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> The government has recommended removing the Buddhist manji symbol from maps aimed at foreigners, for example, for fear of unintended associations with the Naz

> The government has recommended removing the Buddhist manji symbol from maps aimed at foreigners, for example, for fear of unintended associations with the Nazi swastika. Does anyone else think this is a shame? When I've been to Asia and seen "swastikas" everywhere I've found it in a way joyful. The hate symbol has no power here, I thought; it's a positive thing. Why should one culture change their own iconography just because it was perverted in a different culture? It seems like a mild example of self-inflicted cultural imperialism. Maybe I'm just being very philosophically naïve.

Alexqw85 10y ago
I agree with you. One culture's horrifying misuse of a symbol should not censor it for all and forever. My roommate for the first two years of college was raised as a Jain[1], and a swastika with four dots is an important symbol for them. He liked to sketch, anything and everything, but also this swastika. As his art was all over our walls, the expressions people had when they entered our dorm room for the first time were priceless. Sometimes it took some real explaining to convince them that I'm not a Nazi, and it was my Indian roommate who was drawing them and not me. ;-) Beautiful artwork though. ---Alex [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism
- piyush_soni 10y ago
  It's not just Jains (it's almost all Hindus as well), and the original Swastika [1] really doesn't have anything other than a positive connotation. It's considered to be an auspicious symbol, something which brings luck, prosperity etc. Even now if we buy something big (like house/vehicle etc.), the first thing religious Hindus do is get the ceremony done for making it 'auspicious' (by a Hindu priest), and drawing Swastika on that property is an important part of it. The people in US, if you visit any famous Hindu temple there, you might observe a priest doing the same ceremony with someone's new flashy car. The symbol is also used in almost any important life event in Hindu culture. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
  - rangibaby 10y ago
    You'd be surprised at how many times I have had to explain that it was for good luck and not some kind of evil logo
    - ralfd 10y ago
      So ... this was what made the Nazis lucky initially in the War?
      - Mtinie 10y ago
        I know you probably meant that tongue-in-cheek, but the early German success wasn't luck, but the results of a hyper-focused industrial base and technically superior weapons (amongst other things).
      - virtuabhi 10y ago
        Actually, we (Indians) say that Nazis lost the war because they rotated the Swastika symbol
        newyankee 10y ago
        kuch bhi, khudka anecdote country pe mat dal
    - piyush_soni 10y ago
      Even if they think Nazis' symbol is bad, ideally they should easily be able to see the difference between that and the Indian symbol which is almost always red, vertically upright, and with four dots.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- antihero 10y ago
  Aww the Jainism tenets looked great until they got to chastity. Why do so many religions and movements associate sex with sin? It is a beautiful, wonderful thing.
  - stelonix 10y ago
    It's not exactly with sin, but sexual activity is correlated with the power of creation. So "misusing" a "big bang" is often painted as something "bad", be it a sin or simply considered an act of layman's ignorance.
  - maverick_iceman 10y ago
    You may like Tantrik Hinduism. ;)
    - antihero 10y ago
      Does it have the caste system? To be honest I'm happy just figuring out my own beliefs.
  - magic_beans 10y ago
    Brahmachary is often translated as chastity, but an alternate translation widely accepted in other spiritual traditions, like Bhakti, is fidelity within a committed relationship and conservation of sexual energy. So that might mean not masturbating every day, but conserving that sexual energy to bond with your partner (sexually or otherwise).
  - mkaziz 10y ago
    Islam, actually, does not. Sex between a husband and wife is considered worship.
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      > Islam, actually, does not. Sex between a husband and wife... So far true for Christianity as well according to my reading and what I have been told. The worship part however I can't relate to.
potatosoup 10y ago
I'm part Jewish but I also live in Asia and I see the "swastikas" here all the time. Completely different meaning, no negative connotation. It's not the symbol that matters, but what people are trying to represent with it. It's just like the word "hacker" that meant scary things in the 1990s and "cool and hip" in the last 5-10 years. Also see: Pepe the Frog. Some people tried to brand it as a hate symbol because a very small group of bad people were using it, but it's just a cartoon frog.
- Pxtl 10y ago
  Poor pepe... https://thenib.com/pepe-behind-the-meme https://thenib.com/pepe-behind-the-meme
narutouzumaki 10y ago
I absolutely agree. I find the manji symbol highly aesthetically pleasing and would love for it to be 'reclaimed' from its evil connotations globally/ in the Western World. Please do not self-censor, Japan! In fact, one could even argue that the symbol on the maps might have an interesting secondary effect on many unaware foreigners, shocking them when seeing it the first time (What are all these Nazi symbols doing here? Ah, it must be because they were Axis allies?). Only for them then to realise that in fact, a symbol at its core, is just that: lines in a certain constellation. Meaning is ascribed by the observer. What can stand for pure evil one place, might be synonymous with sacred temples of peace in another.
nolok 10y ago
Two way street here so since you used the general term "Asia", I feel obligated to point out that in large part of Asia, the symbol is known and when liked it's exactly for what it's seen as in the west.
- rangibaby 10y ago
  Which parts? Anywhere with Buddhist or Hindu populations will use it like the Japanese.
