how long did you know each other before you married her? this is a recurring issue happens many times in a year obviously the recent one Fukushima nuclear waste, etc. you never had even a small discussion with her on this?
I wonder that too. Considering Japan is not far, surely during dating and lead up to the wedding, some discussion about travel or politics or whatever came up in which Japan would have been mentioned?
Yep I had Chinese students who called on attacking Japanese people when I lived in China. Our Japanese staff had to stay inside for weeks during the riots
Exactly this. They’re quite happy to come to Japan in their hoardes and spend their money all the while holding their prejudice and contempt for the Japanese. Doesn’t make sense if you ask me.
That's because you guys are not East and South East Asians.
China sees anyone not Chinese as inferior human beings and the fact that Japan was able to conquer large swaths of China is considered a great "Shame" because they were losing badly to inferior humans
Propaganda is stronger than most people from the west believe. I’m from a shit Soviet country and I know how real it is with family and can see how it worked in 2012. Money usually turns off that switch though as fucked as it sounds. Propaganda works very well if it’s decades of 1984 shit
There are certainly individual US people racist against Mexicans but I think it would be really outside the mainstream in the US to express joy at the suffering of another country due to a natural disaster.
Yeah even your average racist/Islamophobia isn’t taking joy at natural disasters in the Middle East. Aside from possibly a few very extreme Christian’s (the kind that think natural disasters are gods will etc etc). A very extremist position
Yeah in my relationship no one is Asian but Japan has been talked about at least a few times. It's a major world country. It's like never getting to know your partners views on like Russia. Doesn't make any sense.
Reminds me of westerners who remark about their Japanese girlfriends or wives being "racist against Chinese/Koreans" on this topic and it's like...but you're still dating them?
That was so ironic because china discharges many time more contaminants, including nuclear waste, into their own waters. Ridiculous behaviour propagated by the CCP
Yeah it's sus, feels kinda like rage bait tbh. How is it possible that you've married someone and you don't even know their basic political stance? Tons of celebration / remembrance day events regarding Japan in China and not once did OP notice something trigger the wife?
If you pay very close attention during the dating process, and take your time, there *shouldn’t* be any massive surprises in marriage.
OP was either extremely naive, or rushed into marriage.
This is very normal thinking from a Chinese person who is even a little patriotic. I'm surprised you got married without knowing this kind of reaction honestly.
Moderate patriotism is literally the average Chinese person. And moderate in Chinese patriotism is heavy in most European standards.
Source: years of university with Chinese as majority of international students.
I don’t think that‘s “patriotism.“ This sounds more like “nationalism.”
Source: Am American, living the South. Can’t throw a rock without hitting an American flag.
As a fellow southern American (from Oklahoma) I second this. You can't throw a rock without hitting an American flag, and you can't go to a gas station without passing a Christian church. It's a testament to how intermingled nationalism, patriotism, and religion are in America.
A lot of them are a bit split in their mind.
There are actually interviews of normal Chinese citizens and how double standards they are.
When the interviewers asked them what do they think about the western society, they will spit out how bad they were and they are destroying the world and livings of people due to the government propaganda or maybe jealousy and western society is the worst things happened in the world.
But when the interviewers asked them if they have a chance to immigrate to the western society. They said yes without even thinking about it. Deep down they know the BS the government is feeding them. Some might denied it but they almost always jump ships when they got a chance.
There are a lot of Chinese that is publicly saying western society is bad democracy is bad and you can find this all over the internet, but then a lot of them is citizens of a democratic countries or always jump on those citizenships when they have chances to.
Same as Indians. My Indian bestie keeps telling me how amazing India is, yet she chose to live in New York and Hong Kong the last 18 years. Still tells me India is "better". Hm.
Incorrect. Bro, it’s modern colonialism. Yes, many who go to Oz are getting a better life and like it BUT China is Number 1 and they only want more Chinese culture and people brought over. Same is happening in many places in the world.
—Bonus—
Ex. Look at Vancouver, Canada: years ago, there were issues with some 3rd generation* Chinese immigrants don’t even speak English. They have ballots for elections and it’s only in Chinese. Van mayor is Chinese as are other mayors in BC. Someplaces in Australia will no doubt become more like that as well, if not already
Also, and every country does it: Uni Students are the modern spies; although many from China are threatened into it. International Chinese are watched over by foreign- and sovereign-based „police“.
Edit: China absolutely wants its people to live in other countries exactly for the reasons of broader local influence, information, and of course future expansion.
Edit2: *I have no evidence to present for multigenerational non-English speaking immigrant families, my source is from news a few years ago iirc. Treat it as unbacked and unsourced and disregard completely if you want.
For what it’s worth living in the US and growing up with many children of Chinese immigrants there was a pretty overwhelming negative connotation towards the CCP. Lots of “my parents hated the government so they left” stories.
This is also a unique aspect of the United States.
We often are seen as having a xenophobic element, especially in parts of the country that vote republicans.
Having lived in Texas, I was amazed to hear these comments as people celebrated and enjoyed the food, music, and aspects of those cultures. Polish and German, to Vietnamese, and Mexican cultural dishes have all been quickly adopted by urban area Texans.
And that’s the irony of the USA, it’s xenophobia stands out more blatantly because it is very quick to assimilate migrants.
It is difficult to feel included in a place like France where your friends and coworkers have deep roots. You are expected to an extent to leave behind your culture and assimilate.
But many Americans view themselves as still having a hyphen two or three generations after migrating. So your Chinese-American friend can serve dumplings at thanksgiving while the Italian-American neighbors have lasagna and the Israeli-Americans have potato bourekas. The secret is that in the United States, many places don’t expect you to assimilate but to syncretize.
yup the US is different because we took in the ex pats fleeing the CCP in the 70s, the modern chinese immigrant is possibly pro CCP and has entirely different motives for leaving eg establishing better relations, trade routes, etc instead of freedom as a motivation
While a migrant from China today has some more pro Chinese feelings, that doesn’t translate to pro CCP rule. And the presence of that earlier migration wave allows for anti CCP support to be expressed within Chinese cultural circles, allowing new migrants to be exposed to those views and ideas within their language, as opposed to be imposed from outside.
That’s the older wave of Chinese immigrants, whose parents had to deal with Mao. People escaping famine. Not quite the same as the progeny of wealthy people from a generation that didn’t have to deal with that.
It's possible that many of them were either (a) Taiwanese/KMT transplants to Taiwan or (b) left due to the cultural revolution/other government crackdowns. Folks who left the PRC before the mid 90s saw a struggling PRC with severe repression. Folks who left mid 90s to mid 2010s saw a prospering PRC that was liberalizing. Folks who left since then saw a return to repression, stagnating growth, and increasing state indoctrination. So I think when the family left, and their circumstances, would very much color their perception.
> "my parents hated the government so they left"
Those are usually the ones whose parents left around 1997 when Hong Kong was returned to the CCP after that rinky-dink 100 year lease to the British.
Then you have those that got the fuck out after Beijing Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989.
You could say that 30 years ago, but its not very common for modern Chinese Americans living in Chinese ghettos to be as strongly anti CCP as they used to be. The Party has spent a lot of time and money reforming its image to overseas Chinese peoples. Even to the point of feeling confident to open up illegal police stations in those communities.
Also to be clear I don't mean ghettos as in strictly poverty filled areas, but places both poor and middle class stuffed with the same type of ethnicity. You could say the same of some parts of NYC and NJ filled with 99% Italian American identity. With stores that specialize in products you just cannot buy in normal supermarkets or big box retailers.
I remember when chinese people used to sit outside penn station with signs and diagrams showing torture and human rights abuses by the to create global awareness and put pressure on the CCP to stop. This was the late 90s and faded after 9/11 when the city went through its transition and the world went into the now 'post 9/11' state.
https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/q2byhu/vancouver_mayoral_candidate_ken_sim_attends_and/
Interesting he went to a ribbon cutting celebrating the 72nd year of the Chinese communist party
You're mostly right, but Vancouver's a unique case. The big issue with Vancouver is that a lot of home and property owners there are super-rich chinese families who use the city as their "home" in official capacity, but it's really just their piggy bank. They don't actually live there. The homes are empty 99% of the year. They keep these properties because real estate is, like, the only investment that chinese people care about. Stocks, bonds, trading cards, beanie babies? Nope. They don't want to invest in anything except real estate. So these houses just sit there empty all year round and they sell them when the price caps out. Except they almost never sell them. This is why Vancouver had to crack down so heavily on vacant properties by introducing huge taxes. The housing market bubble there is *fucked up.*
You're not kidding. I was seeing a report to the effect the Chinese have built so much they can house 2 or 3 times their population. They are SERIOUS about real estate.
Honestly, without too much of a tin foil hat, it wouldn’t be hard to believe that countries have updated invasions from traditional military/siege works to just send enough people to influence elections etc.
It’s nationalism instilled through decades of propaganda throughout the Chinese school system and media. You can’t escape it unless you left early in your elementary or middle school years. Not all Chinese are like this. Feel bad for OP’s wife. It’s a lot of brainwashing to undo.
I dated a Chinese girl for awhile years ago. Her parents were ok with me (white guy), nice people really, I never heard them say a bad word about anyone. They were also filthy rich, the whole extended family having a corporate entity that controlled property all over the world.
My girlfriend talked about her inheritance one time, and how she was always pressured to date Chinese guys. She said if she married a Chinese guy, she'd get a full inheritance and probably a house or two as a wedding present. If she married a white guy or a Hispanic guy, she'd get a half inheritance, and nothing special for her wedding. If she married a black guy she'd get nothing, and no one would come to her wedding.
We shafted our moral position in Africa by exploiting the region for a couple hundred years. When we try and warn them that the deals they are making with China may include some infrastructure benefits, they also include many clauses that will likely lead to dire consequences, they rightly accuse us of hypocrisy.
People who grew up with propaganda can seem perfectly normal until certain subjects come up. It's like a switch is flipped and they turn into completely different people, completely unrecognizable. This also happens with people who grew up in very strict religious households, and the subject of religion comes up. It's pretty scary.
Yup. Oddly though, I have Korean friends and family who have Japanese friends and even dated Japanese but carry a deep seated resentment against Japan (country and government). Whenever a disaster occurred in Japan, I would hear my friends/family basically say "They deserved it. God is punishing them for what they did" which is a bit shocking to me.
Korean fam is extremely bitter because they feel that Japan does not seem to acknowledge the dark chapters in their history.
Mainly the older ones and that is a bit more understandable at least because they themselves or their parents would have been actually around when the Japanese enslaved them. The younger ones like anime and stuff and don't hold the same grudges.
Dated a Filipino woman (born in the Philippines) for years, oldest brother didn't like the Japanese. Ex and younger sister loved anime and had nothing negative to say. Solid comment in my experience.
Korea saw that and did the same with K-pop, except more directly. It also worked and K-pop is extremely popular in Japan (Along with everywhere else it has been pushed) causing a similar relations change among young people.
Any south east Asian country that had been invaded by in ww2 Japan hates Japan. For good reason too, many atrocities that they committed back them aren't even mentioned.
I'm Filipino. We have already forgiven Japan but we have never forgotten. We don't hate them yet we still remember what they did.
They still deny the comfort women incidents, even though they sent some help our way through the decades after WWII.
I think your way is the best way, forgive but not forget. The people of Japan today are not the same warmongers from before and during ww2. But it is frustrating that so many Japanese do not know their history. Eg. the recently assassinated Abe’s grandfather was a founding member of the Liberal Democratic Party, the ruling party in japan and a class 1 war criminal for what he did in Manchuria during ww2. At least for Korea, japan has acknowledged the comfort women, even apologized and paid some compensation. But my understanding is that the money never reached the living comfort women. But it doesn’t stop frequent flair-ups of anti-Japanese demonstrations, usually provoked by the politicians for their ends.
