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dilbertschalter posted:What makes it feel so silly is that while there are various things Andrew Jackson did that Americans are proud of and the same is true for Mao and Chinese people, the "Showa martyrs" were failures in just about every imaginable way. Japan lost two million soldiers, a million or so civilians, many of its major cities were leveled and after the war it lost its pre-conflict colonial empire and had its system of government rewritten by an occupying power. You can say that Jackson helped usher in a new democratic era and took on predatory financial interests, that Mao modernized China in various important ways (not that that sort of praise is necessarily correct or that it outweighs the bad things, but it's quite common in both cases), whereas with Japan from 1937 to 1945 the big "achievement" is 20 million+ dead Chinese and South Asian civilians. The right wing extremists took over and started making policy that was completely rear end backwards in terms of winning a war. They put all their people in key positions and the old guard who knew it was a bad idea were forced to go along with it as they ran the Glorious Japanese Empire into the ground. The contrast between their previous wartime behavior and what they did in WW2 is almost as same as WW1 vs WW2 Germany. Suddenly the Japanese were treating POWs like human scum, experimenting on them, mass raping civilians, and forcing soldiers/civilians to commit suicide. These were the people who actually wanted every single civilian in Tokyo to take to the streets and attack any foreign soldiers, and made plans for it. They wanted every single able bodied Japanese to die before letting foreign troops fully occupy the country. When the Emperor recorded his official surrender and planned to broadcast it, they tried to overthrow him and destroy it so there would be no surrender. So much for "Honor to the Emperor" or whatever they would say about him back then. To be honest, the successful ones were the ones who worked in the government, escaped prosecution, and immediately sidled up next to the Americans as soon as they could saying "Hey, we really hate communists, how can we help" and became enormously rich off of their business and political connections. Then they started funneling money back into the right wing extremists groups that re-emerged in the late 60s. This looks to be insanely interesting if accurate. http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/08/22/government-to-publish-12000-page-account-of-hirohitos-reign/ quote:Following 24 years of research, the Imperial Household Agency said it has completed a 12,000-page day-by-day account of Emperor Hirohito’s life, which will be published next year. I would love to know just how much influence Hirohito had over the military government. I kind of think the release will be heavily doctored as to omit anything to make him look bad or weak though. pentyne fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 23:19
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I'm fairly sure it will show that he was just completely powerless to stop anything done by the Imperial government, if he was even aware of it. For most of the time he worked tirelessly to end the war but was hampered at every turn by dastardly politicians who are now thankfully dead and can no longer tell their side of the story.7c Nickel posted:I do not expect Japan to make it to the 2020 Olympics without some serious poo poo going down. Japan keeps dumping money into the economy to keep it going, but it does so in a really lovely inefficient way due to vested interests. This might be tolerable if Japan's economy was still growing, but due to a lovely women/family unfriendly business culture and a xenophobic populace that prevent much immigration, the population is declining and with it any chance of growth. Combine this with the fact that the populace is aging and it gets even worse. In 20 years, the main export of Japan might be horrifying news stories about the impoverished elderly being eaten by wild dogs while scavenging for food. The really mindboggling thing is how the entire country just seems to collectively shrug their shoulders like there is nothing they can do. Everyone can see that there are massive problems, but apparently you just have to keep doing business as usual and things will work out.
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Aug 27, 2014 23:51
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Ignore it, pretend everything's ticketyboo and it'll go away sooner or later.
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Aug 27, 2014 23:58
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7c Nickel posted:I do not expect Japan to make it to the 2020 Olympics without some serious poo poo going down. Japan keeps dumping money into the economy to keep it going, but it does so in a really lovely inefficient way due to vested interests. This might be tolerable if Japan's economy was still growing, but due to a lovely women/family unfriendly business culture and a xenophobic populace that prevent much immigration, the population is declining and with it any chance of growth. Combine this with the fact that the populace is aging and it gets even worse. In 20 years, the main export of Japan might be horrifying news stories about the impoverished elderly being eaten by wild dogs while scavenging for food. With a robot caretaker though, that I can count on.
