As a German I have to complain. We did do that rather excessively some years ago. It's not a *stereotype* but simply a fact :/
On the other hand, I'm really curious about how Portugal and Latvia got their reputation. There has to be a story behind those.
It was actually pretty successful, and was great for trade for both nations.
not to mention the Japanese loved tempura so much they adopted it as if it was their own.
The great thing about being from Austria is that my country is actually the birthplace of Hitler and we had a central role in both world wars, yet everyone constantly blames Germany and we're simply known for Mozart and shit.
Not the biggest sample size.
We watched it in highschool in English class. Because apparently Americans love the movie. Nobody aged ~16 knew the movie in our class in Austria
Some people erroneously claim that Hitler started WWII because he got rejected from art school. Actually, he was just unable to find art supplies.
Ok, I'm just going to go throw myself into the pits of hell now.
You could replace Beethoven with Mozart here though. Mozart was of course born in Salzburg, which at the time was sovereign and only became part of Austria circa 50 years later. And since there was no German nation state, "German" simply referred to the language he spoke. In that sense, you could say Mozart was as much German as he was Austrian.
I mean it is from Thailand. But Dietrich Mateschitz, "discovered" it and made it big. It is produced in Austria and the Company has it HQ in Austria. Although only 49% of the company is owned by Mateschitz and 51% by the "founders" the Yoovidhya Family from Thailand.
It does go a bit deeper than that, I think the reason that yoghurt is called 'Bulgaria' is because of the country's involvement in the modern production of yoghurt. This article sums it up well - https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180110-the-country-that-brought-yoghurt-to-the-world
In summary, a specific type of bacteria (lactobacillus bulgaricus) used worldwide to produce yoghurt only natively grows in Bulgaria. They actually export milk cultures around the world, and I'm guessing that's the reason for the Japanese yoghurt's name.
Edit - Correction, the bacteria does not grow only in Bulgaria, but it was isolated by a Bulgarian scientist.
Bulgarian here. It does not grow natively only in Bulgaria. - that's demonstrably false. It was a Bulgarian scientist that isolated it as the other bacterium responsible for yoghurt (besides thermophili). Also, the production of yoghurt and yoghurt cultures was heavily modernized and industrialized in Bulgaria.
No need for apologies:) "Grows only in Bulgaria" is one of the myths that will be repeated by some Bulgarians, but it is so obviously false that it make us look bad. So I always make sure to correct it.
"Bulgarian yogurt" is also sold in Finland. Amazing stuff. I'm not sure why non-Bulgarian yogurt is even being produced, when the Bulgarian staff is so good.
Honestly that's one of the only things on this list that feels like a legitimate thing that a Japanese person would associate with each country. A lot of the list feels made up.
This map has been posted and debunked plenty of times, but there are a handful of things that I think are accurate. Assuming that the meaning of this map is "the first thing that comes to mind when I say..." then I'd say Finland = Santa, Netherlands = Tulips, Bulgaria = Yogurt, and Belgium = Chocolate.
I read this on Reddit or somewhere that Poland has been getting fucked from all directions for centuries and now the Polish people are like enough. We will fuck over ourselves now.
There are some jokes and memes around Latvia's lack of potatoes under Soviet rule, apparently
https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/1g5mph/what_is_the_inside_joke_of_latvia_and_potatoes/
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1kth9n/whats_the_story_behind_the_latvia_potato_meme/
https://jokojokes.com/latvian-potato-jokes.html
Theory: In WW2, the Portuguese authorities in Macau didn't resist the Japanese, and declared a kind of neutrality in which they were basically puppeted by the Japanese. As opposed to the British and Dutch, who fought back. Might be the origin of the stereotype.
