Steve Gilliard has some interesting comments on how the rest of Asia hates the Japanese not so much for what they did to them but because of how Japan's past has been rewritten by the Japanese to wipe out those atrocities and turn themselves into victims.

It's not just a game: China plays Japan in the Asian Cup finals

The reason that the Chinese still hate the Japanese is not the killings. The Mongols, Russians and West have all killed their share of Chinese. But the Japanese are special. Japan has never come to terms with its past. Because of the atomic bomb and the sudden end of the war, there has been little real accounting of what the Japanese did to their neighbors. Koreans joke that if the North has nukes, one is going to land in Tokyo, regardless.

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I'm fascinated by how an entire country can change the reality of it's history; how an entire country can delude itself about the dark side of it's history. The US has it's own national myths. Myths that whitewash the past but that don't erase the reality and it's consequences. I just finished reading Toni Morrison's "Beloved." "Beloved" is a masterpiece. The story revolves around the experience of slavery. This country has a dark stain on it's past that colors much of what is happening in this country today. Minimizing or ignoring what slavery was doesn't make it go away. "Beloved" brings it home. This country will continue to be badly dysfunctional until that past is dealt with.

Then there are the national myths surrounding the genocide of the native Americans.