Last Friday, a Canadian teenager was caught carving his name on the UNESCO-listed Toshodaiji Kondo temple in Nara, Japan. The 17-year-old boy was questioned by police after a Japanese visitor spotted him using his fingernail to write “Julian” directly on a wooden pillar and reported him to temple staff.
“The boy admitted his act and said it was not done with the intention of harming Japanese culture,” a police official said. CNN. “He is now with his parents, who were with him when the incident happened.”
The tourist is still under investigation. If found to have violated Japan’s cultural property protection law, he will be referred to prosecutors and could be fined ¥300,000 ($2,140) or up to five years in prison. prison.
The 8th century Buddhist temple was built in 759 and is one of eight historic monuments in ancient Nara, which was once the capital of Japan. It was founded by Chinese monk Jianzhen and designed in the Tang Dynasty style.
The vandalism is eerily reminiscent of a video that went viral last month in which another tourist is caught burning “Ivan + Hayley 23” on Rome’s Colosseum. Ivan Dimitrov, 27, a Bulgarian fitness instructor living in Bristol, is said to have begged the Italian authorities to forgive after being identified and told he faced up to five years in prison and a $16,000 fine.
He later claimed to have been unaware of the significance of the Roman ruin, according to CNN. In a letter to the prosecutor, Dimitrov wrote: “I confess with the deepest embarrassment that it was only after what unfortunately happened that I learned of the antiquity of the monument.” He is still under investigation and hopes to reduce his sentence through a plea bargain.
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