AllLookSame.com

I remember a quiz here wherein you have to guess if the person on the picture is Japanese, Korean, or Chinese. This makes me want to start a similar website, one that would also give a quiz to see if you can tell if someone is American, British, or Canadian. Or if someone is Norwegian or Swedish or Finnish. Or if someone is Malaysian, Indonesian, Thai, or Filipino. You get my drift.

And news that satisfies me a fair bit: The issue flared up again this week after Tokyo approved the publication of a new high school history textbook that openly whitewashes Japan's wartime record, describing the Japanese army as a "liberator" in China and other Asian countries. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has encouraged the falsification of history in line with his government's more aggressive stance towards China and in the region.

It's unfortunate that there are no similar actions in the Philippines. None that I've heard of anyway. It makes me think if people here even care that Japan still pretends it was such a saint during World War 2. Probably not, because hey, if the offspring of a dictator can get into Congress, if the wife and son of a deposed president can get into the Senate, if people who contributed to the downward spiral of the country can still roam the lands freely, then we can forgive anyone anything, it seems like.