The Winds Of Singaporean Culture

First, by looking at the way Henry’s ethnicity played a large role in getting him bullied in school. Henry’s parents decided that it would be better off if Henry would go to an all-white school rather than a Chinese school. In the hope that, Henry would become accustomed to American culture. However, this resulted in Henry being bullied in school by all the white children and even the other Chinese in his neighborhood. Before going to school he would pass by his neighborhood where all the Chinese kids that were once his friends called him “white devil” and Then he would get to school and the white kids would call him “yellow” (Ford 39). Once they started to get all the Japanese and take them to the internment camps. Henry started to get bullied even more since several of his classmates thought he was Japanese American. Likewise, to Henrys ethnicity playing a large role for getting him bullied in school, his ethnicity also cost him the distant relationship with his parents.

Consistent with Japanese propaganda the nationalist leaders held belief that Japan was “the leader, protector and light of Asia”. However, this perception of liberation from colonial rule was a façade as the civilians of occupied nations experienced harsher treatment under the Japanese than they did under the colonial authorities.

The core of the Japanese experience in Canada lies in the shameful and almost undemocratic suspension of human rights that the Canadian government committed during World War II. As a result, thousands of Japanese were uprooted to be imprisoned in internment camps miles away from their homes. While only a small percentage of the Japanese living in Canada were actually nationals of Japan, those who were Canadian born were, without any concrete evidence, continuously being associated with a country that was nothing but foreign to them. Branded as “enemy aliens”, the Japanese Canadians soon came to the realization that their beloved nation harboured so much hate and anti-Asian sentiments that Canada was becoming just as foreign to them as

The autobiography illustrates personal experiences of discrimination and prejudice while also reporting the political occurrences during the United States’ involvement in World War II. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the United States government unleashed unrestrained contempt for the Japanese residing in the nation. The general public followed this train of thought, distrusting the Japanese and treating them like something less than human. In a country of freedom and justice, no coalition stepped up to defend the people who had lived there most of or all of their lives; rather, people took advantage of the Japanese evacuation to take their property and belongings. The government released demeaning propaganda displaying comical Japanese men as monsters and rats, encouraging the public to be vigilant and wary toward anyone of Japanese descent. The abuse of the Japanese during this period was taken a little too lightly, the government apologizing too late and now minor education of the real cruelty expressed toward the nation’s own citizens. Now we see history repeating itself in society, and if we don’t catch the warning signs today, history may just come full

On the 9th of February 1942, three divisions of Japanese soldiers landed in Singapore, which was at the time a major British military base and presence in the Pacific. Six days later, over 90 000 British, Australian and Indian troops were forced to surrender. It had been believed that Singapore guaranteed the security of Australia during the war, consequently, the fall of Singapore opened Australia to invasion. The fall of Singapore was significant in causing relations between Australia and the United States to increase as in lieu of Britain’s inability to provide economic and military assistance when it was required most, the United States’ capability to provide what Britain could not was instrumental in strengthening bonds.

There were cultural and communication gaps along with some amount of xenophobia toward the Japanese

While coming up with a topic for this paper, one of my questions dealt with war and cultural groups. I will be the first to admit, Racism was the last thing on my mind. The original question being, “How does war affect a Social Culture and how does it stand today?” When I started thinking about Cultures that had been so deeply affected by war, one of the first that came to mind were the Japanese in World War II. Then I recalled what one person had told me of their younger days at college, when they were attending school. Their name will remain anonymous; I do not want to make the victim’s name public as it has a very personal nature.

According to the novel Farewell to Manzanar, “I smiled and sat down, suddenly aware of what being of Japanese ancestry was going to be like. I wouldn’t be faced with physical attack, or with overt shows of hatred. Rather, I would be seen as someone foreign, or as someone other than American, or perhaps not be seen at all” (158). After the bombing at Pearl Harbor, the government saw all Japanese-Americans as enemies even though most, if not all of them, had done nothing wrong. They were taken from their homes and send to awful internment camps where they were treated as prisoners. The Japanese-Americans stayed in the camps four years, just because of where they come from. During this time Americans completely turned against the Japanese people living in their country and bombarded the news with anti-Japanese propaganda which showed how much racial discrimination there was, even back in the 1940s. While Farewell to Manzanar explores this concept, there are many questions in which the reader is left with. First, the Japanese-American Internment was fueled by more than war time panic, which reveals the question: what role did prejudice play in the Japanese-American Relocation? Then, there is the question: what modern day connections can you make with this time in American history? Lastly, this story leaves the reader with the question: do you think something like this could happen today? Farewell to Manzanar gives a glimpse of the lives of Japanese-Americans in the 1940s and

With a war against the Japanese was the trigger for racism in Australia. All throughout the novel elements of separation are presented. The

