A Buddhist statue stolen from a Japanese temple nearly 13 years ago is returned from South Korea
TOKYO (AP) — A 14th century Korean Buddhist statue stolen from a Japanese temple nearly 13 years ago was returned on Monday, following a yearslong legal battle between Japan and South Korea over its ownership that had further strained sensitive ties between the two Asian neighbors.
Dozens of temple members and local residents standing by the roadside applauded to welcome the statue as a truck carrying a wooden container with it arrived at Kannonji, a temple on Japan's western island of Tsushima.
The statue is expected to be kept at a local museum following a ceremony at the temple later in the day.
The gilt bronze statue Bodhisatva — a female goddess of mercy — is depicted in a sitting position and measures about 50 centimeters (20 inches) in height. It has been designated a cultural asset of the region and was one of two statues stolen in 2012 from Kannonji by thieves who were looking to sell them in South Korea.
The South Korean government had returned the other statue to the Japanese temple soon after the authorities recovered it from the thieves, who were arrested and charged.
But the Bodhisatva got trapped in legal dispute after Buseoksa, a South Korean temple in the western coastal city of Seosan, filed a lawsuit, claiming it as the rightful owner.
South Korea's Supreme Court in 2023 ruled in favor of the Japanese temple, ordering the South Korean temple to return the statue. After all the paperwork was completed in January, the statue remained on a 100-day loan to the South Korean temple for a farewell exhibit.
Sekko Tanaka, a former head monk at Kannonji, told reporters that the handover ceremony at the South Korean temple on Saturday was 'truly amicable and we shook hands.'
'A calm after a storm,' he said, adding that he felt relieved to see the dispute resolved while he is still alive.
Tanaka said he hoped South Koreans would visit Tsushima and discover its centuries-old cultural ties with Korea, though there will now be higher security around the statue.
Japan and South Korea have long had disputes over Japanese atrocities during its 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula, though their ties improved due to shared concern over regional security.
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Washington Post
a day ago
- Washington Post
Cram schools for kindergartners are the latest in South Korean college prep
SEOUL — The South Korean kindergartners squirmed through their English-language writing class. They were not doing their ABCs. They were getting a head start on a defining moment more than a decade in the future: their college entrance exam. Write a paragraph of five to eight sentences using five synonyms for 'large,' said Ms. Keri, their teacher. The kids began jotting down ideas in neat handwriting. But their minds wandered easily. 'Make a stinky paragraph!' one girl yelled in English. The class erupted into uproarious giggles, echoing: 'Stinky! Stinky!' South Korea has long been notorious for its hothouse education system, where kids go from classes at middle or high school straight to after-hours tutoring at cram schools, often until 10 or 11 p.m. These private programs prepare students for extremely difficult college entrance exams. Getting into an elite university is often seen as the golden ticket to a stable career at a top-tier company or government ministry. But the race to the top schools is intensifying amid a widening income gap, fueling parents' anxieties about their children's future job security, experts say. As a result, some parents think it's never too early to start preparing for college. Nearly half of children under 6 are now receiving some type of private education, most commonly English classes, according to a government survey released in March. 'The opportunities to succeed keep dwindling, but there is one rare path that remains available, which is going to a good university,' said Won-pyo Hong, a professor of education at Yonsei University in Seoul. 'Then, of course, the competition to get into a good university becomes fiercer.' The 6-year-olds learning from Ms. Keri — Keri Schnabel, a 31-year-old from Rhode Island — are among a growing cohort of South Korean children who are enrolled in private early-education programs. Such programs are almost always focused on developing English fluency — a must-have for social mobility and a marker of intellect and wealth. Some curriculums claim to teach math skills so advanced the kindergartners would be on track for medical school. There are even classes that train toddlers to sit without fidgeting for up to an hour at a time to build study habits early. These niche programs have become increasingly popular in the most affluent areas of Seoul, where some families shell out upward of $1,400 for the classes and related fees every month. They are now spreading throughout the country and gaining attention from the broader public, sparking debate over South Korea's cutthroat education system and the private education boom. 