Japan’s choice of a former PM to head the Tokyo Olympic committee has already borne fruit, after he called English an “enemy language” at the Winter Olympics.
76-year-old Yoshiro Mori – the LDP Prime Minister of Japan from 2000 to 2001 – managed to get himself appointed to head the organizing committee for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and so was on hand in Sochi for press conference recently.
His attempt to explain away a challenge as to why someone barely conversant in English or any other language had been appointed to organise the world’s largest international sporting event soon upset most of the English and Japanese press in attendance:
“English was an enemy language, so without special study there’s no way my generation would understand a foreign language.”
Reporters in attendance wasted no time in condemning him for “inappropriately” calling English an enemy language, muttering that “he may have passed it off as a joke, but it was far from one.”
Despite being already absolutely notorious for gaffes, sleaze and general incompetence (presumably making him the ideal candidate for managing the Olympics), his remarks still succeeded in inspiring wonder amongst aghast Japanese:
“Just don’t speak!”
“But Mori was born in 1937 and received most of his education after the war had ended…”
“He was 8 when the war ended so it had nothing to do with him being unable to speak English properly.”
“Even as an excuse it is pretty weird.”
“Come on, he was right – it really was the language of an enemy nation.”
“I don’t understand why he could be criticised for stating a historical fact.”
“Because talking about past wars isn’t exactly appropriate for an Olympic venue?”
“Maybe, but why is the advanced age and limited language ability of the organisers appropriate either?”
“This old fool simply cannot keep his foot out of his mouth, can he?”
“Mori is fine to say this. All I see here is the arrogance of the whites!”
“It just hurts my head to think how this guy can come out with this stuff all the time. Anyway, you’d think if it were an enemy language that might be all the more reason to learn it and know thy enemy the better.”
“Blame the foreign reporters for not knowing this!”
“Even now most Japanese can’t actually speak English, so coming up with a weird excuse like this just shows what a fool he is…”
“Why are those hairy barbarians getting so upset about someone speaking a historical fact!”
“I’m a bit worried about them putting someone like this in charge of the Tokyo Olympics – is this going to be OK?”
“What’s wrong with some old Japanese guy not being able to speak English? The reporters were asking him a weird question anyway.”
“You’d think they could have foreseen something like this and picked someone who could manage at least English…”
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Newly elected Tokyo governor is a far-right.
Now this old retarded fucker manages Olympics.
Of course, anyone who gave a shit knows about Shitsow Abitch.
It's like the Japanese are willingly letting a known villain becoming the leader of their country. I'm crying and laughing at the same time.
Correction: The new Tokyo governor Masuzoe, while an LDP stooge, is actually quite mild compared to the xenophobic crap that was Ishihara, which not even the LDP could control.
Besides, Masuzoe was running against yet another protege of Ishihara's called Tamogami, who can match Ishihara in terms of batshit craziness.
Maybe the Japanese simply don't elect their leaders based on what they do for foreigners or what the foreigners think about them ...
...implying the Japanese freely elect leaders and not just choose which head of a yaku.. I mean political party they desire in power.
LOL @ the stupid nips. The only leason that you consider Engrish the enemy ranguage is because you can't speak it plopery !
You find it impossiburu and you sound rike foorus !
hope another earthquake dumps your solly asses into the sea at rong rast !
LEAVE. NOW.
Fuck off bitch.
Yeah, said the person who can't speak proper English, the irony is strong here.
That was sarcasm from a troll who got a nice reaction from you dumbasses. And he wrote not spoke.
i dont see what the big deal is, he did say "was" after all.
its you ignorant fucks who dont know past tense from present tense with the problems.
And that wasn't even lost in translation.
He did say "Japanese was the enemy country's language. In my era, it was better if you didn't study it too much, so it's harder [for me/my generation] to get an insight into foreign cultures."
Why are people making so much fuss out of this? It takes time to get over indoctrination you experienced from the ground up, and expressing that you are having a hard time understanding different cultures doesn't mean you won't try or can't do it. It wasn't very wise of him to say this, but he probably meant it as an advance apology for being inappropriate and not as a justification spreading right-wing bs.
What a farce. He was only 8 years old when WWII ended. English was already the most widely learned second language for his generation.
It's just people like him who see barbarians as "enemy" at all times become politicians in Japan.
Because if we don't distort his words it isn't sensationalist enough.
Excuse me, but this is what you mean, right:
He did say "ENGLISH was the enemy country's language. In my era, it was better if you didn't study it too much, so it's harder [for me/my generation] to get an insight into foreign cultures."
Again the media is the real evil here, but the old guy must be either too busy or an lazy ass to not be able to use English.
Comparing not knowing English to not knowing Japanese is stupid as fuck. English is the language of business and if you want to run the Olympics you should know the international language. What is any American getting out of knowing Japanese? It'd be like asking why Goku never trained in thumb wrestling. I agree this statement doesn't really say anything bad, but why doesn't someone working on the biggest international event not know any language other than his own?
@ Anon 13:17:
Excuse me, you think "lazy ass(-ness)" is a possible reason for him not knowing English? How many Americans know Japanese?
True, he answered the question correctly and gave a proper reason as to why he doesn't speak English.
Any way, not knowning English won't effect his ability to carry out the task at hand. His other skills are what is needed to see this event through.
Blame Artefact's choice of a title with his trolling
Lets put someone who cant even communicate with the others in charge, its like putting a general in charge of another´s Country.
You cant really expect this to end well if all he comes up with is something like: "You have been our former enemies, but lets get along well!".
Even if he thinks that way, he should keep those thoughts to himself, and stop trying to poison others minds with this bullshit.
