5 Million People Visit Yasukuni War Shrine Every Year

TOKYO - An advertisement in Tokyo's Chuo Line, photographed on Dec 31, 2013. In Japan, visiting the Yasukuni (war) shrine is part of the Shinto tradition and a national ceremony, even a great family day (a War Museum is just around the corner). In the eyes of most Chinese and Koreans, however, the shrine is seen as a relic of Japan's Imperial past and a fetish and reminder of Japan's indifference toward the feelings of those East-Asian people and nations which suffered from Japan's war crimes during WW2. Hence the recent outrage over Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Yaskuni on Christmas, Dec 26. [Read at BIG THINK]