Recently I was speaking to one of my friends who was born and raised in Japan, and during the course of the conversation for whatever reason the subject of World War II came up.
I asked him how much he knew about the War, and he told me that even though he had a profound connection to the War, (both of his grandfathers had died in combat), he still knew next to nothing about what had happend during the course of the War, or why...
I asked him to explain himself and what he said truely shocked me, (and contrary to popular belief: I don't shock easily). You see, he recalled that in his entire school-aged-life he had never heard one of his teachers mention the War, (other than a single passing reference to the bombing of Hiroshima), and moreover, that if you examine a standard Japanese school history textbook that it covers the period up to 1938, abruptly stops, and then starts again, to cover only the period from 1946 onward. In other words, (according to my friend): "there is absolutely no mention of WW2 in Japanese school texts, and as far as the Japanese education system is concerned: the War never happened at all..."
I've often heard that Japanese persons are "different" from Westerners in a great many ways, but I can not for the life of me comprehend this side of their collective mentality. To be honest it makes me angry, (and contrary to popular belief: I don't anger easily).
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