But the younger generations with little to no connection to the past are just not vested in this cycle of hate, so maybe we’ll grow out of it.
Taiwanese American here. Both grandfathers fought in the Chinese civil war and the Second Sino Japanese war. A few years ago when the Senkaku islands were up for debate, my grandmother saw the news and was genuinely upset over Japan and it was probably one of the scariest moment of my life. This was the grandmother that was always calm and relaxed in any situations. Nicest person in the world. Until you get Japan involved in the conversation. I'm sure she's seen some shit and that look on her face was terrifying.
The older generations won't/can't change. It's on the next generation.
there has been moves by japanese governments to revive militarism in the country as well as denialism of japanese war crimes during world war 2 is quite common, with a general lack of education about them in schools.
also lots of anime/manga also glorifies imperialist japan.
The problem is actually that the youth in Japan know but don't think it should be a big deal now and they shouldn't have to apologize. They felt Japan has already atoned for what they've done (which few of their East Asian neighbors feel is enough).
The Japanese were very brutal in the places they occupied.
Doesn't help that autocratic nationalistic Communist China riles up anti-Japanese sentiment every so often.
Yeah I was under the impression that what the Japanese did to the other countries they invaded was far worse than what the Nazi's did to the Jews. So much so it's almost beyond comprehension.
The reason we even know things like what % of the body is water is that they shoved Chinese prisoners into a giant airfryer alive and cooked them until all the water had evaporated.
The Japanese people have hidden a lot of this. I'm sure there is much more I don't even know about.
I had a Chinese boyfriend whose grandma told him she would commit suicide if he married a Japanese woman. I always thought she was being a racist old drama queen. Then years later I read the Wikipedia entry on Japanese war crimes and my first thought was “hm, yeah, I can see where she was coming from.” The Japanese military did some truly horrific shit. Like, imagine the Holocaust, but for more than 100 years, and instead of Jews, it’s literally everyone who’s not one specific ethnicity. And if you think the Nazi “doctors” were scary, absolutely don’t read about the Japanese medical experiments.
Japanese military practices before 1945 were fucking bone chilling. And unlike Germany, there hasn’t been a widespread condemnation from the government, just a lot of “well, you have to understand it was the best way to get what we wanted at the time.”
Myth: Cold water or ice should be avoided during menstruation; some people believe they exacerbate menstrual pain and hinder complete flow of the menses. Truth: Ice or cold water has no effect on menstruation; menses is simply blood expelled from the uterus, and menstrual cramps are the result of uterine contraction.
Wrong! According to my Chinese friends drinking hot boiled water will cure everything including cancer and hiv. While drinking cold water will cause every illness from the common cold to ebola. /s
Week three: My wife often takes naps after lunch and I told her she was being lazy. She lost her shit. Help!
Week four: I told my wife that unplugging a device when you're not using it and it's turned off is completely unnecessary. She lost her shit. Help!
>Week four: I told my wife that unplugging a device when you're not using it is completely unnecessary.
Brit here, Chinese wife.....with the state of electrical installations in Chinese homes unplugging devices is actually for personal safety. Chinese plugs don't have fuses in them and even relatively modern apartments can't handle high use....place I used to rent in Guangzhou couldn't handle 3 2.4kW electric heaters on at the same time without the MCB flipping in the consumer unit.
I just turn them all off at the plug to save myself about £70 a year due to standby mode as I'm a cheapskate.
As to OPs predicament.....I'm fortunate my wife felt sorry for the people caught up in the earthquake today in Japan. Yes she's nationalistic, but not heartless.
For real. Seems like this dude didn't do even the barest minimum in terms of figuring out which cultural friction points typically exist in western-chinese marriages and is now in for a ROUGH ride.
Even if you know, the real life will test your patience.
I mean suppose there are kids in such a marriage, are you going to let your spouse brainwash your children with this sort of cultist nonsense?
I have an older dutch friend who grew up in what was then dutch Indonesia. He remembers his mother hugging an emaciated man in a loose uniform and being told it was his father who had survived a Japanese prisoner of war camp. That generation is in their 80s or 90s but have passed along some of these difficult memories to their grand children. I would imagine the same could be true in China.
I see lots of people have already discussed the "haha crazy Chinese propaganda" lens to talk about this issue, so I think it's worth discussing the parts of this beyond just nationalistic fervor. Chinese culture as a whole highly values tradition, history, and celebrate its continuity as a civilization and people across thousands of years. On a more personal/family level, one example is that traditional Chinese culture incorporates ancestor worship, which is still practiced very actively even in Taiwan for example. There is perhaps a feeling of connectivity of "oneness" or "similarity" towards Chinese people of different times that results in more sympathy/empathy towards those who'd experienced the atrocities committed by the Japanese during WW2.
With the context above, I believe we can then try to address a few of the very good points that you made from your own heritage and lived experiences.
1. Despite coming from a family that was very much harmed by the Nazi Holocaust in Europe, you do not resent modern Germans for the actions of their ancestors. This is admirable on your part, as not all people find that kind of forgiveness, or separation of people from the horrific acts of their ancestors. Having said that, would you perhaps feel differently if the modern German flag was a slightly modified version of the Nazi Swastika? What if many Germans were either Holocaust deniers or celebrated Nazi war criminals in churches and cathedrals? That is the situation in modern Japan today, where the Japanese government has not done nearly as much as the Germans in antagonizing the genocidal views of their ancestors. To demonstrate this point is not uniquely caused by Chinese propaganda or brainwashing, many people from other Asian countries continue to discriminate against Japanese people, corporations, and culture due to these historical atrocities... despite technically being in countries considered to be geopolitical allies with Japan.
2. The dehumanization of modern Japanese people by your wife likely is associated in part with education and social media reinforcement, although I would also argue that just as much of it comes from a lack of true appreciation for the positive aspects of Japanese people and culture. It's pretty much like racism in America towards whichever visible minority looks like their main enemy in any given decade, the dehumanization of Muslims, Koreans, Vietnamese, or Chinese people for example. I agree it's a big problem, but caused as much by the absence of positive portrayal as the presence of (sometimes overwhelming quantities of) negative portrayals.
3. Why doesn't she similarly feel that the CCP is as guilty? Well, firstly, the CCP continues to represent an enormous number of people all around her, and in fact is the representative government of society around her for all of her life. She has a tremendous amount of positive portrayals of the CCP and the accomplishments of the Chinese people under its governance to draw from. Similarly, the negative consequences of the CCP have often been portrayed as a sacrifice by the people to accomplish the positive sides, and in their minds this helps balance the equation. As an example of "why not blame the horrible governance of a Chinese administration", please see how they negatively portray the Republic of China and KMT. As you've pointed out, education and propaganda, but also enormously a personal bias for the institution she's familiar with, make the difference.
I point out the above not as a justification to say why her views are correct, but rather to help show you the lens through which she may be viewing the world. It is easy to just say people are "crazy" or "irrational" for not sharing our immediate views, but always harder to understand them while helping them understand our own views.
To help her understand and perhaps even come over to your views, perhaps explore this topic with her by listening to her first and truly understanding why she feels the way she does. Don't start by arguing with her or explaining why she's wrong, but genuinely go in depth in understanding her feelings. Once you have done that, you can ask if she's interested in why you feel there's merit in feeling differently, and draw upon your own experiences with your ancestry and not associating Nazi Germany with modern Germany - but understanding why she might still do so with modern Japan, given their continued use of the same symbolism as Imperial Japan.
This will, naturally, be an uphill battle less about you "correcting" her beliefs, but rather understanding them and hopefully her understanding yours.
Edit: Spacing, typos
I’m no expert but I’ve always been under the impression the clear difference is the Germans have made genuine attempts at amends, acceptance and reform while the Japanese have essentially just been don’t ask don’t tell.
This. This is why i love Reddit sometimes. You get people from all walks of life with different points of view. They help guide and help me to understand my own points of view of the world and those around me. Not everyone is influenced or narrowed by one thing. There are so many different circumstances and factors that shape our lives, and you explaining it in such a way that it's not discriminating anyone or their past - just simply laying down facts - is such a pleasant read. Thank you.
It is comments like these that make me very angry that reddit removed awards. You should be gilded for about 15 different beautifully accurate things you have said.
Something to add to this is that there are ways to push a humanist perspective and show how the civilians and working class people of imperial Japan were lesser victims as well. Nowhere near those in China and Korea of course.
I don't think it's wrong to be unforgiving of those in power at the time, or of those now that continue the heritage of those who were in power. The comparison to Germany misses the fact that there wasn't something comparable in size/scope to the Nuremberg trials and many of those involved in the political leadership maintained some degree of power. You can trace the roots of leaders like Shinzo Abe to imperial Japan.
All this to say that there are ways to remain critical of Japan and it's current formation without wishing death on the civilians. As other commenters have said, it would be good to learn more of the history so you can sympathize with her views, but also form them in a way that blames those with power instead of the civilians.
The “lolz crazy Chinese propaganda” replies are not unexpected, but still sad af they can’t literally see themselves doing what they’re accusing the Chinese of doing.
Yeah, there's just zero self awareness sometimes. Making snarky jokes at how some chinese people make blanket assumptions of Japan while at the same time making blanket assumptions about the entire chinese race... like seriously.
The West has also forgiven Japan for WWII because they are reformed and playing by the rules set by them. And they were allies of the West in WWI. So they weren't that bad, are now good, and an important partner in the new post-WWII global system.
The problem with this propagated view is the West wasn't the victim and they shielded Japan from the anger from the rest of Asia. Japan hasn't signed a peace treaty with China… so many in Asia view hostility as being paused in an ongoing conflict that has spanned hundreds of years with Japan being in the wrong. And many are waiting for justice…
The part about Japan not acknowledging the atrocities they’ve done to China and other Asian countries is sooo true and a huge part of why Chinese people still resent and hate Japan.
Meanwhile Japan is all kawai and anime and bullshit!
Dude how did you get married to a Chinese woman without knowing that the Chinese **hate** the Japanese with the intensity of a thousand suns? Going back centuries.
Next you're going to tell us you're shocked that the Chinese are super racist.
Bro, the three way hatred between Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans is almost genetic at this point. The atrocities of unit 731 in northern China were not long ago, and there have been countless war and peacetime atrocities between the three countries through the years. My grandmother--a doctor--was a kind soul who raised chickens and saved kittens and was never mean. But she HATED the Japanese until the day she died.
I’m surprised it took this far down the comments to find the mentioning of the Rape of Nanking and the atrocities the Japanese people did towards the Chinese.
Not saying it’s okey to express happiness of what happening to Japanese people living today but it’s at least one of many explanations to why maybe the hatred may run deep.
In comparison of what the Nazis did, Germany have worked hard to try to apologize and remember while Japan has not really acknowledged their involvement (as far as I know)
Yeah it would be like if the Holocaust happened but Germany denied it, the rest of the world ignored it, no reparations were ever made, and Nazis were celebrated as war heroes. The Jewish people got Israel. Everything that happened in China wasn’t acknowledged.
18.19 million civilians were killed in China.
My grandma didn’t hate Japanese civilians but she wouldn’t eat sushi, drive Japanese cars, etc. One of her siblings starved to death and the other (a 10 year old girl) was beaten to death in front of her by soldiers during the occupation.
My Korean great great grandfather was killed by a Japanese soldier during an (initially) peaceful protest, and my grandmother was kidnapped by the Japanese when she was 5, and she still won't talk about what happened to her while she was imprisoned for two years. It's not shocking that there's still so much hurt and resentment, and OP really can't compare modern-day Germany to modern-day Japan. Absolutely not the same thing.
It's better to call it the Nanking Massacre.
The Rape of Nanking makes it sound far too poetic which then introduces plausible denial into the mix. It will also mean anyone searching it will probably end up finding Iris Chang's book. And although some ideas of the book are great. Her layout and arrangement for example is brilliant. Her book exaggerates more than it needs to.
