Yasukuni Shrine

Of course I wanted to visit because of the controversy. Did I learn anything while actually at the shrine? No. Perhaps because I did not visit the museum to learn what kind of revisionism is on exhibit there. My mother talked to one of the guards and it helped to shed a little light, but more from the perspective of Japanese families who have relatives there or whose relatives qualify. Some people do not want their relative(s) enshrined there but their objections do not prevent enshrinement. The guard couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to be enshrined since the family receives money. (He hasn’t received the memo that everything is not about money.) After visiting, we took a cab ride and my mother continued to discuss the shrine with the driver. He offered another look at it, which is probably the sentiment many older, conservative people share, and I don’t know how else to relay it other than it boils down to patriotism separate from modern politics. The shrine itself is lovely to view and if you didn’t know the controversy that surrounds it beforehand, you wouldn’t know it from walking the grounds. In many ways it is just another (popular) shrine in Japan or to see it another way, just another vetrans memorial.

If you go into the Yushukan adjacent to the shrine, you will understand why this place is so contentious.

Worth visiting if you want to see modern day propoganda and massive waste of some of the finest real estate in Tokyo.

Is it physically pretty? Yes, great cherry blossoms, big shrine, museum, very clean, etc.

Does it make your soul ache? Oh yeah.

The Yasukuni Shrine is always in the papers in Japan because it enshrines class-a war criminals, and there is often a lot of angst stirred up when the prime minister, Koizumi, visits the shrine. It’s an amazing shrine… the pathway leading to the shrine is to open and the torii gates are massive. Well worth a visit.