By Rei Tanotsuka, FRIDAY THE 13TH!
“Having read Mein Kampf in German, Inoue was aware of its disparaging references to his country, which were omitted in the Japanese translation.” Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy, by Eri Hotta
Let me preface this criticism with a preamble: I love Japan. It is a beautiful country – an austere ballad where the rich are not so “in your face” flashy, and the poor feel less destitute than in other places. I know the image propagandized by the West, but I know the reality more, having officially clocked 2 decades here.
Contrasting Zen gardens and minimalistic living that is Japan’s renown, the everyday Matsuosan is nevertheless diametrically opposed to the concept of “Mu” (nothingness)! Most Japanese people collect all sorts of memorabilia. The only “theme” to the collection is one of real life experience. It matters little that a knick knack is not Vogue worthy, because the garish Minion popcorn carrier bought in Universal Studios Japan represents a lived experience and hence deserves its own display….the abstract Irving Penn coffee table book? That belongs in an artistic cafe, NOT in the cozy confines of one’s own home!
So, what’s wrong with Japan?
White worshipping.
Japan has a reputation for being the stoic Asian who stood up to Western hubris and is fanatically patriotic. This is once again a Western mirage. I know that the stereotypes of Asians have their genesis in the West, with the Japanese being repeatedly told that they are “honorary” whites, whereas in reality they are anything but. The collective Japanese delusion? They genuinely believe THEY ARE the White man’s “equal”….so much so, that they are can be goaded into fighting for the side championing global oppression of “minorities”. This is Japan’s Achilles heel because in many other ways, it is wonderful.
The monstrosity of this flaw however, renders everything Japan does on a geopolitical front to be highly corrosive.
Why history matters
If you want to have a contemporary understanding of each nation, you must know the history – there’s no getting around it.
Japan has always perplexed me, HOW can it look in the mirror and THINK that Asian denigration by the West excludes them? Everything from their cultural sites to their FACES tells them that their lineage is going to have staccatoes of Chinese civilization (brought in by Koreans) rather than anything Anglo or European!
How can Japan, time and time again be slighted by the West, yet have unrelenting fealty to a group who chastised them for not giving enough (despite it bending backwards) and saw it fit to bomb them TWICE over eventhough Japan was willing to surrender during WWII? To read how unnecessary it was to mushroom cloud Japan, click here.
Through the line of katari-be (raconteur), the creation myth of Japan is passed down. It is openly acknowledged that from the 4th century, Japan learned the writing system from China. From the 2-3 CE, Japan was commonly known as the “Land of Wa” in China and Korea.
One of Japan’s most famous warrior queen’s was Himiko (189 AD – 248 AD), born as Okinaga-tarashi-hime-no- Mikoto. Her mother was a descendant of the Prince of Spear of the Heavenly Sun (Ame no Hibiko), aka the Prince of Silla of the Three Kingdoms of Korea.
The Prince of Silla is the one who introduced metal works to Japan, specifically iron swords and highly reflective mirrors (this was before selfies).
To cut short a long fated fairy tale, the Korean prince fell in love with Beniseki, a Japanese girl. He married her, but his peeps distrusted her because she was foreign. He was then brainwashed to see her as malevolent and began to neglect her, so she fled back to Japan. After a while, the Korean prince realised the error of his ways and travelled to Japan to reclaim her. A mystic told him prior to leaving, that to be accepted in the Land of Wa, he must share (first case of technology transfer?) Korea’s metal technology…..oh, and he could never return to Korea once he reached Japan! What has this got to do with Japan’s identity crisis? Alot actually…..
Who ARE the Japanese?
I know that once a country achieves any semblance of success however nominal, it will recount a different legacy. Look at the West’s distortion of their innate barbarism into a pious civilising mission worthy of acclamation instead of rightful condemnation.
Japan, when compared to its 2 immediate neighbours, historically fell short. The imperial bloodline is a Korean hybrid one, and the technology that begat their cultural evolution came from China, either directly or inadvertently via Korea.
It’s no secret that when Japan closed it doors for 200 years after Tokugawa’s unification, the only permissible foreign trade took place between the Chinese, Koreans and Dutch. This hardly seems like a nation keen to dismiss its Asian lineage, so why did Japan undergo such a drastic face lift?
My PERSONAL OPINION is that when Matthew Perry forced Japan to open up for trade, it ipso facto gave it a chance to do something that BOTH its cultural brothers did not teach it to do – become a country that prized the notion of Fukoku kyōhei (powerful country, strong military). In other words, Japan could carve out a unique identity that wasn’t introduced to it by either Korea or China.
Willing to play second fiddle to White people but feel indignation AT THE SAME treatment if done under a fellow Asian!
I call Japan’s racial sentiment, the Asian malaise because it’s prevalent throughout Asia and not at all limited to Japan. How often have you heard Asians excoriate China over the South and East China Sea “invasion”, yet see NOTHING WRONG with America and it’s Western thugs prowling the SEAS BELONGING TO ASIA? If China started stalking the Gulf of Mexico, you will see the same hoard of Asian asses defending America, arguing that China has no bizniz being over there!
