Yasakuni Shrine

I visited Yasakuni Shrine back in 1999, when I first visited Tokyo. At the time, I didn't know much about Japanese WWII history. So this time, I was very eager to go back. The shrine is where the souls of those that fought and died for Japan are enshrined.

There is a big controversy over the shrine, since some of the enshrined souls are recognized war criminals that took part in the atrocities that Japan commited during the war years. Countries that suffered at the hand of the Japanese army or navy (such as China and Korea) are greatly troubled by the Japanese ignorance of what really happened during the war years, the lack of an apology and remorse from the Japanese for what was done, and mostly for the honor and praise to those enshrined war criminals enshrined at Yasakuni shrine and the Prime Ministers repeated visits to the shrine.

People paying their respects to the souls at Yasakuni.

The main building of Yasakuni shrine.

This is called an Uma. People write their prayers or wishes on the board and then they hand it in the designated area of the shrine. This is not unique to Yasakuni Shine, most shrines in Japan sell umas. Sometimes you can stumble across an uma filled out in English. I once read one that prayed for the Yankees to win the next word series.

That's me in front of Yasakuni shrine

After studying about Japan's WWII history in grad school, I found my second visit to Yasakuni much more interesting. It's true that each country writes history in their perspective, so there will aways be differences between what one side and another said had happened. The muesum at Yasakuni shrine does it's best to twist the truth without making blunt lies. There is definantly room for interpritation.

Since I've been there last the muesum has been renovated and there are new wings that are entirely new. Over they years, I think Yasakuni shrine toned down their version of history. There remains lots of information that is not mentioned or down played at the muesum. I also found it interesting that 3 paragraphes of Japanese text were reflected in only about 2 sentences of English. I wish I could read Japanese better so that I can see if the translations match up. I'm sure there's some information that was not translated into English- and it makes me wonder why?