What's it going to take, Koizumi?

Chinese Ambassador to Japan Wang Yi Thursday renewed his demand that Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi stop visiting a war-related Tokyo shrine. Wang then urged Koizumi to refrain from further hurting war victims through his visits to the controversial Tokyo shrine. Relations between Japan and China have been strained by Koizumi''s repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japanese Class-A war criminals among its war dead. (excerpt from Mainichi News)

Japan needs China and vice versa. Why the heck is the bozo prime minister going around, screwing that up? Every time Koizumi, or should I say, Mr. Venerable Koizumi (cough cough, gag, gag), visits the Yasukuni shrine, it flares up plenty of neighbouring Asian countries, namely China and Korea.

Now that is for good reason, too! Even to this day, there are backwards politicians in the government who deny things like the historical Nanjing Massacre and so on. That is really F%&#d up! Sorry, please forgive my profanity. Not to say that China is to be forgiven either - they have killed jillions and zillions of their own people.

History books here are so slanted and students are taught there was a big war, a very bad war, a terrible atrocious war...but it was said by my students, they were not taught WHY. Unfathomable! In Japan, students here all learn from the same textbooks, a kind of creepy uniformity I find a bit disturbing. You cannot blame them for not knowing about the past because so much is censored by the government that one can hardly learn anything of truth or substance.

Enough of my rambling. I hope this China and Japan tension eases up - the relationship has suffered a great deal of friction in the past year. Koizumi will continue visiting the shrine at the expense of the rest of the country. If all goes to hell with Asian countries' relationships with Japan, you can thank the big P.M. yourself. C'mon people - go out and vote for some real people to get into office. Unfortunately I cannot vote, but if I could, I'd be one hell of a lobbyist. Again, apologies for the profanity...