h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Have to get this off my chest somewhere.

The Japanese government announced a couple of days back that in their infinite wisdom that they will be changing the designs of (most) Japanese banknotes in 2004. Currently there are 4 denominations in circulation: 1,000 yen; 5,000 yen; 10,000 yen; and the recently introduced and rather uncommon 2,000 yen, which will be keeping its current design. The 1,000 yen and 5,000 yen notes will, as part of their facelift, gain a new 'face' to commemorate. But the 10,000 yen note, after its redesign, will continue to fete the same person: a Meiji period figure by the name of Fukuzawa Yukichi.

Now I know very little about Fukuzawa. He seems to be regarded by most Japanese (from the 3 line mention of him in some junior-high-school textbook no doubt) as a positive figure; an academic instrumental in the introduction of western 'culture' to Japan in the late 19th century. But the one context in which I have met him (other than on a banknote) before is pretty unsavoury. As the first person to suggest, in a very famous newspaper article, that Japan should annexe China and Korea 'in order to protect them from the English and the French', he is surely the father of all Japanese war criminals and war crimes to follow.

Now in fairness, it seems (NB that I failed the only Japanese history exam I ever took, so don't go expecting accuracy ) the English had just invaded one Korean island while the Chinese were looking the other way (fighting the French over Vietnam? and just after a failed coup d'etat trying to declare Korean independence? in which the Japanese were also involved as supporters/instigators/observers [delete to taste]), so one can sort of see where Fukuzawa the academic might have been coming from.

But whether Fukuzawa meant for people to take action on what he said or not, and whether he was pleased or appalled when they did, the fact is that they did, and that he was apparently the first to openly suggest it. So what kind of message does Japan send to its neighbours by, alone among the figures on its banknotes, continuing to celebrate this dunce for another 15 or 20 years!

Ah, the official government announcement in English.

http://www.mof.go.jp/english/others/ks020802e.htm

Fukuzawa was an 'educator and protagonist of enlightenment' as well as a proponent of expansionism don't you know.

Perhaps more relevant to his bizarre survival on the currency, he was also, it seems, the founder of a certain Keio University (one of Japan's Big Two private universities where rich people without the nouse to get into the better state-funded universities go to practice their rowing), which just happens to be where the current minister of finance went to school. Fancy that.