Japanese Embassy under attack by the Chinese

[joea]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

Than, you see many opinions that have been long forgotten in the west start to surface in China. Hitler is interpreted to be a hero to the german people, and how the chinese government should go fascist (particularly shocking, as many of the guys I went to school with have become Hitler lovers). they even managed to go back more, people start digging around, and the ideologies of Cecil Rhodes, Otto Von Bismark, Robert Clive, and other 19th century colonial era politicians start coming back.

This is shocking and very sad.

Especially since I met a few Chinese people who are decent - one roomate in student res in particular who came here to study international law at my institute in Geneva. Great fellow, proud to be Chinese and a friend. However, even he got angry when the subject of the atomic bombs was brought up-he felt Japan deserved it after what was done to his country, and he had family involved, his grandfather was almost shot for example as he worked as an engineer at a Shanghai factory and forgot he had a spare part in his pocket that was found by a Japanese soldier.

I can sort of understand his frustration in that quite a few people outside of East Asia are very ignorant of what the Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, and others went through and how their deaths far exceeded those of Japan even taking into account radiation sickness (at least the stats I've seen). I can even sort of understand his thinking Japan deserved the nukes (more than say an American saying Japan deserved the nukes for Pearl Harbor).

However given that, I must wonder about this admiration for Hitler, to his credit my roomate did not admire Hitler and knew very well about the holocaust and how the Allies helped-but they are not going to get much sympathy from the west if they go this far-it looks like they are becoming the new bully and doing what they claim others did to them in the past.

The funny thing is I never hear of any such resentment by say Russians against modern Germans (more against Americans), perhaps because they (well the Soviets) raised the flag on the Reichstag while end of the Pacific war was on the USS Missouri.

An interesting contrast with a Filipino friend and former colleague whose father had a long and distinguished career in the foreign service in the governemnt of the Phillipines when they gained their independence. I understand he had been a person of note before the war (I think serving in the administration preparing for planned independence in 1945) when the Japanese invaded. He joined the US-backed guerrila forces fighting against Japan. His wife (who had 10 kids) had to face death when Japanese troops showed up at the door when this fellow had first left demanding information as to his wherabouts, she refused and a servant was grabbed, had gasoline poured over her and set on fire. Then the family was rounded up and shipped off to a camp-but they survived. The father was taken prisioner in any case and treated much worse but also survived.

After the war guess what one of his first postings was? Ambassador to Japan. My friend's mother did not want to go but they did and they ended up loving the place, he even went back to teach English before he followed his folks to Geneva and got into business.

They don't forget but they have forgiven.