JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
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- FT English Teachers for Kids - Osaka
- Kohgakusha Co., Ltd. （株式会社興学社）, Osaka
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
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imagawa
Sidwarwick “dennis0bauer: What kind of noise do sharks make when they are approaching? Do they smack their lips or something?”
I thought they came at you with a sound track? Well they always do in the films……….
As for this ugly looking thing, it looks like something medical & “can function in water up to one meter deep”. Wow! Just the right depth to get hit by a boat or jet ski. But maybe that isn’t such a bad idea, allow natural sellection to deal with those that NEED their music so bad that they can’t even swin without it.
As Libertas said above, stopping that horrible noise leaking out of head phones would be a far greater achievement & maybe a certain Chinese man in Canada wouldn’t be where he is today had that been done.
Posted in: Waterproof MP3 player
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imagawa
MarkMcCracken
Sorry I wasn't being rude but when I try to answer nanny deletes.
Posted in: Whose portrayal of the Joker do you like the best?
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imagawa
USAExpat.
Thank you, I have to admit I was expecting to get Burned. I agree with you about the legacy that seems to hang over many of the ex-colonies. But without being able to put my finger on it there seems a greater shadow that hangs over a how Asia sees it’s own history, maybe the political inter play that went on between China & the west while China was still closed provides the fuel, there seems almost to be a waiting game being played. Nobody is giving because they are expecting something to happen “tomorrow” & this is not a road that will lead to a future peace. These little nagging details about who does & who doesn’t visit a shine seem almost the surface tensions of something greater, though stating it that way sounds almost paranoid, though that is not really the way I mean it & that is the problem. It isn’t something so tangible that a black & white argument can be built on it.
The race idea I was talking about in my earlier post stems from the league of nations conference when Japan put forward the idea of all men being equal & the conference rejected it. They were not white & as such they were seen to be asking for something that they were not in the white mans eyes entitled to. That I think pushed Japan into a limbo between not being accepted by the west while not seeing themselves as being a part of Asia. From that seed grows much more than we today might be willing to accept. Rightly or wrongly Japan believed herself to be part of the western block & yet that block rejected her, the mentality born out of that rejection is what I believe gave strength to a militarist doctrine that had no external controls.
I also feel that that basic racism still lingers in the west, I read it everyday on this site, it may be hidden behind care for a peaceful world & a peaceful Japan in that world, but there is a relentless attack against all things Japanese here that has roots that few here ever hold a mirror to. And it is that lack of substance that I so often try to draw out when I post. I want to know why a person in their 20s or 30s can feel such anger against Japan for a war that ended 63 years ago, they will of course find “reasons”, but I don’t want reasons, I would ask them to find a truth within themselves.
And will we ever see such on this site? I doubt it
Posted in: Japan ministers, but not premier, visit war shrine
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imagawa
I do not in any way support what the Japanese imperial army was or what it did, I make no excuses for them because none can be made.
But when I look at the histories of other countries, those in Europe & the US, these countries were to a greater or lesser degree & in some ways still are colonial powers & for one period in history Japan joined their club, even though that club didn’t want her to. Think about it, only once did Japan try to be a colonial power & for that she has never been forgiven.
I know all the usual reasons given for this, but I really do still feel that there is an element missing, one which is not so easy to find even in ourselves. Germany has been forgiven for what it did in Europe & Russia, Holland for its “ownership” in South East Asia & parts of Africa, France in Asia & North Africa & the British for almost everywhere. The Americans are still in occupation of most of the places they took, aped & hated in equal measure. But Japan fought, won & then lost 63 years ago & is still condemned. In Vietnam the Americans, Australians & British are accepted again, but much less so the Japanese.
I am not sure, & I will not say that I could be even 70% sure, but I really do feel that if the Japanese hadn’t been Orientals they would have been forgiven a long time ago. Somewhere deep down they are not treated in the same way, not even by other Orientals.
Aside from Tokugawa Ieyasu & his mad little attacks against Korea Japan has only once left its shores to fight a war, granted it was a big war. And for the last 63 years they have been a pacifist country & yet they still face constant condemnation.
And the rest of the colonial powers? They may operate differently these days, but they do still operate, & maybe they have not been totally forgiven, but they certainly don’t face the condemnation that Japan does.
But then they are white & that just might make a difference. I think it does.
