[hanamizu]

First time I went to Japan I was taken aback by all of the swastikas I saw in Buddhist temples (or were they Shinto shrines?). It is eye-opening to see that the symbol is not associated with evil everywhere in the world.

[Olog-hai]

The second character (reverse of the so-called Hakenkreuz) is the more common one in Shinto and Chinese religions; it’s even regarded as sacred. In Japanese, the name for it is manji; in Mandarin, it’s pronounced wàn (as in China’s Red Swastika Society).