English Internet and Ainu: Another example of Villianizing Japan.

I just went thru a couple of "Poor" Ainu YouTube videos and had to write about it.   The Japanese are depicted as steeling their lands, wiping them out and destroying their culture.   First off Modern Japanese are 1/3 Ainu so that's like saying  modern Mexicans stole Native Mexican's land.   Anyway the new talking point I've seen is:  The Evil Japanese forced Ainu to take on Japanese surnames.

Oh my God!  How evil!  How Dastardly!   Or... is it another case of vile white people smearing Japan for no other purpose but to hype their channels?    Fact.  Except for Samurai, Japanese people didn't have Surnames until 1870.   The modern government needed a way to keep track of its citizens so it became mandatory for everyone to register a surname of their choice - this included the Ainu!  Japanese and Ainu both had to get last names in 1870.     Absolutely critical to this is that the Ainu, just like the Japanese- didn't have surnames either.   Everyone got surnames in 1870.  Their is no story here, just a bunch of white people trying to paint a bad guy story for their ratings.

Since we are talking about the Ainu, I'll outline the true issue with the Ainu today.   It's about money.  No one is trying to take Ainu rights away or destroy their culture.  They are free to practice their culture and pass it down to their kids.   The issue is they want funding to promote their culture to keep alive their traditions.   Japanese feel they should promote their culture thru private funding and the Japanese people shouldn't have to pay for it.  Case in point, Okinawa became a state of Japan and all Okinawans are Japanese citizens yet  Okinawa maintains their culture without funding from the Central government(they fund themselves privately and thru local government).