I’m sure I must have mentioned this in the past, but it’s a lesson that bears repeating: there’s a unique challenge to being an American in Japan when listening to stories of the past.<\/p>\n
Of course it’s relatively well known that my major in university was in East Asian Studies: Japanese History. I spent 3 years of my life studying Japanese (and Chinese) history, all the way from the earliest written accounts until modern times. Since my interest is more on modern society, I kept the majority of my studies to the 1800s through today (in both Japanese and Chinese studies), though I do have a rather good background in the middle ages for both countries. This skill has yet to prove useful, but let’s ignore that for a sec.<\/p>\n
This means, needless to say, that I have a fairly good coverage of WWII, having had it pounded in to me for class after class. WWII era literature? Yep. Post WWII era literature? Done. Industrialization of Japan and intro into WWII? Been there. WWII from China’s perspective? Yessir. As most of you are aware, Japan and America were on opposite sides of the fence during this war and many, many, many<\/em> people died, making for a horrible tragedy and a blot on human history. This isn’t to say war is bad–it’s oftentimes necessary–just that it’s unfortunate. And that brings us to the awkward part of me being an American in Japan with a penchant for the study if history. After moving to Japan and improving my Japanese ability to a sufficient level, I’ve reached a point where I can read novels and historical accounts from the Japanese perspective. I can go to war museums and see the artifacts of men who died for their families and out of love for their country, the same way the American soldiers, marines, and airmen did all across Europe and the Pacific.<\/p>\n Now, don’t get me wrong: I still think America was right (and let’s not get started on the nuclear bombs: I’ve nearly gotten beheaded in classes full of students after they decided to bring up that topic) and did what needed to be done. The Empire of Japan needed to get slapped upside the head to put an end to the East Asian Prosperity Sphere. It’s just that when you go to a suicide submarine museum and see photos of the 146 young men who all died in the depths of the ocean, alone, without a single hit attributed to them, it just seems so sad. A part of you wants to root for the young men who gave it all and wish them success. But when you step back and think about it, “success” for these young men would mean the death of hundreds of American sailors.<\/p>\n I’m reading a novel now about the life of a Zero pilot in WWII who ultimately died a week before the war ended as a kamikaze pilot. Though fiction, it still includes a lot of well-researched, first-person narratives from pilots, describing the hell they endured in combat and the pain of knowing that at least one of your friends you ate breakfast with that morning will not be coming back to have dinner with you.<\/p>\n Though history is already decided and done with, no matter how much I want to wish them success, I never can. Some may call it American arrogance (I’ve had a student blame me, personally, for Hiroshima. I then blamed her for Pearl Harbor, so I think we’re fair), but if it weren’t for the war, the Japan I’ve come to know, and some of my best friends have grown up in, would have never come to be.<\/p>\n But that doesn’t make the confusing feelings any easier to cope with, now does it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m sure I must have mentioned this in the past, but it’s a lesson that bears repeating: there’s a unique challenge to being an American in Japan when listening to stories of the past.<\/p>\n Of course it’s relatively well known that my major in university was in East Asian Studies: Japanese History. I spent 3 years of my life studying Japanese (and Chinese) history, all the way from the earliest written accounts until modern times. Since my interest is more on modern society, I kept the majority of my studies to the 1800s through today (in both Japanese and . . . → Read More: Picking sides<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[59,36,60,61],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}