A Japanese complained that his daughter was taught about the Nanjing Massacre by a foreign teacher. He tried to convince his daughter that it never happened. The tweet received over 60,000 likes, with more than thousand Japanese leaving supportive comments.
"Last night, my daughter made a shocking statement, so we hurriedly held a family meeting...My daughter said, "I'm embarrassed to be seen as Japanese..." When I asked her why, she replied, "I learned about the Nanjing Massacre in history class."Since my daughter attends an international school, I asked, "Did you learn that from a Japanese teacher?"She answered, "It was taught by a British teacher as part of the IGCSE curriculum..."※ IGCSE (Cambridge IGCSE) is a globally recognized secondary education qualification for students aged 14–16 (roughly Japanese middle school to first year of high school). It is centered on the British education system, after which students typically proceed to IB or AP programs.When my wife said, "We didn't do anything like that!", our daughter replied, "Mom and Dad, you just didn't know the facts back then..."I told her, "Until the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall was opened in China in 1985, even the Chinese weren't making a big deal about the 'Nanjing Incident'." But she responded, "That's the Japanese perspective. The world sees it differently..."I was shocked, so I showed her the attached article (from the New York Times, not Japanese media) and calmly explained that there was no rational benefit for the Japanese military to carry out such a massacre, along with the characteristics of Chinese propaganda. I also showed her photos of Chiang Kai-shek's actions and snapshots of Japanese soldiers with local people in Nanjing. My daughter still seems only half convinced.What worries me is that this kind of content is included in overseas education programs... I'm currently trying to figure out if there's anything that can be done about it."