＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
<Added on June 14, 2024> “Concealing the facts about the radar illumination incident” was ordered by then-President Moon Jae-in
At a meeting between the defense ministers of Japan and South Korea on June 1, they agreed to prevent a recurrence of the incident in which the South Korean Navy illuminated a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force aircraft with radar, and are seeking to resume defense exchanges.
However, the postponement of the investigation into the facts has left the Liberal Democratic Party and other conservatives very dissatisfied. The Japanese side, which was hit by the fire-control radar, has various data showing the facts, and South Korea’s claims of complete denial are absurd.
It has now come to light that some South Korean military personnel have informally explained the entire sequence of events to the Japanese side, including that the cover-up of the irradiation was “on the orders of then-President Moon Jae-in.”
１．A lie told a hundred times becomes the truth
Have you ever heard the saying, “A lie told a hundred times becomes the truth”?
There is a proverb that says, “When one person spreads a lie, everyone spreads the truth.” This means that when one person spreads a lie, many people who hear it will spread it as fact.
When I look at the “anti-Japanese ideological education and propaganda by China and South Korea” that has been going on for many years, the recent statements made by the South Korean president, the so-called “comfort women issue,” the “wartime laborer ruling,” and “South Korea’s rebuttal to the radar illumination incident,” I feel that this proverb is true.
<The “wartime laborer ruling” and the “comfort women issue.”>
Regarding the increasing number of Chinese casualties in the Second Sino-Japanese War, I found some interesting information.
1946: Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of China: 1,328,501 (number of military deaths of the National Revolutionary Army)
1947: “Reparations Commission of the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China”: 4,397,504 (civilian deaths in areas controlled by the Kuomintang)
1947: “Reparations Commission of the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China”: 12,784,974 (3,650,405 National Revolutionary Army military casualties, 9,134,569 civilian casualties in Kuomintang-controlled areas)
1995: “Jiang Zemin Announces” 35 million (Jiang Zemin claims that “incomplete statistics” put the number of casualties from the Japanese invasion at 35 million)
Thus, the number of deaths and casualties cited by the Chinese side has increased, to the point that some commentators have jokingly suggested that the number of victims will be greater than the population of China at the time.
２．Black jokes related to April Fool’s Day
I think it’s common knowledge now that China has no qualms about lying, but there’s a funny dark joke related to April Fool’s Day.
On April 1, 2016, China’s Xinhua News Agency posted on Sina Weibo, “April Fool’s Day is incompatible with China’s distinctive culture and core socialist values. You should not take advantage of April Fool’s Day to tell or spread lies. Do not be fooled by lies.”
In response, Chinese Internet users made dark jokes, saying, “The state-run media publishes lies every day. The Chinese people have been lied to for 67 years. In Western countries, April Fool’s Day ends after April 1st, but in China it’s April Fool’s Day all year round.” and “It’s pathetic that Chinese people can’t even take a joke.”
The UK’s The Guardian and the US’s New York Times reported it as “the best joke of 2016.”
In addition, after so-called fake news became a social issue during the 2016 US presidential election, Scandinavian media outlets and others began to refrain from publishing their traditional April Fool’s Day articles from 2017.
３．Goebbels was a propaganda genius
I recall that Hitler wrote something similar in Mein Kampf, where he said, “The fundamental principle of propaganda aimed at a wide audience is to focus on a theme, an idea, a conclusion, and to repeat it relentlessly.”
Goebbels, the Nazi “Minister of Propaganda,” was called a “propaganda genius” and made full use of this technique.
One of the methods to control people’s way of thinking is “propaganda”. One of the techniques is “repeating the same thing over and over again”. As you hear it repeatedly, you start to think “Maybe it’s true?”, and before you know it, it becomes the truth and people start to believe it.
This is called the “illusory truth effect,” in which people repeatedly hear the same thing over and over again, and through the “simple contact effect,” they become familiar with the content, leading them to believe that something wrong or exaggerated is “correct,” which is different from the correct content.
This is a technique used by politicians to make the public believe the content of their speeches by repeatedly repeating the same content, as seen in President Trump’s “America First” catchphrase and tweets, and is also used in TV mail-order commercials.
We are keenly reminded once again of the importance of always having our own “principals” and “thinking with our own minds” so as not to be deceived by such “lies.