Chinese tourists blamed after vandals deface pro-Hong Kong protest messages at Japanese shrines
- Some ‘ema’ prayer tablets have had messages expressing support for protesters in Hong Kong scribbled out, while others have been destroyed
- Most of those that have been damaged have had the words ‘one China’ or ‘one country’ scrawled on them
Visitors to Japanese Shinto shrines traditionally purchase ema tablets and write down a wish or prayer before tying it to a rack in the hope of receiving good fortune. In recent months, however, shrines up and down the country have reported dozens of cases in which ema have been vandalised.
Some were deliberately broken, while others had messages expressing support for demonstrators in Hong Kong scribbled out and replaced with pro-government comments.
“We have never seen anything like it before,” said Rika Tabuchi, an official of Hokoku Shrine in Osaka.
“We have discovered one ema that was completely broken and about five or six times so far we have found that tablets with a message crossed out and other comments added.
“At first we did not know what they said because we could not read the Chinese characters but we had a woman visiting the shrine from Hong Kong and she told us what was written.”