'We need to seriously consider the excessive desire for private education, excessive investment, and excessive academic and psychological pressure on our children,' Hong said. The skyrocketing cost of giving a child the best shot in life is one of the reasons South Korea has the world's lowest fertility rate and is facing a demographic crisis. Government surveys show the rising cost of private education is one of the factors deterring couples from having more than one child or starting a family at all. Critics of private education say the industry is stoking parents' anxieties by creating a sense of urgency and desperation. These early-childhood English classes are usually taught by native English speakers, like Schnabel, who teaches at Twinkle English Academy in the affluent Seoul neighborhood of Mokdong. The 5- and 6-year-olds in her class learn about idioms, similes and parts of speech from U.S. textbooks, including one for American second-graders. They speak in fluent English to each other and their teacher — sometimes about 'eating lava,' sometimes describing black holes as a 'giant singularity.' By the end of this program, they will write two-page essays with an introduction, three body paragraphs and a conclusion — the skill level of an American third-grader. Doing well in cram kindergarten will help them get into an elite cram school in first grade. 'The point of the English kindergarten is to do well in the next level, which is in elementary school,' said Kim Hye-jin, 37, whose 5-year-old attends English classes in Daechi, where private educational institutions are concentrated, in the ritzy Gangnam district. 'For the top cram schools, you have to get in early because the other schools don't come close to how good their programs are. So if you enroll later on, it becomes more difficult to follow their curriculum,' said Kim, an office worker. Those places have long wait lists for prospective first-graders, who are required to take entrance exams. A recent documentary by the broadcaster KBS found some of the entrance tests are at the English and math level of high school freshmen. 'Only the few top cram schools offer these tests, so they don't have many spots open. So the door to enter those schools gets smaller and smaller,' said Lee Mi-ae, an education consultant in Daechi. 'Parents' dreams and ambitions, and those academies that fan these flames, have led this industry to balloon.' This has given rise to 'prep' programs, mostly in Daechi, to specifically train kids to take entrance exams for elementary-level cram schools. Some of these programs teach children to memorize entire essays to regurgitate later. Prep schools pepper social media with advertisements claiming high success rates, and there is even a black market for entrance exams to help kids study. The Education Ministry last month launched an investigation into these marketing practices and extreme prep programs. In Daechi, buildings are lined with signs for an assortment of 'study cafes' and cram schools — English, math, coding, debating and more. There are even rest areas for students to take a breather between classes, including a 'screaming zone' where they can vent. The neighborhood is known for its relentless academic focus, extreme even for South Korea, and for launching kindergarten cram classes. 'They say children these days don't meet friends at playgrounds; they meet them at cram school,' said Kim, the Daechi parent. 'That's how unavoidable it is. As a parent, I just have to try to make the best decisions I can.' Kim and other parents are worried about their kids burning out. They also worry about their kids falling behind compared with their peers, or otherwise being left out of a system that promises to set their children up for elite education and a successful life. 'All of these mothers are pouring so much energy and attention into their children who are just [6 years old],' Kim said. 'So I worry a lot about how much worse it will get once they start elementary school.' More psychiatric and alternative medicine clinics are cropping up in the Gangnam area, according to domestic media reports. The number of health insurance claims for depression and anxiety among children 8 and under in the area has more than tripled in the past five years, according to figures released in April by the education committee in South Korea's legislature. Seo Dong-ju, 41, whose 5-year-old attends a less intensive English school in the Gangnam area, is not convinced that a competitive cram-school path is the right one for his son. 'My kid still loves dinosaurs and animals, so much that we always take him to the aquarium,' said Seo, a thoracic surgeon. Seo said he is concerned about the long-term physical, psychological and societal impacts of excessive schooling on little children. 'I think this culture needs to change dramatically,' Seo said. He hopes to see policymakers overhaul a system that he believes is a disservice to the nation's youngest. 'This is the biggest problem facing our children's generation right now,' he said. 'The most pitiful thing is that by the time it materializes into societal problems, it will be too late for them.' So Jin Jung contributed to this report.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Okinawa was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war. 80 years on, are the dead being betrayed?