  - nolok 10y ago
    I'm thinking of parts if south east asia, notably I've seen a lot of it in Cambodia and Vietnam (stores selling it openly, being wearing or doing nazi salutes, ...). Then there is Thailand as how simple ignorance leads to the symbol being used as a representation of the nazi but without quite understanding what they are/were ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_imagery_in_Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_imagery_in_Thailand ). It got so bad their government is now moving hard to push nazi/holocaust into their education programe to solve that, after a seemingly continuous serie of events like this: > In 2011, during a sports day parade, students of a Catholic school in Thailand dressed and marched in SS uniforms. The school later apologized after international outrage."
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
glandium 10y ago
Note that it's for maps aimed at foreigners, a lot of which are westerners. They're not removing or going to remove the symbol from temple themselves. Also, to be truthful, a lot of foreigners wouldn't know what the svatiskas on maps point to.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  > Also, to be truthful, a lot of foreigners wouldn't know what the svatiskas on maps point to. Exactly. This is the main reason for the change. The changes were based on surveys where they asked foreigners "if you saw this symbol on a map, what do you think it would mean?". Not "is this offensive?" You can find a PDF of the survey results online, it also included stuff like hotel symbols which foreigners thought meant hospital or helipad.
  - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
    Honestly, one of the things I liked about visiting Japan was that I had to adjust my preconceptions a little to accommodate a developed culture with a non-western foundation. Changing things to adapt to western preconceptions takes that away a little bit.
    - dyim 10y ago
      These seem like little UX things :) . It'd be tough to imagine changing their core cultural tenets in order to accommodate tourists.
      - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
        But in this case, that little UX thing forces the understanding that a symbol that is taboo and has an offensive meaning in your home country is understood totally differently in Japan.
        794CD01 10y ago
        That means it's bad UX. "Make me think" is a totally different book.
afandian 10y ago
This is similar to American cryptographic literature and libraries (and who knows, maybe some British ones too) using the word "nonce". In the UK that word means ... well you can look it up.
- philh 10y ago
  FWIW, I've lived in the UK my whole life and I had no idea that had any meaning apart from the crypto one.
  - richmarr 10y ago
    I think it's quite an old fashioned bit of slang... I think I've come across it more frequently in 1970s/80s police dramas than anywhere else. Google has it pinned as being primarily a UK search term so there must still be people using it, unless this is just an echo caused by a special offer on boxed sets of The Sweeney.
  - afandian 10y ago
    Well, it is prison slang, but, I believe, in broad circulation. Maybe it is a bit dated. Wikipedia says it's in the OED: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonce_(slang) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonce_(slang)
LordKano 10y ago
Perhaps... If Japan hadn't had been the military ally of the people who perverted the symbol, I'd probably agree.
- mynameisvlad 10y ago
  Yes, because the symbol hasn't been used for tens of thousands of years before the Nazis adopted it.
  - nathanm412 10y ago
    India should be able to use it as much as they want. I would imagine it would be harder to make that case for a former Axis power.
    - mynameisvlad 10y ago
      Why? It's a religious symbol. Their use is completely (as in, totally, 100%) unrelated to WW2, and it was in use far before the war. So, with all that said why should their status in that war affect it at all?
- gkya 10y ago
  Japan is not a person. No people should be held responsible in its entirety for a mistake of the political organisation governing them. Even in most democracies, minorities get to decide on cases concerning the people in its entirety, and during the WWII, an absolute monarchy with religious powers was in effect in Japan.
  - LordKano 10y ago
    My parents were not yet born and my grandparents were grade school children when the US interned Japanese-Americans but their tax money was still used to compensate those people for the injustice done to them. You inherit everything, good and bad, from those who came before you. It's your choice of what to keep and what to drop.
laurieg 10y ago
It's very common in Japan to pander to foreigners (read: "non-Asians") when they never asked to be pandered to in the first place. It's unlikely anyone ever complained about the symbol but someone probably brought it up a meeting and the slightest chance that a foreigner would be offended was enough to push it through. Special treatment for foreigners is not new. [1] Recently they rent-a-car agencies have started putting a "foreigner driving" sticker on cars rented by non-Japanese people. Interestingly the sticker says "Foreigner driving" in Japanese but "I love driving in Japan" or "Friendly driving" in English, with no mention of the 'foreigner' part. [1] http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160416/p2a/00m/0na/005000c http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160416/p2a/00m/0na/005...
- kalleboo 10y ago
  > It's unlikely anyone ever complained about the symbol but someone probably brought it up a meeting and the slightest chance that a foreigner would be offended was enough to push it through. The changes were based on surveys that showed that many tourists had no idea what the symbol represented.
shiro 10y ago
Agreed. They're even different symbols (manji for temples is left-facing "sauwastika", while Hakenkreuz is right-facing); although both have the same origin.
krapp 10y ago
