Actually I know more about Japanese culture than I think you realize. I speak and read the language rather well and I have done more than go to bars and chase women there. My observations are based on watching the people as they go about their daily business ( which has included attending 2 Shinto funerals…..a chore I hope I never have to repeat).

Perhaps its on the things they emphasize and what they don’t emphasize. They are not hung up about things that Westerners get hung up about. That tells a lot about a culture. I live among Japanese and with (a) Japanese every day. Do you?

As for my views about Arabs, yea its predjudiced. I know it. I’m just tired of feeling like I have to apologize for it. So I’ve stopped apologizing for it. I knew exactly what I was writing. I have a clutch, and I know when to use it. When the Arabs get their stuff together, and stop killing and trying to kill westerners and create decent places to visit, I’ll go back to apologizing to them. Seems they owe me and every other American an apology first though. Over ,599+256+4000+114+241+……. apologies to be exact.

Hell, my comments are tame compared to what my Israeli friend says!

Thank you so much for the recommendations and warnings. “Flyboys” has now been added to my ToDo List.

Warmest To All.

The FlooseMan

re- “Then again, Japan is not encumbered by religion…”

Skippy- that is a downright falsehood. I say you should do more than just drink the beer there and listen to bartalk… Ancestor worship, Shinto and Buddahism were predominate in Japan before the war, after the war and even now. Tell them it isn’t a religion. Maybe you’ve been talking with the wrong type barflies?

re- “..working with substandard material”

Again your own predjudice hasn’t been clutched by your brain before engaement….

You keep shooting off that pellet gun and getting hit by howitzers!

B2

I submit the Japanese copied the desire for conquest from their European teachers. And being Japanese, they tried to get it done in 1/4 of the time the Europeans did. They wanted their Empire because they learned it from what Britain did.

Uh…Skippy…didn’t the Japanese military use Shinto as a backbone for it’s military ethos pre-WW2?

And I’m proud to say, that my father-in-law was a “Flyboy”. He was a B-17 co-pilot, and was shot down on a mission to northern Italy, managing to safely get his aircraft to Switzerland, where he and his crew were interned by some very pro-fascist Swiss.