Hardcore History back with new ep.

Starts with stories about finding jap soldiers still fighting the war in the jungles of the Philippines in 70s....then dives into early japan and choking off contact with west/end of shogun era.

I’m going to to wait for them to finish, otherwise I’ll forget things. But I’m excited.

Podcast

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I’m going to to wait for them to finish, otherwise I’ll forget things. But I’m excited.

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I listen to the episodes several times bc I usually listen to them while driving or doing something so I end up missing shite anyway.

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Painfotainment?) was my least favorite he has ever done by a long distance. Didn’t even finish it.

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Same here...it seemed like he felt pressure to put something out there...it was basically pieces of several of his prior series rolled into one boring rehash of human cruelty.

I lived in Guam as a young boy when the last Japanese soldier was coaxed out . My family has all the local paper clippings in scrap books somewhere. I also had students who were Japanese soldiers in Manchuria and held as prisoners in Soviet camps well into the 1950s. People I really came to like and respect, including a Japanese woman who was a sort of benefactor to me in Japan, and who spent years in Manchuria ( her father was a Japanese Administrative big shot or something). I have kind of been a student of the Japanese perspective ( not because it was correct but just as a corollary of my Japanese studies) for almost my entire adult life. I can’t wait to check this out .

If you ever want to read a GREAT account of the Japanese perspective, read JAPAN AT WAR an oral history by Huraka Cook and Theodore Cook. It is written in that Studs Terkel manner, just normal Japanese people telling their stories. Some honestly, some not so much. It’s a must- read for anyone interested in the topic.

Yep. Remember these were elderly Japanese gentlemen talking to a young American. I got all kinds of stories about working in Soviet mines and such . Just terrible. Nothing of course about Japanese atrocities or what Japan was doing in China.

Now the woman was a wonderfully formal Japanese grandma who found out I liked Chinese food and made it her mission to cook it for me ( there were only 20k in the entire village). I would go there and she would tell me stories of how she learned to cook during her childhood/ teen years in Manchuria . From her I only got a sanitized version of happy days for a Japanese girl in Japan. I mean, all these people were friends and students of mine and I just took what they gave.

There was one guy, much younger, who took me to his childhood home . Hotojima - look it up. There was an old school there. I mentioned the school and he told me his older sister died there when we bombed it ( next to a deep water submarine base ) by accident. No judgement, no passive aggressive bullshite, just two guys talking . O have these quality of eliciting information from people because I’m an open book, so I found people almost unburdening themselves on me. I have compassion for all those who get caught up in any war machine. And I’ll admit to being a huge admirer of the Japanese civic culture.

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Thanks. I don't do apps on phones. They watch me.

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Yeah, so does everything on the internet via your computer

That’s in the first 30 min of this podcast


And pimp, that is awesome. Not the things those people had to endure. But the fact that they were somewhat open with you about their experiences. I would be able to listen to their stories til there were none left to tell