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Aug 28, 2014 00:00
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pentyne posted:
Ryoichi Sasakawa comes immediately to mind. An admitted fascist who in addition to funneling a bunch of money back into right wing nationalist stuff, also bribed a shitload of people to get motorboat race gambling legalized, and was BFF with another class A war criminal, Yoshio Kodama, who also sidled up to the US to hate on communists. Sasakawa was at least a semi-legitimate businessman, Kodama was a notorious Yakuza and was heavily involved in drug trafficking. There are a lot of real assholes on the Japanese right. e: Also Sasakawa built this ugly thing overlooking the South Kurils because whatever reason it is they consider so important  ReidRansom fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Aug 28, 2014 |
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Aug 28, 2014 00:06
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Vagabundo posted:Ignore it, pretend everything's ticketyboo and it'll go away sooner or later. No, it's that people don't even get to the ignore stage. It's far less active than ignoring.
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Aug 28, 2014 03:30
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Kurtofan posted:How big are Japan's economic issues? From what I understand Japan's economy per se is hosed up, but then consider that most of the rest of the world is hosed up too including the US, Europe, China, etc. It's probably worse but how much so is debatable. The aging population issue, strictly speaking, is separate. Although that distinction doesn't matter a whole lot in the end.
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Aug 28, 2014 03:44
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icantfindaname posted:From what I understand Japan's economy per se is hosed up, but then consider that most of the rest of the world is hosed up too including the US, Europe, China, etc. It's probably worse but how much so is debatable. The aging population issue, strictly speaking, is separate. Although that distinction doesn't matter a whole lot in the end. Well it is connected in the sense Japan will have fewer and fewer workers (beyond just unemployment) which means likely less consumer spending and less people buying government debt through the Japanese Post office and banks. I think the difference between Japan and other parts of the world, is that theoretically you could have more sane economic practices in Europe and the US but Japan seems to set itself on a very specific course on practically a cultural level.
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Aug 28, 2014 04:15
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icantfindaname posted:The aging population issue, strictly speaking, is separate. Olds need to sell off their JGB to fund their retirements and the pool of buyers gets smaller since everyone is reducing their JGB holdings. The BOJ is basically buying half of the JGB already. Young people don't have as good employment or wages that they other generations had so they don't have money to buy JGB for their retirement/savings to keep the ponzi going. The government can default and be like lol sorry dudes go eat catfood because the people will probably be last on the list of things to pay back after the banks. So they do kind of all tie together.
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Aug 28, 2014 04:21
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Madd0g11 posted:The BOJ is basically buying half of the JGB already. BOJ currently buys 80% of Japanese government-issued bonds, according to some article I read yesterday.
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Aug 28, 2014 04:42
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Ardennes posted:Well it is connected in the sense Japan will have fewer and fewer workers (beyond just unemployment) which means likely less consumer spending and less people buying government debt through the Japanese Post office and banks. I think the difference between Japan and other parts of the world, is that theoretically you could have more sane economic practices in Europe and the US but Japan seems to set itself on a very specific course on practically a cultural level. Madd0g11 posted:Olds need to sell off their JGB to fund their retirements and the pool of buyers gets smaller since everyone is reducing their JGB holdings. The BOJ is basically buying half of the JGB already. Young people don't have as good employment or wages that they other generations had so they don't have money to buy JGB for their retirement/savings to keep the ponzi going. The government can default and be like lol sorry dudes go eat catfood because the people will probably be last on the list of things to pay back after the banks. So they do kind of all tie together. Right, in the end they're the same, but the Japanese economy's structural problems on their own would probably be not that much worse than the EU/US if not for the whole everyone dying part
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Aug 28, 2014 04:49
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Sheep posted:BOJ currently buys 80% of Japanese government-issued bonds, according to some article I read yesterday. Is that buying and keeping or buying and selling on the secondary market? Do you have that article on hand?
