Anti-Japanese sentiments in China

This is probably going to be my first political post since Thirsty came to life, but maybe this will help Thirsty to slowly become an adult. Any non-nihilist will agree with me that education is by far one of the most important factors in self-realization and that therefore it should be treated with the utmost caution and dedication.

Just like the Japanese were taught that their emperor was a god during the first half of the 20th century, Japanese kids are now supposed to be taught that that was a load of extremely dangerous bs. However, some apparently believe that this kind of domestic masochism is no longer needed for the economic empire that is Japan. New textbooks intended to be used in junior high schools have been published in an attempt to minimalize Japan's war atrocities. The Nanjing massacre, where thousands were brutally murdered, women received their Last Rites in the form of Japanese sperm and a bullet to finish it off and babies were caressed with spears through their bodies or received free swimming lessons in boiling water, is now called the 'Nanjing Incident'.

[Tip: type in the words 'Nanking' and 'massacre' @ google.jp and click on the first hit. ]

Ok, my words are quite tendencious, but so are theirs. It makes me sick when I see seventy year old politicians on television babbling about how "beautiful Japan is" and how they "don't understand why people don't realize this". Um, well, hello?

Of course, the agitation in China also has a domestic side to it, the fastest growing economy on the planet has left many people out and the gap between those on the high-speed train and those who have suffered to build it, is still widening. Some people even predict a civil war within the next ten years. That the current protests are a way of releasing some of this tension by ways of directing it at a common enemy, as some people say, could be quite true, but that is not for me to judge.

What I do know, is that conservative nationalism hasn't been wiped out yet, on the contrary, if the Japanese Ministry of Education gave its 'yay' to these new (old) views, I can only conclude that something is rotten in the state of Japan. And it's starting to smell. As BBC's William Horsley says: "But on this trip to Japan I could not avoid the conclusion that a new mood of nationalism has also begun to take hold in this country which has been publicly devoted to peace and economic prosperity for so long." Indeed, tis true.

Don't get me wrong, I really do love this country and I am grateful to be here. A lot can be learned from it, but maybe it should also learn from itself.