>Maybe I'm just being very philosophically naïve. Possibly, more culturally naive than philosophically so. World War 2 and the Holocaust had a profound impact on Western culture, and Westerners have identified that symbol with the Nazis for almost a century. The impact of Buddhist or Hindu symbology in the West, in comparison and response, has been practically nil. For Westerners, who may never have been to an Asian country prior to Japan's Olympics, to see a manji and mistake it for a Nazi symbol is perfectly reasonable, if that is the only context in which the symbol exists for them. The change in icons makes sense, if you (you being some hypothetical Japan) want to communicate specifically to those tourists and encourage their engagement with local businesses and culture. Why use a symbol on maps specifically for foreigners to use which would probably confuse them? You could just keep it there and say "those ignorant foreigners just need to learn what it actually means" ... but that would show hostility towards to your guests, be bad for business and an impractical way to design a map. Edit: Apparently they decided not to change the iconography for the maps. It will be interesting to find out what impact if any that appears to have on engagement during the Olympics.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Why travel if not to learn about new cultures? Maybe you add an explanation to the map rather than changing the symbol.
  - krapp 10y ago
    I think it's a matter of unnecessary friction. People traveling to Japan to see the Olympics might not bother to get out of their comfort zone, leave the hotel and see something interesting if the maps seem to discourage them from doing so. >Maybe you add an explanation to the map rather than changing the symbol. That's a fair compromise, but now you have to explain it in every possible language that a foreigner might use. Which is probably why you considered changing the symbol in the first place, because well designed icons theoretically speak to everyone.
- sho_hn 10y ago
  > Why use a symbol on maps specifically for foreigners to use which would probably confuse them? If everywhere is the same, why travel? Local color like this makes destinations more interesting, not less. Hiding culture and heritage makes the value proposition weaker. /German living in Seoul
talamown 10y ago
Geospatial Information Authority of Japan heard public comments and have finally decided NOT to change the symbol for temples. Their official statement is at http://www.gsi.go.jp/common/000138869.pdf http://www.gsi.go.jp/common/000138869.pdf. (It's written in Japanese. I couldn't find out English one.)
DougN7 10y ago
I agree with you. Serious question: I wonder how far you take that. For example, for me, the Confederate US flag represented a favorite TV show as a kid (Dukes of Hazzard), the south (which meant cool accents and hospitality). Until 5 or so years ago I didn't know anyone still associated it with slavery. When will it be cleared for use again? In other words, what is the bounds where a tainted symbol can or can't be used? Geopolitical border?
- LordKano 10y ago
  I grew up with the Dukes of Hazzard on TV and I have pretty much always associated that flag with the racist elements of the American south. I have pretty much always had a negative visceral reaction whenever I see it. Most of the African Americans I know have the same feelings about that flag. What has changed is that recently, non-black people have been paying attention to how we feel.
- allemagne 10y ago
  The situation with the Confederate flag I think is much much more complicated than the situation with the swastika.
  - lsiebert 10y ago
    How so?
    - serge2k 10y ago
      Southerners still cling to the notions of "states rights" and "war of northern aggression" and other bullshit. it's a traitors flag. They committed treason to try to protect their institution of slavery.
- serge2k 10y ago
  > When will it be cleared for use again? The south has been using it to celebrate their treason and slavery for a while. Only recently have people started to say "maybe don't use that".
swayvil 10y ago
It's a demonstration of how powerful a good propaganda campaign can be. 80 years later and still swastikas=bad. A more recent example : Just Say No. All these 40-somethings who never did drugs, never will, just hate them and can't really explain why.
- serge2k 10y ago
  > It's a demonstration of how powerful a good propaganda campaign can be. 80 years later and still swastikas=bad. Yes, 60 million dead is powerful propaganda.
  - swayvil 10y ago
    Mao Zedong killed 65 million, Stalin killed 23 million and Hitler killed 17 million. But it's Hitler that we remember. It's Hitler that gets cited by right-thinking fellows on the internet. It's Hitler's logo that gets banned from the tshirt stores. Why? Hitler's crew had strong propaganda, that's why. Propaganda is what rolls around in the media, and the public mind, for centuries. Not reality. I guess "marketing" is the more common term. Marketing can turn black into white and day into night. It is powerful.
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      Who has forgotten Stalin? Or Mao?
      - swayvil 10y ago
        Think of it as as meme. The Hitler meme is big, the Stalin and Mao memes are not so big. You can look them all up on google but it's Hitler that gets cited in convo.
        JoeAltmaier 10y ago
        Ok but to be fair, Hitler is a 'western' meme. Stalin and Mao didn't kill westerners.
iaw 10y ago
I too found that enjoyable in Japan. The elimination of the Swastika from Western cultures as a response to the atrocities of the Nazi regime makes sense to me, eliminating it from Eastern cultures just seems to be giving the Nazi's an extra bit of power 80 years after the fact.
Arkaad 10y ago
Agreed. This symbol existed before the swastika. Also, knowing that war crimes denial is still a thing in Japan, this decision doesn't seem the most appropriate to me...
gumby 10y ago
It's not just throughout Asia, it's visible in north and South American aboriginal ruins and culture. And in Ancient Greek art, though likely the same people who brought it to India brought it to Greece and Persia.

