Comments on: How to Spot a Jap

By: Richard J. Johnson

Richard J. Johnson — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:05:15 +0000

If you think that there was anything objectionable in this publication, compare it to the garbage that the Nazi propaganda was spewing out to the German people, most of Europe and, to one degree of another, the rest of the entire world population.

This was 1942 folks; everybody was doin' it, doin' it!!!!!! Every word of it was part of the propaganda effort that each nation was making to justify the rotten things that were part of their involvement in WW-2.

Much, maybe all, of what was in "How to Spot a Jap" also appeared in the Chicago Trubune as the current episode of Terry and The Pirates. China was a valuable ally to the US at that time and much of our military effort involved close contact with Chinese, both civilians and military and alike. The war itself also brought us in contact with the Japanese and it was often hard to tell who was who.

Those of us in the USA read that strip with a mixture of interest and humor. You must remember that, even in 1942, the average American, was neither stupid nor uninformed. Criticism of the racist content of this material by today's socially correct fanatics is just about the height of absurdity: Read your history, expand your mind just a little: this was wartime 1942 and we had Asiatics that were friends and Asiatics that were not friends.

Let's hope, that despite how it looks to us today, in 1942 and on, maybe AT THAT TIME it saved a few of the good guys from a major wound in the ass!

P.S. This was actually of some concern to the crew members who made the B-25 bomber raid on Tokyo.

P.P.S. Actually, you had to have been there before you can even begin to understand it

By: Pete

Pete — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 01:58:43 +0000

The Zi-ca-wei library in Xujiahui has an original of this book.

I wonder if we are publishing similar stuff today on the differences between Kurds and Turks and Arabs and so on...

By: Tikki

Tikki — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:19:33 +0000

I’m ethnic Chinese and I can’t tell Chinese, Japanese and Koreans apart to save my life. Ok, maybe I can spot some Japanese who have strong Jomon features but there are also Chinese who look like Jomons. I took the test on alllooksame and did really poorly, something like 4 correct matches out of 18. I was a little cocky when I thought I spotted an obviously Japanese face on that test but now I’m not so sure anymore because he turned out to be Chinese! In Europe, I’ve been mistaken for a Korean by Koreans and in Japan, Japanese people thought I was Japanese (and it was a case of them speaking Japanese to me because they would speak Japanese to a Caucasian. It was those Japanese who spoke English with a group of foreigners and turned to me and spoke in Japanese thinking I was Japanese).

By: torai

torai — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:51:26 +0000

Japanese are not descendents from China.If they were their spoken language would bear some similiarity with Chinese which it doesn’t.Japanese are descendents of Koreans and peoples who migrated from South East Asia.Notably Yayoi and Jomon peoples and the kafun people.0 Chinese .

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 02:49:07 +0000

A lot of Koreans have distinctively Korean features, but some non-Korean Chinese do as well. Also, a booklet like the above that focuses on facial features is pretty useless because of the wide genetic diversity just within China itself. Many Chinese have pretty distinct regional features (so much so that my parents usually can tell which region/province a Chinese person's parents came from just by looking at them), but you probably can find more non-Fujian/Taiwan Chinese who look closer to the Japanese than to the Fujianese & Taiwanese, for instance.

The feet one might work, though.

By: heilong

heilong — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 12:07:02 +0000

not true, except for things like clothes and body language and the fact that the Japanese look like short versions of northern chinese there are no diffrences. Koreans do like to have curly hair(esp the men) that if a very korean traite, Japanese tourest you can spot a mile away also, but as I said if you look at their faces they are the same, the japanese who are in japan now are not native japanese, the people who own japan today are from Chinese and Korean decendence that emigrated to japan.

By: i can tell

i can tell — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 19:10:29 +0000

im from northern china. and i can distinguish if a man is a chinese or korean. its easy to tell. let say, if you are a jap, you can easily tell if this man infront of you whether is a chin or a jap. the same applies to everyone.

By: -joe

-joe — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 23:28:30 +0000

Wow, from the creator of Terry & The Pirates and Steve Canyon no less.

Caniff was a bit of a expert on the subject. Do you realize that Pearl Harbor happened 6 months earlier. Isn't it comforting to make comments from our middle class lives on how it must have felt 64 years ago.

By: myninjaplease » Blog Archive » How to Spot a Jap

myninjaplease » Blog Archive » How to Spot a Jap — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 17:36:38 +0000

[...] Link Via: Sinosplice [...]

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 14:26:12 +0000

cyn,

tell your husband to travel in continental Europe a bit more. Of course, there are exceptions – there are so many exceptions that they might become the rule. However, in Europe, most nationalities have distinctive features that are simply easy to spot – even between geographically close countries like Germany and Holland, an experienced eye can correctly guess the origin more often than not. I can’t really see the difference between Northern Chinese and Korean – but I’m sure that an experienced eye can, with some degree of correctness.