MASSWIPE's past comments

  • 4

    MASSWIPE

    So here's an Asian country (Nepal) that was never invaded or occupied by Japan in the past and that has been the recipient of large amounts of foreign aid from Tokyo--and the Japanese government may throw away that whole reservoir of potential goodwill if it doesn't apologize to Mr. Mainali. I'm sure Nepali people are following this story closely.

    Many Nepalis wash dishes and do other menial work in Japan while often living in undignified conditions. Their community as a whole deserves to hear a mea culpa from the Japanese government.

    Posted in: Wrongfully convicted Nepali man asks for apology from the Japanese government

  • -1

    MASSWIPE

    "Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Dower"

    Hate to break this to you, but borderline self-hating Japanophile Westerners with white skin like John Dower are NOT the target audience for those seeking to establish the idea of moral equivalency between imperial Japan and the allied powers during World War II. The best judges of addressing that issue are Southeast Asians, who experienced direct Western colonial rule prior to 1942 and then spent 3 years under the iron fist of their so-called "liberators" from Japan. Chinese in Hong Kong and other coastal areas under direct Western control prior to the Japanese invasion are also worth considering.

    Posted in: Do you agree with Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto's comments on comfort women?

  • 0

    MASSWIPE

    This is what happens when moronic, revisionist, "Lost Cause" moral equivalency bloviating that you normally find on 2channel or Japan Today comes out of the mouth of the mayor of Japan's third most populous city. It's an ugly spectacle that will not gain any traction. Osakans, how's that celebrity lawyer as mayor working out for you? Hashimoto should go back to chatting with Dave Spector on Sunday morning TV.

    Posted in: Hashimoto says S Korean troops guilty of wartime sex abuse

  • 4

    MASSWIPE

    So this thread is still going, huh? I hope you all realize that one persistent commenter here (I won't say who) pretty much feels about imperial Japan the way some whites in the American South feel about the Confederacy--you know, "Lost Cause" and moral equivalency nonsense, e.g. General Sherman was just as bad as the most sadistic slave-owner in Georgia, or the Americans and the British were just as brutal as the Japanese. There's no point in debating somebody who feels that way.

    And I know the believers in Japan's "Lost Cause" will immediately object to this comparison on the grounds that chattel slavery was never practiced in occupied Korea or any other Japanese colonial holdings (this is true, I will concede that), but their sentiments are disturbingly similar, i.e. arguing time and again that, in the context of the times, the imperial Japanese regime wasn't so bad compared to its contemporaries. Confederacy sympathizers in the USA say the same exact types of things, except they rationalize 19th century chattel slavery rather than early 20th century colonialism.

    This "Lost Cause" moral equivalency nonsense regarding pre-1945 Japan will never gain traction outside of Japan. This is, after all, a regime that signed a tripartite pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1936, and which then attempted to become the hegemonic power in Asia without the full support or consent of Asians themselves (there were collaborators, of course, but most Asians wanted freedom, not domination by imperial Japan). Hashimoto and his supporters are unlikely to ever succeed in overturning the post-World War II consensus that imperial Japan was a bad regime (not only for other Asians, but for the Japanese themselves) which was eminently worth destroying.

    Posted in: Defiant Hashimoto says U.S. troops abused women during occupation

  • 0

    MASSWIPE

    "Not that they 'expect' anything at all. Being a 20-something female blonde (in most countries that I visited in my youth, at any rate) makes up for a whole range of shortcomings, including speaking broken Japanese"

    Cleo, this is a contradictory statement. If the Japanese in your younger days had absolutely no prior expectations about you (as you imply), then why did your being blessed with the luck to be a 20-something female blonde make up for a whole range of shortcomings? Could a 20-something female Indonesian have had such a blissful, wonderful experience in Japan as you apparently did as a youth?

    This is not off topic, because it goes to the heart of how well or enthusiastically people will pursue Japanese language fluency.

    Posted in: The skill of speaking fluent Japanese

  • 7

    MASSWIPE

    "Did any women or children die in the raids. If so, what are they celebrating?"

    You could easily do some research online and find out the answer yourself. If you wish to conduct a mock trial of a bunch of 90-95 year-old US war veterans on the grounds that they are war criminals, go right ahead, but just do it directly.

    Posted in: Doolittle's Raid survivors hold 70th reunion in U.S.

