Japan’s moral high ground: Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Yesterday, US Ambassador Roos attended the Peace Ceremony in Hiroshima, reportedly to further Obama’s future vision of eliminating nuclear weapons*. Roos’ appearance was not enough for many, something understandable for those (civilians) who were affected by the bomb. Some other folks may have been disappointed that the country which for no good reason repeatedly attacked Japan while it was trying to free subjugated Asians from Western domination in order to place them under Japanese domination did not apologize for Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and causing Japan to attack Pearl Harbor.

We are fortunate that there are now peace education programs available to many to clear up any lack of knowledge of what happened in WW2. For example, in Okinawa, there is such a program for “Ameriasians” which will allow participants to take a hard look at the war. No longer will graduates of the program consider Japan as just a victim because they get to learn of the experiences of a Japanese-American veteran of the Okinawa campaign, Takejiro Higa:

"I know I have responsibilities as an American citizen, but why do we have to invade the land of my ancestors?"

The sad memory will never fade for the Japanese-American, who was forced to fight in his own home. Mainichi

Well, perhaps Mainichi left a little out of the story. Or else the peace education program left a little out of the war, such as the reason for Mr. Higa having to invade his ancestors' homeland.

But that’s all unimportant trivia.

I hadn't read the magazine Japan Echo for years, in fact, I had forgotten about it until it began publishing articles on-line recently. I won't be forgetting about it again.

In one interview, Japan's Disappearing Act, Professor Satoshi Ikeuchi covered a number of topics, but the most interesting is his take on the use of the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as Japan’s “trump cards” in regaining it’s dwindling relevance in the world:

NHK Director and Interviewer: (After noting that Osama Bin Laden often refers to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in speeches and the fact that radical Muslims often tell the interviewer of their admiration for Japan standing up to the U.S. and wondering why Japan does not take revenge for the atomic bombings) ...I think Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be taken seriously as resources we can use in terms of getting our message across to the outside world...

Ikeuchi: I think if Japan were able to communicate its own version of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki more effectively, it could become a winning card against the United States...

The learned professor suggests a different approach to apologizing for WW2 (though a rare few may quibble with the idea that the Japanese government has done much clear, unequivocal apologizing) and “and strike out ideologically by showing how high our moral position really is.”

Then Ikeuchi suggests a vision for the future that does not as directly rely on reliving a version of the past. Stating that Asia needs somewhat different standards than the West:

...the best thing Japan can do in terms of communicating its message to the world would be to establish in itself in a position from which it can say, “When Western standards are not suitable for Asia, we will translate them for you.”

Not sure if this will slow Japan's international disappearing act, but it might be useful. A declining Japan leading a surging Asia while not really being part of Asia could work as long as Asia thinks it needs Japan's leadership in translating Western standards. (Is China part of Asia?)

The interviewer expressed what he sees as a problem with Ikeuchi’s ideas:

Included among the Western values is an acknowledgment that World War II was a just war in which the Allies, united by a shared belief in democracy and human rights, defeated the Axis powers, which were contemptuous of these values. Does Japan have the magnanimity to accept this view of history? The second question would whether Japan truly holds these values in the first place.

Ikeuchi was also critical of the full-page ad that rightists ran in the Washington Post a few years ago to support former PM Abe's claim that the Japanese Imperial Army did not force women in occupied countries into sexual slavery during WW2. Ikeuchi seems to believe that its credibility was undermined because it was a paid ad, not because of the contents.

They would have done better to have written in via the letters page, exposing the contradictions in their opponents’ arguments, and putting their case in a way that would have struck American readers as reasonable and logical.

Perhaps so, but getting informed Americans (or anyone else) to believe Abe and the rightists' case of no Japanese Army involvement in recruiting/forcing women into sexual slavery might be a little difficult to do reasonably and logically.

Now why is it again that the world has so much trouble believing Japan's sincerity despite Ikeuchi's claim that: "...no country in the world that has issued as many apologies as Japan just for fighting a war."

"Just for fighting a war"???????!!!!!

Early in the interview Ikeuchi took the US to task for (supposedly) focusing on Japan as an economic interest instead of looking at it from a political perspective and asking questions such as:

“Is this country [Japan] likely to be a long-term partner?”

I am not sure that Professor Ikeuchi provided any confidence-building answers to that question.