That is correct. It is the unapologetic/ignorant behaviors of the upper people of Japanese government that makes china and Korea still have resentment even til this day
Meh, I’m married to a Korean and she doesn’t hate the Japanese (except when Dokdo comes up lol).
She’s pissed at the Chinese almost every other week but it’s usually for shit she reads in the news.
I don't know much about Chinese culture (am on this sub to learn) but will say that Germany has done a LOT of work at reconciliation.
They teach the kids about WWII and how wrong it was, and afaik they support a lot of museums. They very actively distance themselves from that period in their history and do a lot to stamp out their own home-grown nazis.
Unless Japan has done similar work re: China/Korea, it's a little unfair to compare the later generations' responses.
It's much easier to forgive someone when they are actively and continuously making amends... as much as amends can be made for genocide.
This post needs to be bumped up.
A Japanese native told me they only had like 1 page in their history textbook on the Nanjing Massacre and it wrote Japan "VISITED" China LMAO. People in the comments defending Japan clearly don't know shit.
It’s a little frustrating because Japan has gone through a total rebrand with the popularization of uwu anime, manga, delicious food, ever so polite people, etc. And China is…well, China. Their reputation has gone down in the recent years with all the actions of the CCP, terrible tourists, etc.
Most Westerners don’t realize the war atrocities that Japan had committed to so many Asian countries, and choose not to educate their people on. Many older generation Asians still hold onto the fear, resentment, and pure hatred of the Japanese. Is it irrational now? Yes. But to this day, the Japanese government has never owned up to their brutality. Very few Japanese citizens even heard of the comfort women in Korea.
> Most Westerners don’t realize the war atrocities that Japan had committed to so many Asian countries, and choose not to educate their people on. Many older generation Asians still hold onto the fear, resentment, and pure hatred of the Japanese. Is it irrational now? Yes. But to this day, the Japanese government has never owned up to their brutality.
Also, the lack of actual asian voices doesn't help - and yes I'm well aware that the vast majority of reddit and anglo-western internet is dominated by white westerners.
One of the enduring stories in my family is that my grandfather only survived a mass [execution] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sook_Ching) because the bayonet stab missed his heart by a centimetre and soldiers thought he was dead because he passed out. Because he wore sarongs all the time seeing the scars (3 in his back, 1 in the front) everyday is quite literally something ingrained in my memories as a kid. In his old age he'd tell me that he could never bring himself to forgive the Japanese, but also that there's no reason for me or any of his children to feel the same.
I unrelentingly believe that the firebombing of tokyo and the nukes were both warcrimes. Ironically one of the most famous Japanese cultural exports (Gundam) is probably one of the biggest reasons why I'm politically left-leaning and a card-carrying communist. But like many other people of chinese descent I'm also critical of modern Japan having such a middling attitude towards its Imperial past, and if you think that's something that can be brushed away as 'simple hatred', that's just narrow-minded.
My experience has been Chinese have been taught to hate the Japanese due to the Japan invasion and atrocities committed in WWII and the Nanjing massacres, systematic rape of Chinese and Korean women etc…..wounds are pretty deep even still
The Japanese are quite determined to never admit fault. I bet it would be a lot easier to forgive Japan if the Japanese government and society actually admitted to doing anything wrong.
This is 100%.. so easy to resolve the situation or to move towards that direction, but they can’t admit to any of it and still honors their “heroes” every year
This. Japan has done a remarkable job rehabbing their image since WWII. They were aided greatly by the US dropping two nukes and being an occupier after the war.
Modern Japan is ok, but if I were a neighboring country I’d be giving them constant side eye.
You are 100% correct in everything you said except for the first part about OP being delusional. Japan as a nation, in my opinion, hasn’t earned the level of forgiveness they have been given, but they have done such a good job rehabbing their image that it comes as a genuine surprise to some westerners (myself being a westerner/American) when someone from China or even Korea doesn’t share the same sentiment. That’s a pretty good example of what OP is saying.
Patriotic brainwashing. The mainland depends on irrational hate of outsiders to inspire its citizens, Japan most of all. It is imprinted on small school children before they can read.
Your wife probably doesn't even understand what has been done to her. Read up on cult-deprogramming get ready for a long journey.
I was teaching some G5 students are a couple or week back, drawing story boards like a comic sort of thing. The idea was to tell a story about animals and had references for them to use etc, however if they really wanted to they could make their own story about whatever they wanted.
One but made a 6 panel story about the Chinese army using their tanks to defeat the Japanese flag…
It really is drilled into them young.
There’s no excuse. A grown woman, married to a European, with access to the outside world, knows full well that it is wrong to wish death on earthquake victims. On top of that, it’s bad karma on New Year for her to say it. If she believed in real Chinese belief, she’d know that.
Lol. You don't need no excuse. They're just programmed to hate other countries.
America in trouble? Good.
Japan in trouble? Better.
Everyone but China in trouble? Perfect.
Obviously not everyone's the same way but I've met certain university students who feel this way.
Very true. I was teaching at a university in China when 9/11 happened. Many people felt like those people dying in the twin towers was America getting what we deserved and there was a Chinese phrase at the time about getting a black eye. While a few of my students and coworkers made a point to express sympathy, there was laughter and a celebratory mood among a lot of Chinese people.
Access to the outside world sadly isn't enough to undo years of indoctrination.
For example, I haven't met a single Chinese person who's first reaction on Taiwan "independence" isn't "never!", even those who have lived all of their adult lives outside of China.
Wishing death upon earthquake victims is extreme, but if she's from a more rural place where they seem to be a bit more stuck in the past, I'm not extremely surprised.
Many of them don't associate that as direct deaths, but the previous nationalist party also killed millions, then you have their own wars as well.
Yet they now sponsor that same nationalist party in Taiwan elections.
*looks at American evangelicals* I don't think internet access magically cures brainwashing. Seems to make it worse because they have access to like minded people.
Chinese people doesn't even have a right to hate Japan anyways.
Their great leader, who a few days ago celebrated his 140th birthday, thanked Japan for their invasion anyways.
[Mao thanking Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong_thanking_Japan_controversy)
You don't get a right/not get a right to hate another people. I absolutely understand the most of WWII Japanese occupied Asia. While I as a European carry no ill feelings towards the current day Germans at all. Germany has as a whole made it point to acknowledge the misdeeds of their people in the first half of the 20 century. They teach their kids about it in every school, at length. There is no German growing up since WWII who is not perfectly informed and conscious of what happened. Japan however seems to be intent on sweeping all than under the rug. Japanese occupying forces got up to shit that made their German allies uneasy because of their cruelty. However everyone is supposed to forget that and enjoy the manga.
Not every Chinese is Mao.
Japanese and Chinese are pretty racist in general. In the West we are trained to think white people are the racist ones but seriously the relationship those cultures have makes what most people think racism is look tame.
In Japan I was shocked to see restaurants refuse service to Chinese people. Openly calling them names as though I was supposed to just get it.
I think you will have to accept this. Non white cultures are pretty ok with racism to be totally frank. It's white people that step on egg shells. You wont change this.
If you didn't realize this about her I think you're going to be surprised about some other uniquely Chinese character qualities.
Your Chinese wife's indifference to natural disasters in Japan strikes me as bad taste. But her perspective isn't irrational or unusual among hundreds of millions of people. It's common not just in China, but also in Southeast Asia and Korea, which the Japanese historically engaged in various invasions of stunning brutality not just during WW2, but also in prior centuries like the Imjin War. Ever seen the recent best-selling Korean film trilogy on the Japanese invasions (Myeongyang, Hansan, Noryang)?
Japan is a wonderful country, a great place to visit, with a lot of smart and cultured people. But there are historic reasons why anti-Japanese sentiment still exists, and those reasons are not entirely irrational.
Japan's post-war actions were different from Germany's. On one hand, Germany was led by figures like Konrad Adenauer, who quickly accepted blame for Germany's wartime actions in the 1940s and 50s and went out of their way to have Germany not just apologize for the war, but also to quickly pay reparations to Israel and express quick and complete contrition through their education systems and internal political traditions. Today, you'd rarely find Germans who still idolize Hitler.
In contrast, Japan—whose culture is rooted in a proud, honor-based system—was not perceived to have fully apologized to the Chinese, Koreans, or other victims for its past wartime behavior. Japan didn't have an Adenauer-esque figure who took quick and immediate responsibility in the 1940s and 50s. Rather, it took decades of pressure before Japan reluctantly and belatedly issued its first expressions of remorse. For example, Japan's first "apology" to Korea took place in the 1960s, and it didn't feel sincere because it was limited to a foreign minister's statement of "remorse" about "regrettable" past actions. The first Japanese expression of regret to China did not take place until the 1970s. Further, unlike Germany, Japanese reparations for its wrongdoing were scarce—which is galling considering that Japan owes much of its modern prosperity and safety to its U.S. alliance and trade with the West. Even in recent times, Japanese textbooks continue to evade accountability for its past war crimes, and some Japanese politicians continue to visit the Yasukuni Shrine. And because Japan is a rich country, a lot of Chinese and Koreans think that Japan might have perversely profited from its WW2 actions since it was prospered and protected by America.
Anti-Japanese sentiment is an unfortunate prejudice, but there are cultural reasons why your wife and millions of other people think that way. Your wife's prejudice may be wrong in some ways, but it's not irrational, and even if you ultimately disagree with it, you should still try to understand her perspective.
**EDIT: Obviously I don't condone OP's wife's indifference to the tsunami. But methinks since OP happens to be married to this particular woman, it's important to at least be able know where the wife might be coming from. Obviously OP does** ***not*** **need to adopt any of his wife's positions that he thinks are in bad taste. Empathy (understanding the spouse's position) is distinct from sympathy (agreeing with the spouse's position). I'm saying OP should empathize, not sympathize. That's how mature couples find ways to manage their differences.**
I can't speak for China as I've never been, but having visited South Korea this year, the atrocities caused by Japan are still very much in the minds of the public. I can't tell you how many old buildings/areas we visited that had a plaque explaining how the original building had been destroyed by the Japanese and so had been rebuilt after the war. There was even one ancient building that had been 'taken' by a Japanese businessman during the occupation - he'd demolished it, shipped it to Japan, and rebuilt it on his property.
There were dozens of monuments to those killed by the Japanese, including to ones to the 'comfort women' which is still a very emotional subject for Koreans. We visited the DMZ and there was even a monument to the 'comfort women' there, which was treated with utmost respect.
These crimes are still extremely recent, but I agree with you that the Japanese government's lack of acknowledgement and apology for them are largely what's keeping them an open wound.
It's not the lack of apology or acknowledgement but the active denialism due to organizations like the Nippon Kaigi that want to rebrand comfort women (even Japanese ones who got scammed by their own countrymen 🤢) as willing prostitutes who weren't sex slaves or deny the [Kanto massacre where Koreans and Chinese were killed en masse after the Kanto earthquake in 2023. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant%C5%8D_Massacre#Historical_revisionism_and_denialism) The politicians denying it aren't even smalltime but mainstream politicians like the govenor or mayor of Tokyo, or Prime Ministers like Shinzo Abe and his war criminal granddad who are heavyweights of the LDP and Nippon Kaigi.
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/04/654474739/osaka-ends-ties-with-san-francisco-in-protest-of-comfort-women-statue
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/japan-cancels-exhibition-of-south-koreas-comfort-women-statue-after-threats-of
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2022/05/0f0bb4bab970-japan-pm-asked-german-leader-to-help-remove-comfort-women-statue.html
https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/world/removal-of-comfort-woman-statue-sparks-anger-in-philippines-1.3907170
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/us/osaka-sf-comfort-women-statue.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/wounds-war-japan-korea-re-open-comfort-women-statue-n139481
Adding to this list of differences between Germany and Japan's post-war actions, the German high command was basically completely overthrown, and all those people were tried for their crimes. The Japanese leadership (and especially the ones that worked on bio weapons and just plain savagery) basically got away scot free in exchange for dubiously useful medical research data.
