Kinda interesting when my Japanese friend from Japan abbreviated Japanese with ‘Jap’. I kinda hesitated a bit when I read it in messages. But oh well.

Koichi, I have to respectfully disagree with the “we’ve come a long way” statement. We have always, and likely always will, viewed the “enemy” as a caricature. We dehumanize them to make it easier to do things like drop the a-bombs, or decimate an entire village (including women and children). We are currently doing this to people in the Middle East. I live in the South, so it is probably much worse down here, but I rarely go a day without hearing the words “A-rabs” or “rag-heads.” I have even heard people say things like “we should just bomb the whole Mid-east.” Just sayin’, we will always find a way to make murdering people easier.

But koichi why the G-strings?

I’m sorry but this is funny. I understand that it was during WW2 and this would have served as propaganda for both the Americans and their allied forces, but I still wonder was this booklet supposed to help the Chinese as well, and by that I mean was it supposed to give them a boost of superiority to keep them as our allies while we back stabbed them?

anyways great post.

I heard they have a spy trying to promote their code-like language using a SRS method. Watch out, guys!

I kind of doubt it helped the Chinese. With the level of detail this book goes into, I can imagine that the Americans prisoned just as many Chinese mistaking them for Japanese.

it is easy to look back and call them stupid. doing so makes us feel superior – and who doesn’t like that ? but for the most part these were farm boys (the city kids were just as limited experientially, but were so in a developed urban environment)

in the 1800′s a local paper ran an advertisement for a local barber shop. they had recently hired a black man and the citizens were advised to come in and see him. despite having many local underground railroad routes, few black people were ever seen in this area. ”handy with a broom and brush” the ad oddly claimed. ”he’s a genuine coon”, it continued. rather than searching for some unintended offence, the young man enjoyed being a celebrity and made good money working *with* – not for – the barber. racist ? if you think being curious about something you’ve never seen before is racist then you might want to talk to sideshow performers. they made (and some continue to make) a living off being so unusual as to generate a strong curiosity in the general public

many of the young U.S. servicemen drafted in WWI had never been away from their home. most of them (as in much of human history) were born, lived and died within a radius of a few miles : agrarian self-sufficiency requires you to be home every day to feed the chickens, milk the cows, etc.. the army had to train them in nearly everything — hygiene, maintenance, reasoning (common sense) … and then they were shipped off. their ancestors might have come from somewhere else, but most men in this isolationist behemoth called America were simply inexperienced – to the extreme – in many, many ways

WWII was only a little better as cities had grown, compulsory education was extended, and movies (and therefore news reels) became fairly common. for the first time people were _seeing_ things they would never see otherwise. The Chicago World’s Fair was the first time big-city folk saw ”exotic” attractions and entertainment from many, many distant lands. stupid ? no, just inexperienced city slickers

not that many years ago i lived in Korea. if i went into Seoul with a black buddy we knew there was a chance that someone would walk up to him, wipe his face with a finger, then inspect the finger to see if any color had come off. were they stupid ? not really, just inexperienced – if i saw a green alien i might behave similarly. after the initial shock, most of my friends just laughed about it ; they were JUST THAT SPECIAL !

a few years ago when Chinese citizens began taking vacations for the first time (having recently moved to new cities after generations of living on farmlands with severely limited educational and employment opportunities), the government issued advisories about how to behave. were they stupid ? no, just inexperienced

when our armed forces invaded Iraq, officers instructed the men under their command to behave in a calm, reserved, professional manner … ”as if they did it every day” (i won’t comment on that) so that they wouldn’t be seen worldwide on CNN ‘hooping and-a hollerin’ and waiving U.S. flags all over the place. were they stupid ? no, many enlisted men today are recruited from less advantaged families and communities, as in the past : they’re just inexperienced

people today are no different than any other time in history. only people who don’t know or refuse to accept history dispute that. some want to believe they have ‘evolved to a highly enlightened position’. every previous generation thought that as well …

here’s something for us to reflect on — how do you imagine we will be viewed in the future ? my guess is that we will be remembered as the most short-sighted, ego-centric, environmentally-antagonistic, wasteful people in history. with any luck fossil fuel shortages will prevent written history from being properly maintained, and we will simply be forgotten rather than characterized as licentious villains

I’m not gonna lie. The G-String thing is..funny lol

My old high school was an interment camp during the war. My history teacher would tell us old stories of how anyone that looked Asian would be captured and placed there. They really didn’t give a sh*t about “facial characteristics,” if you looked Asian, you were going in.