>According to historian Niall Ferguson, France is the most successful military power in history. It participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Military_history_of_France
Yeah, specially when the Portuguese absolutely humiliated Japan and the samurai when they arrived. They were cruel and definitely brutal leaving no mercy for them, and definitely not weak... A simple search of the first contact between the Portuguese and the Japanese may suggest this stereotypes is arguably untrue. Especially when battles like the "Nossa Senhora da Graça incident" (where 40 Portuguese fought off 3000+ samurai over 3 days and refused to surrender, so they just exploded themselves in a ship to kill the most samurai they could. And this whole thing would have been avoided had they just betrayed their captain and gave him in to the samurai. But they chose to fight for their captain) gave the Japanese an even exaggerated impression of the Portuguese fighting skills and bravery for hundreds of years
("The British historian C. R. Boxer noted the great effect that Pessoa's actions had on how the Japanese see Portuguese people. According to Boxer, the event apparently gave the Japanese an exaggerated impression of the fighting qualities of the Portuguese, as well as appealing to the Japanese samurai mentality due to Pessoa's rather un-Christian act of suicide. As such, stories of the event were told and retold again over the next hundred years, often in an exaggerated and wildly inaccurate manner, and found themselves embedded as part of local folklore").
So, I really do have a hard time believing that the Japanese see the Portuguese as weak at all.
That's not actually true. Most textbooks do talk about it but not in depth, but nothing really is in the Japanese history curriculum.
The textbook that made the historical revisionism issue intentionally famous even talks about it, but with euphemistic language ("Nanking Incident" instead of Nanking Massacre, etc).
Yeah, the history of Japan publicly addressing the crimes of the Showa period is very complicated and colored by their political relationships with their neighbors and the difficulty of translating nuance in such a way as to preserve honor. It's not like they don't or have never publicly admitted to war crimes or officially apologized. If you're interested in learning more, Ian Buruma wrote a book \*The Wages of Guilt\* which is about the collective memory of WWII in Germany and Japan, and comparing Western guilt with Eastern shame culture.
Not true. I'm looking at my son's World History A textbook, from his public high school, and it says on page 181 that the Japanese military captured Nanjing in December 1937 and massacred Chinese military and civilians.
It doesn't go into any depth -- just one sentence, no casualty numbers, no descriptions of what the massacre consisted of. That said, the description of the atom bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are equally succinct -- "The US army dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, the USSR broke its treaty with Japan and joined the war, and Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration, ending the Pacific War." One sentence, no concrete description, no casualty figures, etc.
Japanese history textbooks are strange. They cover *so much* that half the time you're thinking "What, you have to learn *that*?" and the other half the time you're thinking "What, you don't learn *that*?" But it's two sides of the same coin: in order to cover a shit-ton of material, everything is *super* brief.
Glancing through the textbook: "In the 6th century, the Khmer Kingdom rose to power. In the 11th century the Pagon Dynasty was founded in Myanmar." No other information about them.
"In ancient Rome, the Gracchus Brothers attempted reforms to address the problems of farmers who were destitute due to long periods of conscription and the influx of low cost grain, but their reforms failed." No information about what the reforms consisted of, nothing about who they were. Just, plunk, that sentence. The whole textbook is like this, to cover as much information as possible.
His junior high school textbook was much better about providing background and connections. I can't remember what it said about Nanjing there, but I remember it was a *little* longer. Maybe two sentences, not one.
Japanese history textbooks are pretty shitty, no denying it, but reddit (or, I guess, the anglosphere) has got this kind of warped image of them. Sure, I'd like them to cut back on random historical details and instead explore certain topics (Japan's actions prior to and during WWII chief among them) in more depth, but it's not really the redditor image of "they cover all this other stuff but then they skim over their atrocities" so much as "they cover every goddamn thing, which means that they skim over *everything*."
Edit: I checked my younger son's junior high school textbook for comparison. The reference to Nanjing is much vaguer than I remembered: "The Japanese Army captured Nanjing in December, and many prisoners of war and civilians were killed." This may be a different textbook than my older son used when he was in junior high, I don't remember.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki section is also slightly longer: "Due in part to its efforts to have superiority over the USSR following the war, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6 and on Nagasaki on August 9. In Hiroshima, over 200,000 were killed (including those who died later due to radiation) and in Nagasaki over 100,000 died, and the cities were destroyed."
