In Japan: Getting to the Yasukuni Shrine (Part II)

I am no longer in Japan.  I returned to my college town a day before school started. But still, I have the Yasukuni Shrine in the back of my mind. 

Before leaving for the states, I wandered back to the shrine two more times. The second time there, I went through the museum (1st level was free, but the exhibit itself was worth the fee). I was curious how the museum would present the Emperor's Army and Meiji Restoration Era. 

My third time there was an unplanned drive-by situation on the way to the airport. The taxi driver insisted on showing me the Imperial Palace (despite assuring him that I have seen the Palace and I have visited Japan many, many times). He was very sweet about it and very proud of his town. I am glad he did this, because we drove by the Yasukuni Shrine. As we did so,  I asked him if he's been inside. He nodded with a big smile and said that he has lived in Tokyo for 20 years and that visiting the shrine for New Years is tradition.  Not just a tradition for him, but for families throughout Tokyo. He said it gets very crowded. 

In the airport, I looked up the news stories about Prime Minister Abe's visit to the Shrine.  Sure enough: reports of South East Asia's outrage and appall at Abe's visit were released just a few days before the New Years. So, was his visit part of a Japanese tradition? Was he showing respect to old leaders and soldiers? Was he really trying to stick it to China and Korea?

Without the Meiji Restoration Era, Japan would not be as westernized as it is today.  Japan threw out its Samurai Bushido code, and its educational system and replaced them with new ones. These new  systems reflected (what the Japanese believed) were the best of the Western World. Westernization and modernization is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, a country must sacrifice aspects of its cultural identity.  On the other, the transition from being a developing economy to a developed economy offers the opportunity of higher education and a greater standard of living to its people. The way I see it is: The world's system has been developed, nurtured, and influenced (primarily) by western powers and European thinkers. Global systems (ie international law, economic policy, treaties, judicial systems) were created with a western background, a western perspective, ideology, and standards. So, if the nature of International Relations was developed and influenced by western leaders and policy makers, of course non-western world countries would have to adapt to those standards. It's Darwin's Theory of Evolution and Survival of the Fittest on a global scale.  Countries of the old world have been trying to adapt to Western systems since decolonization (World War I) and have made monumental transformations since the Digital Age (think India and China).

Map of imperial Japan

Before visiting the shrine, I had only understood its controversy through China's eyes.  Now, I see it a  little differently.  There is China's perception and anger at the crimes committed on its soil. The bitter sentiment lingers and continues to play into their relations with Japan.  On the other hand is Japan's point of view: without the Meiji Restoration, their modernization process would have certainly happened much later and much slower.  I am not justifying the "Crimes against Peace" that Japanese commanders and soldiers were convicted of in the Tokyo trials. What I am saying is that it was a necessary step for Japan to take in order to be taken seriously by the Western powers during World War II.

The Meiji Restoration may have been a militant one, but the Restoration and the aggressive modernization was arguably necessary for Japan's future. 

The Shrine symbolizes all of this - the transformation, the growth, and the ugly details of the era. Specifically, it honors those that fought in the Emperor's Army during the Meiji Restoration.

Bite the Tadpole

I recently met a gentleman named Paul.  What started off as a quick introduction turned into a conversation about experiences, Spainglish, and culture shock.

Paul is charismatic, expressive, and ready for a laugh. His hair is turning from silver to white and his face has embraced laugh lines. From what I understood, the twists and turns of his consulting career lead him to the East Coast of the US. He flies to Asia and India for business often and expressed a keen desire to do less traveling for the sake of business and more for the sake of pleasure, curiosity, enrichment, ect.  He enjoys laughing and sharing stories about his younger self – particularly his stories about Columbia.  Paul was raised in Calle and grew up in a bilingual (“Spanglish”) household.

