Comments on: Try LALAPALOOZA on them -- it's a panic!

Try LALAPALOOZA on them -- it's a panic!

crunchland — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:29:06 -0800

How to Spot a Jap ... scan of a 1942 US military educational comic strip, illustrated by Milton Canniff.

By: stinkycheese

stinkycheese — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:38:59 -0800

I've never been so amused, shocked, and horrified at the same time. My face didn't know what to do.

By: GoodJob!

GoodJob! — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:42:56 -0800

They're all over LI, NY... not hard to spot at all. Oh wait, you mean......

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:46:33 -0800

How to spot a Jew would be more helpful, since they control everything.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:48:42 -0800

I didn't know 'lalapalooza' was a real word. I thought they made it up for the festive. And really, if they've fooled even the Chinese, how does whitey have a chance?

By: 1adam12

1adam12 — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:50:19 -0800

mr_crash_davis ahh, but we can pronounce S and L perfectly. A better test would be to make one of us go into a store and pay retail.

By: shownomercy

shownomercy — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:53:11 -0800

At least they don't assume with typical prejudicial furor that all japs wear socks and shoes.

By: arto

arto — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:54:39 -0800

Remember, Americans have oddly pointed chins--and no nose whatsoever!

By: languagehat

languagehat — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:55:50 -0800

It's all about the lemon-yellow skin!

By: 517

517 — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:56:10 -0800

"The Chinese smiles easily-- the jap usually expects to be shot... and is very unhappy about the whole thing."

By: justkevin

justkevin — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 17:17:20 -0800

Good work capturing that jap, soldiers. G-string, stocky build, slanted eyes, concealed gadgets ... wait... You idiots! You've capture batman!

By: caddis

caddis — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 17:19:44 -0800

It's easier to fight an enemy after you demonize him.

By: IndigoJones

IndigoJones — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 17:21:29 -0800

A little respect for Mr Caniff, creator of Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon, and the unforgettable Miss Lace. You whippersnappers would be nowhere without the likes of him, I tells you, nowhere.

By: matteo

matteo — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 17:24:36 -0800

Although we were not enthusiastic warriors, there was a true hatred of the enemy. We were convinced that the "Japs" were subhuman; and our atrocities against them pretty much matched theirs against us. I was in the Pacific Theater of Operations, where the war was not only imperial but racial: the white race was fighting the yellow race, and the crown would go to us as we were the earth's supreme race, or so we had been taught. One of the ugliest aspects of that war was the racial stereotyping on both sides. In Europe we were respectful-even fearful-of the Germans. Since blacks and women were pretty much segregated in our military forces, World War II was, for us, literally, the white man's burden. So while the Golden Age had its moment in the sun up on deck, down in the engine room the management was inventing the "Defense" Department and the National Security Council with its secret, unconstitutional decrees, and the equally unconstitutional CIA, modeled, Allen Dulles remarked blithely, on the Soviets' NKVD. We were then, without public debate, committed to a never-ending war, even though the management knew that the enemy was no match for us, economically or militarily. But, through relentless CIA "disinformation," they managed to convince us that what was weak was strong, and that the Russians were definitely coming. "Build backyard shelters against the coming atomic war!" A generation was well and truly traumatized.

Gore Vidal

By: Matt Oneiros

Matt Oneiros — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 17:35:44 -0800

Well, this gives a clearer view of why my grandfather had such irrational feelings about the Japanese. That's a pretty horrifying book there.

By: empath

empath — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 17:38:20 -0800

Lalapalooza is an example of a shibolleth "The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivour of Ephraim said, "Let me go over," the men of Gilead asked him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he replied, "No," they said, "All right, say 'Shibboleth'." If he said, "Sibboleth," because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time."

By: ®@

®@ — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 17:55:23 -0800

It's an interesting problem: we had allied with one asiatic country and were fighting another. Since most american soldiers would see both the Japanese and Chinese as simply "Asian," what to do? So I can see the rationale for this. The bit about the shoes might actually have been useful, due to the custom of wearing that particular sandal. All the stuff about "he won't be happy about being captured" seems beyond stupid and downright dangerous. Would anyone reasonable want soldiers picking their enemies based on the level of fear they showed? Not that we're doing a great job now. It's still a sad and scary little piece of history, though.