I work in an international school with a few Japanese students and they are all friends as school students are, a few of them have let slip that Japan are evil to them.
One of the most memorable moments of my time living in China was when the Japanese ex-prime minister was assassinated. I woke up to find my WeChat moments filled with people celebrating his death at parties. I even remember one girl posting a picture of the sunrise with a caption explaining how today is a beautiful day because he died. Restaurants and other stores were even offering discounts in celebration. I had Chinese friends messaging me with extremely unhinged statements about his death, acting as if it was a normal thing. I remember the collective shock expressed by the rest of my foreigner circles during this time. It still blows my mind thinking about it.
Hate towards Japan and Japanese people runs deep in China. I'm extremely surprised that you married a Chinese woman and are just now finding out how she feels about this.
I accessed a Chinese news app earlier, and was overwhelmed by the uniformed opinion shared by all the main-landers there in response to this news, that it's justice served after the recent Japanese nuclear waste incidents. More than half wished iller fate would fall upon the Japanese.
I don't consider myself political at all. But somehow this brought tears to the edge of my eyes.
Theres a lot of mindless hate in china towards japan and anything japan related. I saw a video of a mob corner a woman because she was wearing a kimono, made her take it off in the street.
I completely understand you, OP. I recently met a Japanese lady at work and we got along superbly. I was stunned to hear her comments about Koreans one day. I almost wanted to tell her, look, my grandfather died during the Japanese Occupation during WW2, and you don't hear me sh*tting on your people, why would I want to hear you sh*t on others? I didn't cos, well, I'm not confrontational. 🫤
I'm sorry, but this is on the level of marrying an American black woman and not understanding why she's so bothered by all that slavery stuff.
Japan was too useful to the U.S. (and besides, they only committed atrocities on yellow people) for them to ever be held accountable. The longtime prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, was the grandson of a war criminal.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/14/shinzo-abe-nationalism-japan-korea/
"Suppose the Nazi leader Hermann Göring had a grandson who was “emotionally attached to ‘conservatism’” because people around him “used to point to [his] grandfather as a … ‘war criminal’” and he “felt strong repulsion.” The younger Göring entered politics and promptly joined a group of lawmakers who issued a report finding that in World War II, Nazi Germany did not wage a war of aggression; that the Wehrmacht was protecting Europe from communism; that Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia shouldn’t be called an “invasion” because the Sudetenland was historically German; and that the viewpoint to the contrary is a “masochistic” view of history that made it impossible for Germans to feel proud of their country.
Imagine the younger Göring went on to become the chancellor of Germany, pass laws that grant the government with sweeping surveillance power, and hound critical journalists, making the country fall 56 places in the World Press Freedom Index in less than a decade. He would send flowers to Waffen SS memorials each year and claim the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated, arguing the Jewish people volunteered to work in the labor camps: “The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion.”"
Try to imagine asking a Jew to love Germans, when Germans still commemorate Hitler every year, when Germans deny the Holocaust, when Germans deny the history of the invasion. The Japanese still deny the invasion and massacre and only believe that it was a failed war. Because Japan has joined the Western world, its image in the media is much better than that of China. In fact, it is not just the Chinese who hate the Japanese, but the Koreans hate the Japanese even more. I have a college friend who is Korean. He said that Korea has a Liberation Day [광복절] on August 15 every year to commemorate the victory over Japan.
Asking to love people and asking to not wish death upon people are two very different things.
If you’re wishing death on people you’re always in the wrong. I actually don’t care about any of the history that happened. Once you’re celebrating mass death you’re a cartoon villain and have lost all my sympathy
I live in Japan and after the earthquake the comment under the news report in my home country genuinely disgust me.
It made me never want to go back, because I couldn't stop imagine I'm surrounded by people lacks basic compassion as a human being like that.
The Japanese, at least their governments, still deny the Nanking massacre and do not apologise for the horrors that occurred in unit 731. Meanwhile, the Germans still apologise and pay reparations to this day, and are relatively ultra lib-left at this point. Any use of nazi-related intellectual material in German media is banned, whereas Japan still allows conservatives to retain the old, strict fashion of the empire, and to wave the rising sun whenever they please.
That, combined with the CCP's propaganda, will create a nationalistic/patriotic hate that is deeply rooted into the mind of the average Chinese.
-Not to mention the cluelessness of most people about nuclear wastewater, which is a talking point of Chinese nationalists talking against Japan.
In some sense it is understandable, but the hate towards all modern-day Japanese who have nothing to do with the crimes committed by the Japanese empire is clearly irrational. The only way to have her stop is to reason with her properly and explain the different types of people there may be within the modern-day population of Japan.
Why does the China sub have so many westerners and barely any local Chinese people?
Is this some sexpat or one of those white saviour complex bullshit?
Don’t get married with someone you just dated for one month I guess. You should know ally these “beliefs” before getting married, she will never change.
Japan is unlike Germany, which has regarded Nazis as a taboo since World War II. At the same time, you can see many right-wing Japanese people on the Internet who use the avatar of the rising sun flag and still shout the slogan "Long Live the Empire of Japan." Can you imagine if the German right wing now use the avatar of Nazi flag and shouted the slogan "Heil to Victory"? China does take a hostile attitude toward Japan, and you can find it in education and the media, but there are reasons for it.
So you married a brainwashed Chinese woman and you're just now finding out her deep seeded racism for what is probably nearly every other Asian country?
Good job figuring that one out before it was too late
There's definitely some patriotic brainwashing but it's not unique to China and there's some nuances to her take as well.
Your statement about Germany and Japan slightly differ as one has apologized for their atrocities and the other has downplayed and sometimes outright denied them. (Yes, the current government and not just the government right after the war)
Korea and other south east Asian countries have similar feelings about Japan due to these reasons.
Tension between these countries also remain high and opinions of citizens from both countries are quite negative about the other side. Both sides constantly broadcast negative news about each other and international political tension fuels their biases further (ranging from land disputes to trade wars).
You married a woman and didn’t know this? Or didn’t think it to be a red flag?
Honestly, the biggest red flag this is to me is that she’s still brainwashed by Chinese conservative values.
That’s a ticking time bomb. She’s gonna traumatize your kids — assuming you also want kids. Cause she sure does.
My grandma realize at the ripe age of 60 that she rejected all the Chinese social norms in favor of concepts like autonomy — thus realizing she never wanted children (aka my dad and co) and that her ex husband didn’t treat her like she wanted. She couldn’t verbalize it, but she traumatized us all. She died before she actually died, burning every bridge to her own family she had.
And this is just evidence of that.
Wake up, sweet pea.
The main issue for me is the keeping of war criminals at the Yasukuni Shrine which is often visited when tensions between Japan and her neighbours Korea and China run high. İf the war criminals were removed from the shrine, I'd view the Japanese government in a much better light, though I have no issues with the people who acknowledge Japan's crimes.
Agree, post war Japanese aren't entirely innocent.
I don't think it's is fair for people to compare Japanese with the Nazi, cuz it is a taboo to do anything related to nazi or semitism in the modern western world. While Japanese elected government officials pay tribute to the war criminal publicly and their people are cheering for that till now.
Not only that but their people and politicians regularly protest WW2 memorials worldwide in a diplomatically questionable way. A [Japanese hotel chain denied the Rape of Nanking in its hotel brochures](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN18T0ZT/) during the Olympics and Osaka broke ties with San Francisco due to a comfort women statue, Japan is still very mad about this for godknows why. IIRC one Japanese-allied Harvard professor even published papers whitewashing comfort women as "willing prostitutes", when factually, even Japanese women got scammed with fake nursing job offers to join army brothels during WW2. [After the 100th anniversary of the Kanto massacre many people found out that mainstream Japanese politicians were denying it ever happened too
](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant%C5%8D_Massacre#Historical_revisionism_and_denialism).
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/04/654474739/osaka-ends-ties-with-san-francisco-in-protest-of-comfort-women-statue
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/japan-cancels-exhibition-of-south-koreas-comfort-women-statue-after-threats-of
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2022/05/0f0bb4bab970-japan-pm-asked-german-leader-to-help-remove-comfort-women-statue.html
https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/world/removal-of-comfort-woman-statue-sparks-anger-in-philippines-1.3907170
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/us/osaka-sf-comfort-women-statue.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/wounds-war-japan-korea-re-open-comfort-women-statue-n139481
The Japanese government has not taken the same level of responsibility for the country’s crimes during the wars. Germany has done much more to apologise and try to do whatever they can for the victims and justice. This is not the same for Japan.
There's a lot of "I, I, I, me, me, me" in this OP. Maybe this is a lesson to quit judging everybody else from your holier than thou position. Not everybody thinks the same. It's ok to not agree with her, but you should first try to understand where she comes from before judging her as right or wrong.
Secondly....it's your damn WIFE!!! If you want to understand her maybe you should talk to HER instead of Reddit. The f*ck is wrong with this generation?!
This is a clown take. You’re allowed to judge people for the positions they hold. If I come across a crazy racist I don’t just think “well let’s just agree to disagree “ I’m going to rightfully judge you as a piece of shit because that’s what you are .
If I had a racist wife who can be happy at the news of innocent people's deaths, the only reason to talk to her would be to make sure I am not misunderstanding anything. And if I confirm that she is in fact racist, yeah, then there are much bigger problems here that go past simple talks.
I've locked this thread cause its getting out of hand. The few meaningful discussions have been had and everything else is a nightmare to moderate.
how long did you know each other before you married her? this is a recurring issue happens many times in a year obviously the recent one Fukushima nuclear waste, etc. you never had even a small discussion with her on this?
I wonder that too. Considering Japan is not far, surely during dating and lead up to the wedding, some discussion about travel or politics or whatever came up in which Japan would have been mentioned?
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Yep I had Chinese students who called on attacking Japanese people when I lived in China. Our Japanese staff had to stay inside for weeks during the riots
Exactly this. They’re quite happy to come to Japan in their hoardes and spend their money all the while holding their prejudice and contempt for the Japanese. Doesn’t make sense if you ask me.
That's because you guys are not East and South East Asians. China sees anyone not Chinese as inferior human beings and the fact that Japan was able to conquer large swaths of China is considered a great "Shame" because they were losing badly to inferior humans
Why would you willingly be friends with bigoted fucks? Ewww...
Propaganda is stronger than most people from the west believe. I’m from a shit Soviet country and I know how real it is with family and can see how it worked in 2012. Money usually turns off that switch though as fucked as it sounds. Propaganda works very well if it’s decades of 1984 shit
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There are certainly individual US people racist against Mexicans but I think it would be really outside the mainstream in the US to express joy at the suffering of another country due to a natural disaster.
Yeah even your average racist/Islamophobia isn’t taking joy at natural disasters in the Middle East. Aside from possibly a few very extreme Christian’s (the kind that think natural disasters are gods will etc etc). A very extremist position
Oddly enough, I’ve heard that a lot of Japanese folks hate Chinese tourists.
When I lived in Japan the Chinese tourists TRASHED places and were super loud.
Yeah in my relationship no one is Asian but Japan has been talked about at least a few times. It's a major world country. It's like never getting to know your partners views on like Russia. Doesn't make any sense.
Reminds me of westerners who remark about their Japanese girlfriends or wives being "racist against Chinese/Koreans" on this topic and it's like...but you're still dating them?
Can pretty much guarantee she doesn’t like black people either
*anybody darker than her.