default Today, the tranquility of this road dissecting the Okinawan jungle is broken only by occasional passing cars and wind rustling through the foliage. For centuries it was a well-worn bridleway in the town of Itoman, on the island's south-west coast. But 80 years ago, the clip of hooves gave way to the crackle of gunfire, when this sub-tropical Japanese island 1,000 miles south of Tokyo became the scene of the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war. When the fighting ended three months later, 200,000 Japanese and Americans were dead, including an estimated 90,000 civilians – around a quarter of Okinawa's non-military population. Many died during the US invasion or from starvation; others killed themselves in groups on the orders of the Japanese military, huddling in caves before detonating grenades – an irreversible flight from the terror of the 'typhoon of steel' raging outside. Takamatsu Gushiken wonders if something similar happened to the owner of a bone fragment he has uncovered deep inside one of the caves, known locally as gama, that dot Okinawa's southern reaches. In some, Japanese soldiers laid in wait for the advancing Americans; in others, families – usually women and children – prayed for the guns to fall silent. 'I think it's from the hand of a young boy or girl,' says Gushiken, a 71-year-old volunteer 'bone hunter' who has spent decades scraping away at the hardened crust of Okinawa's cave floors in search of remains that would otherwise stay buried where their owners died. 'But it is impossible to say if they were killed or committed suicide.' When the battle ended, the corpses of civilians and men in uniform were scattered over the fields. For the survivors, their island now under US military occupation just weeks before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, life could only restart once they had attended to the dead. 'The first thing they did was collect the corpses,' Gushiken explains. 'There were lots of dead bodies, on the roads, in villages, even in the back yards of their own homes.' default Some of the remains have been committed to the earth in perpetuity, buried beneath postwar housing complexes, businesses and other infrastructure, turning Okinawa's killing fields into countless unmarked graves. As the island prepares to mark 80 years since the end of the battle on 23 June, Gushiken refuses to abandon his mission to uncover as many remains as possible, identify them and return them to their families. Most of the remains of the estimated 188,140 Japanese killed in the battle have been collected and placed in the national cemetery on the island, according to the health ministry. But the government's DNA matching efforts have been painfully slow and inadequate. 'It's been 80 years, so it's very difficult to find remains … but they are still there,' says Gushiken, who recalls finding skulls encased in military helmets during childhood insect hunts in the mountains. 'And the bones are getting smaller and smaller.' The passage of time, and the chaotic circumstances surrounding the victims' deaths, mean only a few families will gain any sense of closure. The remains of about 1,400 people found on Okinawa – including hundreds uncovered by Gushiken and other volunteers – sit in storage for possible identification with DNA testing. But so far just six have been identified and returned to their families. default Gushiken is motivated by more than a sense of duty towards the dead of Okinawa – military and civilian, Japanese and American, and, according to estimates, more than 3,500 Koreans who were forced to fight for Imperial Japan, then their country's colonial ruler. Standing at the edge of a field, he watches diggers remove white, coral-laced soil from a distant quarry. Here and in other locations, he says, Japan's government, with the support of the US, is engaging in an act of desecration against the unknown number of war dead whose remains have yet to be found, by using the soil where they fell as landfill for the use of a new generation of American soldiers. 'Instead, this should be a place where people can go and learn about how people died here,' Gushiken says. 'Where they can think about the meaning of war and peace, and pray for the dead.' On 1 April 1945, US troops landed on Okinawa during their push towards mainland Japan, beginning a battle that lasted until late June. About 12,000 Americans and more than 188,000 Japanese died. Hatsue Fukumine recalls seeing US planes fly towards her home on Tarama, a dot in the ocean west of the main Okinawan island. 'My mother was deaf and so couldn't hear the planes,' says Fukumine. 'I used to run over to her, gesture and grab her hand as we ran to the air raid shelters.' Tarama, home to a small Japanese garrison, was targeted by air raids and naval bombardment. 