A Weber's Journey: Yasukuni Jinja and the Yushukan

So I don't know a lot about Japanese history, but one thing we learned about in Japanese class is Yasukuni Jinja. It's a shinto shrine dedicated to war dead. Here's the kicker: most (or all?) of those war dead are from the era of imperial Japan. Like, 1900s through World War II. I'm pretty sure that this is a time for Japan that people generally don't view favorably. Especially in China. Like this gets as bad as Nazi Germany's cartoonish super-villainy.

A couple controversies surround Yasukuni Jinja in particular. One, is that the prime minister of Japan always insists on visiting it. What this boils down to is that the Japanese prime minister goes to pray for kamikaze pilots and torturers every year. Neighboring countries, who bared the brunt of Imperial Japan see this as a negation to some degree of what Japan did during that time. So they don't like this.

The other is the Yushukan. A museum dedicated the the military history of Japan, it focuses on World War II. But it kind of glosses over some facts, and presents others...in such a way to put Japan in a not-so-bad-light.

My friend Mark and I visited the shrine during our trip to Japan, but we neglected to check out the Yushukan. So now that I'm back I got to!

I started out by walking down to Shinjuku and heading east around Shinjuku-dori.

I love walking past all the crowds; it's so exciting and is what makes cities great.

Shinjuku-dori starts to look a whole lot different after you get east enough; it was quite a sudden change.

After a bit more walking and a stop to get some milk tea (gotta love those con-binis), I made it to Yasukuni Jinja.

Even if it is controversial, it still looks pretty cool.

I took a quick walk around, but soon headed to my main goal: the hopefully hilarious Yushukan.

The lobby was filled with vehicles used during WWII and other eras in Japan, including a creepy kamikaze torpedo called Kaiten. It's hard to say that a human-guided torpedo won't be effective. I bought my admission into the museum (cheers to still having my student ID on me!). The first thing they lead you to is the movie room.

There was a movie playing called みたまを継ぐもの which means something to the effect of succeeding the spirit (of someone dead). The movie was about some dude and his dilemma in getting a job. His dad wants him to get some business-y job making money and all, but a trip to the Yasukuni Jinja with his girlfriend gets him thinking. He speaks with his girlfriend's grandfather, a World War II veteran, and is inspired by the tales of the honorable soldiers. After all, he decides that he doesn't want to be a stuck-up suit, and that he'd rather work for his girlfriend's relatives making coffee. I'm not exactly sure why that's better, but then again, what the hell do I know?

So his dad gets pissed at him and all and blames the girl. A fight breaks out! He challenges his dad, claiming that he's greedy, and doesn't have the honor of the kamikazes, who were willing to sacrifice their lives for their nation without the slightest amount of remorse. The dude's grandma comes in and accepts him, and after some time of cooling off they're a relatively-happy family again.

Now this creeps me out at least a little bit. He gets inspiration from these Japanese soldiers who fought in WWII, and from going to Yasukuni Jinja. Is that like the Asian equivalent of a modern-day German being inspired by the stick-to-itive-ness of the Nazis? Because that would definitely be scary. I don't really know how to feel about it, but I'm curious about what others think.

After that, I headed around the rest of the museum. Again, I don't know a lot about Japanese history, so it was hard for me to pinpoint to a good degree where details were off or missing. Until World War II.

There was pretty much no mention of any atrocities against Korea, China, or...anyone. According to the museum, Japan had set a good example for the rest of eastern Asia by being the first major power there, and that their independence led to other Asian countries rising up and pushing out expansionist Europe/America.

It claimed that Japan was expanding and that due to embargoes, it was forced into World War II, with America. Well, that's probably partially true, but it kind of missed some of what Japan was doing earlier... It went on to describe the battles against America, in a slightly pro-Japan fashion, and ended with the bombs. There was little to no decoration around the fact that the bombs were dropped; no mention of the number of civilians killed, just "yeaah...they came and then a couple days later Japan surrendered". Coming from a culture where people never stop mentioning how badly they were screwed (and I don't mean that in a negative way), it surprised me that Japan would try to hide the fact that America massacred hundreds of thousands of civilians. I guess it's their way of saving face that they lost.

The first major defeat of Japan, said the signs there. According to the signs, the emperor decided that, for the sake of the Japanese people, he would allow the war to end. Kind of a weird way to put it.

The final room was filled with pictures of deceased Japanese soldiers, and some of their mementos. This disturbed me the most because, again, it's hard for me to completely relate since my knowledge of history is so poor, but I tried to imagine what it would feel like to walk through a similar room filled with deceased Germans' pictures from WWII. I daresay it would make me uncomfortable, at least.

I left the museum, but with enough time to grab another snapshot or two of parts of the shrine.