While there is a very obvious logical gap in place there, there is a clear practical gap there. My grandmother had never really came into any sort of deep or meaningful contact with anyone who was Japanese (even living in Canada) but routinely interacted with German people, seeing that they are not all Nazis. She never had (or took) the chance to see that all Japanese people are not like the soldiers in the war.

I think that this further adds to Terry’s point of the Chinese being the worst perpetrators of violence against the Chinese. Clearly Shaanxi people have came into contact with Henan people enough over the centuries to realize that any sort of long held grudges are pointless. Yet, since China was closed for the decades immediately following the Nanjing Massacre, the Chinese did not have the same opportunity with the Japanese, so the hate snow-balled over the past sixty years.

Hopefully now that the country has opened up a great deal, the old hatreds can go away, but like with everything else, it will certainly take time.

I ended up in conversations about Japan far more often than I should have during my time in North-East China. This was especially interesting given that my wife is Japanese. So a conversation like this was not unheard of:

-Where are you from?
-Canada?
-Oh, Canada’s nice. You know I really hate Japan.
-You hate the Japanese government? or all Japanese people?
-Hmmm, all Japanese people.
-Do you know any Japanese people?
-No, but you know, the history is really terrible.
-Yes, I’ve heard. Have you met my wife?

The sad thing is that the Chinese have killed more Chinese and picked on more Chinese than any outsider nation/race ever has over China’s long history, often with more brutality than the Japanese in Nanjing (ask any Shaanxi person about Henan people). The education and reinforcement of the hate of the Eastern neighbor and the portrayal of China as a victim over a century at the hands of foreign powers is a calculated move to build up a sense of Chinese nationalism of focusing attention on an “outside” enemy. Demonizing the “other” is historically one way that States/Govts detract attention from their selves and enlist the support of the people to pursue the State’s endeavors. This does not only apply to China!

@Kellen: Like “Communism with Chinese Characteristics”, pork-floss is one of those things that no matter how long I live in China I fear I’ll just never “get”. I mean, who was sitting around eating cotton candy and was like, “Yeah sure, this candy flavour is good… but you know what would be even better!”

@FG: I agree with Quincy, there are few opinions (parroted or otherwise) as wide-spanning as anti-Japanese sentiment in China. It’s literally everywhere – 5 out of 20 TV channels, 3 out of 10 movies released, history books, childrens’ books…

@Becky: Your Chinese student was quoting Zhou Enlai, who famously said the “it’s too soon to tell” line in regards to the French Revolution.

While I agree that relatively the atrocities of the Japanese occupation were recently, I think your main point is the key. This hate is kept alive by people who (rightfully) don’t want to forget the horrible things Japan did, and people wishing to use that focus of anger for nationalistic gains/control.

It’s out of hand though. I read an article yesterday in the NYTs which profiled Lu Chuan and his new movie Nanjing Nanjing. And despite the movie clearly showing the brutally horrible things Japanese did in Nanjing 72 years ago, because he had a single Japanese character in the movie that wasn’t a monster and showed remorse and repulsion to what was being done Lu Chuan has received many death threats from Chinese who feel he has betrayed his country. The outcry was so loud that the Chinese film bureau would have pulled the film had a government official not stepped in.

To me that illustrates a rabid unbalance in perspective and teachers at the least (if not parents) should be trying harder to level it.

The thing of it is, I don’t believe there is a country on earth, past or present, that is innocent of some attrocity or another. You certainly don’t have to go back far in China’s history to shake a few skeletons out of the closet.

While the Chinese ingrained hatred of all things Japanese is understandable, it is unfortunate. Bitterness, after all, is the poison I would take hoping you would die. I believe that like the French revolution, the effects of the Nanjing incident and the residual ill will are too soon to tell.