By: emelenjr

emelenjr — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:07:49 -0800

This one's been around and around, but is probably worth mentioning here: All Look Same.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:10:33 -0800

I love that there's a warning to look out for 'comic strip gadgets' in a comic strip. Other than that, not much to love.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:19:07 -0800

Lalapalooza is an example of a shibolleth A sheath of wheat suspended near a waterford?

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:28:08 -0800

It's cute that 'shibboleth' is often a shibboleth to detect watchers of the West Wing.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:32:15 -0800

Huh, so they're calling Nips Japs now. Thanks for posting this; I'm printing it out for my next trip to SF. I have no doubt that my troubles will be over when I pull this baby out in public places to help me conduct my business according to the quaint, foreign customs of the natives out there.

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:32:54 -0800

I knew I'd seen this before---then I remembered: This was my Physical Anthropolgy textbook! Effin' midwest state college...

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:36:57 -0800

From the publishers of "HOW TO HANG A NIGGER" and "WHAT TO DO IF YOUR DAUGHTER'S MARRYING A JEW." Ok, I'm done.

By: jonson

jonson — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:39:21 -0800

This was pretty awesome, crunchland, thanks.

By: neuron

neuron — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:44:51 -0800

This reminds me of P.J. O'Rourke's "Brief Survey of the Various Foreigners." Unfortunately, he item in question seems to no longer be on National Lampoon's website. If someone could find it, that would be great.

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:48:11 -0800

I have a hard copy of that.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:49:07 -0800

neuron, Internet Archive is your friend.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:51:08 -0800

Dangit, I actually meant to break that last comment into two links. Here's the main Internet Archive site.

By: yerfatma

yerfatma — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:56:13 -0800

Scanned by Terry and the Intellectual Property Pirates.

By: phyrewerx

phyrewerx — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:56:32 -0800

Sourwookie, really? Are you serious?

By: Megafly

Megafly — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:57:02 -0800

I love how they didn't even think of the simplest solution. Get a Chinese guy, and have him tell you if the dudes are chinese or Japanese.

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:59:03 -0800

Yep. The midterm was brutal, man.

By: I Foody

I Foody — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:00:06 -0800

I'm less concerned about the racism and more concerned about the accuracy of the information. How much of it would actually be useful for telling a Japanese man from a Chineese man?

By: Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:06:16 -0800

How much truth is there to the sections on physical characteristics? Did Japanese people really tend to have a shuffling gait as compared to the "Chinese stride"? What about the space between the toes?

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:13:42 -0800

Actually, the "shuffling" was a subject of some comedy in the Japanese film The Hidden Blade, when an expert in Western military technique attempts to teach a group of samurai to run, western style, and they all do a sort of "legs trapped in kimono" high speed shuffle.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:41:07 -0800

yhcb : Your archive of that national lampoon thing craps out about 5 pages in. Now I'll never be able to identify a frenchman.

By: LarryC

LarryC — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:41:12 -0800

Terrific link! Though the racism is pretty mild stuff compared to some of the other WW2 propaganda we have linked to in the past.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:51:13 -0800

sumbitch. This one gets up to the Israelis, but craps out on them. If you'd like, I'll keep looking.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 20:53:00 -0800

eh. probably not worth the trouble.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:27:11 -0800

Shibboleth, lalapalooza, this identifying the enemy by mispronunciation has been going on a loooong time. I'm told the Dutch used "Scheveningen", the name of one of their seaside resort towns, to determine whether they had a German or not... And yeah, LarryC, I'd agree, the comic is far less egregious than many other publications and films from the period. In the case of this comic book they were actually trying to make something that could be useful in the field, that is, in reality, as opposed to the outlandishly exaggerated characteristics that were the norm in he kind of propaganda designed to simply make the soldier hate the enemy.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:38:30 -0800

yhbc: PDF, HTML

By: dhartung

dhartung — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:39:03 -0800

crunchland: The whole thing, in PDF. Get it while it lasts. As for the LALAPALOOZA booklet, I have to say I didn't find it as awful as I remembered. Japanese and Chinese are ethnically distinct, if only because Japan is an island and one of the most homogeneous societies on Earth. Gait isn't that out of place -- I've often read that Americans have a distinct gait compared to Europeans. Anyway, I doubt the booklet came into life-or-death use much -- in practice we probably relied on Chinese informants to tell us who was Japanese. Now, Pearl Buck's Dragon Seed, with the Chinese portrayed by Walter Huston, Katharine Hepburn, and even Turhan Bey -- that's a laugh riot. We weren't quite over the blackface days (and this was even before Olivier did Othello in blackface), but it's still hard to take.

