history-of-japan

"In Japan, the Communist Party has been particularly diligent in mounting a decade-long campaign against the Unification Church, promoting hate speech, weaving webs of falsehoods, and exciting politicians, media and public opinion against “the cult.”"

"The hibakusha help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons"

"The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one's aim is to die a dog's death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one's aim. We all want to live. And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. This is a thin dangerous line. To die without gaining one's aim is a dog's death and fanaticism. But there is no shame in this. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai. If by setting one's heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling."

"Bushido () offers us the ideal of poverty instead of wealth, humility in place of ostentation, reserve instead of reclame, self-sacrifice in place of selfishness, the care of the interest of the State rather than that of the individual. It inspires ardent courage and the refusal to turn back upon the enemy. It looks death calmly in the face, and prefers it to ignominy of any kind. It preaches submission to authority and the sacrifice of all private interests, whether of self or of family, to the common weal. It requires its disciples to submit to a strict physical and mental discipline, develops a martial spirit, and by lauding the virtues of courage, constancy, fortitude, faithfulness, daring, self-restraint, offers an exalted code of moral principles, not only for the man and the warrior, but for men and women in times both of peace and war."

"In India, the bourgeois, in Japan, the Samurai; in this single difference is comprised the whole contrasted histories of the two nations during the nineteenth century."

"Like Kurosawa, I make mad films. Okay, I don't make films. But if I did, they'd have a samurai."

"There are two types of samurai. One was fully dependent on their masters … while the other were contract-based warriors who were free to leave their masters once their contracts of service were over... During the medieval days of Japan, those who were captured were treated relatively generously. People didn't blame them for being captured because it was not their fault… Some of the captors even became part of the victors' armies Few people raise questions about the use samurai associations when describing Japanese sports. For instance, men's national football team is called "Samurai Blue," a baseball team named "Samurai Japan" …although warriors and sportsmen are very different. The critical difference between sports and war is that safety is guaranteed in a stadium, whereas battlefields entail killing... Considering the very different nature of two things, I wonder if using the term samurai for sports teams is appropriate. They've gone too far."

"According to Japanese historian Masaaki Takahashi... the samurai were not all about heroics, bravery and loyalty. Like all people, the samurai were humans with their own needs and desires and they tried to meet their needs, not always sacrificing themselves for the cause. Some misused their skills and military training to make personal gains. Some played hitman-like roles by killing their masters' enemies. Unlike popular portrayals of the samurai as being faithful only to their masters, the samurai during the medieval days of Japan were like "nomads" wandering from one master to another searching for better working conditions... Unlike the popular image of samurai committing suicide when they were captured by their enemies, the author says surrender didn't translate into shame. According to him, the fate of samurai prisoners of war depended on whether they were captured or surrendered. Their fates differ as some were victimized at the cruel hands of the victors... (the book) went on to say the samurai did their masters' dirty laundry, such as assassinations or revenge killings and their violence often led to gang fights."

"For 700 years, from the late 12th to the mid-19th centuries, Japan’s highest ideals were embodied in the samurai. Unflinching courage, unshakeable loyalty, murderous proficiency with the sword, a serenity in the face of death that to a modern eye can seem macabre, with its culminating ideal of agonizing self-disembowelment — such are the distinctive features of what came to be known as Bushido, the “way of the warrior.”"

"Starting in the 1890s, Imperial Japan fought a series of limited wars to entrench itself in continental Asia. It annexed Korea and went to extravagant lengths to eradicate Korean nationhood. Bad blood continues to poison Korean attitudes toward Japan to this day despite the island state’s radical transformation. Indeed, to all appearances, Japan—not North Korea—stokes the most passion in South Korea today. That’s tough for outsiders like yours to truly fathom. Japan has been a good international citizen for seventy years now, ever since U.S. forces ousted its militarist rulers in favor of a liberal republic displaying a strong pacifist streak. And for all the talk of Japanese rearmament, Tokyo spends a mere 1 percent of GDP on the armed forces. You can’t buy that much bang for so few bucks—certainly not enough to send forth conquering hordes across the Tsushima Strait... America is a close ally of South Korea. It’s a close ally of Japan. But seldom if ever do the two allies work together independently of the United States. That makes the U.S. Pacific Command the hub in a hub-and-spoke arrangement within the U.S. alliance system. This is starkly suboptimal. Alliances thrive on mutual goals and strategy, and underperform when allies see one another—not external threats—as the problem. Adding a spoke connecting Seoul with Tokyo would do a world of good—but it would demand that they transcend the longstanding era of bad feelings... Japan's record of mayhem stretches all the way back to the sixteenth century while spanning the military and, after 1868, imperial regimes... The last seventy years represents the calm before the next storm. Liberal rule today, militarist rule tomorrow?"

