Japan is famous for turning a blind eye to the sins it committed against innocent and helpless Chinese civilians during WWII, so it’s interesting to read about a new Japanese movie that explores the topic with merciless honesty. Even more interesting is the fact that so many Japanese are flocking to see it.

On the 61st anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II, wider discussion of the conflict’s meaning to the nation is still controversial – and avoided.

But in a handful of theaters in Japan, “The Ants,” a recently released documentary about Japanese troops left in China after the war, is an attempt to remind Japanese of war memories many would rather not acknowledge.

The film, showing at theaters in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, has not gotten the national release and media blitz of war films that have taken a more nationalist tack. But it has played to packed theaters, prompting managers to add more showings.

From politicians to the major media, many here shrug off war memories, something that has cast a profound chill over Japan’s relations with neighbors that it once occupied. In anticipation of today’s anniversary, South Korea warned Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi not to visit Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni war shrine, where war criminals are memorialized. Protesters in Tokyo seconded that sentiment.

Some Japanese say their country has apologized for wartime atrocities and should not have to continue to do so. But amid rising nationalism and ongoing controversies over how Japan represents its history in textbooks, those apologies “lack substance,” charges Yoshifumi Tawara, of Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21 in Tokyo. “They don’t get the impression that Japan offered an apology.”

This intriguing article focuses on a Japanese soldier who, with his comrades, was ordred to stay and fight against the Chinese even after the war was over. He describes his own murder of Chinese civilians, remarking, “We were turned into a so-called killing machine. I want to reveal how the military deprived us of our rational nature.”

Quite a horror story. Whether this will generate a shift in the consciousness of the Japanese at a time when many appear increasingly under a nationalistic spell is doubtful, but it’s good to see that some have the courage to demand the truth. For all the terrible things about democracies like Japan and the US (and most developed democratic nations), it’s infinitely cool that they have the freedom to hold the mirror up to their own governments and expose the warts.

Hey, I’m not making this up:

THE rapid spread of Western business practices in Japan has caused widespread mental illness and is responsible for a deepening demographic crisis, government officials say.

Statistics indicate that 60 per cent of workers suffer from ‘high anxiety’ and that 65 per cent of companies report soaring levels of mental illness.

Meanwhile, the size of the Japanese population is shrinking, and for the first time the Government has acknowledged that the falling birth rate is linked to job-related factors. Directors of the Japanese Mental Health Institute blame the same factors for rising levels of depression among workers and the country’s suicide rate, which remains the highest among rich nations.

Merit-based pay and promotion are of particular concern because they are at odds with the traditional system, built on seniority, that has reigned supreme in corporate Japan. In the harsh new atmosphere of cut-throat rivalry between workers, the Institute for Population and Social Security argues, young people do not feel financially stable enough to start families.

I can truly understand the Japanese workers’ concerns. For a developed nation, the American workplace – with its two weeks paid vacations, niggardly minimum wage, almost no national holidays and generally cut-throat, paranoid atmosphere – is appallingly heartless. To suddenly superimpose the “values” of the American workplace on any country, let alone one that has a long and cherished tradition of treating workers as part of a closely connected family — well, how could they not freak out? I’m all for being lean and mean and competitive. But the American model totally sucks unless you’re up at the tippy-top, and I hate to think that this is becoming the model for the entire world.

Via yet another site that I don’t get to often enough.

Last week in America, I read with amazement but not total shock (nothing about China – or the Bush administration – can totally shock me anymore) about the Chinese government holding an auction for the rights to hunt animals on the country’s endangered/protected species lists. The Chinese Internet went wild (justifiably so) and the plan was shelved. It was one of those stories that was so odd I couldn’t quite believe it, and I decided to leave it alone.

Luckily, another blogger wrote it up in a post that indicates we may have in our midst a supremely talented and insightful English-writing Chinese blogger whose style is almost as caustic as my own. This is a small snippet:

This is yet another perfect example of an unbelievably stupid government policy getting ripped into pieces by the Internet masses and on popular media, with the mandarins backing down shame-faced in the end. The difference is, this time around the skepticism and criticism is almost unanimous: At this very moment, CCTV is running an interactive news commentary program, “discussing” but mostly condemning it. Indeed, it’s almost a textbook case of bureaucratic incompetence with factors offensive to every actively outspoken group on the Internet:

To environmentalists and animal rights sympathizers: putting up some of our rarest animals to be gunned down, for a price? Are you f****** kidding me? And to be done by the Ministry of Forestry, the governent agency supposed to be protecting them? What kind of a world am I living in?

To nationalists: the bidding is open only to foreigners? What the hell? Like my RMB doesn’t smell as sweet as your US dollars even though mine is appreciating, under “international pressure”? Like we are going to tolerate foreigners (Americans, NRA members, probably; oh, and don’t even get me started on the Japanese!) with their big guns roaming free on OUR land, slaughtering OUR animals?

To the not rich and cynical: so, if you’re filthy rich enough, you can kill whatever you want. And the more you pay, the bigger and rarer the prey. So am I gonna become your game one day if you can pay the price?

The last paragraph of the post, which I’m not copying here, is the funniest. Go read the whole thing. And special thanks to Lisa for writing about this.

Definitely a new addition for my blogroll. There is a lot of superb stuff on this blog. Just keep scrolling.

There’s one sector of the Chinese economy which, under Hu, is virtually guaranteed to grow and prosper, and this blog offers compelling evidence as to why it’s a good bet for investors. Of course, what it says about China is another matter, but we’re talking strictly business here, not politics.

Aiding Our Enemies
By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 14, 2006

‘Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.’

– George Santayana

Here we go again.

I wonder if Americans will continue to fall for the political exploitation of their fears of terrorism, or if voters will begin to show some awareness of the fact that they have been cynically manipulated, and that our current policies have been disastrously counterproductive.

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On target.

Hoping for Fear
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 14, 2006

Just two days after 9/11, I learned from Congressional staffers that Republicans on Capitol Hill were already exploiting the atrocity, trying to use it to push through tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. I wrote about the subject the next day, warning that ‘politicians who wrap themselves in the flag while relentlessly pursuing their usual partisan agenda are not true patriots.’

The response from readers was furious – fury not at the politicians but at me, for suggesting that such an outrage was even possible. ‘How can I say that to my young son?’ demanded one angry correspondent.

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This story is scary as hell. Even after they come back, Iraq will be with many of our boys forever.

So I’ll be gone again for a couple of days. It was good to be home, but I do miss my other home, too.

In case you’re wondering where the last few posts disappeared to, I wasn’t happy with them; I know I can do better. Thanks for your patience.

He’s sitting in for MoDo, and this is great.

The Spoils of Victimhood
By THOMAS FRANK
Published: August 12, 2006

‘President Bush operates in Washington like the head of a small occupying army of insurgents,’ the pundit Fred Barnes writes in his recent book, ‘Rebel-in-Chief.’ ‘He’s an alien in the realm of the governing class, given a green card by voters.’

Let’s see: These insurgents today control all three branches of government; they are underwritten by the biggest of businesses; they are backed by a robust social movement with chapters across the radio dial. The insurgency spreads before its talented young recruits all the appurtenances of power – a view from the upper stories of the Heritage Foundation, a few years at a conquered government agency where expertise is not an issue, then a quick transition to K Street, to a chateau in Rehoboth and a suite at the Ritz. For the truly rebellious, princely tribute waits to be extracted from a long queue of defense contractors, sweatshop owners and Indian casinos eager to remain in the good graces of the party of values.

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Too, too funny. As I’ve asked before, does the party really believe we’re going to take this stuff seriously?