A previous post described how many cultural items from Korea are suddenly the latest rage and fashion trend in Japan. Well, just hold on here. As a sign that many people in Japan (especially its politicians) are still pretty clueless about history and cultural sensitivity, here’s a story entitled Japan’s Supreme Court Refuses Compensation to South Korean War Slaves.

Even after historical evidence has overwhelming documented how the Japanese army kidnapped hundreds of thousands of young women from Korea, China, the Philippines, and other countries that they colonized during World Warr and brutally and visciously used them for sex slaves (euphemistically called “comfort women"), the Japanese government still refuses to acknowledge these atrocities, let alone offer an official apology for their actions. Even worse, many Japanese are openly defiant against acknowledging Japan’s barbaric actions during the war. The article describes one good example:

Japan’s Education Minister Nariaki Nakayama said this weekend he was relieved current Japanese textbooks have cut back on a “self-tormenting” view of World War II. “There was a time when Japanese textbooks were full of nothing but extremely self-tormenting things saying that Japan was bad,” Nakayama told a town hall meeting in southern Oita prefecture on Saturday, according to newspapers. “We have tried to correct that,” he was quoted as saying. “I’m really glad that recently there are fewer words such as ‘comfort women’ and ‘forced relocation’ used in textbooks,” he said.

And Japan wonders why it doesn’t seem to get the kind of political and cultural respect that its supposed economic power apparently warrants. Look in your own backyard, buddy.