I was told my grandpa that “they” said you can tell them apart by telling them a joke, if they laugh, it’s a Chinaman, if they don’t, they’re a Jap. (Apologies for the language). It was all such silly rubbish.

It’s really true that we’ve come a long way.

But we have a long way to go.

For example: my husband and I were legally able to get married (different race = not legal until 40 years ago), but we couldn’t find a place to live due to the whole foreign surname thing. I sent in applications to several rental properties, but none called back. A week later I sent off identical applications but with my maiden (and Anglo) surname. Surprise! 8 out of 11 places called within hours.

Officially, of course, we aren’t a racist country anymore. Places can always claim that there was something else on the application they didn’t like that made them decide not to consider you. But it is quite obvious, as in many other situations for us (job applications, healthcare, etc. have all pulled nearly identical stunts), that if your surname sounds vaguely foreign, you get worse treatment. Trouble is, since officially we aren’t racist apparently, a lot of people don’t really know about how bad it is. And I don’t think it’s that much better than 70 years ago. The first step to fixing something is admitting it, as they say. I don’t like that we portray ourselves as not racist, since it means that racism won’t get much better.

Here’s hoping we’ll all be rainbows and smiles and all the rest of it one day.

Or, you know, change the discrimination so that instead of being unfairly biased against race, we are (not quite as much) unfairly biased against racists. Racistist? Yeah, we need that. Racistception.

Sounds like an evil scheme “they” came up with so that people would laugh at their jokes.

I think they’ve got the skin colour part wrong :P

I have to say, this stereotypical “Japanese” person looks more tougher then the Chinese person.

As far as features and buckteeth and whatnot I don’t think that is even recognizable in Japanese anymore! Besides the fact now that some Japanese men tend to get pretty tall! That and they have a pretty well set waisline. I guess in the old days it did use to be like that though. Is it perhaps the food or the fact that foregners came in I wonder?

I remember seeing this a few years ago. I think the book, or poster belonged to my grandfather. I can’t see that he would’ve used it, because he respected everyone, no matter what race or religion.

The Americans in this book don’t look American

Hahaha, I laughed at that… must be the white in me…

yuppers, agreed

Yeah, I get Japanese friends who do that too. I just figure it’s like the N-word where Japanese people can say Jap? I have no idea. SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO BEHAVE

As soon as we get over being racist with each other aliens will arrive… then we’ll be all racist about aliens. Mark my words…

dat milk mang, dat milk

Have you seen Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips? Yeah, there were some stereotypes during the war. The thing that upsets me most about our conduct in WWII is the way we treated Japanese Americans. That was entirely inexcusable. Treating actual prisoners of war with prejudice, in an actual war zone, is… well, okay, not good, but at least much more understandable.

Also: my toes have larger gaps between them than the ones pictured, and I’ve never worn thong sandals in my life, and all sixteen of my great-great grandparents were caucasian.

As far as testing for Japanese linguistic background… “Hi, my name is Sargeant Shibboleth, and these are my friends Lieutenant Earl and Private Leonard. We’d like you to call us each by name whenever you speak to us. Ok?” (Although, I’m not certain Koreans would have passed that one either.)

Yuck! This is awful! :-(

Hello Kitty have cryptic messages inside the belly.You have to break them to get to it, only in time of dire straights….

“Jap” is about as racist as “Scot” for a Scotsman is…pull you head out of you ass. Even “Nip” is short for “Nippon” on older name for Japan, the only one whos racist here is the author