Mimizuka
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The Mimizuka (耳塚) is a monument in Kyoto, Japan, dedicated to the Seven-Year War fought against Korea from 1592 to 1598. The name translates to Ear Mound, and the monument enshrines the ears and noses of approximately 38,000 Koreans killed during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasions. Traditionally, Japanese warriors would bring back the heads of enemies slain on the battlefield as proof of their deeds. However, because of the number of civilians killed along with soldiers, and crowded conditions on the ships that transported troops, it was far easier to just bring back ears and noses instead of whole heads.
The dismembered facial features were brought to Japan in barrels of brine. Some might have been discarded, so it’s impossible to be sure how many were killed during the war. Estimates have been as high as one million, but they vary depending on the partiality of the historian.
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[edit] Legacy
The Mimizuka was dedicated September 1597. The exact reasons it was built are unknown, but it’s possible that it was meant to honor the slain Koreans and show Hideyoshi’s respect for them. In that time, it was uncommon for a defeated enemy to be interred into a Buddhist shrine. Alternatively, the Mimizuka could have been meant as a warning for those who resist Japanese conquest.
Whatever the reason it was built, it has almost certainly come to represent something other than what Hideyoshi intended. The Mimizuka has received curiously little attention from either Japanese or Korean scholars, but to those who know of it, it is a symbol of cruelty. In the 1970s, members of the Korean government asked Japan to level the monument.
[edit] Effect on Modern Foreign Relations
On September 28, 1997, the 400th anniversary of the Mimizuka, a ceremony was held in respect for those killed, which people of all nationalities and faiths attended. Although South Korea and Japan are on good terms today, Koreans who feel anti-Japanese sentiment use the Mimizuka and atrocities committed during the Japanese occupation of Korea as examples of Japanese brutality. Nonetheless, the two countries’ foreign policies are magnanimous to each other, as shown by the success of Japan-Korea Friendship Year 2005.
