<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ChaseTheMiles:
This topic may be an old thread, but sentiment remains the same because somethings still haven't change. Japan still has not redeemed itself by apologizing, acknowledging, or compensating for its war crimes.</font>
No, Japan has apologized, acknowledged and compensated for its crimes (comfort women and chemical weapons left buried in China, just to name two). But you can well argue that Japan hasn't a/a/c
enough or admitted
all its war crimes, and then I would agree with you.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">I had said to avoid Shinto Shrines, not because the religion is necessarily the culprit; usually people in power are the ones who exploit and abuse the religious messages. However, the Shinto Shrines, especially the main one in Tokyo houses the names of the WWII war criminals.</font>
"The main one"?
Shinto's biggest shrines are the ones dubbed "taisha" (great shrine), the most important of which are in Ise and Izumo -- not Tokyo. These are devoted to the worship of various Japanese primordial deities and have nothing, zippo, nada to do with WW2 or even the Emperor. (Ise Taisha, for instance, is devoted to the sun goddess Amaterasu.)
What you are probably referring to is Yasukuni Shrine, which is the shrine to all of Japan's war dead. In Shinto theory, everybody who died in or because of any of Japan's wars (not just WW2) has his soul resting there. Some people find it distasteful that prisoners executed by the occupation forces for war crimes are included; me, I mostly just wonder what else they're supposed to do? It's not like Yasukuni is full of Tojo statues or something. Buddhists pray for the salvation of all beings, should we boycott them because this includes Hitler?
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">By the way, if you don't agree with my thoughts on the Shinto Shrines, you are more than welcome to go visit the Shrines yourself; but please don't tell me not to post information here that just might be important to someone who plans to visit Japan.</font>
I don't see anybody trying to censor you here... but we will set your facts straight, and frankly, if you have a beef with Japan then you should take a more radical step and
not go at all, preferably dropping a note to JNTO to explain why.
FWIW, the most infuriating place I've been to in Japan is Hiroshima's "Peace Memorial Museum" (read: atom bomb museum). The basic storyline is "there we were, happily sniffig daisies and wishing peace and happiness for everybody, when the eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil Americans dropped a nasty nuke on us for no reason at all!". Howls of protest eventually made them modify the first room of the exhibit a little to mention the tiny irrelevant detail that Japan started the war and raped most of Asia, but I believe eg. the Nanjing "Incident" (as the J. like to call it) is still not covered. If you want to boycott something, boycott
this.