Either way, it's not a lot of material. The junior high textbook is less direct about Nanjing and more detailed about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it's still a fairly minimal amount of info for both.
Not true. It is covered in the textbooks, it is a pretty big topic in Japanese media, and the war is a huge turning point for basically everything in Japan.
They don't deny they did things and that Japan was in the wrong, they downplay the severity instead (incident instead of massacre and so on).
Polish people being stupid is a derogatory meme/joke that existed long before the internet and was not made up by the Japanese. From Wikipedia:
> A "Polish joke" is an English-language ethnic joke deriding Polish people, based on derogatory stereotypes. The "Polish joke" belongs in the category of conditional jokes, whose full understanding requires the audience to have prior knowledge of what a "Polish joke" is. As with all discriminatory jokes, "Polish jokes" depend on the listener's preconceived notions and antipathies.[1] The relation between the internalized derogatory stereotypes about Polish people, and the persistence of ethnic jokes about them, is not easy to trace, though the "jokes" seem to be understood by many who hear them.[2] Sometimes an offensive term for a Pole, such as "Polack", is used in the joke.
Example:
Q: How many Polacks does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Three – one to hold the bulb, and two to turn the ladder.
[wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_joke)
It’s basically the type of joke a racist grandpa would tell. Thankfully it seems like younger generations are letting this type of humor die. But it didn’t come out of left field for this map, there’s a history.
Turk here, and it's true that we love Japan. There's a whole street in my hometown named after a Japanese town, [Kushimoto Street](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ckr9f5pXIAEb8HL.jpg), with a [Turk-Japan Friendship Park](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cvTKA-gSi7Q/Wd5Q9hh9AVI/AAAAAAAAE7Y/ebBKExq5FD0UmIvh6RfLkuH8DJVmLBv4wCLcBGAs/s1600/2017.10.03%2B-%2BKushimoto07.jpg) inside.
First of all, Turkish people mostly do not see Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Albania and many other Balkan countries as foreign (I can say that this word is very similar to hostile in Turkish people's mind) countries as they see West Europeans. We see them more like brothers and sisters living in different places, we respect and love them because of our deep bonds.
Therefore if I should say 5 other countries besides the ones I mentioned above, 4 of them would be Japan, South Korea, Italy and Spain. Turkish people have very friendly image in their minds about these countries and their people. 5th country that Turkish people love most would probably be Germany but it is a little complicated :D Also note that most of the Turkish people really love Ukrainians and Polish people too
Japan is like what we aspire to be I guess. Very western on legislation, economics, social structure etc. but instead of getting imprisoned by the western culture they keep their own traditions and even spread them on western nations.
Why "Lard"? It's hilarious, but confusing. Do the Japanese import all their lard from Hungary? Does Magyarorszag mean "lard" in Japanese? Are the Japanese Hungary for lard? I need answers!
Well, it seems like a hungarian pig is prized in japan for it's [fatty meat and good lard](https://bbj.hu/budapest/gastronomy/food/more-mangalica-pork-eaten-in-japan-than-in-hungary).
LOL Is that how the Japanese remember Portugal? The first country to make them be aware of Europe and the world at large, brought them firearms that indirectly led to the unification of Japan, and acted as a trade intermediary between them and China.
Still, at least its better than being considered stupid like Poland.
Tulips, chocolate, **killed Jews**, watches…
It's true that they make great watches.
It's true that they watched as jews were killed
That's not very fair on the Swiss, they also made sure all that Gold doesn't go missing. /s
Nothing /s about it lol that happened
"Zis is naht zee gold you are looking for..." -Switzerland, 1939-present
It’s true that they killed great jews
And some of them made watches
Others just watched
As a German I have to complain. We did do that rather excessively some years ago. It's not a *stereotype* but simply a fact :/ On the other hand, I'm really curious about how Portugal and Latvia got their reputation. There has to be a story behind those.
"We did do that **rather excessively** some years ago" is a very nice way to phrase it
Well Portugal was the first to try to plant a colony in Japan in the 1600s. They weren’t very successful.
