Why were Japanese people kept unaware for over seventy years of the fundamental differences between Japan, China, and Korea.
Through Asahi Shimbun’s influence, GHQ policy, Kō Bun’yū’s work, and Heinrich Schliemann’s observations, this essay exposes the concealed truth of Japanese civilization.

The number of perceptive individuals who nod in agreement with my answer—that it is because Asahi Shimbun has controlled Japan—must surely be increasing.
2016-11-04
“From Two Thousand Years Ago, Foreigners Were Astonished by the Differences Between Japan, China, and Korea,” Why the World Ultimately Becomes Disillusioned with China and Korea and Comes to Admire Japan by Kō Bun’yū—this book teaches us Japanese people things we have never known about our neighboring countries, Korea and China. More than that, it teaches us about Japan itself.
Why did such a foolish situation continue for seventy years after the war.
The number of perceptive individuals who nod in agreement with my answer—that it is because Asahi Shimbun has controlled Japan—must surely be increasing.
As already stated, I myself was a long-time subscriber to Asahi Shimbun. When I was a high school student, I was appointed by my world history teacher to give a two-hour lecture. As already stated, my alma mater could be called an elite training school of Japan without exaggeration.
Yet I knew absolutely nothing of the many facts that he teaches in this book.
I am now convinced. Asahi Shimbun had no choice but to conceal these facts. This was likely identical to the intentions of GHQ itself. In any case, unless prewar Japan was portrayed as an extraordinarily evil country, it would have been impossible to conceal the greatest war crimes in human history committed by them.
Not only did Asahi Shimbun publish articles that were one hundred percent obedient to GHQ, but beyond their intentions, as if it were a newspaper of Korea or China, it continued to write articles that demeaned and oppressed Japan.
I began to notice the discrepancy between these Asahi Shimbun articles and Japan’s historical reality about ten years ago.
That was after my third rediscovery of Kyoto, when I began visiting Kyoto every weekend and taking photographs with a digital camera.
The following is from the above-mentioned work by Kō Bun’yū, a book truly worthy of the Nobel Prize in the truest sense.
Omitted preceding text.
Schliemann, who was astonished by the overwhelming difference between China and Japan.
The man who traveled through Qing China and late-Tokugawa Japan in the mid-nineteenth century and left records of both was Heinrich Schliemann, famous for the excavation of the ruins of Troy.
He departed on a world journey in March 1865, six years before his archaeological excavation.
Traveling north by sea through India, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, he landed in Tianjin on April 27, 1865, passed through Beijing, and even visited the Great Wall.
He then returned to Shanghai and stayed for a while, after which he headed for Japan.
After staying in Japan for about one month, he next departed for San Francisco, and what he wrote during that voyage was Schliemann’s Travels: China and Japan.
Having observed China and Japan consecutively, his comparison holds extremely high documentary value.
Omitted.
After that, Schliemann boarded the steamship Peking in Shanghai and headed for Yokohama, Japan.
He arrived on June 1, 1865.
Upon landing in Japan, Schliemann stated the following.
“I have met many travelers in various countries, and they all spoke of Japan with expressions of deep emotion. I had long burned with the desire to visit this country.”
“When the boatmen put me down at one of the piers, they said ‘tempo’ and showed four fingers. They demanded four tenpō coins (thirteen sous) as their fare. I was greatly astonished. That was the absolute minimum. Chinese boatmen would have demanded at least four times that amount, and I therefore believed that complaints about them were inevitable.”
During the baggage inspection, he also expressed astonishment at the difference from Chinese officials, stating the following.
“Wishing to be exempted from the inspection if possible, I gave one bu (2.5 francs) to each of the two officials. To my astonishment, they beat their chests and said ‘Nippon musuko’ and refused it. A Japanese man, they said, must not neglect his duty for the sake of a gratuity, as it would violate his dignity.”
Schliemann was also accompanied by guards, and although he felt somewhat annoyed by the excessive protection, he was astonished by their diligence.
“The greatest insult to them is to offer money, even out of gratitude, and they would rather choose seppuku than accept it.”
He was also deeply impressed by the cleanliness of the streets and the people, stating the following.
“At the back of every house, one invariably sees flowers blooming and a small garden bordered by neatly trimmed trees. All Japanese are lovers of ceramics. Japanese houses as a whole are models of cleanliness.” “There can be no dispute that the Japanese are the cleanest people in the world. Even the poorest person visits one of the public bathhouses found everywhere in the city at least once a day.” “Chinese temples, lavishly decorated with marble and excessive ornamentation, were extremely filthy and decadent, inspiring nothing but disgust, whereas Japanese temples, though almost rustic in their simplicity, breathe order, show traces of careful maintenance, and filled me with great joy every time I visited these sacred spaces.”
As for Japanese craftsmanship, he praised it as having “reached the highest level of perfection attainable without the use of steam engines,” and extolled that “education is more widespread than in the civilized nations of Europe. While in other Asian countries, including China, women are left in complete ignorance, in Japan both men and women can read and write kana and kanji.”
He also touched upon Japan’s simple way of life, noting that in Europe enormous expenses are required for marriage due to the need for various furnishings and furniture, leading to difficulties in marriage, but that upon coming to Japan one realizes that most things considered indispensable in Europe are unnecessary, and that once accustomed to sitting seiza-style and using beautiful tatami mats, one can live just as comfortably without luxurious furnishings.
He further remarked that “here the monarch is everything and the laboring class is nothing. Nevertheless, this country displays peace, widespread contentment, prosperity, perfect order, and land cultivated better than in any other country in the world,” expressing his admiration for Japan’s safe and stable society.
The difference between Japan and China that Schliemann perceived is almost identical to what Chinese visitors to Japan often say today when comparing Japan with their own country.
Omitted.