Alexqw85 10y ago

I agree with you. One culture's horrifying misuse of a symbol should not censor it for all and forever. My roommate for the first two years of college was raised as a Jain[1], and a swastika with four dots is an important symbol for them. He liked to sketch, anything and everything, but also this swastika. As his art was all over our walls, the expressions people had when they entered our dorm room for the first time were priceless. Sometimes it took some real explaining to convince them that I'm not a Nazi, and it was my Indian roommate who was drawing them and not me. ;-) Beautiful artwork though. ---Alex [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism

piyush_soni 10y ago
It's not just Jains (it's almost all Hindus as well), and the original Swastika [1] really doesn't have anything other than a positive connotation. It's considered to be an auspicious symbol, something which brings luck, prosperity etc. Even now if we buy something big (like house/vehicle etc.), the first thing religious Hindus do is get the ceremony done for making it 'auspicious' (by a Hindu priest), and drawing Swastika on that property is an important part of it. The people in US, if you visit any famous Hindu temple there, you might observe a priest doing the same ceremony with someone's new flashy car. The symbol is also used in almost any important life event in Hindu culture. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
- rangibaby 10y ago
  You'd be surprised at how many times I have had to explain that it was for good luck and not some kind of evil logo
  - ralfd 10y ago
    So ... this was what made the Nazis lucky initially in the War?
    - Mtinie 10y ago
      I know you probably meant that tongue-in-cheek, but the early German success wasn't luck, but the results of a hyper-focused industrial base and technically superior weapons (amongst other things).
    - virtuabhi 10y ago
      Actually, we (Indians) say that Nazis lost the war because they rotated the Swastika symbol
      - newyankee 10y ago
        kuch bhi, khudka anecdote country pe mat dal
  - piyush_soni 10y ago
    Even if they think Nazis' symbol is bad, ideally they should easily be able to see the difference between that and the Indian symbol which is almost always red, vertically upright, and with four dots.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
antihero 10y ago
Aww the Jainism tenets looked great until they got to chastity. Why do so many religions and movements associate sex with sin? It is a beautiful, wonderful thing.
- stelonix 10y ago
  It's not exactly with sin, but sexual activity is correlated with the power of creation. So "misusing" a "big bang" is often painted as something "bad", be it a sin or simply considered an act of layman's ignorance.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  You may like Tantrik Hinduism. ;)
  - antihero 10y ago
    Does it have the caste system? To be honest I'm happy just figuring out my own beliefs.
- magic_beans 10y ago
  Brahmachary is often translated as chastity, but an alternate translation widely accepted in other spiritual traditions, like Bhakti, is fidelity within a committed relationship and conservation of sexual energy. So that might mean not masturbating every day, but conserving that sexual energy to bond with your partner (sexually or otherwise).
- mkaziz 10y ago
  Islam, actually, does not. Sex between a husband and wife is considered worship.
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    > Islam, actually, does not. Sex between a husband and wife... So far true for Christianity as well according to my reading and what I have been told. The worship part however I can't relate to.

