At Tsukamoto Kindergarten, an ultraconservative school at the center of a swirling Japanese political scandal, children receive the sort of education their prewar great-grandparents might have recognized.
They march in crisp rows to military music. They recite instructions for patriotic behavior laid down by a 19th-century emperor. The intent, the school says, is to “nurture patriotism and pride” in the children of Japan, “the purest nation in the world.”
Now Tsukamoto and its traditionalist supporters — including the wife of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — are under fire. The school has been accused of promoting bigotry against Chinese and Koreans and of receiving illicit financial favors from the government.
A growing outcry has put Mr. Abe’s conservative administration on the defensive and drawn attention to the darker side of an increasingly influential right-wing education movement in Japan.
you can’t help thinking that the last time Japan went down this path it didn’t end so well for them.
ok but the quote doesn’t have the best part
Parents said complaints about
mundane-seeming matters like parent-teacher association fees would be
met with chauvinistic diatribes, with school officials accusing “Koreans
and Chinese with evil ideas” of stirring up trouble. They said the
school’s principal, Yasunori Kagoike, accused parents who challenged the
school of having Korean or Chinese ancestors.“The
problem,” Mr. Kagoike said in one notice sent to parents, was that
people who had “inherited the spirit” of foreigners “exist in our
country with the looks of Japanese people.”it’s amazing because he’s not even specifically targeting people who have known foreign ancestry – these are parents who chose to send their kids to this school, obviously – he just accuses anyone who disagrees with him about anything of being a secret foreigner
Bigotry and Fraud Scandal at Kindergarten Linked to Japan’s First Lady
Overdressed & Underappreciated 