Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.
Blogging in Japan
In an article at Washington Post, I read that South Korea is blasting Japan, AGAIN, for whitewashing textbooks about WWII history.
It happens every year about this time – when new revisions of Japanese textbooks come out.
There is bad blood between the Japanese, the Koreans and the Chinese because of the way Japan brutally treated those countries in the early 1900’s. Japan, they say, is very unrepentant – even insensitive to the hurt they caused those two countries.
I have visited China – Haerbin in the north and Nanjing in the south. Japan was cruel – unreasonably so – even considering the war mentality at the time. Nobody wins a war, some people just lost more. As much as I love Japan, it deserves to be bashed. They need to be more repentant.
But, then no sooner would Japan say they are sorry then the cries for reparations would begin to sound. I am remembering when Japan admitted to using Korean woman to please their soldiers during the war. Pay us! Pay us!
In any event, there is indeed bad blood between these three countries – and Japan is at fault.
It’s time for Japan to face the music – say I am sorry, again and again, and again.
But, that will be hard for Japan – it is hard for anybody. But when it comes to losing face on a national level by a country that is obsessed (the word is not too strong) by how they are viewed – an apology will be an extremely difficult thing to come by.
But, until that happens business among other relations will remain strained.
There is no easy answer.
