How Do the Japanese Teach About WWII?

Get awesome wine delivered to your door, support this show, and get 50% off your first six bottles by checking out BrightCellars using the following link www.brightcellars.com/TIFO50

When I studied Japanese in college I had several Japanese friends. They told me America only dropped the atomic bomb on Japan and not Germany because of racism. When I told them the atomic bomb wasn’t successfully tested until after Germany surrendered, they had a rather shocked look on their faces.

Japan: We were having a picnic in China, and all over the Pacific. Then for some reason the Americans nuked us.

as a german, im very proud of the german education system and that in school they teach what genuinely happened because i think you should always remember what your ancestors did wrong to learn out of those mistakes because our generation has the responsibility to not let history repeat itself

My grandparents went to Japan about 10 years ago as part of a tour group. My step grandma's father served in the Marines in the Pacific during WWII and witnessed atrocities. They went to Hiroshima and the tour guide presented the atomic bomb as the peaceful people of Japan were randomly attacked by the horrible Americans. When my step grandma told her about stories she heard about Japanese soldiers, the tour guide told her to leave. She believed it was lies made to make Japan look bad because Americans are jealous of Japan's success. This was someone leading tour groups!

I lived in Japan for a few years in the mid 90’s and I was stunned at how many Japanese had no idea of what transpired during WW2. Never mind covering up atrocities, everyone does that, but they really were taught that they were just going about their own business when suddenly America attacked them. This didn’t really start changing until the internet became widely available.

Germany: "We remember, we're sorry" Japan: "Sorry, we dont remember"

My grandmother's uncle was a P.O.W. captive in a Japanese camp. He never talked about the war but my grandma relayed to me one story. His fellow prisoner was starving to death so my great great uncle swiped a melon rind (like a cantaloupe rind) that the soldiers had discarded from under a fence to give his starving friend to eat. Soldiers caught him and knocked his teeth out with a rifle butt and beat him. He was eventually rescued, weighed 90 pounds, looked like a crippled old man in his 20s, and never talked about the war except a small handful of times. Died in his early 40s.

When I was living in Japan, a friendly clothing-shop owner asked me while doing small talk where I came from. "Germany", I answered. He brightened, smiled, told me Germany is a great country and if I knew that Japan and Germany were war-time friends? He told me what a strong leader Hitler was, and proudly showed me a Nazi-uniform replica hat in his (otherwise normal) clothing shop. He couldn't understand, why I didn't want to buy it?? I tried to explain as politely as possible that he shouldn't sell stuff like that, especially to Germans, that swastika symbols were illegal in Germany and that Hitler was a "really bad man". He was genuinely confused. He never learned in school about the "bad stuff" of Nazi-Germany and was terribly sorry, apologising about the Nazi hat. I saw him again a few weeks later when I was in the area. He recognised me and told me that, after going home that day he googled Hitler and the Nazi regime. He was shocked about what he found and apoligised again about not knowing about that stuff before.

For a culture so obsessed with honor they sure did lack it.

Germany: we have committed countless attrocities and shall now make laws to be better, as well as pay reperations. (Edit, was repititions as a typo) Italy and Russia: we joined the allies and were forgiven. Japan: there was no war is ba sing se

My wife is Japanese from Japan. They do not mention the rape of Nanking, they do not mention the empire aggression they wanted, they glance over Pearl Harbor, but they sure do talk about the atom bombs and fire bombing of the cities. It’s sanitized history.

I’m an American who taught English in Japanese junior high schools for 17 years. Before that, I tutored Japanese exchange students in the USA. Now most exchange student programs have some academic requirements to take part, you’re usually talking about some very smart kids. So I was really shocked the first time I was tutoring a girl in history and the subject was the Battle of Midway in WW2, we were going into great detail and she was taking all these notes when I asked if she had any questions so far and she honestly asked me 1) what countries fought in the war, and 2) which side won. 🤨?!

Germany: We are so sorry, please forgive our past and we will pay more reparations.. Italy: wdym we and the allies won Japan: What war?

20 years ago my new Japanese wife and I were watching the movie “Pearl Harbor.” She honestly thought it was totally fictional and was shocked to learn that the Japanese had actually attacked the US. She said the Japanese schools never taught anything about the war that portrayed them as aggressors.

During the invasion, Japanese army dropped bacteria bombs in my hometown Quzhou (if you watched the movie Midway, it’s in there) and my grandmother as a kid was effected by it and since had a severe skin problem on her legs, which got passed down to my father and maybe me. It’s a symptom that makes your skins on the leg become fish scales like and very itchy. And I know that there are many many more people who are still living with the aftermath of their war crimes.

I did a trip to Bataan a few years ago. They have a museum where the American-Filipino’s surrendered. In the museum they have pictures of what the Japanese’s did to the civilian population in Manila when it fell. One picture was of women with her cloths half ripped off and her breast cut off. We were told by the administer that a Japanese student broke down to tears when he saw that. He had know idea of the atrocity his country had done to the Filipino people.

china, korea: yeah we just want you to apologize Japan: we're sorry that you feel like you need an apology

This would be a good series. How do ---- teach about WW2. All the participants

In 1990, I was teaching at a small school in CT that had Korean and Japanese students. In one class, I had a student on the Roster as Myung, which is a Korean name. I said hello in Korean and he looked at me like I was crazy. Very insulted, he said he was Japanese. I replied that I had made the mistake based on his Korean name, which he flat-out denied was anything but Japanese. I let it drop, but later heard that he had complained to his family. His grandmother confirmed she had been a comfort woman, and that he was part Korean, his father a child of Japanese rapists. That brought out that his mother was probably also the child of a comfort woman, though his maternal grandmother had passed away some time before. Myung later told me that all of his Japanese friends wound up shunning him over it. Occasionally, Asian kids would bring their textbooks to use as reference materials. The math and science books were pretty good, but the history books were exactly as you said - the Japanese very thin on WW2, and the Korean and Chinese ones full of stories from the time. The Japanese kids would be angry about the "false history" from the time, like the Bataan Death March mentioned in Zinn, but they quickly realized that ther was a lot missing from their history books.