Japanese delve beyond textbooks into dark past
By Chisa Fujioka
CHONAN, South Korea (Reuters): For 16-year-old Japanese high school student Rie Nanno, it came as something of a shock.
But then South Korea's Independence Hall museum, set up to counter Japanese textbooks that skirt the darker moments of Japan's wartime and colonial past, does not pull its punches.
"Japan acted so cruelly. I didn't think it was this bad," says Nanno after visiting the museum, which nestles in this quiet suburb of South Korea's capital, Seoul, and depicts grisly scenes from Japan's 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula.
Nanno has joined the ranks of a quiet but persistent stream of Japanese visiting sites in South Korea and China that reveal aspects of Japan's past that Tokyo prefers to leave untouched.
Japan riled Asian neighbors this year by approving a watered- down history text for use next year by junior high school students aged 13-15.
The two Koreas and China say it attempts to justify Japan's invasion of much of Asia in the early 20th century.
The Japanese government has said the textbook does not represent Japan's official view of history. Seoul says it ought to do more to block what it sees as censorship.
Publisher Fuso-sha began sales of the book on June 1 and has reported surprisingly strong demand, citing interest prompted by heavy media coverage of its approval.
But a steady stream of Japanese, including teachers supplementing studies with tours to prisons, museums and other historic sites, are working to set the record straight.
"Korea is geographically the closest country to Japan, yet there's so little we know about it," says teacher Masako Amatani, who accompanied Nanno and over 140 high school students to the Independence Hall museum.
"We wanted to expose our students to something more than just words in a history textbook, to question themselves more on how to approach an international community."
Inside, wax-figure displays show a body of a Korean independence fighter being twisted with iron chains and a second, trapped in a small wooden crate embedded with nails.
Some 24,000 Japanese a year make their way to the Independence Hall, a majority of them high school and junior high school students arriving by the busload on annual school trips.
That's not bad for a 120 billion won (US$92.09 million) museum built in response to a 1982 textbook row and initially deemed too shocking for students by some Japanese education inspectors.
"We started actively promoting the museum in Japan as the number of Japanese tourists increased," says Kim Yong-ju, the museum's education manager.
"The museum wasn't built to fuel anti-Japanese sentiment, but to make sure the harsh history between the two countries is not forgotten," Kim adds.
Signs in Korean, Japanese and English explain that exhibits are based on books and oral testimony from witnesses.
High school student Kyoko Maruyama was visibly shocked after the tour which included video footage of Korean women -- some of whom committed suicide -- forced to provide sex to Japanese troops during World War II.
"It makes you realize Japan did a lot of bad things. More Japanese people should come to see the museum," she says.
Many Japanese are, even years after leaving the classroom.
Kiyoshi Suzuki, a 32-year-old businessman, said he felt a need to reexamine the history he learned in school after some online chatting sessions with Koreans.
"I've made a lot of Korean friends through the Internet, and the history issue has come up a number of times. It's gotten me reading history books and coming to Korea to visit museums.
"Sometimes it's hard to believe that these things happened but I'm glad I came here to learn," Suzuki said, strolling the grounds of Seodaemun Prison in downtown Seoul, site to over 400 executions and the incarceration of some 40,000 Korean independence fighters during Japan's occupation of the peninsula.
"Textbooks should teach the truth about the good and the bad about Japan's past, not just its history with Korea but with other countries too," Suzuki said.
But historic sites remain far from mainstream tourism fare.
Suzuki laments the scant exposure places like Seodaemun Prison receive in Japanese travel guides.
Korean tourism promoters show little desire to promote the sites to Japanese tourists, numbered at nearly 2.4 million in 2000 and surging in the run-up to the 2002 World Cup soccer finals which the two countries will co-host.
"The number of Japanese tourists visiting history-related places has been rising," says Kim Tae-Yoon, a manager at Korea National Tourism Organization.
"But it's still not what we can call a trend," Kim adds.
"Putting extra energy into promoting historic sites is not something we plan on doing. It'll be like selling an unpopular product," he says.