Snakeheads, War Crimes and Hairy Chinese
This is a recaptured post from December 13th, 2005. It fits with a discussion in progress at Cal Poly’s MBA Trip Blog
Trouble is brewing once again between China and Japan:
Chinese State Council Premier Wen, Jiabao cancelled an annual meeting with South Korea and Japan stating the reason was Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s five visits to Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine. This is the shrine that honors fallen soldiers and also houses WWII class A (the worst) war criminals. Wen told reporters, “the main reason for the impasse in China-Japan ties is that the Japanese leader won’t treat the history issue in a correct way …”
During my fifteen years in Japan I winced many times at Japan’s almost blind allegiance to the notion that the Chinese were inferior. It is not uncommon to hear Chinese referred to as lazy, dirty and uncivilized. And when hard line Japanese have had a bit to drink they are oft to talk about “Ketoh”, Hairy Chinese: Westerners. We are then only distinguished from the Chinese by arm, leg and facial hair.
I have seen Chinese, and other foreigners, beaten and abused in Japan and seen them jailed for nothing more than greed on the part of Chinese or Japanese mafia alliances colluding with Japanese police.
It is still not uncommon to see shiploads of Chinese, who have paid a life’s savings in search of a more financially rewarding life risk their lives by hiding in sea containers, smuggled to China by Snakeheads (Chinese Mafia) or Yakuza (Japanese mafia) and dumped in sweatshops often known to local authorities.
They work exceeding long days, live in vile cramped housing, and receive only a fraction of the wages promised to them. The remainder of their monies are held back ostensibly to build a nest-egg for when their indentured servitude is over. What often happens is that the worker is never paid because the boss, upon the completion of a job, simply alerts authorities to round up the illegals. Some then do prison time in institutions renowned for their cruelty. They are forced to work in feudal conditions in state run factories that the U.N. and Red Cross have yet to be allowed to fully inspect. While they are there torture, isolation and denial of basic human needs are common–and well documented. Later, when the factory boss needs more slave labor he just calls the local crime boss.
The Japanese also maintain a huge sexual slave market made up of Thais, Chinese, Eastern Europeans, South Americans and anyone else the Japanese look down upon–that would be pretty much everyone.
To add proverbial insult to injury the Japanese ruling party has recently (November) drafted a new constitution that would allow Japan the right to once again engage in the business of war.
They have not resolved issues still extant from the Imperial military that murdered 30 million Asians and they want war powers? This at the same time they are lobbying for a permanent seat on the U.N. security council.
This Hairy Chinese finds it all pretty insensitive and either damned arrogant, or just plain stupid, timing on the part of Japan.
Japan needs to re-think its stance on foreigners, both Western and Asian, that toil and spend to make it the world’s second largest economy. Japan, a country well attuned to symbol and ritual, needs to make some serious efforts to show that its days of barbarism are behind it. Visiting the Yasukuni Shrine is not one of them and neither is torture or slavery of any people. Japan has to show it does not possess the Imperial mindset that allowed the occupation of other countries and the racist disregard for others that allowed mass genocide because it regarded other cultures as inferior.
A psychiatrist supervisor of mine, in a training session, once asked the meaning of “crazy” of a group of less experienced therapists. He chuckled as they went into great textbook detail about the many causes and manifestations of psychosis. He then answered his own question by saying that crazy was “screwing with someone twice your size”.
China soon have the muscle to go with its size and Japan may be teaching CSL, Chinese as a second Language, just to keep up with its stupid, lazy neighbors and the Hairy Chinese across the water that made their prosperity possible.
3 responses so far
Nice post. You seem to have recovered from your recent loss of data!
Happy CNY!
You were a huge help!
if only the rest of the world knew the truth