[hennaz]

Has anyone been to, or at least heard of Yasukuni Shrine?
I've heard a lot about this shrine in Tōkyō in the news. It is a very controversial shrine, because not only does it honour Japan's war dead, it also honours 30 A-class war criminals, including Hideki Tōjō!
This shrine continues to plague Japan's relations with China and with South Korea, especially when ex-prime minister Jun'ichirō Koizumi visited it in 2005 (in the same year, the Japanese government approved of a new school history textbook which apparently glossed over war time atrocities commited against Chinese and Korean civilians during WW2, that caused anti-Japanese protests across East Asia).
When I first read about the Nanjing Massacre of 1937, I was in tears. 300,000 Chinese civilians in Nanjing were murdered by the Japanese military, many others were raped. Even in Nanjing, China today, many people still recall these horrible actions. There is still quite a strong anti-Japanese feeling in China, and many Chinese and Koreans feel that the Japanese have never fully apologised for such war crimes.
Would you ever approve of me going to Yasukuni Shrine or not? (I'm planning to go to Japan next year). It may be worth going because as with most Shintō shrines in Japan, they are beautiful and have magnificant gardens and architecture (I went to Meiji Shrine in Tōkyō last year), and it might be worth seeing different points of view on history. On the other hand, if the actions the Japanese military commited against innocent Chinese and Korean citizens are unforgiveable, then I really shouldn't go to a shrine were Japan's war dead are honoured (it would be like the Germans honouring Adolf Hitler and the Nazi war dead).
What do you think?