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Aug 28, 2014 05:16
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icantfindaname posted:Right, in the end they're the same, but the Japanese economy's structural problems on their own would probably be not that much worse than the EU/US if not for the whole everyone dying part The birth & death rates in the US are very similar to Japan, same with marriage and fertility rates. The reason the US is handling it better is because they have way more immigration, be it illegal or not.
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Aug 28, 2014 07:11
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Kenishi posted:The birth & death rates in the US are very similar to Japan, same with marriage and fertility rates. The reason the US is handling it better is because they have way more immigration, be it illegal or not. I've looked it up before, fertility in the US, France, and UK are much higher than Japan, mostly because of immigration and minorities, but other European countries are about the same as Japan and Eastern European countries might actually be worse. edit: US/France/UK are around 1.9 children/woman, Japan/Europe is around 1.4. South Korea and Poland hit 1.2 
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Aug 28, 2014 07:34
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Kenishi posted:The birth & death rates in the US are very similar to Japan, same with marriage and fertility rates. The reason the US is handling it better is because they have way more immigration, be it illegal or not. Not especially. America's birth rate is high by the standards of developed countries (tfr of around 2, which is almost as high as it gets for rich countries these days). That said, this statement is basically true for quite a few European countries and the problem is even worse in some other East Asian countries right now.
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Aug 28, 2014 07:36
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Kenishi posted:The birth & death rates in the US are very similar to Japan, same with marriage and fertility rates. The reason the US is handling it better is because they have way more immigration, be it illegal or not. US birth rate is nearly double that of japan... but your point is right in that japan's birth rate is not a unique problem - south korea's is sinilar for example. Instead it's more the age distribution that worries most people. Japan's age 65＋ group is nearly 25% of the population, again nearly DOUBLE that of the US (which is around 13%) or korea (around 11%). AFAIK japan is the first big country by a huge margin to reach such a lopsided distribution so it's a whole new show from now on. Sources: CIA factbook, world bank data.
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Aug 28, 2014 07:45
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Sheep posted:Just the loans issue is insurmountable without defaulting, basically. Japan is like Greece or Portugal or Ireland except there's no one to bail them out and also their loan to GDP ratio is even worse. I mean, this isn't the first time we've had predictions of imminent monetary doom in this thread. I don't think there's going to be some sudden cathartic fiscal crisis to resolve the public debt 'problem' because it's a symptom, not a cause. My prediction is that Japan will just limp on into the sunrise for now, absent some spectacular new exogenous crisis.
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Aug 28, 2014 10:07
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I think we can all agree that all of Japan's economic woes would be solved if they just legalized gambling and weed at the exact same time. Can you imagine how pachinko parlors would be in the aftermath of that? Not only would you go deaf and blind from walking into one, but you'd also get a contact high.
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Aug 28, 2014 10:40
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Vagabundo posted:Ignore it, pretend everything's ticketyboo and it'll go away sooner or later. This is basically japan.txt
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Aug 28, 2014 10:58
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LimburgLimbo posted:Is that buying and keeping or buying and selling on the secondary market? Do you have that article on hand? Looks like it was 70%, my bad. Peel posted:My prediction is that Japan will just limp on into the sunrise for now, absent some spectacular new exogenous crisis. I agree this is the most likely scenario. Sheep fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Aug 28, 2014 |
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Aug 28, 2014 12:49
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Just coming back from a trip to Japan I have some questions: Do you guys know of a book or an article that discusses how the Japanese student body went from being really politically active to being incredibly apolitical? Of course a similar process took place in almost all western countries after the 68th but in Japan the difference seems bigger to me. Is it just individual pressure? Are the universities more hostile to political activity? Is it the utter defeat of the protest movement? Or is my impression wrong? If you have any stuff on that, I'd appreciate it. Secondly I would like to ask if you know of any research (sociological, political) into the concept of kawaii. I'm mostly interested in kawaii as a tool for social control (even if not consciously directed) but everything would be great. Unfortunately my Japanese is not good enough to read serious articles, but if you happen to know something that fits very well, I'd take it anyway.