'There was practically nothing to bomb there,' says Fukumine, who moved to the main island in her teens to work in a pineapple canning factory. She gained her high school graduation certificate at 70 and, now 90, has spent the past decade hosting a weekly community radio show. By the time Fukumine had married and had three children, Okinawa was under US occupation, and would remain effectively ruled from Washington until 1972, two decades longer than the rest of Japan. But the US occupation did not end with Okinawa's return to Japanese control. Today it is a fortress, as host to more than half of the 47,000 US troops in Japan and about three-quarters of its military bases. Postwar geopolitics thrust the site of the last major battle of the Pacific war into its central role in present-day tensions, amid Chinese claims over disputed parts of the East and South China Seas, and the emergence of a nuclear-armed North Korea. And it is here, in the cobalt-blue seas of Japan's southernmost prefecture, that the US response to any emergency in the Taiwan strait will begin. While Okinawa's economic, educational and social development lagged behind the rest of Japan, huge swathes of land were taken over by the US military, as the island became a crucial support base – an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier' – during the Korean and Vietnam wars. Today, the island occupies an uneasy place in the Japanese consciousness: holidaymakers flock there in search of sun and immersion in a culture that bears little resemblance to that of the mainland. For all its exotic attraction, this island of 1.4 million has higher levels of unemployment and poverty than anywhere else in Japan. It is a living study in cultural contrasts, from the ubiquitous tattoo parlours and bars catering to servicemen along Gate Street near Kadena, the biggest US air base in east Asia, to quiet villages whose architecture speaks to Okinawa's time as an independent kingdom, with close trading and cultural ties to China and south-east Asia until it was annexed by Japan in the late 19th century. The eight decades since the battle of Okinawa are also the story of two communities forced to live in proximity, sometimes with success, but often against a backdrop of resentment and suspicion. Those sentiments are at their most visceral in Ginowan, a densely populated city dominated by Futenma, a sprawling marine corps air base whose perimeter is all that divides its helicopters and tilt-rotor Osprey planes from schools, hospitals and homes. After the 1995 abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US servicemen, Tokyo and Washington agreed to reduce the US military footprint on Okinawa by closing Futenma and relocating its functions to a more remote location on the island's north-east coast. In addition, 9,000 US marines would be sent to Guam, Hawaii and other US territories. Construction of the new base, in the fishing village of Henoko, has been delayed by local opposition and a string of legal challenges. On a recent afternoon, barges dumped rubble into the bay – the foundations for an offshore runway – while a Japanese coast guard vessel played cat-and-mouse with protesters in canoes who had breached the site's floating barrier. The Henoko base is opposed by most islanders, who say it will destroy the marine environment – including one of the few remaining habitats of the dugong – and do little to reduce the US military footprint. It is not expected to be completed until at least 2036 – 40 years after Japan and the US agreed to build it. Political controversy aside, Gushiken believes the base represents a moral affront targeting Okinawa's war dead and their families: some of the soil and sediment being used to reclaim land in the bay comes from seven former sites of Pacific war battles, where the remains of fallen soldiers and civilians remain buried. Dumping those remains into the sea to build a base for the US troops is, he says, 'a betrayal to their comrades-in-arms, to bereaved families and to the people of Japan'. The battle of Okinawa had become an inevitability a year before American troops came ashore, when the US capture of the Pacific island of Saipan signalled an invasion was only a matter of time. In July 1944, the government, anticipating an American assault on Okinawa, ordered the evacuation of 100,000 older people, women and children to Japan's main islands and Taiwan. On 21 August 1944, Hisashi Teruya boarded the Tsushima Maru, a transport vessel, at Naha port along with his mother, Shige, and his elder sister, Mitsuko. His father had been conscripted to fight in Siberia. The following evening their ship was struck by a US torpedo, killing 1,484 of the 1,800 passengers, including 784 schoolchildren. Teruya was asleep when the torpedo struck. 'I was four years old at the time, so I don't remember much,' he says. He has flashbacks of climbing a ladder up to the deck, which was swarming with petrified passengers. They were told to jump into the sea before the badly damaged ship sank, dragging them down with it. 'My mother pulled me by the hand, and we jumped.' Moments later, as they clung to the ropes of a large soy sauce barrel, Teruya's mother instructed him to hold on while she searched for his sister. That was the last time he saw his mother, who died along with his sister. As an approaching typhoon kicked up waves, Teruya drifted for 16 hours before being rescued by a fishing boat. 