What about the war dead from all these colonial wars, the white ones that is. Do any of us give even a second thought to the commemorative monuments we have all seen in the various home countries?
I don’t know, but at least I am asking myself if there is something here we don’t really ever look at in ourselves.
Posted in: Japan ministers, but not premier, visit war shrine
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imagawa
In the whole scheme of things this is a stunning important question with which to tax the intellect & wisdom of JT readers (including those that get their mums to read it to them).
I haven’t seen any of the batman films because I believe life is far too short at, say, 100 years or a little under to waste any of that time watching that which was created for the sole purpose of getting money out of the pockets of the simple to please. You can put star wars on that list too.
I wonder too if a question like this would have been asked had the actor playing the joker not have died & died so young. It seems that even in death some actors retain their marketable value & that I find a little too callous.
Posted in: Whose portrayal of the Joker do you like the best?
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imagawa
I have to admit that I find most of what is being written on this subject staggeringly arrogant especially given the degree to which things are twisted to suit an argument, an argument that is in fact none of your business. What pedantic nonsense for a foreigner to draw a line between war dead & war criminal. Let me be as pedantic as others & ask who are the war dead, soldiers at the front line, civilians killed by bombing, including children? I suspect the answer needs to be yes they are part of the war dead, but if we do go that way does that not leave us with a quandary, what about the “war criminals” that died in battle, committed suicide or was killed by bombing? They were never tried so were never convicted of any crime so would you still have them labelled “war criminal”? I suspect many here would label them as such because there seems to be a need to condemn where you have no right to condemn & for reasons you have never examined within yourself. A victor’s court is hardly likely to been seen by the defeated as a court of fair judgement, & that could be said of any defeated country. There is never a balance where war crimes trials are concerned. No war crime trials were ever held in the US, Britain, Australia, China, or where ever against those of their own that committed crimes against the Japanese & it would be childishly naïve to say that no such crimes happened. So, these countries turn a blind eye to those of their own who would justly be classed as war criminals. Why then does any one expect & even demand that Japan accept the judgement of a court that was not of their making, against its own people? We might reason that the actions themselves seen in an international light of right & wrong would be enough, half true, but that does not negate that those actions, legal or not were actions taken by men who believed at that time that they were acting for their country & that makes them both heroes & villains. Given time, hindsight & changing values it is to be expected & hoped that the Japan recognises that these actions were war crimes, but there is no reason why any of this should be retrospective. If you allow yourself that freedom in your effort to condemn the Japanese you leave the door open to be condemned for two atomic bombs & doubtless much more. When I see the day the US, British, Australians, Chinese et al condemn some of their own war dead as war criminals & remove them from war cemeteries then & only then will I see any none Japanese having the right to judge who is & isn’t a Japanese war criminal. This does not mean that I believe that no war crimes took place, to reason that way is total stupidity, yes, horrible crimes were committed, but to bring your criminal justice system to another country & force them to accept it’s judgement can never be acceptable. It was not acceptable when Japan did it in Asia so why was it acceptable when it was done to the Japanese? Reasoning, no country occupied by the Japanese kept the Japanese legal system after they were liberated as was to be accepted, yet it is expected that the Japanese should keep & accept a foreign legal judgements that was forced on them. The crimes of them self are not the issue here, you can tell all the horror stories you like in an effort to give your argument emotive power, but legally there is no reason why any country should keep a legal system that was forced on them by occupation, no other liberated country in the world has ever done so. Think, Chinese condemned & executed under Japanese law had their status changed from criminal to (probably) hero after liberation & this is blindly accepted without question because you all reason that the Japanese were the bad guys. The real question many of you need to ask yourself is why you feel need to be judgemental, what is your motivation in condemning Japan? If you dislike the Japanese then be honest & say that & walk away, but don’t give yourself a right to judge them least you be judged yourself & that you very obvious don’t like. The real question here is not to do with the Japanese or war crimes, it is the motivation of the posters.
Posted in: Japan ministers, but not premier, visit war shrine
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imagawa
Martyman
"This is making me a little nuts on the whole situation."
