Aiming at Olympic boom, Japan builds 'Ethnic Harmony' tribute to indigenous Ainu
TOKYO (Reuters) - On a wooded lake shore in northern Japan, the government is building a modernist shrine that has divided the indigenous Ainu community whose vanishing culture it was designed to celebrate.
At a cost so far of $220 million, Japan's "Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony" is on track to open in time for the 2020 Olympics, part of a drive by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to draw millions of foreign visitors to Japan and to the northern city of Sapporo, where the Olympic marathon will be run.
Also known as "Upopoy" or "singing together" in the Ainu language, the complex will include a museum, a replica of an Ainu village, many of which Japan destroyed in its 19th Century colonization of Hokkaido, and a memorial housing the bones of hundreds of Ainu whose remains were sent to universities in the 20th Century.
For some surviving Ainu, whose exact numbers are unknown, the project underscores how Japan has failed to come to terms with its history - despite more than a decade of deliberation on how Tokyo could meet its commitments to an indigenous group it officially recognized in 2008.
Read more: https://www.metro.us/reuters/sports/aiming-olympic-boom-japan-builds-ethnic-harmony-tribute-to-indigenous-ainu
(Metro New York)