"There was a period when our nation brought to bear great sufferings upon the people of the Korean Peninsula. The deep sorrow that I feel over this will never be forgotten."

"In a society that employs a strong sense of ethnic and cultural unity, ethnic prejudice and discrimination typically prevent minority members from participating in main stream society. Both Japan and Korea are good examples of such a rigid society. Traditionally, the Korean government has been imposing various legal measures to prevent foreigners immigrating into Korea. However, Japanese minorities have been living in Korea, though small in number, for almost half a century. Most Japanese living in Korea today are elderly women with their Korean husbands, many of them now widowed."

"While Koreans show no apparent disapproval or hatred to foreigners in general, they have negative attitudes toward Japanese. Because of harsh memories of Japanese occupation period, a strong anti-Japanese sentiment has been prevailing throughout Korean society, especially stronger in the post-World War II era."

"As to the origin of those comfort women who were transferred to the war areas, excluding those from Japan, those from the Korean Peninsula accounted for a large part. The Korean Peninsula was under Japanese rule in those days, and their recruitment, transfer, control, et cetera, were conducted generally against their will, through coaxing, coercion, et cetera. Undeniably, this was an act, with the involvement of the military authorities of the day, that severely injured the honor and dignity of many women. The Government of Japan would like to take this opportunity once again to extend its sincere apologies and remorse to all those, irrespective of place of origin, who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women."

"North Koreans feel more anger toward Japan. The Korean War lasted for three years, but Korea was annexed by Japan for 35 years, which is a lot longer than the Korean War. More evidence and historical archives about the ruthless Japanese imperialism exist than those about Korean War. Hence, despite the fact that North Korea works so hard to make its people hate America, young North Koreans feel more anger and resentment towards Japan and what they did to Koreans during the annexation and World War II. In this sense, the North Korean historical education system has been successful."

"I have lived, and continue to live, in the belief that God is always with me. I know this from experience. In August of 1973, while exiled in Japan, I was kidnapped from my hotel room in Tokyo by intelligence agents of the then military government of South Korea. The news of the incident startled the world. The agents took me to their boat at anchor along the seashore. They tied me up, blinded me, and stuffed my mouth. Just when they were about to throw me overboard, Jesus Christ appeared before me with such clarity. I clung to him and begged him to save me. At that very moment, an airplane came down from the sky to rescue me from the moment of death."

"One of the most neglected aspects of the history of Korea under Japanese colonial rule is the significant role of the drug trade during the colonial period. Korea emerged as a major producer of opium and narcotics in the 1920s, and in the 1930s became an important supplier to the opium monopoly created by the Japanese-sponsored Manchukou regime. The latter development sparked an international controversy due to Manchukou's unsavory reputation in connection with the illicit drug trade, and would later lead the International Military Tribunal for the Far East to identify Korea as the 'principal source of opium and narcotics at the time of the Mukden Incident and for some time thereafter.' Moreover, emigrant Koreans played an extensive role in drug trafficking in China, and especially Manchuria. This disreputable element of the Korean Diaspora was usually employed at the lowest rung of the drug trafficking ladder as poppy farmers, drug peddlers, or the proprietors of opium dens. As Japanese nationals, Korean drug traffickers were immune from prosecution by Chinese authorities due to extraterritoriality."

"No less enslaved and little more likely to survive were the tens of thousands of Korean girls who were abducted to serve as 'comfort women' - ianfu, colloquially known as 'Ps', from the Chinese p'i (cunt) - to Japanese troops all over 'Greater East Asia', often to front-line areas. Victims of what amounted to institutionalized gang rape, their recollections make harrowing reading."

"Another official report, entitled 'Outline of Economic Policies for the Southern Areas', made it clear that Japanese financial institutions would 'assume the financial hegemony hitherto held by the enemy institutions'. The development of manufacturing industries in Japanese-occupied territory was to be 'discouraged'. Other Asians must learn Japanese. They must adopt the Japanese calendar. They must kowtow to the Japanese. In short, Co-Prosperity simply meant a new imperialism, with the Japanese taking the place of the Europeans as the masters. All that remained to be seen was whether they would be more cruel or less - though the example of Japanese rule in Korea, where nationalist stirrings had been crushed with unrestrained violence in the 1920s and where linguistic and cultural Japanization was intensified in the 1930s, was not encouraging. The Korean language was banned from schools. Koreans were to attend Shinto services and, after 1939, to adopt Japanese names. Nor was this process of cultural subjugation mitigated by economic progress. Living standards were miserably low in Korea. Per capita income was roughly a quarter of what it was in Japan, while the mortality rate from contagious diseases was more than twice as high."

