I thought I would try writing about Yasukuni Shrine. I say try, because the shrine is the subject of a complicated debate in East Asia and the international community. It's been discussed extremely thoroughly, and as I am not a scholar on the subject, I'm afraid I'll end up misinterpreting or misrepresenting certain points. That's my disclaimer.

Basically, the Yasukuni shrine is a Shinto shrine originally established by the Meiji government to commemorate the war dead. And when I say "commemorate the war dead," I mean enshrine them as kami (gods). It seems a little insane, but this is more or less how Shinto works.

Not to go into too much detail, Shinto consists of multiple gods, or kami, existing in the world around us, as everything has a spiritual essence. Compared to, say, Greek mythology, there isn't just one kami of the water or one kami of the trees, but a kami of one river in particular and a completely different kami in the next town over. What's more, it isn't at all strange to enshrine new kami or even the spirits of people. It's extremely interesting and much less simple than I made it sound, but getting back to the Yasukuni Shrine...

Those who have died defending Japan supposedly end up at this shrine and, after a ceremony, become kami. This includes those who fought and died in WWII and the conflict across Asia leading up to it. It also includes over 1000 class A, B, and C war criminals.

The problem is that when one goes to worship at this particular shrine, he or she worships the enshrined spirits of said war criminals. Bigger problems arise when Prime Ministers and other government officials make visits to the Shrine while technically prohibited by the Japanese Constitution. Problems for who? China and South Korea tend to be the biggest international critics of the visits. Historically, both countries have had less than friendly experiences with Japan during the WWII era. Imperial occupation, forced labor, a bloody campaign across China. These are just some of the still sensitive war issues between Japan and other countries. So when Japanese officials visit the shrine to thank those who fought for Japan, who are now revered as kami, it tends to send the wrong message.

The shrine is also a kind of hub for many of the right wing voices within Japan. These voices usually take the form of decorated vans flying Japanese flags and broadcasting their message from speakers. Some days, I'm told, you'll see them everywhere near the shrine. When I visited the shrine, I only managed to find one.

While most of Japan tends to be fairly apologetic about the war, there is a very small element within the public that believes Japan's war time past was justified and that what most Japanese accept as a war of aggression was actually a war liberating Asian countries from Western colonization.

Knowing all of this, I felt sort of self conscious being at the shrine. The shrine is important to many people, especially to those who have lost family during the war, and as an outsider, sometimes it's hard to see past the enshrinement of war criminals and the overall right wing elements of the shrine. Praying at the shrine isn't nearly as political an action as it might seem. Most of the time, it's just Japanese people commemorating the dead. It's only the government visits that make the news. So while the shrine can't be called harmless, the controversy should be taken with a grain of salt.

Just outside the main shrine area, there is a war museum called Yushukan which is run by Yasukuni shrine. I'll talk about the Yushukan in a part 2.