I know the name of a (perhaps not so) good psychiatrist,
Posted in: Psychiatrist arrested for threatening colleague in Yokohama
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imagawa
If I play your silly game I will be deleted, as usual, you know that as well as I. Let us just say that if you cannot understand my logic then there is every chance that you might in fact be in agreement with me, but not realise it. I never overwork what I write becaue I type what I am thinking & if that means that my thinking is convoluted what hope is there of me ever being able to talk to you in a way that you would understand?
Bye bye
Posted in: Japan ministers, but not premier, visit war shrine
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imagawa
Haven't we seen this film many times before but with different faces.
Has Holywood not got anything original?
Posted in: Wedding warfare in Las Vegas
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imagawa
Kimigano
Get real, that line of reasoning is going to get Japan nowhere.
This is the 21st. century.
Posted in: Japan ministers, but not premier, visit war shrine
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imagawa
nutsagain
"I suppose the recent revelation that Tojo,"
No, & don't try to put words in my mouth.
When the "truth" just keeps the hate alive, it is not useful. When the truth is used as a foundation for lies it gives the lies a credibility they shouldn't & wouldn't have without it.
Now, you I am sure will know the truth, so you tell me, are all the reports from China of what Japan did in China true?
Posted in: Japan ministers, but not premier, visit war shrine
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imagawa
"Just what is it YOU want to achieve?"
“I think if they were better informed, it would not be so easy for the sweep-it-under-the-rug faction members like Ossan to get away with their agenda. Keep dumbing it down...it is only 14 bad guys!"”
But that is not an answer to what I asked. To what end do you want people better informed?
I am having the usual problem with JT, my page is sliding off to the left & I’m losing the beginning of every line, it is just readable now. If it gets much worse I just wont comment rather than mis-reading what you written.
My thinking is that this whole issue is being used as a stick to beat the whole of the Japanese people with, & it has been for a long time. Your need to enlarge the issue only feeds into this & to what end, do you serious believe that you are going to make the world a better place by showing us how well informed you are & how ignorant we are? Yes, (& I am sure I speak for many others) we knew there were more than 14 war criminals. But there really wasn’t & isn’t a need to enlarge an already mis-used issue.
I have no wish for the issue to be forgotten as a way of protecting any of the bad guys, that has nothing to do with it. To me they are history as they should be & to a large degree are for most of Asia & I do not follow this meaningless new age crxp that says Japan cannot move forward until it comes to terms with it’s past, this is psychobabble that the stick carriers hide behind. Japan has moved on, but some parts of Asia still need for Japan to be the bogyman & they keep it all very alive. What you seem to be doing is helping that. There is never going to be a relaxed state between, for example, China & Japan until issues like this are put to rest & just how do you believe your thinking is helping that, you are feeding the monster & the monster is historical hate. Again, why do you feel a need to make it bigger? Truth is not always that useful & when truth is twisted & used as propaganda as we have seen with the Chinese, why do you feel a need to add to that?
Posted in: Japan ministers, but not premier, visit war shrine
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imagawa
He's a psychiatrist & all psychiatrists are nutters, it's part of the job.
“I’m prepared to die. I will shoot all of your family to death.”
But even for a psychiatrist this is a little over the top. Did he mean to include baba & jiji too do you think?
Posted in: Psychiatrist arrested for threatening colleague in Yokohama
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imagawa
The truth is while he was here the Japanese found out who he was & turned him, he is now spying for Japan, this pointless arrest warrant is just designed to give him credibility & stop the Russians sending him back to Japan. He’s of more use to the Japanese in Russia so now they have made it impossible for him to come back. And even if the Russian send him some place else he can still spy for them both.
You know you really shouldn’t take anything at face value where spies are concerned.
Posted in: Police charge Russian man in spying case
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imagawa
My advice would been that once the violence starts it never stops no matter how meaningfully he says sorry. Leave & leave now.
No, it's not a 100% truth, but if you have ever had to help a woman rebuild herself after such a relationship you would know that right or wrong it is the best advice. Finding out later that you were right & the man was a pig is too late, the damage will have been done.
I don't know what this girl was told, but the fact she stayed killed her. As somebody above said, in situations like this it is all too common that the girl does go back. Why women do this is beyond me, but they do.
Posted in: 26-year-old woman found stabbed to death in apartment in Tachikawa, boyfriend missing
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imagawa
Pathat
You start your reasoning that the war crimes trials were fair, that all the guilty verdicts were just & that only the victor’s views are to be thought of. Looking at 14 war criminals presents enormous complications & an answer will never be found, it can’t be because people always want to go on & on & on fighting a war that ended 63 years ago. You want to increase the numbers now to include all 5,700. surely you would also like to add all those the were killed before anybody got a chance to try them too, were they not also war criminal?
