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Chinese people believe "son should pay father's debt". In fact just last year I read a piece of news saying a young man in China worked hard to pay off his deceased father's debts. In China he is not required by law to take care of his father's financial problem, not to mention his father already died. But he still did so and got praised.
Also, westerners (especially Americans) do not usually have a close relationship with their ancestors. For Americans, it may not be a big deal if their great grandfather was killed by Japanese. However in Chinese culture, such stories have a bigger impact.
A gang of burglars burst into my grandparents' house one night in the 1940's, killing some people. In the aftermath, some of them were killed by the police; some of them were arrested and sentenced to prison; some are arrested and found not guilty; some of them get away. Years later, the children and grandchildren of some of these gang members make an apology to me, even though they have nothing to do with it, and truth be told, neither do I. It doesn't erase the fact that I have ancestors who may have died or otherwise suffered at the hands of their ancestors, but, the bigger concerns in my life now are that I have a family, a business, and a life which exists totally separately from the incidents that occurred four decades before I was born, and a full decade before my parents were born, for that matter.
you missed the point that such "apologies" from governments are not really personal, but rather to show that the offending country has learned the history and the lessons associated with it and will not make the same mistakes again.
So in your opinion it is stupid for the Germans to have museums and memorials dedicated to victims since two generations have passed, and why do the current German people need to care about what happened 60 years ago?
yes, I saw Japan apologizing many times. But do we see they erect monuments and set up museums to show the Japanese exactly what Japan did during WWII in Asia, with graphic photographs and videos?
No, only a few days ago and Japanese PM was giving a speech vaguely talking about history, while skillfully focusing on the fact that Japan became the first Asian country to beat European colonizers, as if what Japan did during WWII was meant to defend and protect itself, while hugely downplayed the atrocities it committed to its Asian neighbours when it was not under any attack whatsoever.
you missed the point that such "apologies" from governments are not really personal, but rather to show that the offending country has learned the history and the lessons associated with it and will not make the same mistakes again.
So in your opinion it is stupid for the Germans to have museums and memorials dedicated to victims since two generations have passed, and why do the current German people need to care about what happened 60 years ago?
yes, I saw Japan apologizing many times. But do we see they erect monuments and set up museums to show the Japanese exactly what Japan did during WWII in Asia, with graphic photographs and videos?
No, only a few days ago and Japanese PM was giving a speech vaguely talking about history, while skillfully focusing on the fact that Japan became the first Asian country to beat European colonizers, as if what Japan did during WWII was meant to defend and protect itself, while hugely downplayed the atrocities it committed to its Asian neighbours when it was not under any attack whatsoever.
So the solution is to erect monuments and museums? Lol. Have you ever read a Japanese modern history textbook used in primary and secondary schools throughout Japan? All of them do exhaustive instructions on Japan's war crimes, including Nanjing Massacre and many other atrocities in great detail without revision. Japanese children learn about these things since primary school, yet you claim as if they have no knowledge of these events at all?
And I just love it when the current Chinese government accuses Japan of "historical revisionism". Oh yes, China's own history education is just fullllll of totally objective facts. In today's China, you can't even send a Weibo post about the Great Leap Forward or the mass persecutions of the cultural revolution without having your IP address traced by the local pubic security bureau. And try putting the two numbers "8" and "9" in the same phrase - instant account suspension and possible invitation to the public security bureau. Fun times. Does the current Japanese government ever go to such extent to silence alternative opinions within their country?
Matthew 7:5 - Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
So the solution is to erect monuments and museums? Lol. Have you ever read a Japanese modern history textbook used in primary and secondary schools throughout Japan? All of them do exhaustive instructions on Japan's war crimes, including Nanjing Massacre and many other atrocities in great detail without revision. Japanese children learn about these things since primary school, yet you claim as if they have no knowledge of these events at all?
And I just love it when the current Chinese government accuses Japan of "historical revisionism". Oh yes, China's own history education is just fullllll of totally objective facts. In today's China, you can't even send a Weibo post about the Great Leap Forward or the mass persecutions of the cultural revolution without having your IP address traced by the local pubic security bureau. And try putting the two numbers "8" and "9" in the same phrase - instant account suspension and possible invitation to the public security bureau. Fun times. Does the current Japanese government ever go to such extent to silence alternative opinions within their country?
Matthew 7:5 - Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Wow, western kool-aid with a good dash of Bible! That's new!
So the solution is to erect monuments and museums? Lol. Have you ever read a Japanese modern history textbook used in primary and secondary schools throughout Japan? All of them do exhaustive instructions on Japan's war crimes, including Nanjing Massacre and many other atrocities in great detail without revision. Japanese children learn about these things since primary school, yet you claim as if they have no knowledge of these events at all?
And I just love it when the current Chinese government accuses Japan of "historical revisionism". Oh yes, China's own history education is just fullllll of totally objective facts. In today's China, you can't even send a Weibo post about the Great Leap Forward or the mass persecutions of the cultural revolution without having your IP address traced by the local pubic security bureau. And try putting the two numbers "8" and "9" in the same phrase - instant account suspension and possible invitation to the public security bureau. Fun times. Does the current Japanese government ever go to such extent to silence alternative opinions within their country?
Matthew 7:5 - Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Just trying to follow you there. No one is saying that China or South Korea are perfect, but France, UK, Russia or the USA did not need to be perfect for Germany to extensively recognize its mistakes and transmit that acknowledgement to the future generations through its History classes and books.
Just trying to follow you there. No one is saying that China or South Korea are perfect, but France, UK, Russia or the USA did not need to be perfect for Germany to extensively recognize its mistakes and transmit that acknowledgement to the future generations through its History classes and books.
I'd be interested in exactly the what the changes entail. What content does it change, what content stays the same. To my knowledge, the new screenings in Japanese textbooks only applied to a small percentage of distributed textbooks in Japanese public schools, and that the revised textbooks did not change or take out previous historical content, but simply added notes that lay out the current Japanese government's position on certain issues.
Of course, I don't condone any kind of external revision or suppression of history. Historical information should be accessible to all, and that you can have opposing views to what happened. That is fine as long as people are given freedom of access to all historical content so people can make their own decisions.
I just find it rather comical that a bunch of Chinese government sympathizers are attacking Japan's history education, when China's own Communist Party has been sprouting intense nationalist fervor to citizens for decades. Yes, whenever there's an internal problem in China, always turn public opinion towards the Japanese. You can always score political brownie points by villifying the Japanese.
This is your opinion, purely speculative, and based on who-knows-what, and it is WRONG.
It's a big cultural misunderstanding, or difference, depending on how you look at it. The West doesn't engage in filial piety, and so many people believe that since Westerners don't do exactly what their parents or grandparents say they should do, they are being disrespectful and/or don't love their family. In china, you show love for your family by obedience; for westerners, you show love for family by loving them and being there for them no matter what you have chosen to do with your life. The societies are structured around these practices, so everything falls into place and it generally works.
A personal anecdote: a few months ago, my fiance got really bugged that every couple days, I would communicate with my family and friends living in the US and Sweden for maybe a half an hour or hour via email or facebook. "Honyeeee, that's wasted time you could use to do something important! We should always be working!" A few days later, she made a comment on Americans not being as connected to their family as Chinese, and I reminded her that the other day, she asked me to be less connected to my family for the sake of looking more busy.
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