*Professor Ikeuchi considers Obama's goal as a "PR strategy based on cool calculations in the face of a genuine threat from nuclear terrorism."

We never asked

for Armchair Asia's opinion, but it's always valued, informative, and interesting:

Saying nothing, ignoring complaints, and “looking forward,” is a very Japanese tactic to avoid responsibility and confrontation.

Why does that ring so true both personally and professionally?

Armchair Asia's July 9 post, Unforgiven,* concerns apologies and the continued lack thereof for the use of American POWs during WW2 by a number of major Japanese corporations.

Some may recall one of the companies, Mitsubishi, even denied in court that there was any forced labor in at least one of their mines (this specifically concerning Chinese slave labor):

...the Mitsubishi defense team has crossed a Rubicon of historical revisionism by denying that any forced labor occurred at its Fukuoka coal mines. More audaciously still, the company based these denials on its own 1946 site reports and the fact that Occupation authorities never brought CFL war crimes charges against it. Japan Focus (How's your Nikon working? Nikon wouldn't be part of the Mitsubishi group would it? Oh well, the war's long over anyway, isn't it? When's the new D700X coming out?)

This is all a shock as I just read an article by a learned Japanese PhD in which he claimed that Japan needs to tout its higher moral ground in WW2 to win friends and influence people today. His cute little article also shows just why WW2 is NOT over for some in this country, including some who could be mistaken for reasonable and maybe even cosmopolitan.

More on that later.

*There are links in the Unforgiven post worth reading as well.

2142: Edited for semi-clarity.

Kim Dae-Jung kidnapping

Below I wrote that there had been rumors that the Japanese government had been somehow involved in Kim Dae Jung's kidnapping from Tokyo in 1973. That is not correct. The rumors were that Korean members of the yakuza in Japan were involved. This information is from the book: Yakuza, Japan's criminal underworld, by David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro.

Japan asks South Korea to apologize for kidnapping??!!

Japan has asked South Korea to apologize for the kidnapping of then opposition leader Kim Dae-jung in Tokyo in 1973, and take measures to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents, a report said Wednesday. Full article and hereand also here.

Wonder if South Korea will pull an Abe and again pretend that there is no evidence that the ROK government was involved. (Sorry if by "pull an Abe" anyone was mislead into believing I meant to suddenly resign.) Deniability of any responsibility could be established if, as one of the commentors suggested, Kim Dae-Jung had his status changed to "comfort man." (Were he a comfort man, then the ROK could claim that he was not kidnapped but voluntarily went to South Korea to be imprisoned and nearly executed. Or perhaps they could claim he kidnapped himself. Besides, was his prison cell under Chun Doo Hwan all that bad?)

As I recall, there was/is some suspicion that the Japanese government was involved in the kidnapping too. That, of course, would be impossible. The Japanese government would never do such a thing.

Correction: The rumors were that the yakuza, specifically the Korean descendants in the Japanese yakuza, were involved---not the Japanese government.

Japan sends warning letter to US

threatening to damage relations if the US congress passes a resolution by Mike Honda asking Japan to clearly and sincerely apologize to former sex slaves. Japan, of course, denies government/military responsibility. They are threatening that they will stop cooperating on Iraq and take other unspecified (anti-US) actions. I wonder if the US will have the balls to respond in kind to Japan? Note that this is after Japanese government officials have been running around, obviously lying, and saying the resolution would have no effect on US-Japan relations. More Abe/rightwing honesty?

I have not found any reference as of yet in the major US newspapers, but the South Korean Chosun Ilbo has a story HERE.

There was and is absolutely no chance in hell that Japan will issue an official apology for this. However, one hopes that it makes news enough in the US to alert people to what the nutjobs are up to here and to make people a bit more cautious about becoming overly close to Japan as an ally in the region. The Japanese rightwing is itching for trouble with the US in order to further its nationalistic goals.

This is fantasy on my part. Most Americans are paying zero attention to this issue. It only perks up when some of the rightwingers do things like place an ad in the Washington Post denying history. But the threat by Abe and his helpers (those who have not resigned nor committed suicide yet) to somehow cause problems in Iraq might get a little mileage. If it comes to it, can we not at the very least say to Abe: "You remember the six-party talks with North Korea? Remember your little problem there? Well, we don't. And they are now five-party talks. UN Security Council seat? Good luck with that. See if you can buy it."

