin da!"
(I dont like that)
They have a very fXXXking nasty habit of repeating the very fXXXking nasty lies that are broadcast about America on TV here. They dont think about what they say much, because they are all so much a like and they dont have a tradition of correcting or challenging each other in public. (But I do)
(When an English teacher said "America is very dangerous" in front of my students, I got mad and yelled at him. "Dont you ever say that again." I said.
He had never been to America.
The Principal, a smart guy, reprimanded him privately, I am led to understand.
I dont think they mean to insult us as much as they do, but it IS insulting nonetheless.
They are guilty of mindlessness. Very guilty.
Pearl Harbor - Takako says they know they made a mistake. She says the Japanese armed forces claim that the government told them that they had declared war officially. Which of course, they did not.
The Armed forces basically say that they wouldnt have done it if they knew the government had not officially declared war.
I believe this, having seen the bureaucratic circus that runs this country up close and personal.
Many Japanese want to believe that the Hull document exculpates them, but that's because they mostly dont speak English well enough to really understand the Hull document.
There is a blame game going on here.
Yasukuni shrine is not run by the government, it is run by some local school board or maybe even a private orgnization. Hence, the "struggle for japans survival" explanation for Pearl Harbor is not necessarily the official Japanese governments explanation.
This place is anything BUT organized. The government is a circus of local bureacracies that think they can do pretty much whatever they want.
They dont ask questions first before they make some pretty big, pretty public, pretty insulting, inflammatory statements.
(Such as a local bureacracies' decision to annex islands claimed by Korea recently, this is the kind of thing that could start a war, but it wasnt a Tokyo Prime Minister kind of thing, it was a local governor kind of thing...)
The Atom Bomb - They commiserate yearly on the anniversary and have all these sad tales they love to recount about people who survived, especially some girl who thought if she could make 10,000 origami cranes that she would survive her radiation sickness. She did not.
Yes it was horrible, yes it was brutal.
Yes, they started it and bear the responsibility for it.
The problem is, they dont seem to remember anything that happened BEFORE the bomb dropped.
Like it was just some strange accident.
Theres no clear causality in their minds. When hard pressed, they know.
There was a poll not too long ago where 65% of Japanese said that they were glad that Japan lost the war.
The truth is hard to get at. Most of them only know what they see on TV, which is about as bad as TV can be. (It is 24 hours a day propoganda, psychotic childrens cartoons, soft-core porno and The A-Team in Japanese)
I cant answer these questions for the Japanese, but if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then America should be flattered. The Japanese try to copy us as much as they can, even having fake Christian weddings.
(even saying the words in English)
The average Japanese person is not interested in history. They dont care.
The majority of people really interested in the Samurai are Westerners.
The funny thing is that the Japanese cant seem to understand that we arent like them. They think we like what they like and nothing could be further from the truth.
The biggest and most beautiful hotals in Tokyo are awlays desgined by foreigners. The investors know that Japanese designers will fill it with aluminum and florescent lighting.
They tore down all the samurai houses so that they could build copies of American theme parks.
Trouble is, Americans arent going to fly to Japan to see a theme park just like the one back home, they wanted to see samurai houses.
I dont think they are bad people, I dont think they hate us. They are just mindless and speak without thinking too much.
Also, the right wingers are keeping in office by running on increasingly anti-foreign party platforms.
I dont know where this place is headed.
. Just look over to Whine & Cheese.
(no, not really, but the majority of them - it is you here on the forum.