'I was just a little boy, so I can't remember my mother's face … only from photos,' he says. 'And I don't remember playing with my sister. I don't have any of those normal memories.' Teruya, who spent his childhood being passed around by relatives, did not utter a word about the Tsushima Maru tragedy until he was in his early 70s. 'I was getting old, so I thought it was time to open up about it,' he says in an interview at a memorial museum devoted to the tragedy. The 85-year-old's visits to the museum begin with a greeting before the grainy black-and-white photos of Shige and Mitsuko, exhibited on walls alongside images of hundreds of other victims. 'I tell them I have come to talk about the Tsushima Maru,' he says. With no family graves to visit, he set up a makeshift altar, his father – who did not survive the war – mother and sister each represented by stones he had found at personally meaningful locations. 'It won't be long until all of the people who lived through the war have gone, so I'm afraid that people will forget what happened,' he says. 'I hope that people who come here and learn about the Tsushima Maru will understand the horrors of war and realise that it can never happen again.' At 95, Eiki Senaha has clearer memories of the months his home turned into a battlefield. Then in his teens, he, like other Japanese schoolchildren, had been forced to abandon his studies to help the war effort. 'We were mobilised daily to build Kadena airfield,' says Senaha, a celebrated academic who is now president of Meio University. 'We carried shovels of dirt from morning till night. In those days, there was no asphalt or cement, so we had to break up rocks to build the runway.' In late March 1945, with the US invasion imminent, Senaha and other students were given a week to spend with their parents before returning to wartime duty. They were advised that this would be a good time to 'say goodbye'. But the air raids quickly intensified, forcing Senaha and his family to spend weeks hiding in the mountains. 'I could hear the sound of artillery shells,' he says. 'When they landed, they exploded and shrapnel would fly everywhere, slicing the branches off trees. I didn't want to move. My grandmother, who had poor eyesight, never stopped shaking.' Senaha had been told by military officials assigned to his school to kill himself rather than be captured and tortured by American soldiers. But as fires raged around his family's hideout, he and his relatives emerged with their arms raised to be confronted by dogs and soldiers with guns. 'I had decided to come out rather than die,' he said. 'I wanted to save my own life.' After a month in a makeshift camp as civilian prisoners, Senaha and his family were allowed to return to their village. It was a miracle that he had survived. 'My classmates died in droves. I'm sorry that they died and that I'm still alive. What did they think they were dying for? They died for their families. Not for the emperor. They died for their families, for the people of Okinawa.' As darkness falls, Gushiken returns on his moped to a hut outside his home and switches on his desk lamp. He leafs through an illustrated medical dictionary, his focus shifting between its pages to the fragments of bones on his desk. 'When I see the state of the bones, like those that were turned to charcoal by flamethrowers, I feel very sad,' he says. 'Especially if they belong to children.' On 23 June, the people of Okinawa will gather at the Cornerstone of Peace to mark the day their war ended, less than two months before Japan's disastrous militarist adventures were halted by two nuclear explosions hundreds of miles away. The anniversary will be a chance for Gushiken to reflect on how much – and how little – has changed in the eight decades since Japan embraced constitutional democracy, and his island became an American military fortress. 'Back then, if people spoke out against the war they were immediately arrested by the military police. There was no such thing as freedom of speech. That's why it's important that we speak out now, that we don't have to do as the government tells us. That we decide which direction the country goes in.' For now, though, Okinawa's future appears to be out of the hands of Gushiken and the majority of residents who oppose the new base in Henoko. Japan's government ignored the overwhelming 'no' vote delivered in a non-binding referendum in 2019, and the transfer of thousands of Marines, first agreed in 2012, only began this February, when just 105 left for Guam. US-Japan ties, and the regional tensions underpinning their alliance, have transformed since the bodies of soldiers and civilians were committed to Okinawa's soil. All the more reason, Gushiken says, for both countries to lay the ghosts of the past to rest. 'By using the soil to build the base, the Japanese government is stamping on the dignity of people who died in the battle – not just Japanese, but Americans and other people too,' he says. 'It's as if they are being killed all over again.' About this article Writer – Justin McCurry Video and photography - David Levene Multimedia editor – Laurence Topham Lead Designer - Harry Fischer Interactive Developers – Alessia Amitrano and Pip Lev Commissioning editor – Bonnie Malkin