27 July 2007: Amazingly, I have found no reports on this anywhere else. None of the major US online newspapers carried it. Is it not accurate? Why would US newpapers not find this newsworthy?

Japan threatens US over sex slave issue

Do you suppose that the USA would have the balls to call Japan's bluff? Bush won't. Bush accepted Abe's nonsensical "apology" even though as far as we know Georgy is too young to have been a sex slave in WW2.

Would any of the Democrat candidates were they president? I doubt it. Clinton backed down in the mid 90s from Japan over the auto issue. So did all the presidents before, except for Tricky Dick.

Who has more to lose? Is Japan gonna refuse to sell to the US? Close Japanese markets or make it extremely difficult to compete here? Sell its dollar reserves and in effect not only severely damage the global economy but in the process destroy their own. (This one I could somewhat imagine.) Are they gonna kick US forces out of Japan (Oh please do!) and pay for their own defense and own military? Go it alone hoping Australia will take the place of Uncle Sucker? Ally with China? (Not right now.) Refuse to send its military overseas in "support" of the US by being restricted to their base and defended by another country's military?

Please Japan, let's see what you've got.

I haven't written to a congressman in several years, even though in the states, I often did. Now I am going to do so again. Japan is distorting history and deceiving itself and hoping others will let it get away with it. Japan has done so for years and became experts in the game. They even have numbers of foreign explainers and apologists to push their falsehoods for them. They do not expect the US to call them on this. They will probably be right, unfortunately.

Japan Times article on this HERE

Honesty, integrity, sincerity, and Japan

Sex slave history erased from texts; '93 apology next?

Former education minister Nariaki Nakayama takes pride in an achievement he and about 130 fellow members of the Liberal Democratic Party took the past decade to accomplish: getting references to Japan's wartime sex slaves struck from most authorized history texts for junior high schools.

"Our campaign worked, and people outside the government also started raising their voices, creating a national trend," said the 63-year-old Lower House member from Miyazaki Prefecture, who also openly claims the 1937 Nanjing Massacre was a "pure fabrication."

Abe's"Beautiful Country"?

Full article in the Japan Times:

Not a reflection on those who elected Abe?

Again, I have to say that Abe was not directly elected by voters. However, voters do directly elect the LDP (lower house) members who elect the Prime Minister.

Abe's denial of the need for an official admission of guilt for the suffering of some 200,000 women who were kept in military brothels should not be taken as a reflection on the Japanese people. Rather it is symptomatic of the nationalism Abe and other rightists within the governing Liberal Democratic Party have employed as a stepping stone to power. From the Boston Globe.

I agree to a limited extent. Abe's position, like Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, is not very popular among the Japanese public as a whole. Although there is an overall sense one can get from speaking to people that Japan was a victim of the war, you don't get the same sort of strong right-wing revisionism that the LDP shows. However, if this point of view continues, and Abe and his fellow travelers are able to push through most of what they want, the effect in the future will be to deepen these extremist beliefs among the population. They want to teach "patriotism" in schools and have already succeeded in revising the education law. Popular books (Fujiwara, for example) push the right leaning view even more. A few days ago, one Japanese author even suggested that for Japanese women to become more attractive internationally, they should become prouder of being Japanese. Proud as defined by the right-wing means never apologizing for anything in the past. For being arrogant. (Anyone who remembers the 1980s-early 90s should be able to recall that Japan has never lacked anything in the pride department. False modesty only hides so much.)

In the end though, Japanese citizens are responsible for the government they elected. Just like Americans are when we elected and reelected President Bush. We can all blame him for where the US has gone, but we all share responsibility. So do the Japanese share responsibility for Abe's words and actions. One of the defenses one often hears from people is that the average Japanese had little say in the government in the immediate pre-war years, so therefore, they were not responsible for the actions of the leaders. Why do many seem to assume that now? Does the world not expect more out of the Japanese public? Or do we just imagine it as the geisha, samurai, and tea ceremony fantasy world of The Last Samurai?

(Of course many of the strongest opponents of the right-wing antics of Abe and the others are Japanese citizens. In fact, many of the people and groups helping comfort women in court cases against Japan are Japanese.)

Japan to World: You're all gullable idiots

That is what the country is saying. Apparently, since the rest of the world got upset about poor, innocent Abe's (and poor innocent Japan) denial that Japan coerced women into becoming sex slaves in WW2 (but stands by its 1993 sort of "apology" for maybe in some way doing something like that) the Japanese establishment (LDP, media, mainstream academia, right-wing thugs etc.) have decided to once again bring out the tired old pack of lies that Abe's meaning of the word coercion was misunderstood by all those foreign idiots--as well as by many Japanese.

The fact is that nobody gives a f**k what Japan's definition of coercion is. The victims know what the meaning of Japanese atrocities like this are. That is what is important.

Here is a victim's statement. “I was taken away by force by Japanese officers, and a Japanese military doctor forced me to undress to examine me before I was taken away,”
Would this not be coercion? Japan is trying to withdraw its 1993 unofficial "apology" because Abe and his ilk who are running the country do not think Japan has anything to apologize for.
They believe if they insist upon this nonsensical spin that there will be plenty of naive, simple-minded foreigners who will accept it.

The Asahi Shimbun, supposedly a liberal newspaper, has published an editorial supporting Abe's excuses. They certainly took no issue with it except to say he should be careful so that foreign idiots do not misunderstand him and harm Japan's reputation. Screw the victims and their reputation, call them liars and whores.

No, the Asahi Shimbun in the IHT does not take letters to the editor.

EDITORIAL/ 'Comfort women' issue

03/07/2007

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has ignited controversy at home and abroad for his remarks concerning "comfort women"--Asian women in sexual servitude to Japanese troops during World War II.

Responding to a question from the press last week, Abe stated: "There is no evidence to validate the coercion the way it was originally defined. We must now address this issue on the basis of this new understanding."

The U.S. media and others said that the prime minister was denying the existence of wartime sex slaves, or any evidence thereof. Song Min Soon, the South Korean minister of foreign affairs and trade, reportedly said that such comments were not helpful.

These reactions, however, seem to have been excessive. Questioned by a Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) lawmaker during an Upper House Budget Committee meeting on Monday, the prime minister reiterated, "The government continues to support the Kono statement."

Issued by then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in 1993, the Kono statement represents the Japanese government's official stand on the "comfort women" issue. The statement admits that the Imperial Japanese Army was involved in the establishment of brothels and that the recruitment of the women was generally against their will. The statement also notes that the women were forced to live in dire conditions.

Immediately after becoming prime minister last year, Abe declared that he would continue to support the Kono statement. He now appears to be saying that since his stance has not changed, he does not want anyone to misunderstand him.

Abe seems fixated on the word "coercion," and this is what has made his remarks difficult to understand. The prime minister explained Monday that there was "coercion in the broad sense of the word," citing the fact that traders effectively recruited the women by force. But Abe said there was no "coercion in the strict sense of the word," as in authorities abducting the women.

However, in the overall process of recruiting, transporting and supervising the women, there were obviously situations where coercion was used. The Kono statement takes this position. It is hardly gracious of Abe, the prime minister of Japan, to split hairs over the trivial definition or distinction of a word.

One reason why Abe's remarks have stirred controversy is that he was once the standard-bearer of a group of lawmakers opposed to the Kono statement. This group is still discussing how to revise the statement.

And the group opposes the recent U.S. House resolution bill demanding an official apology from the Japanese prime minister for his nation's wartime sexual exploitation of Asian women.

In response to the Kono statement, the government in 1995 established the Asian Women's Fund designed to compensate former "comfort women" with funds of the private sector. The fund was set up during the coalition administration of Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama of the Social Democratic Party.

After Murayama, each of the next four Liberal Democratic Party prime ministers--from Ryutaro Hashimoto to Junichiro Koizumi--signed a "letter of apology" and sent it to the surviving former "comfort women." This was part of a commitment maintained jointly by the government and private citizens to seek reconciliation with fellow Asians whom Japan victimized during the war.

Having confirmed his position on the "comfort women" issue as the head of government, Abe should refrain from making comments that may invite misunderstandings. He could hurt Japan's credibility if he is not careful.

What the government can do now is to explain to the U.S. Congress how Japan has been dealing with the issue, including the letters of apology and other facts.

Abe is denying any direct Japanese government involvement in this. It was all the dirty deeds of subcontractors? This is supposed to make a difference in the understanding of his statement? It seems to be accurate as reported. Abe is denying Japan's responsibility, like he always had before becoming prime minister. If not, wha exactly is the purpose of reopening the whole issue? Because the U.S. Congress may pass a resolution asking for a clear, unambiguous apology? Note that the Japanese government is NOT paying the victims with money from that fund. It is private contributions. It also ends very soon. And had Abe's LDP been in power in 1993, there would never have been even this inadequate action taken nor would they have permitted the quasi-official, quasi-apology.

Apparently they assume the U.S. Congress is full of idiots too. They may be right. Of course, they can always buy support. Always have.

I wonder why the victims do not accept the letters of apology? Is Japan claiming greed? Claiming they misunderstand? They don't know the meaning of coercion? Or simply calling them liars? (Abe has said there are no witnesses to prove the military forced women into becoming sex slaves. The women themselves apparently are not witnesses. Certainly not reliable, in Abe's and his fellow neo-emperor worshippers' opinions.)

Abe/Japan hypocritical on abductees? Noooo........

From ZNet:

Abe's claim to fame, featured prominantly [sic] in a recent Time article and covered extensively by the Japanese press, is seen as his "firm," "hard line" position on the issue of the abductions of a group of Japanese civilians by North Korean agents in the period between 1977 and 1983. As Walsh describes it:

"Abe had been active on the abductee issue since the late 1980s, and he arranged meetings for [the family of one the abductees] with high-level officials and kept the couple personally updated on Tokyo's progress. But what mattered most ... was the sense that Abe truly cared" [1].

This public perception of a caring and courageous statesman "fighting for us" - greatly amplified by media attention lavished on the abduction issue - attracted much-needed popularity to a formerly little-known politician. Yet as Gavan McCormack and Wada Haruki point out:

"[T]he mainstream media failed to mention that during the colonial era Japan had abducted hundreds of thousands of Koreans to work as prostitutes ('comfort women') for Japanese soldiers or to work in mines, factories, and low-ranking jobs in the Japanese military such as guarding Western prisoners during World War II. Viewed in this larger historical context, by Koreans north and south, the transformation of the obviously criminal abductions of thirteen Japanese citizens into the crime of the century and the Japanese into the ultimate victims of Asian brutality had a painful air of unreality" [15]. (Emphasis mine)

The situation was greatly exacerbated in October 2002 when, in an act of sheer hypocrisy, the Japanese government demanded compensation from North Korea for the abductions - itself having refused compensation to the victims of the colonial era. An agreement to allow five surviving abductees to "temporarily return" for one or two weeks was broken by the Japanese*, who made the decision, before the five had even set foot on Japanese soil, not to follow through on their part of the deal. As Japan pressured North Korea for further concessions, the Association of Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea and Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea, represented in government by Abe and his supporters, issued a statement that Japan should "wait until the North Koreans can no longer endure" [16]. In words that echo those of the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeine Albright, who, probed on the "cost" of the sanctions against Iraq that had resulted in deaths of over 500,000 children, remarked that "we think the price was worth it," Abe Shinzo stood "firm" against North Korea, declaring: "In Japan, there is food and there is oil, and since North Korea cannot survive the winter without them, it will crack before too long" [15]. Abe was proven wrong, and a prolonged stalemate ensued in which the Japanese government repeatedly played its key bargaining chips - freezing humanitarian aid and threating sanctions - to little success.

Full article on ZNet by Chris Salzberg

Of course, if nobody in power in Japan really believes that the country/military was involved in sexual slavery, kidnapping etc, despite it 1993 "apology" then there is no hypocrisy. They simply do no believe that Japan did anything wrong that cannot be excused as "everyone does it."

*I don't believe Japan can be criticized at all for breaking the agreement to return the kidnap victims to North Korea. Why would any country hold to such an agreement?

South Korea reacts to Tojo Abe's denials

and as expected, they ain't too happy. However, one has to assume the the Koreans and the Chinese know that Japan does not really accept any responsibility for its actions in WW2. The reason that it doctors its history books, elects nationalistic bigots and racists again and again, and gives unclear "apologies" and a minute later takes them back is because deep down inside, the elite crowd of LDP politicians do not at all regret anything they did in the war and consider it justified. I mean, they have been saying that for 60 years---it is time to accept that they mean what they say.

I assume the US has not really pushed Japan on any apologies because we think we need Japan as a half-assed, fair-weather, parasitic "ally" in northeast Asia. It never apologized for Pearl Harbor, for the Death March of Bataan, or anything else. We know it ain't sorry. Besides, we have a military here to keep an eye on the country so its top loonybirds can't go off and start another war easily. (That's our job.) Plus, Japan is very good at playing the A-bomb card against the US if we criticize it for it's atrocities too much. (Besides the deaths of civilians, one of the worst results of the atomic bombings is that it does allow Japan to play the special victim, the ultimate victim of the war and gets Japan a lot of support and sympathy for it from overseas, while" forgetting" exactly why the whole world was so pissed.)

Japan believes that it was the primary victim of WW2 and did little or no wrong. If it did wrong, it is the type of thing every country at war does, so nobody has the right to criticize Japan. It ain't sorry, so we all just ought to accept that fact. And Japan should quit all pretensions that it is.

Here, and here

Son of a War Criminal Abe denies

that Japan forced foreign women into sexual slavery. (Japan is sorry for its actions in World War 2, even though it didn't really do anything wrong).

So Abe now has rejected the Japanese government's 1993 statement that the Japanese military had set up brothels and forced women into sexual slavery.

“There is no evidence to prove there was coercion, nothing to support it,” Mr. Abe told reporters. “So, in respect to this declaration, you have to keep in mind that things have changed greatly.” (New York Times)

This stooge is the leader of the USA's main ally in Asia? What core values do America (including Canada, of course) or Europe have with the Japanese elite? There should no longer be any question at all about the lack of sincerity of Japan's expressions of regrets or fake "apologies" about WW2. Abe and his fellow rightist thugs do not believe Japan was wrong in any way that I can see. If he does, perhaps he should explicitly express exactly what Japan did wrong. Don't hold your breath.

But this is a little too far. Imagine what would happen if Japan's WW2 ally Germany, denied that it did anything wrong in the war.

Where is Japan headed? Toward a beautiful country, or toward a nationalistic, racist, unapologetic holier-than-thou, fascist country of the past?

I don't suppose many will write to congress about this as most people in the US and other Western countries won't care. That is how Japan gets away with what it does. People do not hold it to the same standards as European or North American countries. Or any other advanced country. It's what you could expect from Japan, I suppose.

(Why doesn't North Korea just simply start denying that it ever kidnapped any Japanese? Ignore all evidence. Ignore the returnees. Just call it all lies and deny everything. Just like Japan.)

Americans never apologize

This is the most recent slur against Americans by many Japanese. It is supposedly because if we apologize, we admit liability and can be sued. This came from the accidental sinking of the Japanese ship near Honolulu by a US Navy sub. According to the Japanese government and especially the press, America did not apologize for that. Remember how many times Bush and others apologized? It got so bad that a lot of columnists--no, not the right wing nutter type--were writing angry columns about us over-apologizing. Especially to a country with a murderous past in WWII in China and other countries. Note that Japan did not apologize to China until 1995--50 years after the war ended.

The skipper of the sub came to Japan a year or so later, after the court-martial to personally apologize. Many of the families refused to see him, saying that if he had been sincere he would not have waited a year. As soon as I heard that, I understood why the Chinese do not trust nor accept the Japanese apology. After 50 years? Obviously insincere. In fact, for many politicians of the nutty rightwing here, which includes many factions and supporters of the ruling LDP, do not see anything wrong with what they did in China. Nanjing is a Chinese and American lie anyway, they claim.

Anyway, Americans and Japanese apologize for very different things. Americans don't apologize for some things that Japanese normally apologize for, and visa versa. Japanese, for example, will intentionally or accidentally bump into you, push you, step on your foot, perhaps even knock you down, and will not utter a single word of apology--well a large percentage won't. Especially on the train. Apparently, all personal responsibility ends once you enter. Knock down granny before she knocks you down. This behavior often applies on sidewalks too.

However, they will apologize for things that seem trivial, and puzzling to Americans. For example, some students while learning English will apologize for making a mistake. Drives me nuts. Apologies, all the time, everywhere if you are a customer or temporarily in somebody's consciousness. But if it is something big, hell will freeze over before you get an apology. Ask China.

(Since our excursion into Iraq, and the perverted, criminal behavior of a few of our MPs there, it has become harder to criticize Japanese actions in WWII. The dodge is to switch the argument to the U.S. actions. It seems whatever the US does serves as an excuse for anything Japan does or has ever done. There is little sense among many of the possibility that Japan was wrong in its actions no matter what other countries do or did.)