1000 anti-Japan demonstrators. In Los Angeles?

Yes, indeed. Apparently I missed the announcement, but yesterday around 1000 anti-Japan demonstrators marched from City Hall to the Japanese consulate nearby:

The demonstrators held signs demanding that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi stop visiting Yasukuni Shrine, where Class-A war criminals are enshrined along with Japan's war dead, and calling on Japan to mention its war crimes in school textbooks. They also called for a boycott of Japanese goods.

AP news brief here.

In absolutely, completely, utterly unrelated news, the flag of Communist China is now flying high above Chinatown. It was raised on the same day as the protest. The L.A. Times reports in "China's Flag Rises Without a Flap":

Peter Lau, who heads the group that organized the flag-raising, the China Unity Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, and who also marched in the anti-Japan rally, said it was coincidence that the two events took place on the same day. Still, he said, it was a sign of growing Chinese nationalism...

I might visit Chinatown tomorrow and report, so stay tuned...

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Be sure to wear your Free Tibet T-shirt when you go to Chinatown.