#yasukuni shrine

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May 25th - Imperial Palace / Yasukuni Shrine

Koi fish in the Imperial Palace gardens

Today was another rough night. I don’t know if I can call it jet lag anymore because it’s been a week, but I still haven’t slept in long enough to hear my alarm. Today was the first time I didn’t do the readings the night before - we usually have a bit of time in the afternoon so I figured that I would do it before the blog post tonight - but it definitely hurt my understanding of what was going on.

We started the day going to Tokyo station, which was straight out of an early 1900′s movie. The district holds a lot of large corporations, as well as the government, but I was still shocked by the amount of space the could exist in such a tightly packed city. We walked to the imperial palace, but we couldn't go inside because its where the emperor and his family stay. Instead, we walked around the gardens, which were full of azaleas bushes in bloom. We saw some of the guard houses that would have been used in the Edo period and walked up so many slopes. I thought my shoes were broken in, but the angles that I had to walk made sure I still got blisters.

The Yasukuni Shrine was close by, so we headed there after finishing up at the palace. This place is rather controversial, as many who died in WW2 are enshrined here. Additionally, as it is a Shinto shrine, there are issues with the constitutionality involved in the mixing of church and state. The shrine was very different than the Meiji Shrine, which I will address below, but I was glad to be out of it when we did. I don’t know if it was the feeling of the soldiers still there or the strict air of the guards, but it was a rather ominous place to be.

After the shrine, I got udon with friends, hung out at home for a bit, and did some shopping at Shibuya. I finally got a change purse, so I can easily reach my coins. I hope it will make my mornings a little easier when I need to pay for my coffee.

Academic Reflection

The Yasukuni Shrine is not so much a religious place, regardless of the identification with Shintoism. Being there was a completely different experience from the Meiji shrine of before - there were guards everywhere who seemed to always be watching us, the ema area was much smaller, and there were no pictures of the shrine itself allowed. I felt more like I had walked into a museum than a religious area, and I can see how more conservative politicians would strive to achieve this. The shrine functions more as a political monument than as a shrine, so trying to get the prime minister to be able to visit seems much more approachable when the shrine is unapproachable.

Additionally, the reading went over the lack of patriotism in Japan. As we talked about at Musashi, the Japanese are much more likely to say that they are happy with the safety and nature of their country than they are to say that they love it simply for existing. As I walk around Tokyo, this can be seen in several ways. There are no Japanese flags to be seen, except for some I saw outside of Tokyo station, but even these were next to American flags. Additionally, many of my young Japanese friends do not have the same vigor when talking about Japan as Americans do talking about their own country. It would be interesting to see how this would change should Japan ever become more conservative and a military be reinstated