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Sep 1, 2014 18:22
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true.spoon posted:Just coming back from a trip to Japan I have some questions: Hahaha, you need to give us the source for this quote. This is "pinku bento box" quality poo poo.
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Sep 2, 2014 00:33
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Mr. Fix It posted:Hahaha, you need to give us the source for this quote. This is "pinku bento box" quality poo poo. Except these are good questions?
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Sep 2, 2014 01:27
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LimburgLimbo posted:Except these are good questions? Are you saying pinku bento box wasn't a good question?
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Sep 2, 2014 01:36
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I'm almost positive I've read something from one of the Donalds that covered it briefly, at least. But I cannot recall which Donald or what book/paper/whatever. The kawaii culture thing, not the decline of political activism. Though there's probably something about that also from one or the other.
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Sep 2, 2014 02:03
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LimburgLimbo posted:Except these are good questions? Well, except for the animu kawaii question
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Sep 2, 2014 02:08
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icantfindaname posted:Well, except for the animu kawaii question "Kawaii" as a sociological concept is pretty well studied and very legitimate because of it's cachet in Japanese culture. Rejecting someone asking for recommended academic literature on something is goony as gently caress.
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Sep 2, 2014 02:15
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Kawaii is a very important concept for Nintendo and guides some of the prominent developers there.
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Sep 2, 2014 02:17
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Kind of related, but I'd like to know if the popular belief that as a Japanese woman, unless you're married by age ___ you're "totally hosed" and are going to be single shrew who hates life forever. I've heard that age vary a lot from anyone who I discussed this with there, and am wondering if it's actually true, or was true at some point but has passed down the generations as a myth, etc.
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Sep 2, 2014 02:27
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The theory that I've heard commonly around here is that those Japanese political movements in the 60's felt they lost the moral high ground and support from the public by engaging in more violent rhetoric and methods. They use absurdly cutesy imagery now, sometimes to the point of dissonance with the subject matter involved, so that their movement is not perceived to be violent or extreme. We've had discussions in this very thread before about that very topic of kawaii culture with regard to Japanese politics, and it's an entirely valid thing to study. The Japanese political student political movements in the 1960's used molotov cocktails while today's political movements use cutesy characters on protest signs. Some of them are being done by the very same people even! If you don't think studying that shift from more violent resistance to non-violent demonstrations using elements grounded in kawaii culture is a legitimate inquiry then I wonder why the hell you're even interested in this thread. Seems like some really dumb people here wanted to be first in to declare weeb, and now it's backfiring because they ended up outing themselves as not knowing anything about Japanese politics or culture. Mercury_Storm posted:Kind of related, but I'd like to know if the popular belief that as a Japanese woman, unless you're married by age ___ you're "totally hosed" and are going to be single shrew who hates life forever. I've heard that age vary a lot from anyone who I discussed this with there, and am wondering if it's actually true, or was true at some point but has passed down the generations as a myth, etc. From the post war period up until the 80's there was always the adage that "You don't want to be a Christmas cake after Christmas." which meant that any woman who didn't get married around 25 was going to end up heavily discounted like a Christmas cake the day after Christmas. However, with the falling birth rates, falling marriage rates, and implosion of the bubble economy this line of thinking seems to have gone away almost entirely. It seems like most of my friends aren't getting married until their early 30's, and it's become more similar to the western sense of marriage time frames that involves discussion of biological clocks. ErIog fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Sep 2, 2014 |
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Sep 2, 2014 02:31
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Mercury_Storm posted:Kind of related, but I'd like to know if the popular belief that as a Japanese woman, unless you're married by age ___ you're "totally hosed" and are going to be single shrew who hates life forever. I've heard that age vary a lot from anyone who I discussed this with there, and am wondering if it's actually true, or was true at some point but has passed down the generations as a myth, etc. It's definitely an expression but one that's not really in style so much, and it's been refreshed over the years; it was originally something along the lines of "it's like a Christmas cake, it's worthless after 25" and more recent variation allude to a New Year's Eve thing (31). I'd equate it to something like the Korean superstition about fan death; it was definitely something that was seriously believed, and still lingers in today's society in various forms but the new generation doesn't really believe it.
