Anti-Korea Book Goes Viral After Bookstore Promotion

I wait for some hateful troll to arrive and start claiming his hatred of Koreans, or Japanese.

” it shot up to the rank of number 1 best-selling book on Amazon for Japan”
…thats actually scary

I spent a total of about three years in Japan, including a recent stint in Tokyo. As such, I think I’m in a position to offer some comments about the reality of life there, beyond the stereotype of bullet trains, neon signs, girls in weird clothes and workaholic ‘salarymen’. Here’s an honest take on the place.

Japan faces two monumental problems. First, the country will, sooner or later, find itself in the grip of an economic crisis. Its debt level is staggering, dwarfing that of supposed economic basket cases like Greece or Portugal. Indeed, it is the world’s biggest debtor, its public debt reaching 226 percent of GDP in 2013, according to the CIA. So far as I can see, there is no realistic way that this money can be paid off. Even worse, the debt mountain is just going to keep expanding. This is due to the shrinking and ageing Japanese population, a deep-rooted suspicion of immigrants, and Japan’s vulnerability to natural disasters.

Second, as is well-known, the country’s relations with its neighbours are dire. This, it now seems to me, is largely the fault of the Japanese government, which has shown a consistent unwillingness to face up to the ugly side of the nation’s history. There is a school of thought concerning Japan’s imperialist past which effectively views the country as blameless. Such sentiments inform the displays in the obnoxious war museum situated beside the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where the souls of Japan’s war dead (Class A War Criminals included) are enshrined. Here the visitor is subjected to a distorted and offensive version of history.

A case in point is the museum’s treatment of the notorious 1937 ‘Rape of Nanking’, in which tens of thousands of Chinese were murdered and innumerable women raped by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army. In the museum, there is no mention of atrocities; we are instead told that the general in charge told his troops ‘to maintain strict military disciplines [sic] and that anyone committing unlawful acts would be severely punished’.

Japan’s relations with China and South Korea are unlikely to improve while nationalist politicians like Prime Minister Shinzo Abe run the country. They have called into question the truthfulness of the testimony of tens of thousands of ‘comfort women’, mostly Koreans, who were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during the era of Japan’s imperial aggressions. Nationalists – apparently convinced that their knowledge of the matter exceeds that of the women themselves – argue that these women were in fact jobbing prostitutes. The Japanese government has never issued an official apology to the ‘comfort women’.

This refusal to acknowledge past crimes is one of the unpalatable aspects of contemporary Japan. There are other realities that stick in the craw, such as the sexism that is ingrained in Japanese life. It’s difficult to credit, but there is no legal equality in Japan as regards the age at which people can get married: For boys, it is 18, for girls, 16. A mere 8 percent of representatives in Japan’s national parliament are female. It’s not exactly surprising, then, that on occasion male politicians let slip remarks of astonishing sexism. A few years ago, for instance, the country’s health minister referred to Japanese females as ‘baby-making machines’.

A more recent example occurred in June when Ayaka Shiomura, a female member of the Tokyo Assembly, was heckled by sexist male representatives of the prime minister’s party while giving a speech. ‘Why don’t you get married soon?’ demanded one wit, while another shouted out ‘Are you not able to have a baby?’ Prime Minister Abe maintained an undignified silence on the matter for nearly a week, before at last issuing a weak apology to the head of Shiomura’s party (a man), but not to Shiomura herself.

Japan is also a racist society. In Tokyo’s notorious Kabukicho district there are establishments which display ‘Japanese only’ signs, as noted in a July report on Japan by the U.N. Human Rights Committee. This body also expressed ‘concern at the widespread racist discourse’ evident in the country, and ‘the high number of extremist demonstrations authorised’. Shin-Okubo, Tokyo’s ‘Koreatown’, is a particular target of extreme right-wing groups, which take advantage of Japan’s tolerance of hate speech. Anecdotally, during my time in Japan this year I witnessed an alarming anti-China protest in central Tokyo, during which the imperial flag of Japan was waved and a woman screaming into a megaphone whipped up the crowd.

My instinct is that Japan gets rather a good press in the west: it’s a U.S. ally, a democracy (albeit one in which the same party is almost always in power), and pacifist. We like sushi and other cultural imports from Japan. I hope, however, to have shown that there’s another side to the picture; one that’s a lot less positive.

Where can I find the source of the book being best selling in Japan :/?
I’ve searching and I can’t find anything related with it.

Anti-Japan books would never be a top seller like this in south korea (nor do they exist). I Hate to generalize, but this just shows how deeply xenophobic and hateful the japanese public at large really is.

