Sunday, December 7, 2008

PH

Ah, yes-- before I leave: Happy Pearl Harbor Day.


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Posted by Kevin Kim at 11:57 AM

4 comments:

JW said...

I guess I should be happy about this day indeed. Otherwise, I being of Korean descent would at this moment have to communicate in Japanese instead of Korean or English.

But I'm not so sure this would sit so well with my fellow Americans of the Anglo variety.

(I'm hesitant to use the words Black and White these days; one commentor went so far as to say that my overuse of those words reminded him of a 1920s Klan rally. Do you think we really should limit the use of these words? I'd be curious to know what you think)

December 7, 2008 at 5:50 PM
Anonymous said...

For the thousands who died there, including my uncle, it is a day that is anything but happy. As he was my grandmother's favorite child, she was never quite the same afterwards according to my uncles and aunts. This is especially hard to swallow, once you learn that FDR actually had proof of the impending attack, but needed a way to force the U.S. into the war.

I'm a U.S. citizen of the Saxon variety, and it definitely doesn't sit well with me. Especially, as I spent every December 7th at mass with my grandmother. Many of these times were before school. I would arrive late to class enduring numerous stares and being forced to explain my tardiness. Also, without a body for closure, my grandmother prayed that her son was really alive and maybe suffered from amnesia which would explain his absence.

No. Not a happy day.

John, somehow back in Daejeon

December 8, 2008 at 2:38 PM
Kevin Kim said...

Two interestingly different perspectives. I had a French teacher in undergrad, a certain Madame Soudée, who hated Bastille Day because some of her ancestors were executed on that 14th of July. She refused to celebrate that day and saw nothing happy about it, so I can understand where you're coming from, John.


Kevin

("Soudée" is, by the way, the feminine participle of the verb "souder," to solder.)

December 8, 2008 at 3:48 PM
Anonymous said...

In my opinion, the celebratory days would be V-E and V-J days. Good luck finding Americans who can give you the actual dates of these days or D-day for that matter. More disappointing is the fact that most don't even know what July 4th actually represents.

If you get a chance, rent the mini-series "John Adams." It should be required viewing for all Americans to see what that term actually means. And what it means to really "serve" one's country and sacrifice. It is television at its best.

John, back in Daejeon

December 8, 2008 at 10:02 PM

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