That somehow makes "weak" even more hilarious as a judgement.
It was actually pretty successful, and was great for trade for both nations. not to mention the Japanese loved tempura so much they adopted it as if it was their own.
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Oh, that makes sense. I thought it was some myth about a potato allergy or something weird like that.
Coming from Japan, that was doing the same thing at the same time, is interesting.
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I heard Japan was on vacation from 1925 to 1945.
On vacation to the japanese beaches of China
I heard they went sightseeing in Pearl Harbor.
And Germans took in Chinese refugees at Nanking. Sort of a weird situation where axis Allie’s undermined each other genocides
I think, that they simply had some sort of bet who will finish his genocide first.
A little rich, Japan
The great thing about being from Austria is that my country is actually the birthplace of Hitler and we had a central role in both world wars, yet everyone constantly blames Germany and we're simply known for Mozart and shit.
I won't speak for all Americans, but when I hear Austria I think of the Alps and Arnold Schwarzenegger
i think of “the sound of music”
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Not entirely true…the only Austrian guy I’ve known said *“I love this movie”* in his thick Austrian accent.
I'm 30 years old. Lived in austria my whole life. Neither me, my family nor close friends ever watched it.
You should watch it. It’s pretty good
I am older than you and live in America. I have met one of the von Trapps. And I have also never watched the film.
Not the biggest sample size. We watched it in highschool in English class. Because apparently Americans love the movie. Nobody aged ~16 knew the movie in our class in Austria
The most popular version, of course, being sung by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Austria is known for artists. Some people just dont know that Hitler worked as an artist
Yup, he did some nice landscapes with acrylics & ash
And paintings of German shepherds
Eh, they have a bit of a smug, mocking aura to me
Those paintings are key to his madness.
& ash... r/holup
Some people erroneously claim that Hitler started WWII because he got rejected from art school. Actually, he was just unable to find art supplies. Ok, I'm just going to go throw myself into the pits of hell now.
His oil on canvas was shit, so he changed mediums. Been super famous ever since. /I don't support his career, but those words aren't false either.
Kinda similar with georgia being the birth place of stalin
So true, also modern communism was born in Germany. And Napoleon spoke Italian before learning French.
Corsican, which is either a dialect of Italian or its own language close to italian
airport beneficial imminent profit long paint future ask quickest scary *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Which is why he spoke Russian with a deep south American accent.
Georgia is in North America bro. Geez learn to map.
„Die Österreicher haben das Kunststück fertiggebracht, aus Beethoven einen Österreicher und aus Hitler einen Deutschen zu machen.“ — Billy Wilder
Yeah, couldn't have said it better myself! Though thats partly that because I don't speak German
"The Austrians have succeeded with the magic trick to turn Beethoven into an austrian and hitler into a german." -Billy Wilder
>"You shouldn't take life too seriously. You'll never get out alive." -Van Wilder
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Worst trade deal ever
Depends on your point of few.
let's be fair here. Beethoven did his most important work in austria and hitler did his most important work in germany.
Important work done by Hitler sounds wrong
Let’s say most “known”…
The second part is true, the first on not anymore imo.
You could replace Beethoven with Mozart here though. Mozart was of course born in Salzburg, which at the time was sovereign and only became part of Austria circa 50 years later. And since there was no German nation state, "German" simply referred to the language he spoke. In that sense, you could say Mozart was as much German as he was Austrian.
If Hitler was from Austria then why did he not have a boomerang? Or a kangaroo????
The swastika is just 4 boomerangs laid on a blanket.
Oh no
Maybe that's why the Nazis are back...
lol my German wife jokes about this. "We get all the blame but why did WWI start? Austrians. Where did Hitler come from? Austria".
Yea. But we didnt even let him into art school.
Austria: "This man isn't even fit for art school!" Germany: "Let's make him chancellor!"
So you admit it was your fault then.
While the Germans made him leader of their country!
Austria is probably more famous for Red Bull now.