Forbes
a day ago
- Forbes
Chinese Ritual Bronzes Used For Almost 3,000 Years On Display In NYC
The China Institute Gallery in New York is showing one of the world's greatest collections of ancient Chinese bronzes outside of China from a crucial period in the history of human civilization, 12th century BCE to 1st to 2nd century CE. The China Institute Gallery in New York is displaying ancient ritual bronzes owned by the Minneapolis Institute of Art through July 13 Loaned by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Bronze Age vessels for food and wine and imaginative animal sculptures are on view for the first time in New York through July 13. According to the China Institute Gallery, 'The emergence of the culture of bronze—an alloy of copper, tin and lead—remains a crucial chapter in the history of human civilization. Although China was not the first country to enter the Bronze Age, its bronzes from this period are unique in world history because of their variety and intricacy, the ritual context in which they developed, and the sheer number that have been unearthed over China's vast territory. The people of Bronze Age China believed in the hierarchy of beings, from the heavens to the king to the royal courts to the people. They created their art to maintain this order on earth and in the afterlife.' The gallery explained that 'in ancient China, ancestor worship, a practice based on the belief in life after death and the connection between the deceased and the living, played a significant role in daily life. Communal good depended on showing respect to ancestral spirits. This practice led to the establishment of ancestral temples to accommodate such rituals. Bronze vessels were made and then used to offer food and wine to the dead in elaborate ceremonial banquets. Their mystical surface decorations, particularly animal images, served as a means to communicate with spirits and deities. Ritual bronze vessels also gave the living an opportunity to acknowledge their debt to their ancestors, as well as the deeds and virtues of the deceased. In this way, ritual bronze vessels enhanced the sacredness and power of a temple.' It added that 'ritual bronzes were also used as funereal objects, buried in the tombs of nobles to provide the deceased with the same material environment they enjoyed in life, thus assuring immortality.' Large sets of bronze bells were also important elements in the ritual ceremonies that allowed the living to connect with the dead. The gallery said this 'is evidenced by the inscriptions on many musical instruments excavated in the past several decades from sites dating to the Western Zhou dynasty (1046–771 BCE). An inscription on a bronze bell dating to the early 900s BCE reads, 'I made this set of harmonically tuned chime bells. Use it so as to please and exalt those who arrive in splendor and to let the accomplished men of former generations rejoice.'' In addition, the gallery said 'there were profound political implications in linking ancestral rites and music. During the Western Zhou dynasty, the Zhou maintained a strict hierarchy based on a patriarchal clan system. An individual's duties, power and term of service were defined by his social status. Without musical harmony, society itself would become discordant. Therefore, music was emphasized as a means to help the populace follow the moral and social order and to regulate their conduct.' During the Eastern Zhou dynasty (771–256 BCE), the gallery also said there were 'important changes in the function, shape, decoration and style of bronzes. Due to advances in casting technology, changes in social conditions, and evolutions in regional taste, new fashions in ritual bronze casting arose. During the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties, bronze vessels were primarily used for sacrifices to ancestors. During the Eastern Zhou, however, bronze vessels diverged from the realm of religious ritual and began to be seen as luxury items in their own right, used by their owners to show off their wealth and power. Bronzes became more ornate in appearance, with extensive use of three-dimensional pendants.' The gallery called the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) 'the epilogue of the Chinese Bronze Age. During this period, the concept of immortality—the physical departure from human society and the achievement of eternal life—became a national preoccupation. This idea, influenced by Daoist teachings on eternity, had a tremendous impact on daily life and extended to representations in works of art, including bronzes.' The image of a goddess known as Queen Mother of the West. the most popular deity during this period, decorates bronze mirrors, while bronze horses like the one in the exhibition were placed in elaborately furnished aristocratic tombs to provide transportation for the deceased in the afterlife.
