Fantasies of the red idiots
China has come up with another reason to bash Japan (as if it needed another one). . . A computer game.
Chinese game players are saying that the adult-oriented Japanese computer game “Slaves of the Red Mansion” insults the classic Chinese novel “Dream of the Red Chamber.”
“Turning ‘Dream of the Red Chamber’ into a lewd game besmirches a treasure of Chinese literature, and is a desecration of Chinese culture,” thundered one irate Net surfer on Web portal Sohu.com.
“As a big fan, this is absolutely unforgivable for me!”
The Chinese classic “Dream of the Red Chamber,” which also goes under the “Dream of the Red Mansion,” was penned by Qing dynasty (1644-1911) author Cao Xueqin. It is the story of the decline of a noble family.
While the game’s setting has little to do with the epic novel, Chinese Internet users believed its main character — a pallid young girl called Lin Daiyu — was a direct take-off of the novel’s heroine.
The Chinese Internet users said the story’s character had been slandered, described in the game as an illegitimate child borne after her mother had an affair with a foreigner.
(For some reason I just knew that blue-eyed devils had to figure in here somewhere.)
This isn’t the first time that Chinese gamers have gone ape over what they considered to be insults against China carefully hidden inside of a computer game.
In July, thousands of online game players denounced an image of a red sun used in the hugely popular online game, “Fantasy Westward Journey,” developed by China’s NetEase.com Inc.
Players associated the rising sun image, used as a backdrop in a virtual Chinese government office, with a symbol of Japanese militarism, local media reported.
Poor Mari….she’s my favorite. If I ever become a j-pop singer and part of the...
Shes definitely at the top of my hot list.
perfeckt 10:10
Just today we posted on J-List a DVD that features a parody of a famous Japanese jidai-geki, featuring production values that blow the mind. (I won’t post the link for obvious reasons, but search for “shogun’s wife” on jlist.com if you want to see it, nsfw, yada yada.) The Japanese are mature enough to mock their own culture, just as Monty Python does in the U.K. Immature countries like, oh, China and every Islamic nation I can think of, unfortunately are like immature teenagers or homophobes who go out of their way to loudly declare how straight they are. Sigh.
September 29th, 2006 at 6:53 pmThe problem is that many Chinese are often so horribly defensive that they react just like the Incredible Hulk to any perceived slant.
“WRAAAAARRRR! HULK SMASH!!!!!!”
The problem is that because they start thinking with their dicks instead of their brains, they can’t make an objective assessment.
September 29th, 2006 at 7:06 pmYes. And an idle dick is the devil’s playground.
September 29th, 2006 at 7:36 pmHi, JP. My name is Luciana, I am a brazilian journalist. I am working on a story about the controversial game “Slaves of the red mansion”. I would like to talk to you about it, if you want to. My e-mail is lmastrorosa@corp.globo.com. I work at Globo, for G1 website: http://www.g1.com.br. I hope we can be in touch. Thanks, Luciana
September 30th, 2006 at 1:52 amWhat’s funny about the “Fantasy Westward Journey” thing, is that the “rising sun image” is bassed on a classical Chinese painting…
September 30th, 2006 at 5:14 amWhat’s sad about this is not that the Chinese are over-reacting. They over-react almost as often as the two Koreas and thus have nearly zero credibility. What’s sad is that the Japanese right-wingers are allowing the Chinese fanatics to set the agenda and are playing right into the Chinese fanatics’ hands.
Yes, if Yasukuni wasn’t around as the current Chinese gripe they would soon find another. But if the Japanese government neutralized the Yasukuni issue by making a national war-dead memorial that all Japanese (including those opposed to paying respects to Class-A criminals) could visit, at least the Japanese government would have the diplomatic and moral upper-hand, not to mention the undivided support of the international community against Chinese and Korean ranting.
As it is now, the Japanese government is in a moral grey zone. Why they like it there is beyond me. Can right-wing support really be so vital?