I think both countries really tried to varying extents to develop good relations but not all relationships can be made positive. Ultimately I don’t really see any reason for south korea to keep trying when its clearly not possible with current circumstances. South korean’s have had enough I think and they don’t even dislike japan, they are simply not interested. Koreans have their minds on more important things like inter korean relations or other countries in asia. Maybe in the distant future korea and japan just might be friends, but it doesn’t need to be forced.

Japan should seriously stop whitewashing their history. I’m getting sick
and tired of the government trying to hide their past. A part of me
wishes the US government should have forced Japan to admit their pasts when they had their chance.

Today’s youth (in Japan) are highly brainwashed about Japan’s history. They know nothing about 20th century Japan and assume what the revisionists say are true. Thank God I was brought up in Canada instead of Japan (I’m half Japanese). Otherwise I would be subjugated to revisionist ideology from my surroundings. I hate how people admire the current Emperor, Akihito, so much. What’s so good about him anyways? He hasn’t done enough to put Japan’s history to the right place. He has seen WWII with his own eyes, so why isn’t he telling his people to read the proper books to educate themselves about Japan’s past? Maybe I’m missing something.

Lol. Its quite funny and also pathetic that a book about hating korea or hating something became the best seller on amazon japan, the world’s number one online bookstore. It just shows how much japanese people are obsessed with korea. Anti korea is like a mainstream genre there. You have stuff like sports, anime, music, cooking etc and then anti-korea.

A Japanese net rightwinger asked below if we even bothered to read what this guy wrote in the book. Well we don’t have to guess too hard what he would have said because he has no inhibition or embarrassment of expressing his beliefs. Let’s give you a small sample.

http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/10/03/2014100303466.html?news_Head2_04

The translated material of comment reads:

“The 1923 Kanto Massacre of Koreans was a justified event, and if those Koreans who were massacred thinking that they were just innocent victims, then they are seriously mistaking”. (reference to 1923 Tokyo earthquake where 6000 to 10,000 ethnic Koreans were massacred by maurading bands of Japanese vigilantes who blamed the disaster onto Koreans by spreading rumors that Koreans were poisoning the wells).

And lest you think this interview was fabricated, then hear the comment for yourself.

http://news.tvchosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/10/03/2014100390287.html

At least he’s not denying that it didn’t happen, which is surprising. But is he advocating ethnic cleansing of Japan on that interview?

If was a crock that nobody paid any attention, that would be different story. But what’s happening is that his beliefs have spread all throughout Japan, and the force that is sponsoring him, are the Japanese government – Mr. Shinjo Abe himself who have tacidly approved and supported the Zaitokukai’s.

It’s another good reason why no South Korean politician dares to meet with Mr. Abe’s fascist government.

It’s sad that Japan hasn’t entered an age when even the concept of “racism” is seen as wholly negative. I wonder when Japan will finally have a civil rights movement.

did you know that samsong and hyundai are korean?

The publisher appeared to ride on the wave of anti-Korean sentiment among conservative, nationalist groups, and succeed in turning such exploitation into a book sales bonanza amid controversial spotlight from the media.

In my view, the publisher doesn’t care about anything but book sales, and profits thereby. All people get the publishing house’s sophisticated hoax.

Further proof that Japanese people didn’t learn from their WW2 loss and need to be defeated again.. in the same way as 1945.

This Nazi sign was spray painted over one of my Korean neighbor’s place. He also have to constantly put up with death threats made by anonymous callers who tell him to get out of Japan or get killed. The Japanese police do nothing, so he doesn’t bother reporting the crimes. So the crimes don’t even exist on paper.

In Tokyo, a Nazi Swastika’s spray painted on the property of a Zainichi.

http://observers.france24.com/content/20140311-graffiti-tokyo-anti-korean-racism

Anti-Korean and anti-Chinese books have a habit of making it to the best sellers list in Japan. In no way is this trend new: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201402120004, and Japanese book publishers are simply taking advantage of the fad.

The article lays the blame at the foot of Japanese media, ie:

Yutaka Oishi, a professor of journalism studies at Keio University in Tokyo, said, “It is not only weekly magazines that have created this boom. At the root of the trend is the tendency of mass media to ignore news about ordinary exchanges while only reporting on the confrontations between Japan and South Korea and between Japan and China. There is a need to examine the overall reporting.”

But there is surely relevance to the present state of political affairs ie Japan being spurned by both Korea and China. It is understandable that in a time of confrontation, there is a flocking to demagogues who profess to tackle said confrontation and to assure the average Japanese that they are in the ‘right.’

I’ve long said that the hate between East Asian countries is a cycle fueled by popular media and nationalist sentiments, in which each country in turn contribute their share towards deepening the conflict. In the end, none of them are capable of escaping said cycle, because to do so requires going against the retaliatory instinct ingrained in East Asian cultures.