Since the distinction between long and short vowels is often lost when writing in English, I don't know what connection, if any, there is with the Otori clan.
Thanks :). I didn't know if there were any connections, as i used to think the Otori clan from those novels were a fictional one, but when i saw the name of this monument i was wondering if there were any connections. You are correct...its impossible to compare the English spelling of japanese words and try see any connection.
By the way, I have mixed feelings about Yasukuni Shrine, which is an extremely controversial site in Japan. It's where the souls of the war dead are enshrined, including some people who were executed as war criminals. As such, it's a focal point for right wingers. It's so controversial that some families have asked that their relatives be removed from the rolls.
The right wingers make a point of visiting Yasukuni on the day commemorating the end of WWII, and they do so in the spirit of "Here are the poor maligned patriots who got such a bad rap."
The current prime minster and Cabinet did not go to Yasukuni this year, the first time in years that nobody from the government has gone.
It IS a whopping big shrine gate right in the middle of Tokyo, but frankly, it's so big and looms so large that it kind of creeps me out, knowing the history behind it.
Yes, i understand that this belongs to the Yasukuni Shrine, and I too have some mixed feelings about it. But I believe that Soldiers, regardless of which side they fought and died for, should be honored. I'm not certain..but this shrine actually started as a shrine in the late 1800s to commemorate fallen soldiers of that day...and later on it but carried on the tradition. So its not as if it was built in order to commemorate the ww2 dead.
I am somewhat ambivalent about the version of the pacific war story we are given in the MSM. And no..i'm not trying to explain away the horrors of Nankin and similar events, but imho the moral superiority the allies had went away the moment they dropped the nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (not to mention the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo..which actually killed more civilians than did the nuclear weapons)
I remember reading somewhere that the main reason the Japanese started their imperial expansion during/shortly before ww2 was mostly due to the lack of natural resources...resources Japan was denied by the western powers(colonial nations) of east/south east Asia which had an embargo on Japan.Some historians have suggested that if the Embargo was not there, Japan might not have even joined ww2...and even if it did, it would have joined the allies and not the axis.
This reminds me of a story i heard from my granddad. He was a staunch supporter of Gandhi and the non violent movement, while his brother was a staunch supporter of Subash Chandra Bose, the ex-member of Gandhi's Indian congress but who later split off to fight the British in an armed manner after the Massacre of civilians by the British in Jalian-Wala (the iconic event displayed in the movie "ghandi" )
Bose disliked the fact that Indian civilians had to fight on the side of the British during both world wars even though they had no say in the governing of their country....for him they were but cannon fodder. He made alliances with the Nazis and the Japanese, and raised an Army called the Indian National army, which was Armed and supplied by the japanese. The INA and the Japanese forces fought together in Burma and some imphal.
today the ashes of Chandra Bose are kept in the Renkōji Temple in japan. Indian leaders visit the shrine when they visit Japan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renkoji_templei digress
What i was trying to say is that its impossible to blame the rank and file for the actions of their leaders. Most of them were not even interested in the imperial ambitions but had their own reasons to fight....and some didn't even have the choice, as they were drafted. Therefore i think to stigmatize them, or to not honor their memory is like making outcasts out of the soldiers who served in the Iraq invasion. An invasion based on lies perpetuated by the politicians in power...the soldiers had no say.
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