I’m Bill Tsutsui with another Postcard from Asia from the Center for East Asian Studies.
Japan has often been criticized for trying to whitewash its history of conquest and colonialism. First there were those school textbooks that skim over Japanese war crimes, then there were the prime minister’s visits to the Nationalist Yasukuni shrine; and now there’s Yuko Tojo. To most of the world, General Hideki Tojo was a war criminal on par with Hitler and Mussolini but to Yuko, he’s grandpa and she is campaigning to improve his image. She travels with a box of Tojo-iana that contains a lock of his hair and the butt of his last cigarette. But how can even the strongest family ties polish up the reputation of the man who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor? Well, Yuko freely admits she hardly knew her grandfather. That might explain everything.
With thanks to Randi Hacker for this text, from the Center for East Asian Studies, I’m Bill Tsutsui. Wish you were here.