October 1st, 2006 at 9:36 am“Immature countries,” “ranting,” “fanatics”…. these words reflect more on the people making the comments than the subject itself, since they’re so ready to use such polarizing words.
Incidentally, ppayne, you are aware that mocking oneself is a tad different than mocking someone else? And Kudan, I’m pretty sure that Yasukuni isn’t the be-all and end-all of the whole thing- there are more layers to it.
Why are people these days so quick to label others as whiners and ranters? Is it the slightest bit healthy for any discussion? Don’t think so…
October 1st, 2006 at 4:25 pmby the way, the tongue-in-cheek title of the post isn’t exactly winning any points for japundit, either. i guess i shouldn’t really expect this blog to be all that serious about giving fair opinions without bias. moving along to better things…
October 1st, 2006 at 4:32 pmKudan,
Yasukuni has a history for people to pray for the war deads. Most people who go there now pray for peace and think that such a war should never happen again. I don’t think it make them “right-wingers”. Do you think that people like Dalai Lama XIV went to Yasukuni to worship Japan’s past imperialism?http://2.csx.jp/users/korea/YasukuniY.html
October 1st, 2006 at 4:55 pm>Incidentally, ppayne, you are aware that mocking oneself is a tad different than mocking someone else?
There have been foreign movies like “Lost in Translation” which basically mocked the Japanese/Japanese culture but I don’t see the people over-reacting about it.
October 1st, 2006 at 5:09 pmKudan, the Japanese government may not do war memorials. Not every country is like the USA, where people build memorials for just about every bad thing that has ever happened. Yasukuni is private property, and if there was a demand for the kind of memorial you’re suggesting, a private organization would have built one.
October 1st, 2006 at 5:32 pmFluffy,
Thanks for your comment. If you re-read my post you will see that I specifically referred to those Japanese who do not want to pay respects at a place where Class-A war criminals are included. There are many such Japanese, though it seems you are not one of them. That is fine. I am not sure what your intention was in mentioning the Dalai Lama, or what connection he specifically has to the issue. Bottom line: criticizing Yasukuni for including Class-A war criminals is NOT the same as saying all Japanese (or non-Japanese, for that matter) who go there are doing something “bad.” Those who conflate those two issues are simply showing that they really don’t have an argument to address the Class-A war criminal issue and so try to change the topic.
Paul, thanks for the comment. I know Yasukuni is private property, thanks. The Prime Minister of Japan goes there and signs his name as “Prime Minister of Japan.” I don’t think the issue is a cut-and-dried as you try to make it appear.
Folks, I really don’t care where the Japanese pay their respects to their war dead. The point I was making in my post was that some Japanese government officials are playing into Chinese hands.
October 1st, 2006 at 9:39 pmi guess i shouldn’t really expect this blog to be all that serious about giving fair opinions without bias.
Well, we take pride in never disappointing our readers.
October 1st, 2006 at 11:42 pmKudan,
I read your comment and thought you were claiming that politicians like Koizumi go to Yasukuni to gain “right-wing” support. That’s not true. I for one do not care if PM does or does not visit Yasukuni. But I do think people who criticize Yasukuni should know about Shinto, which is a background religion of Yasukuni.
“People who have died peacefully and happily amid their family are the revered ancestors but not everyone dies this way. Those who die without family to care for their kami become hungry ghosts (an idea imported from China) who wander and can cause trouble. A person who died violently or who led an unhappy life can be a source of danger or trouble to others. Things are done to ease these spirits.”
October 2nd, 2006 at 12:14 amhttp://cla.calpoly.edu/~bmori/syll/Hum310japan/Shinto.html
Fluffy,
Thanks. I know about Shinto. I think that people who comment on the actions of politicians should have a good grasp of the fundamentals of politics. Politics is about power: the getting, keeping, and doling out of power. Politics is not about how things should be in an ideal world. (In an ideal world, the Japanese PM could do whatever he or she wanted and the Chinese would keep their mouths shut)
I assume (for I have no way of knowing) that Mr. Koizumi had honest feelings of sadness, etc toward the many war-dead enshrined at Yasukuni, and I have no reason to doubt that he prayed for peace when he went there, as he said he did.