potatosoup 10y ago

I'm part Jewish but I also live in Asia and I see the "swastikas" here all the time. Completely different meaning, no negative connotation. It's not the symbol that matters, but what people are trying to represent with it. It's just like the word "hacker" that meant scary things in the 1990s and "cool and hip" in the last 5-10 years. Also see: Pepe the Frog. Some people tried to brand it as a hate symbol because a very small group of bad people were using it, but it's just a cartoon frog.

Pxtl 10y ago
Poor pepe... https://thenib.com/pepe-behind-the-meme https://thenib.com/pepe-behind-the-meme

narutouzumaki 10y ago

I absolutely agree. I find the manji symbol highly aesthetically pleasing and would love for it to be 'reclaimed' from its evil connotations globally/ in the Western World. Please do not self-censor, Japan! In fact, one could even argue that the symbol on the maps might have an interesting secondary effect on many unaware foreigners, shocking them when seeing it the first time (What are all these Nazi symbols doing here? Ah, it must be because they were Axis allies?). Only for them then to realise that in fact, a symbol at its core, is just that: lines in a certain constellation. Meaning is ascribed by the observer. What can stand for pure evil one place, might be synonymous with sacred temples of peace in another.

nolok 10y ago

Two way street here so since you used the general term "Asia", I feel obligated to point out that in large part of Asia, the symbol is known and when liked it's exactly for what it's seen as in the west.

rangibaby 10y ago
Which parts? Anywhere with Buddhist or Hindu populations will use it like the Japanese.
- nolok 10y ago
  I'm thinking of parts if south east asia, notably I've seen a lot of it in Cambodia and Vietnam (stores selling it openly, being wearing or doing nazi salutes, ...). Then there is Thailand as how simple ignorance leads to the symbol being used as a representation of the nazi but without quite understanding what they are/were ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_imagery_in_Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_imagery_in_Thailand ). It got so bad their government is now moving hard to push nazi/holocaust into their education programe to solve that, after a seemingly continuous serie of events like this: > In 2011, during a sports day parade, students of a Catholic school in Thailand dressed and marched in SS uniforms. The school later apologized after international outrage."
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

glandium 10y ago

Note that it's for maps aimed at foreigners, a lot of which are westerners. They're not removing or going to remove the symbol from temple themselves. Also, to be truthful, a lot of foreigners wouldn't know what the svatiskas on maps point to.

kalleboo 10y ago
> Also, to be truthful, a lot of foreigners wouldn't know what the svatiskas on maps point to. Exactly. This is the main reason for the change. The changes were based on surveys where they asked foreigners "if you saw this symbol on a map, what do you think it would mean?". Not "is this offensive?" You can find a PDF of the survey results online, it also included stuff like hotel symbols which foreigners thought meant hospital or helipad.
- DashRattlesnake 10y ago
  Honestly, one of the things I liked about visiting Japan was that I had to adjust my preconceptions a little to accommodate a developed culture with a non-western foundation. Changing things to adapt to western preconceptions takes that away a little bit.
  - dyim 10y ago
    These seem like little UX things :) . It'd be tough to imagine changing their core cultural tenets in order to accommodate tourists.
    - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
      But in this case, that little UX thing forces the understanding that a symbol that is taboo and has an offensive meaning in your home country is understood totally differently in Japan.
      - 794CD01 10y ago
        That means it's bad UX. "Make me think" is a totally different book.

