Growing up in Singapore, the history books that we have studied in school focuses on some of the atrocities Japan committed in the war. However, I fail to see the difference between the atrocities they have committed and the atrocities other European nations have committed as they colonized other countries. Why does it seem that the Japanese are painted in such a negative light?
Hi, my friend in Asia ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ I'm so happy to see your post. The book written by Helen Mears "mirror for Americans; Japan" will answer your question. It is so hard to find books written from the Japanese point of view so I hope this will draw your interest. Let me introduce a bit from her work here. "We call the Japanese 'copyists', but we seem not to see that since they copied the Western Powers, their failure to attain perfection in either their domestic institutions or international relations might be explained by the fact that they copiedーnot our professions of principle, but our everyday practice." "Japan's real crime is not that she failed to profit by her first instruction in the ways of Western civilization, but that she made good."