But you must understand that his actions as Prime Minister of Japan had repercussions far beyond what he may have had in his heart. To use a tired, old analogy, President Bush may really believe that the war in Iraq is being fought to “make the world safe from terrorism.” That personal belief of his means very little in the face of overwhelming evidence that the war in Iraq is in fact something else. (Sorry for the US politics reference, JP. I hope you let it stand)
My main point was that Mr. Koizumi played right into the hands of the Chinese fanatics by visiting Yasukuni and especially doing it on August 15 this year. He let the Chinese set the agenda. Why is beyond me, as I said above. (I only speculated that the reason was right-wing support)
This entire discussion, I trust you realize, isn’t even really about Yasukuni. It’s about a play for the upper-hand in Sino-Japanese relations, and most people (see the recent NY Times editorial on the Yasukuni issue for just one example) seem to think that Japan played it poorly.
October 2nd, 2006 at 12:56 pmKudan,
There is a good article from The New York Sun, which was written by a Hong Kongner.
http://www.nysun.com/article/37828
Much of the international criticism about Yasukuni/Japan is a recycling of criticism invented by pro-China/Korea Japanese journalists. NY Times articles about Japan/Korea are usually written by Norimitsu Onishi who is a correspondent from a Japanese leftist paper Asahi Shinbun. He basically claim Japan should accept whatever the China and Korea say.
October 2nd, 2006 at 8:57 pmFluffy,
Thanks. Here’s a question for you: do you think that visiting Yasukuni Shrine has been a good way for Japan to gain international political clout and a strong diplomatic position vis-a-vis China and Korea? Do you think that has been a successful method so far? As I said yesterday, in an ideal world the Japanese PM could do whatever he wanted and everyone else would keep their mouths shut. But we don’t live in an ideal world; we have to deal with real life situations and problems.
By the way, the NY Times editorial I referred to was written by the editorial writers of the paper, not Norimitsu Onishi, who is a staff writer. You can read the editorial here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/opinion/27wed2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Again, I emphasize to you that my position is:
Japan deserves a solid position of leadership in Asia and in world politics and diplomacy. Japan has one of the most powerful economies in the world, one of the best educated and cultured populations in the world, among the world’s most influential cultural and artistic works, and in general many of the world’s best ideas come from Japan. But, reacting so simplistically to Chinese and Korean ranting over Yasukuni has undercut a good deal of Japanese clout. That is really a shame in my opinion.
Trying to convince the world that either a. it’s OK for political figures to pay respects at a shrine where Class A war criminals are interred, or b. the Class A war criminals aren’t really war criminals because the US-led tribunal that declared them war criminals was illegitimate yada-yada-yada are two dead-end roads. In Japanese, these two roads are called “herikutsu.”
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:58 amKudan,
Sorry for the late replay.
I reckon that you haven’t seen this poll yet.
Japan gets good marks in poll
“Views were divided on the Yasukuni issue in Southeast Asia, just as they were in Japan.
In Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, those who said it was “acceptable” for Japan’s prime minister to visit the shrine exceeded those who said it was “unacceptable.” In Indonesia, 41 percent said it was “unacceptable,” surpassing 37 percent who said “acceptable.”
“The survey also asked pollees if Japan’s actions in their countries during World War II were still an obstacle to relations. “No” surpassed “yes” in all nations except South Korea, where 75 percent said “yes.” Those who said “no” was 73 percent in Vietnam, 66 percent in Malaysia, 62 percent in Indonesia and 49 percent in Thailand.”
http://www.kabar-irian.com/pipermail/kabar-indonesia/2006-September/004013.html
There are people who have a variety of thoughts. I believe that is the way of most democratic nation-states. Anyway, I don’t really think history-related issues, including the Yasukuni issue have a strong effect in Japan’s relations with other nations apart from Korea and China.
October 15th, 2006 at 11:05 pm