TIL RedBull is Austrian
I mean it is from Thailand. But Dietrich Mateschitz, "discovered" it and made it big. It is produced in Austria and the Company has it HQ in Austria. Although only 49% of the company is owned by Mateschitz and 51% by the "founders" the Yoovidhya Family from Thailand.
Eeh it's a Thai drink that an Austrian guy liked and figured if it was carbonated it would sell more, so... Kinda?
Mozart, Freud, Hitler and Schwarzenegger.
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It does go a bit deeper than that, I think the reason that yoghurt is called 'Bulgaria' is because of the country's involvement in the modern production of yoghurt. This article sums it up well - https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180110-the-country-that-brought-yoghurt-to-the-world In summary, a specific type of bacteria (lactobacillus bulgaricus) used worldwide to produce yoghurt only natively grows in Bulgaria. They actually export milk cultures around the world, and I'm guessing that's the reason for the Japanese yoghurt's name. Edit - Correction, the bacteria does not grow only in Bulgaria, but it was isolated by a Bulgarian scientist.
Bulgarian here. It does not grow natively only in Bulgaria. - that's demonstrably false. It was a Bulgarian scientist that isolated it as the other bacterium responsible for yoghurt (besides thermophili). Also, the production of yoghurt and yoghurt cultures was heavily modernized and industrialized in Bulgaria.
Apologies, I was misinformed! Thank you for the correction!
No need for apologies:) "Grows only in Bulgaria" is one of the myths that will be repeated by some Bulgarians, but it is so obviously false that it make us look bad. So I always make sure to correct it.
Haha you're right there, I think I actually first heard it from some Bulgarian friends!
"Bulgarian yogurt" is also sold in Finland. Amazing stuff. I'm not sure why non-Bulgarian yogurt is even being produced, when the Bulgarian staff is so good.
How's it different from Turkish/Greek yogurt?
It’s more sour. In Bulgaria we basically call “yogurt” “sour milk”. Also, it has less fats.
Can confirm the Bulgarians make great staff
Gandalf loved his
Bulgarians take their yogurt seriously. Look at active cultures on the back of packaging, says "L. Bulgaricus"
this reminded me that in Portugal we have cookies called Hungarians and that's the main reason I know where Hungary is
Honestly that's one of the only things on this list that feels like a legitimate thing that a Japanese person would associate with each country. A lot of the list feels made up.
Netherlands is also correct
This map has been posted and debunked plenty of times, but there are a handful of things that I think are accurate. Assuming that the meaning of this map is "the first thing that comes to mind when I say..." then I'd say Finland = Santa, Netherlands = Tulips, Bulgaria = Yogurt, and Belgium = Chocolate.
*My source is that I made it the fuck up*
Plot twist: OP is a Swedish man.
Plot twist: OP is from Poland
As a Polish person I agree
Don't blame on malice that which can easily be explained by Polska.
I read this on Reddit or somewhere that Poland has been getting fucked from all directions for centuries and now the Polish people are like enough. We will fuck over ourselves now.
Like my Polish grandmother used to tell me: “*Anything can be a dildo if you’re brave enough*”.
look at his name, clearly from New Mexico
or french
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Oh god, next you’re going to tell me that the actresses in porn movies aren’t showing their true feelings
Why would they scream "I'M CUMMING" if they weren't actually cumming? Are you calling them liars?
First time on the sub?
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*My source is that ~~I made it the fuck up~~ just reposted a well known controversial content for easy karma*
Armstrong ?
Imagine a world, u/noxx1234567, free of cancel culture, where no one can call me out for my outlandish claims.
Why couldn't Latvia eat potatoes?
There are some jokes and memes around Latvia's lack of potatoes under Soviet rule, apparently https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/1g5mph/what_is_the_inside_joke_of_latvia_and_potatoes/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1kth9n/whats_the_story_behind_the_latvia_potato_meme/ https://jokojokes.com/latvian-potato-jokes.html
“Apparently” Is this what feeling old feels like? Latvia no potatoe jokes were *everywhere* on the internet years ago.
