Japanese Ghost For Monday Mysteries...!

We don't often have too many mysteries from Japan that we study, so I figured this would be a great chance to expound on one.

This one is strange because of the main characters involved and the fact that they refuse to live in government provided housing (read mansions) because of the ghost! Sure they give other reasons, but after reading this article from Listverse I'm not so sure.

The Haunting Of The Kotei

Tales of ghosts stalking the White House in Washington DC are de rigueur, but reports out of Japan indicate that their Prime Minister’s home, the Kotei, might also be populated by spirits. The Kotei was built in 1929 in the architectural style of Frank Lloyd Wright, and former Prime Ministers and their first ladies have frequently complained of spectral happenings. The current Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has resisted moving into the headquarters, instead living in his own private residence. Although he has gone on record as saying that the mansion is too large for his needs, Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun quoted him telling others, “I don’t feel like living here because there are ghosts.”

The mansion certainly has a bloody history; on May 15, 1932, Navy officers ambushed Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi, shooting him to death. The insurgents’ plot was originally even more sinister: at the time Inukai was murdered, he was hosting film star Charlie Chaplin at his estate. Luckily, Chaplin was attending a sumo match with the Prime Minister’s son when the soldiers arrived. Four years later, another military coup occurred at the Kotei, when a contingent of roughly 280 soldiers forced the gates open and engaged in a gun battle with four police officers and the new Prime Minsiter, Keisuke Okada. The police were killed, but their bravery gave Okada enough time to escape. Instead, his brother-in-law, Denzo Matsuo (who bore a striking resemblance to Okada), was gunned down.

Years later, the front entrance of the mansion is still pocked with bullet holes, but the violent legacy of the Kotei runs even deeper . . . several people have reported seeing spectral soldiers in the garden, and Abe himself acknowledged that former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori had seen a ghost at the residence.

Hey...I don't blame them. If I knew that ghost lived in a place I was supposed to move to, I would think twice myself. Especially if those were caused by a bloody and violent death, know what I mean?

Coffee out on the patio this morning. Cool and pleasant out so far!