  • 0

    MASSWIPE

    That's not a problem in Japan if you're a 20-something female blonde. :-)

    So Cleo, are you implying that Japanese expect a 20-something female blonde to speak Japanese like a five year-old? Were you content with that situation? Sounds kind of insulting to me.

    The author here has a good sense of humor. His point about thinking in the target language is crucial.

    Posted in: The skill of speaking fluent Japanese

  • 1

    MASSWIPE

    If Ishihara hadn't been re-elected governor of Tokyo in 2011, this wouldn't even be on the table. How is a single prefectural politician able to drive this whole process? I hope the IOC understands that Ishihara really, truly does not deserve to get what he wants here. Let Istanbul host the 2020 games. The Middle East deserves a shot, and Turkey is quite deserving as the only (albeit flawed) Muslim-majority democracy in the region.

    Posted in: Hosting 2020 Olympics would aid healing process - Tokyo bid chief

  • 10

    MASSWIPE

    Looks like the JT crowd fell for this one, and the owners of this site got the response they wanted. Look, why adopt the Japanese mentality as your own? That's an invitation to mental confusion and instability. Stop thinking of yourself as a "gaijin in Japan" and realize that you are equally a (insert nationality here) in a foreign country. That is all--an American, Italian, Korean, Australian, etc. in Japan, a foreign country like the other 190 or so foreign countries in the world. Think that way and your existence in Japan becomes far less of a polarizing matter in your own mind. Adopting the Japanese view that there are two types of people in the world--Nihonjin and gaikokujin--is just a weird thing to do. You didn't spend your childhood singing Kimigayo in front of the Hinomaru, did you? Then don't think as if you did.

    Posted in: How do you feel about being a ‘gaijin’ in Japan?

  • 2

    MASSWIPE

    Much of this thread explains why I sometimes hate the internet. People denigrating and downplaying the accomplishments of Donald Keene--really? His accomplishments amount to nothing, his work means nothing to the average Japanese person--really? I shake my head at such comments written by people who will never be known by anything other than their anonymous online names. Keene has accomplished more in his life than most of us could ever hope for. No problem at all that Japan exercised its right as a sovereign nation to confer citizenship on him.

    Keene never married, but he was quoted as saying that he had married a wife called Japan. If such sentiments make some of you sick, Keene himself doesn't care, and one has to ask why you are involved with Japan at all if you react in such a manner to Keene's pro-Japanese sentiments.

    Posted in: Donald Keene obtains Japanese citizenship; shows off 鬼怒鳴門 as his name

  • 1

    MASSWIPE

    "I'm not interested in the propaganda version of the events"

    So Nigelboy, in your "Japan can never be wrong" world, accounts of Nanking written by Japanese are the truth, but accounts of Nanking written by Chinese and third-party witnesses are propaganda? Is that it? Why aren't the accounts written by Japanese also propaganda? Were you there when those Japanese sat down and wrote their accounts? Why are you so sure they were writing the truth?

    It's so bizarre to read the perspective of somebody who can never admit Japanese have ever done anything wrong in their entire history. And all this nitpicking about what happened in Nanking in Dec. 1937 obscures the bigger picture: Japanese armed forces, without adequate justification, invaded China and occupied its capital city. I'm sure people like the Nagoya mayor and the Tokyo governor would claim that Japan was trying to save China from the Chinese or something stupid like that, but Japan was not anointed by anybody to sort out China's problems at the time.

    Posted in: China complains to Japan over Nagoya mayor's Nanjing massacre denial

  • 1

    MASSWIPE

    "Multiculturalism is a reality in the U.S.; it is accepted neither in theory nor in practice in Japan."

    ...and Arudo Debito is very unhappy. What other conclusions are we supposed to draw from this quote? Harner, to his credit, didn't berate Japan for its lack of multiculturalism in his article. Nor, however, did he extol Japan for its lack of it. Too many people do one or the other.

    Posted in: Multiculturalism is a reality in the U.S.; it is accepted neither in theory nor in practice in Japan.

  • 2

    MASSWIPE

    "Notice how when the losers of WWII does it, it automatically is labeled as 'massacre'."

    OK, nigelboy, at least you're willing to admit that Japanese soldiers at Nanking did something bad (because any act that can be labeled as a "massacre" cannot possibly have been good). That's downright miraculous coming from you. As for your standard gripe about victor's justice, that won't ever get much of a hearing outside of Japan, no matter how many thousand more messages you write here.

    Posted in: China complains to Japan over Nagoya mayor's Nanjing massacre denial

  • 1

    MASSWIPE

    "Uhhm. You brought up the question MASSWIPE remember??? Let me remind you."

