History and Japan

Historical textbooks and perhaps even books by professional historians have never been accurate throughout the course of history. Many put up with such inaccuracy or biasness that may be caused by double interpretations of the text or implied meanings. It is alright because it does not distort history directly and make any serious impact in the current generation about the knowledge of the happenings of the past. However, to have information in the history textbooks that has absolutely distorted facts about the war and stuff would be ridiculous and even a little too much.

I can, therefore, understand the feelings of those protesting in Beijing and South Korea. Why is it so that despite Japan’s denial of their actions in the war and their assertion that their intention was for the better good of mankind, they want to alter the history textbooks to misled the younger generation about the past? If they are a strong nation, why must they do so? From such action by the Japanese government, we can see that their country is falling apart, the youths may no longer have trust in their (grand)parents’ generation – these old guys need to put up a facade to tell their young how great they have been.

In my opinion, to strengthen the ties of the country, they should openly admit their evil actions while maintaining the stand that their intention is good. Print the most accurate possible historical account in their youths textbook so as to tell their young that no man is perfect, and that if their nation were to do something wrong, they probably do it together to show their unity. It is also reasonable that they do evil and bad things out of goodwill and kind intentions – especially in this world where weird stuff appears now and then.

But of course, every country hopes that their citizens have something about their history to be proud of. While this is true, it may not be always possible. An example would be Singapore. A typical secondary school student, when asked about the merits of being a Singaporean and told to name something in Singapore he is proud of and he will say that the merits of being a Singaporean has already been listed in his Social Studies textbook (he then removes it from his bag and branish it to the surveyor), while the thing he is proud is is definitely the government. The reason given – it was simply told to him.

Japan probably has something better to show off about after they admit to all their sins. They can say, “I am proud of my country because they are extremely united – when they sin, they sin together, and previously, when they want to fake that they didn’t sin, they also do it together.” As for the parts about merits, that will be their longevity.

By the way, I do support the idea of protesting to Japanese ridiculous move in an attempt to brainwash their people and alter the knowledge of history. However, violence such as burning of flags is not encouraged. I believe it would be better if those guys each chip in a little and pool enough money to send some of those protestors over to Japan so that they make a greater impact. Shouting and rioting in your own country probably only brings a little confusion and chaos to your country – and stir some news.

Deserted Path

There is this path near my block that leads people straight to a particular shopping centre (Great World City to be specific). We used to make our way to this shopping centre for breakfast or dinner. It was hassle-free and cost-free. That saved quite a lot of efforts and transport cost because to go to the bus-stop for the bus that sends us there would take about 2 minutes of walking, which involves [either] an over-head bridge [or a dangerous jaywalk across the 2-lane road]. Everything was fine and purse-friendly until the National Parks guys came over and thought that it was time to build a cycle-cum-jogging path for the ‘welfare’ of the residents.

After being under construction for quite a long period of time, and having it’s metal fencing removed, we thought it was time we can use this path. Worried that the path is still sealed off at the end, my mum told me to observe if anyone was taking the path or if the entrance was opened. Well, the entrance isn’t very much open – with the red tapes across and the synthetic orange ‘fencing’ that looks tough and hardy. However, it appears that there’s an old guy who always walks on that path – he probably got through by going under the orange sythetic ‘ fence’ (you see, he isn’t very tall). There was a time when I even saw a little girl cycling with her mother along this path. So the path isn’t very ‘closed’ after all.

I was positive that the path was ‘open’ and since we didn’t want to walk an extra 2 minutes and risk our lives jaywalking, we (as in my family and I) decided to walk on this ‘open’ path. The entrance fence was easy: I lifted it up slightly with my finger and helped everyone duck-walk under it. Now, I saw this same old guy walking pass us. He has already gotten into the path somehow. Alright, so we started walking freely. It was only halfway when every one of us realised we were under the siege of a huge army of winged bugs. These tiny little pest stick around us as though we had just stole their national treasure. My parents were both fanning away these unreasonable creatures, who was trying to be unfair by outnumbering us.

My sister and I decided to run. I was pestered by this little creep who simply refused to budge. I fanned, wacked, smacked and even shouted. As for my sister, her scream was unheeded. The flies continued their attacks. Finally, we reached the end of the path. Here comes the great part – it is blocked! I was going to blast some profanities when I thought it would be wiser to conserve my energy to climb over the 1 metre- or-so fence that had a bike parked beside it. It didn’t take long, and my sister was try to inform my parents about the blockage.

I persuaded them to climb over it since we have gone a long way through this darn path. My sister managed, but the greatest problem was my parents. I was worried that they could make it over the metal railings. Fortunately, the bike acted as a support for them. When my mum was climbing over, a construction worker came and we thought he was going to scold us or something until he went into some tiny hut and offered a chair to us. He was kind, but my parents managed to climb over very much without the help of the chair by the time he came out of the hut. I shouted a ‘Thank you!’ after that.

This post is not going to be political and start ranting about how evil and bad National Parks is, instead, it shall just end off like that.