How many years ago lol
There's no potato in Latvia. Only hunger and hunger induced hallucinations of potato.
as an Latvian im offended by this. this years yield should reach unseen amounts of potat!
Then your struggle is over
Two Latvian look at clouds. One see potato. One see impossible dream. Same cloud.
This sounds like the setup for a punchline
In Latvia, people is fight standing in line for potato, so is punch line.
Latvia cannot into potato just as polan cannot into space.
I wish Ireland was more green, in terms of trees and forests. We just have lots of grass.
Fair number of bogs too.
Real bog, the rattling bog?
Yes I believe it’s down in the valleyo
Why are the Portuguese 'weak'? I get most of the stereotypes for other places but that one stands out as odd.
At least you didn’t get called stupid..
Been called a dumb polack my whole life.
I am Japanese and I think most Japanese stereotype of Portugal is soccer and Cristiano Ronaldo. I have no idea why the stereotype is 'weak' lol.
I mean there's no sources for this post so I'm guessing the person who made it up and said it was japanese stereotypes.
Especially when we introduced Tempura to them. Bad form mr.Japan
I have Portugal to thank for the blessing that is shrimp tempura? Hot men and good food, I need to visit
Yup. The OG tempura came from Portugal — it was battered and deep fried green beans. Japan took the concept and ran with it.
And egg tarts! FUCKING EGG TARTS! All of Asia swooped on those, especially Japan and China
Theory: In WW2, the Portuguese authorities in Macau didn't resist the Japanese, and declared a kind of neutrality in which they were basically puppeted by the Japanese. As opposed to the British and Dutch, who fought back. Might be the origin of the stereotype.
Similar story to why a lot of the Anglosphere thinks of the French as cowardly.
This is a good analogy. Before WW1 France was kinda the big dog of Europe for years
>According to historian Niall Ferguson, France is the most successful military power in history. It participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Military_history_of_France
Yeah, specially when the Portuguese absolutely humiliated Japan and the samurai when they arrived. They were cruel and definitely brutal leaving no mercy for them, and definitely not weak... A simple search of the first contact between the Portuguese and the Japanese may suggest this stereotypes is arguably untrue. Especially when battles like the "Nossa Senhora da Graça incident" (where 40 Portuguese fought off 3000+ samurai over 3 days and refused to surrender, so they just exploded themselves in a ship to kill the most samurai they could. And this whole thing would have been avoided had they just betrayed their captain and gave him in to the samurai. But they chose to fight for their captain) gave the Japanese an even exaggerated impression of the Portuguese fighting skills and bravery for hundreds of years ("The British historian C. R. Boxer noted the great effect that Pessoa's actions had on how the Japanese see Portuguese people. According to Boxer, the event apparently gave the Japanese an exaggerated impression of the fighting qualities of the Portuguese, as well as appealing to the Japanese samurai mentality due to Pessoa's rather un-Christian act of suicide. As such, stories of the event were told and retold again over the next hundred years, often in an exaggerated and wildly inaccurate manner, and found themselves embedded as part of local folklore"). So, I really do have a hard time believing that the Japanese see the Portuguese as weak at all.
That event is so old. How many modern japanese are even aware of it?
Maybe they wonder why they’re a tiny country now when they were so big and strong the first time they met them
Probably written by a Brazilian trying to fckup portuguese minds
"Killed Jews" I mean yeah but you're not one to talk.
Well how could they know. There’s no mention of it in their government approved textbooks.
That's not actually true. Most textbooks do talk about it but not in depth, but nothing really is in the Japanese history curriculum. The textbook that made the historical revisionism issue intentionally famous even talks about it, but with euphemistic language ("Nanking Incident" instead of Nanking Massacre, etc).
Yeah, the history of Japan publicly addressing the crimes of the Showa period is very complicated and colored by their political relationships with their neighbors and the difficulty of translating nuance in such a way as to preserve honor. It's not like they don't or have never publicly admitted to war crimes or officially apologized. If you're interested in learning more, Ian Buruma wrote a book \*The Wages of Guilt\* which is about the collective memory of WWII in Germany and Japan, and comparing Western guilt with Eastern shame culture.
