User Comments - zhenlijiang

Posted on: Illegal taxis

bababardwan 你早， 谢谢你祝我们好运

那我也来吧： 比分都零，就是足球比赛最不好看的地方！  now i'm certain i mangled that attempt to say, 0-0 scores are the worst part about football (soccer to us) matches!  kind corrections would be most welcome.

and really not the kind of thing to say as a BTW but we are very sorry for all those affected by the bushfires--it's so very sad and terrible if indeed arsonists had started it.

Posted on: 中国崛起

tvan,  i think also the point is that unfortunately others are not going to learn from Japan's past as long as the story being persistently told is that we are all inherently evil and inhuman just by being Japanese.  the only "moral" of such a story would be that the world would be better if we simply went away. and many do espouse this idea.

not that i would blame any person who has actually been subjected to, or witnessed, the kind of cruelties that were committed by Japanese in Asia for thinking that--that's different altogether.

Posted on: 中国崛起

hi tvan,

first, my point was that some people want to think there is "rising nationalism" in Japan now and will latch onto far-flung "grounds" to assert this. and this is not at all accurate.

but i appreciate your comments and understand that all of us must always fear what nationalism can be, in any country.  i know that a rational person with what appears in normalcy to have a positive patriotic side can become completely deranged under extraordinary circumstances.

to rephrase what i've already said, i'm no "nationalist" or someone who needs any 主义 to love my country.  what we Japanese need to feel good about ourselves is not any deranged sense of superiority (and i honestly believe you can count that possibility out now, partly because the campaign to make sure of that was very effective and far-reaching. it was far from ideal in that it was imposed on us before we could reflect and draw the conclusion on our own).  being clear on what Japan did in the past and facing what we are capable of becoming, is one thing.  but does being sick of being constantly told we shouldn't love our country constitute nationalism? isn't that just normal?

unlike in the 1930s-40s the emperor is a ceremonial figure and we are now a real democracy. all of us have a voice and we are all responsible. so when the BBC writes up our MPs and people from all walks of society calling for a public discussion on Article 9 of our constitution to decide whether or not it needs to be amended, as a "rising nationalism" story, again, this is sensationalist, irresponsible journalism. they know very well that they have an audience too eager to devour that kind of headline. they also neglect to mention the great numbers who are vocally opposed to amendment. for the record i am against amending Article 9, and hold, as long as some among us feel the need to question and discuss it, that we must talk about it.

and apologies all, for the long post (and teeny typeface, don't know how to fix) completely devoid of humor--apparently i need to take my own advice.

Posted on: 中国崛起

changye,

i don't think the BBC are even genuinely concerned about "rising nationalism in Japan", whatever it is that they are talking about (they say it's a concern for our neighbors).  in my mind that is irresponsible journalism.

in the list of kinds of information in my last post i should have mentioned diplomatic skills and lack of, but more importantly--because they are the counterforce to lies and propaganda--the arts, esp. films.  an important film like 《鬼子来了！》 definitely isn't pop culture. the Chinese people have good reason to be very proud of it and its writer/director/star 姜文, and not just because it won the Grand Prix at Cannes. but did it ever get shown in "continental" China?  i heard it was banned, for no good reason.

i've never thought of myself as a nationalist and have no wishes to be thought of one, but if the definition of an 爱国主义者 is one who loves his country and is offended by any slurs against it, then i must be one as well.

其实我是一个理想主义者。而且我是爱和平的 (by "peace-addicted" do you mean 平和ボケ?)。 and despite my occasional rants, i believe most of all that humor is what keeps us human.  loss of our sense of humor is loss of our humanity. i'm sure you agree!

Posted on: 中国崛起

aagh! changye, you joke too much.

you're bringing up all these yes, provocative points, after i said i'd given up talking about Japan's self-evaluation!  i do believe it makes a very interesting study subject, to compare (contrast, more like) how information has shaped post-war attitudes among the Chinese and Japanese populations. information of course means education and textbooks, propaganda, media and its integrity, pop culture influences, experience overseas, etc etc.  i just don't think that can be done on this thread!

and i was going to say, we can be careful when looking at any survey to always be sure we're looking at the hard data and not just picking up conclusions we want to believe in the first place.  not that the BBC is any worse than others, but if you look at their site regularly i'm sure you've noticed they have a habit of writing up what i as a Japanese find are the strangest non-stories about a supposed "Japanese nationalism rearing its ugly head".  they've been building this case, i think we can be forgiven for concluding, for the past eight years or so at least. they might just as well be more straightforward and say "the Japanese aren't entitled to love their country like everyone else", because that's what they are saying anyway.  but that's the BBC on Japan these days. i find it irritating, but am not near compelled as all the angry Chinese posters calling for James Reynolds' head every time he is deemed to have written something "negative" about China ...

Posted on: Illegal taxis

bababardwan, after a 0-0 draw (boring!) we're still second in the group so still have a chance to get to SA, like you say the point is to get there.  but the other thing was to put away that trauma and that certainly didn't happen tonight.  i don't know about needing any 黑车s, but heads may roll.

Posted on: Illegal taxis

bababardwan, not that it really matters to you because Australia have yet to even concede a goal in our group and can afford to lose--your side are here playing ours!   thx for the good wishes anyway (^o^)

Posted on: Illegal taxis

bababardwan, what can i say mate. we're a people whose national pastime seems to be self-flagellation. they kept replaying scenes from 2006 these couple of weeks. and tonight is a qualifier for SA. depending on the results, nothing to look forward to in 2010. didn't see any of the matches in 2002, would have liked to visit the teams in training camps though.   anyway yes, 打的 is short and catchy.

Posted on: Illegal taxis

apologies for the triple post

Posted on: Illegal taxis

hi bababardwan   (as i watch the Japanese side try to overcome the trauma of the come-from-behind trouncing by Australia in Germany 2006)

i think this may have been mentioned a few times elsewhere but changye also refers above to 的士, which is the HK transliteration for taxi (in fact when we Japanese first get to HK and see that, we can read it as tek(i)-shi so it makes immediate sense to us as well).  that's where the 的 comes from.  note that inland asks "is it used on the mainland".