(So Great is Tokyo! The Imperial Capital of the East! [photos taken by the EEE Reporter])
Like A Summer Festival in Japan
Not all the Japanese are humble and great.
Even in the worst company I ever worked in, however there were always some who showed enough virtue for me to appreciate.
But fools are fools in any country.
If Koreans do not show their respect for Japan, it is due to existence of such Japanese fools.
One of the worst types of such Japanese fools is of those who work in an Anglo-Saxon company in Tokyo or who live in North America or Europe while criticizing Japanese politicians as if they were residents in Japan.
Maybe honest and diligent foreigners in Japan might be better for Japan than those arrogant, foolish Japanese.
SECTION I: Broken Korean Kingdom and Invading Russians
As the kingdom of Korea was broken socially, economically, and politically, the Korean Peninsula was about to be subject to the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century.
The kingdom of Korea had been long under strong influence and control of the Ching dynasty of China, unlike Japan. But as the Chinese Empire got also disarrayed economically and politically after the Opium War, Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula was about to be subject to the Russian Empire in the 19th century.
However, Chinese and Koreans were not a kind of American Indians, if Russian troops had acted like U.S. Army cavalry with advanced fire arms. So, political games and military demonstrations continued long between them. Yet, in the latter half of the 19th century, it was widely understood in the world that Chinese and Koreans had no power any more to stop invasion by Russians of the Far East.
Just like the colonization of India by the British Empire, everybody in the world thought that it was a matter of time that the Russian Empire occupied Mongolia, Manchuria, Northern China, and the Korean Peninsula as far as the Pacific Ocean regions in the south.
But, there stood up Japanese or samurais. And everybody in the world came to know that the Russian Empire could not take the Far East through its territorial expansion activities based on armed forces to the south so long as Japanese were firmly standing against them.
In 1860's, fully observing the half-collapsed Korean Kingdom and the desperately obsolete and undisciplined Chinese imperial government, most of samurai rulers in Japan decided to reshape the nation with the emperor at the center of its power structure, thus avoiding a fatal war among samurai clans and factions and concentrating efforts of all into building a new nation as strong as Russia and any other European nation.
Especially young samurais who took leading positions after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 through a series of domestic armed conflicts started exhaustively modernization of Japan, introducing various products of the Western Civilization through trade based on Japan's wealth accumulated till then. This sort of revolutionary movement was not however observed in the bigotry and class-oriented Korean kingdom still adhering to national seclusion while Western naval ships and troops were on the rampage around the peninsula.
For example, most of Japanese people could read and write, including farmers, in the late 19th century (men 89% and women 39% in 1878), but literacy rates in China (a few percent?) and Korea (less than 10%) were far smaller compared with Japan.
This is the situation of the Far East in history before the emergence of the Empire of Japan on the international stage in the second half of the 19th century.
Koreans and Chinese in the late 19th century had no government that could be called a government at all in confrontation with modern troops and fleets of the Russian Empire. But, Japan alone succeeded in establishing its own modern empire to stop the Russian invasion, mainly owing to its 1000-year-long samurai ruling traditions.
Today, still many people in the world think Japan was colonized by some Western power in the 19th century, so that Japan could develop its culture and carry out modernization. It is a complete mistake. When it opened the door to the world in 1850's, Japan had already long history, excellent culture, samurai traditions, accumulated wealth and gold, and farmers a half of whom could read and write. Nobody (of China and Europe) could ever colonize Japan in its 2000-year-long history.
SECTION II: Japan Paid So Much to Koreans after WWII
First of all, the annexation of the Korean Peninsula to the Empire of Japan in 1910 was realized through decades-long communications, negotiations, and mutual understanding of situations, though some military violence's were observed sometimes.
It was not a result of any decisive war between the Empire of Japan and the kingdom of Korea. It was a result of long unification movement over decades.
The Empire of Japan did not colonize the Korean Peninsula like the British Empire did with India or other European nations did with Africans and Asians. It should be referred to as annexation rather than colonization. It is so, since Korean framers had been already colonized by the Korean noble class of the Yi Dynasty that had never treated Korean framers in a civilized manner unlike Japanese samurais who had allowed primary education for farmers even before the 18th century.
The Empire of Japan tried to change uneducated Koreans to diligent Japanese, introducing modern education systems.
The Empire of Japan tried to change poor Korea to part of industrialized Japan, investing so much into Korea, building factories, constructing social infrastructures, and even applying advanced rice-farming skills to poor Korean villages.
So, when Korea got independent after WWII, it was full of factories and facilities built by the Empire of Japan. The old kingdom of Korea had nothing to do with modernization of South Korea as well as North Korea before and after WWII. From a historical point of view, it was a great gift from the Empire of Japan.
When the Empire of Japan abandoned the Korean Peninsula after WWII, it left all the industrial assets it had in the peninsula without requesting transfer costs to Koreans or requesting any prices. The amount of these assets abandoned by Japan is said to be $5.3 billion.
What's more, in 1965 when the diplomatic relationship between Japan and South Korea was established, Japan paid $800 million, though South Korea had at the time an only $350 million national budget.
It could be translated into compensation of $12,000 per Korean victim of forced labor by the Empire of Japan if their number had been so large as Koreans today so claim.
After WWII, Germany paid $3,000 to $8,000 to each individual who had been forced to work by Nazi Germany during WWII.
(http://blog.livedoor.jp/lancer1/archives/11256231.html)
However, surprisingly, the South Korean government has never informed the Korean people of the above historical fact.
It is no more a matter of pride of some Koreans...
(Note that some ministers in the present Kan Cabinet of Japan seem to lack the above notion.
As the ruling DPJ has so many politicians blind to these historical facts due to their ideology, philosophy, or simply foolishness, the conservative LDP is expected to play its traditional role to defend the Japanese culture and dignity against foreign forces.
Yet, a majority of South Koreans today realize that it is not the kingdom of Korea or the Yi Dynasty but the Empire of Japan that set the foundation for Korean modernization and industrial development of the 20th and 21st centuries, though they seldom admit it openly in their society.)
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Finally it is August.
August is a very special month for Japan, since WWII ended on August 15 for Japan.
Japanese children and students can enjoy their summer holidays all through August, in most areas all over Japan.
Yet, how much did Jesus Christ mind a turn from one month to the next, or from one year to the next?
He just said that there is time for harvest. Indeed, without harvest, any year is meaningless.
Without a blessing, living from one year to the next is meaningless.
So, it is the end of WWII for Japan that matters, since three-million brave Japanese people died in three and half years during WWII.
(Politicians should be allowed to take summer holidays.
But, should it be a vacation with pay?
My opinion is more lawmakers, less salary, and more employment in Nagata-chou.
In Japan we need politicians as many as China or North Korea cannot win on their side by bribery.)
Mar 7:31 And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.
Mar 7:32 And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.
Mar 7:33 And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue;
Mar 7:34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.
Mar 7:35 And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.