"Didimao," or Who is this "we" you are speaking of?

I don't know if this is stupid and tasteless, or just plain stupid. But I'll make a deal: If Congressman Cao stops trying to "appropriate" Japanese culture and language, I'll promise never to try to appropriate Vietnamese culture and language.

And it would be even nicer...

...if he actually knew how to pronounce "harakiri" at all correctly, or that "seppuku" is actually the more appropriate term. Or if he had actually gotten his example right....

But I guess *actually* knowing what you're talking about is too much to ask when you're trying to self-righteously act like you know what you're talking about.

I find it interesting that the kind of people who will say outrageously inappropriate stuff like this are usually the same kind of people who will get it wrong.

I wonder if that's his idea

I wonder if that's his idea of "black humor".

I thought seppuku was mostly just the samurai, or a warrior thing.

As I understand it, in Japan, businesses that caused damage were liable for the full costs of the damage, and these debts would be visited on all the owners.

I was told that my great-grandfather had invested in a fishing boat, and the boat crashed on the rocks and the crew perished. The family was, basically, economically wiped out after paying for the deaths. So my grandfather eventually became a sailor, and that's how he ended up in America (in NYC). I'm not sure of the other particulars, like the Russo-Japanese war, the New Meiji depressions, etc.

If this old tradition or law were applied to BP, the company and its stockholders would be held liable for all damages and expenses related to the disaster.

(I say "old" because Japan probably does bailouts of big business disasters now.)

Maybe there *is* something to learn from old Japan's old ways.