masayuki yoshida wrote:

> mtfester@netscape.net wrote in message news:<be89lc$3jp$1@news.Stanford.EDU>...
> > masayuki yoshida <ysd_m@yahoo.co.jp> wrote:
> >
> > > What you and Eric want to say in this thread may be so simple that I
> > > will rephrase as follows:  Contemporary Japanese should learn what
> > > their own nation did as an invader during the war times.  However, how
> > > to teach history is not so simple.  If you tell us what of Japanese
> > > war history you want to teach Japanese students, it would be
> > > appreciated.
> >
> > Reminds me of what my wife told me about taking history class. They'd
> > spent the year going through the class, and ran out of time at about
> > the time they just finished the beginning of the Showa Era. The teacher
> > told the class "I'm very sorry. Please ask your parents about this."
>
> It would be a common story amongst those who got through classes of
> Japanese history in Japanese High schools.

No, they get the Japan as victim story, like the Hiroshima A-bombing, according to
their agenda. Even the Japanese media pointed out how more recently an increasing
number of textbooks have excised or glossed over such issues as the "comfort
women".

> Unlike that, fortunately I
> finished read Japanese and world history books cover to cover when I
> was in a high school.

But did you read Japanese VERSIONS of history books, or also say, Korean and
Chinese accounts of the war? As an American, I get international versions of news
and history.

> Although Eric ALWAYS points out the lack of our
> history knowledge, are American people far more knowledgeable about
> their own nation's past than Japanese?

This is totally besides the point, and this attempt at diversion is a common
tactic among Japanese when confronted over Japanese political or social issues.
(Another is pointing out to foreigners how long ago the war was, while whining
about Hiroshima and how we must "never forget".) You go and complain all you want
about Americans, and we'll talk about Japanese.