Why Koreans and Chinese Still Hate Japan

Japanese often don't know about any events that happened in the 1930s and 40s, which causes neighboring nations in Asia to have grudges and frustrations toward Japan.

And yet, many Japanese still have no clue why it is such a big deal even to this day.

■How Much Japan's Millennials Know about World War II

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■Typo:
5:20s: From what perspective is it 'written' ?

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Big thanks to all the interviewees in this video

■Joe Oliver

■Tiffany Rachel

■Mayu

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[zugabdu]

As a Chinese American whose grandmother lived under Japanese occupation in Hong Kong during the war, I don't blame modern Japanese people for what the Japanese military did generations ago, but I do detest the wilful ignorance so many Japanese have over their nation's past. Given how quick Japan is to point out aspects of the war where it was a victim (such as the bombings), this refusal to acknowledge Japa's war crimes doesn't feel even slightly innocent.

[AncestorEmpire]

If you’re gonna study history, you should learn both the good and the bad. For no country is without a stain on their past.

[ekananda]

As my Indonesian history teacher said, forgive but don't forget about history

[destroyermaker]

Some of the stuff that happened during the Manila massacre is truly horrific.

"At least 20 Japanese soldiers raped a young girl before slicing her breasts off after which a Japanese soldier placed her mutilated breasts on his chest to mimic a woman while the other Japanese soldiers laughed. The Japanese then doused the young girl and two other women who were raped to death in gasoline and set them all on fire."

Like what the hell, Japan?

[rmalmeida]

War crimes are hard to forget. My Korean mother still hates Japan with a passion. Funny thing is that my mother was born in 1950 but some of her relatives probably experienced it.

[Verbalaesthet]

I actually wrote my master thesis about this topic. I translated the most used Japanese history school textbook about WW2 and analysed how they described it and what they said about the war crimes. My analysis showed that the WW2 description was so obscured that you couldn't even figure out who started the war and the war crimes were barely mentioned in some foot notes and in a very vague fashion. I also found out why. The US made a deal with the war criminals: they got the research data from the human experiments (like anthrax for example) and the war criminal who did these experiments got away unpunished and even was in the post-war Japanese government as head of the ministry of education and edited these textbooks to be this way.

[Seedmember]

History is there to teach us. Either how to handle a situation or how to not repeat it. It's not there so that we can condemn people for their ancestors' wrongdoings or to feel superiority over others.
History must be taught and must never be sanitised, eitherwise we are in danger of repeating grave mistakes.

[TheMan]

There isn’t a single country in this world without a bloody past, some simply more than others. It is what it is, but there is no excuse for deliberately ignoring or obfuscating history.

[bigmoviefreak]

I commend your effort for putting this out. Hopefully it gives more awareness to the Japanese people. My friend’s grandfather was publicly tortured and executed by Japanese soldiers during WW2, and he was no soldier, just a random person in the crowd. It helps a lot if the Japanese at least acknowledge and perhaps show a bit more respect, which I think is a much cherished virtue in your country, last I checked. Because people around Southeast Asia are still tormented by the war that we never asked for.

[MaxiusTheGod]

I don't see a reason to make Japanese people who had nothing to do with the crimes of the past feel guilty. But to be ignorant of your own history (whether it is good or bad)... Seems like a problem.

[glynisnakahara]

Thank you for such honest coverage of a sensitive issue. When I went to the Shinkansen Museum in Kyoto, reading through the chronological exhibits, I was shocked at what little mention at all there was about WWII and Japan's role in it. Almost nothing to be frank. San Francisco's Osaka Sister City relationship -- the oldest in the US -- was severed by Osaka's mayor a few years ago because in San Francisco, a comfort women's memorial statue was erected. It was unbelievable?!?! This is evidence of a real problem with Japan's inability to acknowledge their role in atrocities. And with respect to the comfort women, this is why Japan and Korea cannot come to closure and move on -- despite all of the financial measures on the part of Japan. There can be no atonement if Japan is not sorry. And Japan cannot be sorry if its people have no clue.

