Japan Ain't All That Bad

Amid the most recent wave of anti-Japanese sentiment that this whole comfort woman settlement has renewed amongst Koreans, I spent four nice days in Japan. Let me say once again that I understand that the Japanese were a brutal people with a sense of real estate entitlement hard to rival. They did nasty things to many people of many nations. And the reparation payments hardly come close to making up for what they did. I can think of nothing that would. And I feel for the Koreans who received about a grand for every person who died in the Japanese forced labour camps. A thousand bucks! And that's just for the people who died! What about all the people who worked for the Japanese for 40 years during their occupation of Korea? If you figure out the salaries based on years of work and reparations paid, it's probably less than a penny a day. Korea definitely got the shaft!

Canada paid 17 thou, and the States paid 20 thou to every Japanese person put into concentration camps after Pearl Harbour. And you can bet they were treated a whole lot better than the Koreans were treated by the Japanese in their forced labour camps! So why not try to get some Japanese appology or reparation payments for this? Maybe because it's already been settled. Or maybe it's because the comfort woman issue draws more international attention. It does, doesn't it? If you listen to Bill Burr, and do yourself a favour if you don't, he's hilarious, "A guy gets his dick cut off by a woman. Thrown into a trash compactor. Then she turns it on. We find this funny. We don't care. But if a girl got her titty cut off by a man, there'd be support groups, candlelight vigils, the NFL players would be wearing special headbands in the most effeminate colour imaginable for a month! Because people CARE!"

You know what, good for Korea! Get the money any way you can. And the new settlement works out to over 180,000 bucks per surviving comfort woman. As reparations and appologies for war crimes go, that's pretty substantial. But don't feel too bad for the Koreans. They have helped themselves to a measure of revenge over the years. There are more Koreans in Japan than any other foreign nationality except the Chinese and they aren't there for their health. Just the pachinko parlours alone, which are almost all owned by Koreans, have extracted untold amounts of reparation money. I heard a lot more Korean spoken on the streets of Fukuoka than Chinese. Koreans have found a lucrative trading partner in Japan. Even Korean athletes will go over to Japan and play for bigger bucks.

Here is a picture of Lee Dae Ho, (on the left), who plays for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. He was a heroic hitter in the playoffs this year too! I remember him as a Lotte Giant from the KBO. The point is, now the two countries are working together. It will be nice if this settlement can allow them to bury their rocky past and move on.

One thing that is irking me a bit is that the Japanese argued that the comfort women were paid prostitutes, the Koreans said they were forced into it. So now that the comfort women have been paid... I know, I know, it's different, but at the same time, they have now exchanged sex for money and proved the Japanese right. Sort of. I personally think asking only for an official appology would have reflected better on the comfort women. But anyway, that's all done. In the interest of the whole new year, new start thing, I'm going to try something rare: a positive blog post. I had a GREAT time wandering around th streets of Fukuoka and investigating many of the buildings built by the people around the same time that they were committing such atrocities. Such beauty amidst such ugliness! Japan!

These first pics are from Tochogi Temple. It's just outside of Gion Subway Station. It was the closest temple to where I stayed.

The red really blasts you in the eye! I love the old whiskery trees too. And the modern buildings for contrast.

It's hard to choose my favourites. Here's a smaller temple called Myotenji Temple. The wood is sanded smooth and still can be smelled. The gravel is carefully raked every day. Till some dude walks on it. Or drives on it.

Then I think, "Why not take a walk through Higashi Park and see what I can see?" So I do. And, BAM!!!

HUGE statue of Nichiren! This guy was a heroic teacher! A TEACHER! A statue of a TEACHER. WTG Japan! He was very much like the Chinese teacher that we all know as Confucius. His teachings of peace and equality upset the ruling gentry and made him a popular assassination target as they became more popular. He had to move a lot. One time his head was almost cut off but a large light in the sky, "a brilliant orb as bright as a moon," appeared and the execution was stayed. This is one of many pictures of his life that circle the base of the statue. Here he is teaching.

Notice that his figure is brown and untarnished. This is because people come to the statue and rub it. Nichiren Buddhism is still widely followed today.

This is probably the stayed execution although I can't see a bright orb flying across the sky.

So then I decided to go to a whole compound of temples located between Gion Station and the Mikasa River. I am not sure which temple is which but there were some nice ones.

This one was the only one I wasn't allowed to just walk on into. Not open to the public.

Most of the temples and shrines I went to have convenient stories to them that you can access by cell phone. I couldn't though. Roaming charges.

This Jyoten-Ji Temple was really nice and clean. It was built to honour the monk who brought culinary flour techniques to Japan that ultimately lead to udon noodles and other pastries. The Japanese aren't scared of carbs, they erect TEMPLES to them!

Then this little gem on the way to the castle ruins. That dog was really friendly! I gave him a good scratching. Had a drink of the water here too.

Again the red!

Finally, on my last day in Japan, on the way to the Korean embassy to pick up my work visa, I visited the ruins of Fukuoka Castle.

This is the base of it. Like many temples in Japan, (and in Korea), there is a sign stating that the original is gone or has been replaced due to the fact that it was destroyed by Japanese soldiers. Their violent imperialism was practiced on a smaller scale on their own people. As good as they were at building this beautiful architecture, they could sure knock it down with great efficiency too! Here's the castle as it was. How could anyone demolish this?

The location was well chosen. The view of the city from up there was tremendous!

As the hawks flew overhead, visa pick-up time drew near. One last shot of the castle. It was my best.

So, yes, they have quite a checkered past as a country, but Japan's not all bad. Hey, they have Hello Kitty airplanes!

Beer at KFC!

And if you look closely at these two pics, you will see that water costs close to 100 Yen. You can get BEER for that price! Beer the same price as water! This country can't be all that bad!

Leastaways, I don't reckon. Hopefully in the days and years to come, Korea and Japan will patch things up. I think they're well on their way.