A Buddhist monk has gone viral after furiously lashing out at scathing reviews of a historic temple written by Western tourists.
American-born Daniel Kimura, who is 30 and a priest in the Shingon Buddhist tradition, caused a storm online by hurling abuse at visitors who left less-than-positive reviews online after staying at the Sekishoin Shukubo monastery in Japan where he lives.
The London Evening Standard reports that Sekishoin Shukubo in Mount Koyasan in Japan, which was founded 1100 years ago, offers guests “the chance to stay with monks at the traditional Buddhist temple”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
“Visitors can participate in monastic activities while staying in Japanese-style rooms,” the site adds.
The temple serves vegetarian dishes for breakfast and dinner. Rooms feature tatami mat floors and Japanese futon bedding.
The Sun reports that some of the reviewers “haven’t quite understood that they’re staying in a working temple, not a hotel”, and “complained about a number of features, including the beds, the temperature and the food”.
Kimura hit back, accusing reviewers of being “part of the problem”, “having a warped view of temples” and “not understanding” the religious ceremonies.
In one exchange, a customer said the “strange” meals were “quite unlike any food I’ve ever tasted”, prompting the distinctly unmonastic reply: “Yeah, it’s Japanese monastic cuisine you uneducated f***.”
In an interview with The Guardian, Kimura said he “deeply regretted” swearing in one of the responses and said he would attempt to “tone down” his comments in future. But he also added that he was frustrated by the tourists’ “arrogant responses”.
He said: “Of course, they don’t speak one word of Japanese and they come here expecting everything to be handed to them on a platter, and I’m like, you’ve got to know konnichiwa (hello) and ohayō gozaimasu (good morning) – just a little bit.”
Kimura did, however, acknowledge his own shortcomings. “You get impatient, even for a monk or a priest. I have to work on that.”