afandian 10y ago

This is similar to American cryptographic literature and libraries (and who knows, maybe some British ones too) using the word "nonce". In the UK that word means ... well you can look it up.

philh 10y ago
FWIW, I've lived in the UK my whole life and I had no idea that had any meaning apart from the crypto one.
- richmarr 10y ago
  I think it's quite an old fashioned bit of slang... I think I've come across it more frequently in 1970s/80s police dramas than anywhere else. Google has it pinned as being primarily a UK search term so there must still be people using it, unless this is just an echo caused by a special offer on boxed sets of The Sweeney.
- afandian 10y ago
  Well, it is prison slang, but, I believe, in broad circulation. Maybe it is a bit dated. Wikipedia says it's in the OED: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonce_(slang) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonce_(slang)

LordKano 10y ago

Perhaps... If Japan hadn't had been the military ally of the people who perverted the symbol, I'd probably agree.

mynameisvlad 10y ago
Yes, because the symbol hasn't been used for tens of thousands of years before the Nazis adopted it.
- nathanm412 10y ago
  India should be able to use it as much as they want. I would imagine it would be harder to make that case for a former Axis power.
  - mynameisvlad 10y ago
    Why? It's a religious symbol. Their use is completely (as in, totally, 100%) unrelated to WW2, and it was in use far before the war. So, with all that said why should their status in that war affect it at all?
gkya 10y ago
Japan is not a person. No people should be held responsible in its entirety for a mistake of the political organisation governing them. Even in most democracies, minorities get to decide on cases concerning the people in its entirety, and during the WWII, an absolute monarchy with religious powers was in effect in Japan.
- LordKano 10y ago
  My parents were not yet born and my grandparents were grade school children when the US interned Japanese-Americans but their tax money was still used to compensate those people for the injustice done to them. You inherit everything, good and bad, from those who came before you. It's your choice of what to keep and what to drop.

laurieg 10y ago

It's very common in Japan to pander to foreigners (read: "non-Asians") when they never asked to be pandered to in the first place. It's unlikely anyone ever complained about the symbol but someone probably brought it up a meeting and the slightest chance that a foreigner would be offended was enough to push it through. Special treatment for foreigners is not new. [1] Recently they rent-a-car agencies have started putting a "foreigner driving" sticker on cars rented by non-Japanese people. Interestingly the sticker says "Foreigner driving" in Japanese but "I love driving in Japan" or "Friendly driving" in English, with no mention of the 'foreigner' part. [1] http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160416/p2a/00m/0na/005000c http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160416/p2a/00m/0na/005...

kalleboo 10y ago
> It's unlikely anyone ever complained about the symbol but someone probably brought it up a meeting and the slightest chance that a foreigner would be offended was enough to push it through. The changes were based on surveys that showed that many tourists had no idea what the symbol represented.

shiro 10y ago

Agreed. They're even different symbols (manji for temples is left-facing "sauwastika", while Hakenkreuz is right-facing); although both have the same origin.

krapp 10y ago

>Maybe I'm just being very philosophically naïve. Possibly, more culturally naive than philosophically so. World War 2 and the Holocaust had a profound impact on Western culture, and Westerners have identified that symbol with the Nazis for almost a century. The impact of Buddhist or Hindu symbology in the West, in comparison and response, has been practically nil. For Westerners, who may never have been to an Asian country prior to Japan's Olympics, to see a manji and mistake it for a Nazi symbol is perfectly reasonable, if that is the only context in which the symbol exists for them. The change in icons makes sense, if you (you being some hypothetical Japan) want to communicate specifically to those tourists and encourage their engagement with local businesses and culture. Why use a symbol on maps specifically for foreigners to use which would probably confuse them? You could just keep it there and say "those ignorant foreigners just need to learn what it actually means" ... but that would show hostility towards to your guests, be bad for business and an impractical way to design a map. Edit: Apparently they decided not to change the iconography for the maps. It will be interesting to find out what impact if any that appears to have on engagement during the Olympics.

