So I wasn't imagining things...

I just read an article that made me remember something that happened when I was on a Team Ramen trip to Hong Kong. The series of articles was about the documentary "Flowers & Troops" (花と兵隊) by Yoju Matsubayashi (松林要樹) where he interviews 6 former Japanese soldiers from WWII. In the article, it mentions the attitudes he encountered when travelling in Asia as a Japanese, some of which stemmed from WWII.
We were checking into our hotel in Hong Kong, and I noticed that the hotel owner (who was from China) suddenly decided to change one of our rooms, and was very insistant that our Japanese friend got that room. It soon became evident, at least to me, why the sudden change had occured. While 2 of our rooms were newly renovated, with air conditioning, body spray showers, LCD TVs and magnetic security doors, the last room was far from it. Our friend's room looked like it was could have been in a slum. The matress was on top of a plywood platform, the TV was an old set with dial knobs, a ceiling fan instead of air-con, a bathroom door that hung on by one hinge, a sink (about the same size as those on airplanes) doubled as his shower...with his none exisitant water pressure, and a door knob that you had to jiggle as you turned the key. I think I mentioned to the others that this room change wasn't a mistake...I have to admit, it did make me a bit angry at the time. My friend had nothing to do with what happened. His parents weren't even alive during the war, so how can they treat him like that. But, at that same time, I could understand why it was happening. Old wounds heal slowly, especially when it feels like salt is always being rubbed into them (Yasukuni Shrine visits, the war museum that says it was "liberating its neighbours, denial of certain events/actions...) And it's always these things that make the international news, never the unifying events...
Anyways, I wonder if this film will be shown in Canada. It would be interesting to see some other perspectives on the war, different from the usual right-wing view. I remember looking at some of the history books at the junior high schools and thought how amazingly brief the parts on WWII were, considering how involved Japan was in this world event. Oh, and the WWII comic book was "interesting" as well...more blood and gore than educational. But it is interesting to see that perhaps the next generation (director is relatively young) is going out and learning on its own...instead of shrugging off what they've experienced, and to try to understand why. Perhaps politicians can learn from this...