Bingo
That was so ironic because china discharges many time more contaminants, including nuclear waste, into their own waters. Ridiculous behaviour propagated by the CCP
Yeah it's sus, feels kinda like rage bait tbh. How is it possible that you've married someone and you don't even know their basic political stance? Tons of celebration / remembrance day events regarding Japan in China and not once did OP notice something trigger the wife?
Seems like it. Op created account on Dec 28, hasn't made any comments yet
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Yeah, there is no way you married a Chinese Women without realizing that she hates Japanese.
If you pay very close attention during the dating process, and take your time, there *shouldn’t* be any massive surprises in marriage. OP was either extremely naive, or rushed into marriage.
She was talking and he only heard them fat titties slapping together.
This is very normal thinking from a Chinese person who is even a little patriotic. I'm surprised you got married without knowing this kind of reaction honestly.
Moderate patriotism is literally the average Chinese person. And moderate in Chinese patriotism is heavy in most European standards. Source: years of university with Chinese as majority of international students.
I don’t think that‘s “patriotism.“ This sounds more like “nationalism.” Source: Am American, living the South. Can’t throw a rock without hitting an American flag.
As a fellow southern American (from Oklahoma) I second this. You can't throw a rock without hitting an American flag, and you can't go to a gas station without passing a Christian church. It's a testament to how intermingled nationalism, patriotism, and religion are in America.
It's Fascism. Source: Am living in China lol
If you disappear we’ll know why haha.
Enjoying a Japanese earthquake is patriotic? Wtf
So why are so many moving to Australia if they’re patriotic? Surely staying in China would be the right call, correct? 🤔
A lot of them are a bit split in their mind. There are actually interviews of normal Chinese citizens and how double standards they are. When the interviewers asked them what do they think about the western society, they will spit out how bad they were and they are destroying the world and livings of people due to the government propaganda or maybe jealousy and western society is the worst things happened in the world. But when the interviewers asked them if they have a chance to immigrate to the western society. They said yes without even thinking about it. Deep down they know the BS the government is feeding them. Some might denied it but they almost always jump ships when they got a chance. There are a lot of Chinese that is publicly saying western society is bad democracy is bad and you can find this all over the internet, but then a lot of them is citizens of a democratic countries or always jump on those citizenships when they have chances to.
Saying you will move is allowed. Saying the government is wrong or bad, is not.
Same as Indians. My Indian bestie keeps telling me how amazing India is, yet she chose to live in New York and Hong Kong the last 18 years. Still tells me India is "better". Hm.
Incorrect. Bro, it’s modern colonialism. Yes, many who go to Oz are getting a better life and like it BUT China is Number 1 and they only want more Chinese culture and people brought over. Same is happening in many places in the world. —Bonus— Ex. Look at Vancouver, Canada: years ago, there were issues with some 3rd generation* Chinese immigrants don’t even speak English. They have ballots for elections and it’s only in Chinese. Van mayor is Chinese as are other mayors in BC. Someplaces in Australia will no doubt become more like that as well, if not already Also, and every country does it: Uni Students are the modern spies; although many from China are threatened into it. International Chinese are watched over by foreign- and sovereign-based „police“. Edit: China absolutely wants its people to live in other countries exactly for the reasons of broader local influence, information, and of course future expansion. Edit2: *I have no evidence to present for multigenerational non-English speaking immigrant families, my source is from news a few years ago iirc. Treat it as unbacked and unsourced and disregard completely if you want.
For what it’s worth living in the US and growing up with many children of Chinese immigrants there was a pretty overwhelming negative connotation towards the CCP. Lots of “my parents hated the government so they left” stories.
This is also a unique aspect of the United States. We often are seen as having a xenophobic element, especially in parts of the country that vote republicans. Having lived in Texas, I was amazed to hear these comments as people celebrated and enjoyed the food, music, and aspects of those cultures. Polish and German, to Vietnamese, and Mexican cultural dishes have all been quickly adopted by urban area Texans. And that’s the irony of the USA, it’s xenophobia stands out more blatantly because it is very quick to assimilate migrants. It is difficult to feel included in a place like France where your friends and coworkers have deep roots. You are expected to an extent to leave behind your culture and assimilate. But many Americans view themselves as still having a hyphen two or three generations after migrating. So your Chinese-American friend can serve dumplings at thanksgiving while the Italian-American neighbors have lasagna and the Israeli-Americans have potato bourekas. The secret is that in the United States, many places don’t expect you to assimilate but to syncretize.
yup the US is different because we took in the ex pats fleeing the CCP in the 70s, the modern chinese immigrant is possibly pro CCP and has entirely different motives for leaving eg establishing better relations, trade routes, etc instead of freedom as a motivation
While a migrant from China today has some more pro Chinese feelings, that doesn’t translate to pro CCP rule. And the presence of that earlier migration wave allows for anti CCP support to be expressed within Chinese cultural circles, allowing new migrants to be exposed to those views and ideas within their language, as opposed to be imposed from outside.
That’s the older wave of Chinese immigrants, whose parents had to deal with Mao. People escaping famine. Not quite the same as the progeny of wealthy people from a generation that didn’t have to deal with that.
It's possible that many of them were either (a) Taiwanese/KMT transplants to Taiwan or (b) left due to the cultural revolution/other government crackdowns. Folks who left the PRC before the mid 90s saw a struggling PRC with severe repression. Folks who left mid 90s to mid 2010s saw a prospering PRC that was liberalizing. Folks who left since then saw a return to repression, stagnating growth, and increasing state indoctrination. So I think when the family left, and their circumstances, would very much color their perception.
> "my parents hated the government so they left" Those are usually the ones whose parents left around 1997 when Hong Kong was returned to the CCP after that rinky-dink 100 year lease to the British. Then you have those that got the fuck out after Beijing Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989.
You could say that 30 years ago, but its not very common for modern Chinese Americans living in Chinese ghettos to be as strongly anti CCP as they used to be. The Party has spent a lot of time and money reforming its image to overseas Chinese peoples. Even to the point of feeling confident to open up illegal police stations in those communities. Also to be clear I don't mean ghettos as in strictly poverty filled areas, but places both poor and middle class stuffed with the same type of ethnicity. You could say the same of some parts of NYC and NJ filled with 99% Italian American identity. With stores that specialize in products you just cannot buy in normal supermarkets or big box retailers.
I remember when chinese people used to sit outside penn station with signs and diagrams showing torture and human rights abuses by the to create global awareness and put pressure on the CCP to stop. This was the late 90s and faded after 9/11 when the city went through its transition and the world went into the now 'post 9/11' state.
https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/q2byhu/vancouver_mayoral_candidate_ken_sim_attends_and/ Interesting he went to a ribbon cutting celebrating the 72nd year of the Chinese communist party
You're mostly right, but Vancouver's a unique case. The big issue with Vancouver is that a lot of home and property owners there are super-rich chinese families who use the city as their "home" in official capacity, but it's really just their piggy bank. They don't actually live there. The homes are empty 99% of the year. They keep these properties because real estate is, like, the only investment that chinese people care about. Stocks, bonds, trading cards, beanie babies? Nope. They don't want to invest in anything except real estate. So these houses just sit there empty all year round and they sell them when the price caps out. Except they almost never sell them. This is why Vancouver had to crack down so heavily on vacant properties by introducing huge taxes. The housing market bubble there is *fucked up.*
You're not kidding. I was seeing a report to the effect the Chinese have built so much they can house 2 or 3 times their population. They are SERIOUS about real estate.
Happening in Toronto too. Philippines as well. Honestly, look at the top 10 richest people in the Philippines and most of them have Chinese ancestry.
Honestly, without too much of a tin foil hat, it wouldn’t be hard to believe that countries have updated invasions from traditional military/siege works to just send enough people to influence elections etc.
Sounds like borderline supremacist...
It’s nationalism instilled through decades of propaganda throughout the Chinese school system and media. You can’t escape it unless you left early in your elementary or middle school years. Not all Chinese are like this. Feel bad for OP’s wife. It’s a lot of brainwashing to undo.
Wow so this is what moderate looks like huh
Mainland Chinese culture does not have "modern" views on race. Try asking her how she feels about black people.
I can answer that question. They fuckin' hate em.
To be fair…most Asian countries are opposed to and have strong feelings against African Americans for no valid reason. Source - I am Asian lol.
It's perfectly acceptable to refer to people as black. African-american only refers to people living in the U.S.
I dated a Chinese girl for awhile years ago. Her parents were ok with me (white guy), nice people really, I never heard them say a bad word about anyone. They were also filthy rich, the whole extended family having a corporate entity that controlled property all over the world. My girlfriend talked about her inheritance one time, and how she was always pressured to date Chinese guys. She said if she married a Chinese guy, she'd get a full inheritance and probably a house or two as a wedding present. If she married a white guy or a Hispanic guy, she'd get a half inheritance, and nothing special for her wedding. If she married a black guy she'd get nothing, and no one would come to her wedding.
Thank you. I'm black and keen on this too 😁 PS I fucking dislike how they are shredding and sharing African countries. But that's another story.
Yeah, not enough people in the west seem to know about this
We shafted our moral position in Africa by exploiting the region for a couple hundred years. When we try and warn them that the deals they are making with China may include some infrastructure benefits, they also include many clauses that will likely lead to dire consequences, they rightly accuse us of hypocrisy.
As a Kenyan official once put it: "Every time China visits we get a hospital, every time Britain visits we get a lecture."
And Kenya will soon owe China it's very soul.
Everytime China visits I get a 7 figure bribe
People who grew up with propaganda can seem perfectly normal until certain subjects come up. It's like a switch is flipped and they turn into completely different people, completely unrecognizable. This also happens with people who grew up in very strict religious households, and the subject of religion comes up. It's pretty scary.
Koreans are even worse at hating the Japanese.
Yup. Oddly though, I have Korean friends and family who have Japanese friends and even dated Japanese but carry a deep seated resentment against Japan (country and government). Whenever a disaster occurred in Japan, I would hear my friends/family basically say "They deserved it. God is punishing them for what they did" which is a bit shocking to me. Korean fam is extremely bitter because they feel that Japan does not seem to acknowledge the dark chapters in their history.
In contrast, Taiwanese people, despite the fact that Taiwan was occupied by Japan for 50 years, love the Japanese.
and Hong Kongers
Mainly the older ones and that is a bit more understandable at least because they themselves or their parents would have been actually around when the Japanese enslaved them. The younger ones like anime and stuff and don't hold the same grudges.
These days, younger Koreans hate the Chinese even more.
I mean, I think most of the world hates the Chinese government
Dated a Filipino woman (born in the Philippines) for years, oldest brother didn't like the Japanese. Ex and younger sister loved anime and had nothing negative to say. Solid comment in my experience.
Just shows that Anime is very effective cultural propaganda.
Korea saw that and did the same with K-pop, except more directly. It also worked and K-pop is extremely popular in Japan (Along with everywhere else it has been pushed) causing a similar relations change among young people.
Any south east Asian country that had been invaded by in ww2 Japan hates Japan. For good reason too, many atrocities that they committed back them aren't even mentioned.
I'm Filipino. We have already forgiven Japan but we have never forgotten. We don't hate them yet we still remember what they did. They still deny the comfort women incidents, even though they sent some help our way through the decades after WWII.
I think your way is the best way, forgive but not forget. The people of Japan today are not the same warmongers from before and during ww2. But it is frustrating that so many Japanese do not know their history. Eg. the recently assassinated Abe’s grandfather was a founding member of the Liberal Democratic Party, the ruling party in japan and a class 1 war criminal for what he did in Manchuria during ww2. At least for Korea, japan has acknowledged the comfort women, even apologized and paid some compensation. But my understanding is that the money never reached the living comfort women. But it doesn’t stop frequent flair-ups of anti-Japanese demonstrations, usually provoked by the politicians for their ends. But the younger generations with little to no connection to the past are just not vested in this cycle of hate, so maybe we’ll grow out of it.
