Earlier this year I made a comment on the decline of the testosteronical qualities in the Japanese culture. My first entry: HERE
Many of you scoffed at the Japanese Navy's recruitment video; not appreciating its relevance to the operational professionalism of the Nipponese Navy at large.
Well, as proof positive, let me share the following clip of the crew in a Japanese Coast Guard Cutter, all dressed-up like school girls and shaking their tail feathers in full pooftery.
Many of you scoffed at the Japanese Navy's recruitment video; not appreciating its relevance to the operational professionalism of the Nipponese Navy at large.
Well, as proof positive, let me share the following clip of the crew in a Japanese Coast Guard Cutter, all dressed-up like school girls and shaking their tail feathers in full pooftery.
I am learning that they were emulating their favorite bubble-gum pop group called AKB48:
Kinda like certain communities on our shores are prone to break into Broadway show-tunes, I guess.
May God help them, if the Chinese do drop the hammer on the Diaoyu Islands.
Boq
Who needs hammers when they could just drop a bunch of these.
*snicker*
0>;~}
Since the recent governmentally mandated analog-to-digital TV signal conversion, I've been watching a fair amount of Asian TV news and programming., including Japanese, ChiCom and South Korean.
The ChiComs seem to me to be much on the march, both in the East Asia area and all along South Asia to Africa and even South America. In East Asia, they seem to be "putting down stink" for their near neighbors in regard to territorial and border disputes. Their growing naval capabilities add heft to their tactics . Their South Asia-Africa-South America initiatives seemed more commerce and natural resource oriented. What's also interesting to me is the way their "entertainment" programs seem to have a large dose of subliminal political propaganda in regard to the legitimacy of the ChiCom state and the unity of the Chinese with all their internal minority groups. Chinese nationalism seems the lesson to be learned.
The Japanese seem to be concerned both commercially and politically by the Chinese efforts. The ChiComs have been bullying the Japanese for a while and the bullying carries weight with the Chinese people as it is often presented with some kind of "Remember WWII" aura. The recent Coast Guard incident upset the Japanese first as to the actual incident and then in the subsequent ChiCom rigidity and demands. The Japanese are going to have to figure out how to draw lines in the sand for the no longer sleeping giant across the way. The ChiComs are commericially and militarily powerful and they know it.
The South Koreans seem very focused on their commercial achievements and, as always, the problems with their northern cousins. The political separation is an emotional burden for the South, probably because of Korea's long history of holding together between China and Japan and because of its Confucian culture. They've recently broadcast entertainment programs about the 1950 war and the fight against the Japanese in the early 1900s. If you've ever been emotionally involved with an evil woman, I think you know the situation the South finds itself in. They seem to want to make nice with the ChiComs for some intermediary support, but the ChiComs will always be ChiComs, if there's nothing in it for them, nothing is what you can expect.
It seems to me that the ChiComs have some kind of "The Return of the Middle Kingdom" strategy going on. They have no real "friends" but want everyone, in one way or another, to limit their behavior to suit the ChiComs' purposes. Like the old days, kinda.
Does Michelle know about this?
Well, at least they got outta them breeks, and maybe they'll discover sporrans and graduate to claidheamh mòr (or their domestic version, the "odachi") before the Chinese Horde get amphibious...
@ Casey: Why do you think Michelle had Bill Clinton's thigh in a potentially strangulating grip? She was trying to keep them both from laughing when it was ahem...unveiled.
As to China and Japan NOW...theirs is a feud that goes back millenia. Were it to come to a shooting war...I don't think the Japanese have lost it, necessarily, but we do dorky stuff like that on our boats...as in this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBYUWPg32r4
Or this in the field: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW1toLy_FMQ&feature=related
The sick part about this is that hopefully no one would be naive enough to think that is what war is all about.
The recruiting ads are misleading for that reason alone.
This is the video I prefer! Of course the dancing is more goofy than ghey, but it's fun.