At the prayer corner of Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, Korean visitors are leaving prayers declaring Dokdo to be Korean land, reports the Hankyoreh Shinmun.
I Think the Meiji Emperor Would Have Disagreed…
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It’s pretty ridiculous, and rather sad. When my wife and I were in Tokyo for part of our honeymoon a couple of years ago, we went up the Tokyo City Hall building which commands some pretty good views. Some idiotic Koreans who visited before us had daubed some graffiti on the walls of the observation floor…
‘Dokdo nun uri ddang’ Bullshit. Rather sad that some Koreans are just so damn disrespectful whilst traveling abroad. As it was in Japan, did the Koreans agree that it should be renamed Takeshima and given up to the Japanese?
It’s also funny when foreigners make complaints about some aspects of living in Korea, some Korean idiots always go on about how we should respect their country.
Personally I behave in a much more respectful manner both here (in Korea) and abroad than 90% of the Koreans I’ve seen on my travels. I’ve never done any graffiti ever and certainly wouldn’t do it on a city building in which I’m a visitor, unless I had the talent of Banksy of course.
http://www.banksy.co.uk/menu.html
If I had that blokes talent I’d happily scribble anywhere I damn well pleased.
First of all, people at Meiji shrine are offering up written prayers that they pay for. In other words, Meiji shrine takes money for people to put up these prayers. That alone should make it a completely different case from your “ridiculous” comparison with Tokyo City Hall graffiti. These people writing up prayers are entitled to express their views and as long as the Meiji shrine is willing to take money for the practice, I don’t see the problem. At least these people are airing their political views in a peaceful and legal manner.
Second, your dismissal of “‘Dokdo nun uri ddang’ Bullshit” shows your lack of understanding of just how important the issue is to Koreans. The issue itself is not bullshit. That some people have chosen to graffiti about the issue is.
regardless of talent, vandalism is immoral.
Banksy’s work is not vandalism, it adds value to the urban landscape and carries great meaning.
Ugh. Remember that time some Koreans tried to freeze up the US gov’t website after that whole thing w/Anton Ono? Cuz THAT would show ‘em.
Absolutely disgusting. Koreans.
At Siem Riep I saw some graffiti that was carved into a temple. Now there’s disagraceful!.
Some of the grafiti was in the Roman alphabet so the moronic culprits could have been from a variety of countries.
Some was in Hangul, so straight away you know the nationality of the moron.
As for the Dokdo is our land garbage. Dokdo is NOT land, it’s just a solid tough as nails, useless rock.
I don’t know who tends to be ruder when traveling abroad, Korean nationals or Chinese nationals.
Koreans WERE vicitms which means everyone in the world has to understand them. That gives them the right to do such things, even in Japan.
The Koreans are NOT leaving graffiti. At least not in this case. They are leaving prayer messages, similar to what you see at Korean Buddhist temples where you can buy kiwa tiles with messages written on them. Only in this case, they are leaving messages about Dokdo. Which is still pretty classless, mind you — image if Japanese tourists to Bulguksa were buying kiwi messages with “Takeshima is Our Land” messages on them and you get the picture.
I don’t know what’s more funny… the fact that somebody wrote that over there, or the newspaper reporting it like a deed of great patriotism.
I know what’s not funny… Mr. Vitriol-in-its-Brevity in #5.
Marmot, does the Hanky say that Korean graffiti was left at Meiji Shrine or just prayer cards?
Graffiti is not cool, but it’s interesting that visitors to Japan go into the shrine dedicated to the emperor whose reign took over Korea and they offer a prayer for the Japanese to keep their hands off Dokdo.
Oh, you answered my question already. I need to learn to type faster.
Bulguksa is not the same as Meiji Shrine. The shrine is dedicated to the “enlightened” emperor that Korean was taken over during. Bulguksa isn’t about anything related to Korea taking over Japan.
According to Koreans they are a polite and warm hearted race.
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=160
http://www.topix.com/world/phi.....hilippines
http://english.hanban.edu.cn/e.....179181.htm
http://politics.alleba.com/200.....-deported/
If I recall correctly, they’ve also been leaving similar prayer cards at shrines on Tsushima for years now. Saw it on the Japanese TV news once.
JohnT:
Part one of the post you linked has some photos of Dokdo messages written on shrine tablets. ( http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=112 )
#2,
Yes, but charging money and paying for a prayer? That’s ethically wrong, not that I’m of the religious type. But you are right, they are entitled to pray for whatever they want (I think personally think it’s a waste of good money and prayer…not that I give much weight to the praying and other such superstitions).