    I was making the wider point that IF the mayor of a major Japanese city is inclined to regard the extreme brutality and savagery displayed by Japanese soldiers against civilians in Nanking (irrespective of what the Chinese themselves did, the Japanese also behaved in a deplorable manner, as is well documented) as a "conventional fight" then it helps explain why Asians all over the continent were stunned and horrified by the "conventional" manner of Japanese warfare. I'm sure you still don't get it.

    But please, go on with your "whataboutery" deflections about Chiang Kai-shek and so forth.

    Posted in: China complains to Japan over Nagoya mayor's Nanjing massacre denial

  • 1

    MASSWIPE

    "How many times does Japan have to apologize for WWII?"

    And here we go again with the "whataboutery" nonsense among the subject changers. Why are you bringing up the apologies issue? This is about the mayor of a major Japanese city arguing that what is almost universally regarded as an atrocity by Japanese soldiers in Nanking against civilians was nothing more than a conventional fight.

    It would be no less deplorable if the mayor of a major American city attempted to reclassify the My Lai massacre of 1968 in Vietnam as a conventional fight (it certainly wasn't; American soldiers committed war crimes, and it's outrageous that Lt. William Calley walks free today). But you know what: No mayor of a major American city would be STUPID enough to opine on a topic so completely irrelevant to his/her job responsibilities. The mayor of Nagoya should spend more time worrying about how the strong yen will impact Toyota sales.

    Posted in: China complains to Japan over Nagoya mayor's Nanjing massacre denial

  • 1

    MASSWIPE

    I can see that I gave the "subject changers" the opening they were looking for. There's a word for your kind of behavior: "whataboutery" Go ahead, write about anything except the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers against the civilians of Nanking.

    Posted in: China complains to Japan over Nagoya mayor's Nanjing massacre denial

  • 1

    MASSWIPE

    "simply accepting the China's version of events is indeed a DENIAL"

    Earth to nigelboy: Disagreeing with Kawamura's words does NOT equal accepting China's version of events, except in the eyes of people who can never, ever fight fault with any actions taken by the Japanese. So Japanese soldiers committed inexcusable atrocities at Nanking in December 1937--why the need to deny this terminology and classify what happened there as a "conventional fight?"

    Posted in: China complains to Japan over Nagoya mayor's Nanjing massacre denial

  • 2

    MASSWIPE

    “I doubt that the Nanjing massacre happened, even though a conventional fight took place,” Kawamura said.

    This ridiculous statement, uttered by a man whose job (mayor of Nagoya) requires absolutely no need to provide commentary on the topic at hand (yet another Japanese politician mouthing off on something unrelated to his duties) actually goes a long way towards explaining why Japanese soldiers incurred the wrath and enmity of Asians everywhere from Seoul to Surabaya. I mean, if what occurred in Nanking in December/January of 1937/38 was just a "conventional fight" in the eyes of many Japanese, then what exactly would constitute something worse than that? The Japanese behaved and fought with extraordinary savagery in Nanking--but I guess it was just par for the course and similar to how they behaved in Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong, Burma, etc. as far as Kawamura and those like him are concerned.

    Posted in: China complains to Japan over Nagoya mayor's Nanjing massacre denial

  • 2

    MASSWIPE

    "Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?"

    For the same reason that most white Americans used to change their attitude when they communicated with non-white people. Think of this comparison: If you are white (and I'm guessing most of you are white), try to imagine what kind of person you'd be today if every single significant person around you while growing up--your teachers, your classmates, your neighbors--had been white as well. Think of how much more blinkered, ignorant, and insensitive you'd be today had you grown up in such a strictly mono-racial environment. Think of how awkward and uncomfortable you'd find it to talk to anybody who wasn't white. This was the world as white Americans knew it well into the 1960s, before racially discriminatory restrictions on immigration were lifted and segregation was outlawed.

    Welcome to the world that most Japanese believe they grew up in (regardless of the demographic realities)--a one-race nation. But in good time, such attitudes will change, just as they did among white Americans.

    Posted in: Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?

  • 1

    MASSWIPE

    "Why wouldn't they be biased? Every person has their own agenda"

    Good point--and a good reason to doubt your own objectivity regarding this matter, Oginome, no matter how many times you write that you are just providing facts. You are not just providing facts, you are including your own biases in every comment you upload.

    Posted in: Japan losing its manufacturing edge to South Korea

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