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We have listened here to the delegates who have recalled the terrible human suffering, and the great material destruction of the late war in the Pacific. It is with feelings of sorrow that we recall the part played in that catastrophic human experience by the old Japan.

I'm afraid Japanese people tend to collective hysteria.

After the Second World War, people in Japan no longer died for their country, and even that expression was no longer used.

The Japanese have a strong tendency to suppress their own feelings. That's the Japanese character. They kill their own emotions.

Subsequently, the Japanese people experienced a variety of vicissitudes and were involved in international disputes, eventually, for the first time in their history, experiencing the horrors of modern warfare on their own soil during World War II.

We don't put our emotions out there in Japan. I'm Japanese, but I love to be honest.

Japan is dealing us a dead hand. For two years we have watched the Japanese drag their feet and we can't let them continue to slam the door in our faces.

Japan is the only country in the world to have suffered the ravages of atomic bombing. That experience left an indelible mark on the hearts of our people, making them passionately determined to renounce all wars.

The recipe to an unhappy life in Japan is to want to be Japanese if you are not. Anyone who wants to penetrate the country is setting themselves up for tears and disappointment.

I'd heard a lot of Asian people were rooting for me, but I had no idea. I was stunned. They were... impassioned, especially compared to Japan. I couldn't even have anticipated that kind of welcome.