At one point, he began talking about advertising in Columbia. The example he gave was about Chevrolet’s Nova advertising attempts in Latin America. In Spanish, no va means “no go” or “it doesn’t go.” According to Paul, there was a billboard in Columbia with this advertisement.  For Spanish speakers, the joke was on Chevy: who would invest in a car that advertises itself as a “no go”?

Chevy Nova

The conversation then moved to other multinational companies trying to localize. I told him about studying in China, and learning of Coca-Cola’s marketing story in China. Initially, Coke translated its name into Chinese as “Bite the tadpole” and tried to sell its soda to the Chinese market.  The Coke Company was going for a phonetic translation that matched the sound of the company name. That was their mistake, because the translation did not make the drink sound appealing or satisfying to customers in China. They later decided to compromise: they scrapped the old name, and found a better translation. Now, instead of “Bite the Tadpole,” the Coke product translates to “happiness in the mouth.” 

Coka-Cola Ads in China

In the end, Paul and I agreed that localization is a difficult step for multinational companies. If a company is going to risk tapping into foreign markets, getting to know the language, culture, and customs are important. 

After all, what is a group of people without their culture, their language, their history, and their traditions? 

In Japan: Getting to the Yasukuni Shrine and "The Book of Souls"

I heard about Prime Minister Abe's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan a little over a year ago. The news stories I read had headlines that were fluffed with words like "controversy" and "Nationalistic." The articles mentioned China's outrage as well as last year's Anti-Japanese protests. The protests in China were flared because it was the anniversary of what is known in China as "The Rape of Nanjing" (Nanjing (南京) - or "South Capital" - was China's capital after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, and before Chairman Mao's Long March from 1933-1935). The Nanjing Massacre was part of the Invasion of Manchuria chapter. 

The Yasukuni Shrine

During this time, Japan was abandoning its Samurai System, and the Bushido code was made into more of a social code rather than a militaristic one. The Japanese were in the process of revamping their military and decided that they liked the military structure and tactics of the Germans best.  They tested their skills and new-found military tactics on China when they invaded Manchuria and Nanjing. The League of Nations did not have the power to stop the invasion.

To this day, what happened in Nanjing lingers as a bitter memory between Sino-Japanese Relations. China wants an apology (or at the very least acknowledgement that the brutal event actually happened on their soil). Meanwhile, Japan is too proud to recognize the actions of past military leaders as well as these costly events during their mission to modernize, to westernize, and to be respected on an international level.

This all ties together, I promise...

The reason why PM Abe's visit to this particular shrine has received so much attention is because it is the Shinto Shrine that houses the souls of military soldiers that served the Emperor from 1867-1951.  There are over 2,000,000 people that are listed in The Book of Souls, over 1,000 of which were convicted of war crimes. Fourteen of the names were convicted of committing 'crimes against peace' and were charged as Class A War Criminals. 

A sign posed at the shrine's entrance
(Written in Japanese, English, Korean and Chinese)

  So, this time in Tokyo, I wanted to make a point to going to the Yasukuni Shrine. What can I say?: My curiosity simply got the better of me.  After spending a year in Chengdu, China and peeling back the many, many layers of China's complex and beautiful and tragic history, I am deeply interested in this era of Asian history.  What is more, I wonder how it has affected the world's present international relations. After witnessing the Anti-Japanese Protests of 2012, I realized that threads of the Nanjing tragedy fuel nationalistic pride and political actions between the two nations (for example, the Disputed Islands in the South China Sea, China's Air Zone, The Chinese Balloonist that was rescued by the Japanese Navy near the shores of the Disputed Islands).

What struck me most about it was not the shrine itself, actually. What struck me was its context. I decided to walk there since I felt like exploring and possibly getting lost. On the walk, I passed by the Imperial Palace, the National Diet Building, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Cabinet Office. I also passed by a handful of Embassies and Museums. 

Odd, no?: Such a politically central and modernizing location for such a controversial shrine. 

From Point A to Point B: My Route to the Yasukuni Shrine

I got a little lost

Something unexpected I found along the way

Cat posing like he's a total Babe