Worth Seeing: 4 out of 5 if you’re a war/history buff. Although probably not a bad idea to rethink visiting on August 15th.
Getting There: North West of the Imperial Palace Grounds. West of Kudanshita Station.
I kept walking and eventually came up on Yasukuni Shrine, Japan’s War Memorial shrine for those who had died in the service of the Empire of Japan. The Shrine lists the names of close to two and a half million people, but it has drawn it’s self a lot of controversy as it lists just over 1000 names of war criminals. Walking up the street to the entrance, there were riot police everywhere along the street. This wasn’t”post concert” level of police, This was “It’s about to go down” level of cops.
I have always been captivated by the stories and events of World War 2, but I’ve mainly only had exposure to the European theater. I didn’t know nearly as much about the war in the Pacific and so I was really interested in exploring places like this shrine. The shrine grounds were full of people, marching bands were playing, a column of people 20 feet thick were lining up for 100 yards to pay their respects at the shrine it’s self. I was wondering if it was like this every Saturday, Something was seriously going on? what though…?
I walked around a little more and came up on a Museum of Japan during the war. I’d been to a museum in Berlin about the war, but it showed mainly Allied artillery and trucks, this was strictly Japanese. I walked in the front door and to the right was a Japanese aircraft and two sets of Japanese artillery canons behind it. The room next door was full of pictures, letters, uniforms of Japanese soldiers and pilots from there war. It was actually surreal. Here I am, a Canadian, whose grandparents generation was certainly shooting at these guys, and here’s a Museum about it all. That sort of idea is mentioned a lot with my generation, yet I didn’t realize the weight of it until seeing it in person in Japan. It was in that moment, amongst all of the items and the general feeling and mood of everyone in the area, I realized how much this entire chapter of history has a completely different meaning to it for an extremely large number of people.
Of course everyone always knows this, I have German friends who for the most part view it as “ya that was the that generation, and we’re embarrassed about it as a country, but that’s not our generation”. Although it had a different feel in Japan. But with the riot police around, and the mood of the crowds of people, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was standing in the wrong room, so to speak. That feeling only strengthened as the afternoon went on. I decided to walk around coming upon a peaceful pond in the back end of the shrine grounds.
Being a 6 foot 5 westerner in rural Korea, I get looks. People notice that “one of these things is not like the other” but its usually out of curiosity. Being at this shrine, I was noticing I was getting looks, but they weren’t so much inquisitive as much as they were bordering on glares. Looking around I realized there weren’t a whole lot of other westerner’s around either. By that point I was certain today wasn’t any normal Saturday in Japan, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was… again, I knew a lot about the war in Europe, but I was lacking on the Pacific.
Walking around the grounds some more, I started noticing a number of Empire of Japan flags, as well as a handful of people in Japanese soldier uniforms. I though it was odd, maybe even a little in bad taste almost? In Europe, It certainly wouldn’t sit well if someone got dressed in full Nazi SS gear at a remembrance area. Just then a very elderly gentlemen in full Japanese soldier attire, with his sword drawn, walked right in front of me, surrounded by a crowd of people snapping pictures of him. He was flanked on either side by 3 guys maybe in their early 20’s, in the same uniform.
It hit me right there what day it was. I had seen news reports of remembrance ceremonies a week before, commemorating the 70th anniversary of when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. I knew it was a few days after that Japan finally surrendered….this is…well…we call it VJ day, Victory in Japan day, the day world war 2 ended in the pacific. How could I have not realized this. I was so busy finishing up stuff for work and prepping for this trip, that I didn’t clue into it.
At that point, the looks I was getting began to sink in and actually started to make me uncomfortable, I didn’t feel unsafe, but I probably was in the wrong area to be standing around snapping pictures at everything. For today at least, this wasn’t a tourist area. I found out later on that there were always demonstrations and conflicts on this day, and that a lot of the people who show up there that day tended to have the view that Japan should return to it’s previous level of power and status. Obviously this wasn’t the general populations view, but there were apparently enough that warranted the level of police presence.
I left out the shrine grounds only to be cut off to my original way back by what i’m not sure still whether it was a parade or demonstration. All I know was this was where all the riot police were surrounding. I walked back down along the street. It was another 20 minutes of walking before I stopped seeing riot police. I decided at that point that maybe that’s where Day 1 can end.
