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I read this bit below 2 - 3 years ago online. >> Annual profit/revenue (not quite sure) of Samsung Electronics (not Samsung overall, just Electronics) was grea
by dba7dba 7y ago
I read this bit below 2 - 3 years ago online.
>> Annual profit/revenue (not quite sure) of Samsung Electronics (not Samsung overall, just Electronics) was greater than or equal to top 9 Japanese electronic firms combined, including Sony.
I think the comparison does not include Sony Films though? Not quite sure.
A lot of people look at the economic miracle of West Germany and Japan post WW2 with admiration. Amazing accomplishments for sure. But both nations already had well established education, technology, institutions, and etc that were already present at end of WW2. Sure, a lot of it had been destroyed/disrupted because of the war. But they were there.
South Korea on the other hand had none of that. S. Korea never had the core ingredients needed for economic recovery. In 1945, literacy rate in Korea was 22%. Korea as a whole was just barely joining the modern world around 1900, a lot of it due to the colonization by Japan.
It is an amazing achievement.
I think S. Korea also feels more threatened than others because it shares land/sea border with China, Russia, and Japan. China/Russia, 2 most powerful nations with non-democratically elected government...
EDIT: Before someone yells at me for putting down Japan and/or putting Korea on a pedestal, I am just stating a fact I read. For sure, Japan has had amazing achievement in the past.
- oblio 7y agoJapan does need a bit of putting down. I've been to Japan and the Meiji Shrine had people with flags of Imperial Japan doing a photo session. They're quite admirable as a people in most respects but that's just misguided. Especially since without US backing China would definitely want to have a word or two with them about those war criminals. And today's China is not China during the century of humiliation. On the other hand South Korea did everything peacefully. They deserve their praise 120%. I just wish they'd be reunited with North Korea peacefully and with the resulting country following the South Korean model. That would be a great counterbalance in the region to Chinese ambition.
- jpatokal 7y agoThe Rising Sun flag remains the flag of the Japanese Navy to this day, and is appropriate to fly on any occasion where you'd fly a Navy flag. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_Flag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_Flag
- oblio 7y agoThe flag had the sun centered...
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y agoWhat, a whole country needs to be taken down a peg because a few idiots posed with imperial flags in a wartime srhine?
- oblio 7y agoDo you know the history of the shrine? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Shrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Shrine It's far from a "few idiots". The place is super controversial. A nice place, but super controversial, politically.
- rcombine 7y agoAre you maybe thinking of Yasukuni? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni_Shrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni_Shrine
- oblio 7y agoYeah, my bad, wrong link.
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y agoYes, I know what the Meiji shrine is. Like I say above, why do a few idiots waving flags at Meiji mean that _the entire country_ needs to be "taken down" like the OP says? I stress that this is "Japan"- the whole of Japan. Not the idiots waving flags at Meiji. Are all Japanese nationalist assholes?
- mr_overalls 7y agoI'm not going to support the gross generalization that an entire country needs to be humbled, BUT: the shrine is a flashpoint of Japanese ultra-nationalism, which is on the rise. Common ultra-nationalist beliefs are fairly odious: e.g. Japan should be applauded for liberating much of East Asia from Western colonial powers, the 1946-1948 Tokyo War Crimes tribunals were illegitimate, and the killings by Imperial Japanese troops during the 1937 "Nanjing massacre" were exaggerated or fabricated.