snapshots of Korea- history

when HS, one of my young Korean acquaintances, was 7, he came over and asked me what car my parents drove. i said Toyota. he looked interested and came over and whispered in my ear that he liked Toyotas, but i should tell his parents that. when i asked why, he said it was because Koreans dont like Japanese cars.

Koreans have reasons to dislike the Japanese, and the Japanese, unlike the germans, have failed to apologise for their wartime atrocities. That said, the Koreans get their revenge in their history, or so i gather visiting a prison that has been converted into a museum in North west Seoul. It was constructed beginning in 1907 while Korea was a force protectorate of Japan, and it was used during the Japanese occupation as a torture centre, where many Korean patriots lost their lives. the museum is anxious to remind everyone of this, and walking around, you cant help but coming away with the impression that the Japanese were sub human barbarians. What the museum rather draws a veil over is the fact that the Japanese occupation ended in 1945, and the prison was used continuously by the South Korean government, which at times failed to recognise the civil and human right its own citizens, until 1987. However, that last 42 year period is ignored to filled the walls of tales of "patriotic martyrs" dying for Korean freedom. I wonder if Asia will ever revisit its wartime wounds.