Summary
Steve Lee Hayes, a 65-year-old American tourist, was arrested in Tokyo for allegedly carving family members’ names into a wooden Torii gate at the Meiji Shrine.
Surveillance footage led police to his hotel, where he was detained.
Hayes admitted to the act, which could result in up to three years in prison or a fine of 300,000 yen ($1,900).
The Meiji Shrine, a significant Shinto site, was built in 1920 to honor Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. The incident occurs amid a surge in international tourism to Japan this year.
Asshole should have his passport revoked on top of being jailed.
As he should be, what an absolute moron.
what a stupid fuck
Do we really need people to look down on that much that it warrants these comments? Don’t get me wrong, he is a jerk and behaves like a teenager while 65, but people here act like he jumped a barrier to shit in a millenia old sarcophagus instead of pressing his thumb into 100 year old wood. I think I may have done worse at my old school.
This site’s against a police state, but wants the government to crack down on this nuisance with all its might. We’re against Religion, but Japan’s emperor cult is sacred. Throw molotovs into governmental buildings, but don’t you dare touch this wooden arch.
Just let him pay the fine, have the sites insurance cover restoration, big whoop.
It’s because he’s American and Lemmy loves to shit all over Americans.
Carving letters into the wood equals ‘pressing his thumb’ to you? Did you even read the article? Regardless, let me ‘press my thumb’ into your forehead and see if you think it’s fine, just let me be.
Hayes is accused of “carving the alphabet with his fingernails” into the wooden pillar of Meiji shrine gate in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward around 11am on Tuesday, police told the outlet.
To be fair, I personally put Shintoism in a very different box than that of typical Western religions. Shits just about respect and balance, not begging for forgiveness from some god and hating gay people.
Fuck this grown ass man.
So the cost to deface or damage whatever anybody wants is just $2k?
I very specifically said about this case only, a fine is appropriate.
Can you explain how my comment would read as “defacing anything ever should result only in fines”?
Oh. I thought maybe he ate a banana on an offering plate or something culturally ambiguous
He fucking carved his name into wood? That’s never OK anywhere
That’s a slap on the wrist if they only impose the fine. That should be a five year jail sentence at least.
You cannot act like a dick like this in other countries. Defacing a religious site no less.
Looks like the Temu version of Bannon.
Why people want to carve names on stuff… It’s the same people who write their names on bathroom doors
No idea but it’s been going on for millennia
Bathrooms are like the only place this is OK…but do it in sharpie so it can easily be removed
Good, americans act like this and they get the consequences they deserve
If anyone acts like this they get the consequences.
Like how dumb do you have to be?
… Checks timeline. Oh thats the norm…
Put that fuckin Boomer in prison for 3 years.
Bordering on Gen X but anyone this disrespectful is still a boomer. They need to jail him. A fine is too easy.
I was under the impression that gen x started in the mid 60s, whereas 65 would put this guy at 1959ish
I said bordering for a few reasons. One it is close, i.e. bordering at the change. Two being that I know some people right at that near generational change (same age actually) act way less boomer and more gen x. People aren’t hard lines in the sand like dates. So people born around that generational shift can swing either way. Way more thought than I wanted to explain about an offhanded comment, but there you go.
Genx is 1965 – 1980.
At 65, he’s 6 years too old to be Gen X.
Prison would be most appropriate.
The fine sure seems low for defacing an important religious shrine.
Not sure that shrine in particular but I do think torii gates in some shrines are replaced somewhat often. At Inari they had business names behind them which I assume are the ‘sponsors’ of that torii, probably they pay to have the gate fixed and I imagine that brings luck to that business. In short, he might have been lucky to deface the least critical part of the shrine.
My understanding is that the business names are there because Inari is a kami associated with merchants and businesspeople. They donate a gate, slap the company name on it, and Inari provides.
The toriis at meiji jingu are gigantic. It would unfortunately cost millions to replace one.
Then the sentence makes no sense to me
That’s good at least. I’d hate to think this was a century old (or whatever) torii he defaced.
oh, Im just guessing here though (from what I saw when visiting), hopefully that is the case
Kinda like Americans donating to have a bench named after them in a park.
I completely agree
I could have guessed he was over 60 because he wasn’t live streaming the whole thing. Just an old school asshole, not an influencer.
All that really proves is that people don’t need YouTube to do things for attention.
Americans being dumb cunts. What a surprise.
Like our election didn’t give it away?
The rest of the world has known this for years.
So have we.
America: making Japan worse since 1853 (with a brief pause in the mid-20th century while they did it to themselves).
We’re doing it to ourselves again
Would Japan have been better had the shogunate continued?
I’ll let you know when my window into parallel universes has been completed, but I promised someone else to look into whether or not the Aztecs would have been worse for Mexico if the Spanish hadn’t invaded first.
Damn, I was asking myself this very question about the Aztecs about a week ago. Also how would the indigenous people in america progress if the colonizers didn’t discover America. I believe they are nomads?
One of the reasons the Spanish were able to contact the Aztecs is that their neighbors were really tired of being conquered and forced to pay tribute. So I’m guessing the Aztec empire in Mesoamerica would have gotten and the already massive Inca empire would have become far more massive. Not sure about any of the cultures other than those.
