
Originally Posted by
Shanghai Steve
Er, no.
First of all, it would have been inappropriate, given the scale of the atrocities committed.
Secondly, I would have been deported immediately.
I recommend you watch "Where to Invade Next" by Michael Moore. At one point, he goes to a German high school and films a lesson about The Holocaust. It is extremely moving. I don't think it is possible for a people to have done more to educate themselves about the horrific crimes of their ancestors.
Unlike The Germans, The Japanese are in total denial about their past and in fact, their present. I think it was in 2004, certainly this millenium, one Japanese cabinet Minister declared that The Koreans were "grateful to The Japanese for civilising them." In the same year, an organised gang-rape ring at a prestigious private school was dismissed by a highly-ranking government minister as "boys letting off steam". Japanese governmental circles are unbelievably conservative and this works it way down all the way to my first Japanese Headmanster, who was like something out of "Bridge Over the River Kwai": he used to send back official requests from his teachers on the grounds that the handwriting was not good enough, sometimes 3 or 4 times. You see, in The West, teachers are generally left-leaning, in Japan, teachers are generally rightwing.
I will never forget a brief exchange I had with one 15 year old girl, who was finding little logic in something her Japanese teacher had told her, so she came to me so I told her to do some research on the internet.
"But why? If this is what my teacher says, how will I find anything different?"
"Well you see, sometimes governments lie to us."
The shock in this student's face will never leave me.