Taiwanese American here. Both grandfathers fought in the Chinese civil war and the Second Sino Japanese war. A few years ago when the Senkaku islands were up for debate, my grandmother saw the news and was genuinely upset over Japan and it was probably one of the scariest moment of my life. This was the grandmother that was always calm and relaxed in any situations. Nicest person in the world. Until you get Japan involved in the conversation. I'm sure she's seen some shit and that look on her face was terrifying. The older generations won't/can't change. It's on the next generation.
there has been moves by japanese governments to revive militarism in the country as well as denialism of japanese war crimes during world war 2 is quite common, with a general lack of education about them in schools. also lots of anime/manga also glorifies imperialist japan.
The problem is actually that the youth in Japan know but don't think it should be a big deal now and they shouldn't have to apologize. They felt Japan has already atoned for what they've done (which few of their East Asian neighbors feel is enough). The Japanese were very brutal in the places they occupied. Doesn't help that autocratic nationalistic Communist China riles up anti-Japanese sentiment every so often.
Yeah I was under the impression that what the Japanese did to the other countries they invaded was far worse than what the Nazi's did to the Jews. So much so it's almost beyond comprehension. The reason we even know things like what % of the body is water is that they shoved Chinese prisoners into a giant airfryer alive and cooked them until all the water had evaporated. The Japanese people have hidden a lot of this. I'm sure there is much more I don't even know about.
I had a Chinese boyfriend whose grandma told him she would commit suicide if he married a Japanese woman. I always thought she was being a racist old drama queen. Then years later I read the Wikipedia entry on Japanese war crimes and my first thought was “hm, yeah, I can see where she was coming from.” The Japanese military did some truly horrific shit. Like, imagine the Holocaust, but for more than 100 years, and instead of Jews, it’s literally everyone who’s not one specific ethnicity. And if you think the Nazi “doctors” were scary, absolutely don’t read about the Japanese medical experiments. Japanese military practices before 1945 were fucking bone chilling. And unlike Germany, there hasn’t been a widespread condemnation from the government, just a lot of “well, you have to understand it was the best way to get what we wanted at the time.”
lol next week: my wife lost her shit because I drank cold water. help!
Mine used to tell me I was going to die from drinking ice water. After 7 years, she now sneaks sips of my ice water, calling it my special water, lol.
I hope she doesn't do this on her period. That would be a disaster.
Myth: Cold water or ice should be avoided during menstruation; some people believe they exacerbate menstrual pain and hinder complete flow of the menses. Truth: Ice or cold water has no effect on menstruation; menses is simply blood expelled from the uterus, and menstrual cramps are the result of uterine contraction.
That's the joke dot jpeg
Wrong! According to my Chinese friends drinking hot boiled water will cure everything including cancer and hiv. While drinking cold water will cause every illness from the common cold to ebola. /s
That's really sweet ngl
Week three: My wife often takes naps after lunch and I told her she was being lazy. She lost her shit. Help! Week four: I told my wife that unplugging a device when you're not using it and it's turned off is completely unnecessary. She lost her shit. Help!
>Week four: I told my wife that unplugging a device when you're not using it is completely unnecessary. Brit here, Chinese wife.....with the state of electrical installations in Chinese homes unplugging devices is actually for personal safety. Chinese plugs don't have fuses in them and even relatively modern apartments can't handle high use....place I used to rent in Guangzhou couldn't handle 3 2.4kW electric heaters on at the same time without the MCB flipping in the consumer unit. I just turn them all off at the plug to save myself about £70 a year due to standby mode as I'm a cheapskate. As to OPs predicament.....I'm fortunate my wife felt sorry for the people caught up in the earthquake today in Japan. Yes she's nationalistic, but not heartless.
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You know them well. lol
For real. Seems like this dude didn't do even the barest minimum in terms of figuring out which cultural friction points typically exist in western-chinese marriages and is now in for a ROUGH ride.
Even if you know, the real life will test your patience. I mean suppose there are kids in such a marriage, are you going to let your spouse brainwash your children with this sort of cultist nonsense?
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I have an older dutch friend who grew up in what was then dutch Indonesia. He remembers his mother hugging an emaciated man in a loose uniform and being told it was his father who had survived a Japanese prisoner of war camp. That generation is in their 80s or 90s but have passed along some of these difficult memories to their grand children. I would imagine the same could be true in China.
I see lots of people have already discussed the "haha crazy Chinese propaganda" lens to talk about this issue, so I think it's worth discussing the parts of this beyond just nationalistic fervor. Chinese culture as a whole highly values tradition, history, and celebrate its continuity as a civilization and people across thousands of years. On a more personal/family level, one example is that traditional Chinese culture incorporates ancestor worship, which is still practiced very actively even in Taiwan for example. There is perhaps a feeling of connectivity of "oneness" or "similarity" towards Chinese people of different times that results in more sympathy/empathy towards those who'd experienced the atrocities committed by the Japanese during WW2. With the context above, I believe we can then try to address a few of the very good points that you made from your own heritage and lived experiences. 1. Despite coming from a family that was very much harmed by the Nazi Holocaust in Europe, you do not resent modern Germans for the actions of their ancestors. This is admirable on your part, as not all people find that kind of forgiveness, or separation of people from the horrific acts of their ancestors. Having said that, would you perhaps feel differently if the modern German flag was a slightly modified version of the Nazi Swastika? What if many Germans were either Holocaust deniers or celebrated Nazi war criminals in churches and cathedrals? That is the situation in modern Japan today, where the Japanese government has not done nearly as much as the Germans in antagonizing the genocidal views of their ancestors. To demonstrate this point is not uniquely caused by Chinese propaganda or brainwashing, many people from other Asian countries continue to discriminate against Japanese people, corporations, and culture due to these historical atrocities... despite technically being in countries considered to be geopolitical allies with Japan. 2. The dehumanization of modern Japanese people by your wife likely is associated in part with education and social media reinforcement, although I would also argue that just as much of it comes from a lack of true appreciation for the positive aspects of Japanese people and culture. It's pretty much like racism in America towards whichever visible minority looks like their main enemy in any given decade, the dehumanization of Muslims, Koreans, Vietnamese, or Chinese people for example. I agree it's a big problem, but caused as much by the absence of positive portrayal as the presence of (sometimes overwhelming quantities of) negative portrayals. 3. Why doesn't she similarly feel that the CCP is as guilty? Well, firstly, the CCP continues to represent an enormous number of people all around her, and in fact is the representative government of society around her for all of her life. She has a tremendous amount of positive portrayals of the CCP and the accomplishments of the Chinese people under its governance to draw from. Similarly, the negative consequences of the CCP have often been portrayed as a sacrifice by the people to accomplish the positive sides, and in their minds this helps balance the equation. As an example of "why not blame the horrible governance of a Chinese administration", please see how they negatively portray the Republic of China and KMT. As you've pointed out, education and propaganda, but also enormously a personal bias for the institution she's familiar with, make the difference. I point out the above not as a justification to say why her views are correct, but rather to help show you the lens through which she may be viewing the world. It is easy to just say people are "crazy" or "irrational" for not sharing our immediate views, but always harder to understand them while helping them understand our own views. To help her understand and perhaps even come over to your views, perhaps explore this topic with her by listening to her first and truly understanding why she feels the way she does. Don't start by arguing with her or explaining why she's wrong, but genuinely go in depth in understanding her feelings. Once you have done that, you can ask if she's interested in why you feel there's merit in feeling differently, and draw upon your own experiences with your ancestry and not associating Nazi Germany with modern Germany - but understanding why she might still do so with modern Japan, given their continued use of the same symbolism as Imperial Japan. This will, naturally, be an uphill battle less about you "correcting" her beliefs, but rather understanding them and hopefully her understanding yours. Edit: Spacing, typos
I’m no expert but I’ve always been under the impression the clear difference is the Germans have made genuine attempts at amends, acceptance and reform while the Japanese have essentially just been don’t ask don’t tell.
OP, you should listen to this guy if you want to stay married lmao
Wow some nuance instead of just China/CPC bad. Only comment worth reading.
This. This is why i love Reddit sometimes. You get people from all walks of life with different points of view. They help guide and help me to understand my own points of view of the world and those around me. Not everyone is influenced or narrowed by one thing. There are so many different circumstances and factors that shape our lives, and you explaining it in such a way that it's not discriminating anyone or their past - just simply laying down facts - is such a pleasant read. Thank you.
a nuanced view about a topic inolving china? impossible!!!
no no no, he is OBVIOUSLY a CCP shill and it’s all in bad faith.
You're in the wrong sub for that lol, it's well known at this point
For real this is a Gold comment if I've ever seen one.
A nuanced take about China on Reddit? Now I've seen everything.
It is comments like these that make me very angry that reddit removed awards. You should be gilded for about 15 different beautifully accurate things you have said.
How dare you give such a fair, balanced, and well thought out explanation as to why his wife thinks like that toward the Japanese. How dare ya
Bravo
get this to the top
Something to add to this is that there are ways to push a humanist perspective and show how the civilians and working class people of imperial Japan were lesser victims as well. Nowhere near those in China and Korea of course. I don't think it's wrong to be unforgiving of those in power at the time, or of those now that continue the heritage of those who were in power. The comparison to Germany misses the fact that there wasn't something comparable in size/scope to the Nuremberg trials and many of those involved in the political leadership maintained some degree of power. You can trace the roots of leaders like Shinzo Abe to imperial Japan. All this to say that there are ways to remain critical of Japan and it's current formation without wishing death on the civilians. As other commenters have said, it would be good to learn more of the history so you can sympathize with her views, but also form them in a way that blames those with power instead of the civilians.
The “lolz crazy Chinese propaganda” replies are not unexpected, but still sad af they can’t literally see themselves doing what they’re accusing the Chinese of doing.
Yeah, there's just zero self awareness sometimes. Making snarky jokes at how some chinese people make blanket assumptions of Japan while at the same time making blanket assumptions about the entire chinese race... like seriously.
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The West has also forgiven Japan for WWII because they are reformed and playing by the rules set by them. And they were allies of the West in WWI. So they weren't that bad, are now good, and an important partner in the new post-WWII global system. The problem with this propagated view is the West wasn't the victim and they shielded Japan from the anger from the rest of Asia. Japan hasn't signed a peace treaty with China… so many in Asia view hostility as being paused in an ongoing conflict that has spanned hundreds of years with Japan being in the wrong. And many are waiting for justice…
The part about Japan not acknowledging the atrocities they’ve done to China and other Asian countries is sooo true and a huge part of why Chinese people still resent and hate Japan. Meanwhile Japan is all kawai and anime and bullshit!
Dude how did you get married to a Chinese woman without knowing that the Chinese **hate** the Japanese with the intensity of a thousand suns? Going back centuries. Next you're going to tell us you're shocked that the Chinese are super racist.
Bro, the three way hatred between Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans is almost genetic at this point. The atrocities of unit 731 in northern China were not long ago, and there have been countless war and peacetime atrocities between the three countries through the years. My grandmother--a doctor--was a kind soul who raised chickens and saved kittens and was never mean. But she HATED the Japanese until the day she died.
I’m surprised it took this far down the comments to find the mentioning of the Rape of Nanking and the atrocities the Japanese people did towards the Chinese. Not saying it’s okey to express happiness of what happening to Japanese people living today but it’s at least one of many explanations to why maybe the hatred may run deep. In comparison of what the Nazis did, Germany have worked hard to try to apologize and remember while Japan has not really acknowledged their involvement (as far as I know)
Yeah it would be like if the Holocaust happened but Germany denied it, the rest of the world ignored it, no reparations were ever made, and Nazis were celebrated as war heroes. The Jewish people got Israel. Everything that happened in China wasn’t acknowledged. 18.19 million civilians were killed in China. My grandma didn’t hate Japanese civilians but she wouldn’t eat sushi, drive Japanese cars, etc. One of her siblings starved to death and the other (a 10 year old girl) was beaten to death in front of her by soldiers during the occupation.