You just excpect a competent organizer for those kind of events and not an old fool trying share his hatred for Foreigners.
Thing is, you'd expect a man with his level of experience to know better than to speak such words at a world class event. Every politician knows the art of doublespeak. So why did he deliberately choose that particular wording?
if you don't see how irrelevant,pointless, and really just how bad it makes him, everyone agreeing w/ him, and (by association) Japan itself look to the rest of the world 60+ years after most people stopped remotely caring about a true but otherwise useless fact that the US and Japan were once enemies then you are the ignorant one here,lol
“He was 8 when the war ended so it had nothing to do with him being unable to speak English properly.”
Nobody gives a shit about his generation since most of his generation is DEAD.
Most? Japan is a nation of living fossils, it'll take another 50 years til they've all been successfully killed off.
I do, I'd give anything to have a community with the past generation morals and way of acting, these days we've got millions of kids in adult bodies coming on the internet with no common courtesy, bullying and acting like they're untouchable. The government should allow good old fashioned ass kickings, and give out the addresses of these little shits that hide behind their computers.
is that the description of yourself?
Like yourself right?
Japan is mostly number 1 across educational averages for students, except English sticks out like a huge thumb, being lower than even some Asian countries that are even barely considered '2nd world'. I don't think attitudes like this should be acceptable.
They do extremely well on standardized tests but generally lag behind in critical thinking and making use of knowledge knowledge by thinking out side of the box.
Ironically Americans students beat them when it comes to doing something useful with STEM.
I believe this is why Japan has no Spacex's and Apple Computers even though everything else about the culture and economy says they should.
That's because Japan breeds worker drones, not thinkers.
Yes their daughters are so educated they run their own prostitution rings using cell phones and the internet and manage their own bank accounts at the age of 8 being prostitutes from age 8 to 15 with the local police depts. No wonder however, no one from Japan wants to marry any of these younger generation females.
Its paranoia everyone is afraid
Actually, Japan haven't been number 1 since the 80s, even in math. They're behind Korea across the board, as well as China in most subjects.
This is what happens when your educational system cannot fixate on American English or British English and to further cut costs will even hire brown people from India, to teach English.
So they're really being taught English in several dialects, with several unique distinctions and that is the primary reason why Japs cannot speak proper English. Also it does not help that they lack annunciation classes.
just to let you know, dialect aside those "brown" people you speak about...actually speak proper english with perfect grammar.
If i may be honest, it's countries like singapore that use "different" english. East asian trouble with english mostly stems from different "alphabet character" and vowel-consonant pronounciation. nothing politics.
So what will you do? Nuke them again so they finally properly teach their kids their masters' language?
Good thing we have educated people like you around.
They deserved it. They would of made Hitler jealous if he knew what the japs did.
Please learn to spell. At least your ignorance will reside solely in your ideas, not your words.
Typical chauvinistic japs, who think :
1. Our language are the master language
2. we are the master race
3. our emperor is GOD
ps : not all japs are like that, only few of them.
Yeah...right...and US doesnt do the same if not worst, right?
worse*
doesn't*
It's usually the old farts everywhere. They need to die already, it's too be embarassing to have these old narrow minded people in "leadership" positions.
Nope, it's not just the old farts. Assholes are everywhere and our generation and every single one to come will suck equally hard. It's just humanity.
You'll be surprised to learn that many Japanese don't realize the formal part of "their language" is actually Chinese. So much for the master race.
Only North Korea thinks that way
China Mandarin is the enemy language. You dumbass geezer!
Oh come on! He said it "was" an enemy language, clearly referring to the mentality of imperial Japan.
People are sensationalist and sometimes simply ... forget ... paying to much attention. It might ruin their story or headline.
What's wrong with the Mandarin language?
China is public enemy #1.
Islam is world enemy #1. Japan has just been lucky enough not to find out on their soil yet.
@23:50
You make other assholic countries such as USA sound like they are the saviour..
Stupidity and bigotry are the world's worst enemies. And they come in all shapes and sizes ...
shape shifting lizard people #1 enemy
What do you think kanji is? Japs are their own worst enemies...
Don't you dare speak ill of Persona 4.
Kanji and the Sino-Japanese vocabulary are derived from Han Chinese, not Mandarin. They are more than 1300 years old, and have changed comparably little over that time.
Mandarin is a very different language from Han Chinese. While some things are still the same or similar, going from Japanese to (modern) Chinese and vice versa is not a trivial thing at all - even if you leave out all the native Japanese stuff.
It's like saying all Europeans and Americans are actually Italian or Greek because their languages have so much in common with Latin and Ancient Greek...
Come on people, get your history facts straight.
Check your facts. The so called "Han Chinese" language is actually a collection of wildly different dialects, and not a single language. What's now known as "Mandarin" (a name given by westerners, it's simply "general chinese" in China) developed from the most mild dialect in north-central part where all other dialects meet and blended in. It sounds close enough to all other dialects that it's understandable to everyone. The geographical area was a melting pot where trade flourished. Being a blend, it changed relatively little over the years, while fringe dialects fluctuated.
Even as Japanese spoken language branched off as one of the furthest dialects from its Mandarin/general chinese roots, it's still close enough that most Japanese can make out basic meanings of Mandarin. This helped the Japanese military tremendously during its occupation of China in WWII.
Being forced to learn that damn language since young, i couldn't agree more.
@00:46
You forgot to mention that you didn't learn it very well..
In more way than one too. I swear that language grates on the ears, like the sounds of an arrogant prick.
I agree, Japanese does sound irritating.