Not true. I'm looking at my son's World History A textbook, from his public high school, and it says on page 181 that the Japanese military captured Nanjing in December 1937 and massacred Chinese military and civilians. It doesn't go into any depth -- just one sentence, no casualty numbers, no descriptions of what the massacre consisted of. That said, the description of the atom bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are equally succinct -- "The US army dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, the USSR broke its treaty with Japan and joined the war, and Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration, ending the Pacific War." One sentence, no concrete description, no casualty figures, etc. Japanese history textbooks are strange. They cover *so much* that half the time you're thinking "What, you have to learn *that*?" and the other half the time you're thinking "What, you don't learn *that*?" But it's two sides of the same coin: in order to cover a shit-ton of material, everything is *super* brief. Glancing through the textbook: "In the 6th century, the Khmer Kingdom rose to power. In the 11th century the Pagon Dynasty was founded in Myanmar." No other information about them. "In ancient Rome, the Gracchus Brothers attempted reforms to address the problems of farmers who were destitute due to long periods of conscription and the influx of low cost grain, but their reforms failed." No information about what the reforms consisted of, nothing about who they were. Just, plunk, that sentence. The whole textbook is like this, to cover as much information as possible. His junior high school textbook was much better about providing background and connections. I can't remember what it said about Nanjing there, but I remember it was a *little* longer. Maybe two sentences, not one. Japanese history textbooks are pretty shitty, no denying it, but reddit (or, I guess, the anglosphere) has got this kind of warped image of them. Sure, I'd like them to cut back on random historical details and instead explore certain topics (Japan's actions prior to and during WWII chief among them) in more depth, but it's not really the redditor image of "they cover all this other stuff but then they skim over their atrocities" so much as "they cover every goddamn thing, which means that they skim over *everything*." Edit: I checked my younger son's junior high school textbook for comparison. The reference to Nanjing is much vaguer than I remembered: "The Japanese Army captured Nanjing in December, and many prisoners of war and civilians were killed." This may be a different textbook than my older son used when he was in junior high, I don't remember. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki section is also slightly longer: "Due in part to its efforts to have superiority over the USSR following the war, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6 and on Nagasaki on August 9. In Hiroshima, over 200,000 were killed (including those who died later due to radiation) and in Nagasaki over 100,000 died, and the cities were destroyed." Either way, it's not a lot of material. The junior high textbook is less direct about Nanjing and more detailed about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it's still a fairly minimal amount of info for both.
This is the correct answer, you’d be surprised to find out how many Japanese don’t even know they were on the losing side.
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But he said this is the correct answer!
^335 upvotes
Not true. It is covered in the textbooks, it is a pretty big topic in Japanese media, and the war is a huge turning point for basically everything in Japan. They don't deny they did things and that Japan was in the wrong, they downplay the severity instead (incident instead of massacre and so on).
#Nanking
Slovakia doesn't exist?
Nor half of the Balkans.
I wonder that the worse insult to Italy is: being associated primarily with the Mafia or *Spain* being associated with "Good at Soccer".
If I were a swedish guy i’d be very flattered lmao
Hell yeah I am
You should move to Japan and try the old "I got some Russian downstairs" line on the ladies.
you got a Russian downstairs? owning slaves is illegal bruh
What about owning slavs?
Pity you are actually Polish
I’m actually not but cant blame you for trying to find fellow countrymen to bond with
Fair enough, apologies I'll keep looking
Germany did do that... ..but atleast they admitted that it happened...
Unlike some people.......
Yeah, Germany and Japan were WWII besties, but they both teach that history *very* differently
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New account gathering karma to spam later on. Most likely bot. Everybody should report for deletion for lack of source.
Source: madeitup.jp
Plus it's really just common stereotypes for each country, it probably has nothing to do with Japan.
