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IronMouse
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(Date Posted:08/02/2005 9:47 AM)
When's the "Hate-China" version coming out? I think it will sell even more than the "Hate-Korea" book.
Are there any reviews of the book on Amazon.jp? Perhaps looking at the reviews (if any) can tell you of the type of people who bought that book. For all that we know, it could be satire.
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Sibauchi
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(Date Posted:08/02/2005 5:17 PM)
Well, pretty much of it was like, "this is the most objective alternate view on Korea" or "As you read more, you'll understand why you'd want to hate Koreans more" or "I like Korean culture but I hate the country because the people and government behave so childlike because they just can't get over the past (it's ironic someone would say this, since Japan was once insulted by General MacArthur as a nation of 12-year-olds)" or "Read this if you want to know Korea beyond the TV dramas (which was the part I found very sad)." A few criticisms do say that the manga seems more like a collection of anti-Korean slurs taken from 2ch, not the author's own viewpoint, which further discourages me from having the idea to buy it. On the topic of Korea and Koreans, I believe Michael Breen's The Koreans(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312326092/qid=1123071549/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-9774015-4187256) would be a far better and interesting read-it's not manga, but it has good humour and I can see that the author has been really working out some personal demons and at the same time trying to be fair and understanding. Anti-China...I'm wondering if they're working on a whole series, although if a book called Anti-America comes out it'll probably sell better in Korea and other countries.
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Life can be a pain. But it ain't that bad, either.
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matt-thorn
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(Date Posted:08/02/2005 6:17 PM)
Matt here. Yes, I am alive, though you wouldn't know it from looking at the message boards. I've been incredibly busy, and right now I'm spending August in Boston.
I had not heard about this until Sibauchi posted her message here. I was extremely disturbed to find out about this (in fact, I had trouble getting to sleep last night because I was thinking about it!), but the thing that disturbs me the most is the fact that this is currently the top-selling book on Amazon.co.jp.
In my opinion, though, this book (and its popularity) represent a backlash not against the current Korea fad in Japan, but rather against the hate-filled anti-Japan demonstrations that took place in China and South Korea last year. Chinese and Koreans were right to be angry about the government approving those evil new textbooks (which, by the way, are just a few of many textbooks among which local school boards can choose), but lets face it: many of those demonstrations were scarier than the textbooks themselves. "Die Japanese dogs"? Attacking innocent Japanese citizens just because they are Japanese? That's not the way to open a dialogue. The right-leaning weekly men's magazines in Japan jumped all over those demonstrations, and helped feed the current nationalistic trend in Japan.
In other words, the anti-Japan demonstrations were like Bush dropping bombs on Baghdad. Rather than solve problems, they simply made things worse. Just as the war in Iraq has been the ultimate recruiting tool for al-Qaida, the anti-Japan demonstrations have become a recruiting tool for Japanese nationalists. No one was happier than the nationalists to see those demonstrations all over the television.
This is a very sad and upsetting situation, but I wish more Koreans and Chinese would try to think of constructive ways to change the consciousness of Japanese people for the better, instead of lashing out angrily whenever the Japanese government or some Japanese group does something offensive.
As this book proves, hate breeds hate, and nothing but hate.
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Matt Thorn
Department of Comics Production
Kyoto Seika University
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IronMouse
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(Date Posted:08/02/2005 8:56 PM)
Hey, Matt is still alive! *waves* My TokyoPop book "The Dreaming" is finished and coming out in December! You have to take a look at it!! And Sibauchi too. :p I agree that the book has nothing to do with Yon-sama and everything to do with Japan dodging wartime guilt. And quite frankly, it didn't actually get truly nasty until the wave of demonstrations this year in China - since Koreans have been protesting the Japanese for many years anyway. It was a combination of the China demonstrations, and also how the Japanese media decided to spin the story - and quite frankly, regardless of the irresponsible behaviour by the protestors, the Japanese media should also take some flak for their coverage of the event. Relations between China and Japan weren't all that great - was there any need to ham up the sensationalism in their news coverage? I DON'T forgive the protestors, but what MANY media coverage didn't show is that only a very small number of Chinese took part in those protests. Only 10,000 in a city like Shanghai, which is a city of MILLIONS. They disrupted traffic and busted windows - but most people couldn't care less and got on with their lives. There are rural protests in China that has 200,000 protestors, SUCCESSFULLY fighting off police - so 10,000 in a city is a joke. And there were less in other cities around China. China's got 1.3 billion people - and they've got more fights to pick with the government than they have with the Japanese. >_< So I think a reality check is need on both sides. China's got far too many loud people to rein in, and considering how important the future of China, Korea and Japan are to each other - the media can really do more in their portrayal of Korea and China, and vice versa. But ofcouse, we all know that the Japanese media is being bullied around by the right-ring nutso-fascists that basically run the Diet. The Korea media has always been antagonistic towards Japan, and the Chinese media isn't allowed to pan the government so they pan the Japanese instead.  There is much hate floating around and the factions who CAN help mend fences just isn't going to. I forsee tough times ahead.