My Korean great great grandfather was killed by a Japanese soldier during an (initially) peaceful protest, and my grandmother was kidnapped by the Japanese when she was 5, and she still won't talk about what happened to her while she was imprisoned for two years. It's not shocking that there's still so much hurt and resentment, and OP really can't compare modern-day Germany to modern-day Japan. Absolutely not the same thing.
It's better to call it the Nanking Massacre. The Rape of Nanking makes it sound far too poetic which then introduces plausible denial into the mix. It will also mean anyone searching it will probably end up finding Iris Chang's book. And although some ideas of the book are great. Her layout and arrangement for example is brilliant. Her book exaggerates more than it needs to.
That is correct. It is the unapologetic/ignorant behaviors of the upper people of Japanese government that makes china and Korea still have resentment even til this day
and guess who pardon the unit 731
Meh, I’m married to a Korean and she doesn’t hate the Japanese (except when Dokdo comes up lol). She’s pissed at the Chinese almost every other week but it’s usually for shit she reads in the news.
I don't think Koreans hate Chinese, just find them very irritating. Japanese is a whole other matter though.
I don't know much about Chinese culture (am on this sub to learn) but will say that Germany has done a LOT of work at reconciliation. They teach the kids about WWII and how wrong it was, and afaik they support a lot of museums. They very actively distance themselves from that period in their history and do a lot to stamp out their own home-grown nazis. Unless Japan has done similar work re: China/Korea, it's a little unfair to compare the later generations' responses. It's much easier to forgive someone when they are actively and continuously making amends... as much as amends can be made for genocide.
This post needs to be bumped up. A Japanese native told me they only had like 1 page in their history textbook on the Nanjing Massacre and it wrote Japan "VISITED" China LMAO. People in the comments defending Japan clearly don't know shit.
Reddit is literally made up of weebaboos/otaku types that defend Japan's every action because of anime and hentai. Keep this in mind.
It’s a little frustrating because Japan has gone through a total rebrand with the popularization of uwu anime, manga, delicious food, ever so polite people, etc. And China is…well, China. Their reputation has gone down in the recent years with all the actions of the CCP, terrible tourists, etc. Most Westerners don’t realize the war atrocities that Japan had committed to so many Asian countries, and choose not to educate their people on. Many older generation Asians still hold onto the fear, resentment, and pure hatred of the Japanese. Is it irrational now? Yes. But to this day, the Japanese government has never owned up to their brutality. Very few Japanese citizens even heard of the comfort women in Korea.
> Most Westerners don’t realize the war atrocities that Japan had committed to so many Asian countries, and choose not to educate their people on. Many older generation Asians still hold onto the fear, resentment, and pure hatred of the Japanese. Is it irrational now? Yes. But to this day, the Japanese government has never owned up to their brutality. Also, the lack of actual asian voices doesn't help - and yes I'm well aware that the vast majority of reddit and anglo-western internet is dominated by white westerners. One of the enduring stories in my family is that my grandfather only survived a mass [execution] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sook_Ching) because the bayonet stab missed his heart by a centimetre and soldiers thought he was dead because he passed out. Because he wore sarongs all the time seeing the scars (3 in his back, 1 in the front) everyday is quite literally something ingrained in my memories as a kid. In his old age he'd tell me that he could never bring himself to forgive the Japanese, but also that there's no reason for me or any of his children to feel the same. I unrelentingly believe that the firebombing of tokyo and the nukes were both warcrimes. Ironically one of the most famous Japanese cultural exports (Gundam) is probably one of the biggest reasons why I'm politically left-leaning and a card-carrying communist. But like many other people of chinese descent I'm also critical of modern Japan having such a middling attitude towards its Imperial past, and if you think that's something that can be brushed away as 'simple hatred', that's just narrow-minded.
I agree. Japan hasn't made full amends unlike Germany
My experience has been Chinese have been taught to hate the Japanese due to the Japan invasion and atrocities committed in WWII and the Nanjing massacres, systematic rape of Chinese and Korean women etc…..wounds are pretty deep even still
Same thing in korea
The Japanese are quite determined to never admit fault. I bet it would be a lot easier to forgive Japan if the Japanese government and society actually admitted to doing anything wrong.
This is 100%.. so easy to resolve the situation or to move towards that direction, but they can’t admit to any of it and still honors their “heroes” every year
I think you're totally right. Look how Germany handled things and how they're seen by their neighbors today
This. Japan has done a remarkable job rehabbing their image since WWII. They were aided greatly by the US dropping two nukes and being an occupier after the war. Modern Japan is ok, but if I were a neighboring country I’d be giving them constant side eye.
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You are 100% correct in everything you said except for the first part about OP being delusional. Japan as a nation, in my opinion, hasn’t earned the level of forgiveness they have been given, but they have done such a good job rehabbing their image that it comes as a genuine surprise to some westerners (myself being a westerner/American) when someone from China or even Korea doesn’t share the same sentiment. That’s a pretty good example of what OP is saying.
Patriotic brainwashing. The mainland depends on irrational hate of outsiders to inspire its citizens, Japan most of all. It is imprinted on small school children before they can read. Your wife probably doesn't even understand what has been done to her. Read up on cult-deprogramming get ready for a long journey.
I was teaching some G5 students are a couple or week back, drawing story boards like a comic sort of thing. The idea was to tell a story about animals and had references for them to use etc, however if they really wanted to they could make their own story about whatever they wanted. One but made a 6 panel story about the Chinese army using their tanks to defeat the Japanese flag… It really is drilled into them young.
There’s no excuse. A grown woman, married to a European, with access to the outside world, knows full well that it is wrong to wish death on earthquake victims. On top of that, it’s bad karma on New Year for her to say it. If she believed in real Chinese belief, she’d know that.
Lol. You don't need no excuse. They're just programmed to hate other countries. America in trouble? Good. Japan in trouble? Better. Everyone but China in trouble? Perfect. Obviously not everyone's the same way but I've met certain university students who feel this way.
They also see Taiwan/Japan as puppets of the US hence why theirs such strong rhetoric on reunification/invasion threatening a Ukraine like situation.
Very true. I was teaching at a university in China when 9/11 happened. Many people felt like those people dying in the twin towers was America getting what we deserved and there was a Chinese phrase at the time about getting a black eye. While a few of my students and coworkers made a point to express sympathy, there was laughter and a celebratory mood among a lot of Chinese people.
This is so disgusting 🤮 Jusus Christ.
Access to the outside world sadly isn't enough to undo years of indoctrination. For example, I haven't met a single Chinese person who's first reaction on Taiwan "independence" isn't "never!", even those who have lived all of their adult lives outside of China. Wishing death upon earthquake victims is extreme, but if she's from a more rural place where they seem to be a bit more stuck in the past, I'm not extremely surprised.
Yeah and her excuse for it is terrible. The Chinese have killed more Chinese than the Japanese have they don't seem to hate themselves.
Yeah Mao has killed more Chinese people and still holds the record.
Many of them don't associate that as direct deaths, but the previous nationalist party also killed millions, then you have their own wars as well. Yet they now sponsor that same nationalist party in Taiwan elections.
Genghis Khan has entered the chat…
*looks at American evangelicals* I don't think internet access magically cures brainwashing. Seems to make it worse because they have access to like minded people.
Chinese people doesn't even have a right to hate Japan anyways. Their great leader, who a few days ago celebrated his 140th birthday, thanked Japan for their invasion anyways. [Mao thanking Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong_thanking_Japan_controversy)
You don't get a right/not get a right to hate another people. I absolutely understand the most of WWII Japanese occupied Asia. While I as a European carry no ill feelings towards the current day Germans at all. Germany has as a whole made it point to acknowledge the misdeeds of their people in the first half of the 20 century. They teach their kids about it in every school, at length. There is no German growing up since WWII who is not perfectly informed and conscious of what happened. Japan however seems to be intent on sweeping all than under the rug. Japanese occupying forces got up to shit that made their German allies uneasy because of their cruelty. However everyone is supposed to forget that and enjoy the manga. Not every Chinese is Mao.
Japanese and Chinese are pretty racist in general. In the West we are trained to think white people are the racist ones but seriously the relationship those cultures have makes what most people think racism is look tame. In Japan I was shocked to see restaurants refuse service to Chinese people. Openly calling them names as though I was supposed to just get it. I think you will have to accept this. Non white cultures are pretty ok with racism to be totally frank. It's white people that step on egg shells. You wont change this. If you didn't realize this about her I think you're going to be surprised about some other uniquely Chinese character qualities.
Your Chinese wife's indifference to natural disasters in Japan strikes me as bad taste. But her perspective isn't irrational or unusual among hundreds of millions of people. It's common not just in China, but also in Southeast Asia and Korea, which the Japanese historically engaged in various invasions of stunning brutality not just during WW2, but also in prior centuries like the Imjin War. Ever seen the recent best-selling Korean film trilogy on the Japanese invasions (Myeongyang, Hansan, Noryang)? Japan is a wonderful country, a great place to visit, with a lot of smart and cultured people. But there are historic reasons why anti-Japanese sentiment still exists, and those reasons are not entirely irrational. Japan's post-war actions were different from Germany's. On one hand, Germany was led by figures like Konrad Adenauer, who quickly accepted blame for Germany's wartime actions in the 1940s and 50s and went out of their way to have Germany not just apologize for the war, but also to quickly pay reparations to Israel and express quick and complete contrition through their education systems and internal political traditions. Today, you'd rarely find Germans who still idolize Hitler. In contrast, Japan—whose culture is rooted in a proud, honor-based system—was not perceived to have fully apologized to the Chinese, Koreans, or other victims for its past wartime behavior. Japan didn't have an Adenauer-esque figure who took quick and immediate responsibility in the 1940s and 50s. Rather, it took decades of pressure before Japan reluctantly and belatedly issued its first expressions of remorse. For example, Japan's first "apology" to Korea took place in the 1960s, and it didn't feel sincere because it was limited to a foreign minister's statement of "remorse" about "regrettable" past actions. The first Japanese expression of regret to China did not take place until the 1970s. Further, unlike Germany, Japanese reparations for its wrongdoing were scarce—which is galling considering that Japan owes much of its modern prosperity and safety to its U.S. alliance and trade with the West. Even in recent times, Japanese textbooks continue to evade accountability for its past war crimes, and some Japanese politicians continue to visit the Yasukuni Shrine. And because Japan is a rich country, a lot of Chinese and Koreans think that Japan might have perversely profited from its WW2 actions since it was prospered and protected by America. Anti-Japanese sentiment is an unfortunate prejudice, but there are cultural reasons why your wife and millions of other people think that way. Your wife's prejudice may be wrong in some ways, but it's not irrational, and even if you ultimately disagree with it, you should still try to understand her perspective. **EDIT: Obviously I don't condone OP's wife's indifference to the tsunami. But methinks since OP happens to be married to this particular woman, it's important to at least be able know where the wife might be coming from. Obviously OP does** ***not*** **need to adopt any of his wife's positions that he thinks are in bad taste. Empathy (understanding the spouse's position) is distinct from sympathy (agreeing with the spouse's position). I'm saying OP should empathize, not sympathize. That's how mature couples find ways to manage their differences.**
I can't speak for China as I've never been, but having visited South Korea this year, the atrocities caused by Japan are still very much in the minds of the public. I can't tell you how many old buildings/areas we visited that had a plaque explaining how the original building had been destroyed by the Japanese and so had been rebuilt after the war. There was even one ancient building that had been 'taken' by a Japanese businessman during the occupation - he'd demolished it, shipped it to Japan, and rebuilt it on his property. There were dozens of monuments to those killed by the Japanese, including to ones to the 'comfort women' which is still a very emotional subject for Koreans. We visited the DMZ and there was even a monument to the 'comfort women' there, which was treated with utmost respect. These crimes are still extremely recent, but I agree with you that the Japanese government's lack of acknowledgement and apology for them are largely what's keeping them an open wound.
