There is a silent war going on between Japan and China, Japan and Korea and Japan and Australia.
I believe most of the Japanese are healthy, happy people but those younger generation who are deeper into the web-sphere and those who would spend a few hours in the underground bulletin board systems, there are about 10 million of them, keep writing bad things about Chinese and Koreans; and from what I have heard the Chinese and Korean net inhabitants are doing the same against Japan .
I am not an expert on this matter, so I wouldn't dig deeper, but that war seem to have extended to include Australia especially after some Australian protested Japanese whaling last year.
I love whale both as a dignified animal as well as traditional Japanese delicacies.
And I mourn that so many people are using the internet to prevail hatred.
And more recently, many Japanese people found out about the English edition of Mainichi News paper that featured Japanese gossip articles.
One of the principal editor there was an Australian.
People found out that most of the articles he has written has skewed some of the quotes used in the article to intentionally spread negative image about Japan.
Many Japanese people felt very much betrayed by Mainichi News Paper.
And because of this incident, although Mainichi is one of the main national news paper in Japan, no one is advertising on them (at least not on the Internet Edition) at the moment.
Anyway, my last post seem to have triggered another battle among the Japanese and Australians.
I posted the last article because I thought it would be interesting to know that:
1. although all Apple products are made equal around the world there are some exceptions
2. to raise awareness that the phones can be a tool for spying (or tool for pervert depending on who you are)
3. how the Japanese companies just ban stuffs without deeply thinking into it
4. just enjoy the cultural difference
it was then introduced on Cult of Mac with some twist of Leander Kahney.
http://cultofmac.com/to-prevent-upskirts-japanese-iphone-3g-always-alerts-when-taking-photos/2356
Most Japanese could take it thus far.
But the article on Gizmodo Australia crossed the line:
Japanese iPhone 3G Is Perverts' Worst Friend
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/07/japanese_iphone_3g_is_perverts_worst_friend-2.html
Most reader in Japan were shocked with the vivid graphic the author has chosen.
And they felt very irritated and felt the entire Japanese population are being laughed at.
The tense relationship between Japan and Australia made them even angry.
Of course, most of the Japanese Internet citizens are happy browsing only a small portion of web-sphere where Japanese is spoken, but this article on Wired Vision let the Japanese people find out about the Gizmodo Australia article:
http://wiredvision.jp/blog/galileo/200807/200807222255.html
"We can't translate 'this' into Japanese"
(you can try using Google Translate)
Wired Vision has the exclusive rights to translate articles published on Wired News in Japan. They also seem to be translating some stuff from Gizmodo all around the world(my guess).
In contrast to the title, the author explain the article and the comments in full detail; s/he thinks the article on Gizmodo Australia had some bad anti-Japan intention.
The article points out that those discussion on the Internet can be very bad, if the writers write stuff in a juicy way.
Anyway, many Japanese also found the Gizmodo Australia article that way.
What do you think?
I just hope, with this incident people would become more considerate when they write something about other culture.
Although they are saying the same thing, the nationality of the author and the way s/he writes CAN make a big difference.
