J-family looks after Eikaiwa-sensei's grave for 140 years

[yanpa]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/d ... s-identity

[legion]

But Debito said nobody cares about random gaijin

[Russell]

But Debito said nobody cares about random gaijin

There is not necessarily a contradiction.

Debito speaks only about random gaijins that are still alive...

[matsuki]

But Debito said nobody cares about random gaijin

There is not necessarily a contradiction.

Debito speaks only about random gaijins that are still alive...

Seems there was plenty of hate for the dead as well...

The job was not without controversy, however. Murai recalled her father-in-law saying that the family had had a “hard time” during the war due to their insistence on maintaining the grave of a citizen of Japan’s then enemy.

Isn't Yasukuni also filled with the ashes of "the enemy?"

[Salty]

Yup – it is easy to accept that a kanji was responsible for Bernard George Littlewood being turned into Philip Ward.

[Russell]

Yup – it is easy to accept that a kanji was responsible for Bernard George Littlewood being turned into Philip Ward.

LOL.

Given that some kanji have extremely many readings (like 生), it still would not surprise me...

[wagyl]

Isn't Yasukuni also filled with the ashes of "the enemy?"

Prisoners of War and the like? I don't think so. People have this funny idea that their fragments should only be on land consecrated to their own particular version of Sky Fairy, so I don't think they will be in a Shinto shrine, but someone pipe up and correct me if I am wrong. I do know that there is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery near Hodogaya, with I think some Dutch graves or ashes let in too because the King was nice like that. By the time they had finished up being prisoners of war they didn't take up much space really, to be honest.

The King also let in some rebels, too, from the former colonies in North America. http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cem ... 20CEMETERY

[Samurai_Jerk]

Isn't Yasukuni also filled with the ashes of "the enemy?"

Prisoners of War and the like? I don't think so. People have this funny idea that their fragments should only be on land consecrated to their own particular version of Sky Fairy, so I don't think they will be in a Shinto shrine, but someone pipe up and correct me if I am wrong.

There is beef with some families of ethnic Koreans and Chinese (Taiwanese) who are interred there. However, those were people who fought for Japan not against it. I think it's a question of whether they fought for Japan willingly or not. Of course the same could be asked about a lot of Japanese who died fighting for the motherland.