Growing isolationism in Japan

[NobleCynic]

Sales of revisionist, racist, and isolationist media is growing rapidly in Japan. The increasing popularity of this kind of racist garbage greatly disturbs me. Anyone else? Thoughts?

Having recently been in China myself I can testify the same kind of hatreds are being stirred up there as well. A government encouraged riot/protest trashed an Ito Yokado (A Japanese department store) in Chengdu, the Chinese city I was staying in.

"Ugly Images of Asian Rivals Become Best Sellers in Japan"

By NORIMITSU ONISHI
TOKYO, Nov. 14 - A young Japanese woman in the comic book "Hating the Korean Wave" exclaims, "It's not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today!" In another passage the book states that "there is nothing at all in Korean culture to be proud of."

In another comic book, "Introduction to China," which portrays the Chinese as a depraved people obsessed with cannibalism, a woman of Japanese origin says: "Take the China of today, its principles, thought, literature, art, science, institutions. There's nothing attractive." ...

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/international/asia/19comics.html?incamp=>

[ShrewdLiberal]

1. The Japanese are intuitively xenophobic conservative

They are culturally and ethically and epistemically xenophobic. I spent a month in Tokyo, Fuji City, Fujiyama, and other cities and was bombared by explicit xenophobia. I felt like what a circus animal must feel like. They're like Germans in Germany. Thom Hartmann had the same experience that I did in Japan while he was in Germany.

Thom was at a restaurant and overheard some men speaking in German about their continuing love for Hitler and keeping the Nazi cause alive. Little did they know that Thom speaks fluent German. When the woman who served Thom realized he spoke fluent German, she then tipped off the gaggle of Nazis.

The Japanese are the same way. They don't teach about the attrocities the Japanese military committed throughout Asia during World War II in any of their history books. They pretend amnesia. And they openly critize and act racist towards outsiders. Well, the majority do, anyway.

[JI7]

3. i don't agree that it's as bad in Germany as in Japan

while there are still racists, skinhead etc types in Germany i think overall the country is very much aware and open about it's past. and have policies in place to address the issues .

i would say the Germans are much more aware and critical of their history than Americans are also.

i think holocaust denial is illegal in Germany.

[Kellanved]

4. I actually don't believe Hartmann's report

And basing opinions about foreign countries on anecdotal third-hand reports strikes me as odd.

That is not to say that there are no Nazis left in Germany. It is quite realistic to put the percentage of Germans harboring extreme RW ideas at 10%, maybe even double that number. Also, it is cutting through all demographics, not merely the uneducated and poor, as it is often claimed.

But discussions about the "Nazi cause" in public? I don't think so. I know restaurants with discussions like that exist, but I don't think anyone would stumble into one of them by accident. That would be like stumbling into a Klan or Hell's Angles hangout.

[rpannier]

2. The Japanese have yet to accept they did anything wrong to Korea

One of the most barbarous attrocities that occurred in the 20th Century was Japan's occupation of Korea. The Japanese attempted to destroy an entire culture, language, religion and all. The Japanese claim they did no such thing, even though the evidence is clear. The Japanese appear sometimes to have borrowed the worst of two Euro powers, Germany and the UK. They possess the paternalistic arrogance of the Brits (at least during colonial times) and the warrior mentality of the Germans.

A note: Dok Island (Dok-do) is an island that is part of Korea. Japanese maps prior to 1936 show it as part of Korea. The Japanese are claiming it as their island and are making some bogus claim that Korea was too backward to have ever realized the island was there (even though the island is shown on Korean maps as far back as the 7th century). This how the Japanese twist and distort history.