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Sep 2, 2014 02:34
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ErIog posted:The theory that I've heard commonly around here is that those Japanese political movements in the 60's felt they lost the moral high ground and support from the public by engaging in more violent rhetoric and methods. They use absurdly cutesy imagery now, sometimes to the point of dissonance with the subject matter involved, so that their movement is not perceived to be violent or extreme. Sounds like a very interesting trend. I maintain that political extremists of all stripes are ultimately populists. All which differs is the rhetorical aims of their populism. In that context, I can see how post-war Japanese culture could be used to make violent political action a popular action, and how demographic changes have shifted populism to kawaii-culture from the previously common violence.
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Sep 2, 2014 02:35
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ErIog posted:The theory that I've heard commonly around here is that those Japanese political movements in the 60's felt they lost the moral high ground and support from the public by engaging in more violent rhetoric and methods. They use absurdly cutesy imagery now, sometimes to the point of dissonance with the subject matter involved, so that their movement is not perceived to be violent or extreme. Almost, say, kawaii?
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Sep 2, 2014 02:40
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I remembered the book. It was The Image Factory by Donald Ritchie. A good read, as indicated by this 1-star Amazon review:quote:This book makes a fun subject boring, tedius and scholarly. I would only buy this book if you have to write a paper on the subject. I bought it for fun reading because I love cosplay, manga, anime, Japanese pop culture and Japanese fashion. However, this book is filled with complicated, esoteric language meant to alienate the average reader. I don't know who the author thought he was writing for, but it was definitely not for young people who would be intersted in this stuff. It sounds like he was writing it for college literature professors. He really makes it boring!...
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Sep 2, 2014 02:47
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ReidRansom posted:I remembered the book. It was The Image Factory by Donald Ritchie. A good read, as indicated by this 1-star Amazon review: Goddamn you couldn't ask for a more perfect review.
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Sep 2, 2014 02:58
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univbee posted:Goddamn you couldn't ask for a more perfect review. It's like it came from someone who showed up to Japanese 101 as a freshman in a gundam t-shirt and greeted the professor with "desu gomen kawaii" or some anime greeting not used in conversational Japanese.
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Sep 2, 2014 04:11
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Mercury_Storm posted:Kind of related, but I'd like to know if the popular belief that as a Japanese woman, unless you're married by age ___ you're "totally hosed" and are going to be single shrew who hates life forever. I've heard that age vary a lot from anyone who I discussed this with there, and am wondering if it's actually true, or was true at some point but has passed down the generations as a myth, etc. It's a theme in other cultures (my mother caught a bit of flak for marrying late/not having a kid at 16 but she was literally the first person in her family to go to college). I doubt it would be quite as prevalent these days in a developed nation, though.
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Sep 2, 2014 04:35
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computer parts posted:It's a theme in other cultures (my mother caught a bit of flak for marrying late/not having a kid at 16 but she was literally the first person in her family to go to college). I doubt it would be quite as prevalent these days in a developed nation, though. Someone can get the exact numbers but among developed countries like, Italy, Japan, and South Korea lead the way in sexist attitudes and gender inequality and those things seem to also correlate pretty strongly to low birthrates.
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Sep 2, 2014 04:45
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Someone can get the exact numbers but among developed countries like, Italy, Japan, and South Korea lead the way in sexist attitudes and gender inequality and those things seem to also correlate pretty strongly to low birthrates. You can also have sexist attitudes without that particular one, though. Like, "women should stay at home" is not inherently linked to "women should marry young", it just classically follows that.
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Sep 2, 2014 04:46
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Haha, "kawaii" is some sort of sociological nomenclature now? loving bakas.
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Sep 2, 2014 05:13
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