ATTN: facistfury RE: My sig.

[E1am]

I got it from a book I'm reading right now. It's called 'The Singapore Story' by Lee Kuan Yew. It's from the chapter on the Japanese invasion. Lee quotes one of his friends who spent some time in a prison run by the Kempeitai (Japanese secret police) during the WWII occupation of Singapore.

[fascistfury]

ok, thanx! the reason why i asked is that one of my political science teachers had something similar to say. he lived in asia for a while, and he summarized that the japanese were a brutal people. i found it interesting that others would come to such an extreme conclusion. i wonder why it is that they have been (and maybe still are) so brutal...any ideas?

[bobby_steeles]

it's all that manga they watch.
you ever see their game shows? it's like "double dare" meets "banned from tv". but i've seen some crazy shit on the mexican channel, too. there was this game show where there was like 5 or 6 boxes and the contestant had to pick a few to stick his head into(why, i don't know). one had a pie or something in it and i forgot what was in another, but the last one had this crazy monkey in it and it started beating the guy's face. it was a small monkey, but it was a crazy monkey.

[E1am]

bobby,

Unfortunately all of those cool game shows have been off the air for years in Japan.

facist,

I don't know that the Japanese really are anymore brutal that other people. Most (all?) nations and peoples have a history that is tainted. Some more recent that others, that's why we remember what they did. It's natural that people in Asia still hate the Japanese. Besides the fact that they violently took control of East and SE Asia just 60 years ago, they are the richest people in the area wich always breeds contempt. Most Japanese now see their country as a peacefull nation (low violent crime rate, no nukes, limited military). But things have only been that way for about 50 years. I guess getting nuked and seeing your god forced to renounce his divinity would tend to pu$$ify you. The problem in Japan is that since people have been raised to follow without questioning (that is changing though) if a brutal government takes power there is less likely to be protest among the people. However, many people, including some Japanese, do think there is something inherently wrong with the Japanese. An English friend of mine was once told by a coworker, "Now is the season when we eat live fish." He was talking about a type of sashimi where the fish is prepared and eaten while it is still alive (still twitching while you eat it). The guy then said, "The most important part of Japanese culture is being cruel." Of course he was just kidding. I think.

[fascistfury]

e1am - yes, you are right about every culture being cruel to some extent. hmmm? now i don't know what to think about the issue. i suppose that seeing all this stuff on the jap occupation of SE asia(thailand-burma railway), china(rape of nanjing), korea, and ...whereever the bataan death march took place (phillipines?) has greatly influenced my opinion on the matter.
we westerners have been cruel also...how do you compare atrocities? pain? suffering? deaths? divided families?
what do you think is the most cruel culture? i think it all depends on where you're coming from....jews=germans, native americans=europeans, chinese=japanese, etc. later!