[bibliocharylodis]

I wrote my bachelor thesis on historical revisionism of WWII in Japan. They are playing the waiting game, imo. Waiting for everyone who was effected to die and/or for people to no longer care. That prime ministers are still visiting yasukuni shrine. That that shrine even still exists in its form - including war criminals - is kinda ridiculous, tbh.

[larsgoldgrebe]

As a German, I think it is very important to deal with the history of your country. We not only have the Second World War, but also the First and many other wars before it. You have to try to understand through the lessons why all this happened so that it never happens again. I am also grateful to the other nations (especially the Jewish people) for forgiving us this great mistake. As has often been said, "forgive but do not forget". But please, dear Japanese, if you deal with it, then don't slip into the other extreme. Don't burden yourself with all the guilt and, above all, the war has been over for 78 years. Most of those from back then are no longer alive. As Nobita said in the video, he doesn't feel responsible for what his ancestors did. What should some grandparents have done? My grandfather (died 2014) was 15 years old when the war in Europe ended. What should he have done there? He was too young to change all that. And I also think it's cheeky that my Federal President doesn't want to speak German abroad because, in his eyes, it's a "perpetrator language". If you hear something like that from your own politicians, it can quickly go in the wrong direction again and then the extremists will come back to power. I personally think every war sucks. But unfortunately I can't stop a single one. Only, with the help of enlightenment, I can never start one myself. And something like that has helped the world a lot.
In short, my conclusion: Japan should deal with the story more thoroughly, but not let it be put down forever and ever.

[mr.president]

When people did tours in the Philippines and the Japanese war crimes and atrocities were brought up, the Japanese person was oblivious to it and genuinely surprised about what happened. It was really sad and awkward for him since he had no idea why people held anger for the things that happened in the past.

[AziaXtremeNFinity]

in opinion two things I think the Japanese bureaucracy do to ignore that part of Japan's history
1) they prefer to focus more on the Samurai eras of Japan the most (Edo, Muramachi, especially the Sengoku period, Heian and Kamakura) because the Samurai era of Japanese history is glamorized and romanticized and the most recognizable to most people around the world and of course the reconstruction period of the 1950s and 60's and onward to today
2) MAYBE there are some within the bureaucracy who're stubborn and prideful about the wrongdoings during the 1930's and 40's and refuse to acknowledge it AND probably there are still some WHO ARE ashamed and remorseful for what their fathers and grandfathers had done and are so embarrassed by it that they probably just wanna ignore it completely so they instruct the Japanese education system/academia to avoid WWII altogether or not get too much into the subject entirely, just mention a few details then skip and move on

[thrillington]

If you don't learn from history, history will repeat itself.

[uxioexo]

I really appreciate that you as a Japanese person acknowledge th is history and tell this to the world.We need more people like you.

[dankfarrik]

It’s funny how that works isn’t it? I’m from The Netherlands and we learned a lot about WW2 and what the Germans did to us. It’s a whole entire chapter in the history book. It’s only two or so pages what happened after WW2 ended. Hardly anyone knows the details about the Dutch then going to Indonesia to take back our colony that the Japanese took from us. The Indonesians didn’t want to go back to be colonized by us, big surprise. So we went there to wage war upon the Indonesians that just went through hell by the Japanese occupation.
This was right before the US-Vietnam war and some of our military officers advised the US on how to deal with jungle guerilla warfare and how to “persuade” the locals to comply.
Nobody really knows about this, but you can look it up on Wikipedia if interested. It was very much our Vietnam.

[johnluo]

As a Chinese study historical consciousness in Japan with a German supervisor, I feel angry about how the authorities in China and Japan try to beautify their crimes, such as the aggression and atrocities committed by the Japanese Army and Navy and the violations of human rights by the Chinese Communist Party.
Although the dominators should take most of the responsibility, as civilians, we shall not tolerate their crimes by our ignorance. Because if we tolerate their crimes committed decades ago, we can hardly correct their mistakes made in yesterday or stop their crimes in the future.

[brothermalcolm]

After watching dozens of Japanese reacts videos, read hundreds of Japanese comments sections, and pouring over every thread on Quora. I think your the first Japanese youtuber to acknowledge the unspoken war crimes explicitly by name and get to the root of the issue. Please spread the word to your fellow countrymen with haste.