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The Documentary Podcast

Missing Histories: China and Japan

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.32.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2014

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

They are Asia’s economic giants - yet the historical record of Japan and China continues to cause tensions. China’s leaders accuse Japan of failing to apologise for its wartime aggression – while Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, talks of rewriting the country’s pacifist Constitution. Tensions are rising in the South China seas. Japanese journalist Mariko Oi and Chinese journalist Haining Liu, visit each other's country to explore the intertwineed histories of their two nations and what they mean today.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is a BBC podcast. You can get all our podcasts and our terms of use at BBCWorldService.com

0:07.3

Slash Podcasts Welcome to Missing Histories, China and Japan

0:18.2

on the BBC World Service I'm Marie Coy and this is Shibuya

0:29.4

a neighbourhood in the Japanese capital Tokyo.

0:36.9

This is the bus I used to take to school almost 20 years ago and the girls are wearing

0:42.5

the same green uniform I did. Kids from other schools used to call us the frogs of Shibuya

0:48.9

and I hated it. But this time I'm going back to school with a new friend.

0:54.9

I'm Henning Liu, a journalist from China.

0:57.7

I see a lot of very cute uniforms. I wish I had the one of those but that was a little.

1:06.1

I didn't think that was cute when I was just so really cute, just in my uniform when

1:11.0

I was their age.

1:13.0

Together over the next hour we're going to look at the long complicated and often bitter

1:19.0

relationship between our two countries.

1:22.8

It's been increasingly belligerent talk from China and Japan about a set of uninhabited

1:28.6

islands both countries claim and about how some of your politicians appear to owner people

1:34.2

we see as war criminals. It's part of the freedom season here on the BBC World Service.

1:41.4

Our contribution will be to ask donations free themselves from the past and how much

1:47.7

freedom do individuals have to remember that past. We're going to spend two weeks on

1:53.9

the road together, first in Japan, then in China. Now it's day one, chapter one, back to

2:00.8

school. So we are walking into a very narrow lane. We go up this hill and then we get

2:20.0

to one of the two entrances to the school. I walk this route for four years when I was

2:27.7

a student here at Sacred Heart, a private girl's school, and around us, we're looking

...

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