The Ient Family: Family History

The Culture

Of course, I’ve got to talk to you eventually about the Japanese, but I’m not making excuses for them but it’s this culture bit. In Japan, there’s a culture known as Bushido[i]. Now Bushido, literally translated, it means the spirit of the warrior. Bushido indicates that under no circumstances do you capitulate – you fight to the death. You fight to the death and you go to your Valhalla[ii]; you fought for the emperor and off you go to your heaven. Now, when it came down to the prisoners of war, by virtue of being prisoners in their eyes we were less than the dust on the ground. In their view, if they gave us a cup of water they were doing us a favour. Here you have 300,000 prisoners of war; they were rubbish, less than dust. In their eyes, we should have fought until we died. In their view, if we had fought in the proper way we wouldn’t have been in the position we were in. Therefore when they gave you a bowl of rice or a cup of water, we should think ourselves lucky. Whether we liked it or not, this was the Japanese attitude towards the prisoners of war, and this is basically why we were so badly treated. The Japanese weren’t subservient to the Geneva Convention, that concept was Bushido and we were less than the dust, so if we died, it didn’t make the slightest difference.

---