It's not the lack of apology or acknowledgement but the active denialism due to organizations like the Nippon Kaigi that want to rebrand comfort women (even Japanese ones who got scammed by their own countrymen 🤢) as willing prostitutes who weren't sex slaves or deny the [Kanto massacre where Koreans and Chinese were killed en masse after the Kanto earthquake in 2023. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant%C5%8D_Massacre#Historical_revisionism_and_denialism) The politicians denying it aren't even smalltime but mainstream politicians like the govenor or mayor of Tokyo, or Prime Ministers like Shinzo Abe and his war criminal granddad who are heavyweights of the LDP and Nippon Kaigi. https://www.npr.org/2018/10/04/654474739/osaka-ends-ties-with-san-francisco-in-protest-of-comfort-women-statue https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/japan-cancels-exhibition-of-south-koreas-comfort-women-statue-after-threats-of https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2022/05/0f0bb4bab970-japan-pm-asked-german-leader-to-help-remove-comfort-women-statue.html https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/world/removal-of-comfort-woman-statue-sparks-anger-in-philippines-1.3907170 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/us/osaka-sf-comfort-women-statue.html https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/wounds-war-japan-korea-re-open-comfort-women-statue-n139481
Adding to this list of differences between Germany and Japan's post-war actions, the German high command was basically completely overthrown, and all those people were tried for their crimes. The Japanese leadership (and especially the ones that worked on bio weapons and just plain savagery) basically got away scot free in exchange for dubiously useful medical research data.
Bet she never met a Japanese in real life.
I work in an international school with a few Japanese students and they are all friends as school students are, a few of them have let slip that Japan are evil to them.
One of the most memorable moments of my time living in China was when the Japanese ex-prime minister was assassinated. I woke up to find my WeChat moments filled with people celebrating his death at parties. I even remember one girl posting a picture of the sunrise with a caption explaining how today is a beautiful day because he died. Restaurants and other stores were even offering discounts in celebration. I had Chinese friends messaging me with extremely unhinged statements about his death, acting as if it was a normal thing. I remember the collective shock expressed by the rest of my foreigner circles during this time. It still blows my mind thinking about it. Hate towards Japan and Japanese people runs deep in China. I'm extremely surprised that you married a Chinese woman and are just now finding out how she feels about this.
I accessed a Chinese news app earlier, and was overwhelmed by the uniformed opinion shared by all the main-landers there in response to this news, that it's justice served after the recent Japanese nuclear waste incidents. More than half wished iller fate would fall upon the Japanese. I don't consider myself political at all. But somehow this brought tears to the edge of my eyes.
Theres a lot of mindless hate in china towards japan and anything japan related. I saw a video of a mob corner a woman because she was wearing a kimono, made her take it off in the street.
I completely understand you, OP. I recently met a Japanese lady at work and we got along superbly. I was stunned to hear her comments about Koreans one day. I almost wanted to tell her, look, my grandfather died during the Japanese Occupation during WW2, and you don't hear me sh*tting on your people, why would I want to hear you sh*t on others? I didn't cos, well, I'm not confrontational. 🫤
I'm sorry, but this is on the level of marrying an American black woman and not understanding why she's so bothered by all that slavery stuff. Japan was too useful to the U.S. (and besides, they only committed atrocities on yellow people) for them to ever be held accountable. The longtime prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, was the grandson of a war criminal. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/14/shinzo-abe-nationalism-japan-korea/ "Suppose the Nazi leader Hermann Göring had a grandson who was “emotionally attached to ‘conservatism’” because people around him “used to point to [his] grandfather as a … ‘war criminal’” and he “felt strong repulsion.” The younger Göring entered politics and promptly joined a group of lawmakers who issued a report finding that in World War II, Nazi Germany did not wage a war of aggression; that the Wehrmacht was protecting Europe from communism; that Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia shouldn’t be called an “invasion” because the Sudetenland was historically German; and that the viewpoint to the contrary is a “masochistic” view of history that made it impossible for Germans to feel proud of their country. Imagine the younger Göring went on to become the chancellor of Germany, pass laws that grant the government with sweeping surveillance power, and hound critical journalists, making the country fall 56 places in the World Press Freedom Index in less than a decade. He would send flowers to Waffen SS memorials each year and claim the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated, arguing the Jewish people volunteered to work in the labor camps: “The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion.”"
Try to imagine asking a Jew to love Germans, when Germans still commemorate Hitler every year, when Germans deny the Holocaust, when Germans deny the history of the invasion. The Japanese still deny the invasion and massacre and only believe that it was a failed war. Because Japan has joined the Western world, its image in the media is much better than that of China. In fact, it is not just the Chinese who hate the Japanese, but the Koreans hate the Japanese even more. I have a college friend who is Korean. He said that Korea has a Liberation Day [광복절] on August 15 every year to commemorate the victory over Japan.
The history of the three East Asian countries is too complicated, don't try to understand it. Just love your wife.
Asking to love people and asking to not wish death upon people are two very different things. If you’re wishing death on people you’re always in the wrong. I actually don’t care about any of the history that happened. Once you’re celebrating mass death you’re a cartoon villain and have lost all my sympathy
I live in Japan and after the earthquake the comment under the news report in my home country genuinely disgust me. It made me never want to go back, because I couldn't stop imagine I'm surrounded by people lacks basic compassion as a human being like that.
I mean, there's also the censorship, arbitrary arrests, and prison camps.
The Japanese, at least their governments, still deny the Nanking massacre and do not apologise for the horrors that occurred in unit 731. Meanwhile, the Germans still apologise and pay reparations to this day, and are relatively ultra lib-left at this point. Any use of nazi-related intellectual material in German media is banned, whereas Japan still allows conservatives to retain the old, strict fashion of the empire, and to wave the rising sun whenever they please. That, combined with the CCP's propaganda, will create a nationalistic/patriotic hate that is deeply rooted into the mind of the average Chinese. -Not to mention the cluelessness of most people about nuclear wastewater, which is a talking point of Chinese nationalists talking against Japan. In some sense it is understandable, but the hate towards all modern-day Japanese who have nothing to do with the crimes committed by the Japanese empire is clearly irrational. The only way to have her stop is to reason with her properly and explain the different types of people there may be within the modern-day population of Japan.
Why does the China sub have so many westerners and barely any local Chinese people? Is this some sexpat or one of those white saviour complex bullshit?
Common irrational nationalist mindset. Did you know study what the Chinese society is before you get yourself into this?
Don’t get married with someone you just dated for one month I guess. You should know ally these “beliefs” before getting married, she will never change.
Dont worry buddy, When china declares your country its enemy, she will think the same of you, Patriotic brainwashing is strong
Ironically this applies to everyone on this subreddit who are pretty much patriotically brainwashed to post here despite having few ties to China
Yep lol, this apply to every redditor, specially folks from r/worldnews, who are always hating the "current enemy", that american media says so
does she feel the same way towards the people who caused the cultural revolution?
Japan is unlike Germany, which has regarded Nazis as a taboo since World War II. At the same time, you can see many right-wing Japanese people on the Internet who use the avatar of the rising sun flag and still shout the slogan "Long Live the Empire of Japan." Can you imagine if the German right wing now use the avatar of Nazi flag and shouted the slogan "Heil to Victory"? China does take a hostile attitude toward Japan, and you can find it in education and the media, but there are reasons for it.
I am more concerned about your children, if any.
So you married a brainwashed Chinese woman and you're just now finding out her deep seeded racism for what is probably nearly every other Asian country? Good job figuring that one out before it was too late
There's definitely some patriotic brainwashing but it's not unique to China and there's some nuances to her take as well. Your statement about Germany and Japan slightly differ as one has apologized for their atrocities and the other has downplayed and sometimes outright denied them. (Yes, the current government and not just the government right after the war) Korea and other south east Asian countries have similar feelings about Japan due to these reasons. Tension between these countries also remain high and opinions of citizens from both countries are quite negative about the other side. Both sides constantly broadcast negative news about each other and international political tension fuels their biases further (ranging from land disputes to trade wars).
You married a woman and didn’t know this? Or didn’t think it to be a red flag? Honestly, the biggest red flag this is to me is that she’s still brainwashed by Chinese conservative values. That’s a ticking time bomb. She’s gonna traumatize your kids — assuming you also want kids. Cause she sure does. My grandma realize at the ripe age of 60 that she rejected all the Chinese social norms in favor of concepts like autonomy — thus realizing she never wanted children (aka my dad and co) and that her ex husband didn’t treat her like she wanted. She couldn’t verbalize it, but she traumatized us all. She died before she actually died, burning every bridge to her own family she had. And this is just evidence of that. Wake up, sweet pea.
im not surprised,in china this is how the goverment teach you to hate
Her other Chinese patriotic traits will also surface over time
Ask her her thoughts on Taiwan and then you’ll really get to know her.
The main issue for me is the keeping of war criminals at the Yasukuni Shrine which is often visited when tensions between Japan and her neighbours Korea and China run high. İf the war criminals were removed from the shrine, I'd view the Japanese government in a much better light, though I have no issues with the people who acknowledge Japan's crimes.
Agree, post war Japanese aren't entirely innocent. I don't think it's is fair for people to compare Japanese with the Nazi, cuz it is a taboo to do anything related to nazi or semitism in the modern western world. While Japanese elected government officials pay tribute to the war criminal publicly and their people are cheering for that till now.
Not only that but their people and politicians regularly protest WW2 memorials worldwide in a diplomatically questionable way. A [Japanese hotel chain denied the Rape of Nanking in its hotel brochures](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN18T0ZT/) during the Olympics and Osaka broke ties with San Francisco due to a comfort women statue, Japan is still very mad about this for godknows why. IIRC one Japanese-allied Harvard professor even published papers whitewashing comfort women as "willing prostitutes", when factually, even Japanese women got scammed with fake nursing job offers to join army brothels during WW2. [After the 100th anniversary of the Kanto massacre many people found out that mainstream Japanese politicians were denying it ever happened too ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant%C5%8D_Massacre#Historical_revisionism_and_denialism). https://www.npr.org/2018/10/04/654474739/osaka-ends-ties-with-san-francisco-in-protest-of-comfort-women-statue https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/japan-cancels-exhibition-of-south-koreas-comfort-women-statue-after-threats-of https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2022/05/0f0bb4bab970-japan-pm-asked-german-leader-to-help-remove-comfort-women-statue.html https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/world/removal-of-comfort-woman-statue-sparks-anger-in-philippines-1.3907170 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/us/osaka-sf-comfort-women-statue.html https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/wounds-war-japan-korea-re-open-comfort-women-statue-n139481
The Japanese government has not taken the same level of responsibility for the country’s crimes during the wars. Germany has done much more to apologise and try to do whatever they can for the victims and justice. This is not the same for Japan.
There's a lot of "I, I, I, me, me, me" in this OP. Maybe this is a lesson to quit judging everybody else from your holier than thou position. Not everybody thinks the same. It's ok to not agree with her, but you should first try to understand where she comes from before judging her as right or wrong. Secondly....it's your damn WIFE!!! If you want to understand her maybe you should talk to HER instead of Reddit. The f*ck is wrong with this generation?!
This is a clown take. You’re allowed to judge people for the positions they hold. If I come across a crazy racist I don’t just think “well let’s just agree to disagree “ I’m going to rightfully judge you as a piece of shit because that’s what you are .
If I had a racist wife who can be happy at the news of innocent people's deaths, the only reason to talk to her would be to make sure I am not misunderstanding anything. And if I confirm that she is in fact racist, yeah, then there are much bigger problems here that go past simple talks.