The experience is different for everyone since the experience relies on what you are and where you are at that time. Whether it is being Jewish in Germany or being a Japanese American in the United States, people still go through that difficult experience. In Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, Keiko is trying her hardest to get through the hatred towards her and her family. The discrimination also affects the people around her such as Henry, who is a Chinese kid that is friends with Keiko. Later in the story, there is a scene where Henry tries to buy something. The clerk did not react very well because of how he looked. The author, Jamie Ford, wrote “The clerk stood there, her fist dug into her hip. ‘We don't serve people like you—besides, my husband is off fighting…’ ‘I'll buy it,’ Henry said, putting his ‘I Am Chinese’ button on the counter next to Keiko's two dollars. ‘I said, I'll buy it please’” (114). This scene shows how people quickly jumped to assumptions without any real proof; just like the government when they sent all those Japanese Americans to internment camps. Later throughout the story, Keiko and Henry become apparent of the Internment Camps and how the Japanese are forcibly being sent there. The issue thickens as later in the book, Jamie Ford states “Henry looked at the paper in Keiko’s hand. The bolt type screamed INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL PERSON OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY. It was all about Japanese families being forced to evacuate for their own safety” (124). As Henry panics, he tells his family about everything and how they are sending his friend away. Japanese families are being sent away without any reason at all. The people sending them away are assuming that they had a part of the bombing. Obviously, his father does not care and it results in further tension between the two. Henry becomes furious at his dad and declares he had enough. He does the impossible for

1. How does the author describe racism in America towards Japan in the Second World War?

“Japanese were perceived as animals, reptiles, or insects (monkeys, baboons, gorillas, dogs, mice and rats, vipers and rattlesnakes, cockroaches, vermin- or, more indirectly “the Japanese herd” and the like)… at the simplest level, they dehumanized the Japanese and enlarged the chasm between ‘us’ and ‘them’ to the point where it was perceived to be virtually unbridgeable. ”(Dower 81-82) John Dower, the writer of War Without Mercy, focused part of his book on the way the Japanese in American culture were viewed by the public and the other part on the way the Americans were viewed by the Japanese in their culture. Each chapter in Dower’s book is titled in a way so that they describe how the Japanese and Americans were viewed by each other’s culture. During WWII the Japanese were not the only culture that was viewed poorly, the Americans were also viewed very poorly while in the Japanese public culture. Race played a very large role in the war in the Pacific during WWII.

Two bombs named “Fat man” and “Little Boy” forced the Imperial Japanese Government into surrendering on August 15, 1945 to the Western Allies. After WWII, Japan under Western Occupation was opened up to the world. With the Supreme Command of Allied Powers (SCAP) in control Japan was repaired and its old institutions were replaced with democratic policies. Japan had to learn democracy and with the aid of Western thinkers Japan had a new constitution. In the book Learning to Bow, Bruce Feiler is sent to Japan to teach Japanese students about American values, customs, and its language. In what became more of a learning lesson, however, the author was able to understand what it truly meant to be Japanese. Feiler is able to understand what it means to be Japanese through his immersion into Japanese society and by comparing his Americanized ideals with that of Japan, he is able to better understand the vast similarities and differences between these distant countries.

Fujitani does not solely describe the cruelty exhibited by the Japanese and the Americans; he includes positive measures that were taken by both as well. Fujitani claims that “A historically responsible and empirically sound critique of wartime racism in these two nation-state-based empires cannot simply deny their life-enhancing efforts, but must somehow account for the uneasy fit between what can only be recognized as their gross cruelty toward minority and colonial subjects and their apparent concern for the life, reproduction, welfare, and sometimes even happiness of these same peoples” (Fujitani 13). The paradox that exists is dutifully acknowledged as Japan and the United States are not treating the minority populations with complete respect, but consequently, respect them out of necessity.

Colonization has always been present throughout the ages, and has certainly psychologically impacted those of the colonized region. Cultural confusion caused by colonization has resulted in the bafflement and unsureness of their cultural and political viewpoints. In the film “Empire of the Sun”, we see Jamie Graham, being born in China and having no knowledge of his place of heritage, England, while admiring Japan, the country attacking his homeland, China, which is the result of having cultural confusion resulted from colonization. We see his admiration of the Japanese, his nativeness towards the Chinese and his disregards of the English through his words when talking about the War. This results with a differed viewpoint of the war, with his Chinese nativeness, English disregards, and Japanese admiration, than his parents (who have a different viewpoint due to their birthplace. England). His cultural beliefs are quite confusing (hence “Cultural Confusion”) because in states in the beginning that the war (or so he thinks) is between the British/Japanese against the Chinese, but the British say that China aren’t even an enemy, the Japanese are. Thus, due to his cultural confusion, Jamie Graham’s standpoint on the three countries involved in the war, Japan, China, and England, has resulted in the complexity of his stance and thoughts towards the war.