"The present Japanese régime in Korea is doing everything in its power to suppress Korean nationality. The Government not only forbade the study of Korean language and history in schools, but went so far as to make a systematic collection of all works of Korean history and literature in public archives and private homes and burned them."

"# We will respect order in all our actions and ensure that our demeanor and claims are always honorable and upright."

"# To the last person and to the last moment, we will forthrightly express the will of the Korean people."

"# Today’s undertaking reflects the demands of our people for justice, morality, survival, and prosperity. Therefore, we will act solely in the spirit of liberty, never in the spirit of enmity."

"Americans think of WW2 in Asia as having begun with Pearl Harbor, the British with the fall of Singapore, and so forth. The Chinese would correct this by identifying the Marco Polo Bridge incident as the start, or the earlier Japanese seizure of Manchuria. It really began in 1895 with Japan’s assassination of Korea’s Queen Min, and invasion of Korea, resulting in its absorption into Japan, followed quickly by Japan’s seizure of southern Manchuria, etc. – establishing that Japan was at war from 1895–1945."

"The origins of the Korean War linked the late nineteenth century collapse of Chinese power in east Asia with the rise of Cold War ideological conflict. The fall of the Qing Empire, with which Korea had long been associated, opened the way for Japanese imperialist expansion across the region. The first country to be taken over was Korea, after China lost the 1894–95 war against Japan. By 1910 Korea was fully annexed to Japan, as an integral part of its empire. The Japanese administration did its best to stamp out Korean identity. The royal palace in Seoul was demolished and Japanese became the medium of instruction for all higher education. Tokyo even tried to force Koreans to wear Japanese dress and assimilate in social codes and family life. But at the same time, just like in the European empires that the Japanese admired and feared in equal amounts, there was widespread segregation of colonizers and colonized. Most Koreans understood that they could never become full members of the Japanese Empire, even if they had wanted to. From the beginning, the occupation of Korea gave rise to nationalist resistance. For many young Koreans, the real insult of the Japanese takeover was that it came just as they were formulating their own views of their country’s future. Some of them went into exile, and the nationalisms they conceived there were intense and uncompromising, as ideal views of one’s own country formed abroad often are. Korean nationalists wedded themselves not only to defeating Japan and liberating their country but also to building a future, unified Korea that was modern, centralized, powerful, and virtuous. Korea, they believed, could not only produce its own liberation but would stand as an example for other downtrodden peoples."

"They made a new government, which was a lot more Western. They made a new constitution, that was, pretty Western. And a military, that was... pretty Western. And you know what else is Western? That's right: It's conquering stuff. So what can we conquer? Korea! They conquer Korea, taking it from its previous owner, China, and then go a little bit further."

"We hereby pledge the following:"

"There was a period when our nation brought to bear great sufferings upon the people of the Korean Peninsula. The deep sorrow that I feel over this will never be forgotten."

"My opinion of Japanese administration in Korea has been derived from the consideration of what I saw in the country, what I have read about it in official and in unofficial publications, and from discussions with persons, Japanese, Korean and foreign, who were living in the Peninsula at the time of my visit. It is true that at the time Japan annexed Korea in 1910, the actual conditions of life in the peninsula were extremely bad. This was not due to any lack of inherent intelligence and ability in the Korean race, but to the stupidity and corruption which had characterized the government of the Korean dynasty, and to the existence of a royal court which maintained a system of licensed cruelty and corruption throughout Korea. Such was the misrule under which the Koreans had suffered for generation after generation that all incentive to industry and social progress had been destroyed because none of the common people had been allowed to enjoy the fruits of their own efforts. From 1910 to 1919 Japanese rule in Korea, though it accomplished much good for the people, bore the stamp of a military stiffness which aroused a great deal of resentment. The New Korea of which I write is the Korea which has developed under the wise and sympathetic guidance of Governor-General Saito. At the time of my own visit to Korea in 1922, the Governor-General had nearly completed three years of his tenure in the office."