cmdrfred 10y ago
Why travel if not to learn about new cultures? Maybe you add an explanation to the map rather than changing the symbol.
- krapp 10y ago
  I think it's a matter of unnecessary friction. People traveling to Japan to see the Olympics might not bother to get out of their comfort zone, leave the hotel and see something interesting if the maps seem to discourage them from doing so. >Maybe you add an explanation to the map rather than changing the symbol. That's a fair compromise, but now you have to explain it in every possible language that a foreigner might use. Which is probably why you considered changing the symbol in the first place, because well designed icons theoretically speak to everyone.
sho_hn 10y ago
> Why use a symbol on maps specifically for foreigners to use which would probably confuse them? If everywhere is the same, why travel? Local color like this makes destinations more interesting, not less. Hiding culture and heritage makes the value proposition weaker. /German living in Seoul

talamown 10y ago

Geospatial Information Authority of Japan heard public comments and have finally decided NOT to change the symbol for temples. Their official statement is at http://www.gsi.go.jp/common/000138869.pdf http://www.gsi.go.jp/common/000138869.pdf. (It's written in Japanese. I couldn't find out English one.)

DougN7 10y ago

I agree with you. Serious question: I wonder how far you take that. For example, for me, the Confederate US flag represented a favorite TV show as a kid (Dukes of Hazzard), the south (which meant cool accents and hospitality). Until 5 or so years ago I didn't know anyone still associated it with slavery. When will it be cleared for use again? In other words, what is the bounds where a tainted symbol can or can't be used? Geopolitical border?

LordKano 10y ago
I grew up with the Dukes of Hazzard on TV and I have pretty much always associated that flag with the racist elements of the American south. I have pretty much always had a negative visceral reaction whenever I see it. Most of the African Americans I know have the same feelings about that flag. What has changed is that recently, non-black people have been paying attention to how we feel.
allemagne 10y ago
The situation with the Confederate flag I think is much much more complicated than the situation with the swastika.
- lsiebert 10y ago
  How so?
  - serge2k 10y ago
    Southerners still cling to the notions of "states rights" and "war of northern aggression" and other bullshit. it's a traitors flag. They committed treason to try to protect their institution of slavery.
serge2k 10y ago
> When will it be cleared for use again? The south has been using it to celebrate their treason and slavery for a while. Only recently have people started to say "maybe don't use that".

swayvil 10y ago

It's a demonstration of how powerful a good propaganda campaign can be. 80 years later and still swastikas=bad. A more recent example : Just Say No. All these 40-somethings who never did drugs, never will, just hate them and can't really explain why.

serge2k 10y ago
> It's a demonstration of how powerful a good propaganda campaign can be. 80 years later and still swastikas=bad. Yes, 60 million dead is powerful propaganda.
- swayvil 10y ago
  Mao Zedong killed 65 million, Stalin killed 23 million and Hitler killed 17 million. But it's Hitler that we remember. It's Hitler that gets cited by right-thinking fellows on the internet. It's Hitler's logo that gets banned from the tshirt stores. Why? Hitler's crew had strong propaganda, that's why. Propaganda is what rolls around in the media, and the public mind, for centuries. Not reality. I guess "marketing" is the more common term. Marketing can turn black into white and day into night. It is powerful.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Who has forgotten Stalin? Or Mao?
    - swayvil 10y ago
      Think of it as as meme. The Hitler meme is big, the Stalin and Mao memes are not so big. You can look them all up on google but it's Hitler that gets cited in convo.
      - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
        Ok but to be fair, Hitler is a 'western' meme. Stalin and Mao didn't kill westerners.

iaw 10y ago

I too found that enjoyable in Japan. The elimination of the Swastika from Western cultures as a response to the atrocities of the Nazi regime makes sense to me, eliminating it from Eastern cultures just seems to be giving the Nazi's an extra bit of power 80 years after the fact.

Arkaad 10y ago

Agreed. This symbol existed before the swastika. Also, knowing that war crimes denial is still a thing in Japan, this decision doesn't seem the most appropriate to me...

gumby 10y ago

It's not just throughout Asia, it's visible in north and South American aboriginal ruins and culture. And in Ancient Greek art, though likely the same people who brought it to India brought it to Greece and Persia.