By: dgaicun

dgaicun — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:44:30 -0800

See also this very similar Life Magazine article from December 1941, How to Tell Japs from the Chinese:

The typical Northern Chinese, represented by Ong Wen-hao, Chungking's Minister of Economic Affairs (left, above), is relatively tall and slenderly built. His complexion is parchment yellow, his face long and delicately boned, his nose more finely bridged. Representative of the Japanese people as a whole is Premier and General Hideki Tojo (left, below), who betrays aboriginal antecedents in a squat, long-torsoed build, a broader, more massively boned head and face, flat, often pug, nose, yellow-ocher skin and heavier beard. From this average type, aristocratic Japs, who claim kinship to the Imperial Household, diverge sharply. They are proud to approximate the patrician lines of the Northern Chinese.

By: mazola

mazola — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:54:07 -0800

Chinese go pee-pee in your coke. Gives 'em away every time.

By: dgaicun

dgaicun — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 21:58:12 -0800

The interesting side story to that article is that Life Magazine founder Henry Luce grew up in China to missionary parents, and had a deep fondness for the Chinese, and equally deep antipathy toward the Japanese aggressors.

By: brujita

brujita — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 22:20:40 -0800

This comic was mentioned in Dan Wakefield's novel Under the Apple Tree--there's a scene where the boys ask the Chinese laundryman whether he prefers chop suey or chow mein; which Midwestern small town 40's America would not have known were created in the states. The man bursts out laughing, and the boys are convinced he's Japanese.

By: Cyrano

Cyrano — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 23:15:39 -0800

This one gets up to the Israelis, but craps out on them. If you'd like, I'll keep looking. Put at 14 in place of the 13 in foreigners13.html (where it craps out) at the end of the link and you can keep going. You'll have to do the same thing with 18 and 19, and maybe again. I didn't go all the way through.

By: BlackLeotardFront

BlackLeotardFront — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 01:07:32 -0800

That was great. Thanks!

By: Atreides

Atreides — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 05:13:35 -0800

Makes me want to go back to the Archives and scan in the OSS manual on Arson that I found. Not interesting for the amazing racist pronouncements, but fun for its war time simplicity. I did make a copy of the cover, tho'.

By: Bugbread

Bugbread — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 06:36:36 -0800

Astro Zombie : "they all do a sort of 'legs trapped in kimono' high speed shuffle." You know, I'd never really noticed before, but now that you mention it, people in Japanese movies set in the feudal area all do run in a really peculiar way.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:17:43 -0800

"Chinese go pee-pee in your coke. Gives 'em away every time." "SUPPLIES!"

By: longbaugh

longbaugh — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:25:29 -0800

There's loads of horrible, nasty pdf format documents available here, including a "So you're going to China eh, Doughboy?" booklet amongst other awesome gems such as the "Private Shitfaced misses the war!" booklet. Was going to FPP it with a bunch of other stuff, but hey you've been good recently so here you go. Enjoy the "Welcome to Iraq" booklet here.

By: longbaugh

longbaugh — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 08:33:24 -0800

She Looked Clean ...but she was a no-good bitch with VD. REMEMBER MEN, don't poke the cooze when you've drunk some booze!

By: dgaicun

dgaicun — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 08:37:18 -0800

There's loads of horrible, nasty pdf format documents available here, including a "So you're going to China eh, Doughboy? I know, I've never seen so much horrible nastiness!:

If you think of the Chinese as a yellow-skinned people of a totally different race from us , you will probably will never get to know them. What's more, you'll be playing right into the hands of Hitler and the Japs. . . To counteract [their racist] propaganda you have to show the Chinese that Americans treat the Chinese as we treat any of our allies, and that we respect them as human beings on an equality with ourselves. Sure there are differences. So what? (p 2) Remember, it's Hitler who harps on the superiority of his own color, his own people, his own country. (p 45)

By: nola

nola — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 10:28:06 -0800

thank you for a very useful guide. i was afraid i would never be able to effectively spot japs.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 10:44:41 -0800

It's all inscrutable to me.