There is no sweeping under the carpet, there is an effort being made to move on, letting history become history, allowing people (not the state) to respect their dead, however they died & no matter what anybody said they were responsible for doing.
What is it you want to do, dig them all up & have them executed again, perhaps it could be done every year on August 15? You have no reason outside your own personal indignation for wanting to increase an already insoluble problem. Is your indignation enough to feed more hate into a world where there is already more than enough to go around? Just what is it YOU want to achieve?
Posted in: Japan ministers, but not premier, visit war shrine
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imagawa
I really do wish people would stop using Wikipedia as reliable source. Wikipedia may or may not be correct given that it created by anybody that makes the effort to write what they believe is the truth. We can all go on to Wikipedia & write our truth, but that does not make it a reliable source, that makes it very unreliable.
I would imagine Pathat’s quote is probably correct, but I can’t be 100% sure of this so I never use that site except to give me a general direction to go in for more reliable information.
Posted in: Japan ministers, but not premier, visit war shrine
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imagawa
Brighteyes
If you would care to put that quote back into context you will see that you totally miss the point, as I believe you wanted to.
If you care to re-read you will, if you wish to, see that everything I wrote was about people who had no say in what their country asked/demanded of them. I made no comments at all about the rights & wrongs of war.
If English is your second language then I will apologise for mis-judging your reasoning, but assuming from you writing English is your first language then I can only believe you deliberately quoted me out of context to make a rather obvious remark about war in general.
What your reason for doing so is I really have no idea.
Posted in: Yasukuni
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imagawa
When a state of total war is declared in a country the government say what is wanted from the people & it would be an extremely brave or stupid person that tried to stand against that. It matters nothing at all if the war is a just one or not. During WW2 young Japanese men were conscripted, as they were in other countries involved in the war. But unlike other countries their chances of surviving the war if they refused conscription were not as good as they would be by actually joining the military. Any war is dangerous, but in Japan in the 1930s & 40s it was more dangerous to object. Who today can understand that, who can understand a government so powerful that it will kill you if you object to joining a war you believe is wrong? For the Japanese soldier the enemy was both in-front & behind them & that must have built a comradeship way beyond what we might feel we have ever experienced. There is also the total control of all information by the government, just look at North Korea today & it gives you some idea of Japan at the beginning of the war. Even those soldiers that went to war believing in the war did so knowing only what they had been told, they believed because there was nothing else & they fought & died for what they believed. We have hindsight from which to judge their actions, they had no such thing. So they did fight & die for their country & as such are deserving of their country’s respect. It doesn’t matter today if they were lied to then; it matters only what they believed at that time. Some fought because they believed, others because they knew perfectly well what the penal system was like for objectors. Most of us are at this time are outside our own country, so it is a little difficult to know what we would do if our country called on all it’s people to join the military & fight a war that might just lead to our death (& one we might not agree with). We could hide behind our ex-pat status while we thought long & hard about it. Those in country wouldn’t be so lucky, they would be swept up in the “patriotic fervour” of the times, fearing to be seen as the outsider, the coward or the traitor. To judge Japan, the Japanese, the Japanese soldiers & the Japanese who died at that time from the safety & comfort of your computer keyboards is foolish or arrogant. Yes, you can read all the books watch all the films, even listen to the old men, but you cannot & will not ever be able to understand, none of us can, not even the old men who have forgotten the fears that were so real to them THEN.
Posted in: Yasukuni
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imagawa
Freespeech
"Sanctified under the name of kami, the soldiers become deities in charge of the protection of the Empire. They are no longer human beings, they have become the pillars of the Empire. All enshrined at Yasukuni, they maintain neither rank nor distinctions. Generals ans soldiers alike, they are no longer military personnel, they have turned into as many pillars. It is as pillars of the nation that the Emperor and the people dedicate a cult to them."
"they maintain neither rank nor distinctions. Nor guilt
They are not who or what they were in life. They left the good & the bad of who they were behind when they died, however they died. And that is true of all of them, not just those that don't offend you.
Posted in: Japan ministers, but not premier, visit war shrine