How often do they lambast China for building ONE MILITARY BASE in the South China Sea, yet feign ignorance at AMERICA’S 800 MILITARY BASES? Somehow the logic they espouse to protect WHITE PEOPLE DOESN’T EXTEND TO THEIR YELLOW BRETHREN!
This line of thinking prevails heavily in Japan where being seen as “lesser” by another Asian is the damn biggest insult ever launched at their dignity, yet when White people look down on them, it’s quietly tolerated. Infact, it’s defended.
Reread my opening quote. Despite knowing HOW RACIST the Germans are, the Japanese chose to ERASE the anti Japanese sentiments of those Jew loathing Aryans, and sided with the them. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that the Japanese at best, were the “bearers” of culture but not pioneers. The inference being that if Japan stopped importing their science and culture from the West, they would surely “fossilize”. I don’t think either China or Korea were ever so flagrantly condescending towards the Japanese despite having a much bigger hand in shaping them.
Those who want to argue that the tripartite alliance (Japan, Germany and Italy) was made against the Anglo West, is only seeing this from a limited perspective. The biggest issue, whether it was siding with Germany and Italy or America and Britain, was the unwillingness to allow Chinese SOVEREIGNTY over the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Instead of negotiating directly with an Asian brother to face the diabolically racist West TOGETHER, Japan hedged its bets on using A WHITE POWER to subdue the Asian brother who had historically helped it reach a pinnacle of civilization strong enough to absorb Western learnings!
And why was the plausibility of Japan’s initial claim of wanting to liberate Asia from Western paws heavily questioned? Because the ultimate aim for Japan was NOT to abolish the hierarchy of racial discrimination, it only wanted to be the Asian apex of a Western club built on a foundation of racial subjugation. Japan wanted to be the “White” hand in Asia!
*In the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, Japanese diplomats did advocate for racial equality in the League of Nations. AMERICA (Woodrow Wilson) was the ONLY country that DISAGREED with racial equality between nations. China wholeheartedly supported the Racial Equality Proposal by Japan, so it bemuses me that Japan would “work” with Germany and Italy but not China if racial equality was indeed the intention.
The Ugliest Asian Secret of all…..
Asians tainted by the West, carry the biggest glory back in Asia hence WE don’t want to burst the bubble! This leads to a cycle of frustration within ourselves because despite faithfully adhering to Western indoctrination, we will NEVER stand on par with a White person in Western eyes, YET we “need” to pretend infront of other Asians that we are “accepted”. We try to gain as many white face friendships as possible to show how liberated the West is, desperately trying to evince to “Asian Asians” the egalitarian ways of the West. I sometimes wonder about the level of toxic fuckery that is latent in Asian minds to even want to protect a group that has polarised our culture and decimated our self esteem to the point where we question the normalcy of HAVING ALMOND EYES!
We know this second rate citizen feeling implicitly because behind closed doors, WE ALL ACKNOWLEDGE the disparity! There’s also the fear that we lose the “magic” of being a faux Westerner if we identify as ASIAN and NOT AT ALL WESTERN, afterall just look at the difference an accent and psuedo Western underpinnings bring.
I am going to be honest and say that a foreign yellow face in Asia will be treated differently depending on which of the following sentences one choses to utter:
“Oh, I’m from China/ Vietnam/ Thailand/ Philippines”.
“Oh, I’m from America/ Australia/ Britain”.
The pathology goes beyond Western countries. The cancerous belief that Western ways are superior has thoroughly metastasized to Asia, to the point where economic supremacy matters less than melanin deficiency. It is gross that in 2021, I STILL see and hear Japanese people act in awe of a plain Jane or dumpy Dave, imagining them to be marbled Michelangelos, rather than see the reality of the below average physical specimens of freckles, knobbly knees and protruding guts.
In every English class that I run a hypothetical “If you can be reborn anywhere, what country do you want to be from?”, you can put firm bets that at least 50% would pick a white country. Asians have a phantasmagorical perfected image of the West which no amount of coups, fake CIA vaccines and drone civilian murders can sully.
How much more can Japan take from the West?
Well, this is what has happened over the past month…….
Just a quick chat with my Japanese friends and students to check for general vibes regarding the ATROCIOUS behaviour of the foreign community here…… crickets…..shhhh. Most chose not to dignify the question with a response, and of those who did, said it was wrong HOWEVER they are free to do as they please BECAUSE NOT ALL JAPANESE FOLLOW RULES EITHER! Whaaaat?
I wonder if the sentiment would hold still if these arrogant acts of sheer insolence WERE COMMITTED BY THE KOREANS OR CHINESE?
Why the Japanese have earned a place in the bloody, dumb Asian category is because they think that White people see them as equals and hence are treating them as “one of the guys”. Little do they realise that once again, Japan is that idiotic Asian swimming in the white pool where the people are not laughing WITH it……..
Wake the fuck up NIPPON! You may want to believe in your status as an honorary Aryan, but at the end of the day, you are just another run of the mill Asian asshole, ripe for pummeling and humiliating by the West!
As always Rei….it’s a pleasure reading what you write:)
Thank you for dropping by!