Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Japan Cannot Be Trusted with Its Own History
Japan's Education Ministry on Tuesday announced the outcome of its screening of the 2005 editions of middle school history and social studies textbooks. To give Seoul's conclusions first, the new textbooks repeated most of their whitewashing of Japanese atrocities and even changed some portions for the worse. Social studies textbooks published by three firms including, notoriously, Fusosha, added a new phrase for Korea's Dokdo islets, namely that they are "illegally occupied by Korea."
Chosun Ilbo (April 5, 2005)
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200504/200504050031.html

[Gwangjuboy]

This coming from a government which portrays the Joson period as a great time in Korean history.

[Trekker]

I just finished reading the book "The Rape of Nanking", about the incredible atrocities done to the Chinese by the Japanese during WWII. I had never heard of this before but was shocked by the savage, depraved and deliberate cruelty of acts committed. And shocked by the fact that the Japanese government never did and still doesn't really admit to the committing these atrocities. Apparantly, history textbooks gloss over (or omit altogether) this era, so todays young and middle aged people know nothing about it. I call it tragic, cowardly and irresponsible!

[Gord]

"The Rape of Nanking" is primarily fiction. Very few of the claims survive any sort of fact cross-checking. It's primarily a list of one-sided claims that generally only appeared when the government was asking for help after already being rejected the several times, or after the war and the government was asking for stacks and stacks of hard cash. The only difference between and a thousand other books that were written off as fiction was that the author carried herself quite well and was easy on the eyes.

[shakuhachi]

[shakuhachi]

[hari seldon]

If you want to read a truthful account of what happened during the Rape of Nanjing, read "The Diaries of John Rabe". He was the 'Oscar Schindler' of China: http://www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/rabe.html. See also:
http://www.answers.com/topic/nanjing-massacre.

[Real Reality]

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200504/200504060024.html

[Ya-ta Boy]

When I hear someone say the Japanese were not all that bad during WWII I always think back to reading Japan at War: An Oral History.

One of the more chilling stories a Japanese guy told was that cadets didn't get to be officers until they had beheaded a Chinese at the induction ceremony. I try to imagine what went through the men's minds as they were waiting their turn to be beheaded just so a Japanese could blood his sword.


PS: The book is really terrific. One of the stories is by the wife of a kamikaze pilot. It is the #1 most romantic story I have ever read. That one story alone is worth the price of the book.

PS #2: Does anyone besides me think Gord has an odd thing going about defending the Japanese? I don't know why, but it strikes me that he is saying the Japanese are good because they are NOTKoreans.

[Gwangjuboy]

[Yaya]

[casey's moon]

[Gwangjuboy]

[Yaya]

Seems to me a lot of the Korea haters use the logic used by some in the US to say Americans blacks should be grateful that slave traders kidnapped their ancestors and brought them to North America, bla bla bla.

[dogbert]