In Defence of Japanese Culture

[pchang]

Sounds like someone needs to sneak into that shrine and add "Enola Gay".

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Isn't it a shrine to all of the nation's war dead and not just a shrine to war criminals per say? Plus I wouldn't call it worshippng. More like honoring; saying we have not forgotten you and all of that.

People in Germany may not want to forget their war dead in WWII either. Would people be angered if Hitler and like got a shrine that honors them?

[Dinner]

As stated above the shrine is not specifically for the war criminals and they were added in by a single Japanese politician decades later. There is a lot of fuss over something that is very small.

[Q Classic]

People in Germany may not want to forget their war dead in WWII either. Would people be angered if Hitler and like got a shrine that honors them?

i think albert speer would like to be honored...

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

Actually Chinese characters are equivalent to English words. They are made up by limited number of "BiHua" which is correspondence to letters, only there are fewer BiHua than letters. To teach and learn a Chinese character for a Chinese is no more difficult than to teach and learn a English word for a westerner.

is this simplified or traditional written chinese we're talking about?

Traditional Chinese are a little more complicated than the simplified version. However they are based on the same set of BiHua (strokes). Some characters are the same in both versions. Other traditional characters are not used much any more, just as some of the English words that used to be used in ancient literatures I think.

[Q Classic]

As stated above the shrine is not specifically for the war criminals and they were added in by a single Japanese politician decades later. There is a lot of fuss over something that is very small.

i hardly think that honoring people who thought that mass murder, brutal biological experiments, wholesale rape, and forced conscription to be cannon fodder is "something that is very small."

[Q Classic]

Traditional Chinese are a little more complicated than the simplified version. However they are based on the same set of BiHua (strokes). Some characters are the same in both versions. Other traditional characters are not used much any more, just as some of the English words that used to be used in ancient literatures I think.

but see, if hanzi is as easy as that, why isn't it taught that way? the few i had to learn for korean and japanese, we were taught by meanings, not by strokes and radicals. granted, i had a leg up on some of the other students when learning kanji, since i already knew how to use the dictionaries, but...

it seems to me that even though there are only a limited number of bihua, there are enough forms and combinations, coupled with enough words which don't have their meanings broken down into component parts, as well as the ones that are read phonetically, and not meaningfully, that the system is a bit more unwieldy than a phonetic system.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

As stated above the shrine is not specifically for the war criminals and they were added in by a single Japanese politician decades later. There is a lot of fuss over something that is very small.

i hardly think that honoring people who thought that mass murder, brutal biological experiments, wholesale rape, and forced conscription to be cannon fodder is "something that is very small."

I agree it is distasteful but if you are going to honor all members of the military who died during the war then everyone's name should be on it. It's kind of pointless and unproductive to play politics about it decades later.

[chequita guevara]

War criminals should not be honored.

[Snowflake]

When I learned Chinese as a child I was taught the strokes first. They don't spend a lot of time on those though, since they are so easy. As for different combinations, well I'm sure we also have millions of combinations from the 26 letters don't we? Most likely it feels harder for a westerner because it is a entirely different way of thinking.

I agree that there are much more complications into Chinese. However there is one good thing for it. Chinese doesn't have tenses. You don't know how hard for me to grasp the correct tenses when I started to learn English.

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Oerdin


I agree it is distasteful but if you are going to honor all members of the military who died during the war then everyone's name should be on it. It's kind of pointless and unproductive to play politics about it decades later.

Can I ask you again if you think Hitler should be honored as well?

[Q Classic]

I agree it is distasteful but if you are going to honor all members of the military who died during the war then everyone's name should be on it. It's kind of pointless and unproductive to play politics about it decades later.

the war criminals in question didn't die during the war. most of them committed suicide after the war or were executed.

interestingly enough, there weren't any protests until those war criminals' names were added... decades later.

[Q Classic]

When I learned Chinese as a child I was taught the strokes first...

I agree that there are much more complications into Chinese. However there is one good thing for it. Chinese doesn't have tenses. You don't know how hard for me to grasp the correct tenses when I started to learn English.

I have no idea why I wasn't taught the strokes first... could be that I was, but I didn't pay attention. Happens when you're a kid.

Big difference is probably that I was taught Korean and English, not Chinese and English, so I learned how to write Korean the usual way, and the Hanja... since there's not as big a need for it... I was taught how to use the dictionary instead.

Overall, I think the grammatical structure of the CJK languages, although they're all different, are more elegant than english.

[Japher]

China vs. Japan?

You can't get kung pao chicken at a Japanesse restaurant.

You can't get sushi at a chinesse restaurant.

need I say more?

China is full of communist bastards

Japan is full of stressed out employees

China was full of communist bastards

Japan was full of stressed out Samurais

China produced Kung Fu

Japan produced Ninjas

China has gongs

Japan has giant drums

China dances in paper dragons

Japan dances in techno raves

China eats short grain rice

Japan eats long grain rice



If Kinevils' friend still insists that Japan steals it's culture from China, just change the subject to Korea.

[Ari Rahikkala]

http://www.lorebrandcomics.com/newtrend.html