When I was back in college, I recall a lot of my Japanese friends got a shock when they dealt with some of the more militant Chinese and Chinese-American population of the school. Here were a lot of people who were supremely pissed off at Japanese people, and didn’t hesitate to dive in after them, wearing rather noticeably large chips on their shoulders. To a certain degree, one cannot blame them, but let’s face it–every country has its dark past. China is not without its own.

Still, being upset and protesting is within limits. If I traveled to Hiroshima and someone whose parents suffered in the bombings started getting miffed at me in a representative way, I would move along and hopefully understand the motivation, if not the specific attempt to blame. Feeling as I do that the bombings were not necessary, I would not mind offering my apologies, at least on behalf of myself alone (not being able to speak for the whole country). Such is my personal choice.

But what if I was hit by a bus in that town and taken to a hospital–and said hospital refused to render medical aid until I expressly apologized for what my country did sixty years ago?

That would be something very different. And maybe the Chinese city of Haikou is just responding to an immediate fad, or somehow politics is involved, but if you ask me, it’s a seriously demented act. The hospital now sports a sign which reads, “Japanese people first apologize, then enter. Japanese people who ‘decide not to admit to their crimes’ are prohibited from entering.”

When a Jilin City restaurant started demanding the same of Japanese customers before service was offered, that’s different–you can just go to another restaurant. But a hospital? There’s a point after which Victimhood starts becoming Schmuckhood. Even if you had an exception for ER cases, it’s still way over the line. You don’t deny people medical care over such stuff. Period.

Seriously. Imagine a New York hospital refusing to take in any person of Arab descent unless they personally apologized for 9/11. That might make a few American yahoos feel good, but most Americans would recognize it for the moronic trash it is. I can only hope that most Chinese people feel the same way, and that what we’re looking at here is just a few extreme cases of idiocy unsupported by the mainstream.

Update: One day later, the hospital has lifted the restriction. Apparently, “not a lot but not a few” Japanese people attempted to enter the hospital that day, which may have eventually prompted the lifting of the demand.