From early morning, and under cloudy skies, on August 15th, the 72nd anniversary of the end of World War II, visitors continued to gather at the Yasukuni Shrine grounds in Kudankita, Tokyo. Ahead of the 6 am opening, more than 200 people had queued up in front of the shrine gates, which were embossed […]
In July 1937, Amelia Earhart, American aviator lionized for her bravery, and navigator Frederick Noonan left New Guinea, then a territory of Australia, for the tiny United States-owned outpost of Howland Island. The two were attempting to fly around the world and were in the middle of the most perilous leg of their journey: the island-hopping […]
(Last of 3 Parts) Part 1: Lie Debunked: Historical Data Show No Forced Labor for Koreans Part 2: Forced Labor Propaganda: When You’ve Got No Historical Facts, Use Fake Graffiti On April 4, Lee Soon-deok, the oldest living former comfort woman, died of old age at a hospital in Seoul. She was […]
(Second of 3 Parts) Part 1: Lie Debunked: Historical Data Show No Forced Labor for Koreans On February 8, South Korean MBC TV’s Evening News program aired a special report on the Hashima coal mine, known as Gunkanjima, in Japan’s Nagasaki Prefecture. The broadcast was intended to refute the Sankei […]
(First of 3 Parts) There is a widely accepted view in Korea that, under Japanese rule, mobilized Koreans were made to work like “slaves” in poor conditions at domestic coal mines and elsewhere. They were paid little to nothing. There are sectors in the international community that compare it with the forced […]
Since it was given World Heritage Status by UNESCO in 2015, “Battleship Island” (Hashima) in Nagasaki has been a focal point of the anti-Japanese movement in Korea, connecting it to the conscription of Korean laborers during the Pacific War. It is getting attention once again in Korea. It was discovered that to […]
Part 1: At Yasukuni Shrine, People Pray for the Dead; Leave Politics Out of It When foreigners ask me, “What is Yasukuni?” I answer, “Japan’s Arlington.” At the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, USA, are inscribed on headstones the names of those who died in America’s wars: the War of Independence, […]
Former Japanese Self-Defense Force official Shigeharu Oku, 69, was temporarily detained and forbidden from leaving South Korea this week. The offense: without permission, he overlaid the stele that bore Seiji Yoshida’s apology for supposedly taking women on the Korean peninsula forcibly to become “sex slaves” for Japanese forces during the Second World War. […]
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe receives a letter of South Korean President Moon Jae-in from his special envoy Moon Hee-sang (left) on May 18th at Tokyo In a meeting on May 17, Moon Hee-sang—special envoy of South Korean President Moon Jae-in to Japan’s House Representative—told secretary general Toshihiro Nikai of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP): “While […]
“The Apology Monument” became a memorial monument (photo taken from a new book Removing My Father’s Apology) On May 11th, it was revealed that the son of Seiji Yoshida (deceased), who perjured claims of the forcible removal of women from the Korean Peninsula, had organized for the rewriting of the falsified explanations inscribed on the […]
Why did Korean fathers abandon their daughters without a fight? (Statue in Seoul, photo cr. Michael Yon.) Trouble is unfolding. Few people, outside Japan and academic circles in Korea and America, understand the history of Korea other than from what hyper-dramatic movie or TV scripts tell them. This Korean vacuum in the West […]
Japan said Monday, April 3, it would send its ambassador back to South Korea after a diplomatic row prompted his recall in January. A comfort women statue had been erected outside the Japanese consulate in Busan in late 2016—the latest in unlawful statues built across the Japanese embassy and other public buildings in South Korea. […]