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Sibauchi
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(Date Posted:08/03/2005 5:33 PM)
Congratulations Ironmice! I'm definately looking forward to it!
Sorry for causing you insomnia, Matt. Although even I choked when I saw it being featured in Korean prime time news, and not in a very nice way either, so I can understand you. Personally, I was profoundly pained and disturbed to see that a book like that had to come out as a manga, one of the few things about Japan that Koreans (mostly) love, although it's perhaps one reason it's selling so well in Amazon. I agree with Ironmice that this was mostly about a backlash on the demonstrations in China, which in turn got (at least) the Japanese media reporting on Korea as well. There was so much hate floating around that time that I was scared to do to any major websites in either Korean or Japanese. At least about the situation of Japanese people being attacked in China, any sane Korean and Chinese person was harshly critical of the few demonstrators who had turned so aggressive. What's more discouraging though is that it took a violent demonstration in China to get the world's attention about the problems of the Japanese right-wing, which explains in one way or another why violent measures seem to work better than peaceful ones. Stories of the old ladies protesting peacefully every Wednesday in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, or on the other hand the descendents of the assassins who killed Queen Min coming to Korea to apologize to her tomb for their ancestor's crime, goes virtually unnoticed and ignored. The best the moderate part of Korean media can do is not mentioning anything about Japan at all, because senational articles full of hatred and meanness againste Japan sells much better, and sometimes even moderates are denounced as "traitors." Sometimes the situation seems such that I wonder if the only time when Korea and China won't care about whatever nonsense the Japanese right-wing throw about is when they become exceedingly richer than Japan. The typical Canadian solution would be...lots of dialogue, although perhaps they should be open-minded enough to at least want to start a chat. There's such a huge gap right now. Do you think comics can bridge it somehow?
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matt-thorn
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(Date Posted:08/04/2005 2:02 AM)
Queenie, congratulations! I'm looking forward to seeing the book.
I hope I don't sound pro-Japanese and anti-Korean/Chinese here, but let me play the devil's advocate here for a moment. Considering how nationalistic so many Koreans and Chinese are these days, doesn't it seeem a bit hypocritical for them to react so strongly to any hint of nationalism in Japan? The feeling of the neo-nationalists in Japan today really boils down to, "Hey, why can't I be proud of my country?" And while I find it extremely disturbing that a book like the one we're talking about could find such a big audience in Japan, would I be right in guessing that there are probably many such anti-Japanese books published in both Korea and China, and that they enjoy a large readership?
The Japanese nationalists ask, "What more do you want? How many times does Japan have to apologize?" And frankly, I sometimes wonder the same thing. For decades, Japanese children have been taught in school that Japan's war of invasion was a terrible mistake that led to much misery, and should never be repeated. And for a long time, the Japanese believed that. But now they are becoming frustrated with the constant demands for apologies and reparations, and what we are seeing now is a backlash. We don't see this happening in Europe. Why can't East Asia (or maybe I should say the nationalists in Korea, China and Japan) put the war behind them? Yes, there are injustices that were never properly addressed (how about Hiroshima and Nagasaki?), but that is true in Europe, too, and in any war in human history. The vast majority of the people responsible for the Pacific War are dead. The government in Japan today (despite Yasukuni and the textbooks) is NOT the government that invaded Korea and China. Young people raised in a democratic and peaceful Japan wonder why they have to pay for the sins of their grandparents.
Yes, there should be reparations for the women who were forced into sexual service for the Japanese military. I am not saying we should forget about that. But there should be some way to deal with that without treating the younger Japanese of today as war criminals.
God, I sound like I'm picking a fight here, but believe me, I'm not. I am just really saddened and frustrated by what I see going on (as are Sibauchi and Queenie), and I feel there is a lot of blame to go around.
BTW, I am now on the sh*tlist of the new right wing in Japan. In a column I wrote for Shukan ST a couple months ago, I talked about the rise of nationalism in Japan today, and in passing I casually mentioned that the neo-nationalists were peddling lies about Japanese war crimes. Well, now the publisher and my university are being harrassed by right wingers. It's probaby only a matter of time before they find my e-mail address and web site and start harrassing me personally. (One guy has apparently been calling my office at school, but I've never been in when he calls.)
But it is nice to have a forum like this where reasonable, good-hearted people from different countries can talk without fighting. I hope it stays this way.
Anyway, about Sibauchi's question about the possibility of comics bridging the gap: I sure hope so! In fact, I talk about this with my students, and I'm hoping that a few may go on to create manga that can counter the hate-mongering of Gomanism and this current piece of crap. Unfortunately, there's also a chance that a new voice for the Right could come out of our program.
God, this is depressing, isn't it?
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Matt Thorn
Department of Comics Production
Kyoto Seika University
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