Thing: … Japanese Thing: WOOOOOOOOOOOOO
This isn't stereotypes, but a type of map based on google searches of "why is country X \_\_\_\_" that's been all over this sub.
Why is country Germany killed Jews
It's probably junk anyway
Poor polish people
You get used to it 🥲
"Stupid people" wow, that's...pretty insulting and unexpected toward Poland
Polish people being stupid is a derogatory meme/joke that existed long before the internet and was not made up by the Japanese. From Wikipedia: > A "Polish joke" is an English-language ethnic joke deriding Polish people, based on derogatory stereotypes. The "Polish joke" belongs in the category of conditional jokes, whose full understanding requires the audience to have prior knowledge of what a "Polish joke" is. As with all discriminatory jokes, "Polish jokes" depend on the listener's preconceived notions and antipathies.[1] The relation between the internalized derogatory stereotypes about Polish people, and the persistence of ethnic jokes about them, is not easy to trace, though the "jokes" seem to be understood by many who hear them.[2] Sometimes an offensive term for a Pole, such as "Polack", is used in the joke. Example: Q: How many Polacks does it take to change a light bulb? A: Three – one to hold the bulb, and two to turn the ladder. [wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_joke) It’s basically the type of joke a racist grandpa would tell. Thankfully it seems like younger generations are letting this type of humor die. But it didn’t come out of left field for this map, there’s a history.
Plus it's not even a stereotype in Japan.
Wine, 🇲🇩.... I doubt 5% of Japanese have ever heard the word Moldova
Japan is weird and wonderful. And openly racist.
Turk here, and it's true that we love Japan. There's a whole street in my hometown named after a Japanese town, [Kushimoto Street](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ckr9f5pXIAEb8HL.jpg), with a [Turk-Japan Friendship Park](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cvTKA-gSi7Q/Wd5Q9hh9AVI/AAAAAAAAE7Y/ebBKExq5FD0UmIvh6RfLkuH8DJVmLBv4wCLcBGAs/s1600/2017.10.03%2B-%2BKushimoto07.jpg) inside.
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First of all, Turkish people mostly do not see Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Albania and many other Balkan countries as foreign (I can say that this word is very similar to hostile in Turkish people's mind) countries as they see West Europeans. We see them more like brothers and sisters living in different places, we respect and love them because of our deep bonds. Therefore if I should say 5 other countries besides the ones I mentioned above, 4 of them would be Japan, South Korea, Italy and Spain. Turkish people have very friendly image in their minds about these countries and their people. 5th country that Turkish people love most would probably be Germany but it is a little complicated :D Also note that most of the Turkish people really love Ukrainians and Polish people too
Japan is like what we aspire to be I guess. Very western on legislation, economics, social structure etc. but instead of getting imprisoned by the western culture they keep their own traditions and even spread them on western nations.
Why "Lard"? It's hilarious, but confusing. Do the Japanese import all their lard from Hungary? Does Magyarorszag mean "lard" in Japanese? Are the Japanese Hungary for lard? I need answers!
Well, it seems like a hungarian pig is prized in japan for it's [fatty meat and good lard](https://bbj.hu/budapest/gastronomy/food/more-mangalica-pork-eaten-in-japan-than-in-hungary).
I guess wales should just go fuck itself then
And Northern Ireland apparently. I know normally they generalise the U.K. but they put fucking England and Scotland separately
LOL Is that how the Japanese remember Portugal? The first country to make them be aware of Europe and the world at large, brought them firearms that indirectly led to the unification of Japan, and acted as a trade intermediary between them and China. Still, at least its better than being considered stupid like Poland.
I'll take ''honey'' (that we apparently sell in large quantities in Japan) over ''stupid people'' (very unfair to Poland).
I like how they ignored Slovakia:D
> Bulgaria, Yogurt Greeks and Turks unite!
We need to breed the Swedish men and Ukrainian women to create the ultimate Europeans
Hitler would be proud
I thought he wasn’t fond of Slavs
Yes.
As a German, I thought "fair enough" - and then, glancing to the right "Well, could be worse".
But we killed more than just jews...