I would argue that these ‘prayers’ make for a stronger expression of their guilt for enjoying their trip in Japan than their nationalistic views, actually.
#12, 14
I wonder what would the reaction be if foreigners left similar messages at Korean temples.
#10,
Yes. Someone has been obviously been studying the Fox News’s way of presenting things in a “fair and accurate” way.
Journalistic integrity? What’s that?
I understand the “complexity” of the issue Dokdo but, honestly speaking, if I was Japan, I’d say: “you know what? Take it. We don’t need that anyway”. After giving it to Korea, I would issue a statement on the reasons why, making clear that a piece of rock means nothing to me, since I’m the 2nd superpower in the world. One issue less, and the clear direction that a piece of rock makes no difference to Japan.
There is a great line in “Animal House,” prior to Delta House sabotaging the Faber College homecoming parade, that goes something along like, “On occasions like this, it requires someone to do something that is stupid, outrageous and futile – and we are just the guys to do it!”
In this line of political action, the Koreans rarely fail to disappoint.
First, let’s consider that Meiji Shrine is a Shinto site that no reasonable Korean is going to pray – for anything. So I can’t believe, naturally, the Korean plaques are anything but political protests.
Second, while obviously one can write anything on the wooden prayer tablets upon laying one’s money down, if someone is trying to deliver a message, why write it in Korean – a language very few Japanese and non-Koreans can read? It would have been more effective to write the protests in English if not Japanese.
In other words, this kind of protest is not only futile but masturbatory. I agree with bumfromkorea it’s comical that the Korean media are eagerly covering these jejune acts.
The nonsense on both sides of the issue continues…
“I wonder what would the reaction be if foreigners left similar messages at Korean temples.”
Meiji Shrine is dedicated to the emperor who took over Korea. I don’t think there’s any Korean temple that’s equivalent.
#18, a country that goes to the trouble to build things like this so they can claim a 200-mile EEZ is not a country that thinks “a piece of rock makes no difference”:
http://japanfocus.org/images/U.....ishima.jpg
Korea and Japan are two flavors of the same crazy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.....EZ_Dispute
Oooh, they wrote messages in a foreign language. That’ll teach those dirty Japs.
Tom,
You nailed it in post #19. I’m going to think of the Animal House comparison next time a bunch of angry ajosshis tear apart some hapless animal in protest.
#20,
“Meiji Shrine is dedicated to the emperor who took over Korea.”
All right. You have a bit of a point. I can understand the contempt. Nevertheless, Meiji has long been dead and modern Japanese’s degree of association to him is minimal at best, regardless of the fact that a very vocal minority of Japanese long for Japan’s past ‘glory’.
In any case, the following is a bit of a moot point.
“I don’t think there’s any Korean temple that’s equivalent.”
Besides, don’t you know that Japan doesn’t want to bring Korea to the international courts to get Dokdo? It hopes that by doing so it will increase its chances of winning the Kuril Islands. It wants to test the waters and hopes that a loss in its claim against Korea will increase its chances of winning against Russia.
#16
“Yes, but charging money and paying for a prayer? That’s ethically wrong, not that I’m of the religious type.”
The money is to buy an “emma”,a piece of wood with picture of a horse in the back.You can also pray your wish without any money,that ofcourse by ignoring a big donation box.
“Korea and Japan are two flavors of the same crazy.”
User-81, I’d agree except for the fact that almost all Koreans and almost no Japanese give a rat’s ass about the Dokdo/Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks issue.
“In other words, this kind of protest is not only futile but masturbatory.”
Tom, I think you’re right. I’ve always felt the same way about most of the protests I see in Korea. The audience/intended receipient of the message doesn’t seem to be as important as the satisfaction of an individual or group urge to vent. Whenever I’ve tried to point out that certain acts of protest (i.e. severing fingers, killing animals, etc.) might be counterproductive or seen by international media as being just plain nuts, I’m reminded that I do not “understand the mind of the protester(s).” The act of protesting appears to be just as, if not more important than, the outcome. (Don’t know if this is related, but one of my biggest struggles in teaching writing here – business writing and cover letters/resumes in particular – is to stress to students the importance of putting themselves in the shoes of the reader…)
Robert, not to get on you about the title of this thread…but I DOUBT the Meiji emperor disagreed about Dokdo being Korean land until about 1905 or 1906. Afterwards, I am sure he thought of it (and the entire Korean peninsula) as Japanese land.
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