By: pax digita

pax digita — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 12:16:23 -0800

/makes mental note to check to see if any of the original Why We Fight films -- I think they were animated shorts -- are out on YouTube. Dad, who was forced to watch them at Ft. Sill in 1943, used to describe them with disgust, contempt, and a certain horrified fascination. Wow, I love Milton Caniff's work -- now I have yet another reason to say, "Trust the art and not the artist." One richly ironic aspect of the IJN attack on Pearl Harbor was that "the dirty sneaky yellow bastards" pulled off an attack very much in keeping with the classic Japanese combat ethic of a decisive masterstroke that wins the battle even before battle is properly joined. (In addition to which they were emulating the UK Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm's attack on the Italian Navy at Taranto thirteen months earlier -- Europeans against other Europeans.) Unfortunately, it contrasts sharply with American ideas of fair play and and open force-on-force confrontation that seem largely rooted in sports metaphors, romanticized ideas of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War and, I suppose, some vestiges of Old World chivalry. Modern warfare, successfully prosecuted, is anything but fighting fair; it's about "fire and manuver" -- ovewhelming the enemy with speed, surprise, firepower, and an utter lack of mercy -- "clubbing baby seals," in the parlance of one Marine aviator I've talked to. The US roundly and bitterly condemned Japan for fighting in a typically Japanese way. Yet the US, especially toward the end of the war, showed little compunction against unrestricted submarine warfare, bombing civilian targets or immolating holed-up Japanese troops while they were still alive. (Not that the US was treating the Wehrmacht or the German populace a whole lot better, on average. But at least they were white Europeans and therefore nominally human.) The Pearl Harbor attack not only fueled the blatant racism evidenced in the FPP link; it led to a general motivation of revenge that arguably helped justify Nisei relocations in the US and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the USS Enterprise entered Pearl Harbor early on 8 Dec 1941 and Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, standing on the flag bridge, viewed the damage the airstrikes had done to the base and especially Battleship Row, he famously said, "When this war is over, the Japanese language will be spoken only in Hell." That seems to have been the prevailing attitude of most of the US military in the PTO and, to whatever degree, plenty of folks on civvy street, so I'm sure it informed Mr. Caniff's work as well.

By: misozaki

misozaki — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:02:56 -0800

I've read somewhere that the samurai warriors of the Edo period walked with their arms and legs on the same side moving at the same time (how to explain... right arm and leg forward, then left arm and leg forward), which had something to do with being able to use their swords efficiently. I can't find any links to verify this, but since carrying swords in public was forbidden only about 150 years ago, it would explain "the shuffle," maybe?

By: Bugbread

Bugbread — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 06:14:20 -0800

misozaki, Interesting. I'd never heard that before. However, it got me thinking, and for the first time, I've realized why ninjas run (or are depicted as running) like they do: the left arm is flung behind and the right arm is placed in front of the body in order to always be able to quickly draw the sword (the left arm is basically kept completely out of the way). Thanks.

By: bokane

bokane — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 09:40:23 -0800

Honestly, it may just be that I've been living in China for the last few years - mainland Chinese have much stronger anti-Japanese prejudices (and physiognomic stereotypes) than anything the US Army could come up with - but this honestly doesn't seem that bad, compared to, say, superhero comics of the time. You know, the ones that said "SLAP A JAP!" on the front cover and had a picture of Batman punching a bucktooth, squinty-eyed Tojo.

By: stinkycheese

stinkycheese — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 11:01:13 -0800

I guess perhaps what gets me about this is that it (presumably) had ramifications in the real world, beyond the mere enforcement of racial bias. That, and the bizarre divisions between Chinese and Japanese, which is a little harder for me to digest than the simple 'bucktooth' stereotypes of US homegrown racist propaganda. And bokane's point about the Chinese having a much stronger bias against the Japanese puts me in mind of Lo Lieh's performance as the evil Japanese karate expert in Long hu dou, aka "Chinese Boxer" or "Hammer of God". Recommended.