Xanthippe:
Garrett DeOrio:
“Beyond the broad, sweeping, unsupportable generalization of the entire population, if the Japanese are “inclined toward violence,” they hide it very, very well.”
One thing that has confounded me – (I was born 12 years after WWII ended) — is the scope and brutality of the Japanese people. It seems at odds with the public face of Japanese culture.
The Rape of Nanking, the Manila Massacre, the Bataan Death March, the way the Japanese treated POWs during WWII … there are more examples but these should suffice to show that the Japanese, as a culture, are not non-violent.
I’m still searching for an explanation.
(Does Japan still censor their history books with regard to their part in WWII?)”
Yes they do. The release of several books like ‘the rape of Nanking’ or Unit 761 came to much outrage about 10 years ago as many of the nation’s youth had no knowledge it ever happened-almost as in the dark as our youth. Oddly enough, wikipedia has a fairly broad list of the atrocities here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes
