Phillip+Song

//**Should Korea and China have a say in what Japan puts into its textbooks?**// Japanese people have their own rights to teach their students and citizens with their own curriculum. In addition, they have their own rights to write their own textbooks. Nevertheless, they do not have any right to manipulate national history for education or other purpose. More than that, they cannot teach customized history to their own citizens unless these citizens will never have any contact or business with other people from international. Especially victims of their wars do have their own rights to know about the truth. Moreover, their brutal history must have been studied and understood by other nations. In this case, China and Korea were two nations who suffered from cruel invasions of Japan. Japan’s colonization over the Korea was cruel than any other civilized European nations. They may not know about the core of colonization. More than colonization, Japan was trying to get rid of Korean and Korean cultures from the earth. Toward the end of the World War II, Japan had become crueler to other nations. Their actions in Nanzing are better known to other nations. If Japan decided to cover this part in their history, consequences would be humongous. Their young Japanese do not have knowledge about the truth, if Japan decided to teach them with textbooks with some manipulation. Whatever purpose they have, Japan should not use their own text books for teaching some history related to other nations.

**Nogun-ri Reflction** Read today's article on Nogun-ri and write a half page reflection explaining how this is the same or different from Korea-Japan controversy. Note how the perceptions of the Koreans and Americans involved in this incident differ. Do you still have the same opinion about compensation? Why? If you believe this situation is different, how is it different?

In the early days, a massacre occurred in Nogu-ri during the Korean War. The incident resulted in numerous Koreans to death. However, this incident was less severe by compensating their actions. The Nogun-ri massacre was clearly different from Korea-Japan controversy. The United States government compensated, awarded scholarships, cured the injured Korean soldiers, and honored the victims from the war. The soldiers weren’t aware of the reasons for the massacre and killed many Korean civilians. In the meanwhile, the Japanese didn’t made any attempts to compensate over their actions. The Japanese didn’t admit what they’ve done to Korea in the history and no forms of apology was made by Japan. The actions taken by United States and Japan showed that the Korea-Japan controversy was more severe than the Nogu-ri massacre. While Japan denied their actions to the Koreans, President Clinton made a formal apology for the massacre and compensated Korea with memorials. We can compare and contrast the two reactions. The Americans showed their remorse and honor to Korea with a formal apology. However, Japan is viewed as a bad reputation by not showing their remorse towards the dead Korea civilians. This is why Korea is easily offended and so emotional with Japan. Even though the United States made some form of an apology to Korea, they should compensate more in terms of finance. I believe that the compensation made by Americans helped Koreans a lot. If Japanese have compensated Korea and apologized for their actions, we would be in a more closer relationship with each other. As a result, the compensations for both cases differ because they use different strategies to encounter their actions.

1) What is a massacre, holocaust, and genocide? Massacre is a brutal slaughter of mass number of people. Holocaust is a when large number of people are killed under government orders. Genocide is a planned out murder of people. 2) Was "The Rape of Nanking" a genocide and/or holocaust? The Rape of Nanking massacre is hard to define. The Japanese killing Chinese wasn’t clearly planned out beforehand, but some of their plans were. The RON wasn’t really involved with government orders. Therefore, RON can be defined as both. 3) Why do you think some refer to it as a massacre? Massacre is a brutal slaughter of mass number of people. The RON resulted in large number of deaths in group of people. As mentioned above, the RON is hard to define as genocide or holocaust. Therefore, some refer the RON as a massacre. 4) Does the term we ascribe (assign to) really matter? The term ascribe matter because it is important to have their own power in certain ways. 5) Why do we study such horrific events? The reason that we study such horrific events is to realize what actually happened and learn from it. There is a possibility that event like RON can be kept as secret due to its extreme violence on humans. It shows the real cruelty of humans and evilness thorough studying horrific events.

Write a short reflection of what you learned from these readings. With the benefit of hind site and knowledge of China and Japan, would Korea had been better off if it had “opened up to the west.” I've learn that foreign influence played an important role to Korea. Moreover, the religion addressed small and large issues of the state crisis. Koreans were worried if other religions might take over the nation's traditions. In my opinion, it would've been better if Korea can be little more open to western cultures. The reason is because if they let western system take over their tradition, the nation would eventually lost its tradition. However, not only maintaining their own tradition and culture, but becoming a stronger nation with western ideas.

Response: The Rape of Nanking Introduction

The Rape of Nanking seems to be one of the most horrifying, cruel, violent events in the history. Truthfully, I was very shocked about what have happened to the innocent civilians. They were being tortured, raped, and killed by the Japanese. The history of the Japanese directly shows the true human cruelty. Japan believed that they would be able to conquer all of China in three months. However, when the things didn’t go in a right way that they wanted, they chose the city to revenge the Chinese. Place where thousands of women were raped and killed. During the massacre, between 20,000 and 80,000 women were raped in Nanking. About 300,000 to 400,000 civilians were brutally murdered. Throughout the introduction, Iris Chang tries to emphasize on the awareness to human cruelty and teach the readers about Japanese history. However, the only thing that teaches me is the true human cruelty. What angered me even more is the fact that Japanese aren’t admitting what they’ve done in the history. The Japanese might feel proud of the Nanking massacre and continue to ignore the fact. I couldn’t understand the author’s purpose throughout the introduction. What is it that he is trying to show the readers? The Rape of Nanking will be regarded as a brutal massacre rather than a significant historical event.