Lost In Translation; Visit to Yasukuni Shrine

Hello everyone, I apologize for not having posted in awhile. We have been kept extremely busy at the Kenshukan; we have Japanese class from 9-12:50, and depending on the day, can have class from 2:50-6 pm. When I'm not doing homework, shopping for groceries, or practicing Japanese, all I want to do is sleeeeep.

Prior to today, for our business class, we had to select two places in Japan we want to visit and give a presentation on. Why they call it business class, know one will ever know. To quote Paul, it is more like an anthropology class. Anyways, the places I selected were the Yasukuni Shrine and Shibuya, the city which has the famous statue of Hachikou.

I have a personal interest in both these places. My Sophomore year in college I stumbled upon the Wikipedia page for the Yasukuni Shrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni_Shrine) and discovered it's significance. In it is enshrined the spirit of every person and animal who has died in service for the empire of Japan. However, controversy has surrounded the shrine when it was found out not long after WWII that those who were found guilty of various war crimes are enshrined as well. After doing a little bit of research, I decided to write a small wind ensemble piece about the concept of good and, perhaps, not-so-good spirits enshrined in the same tomb. Lastly, for my recital last spring, I wrote a piano piece about the story of Hachikou. You can check out the wikipedia page if you want, it's a pretty easy read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachikou

So, for today, we had to visit the first place we selected, and for me that was the Yasukuni Shrine. Then, before we left on our own from the Kenshukan (dorm), I had a panic attack when I realized that A) I did not look for directions on how to get there and B) even if I had, I couldn't read the train system if someone pointed a gun to my head and said to get to Shinjuku. Luckily, we were paired with a Japanese student who would help get us there, and then I began to return to chill mode. Also, the only Canadian in our group, Vince,  also chose to go to Yasukuni Shrine, which was cool because I hadn't had the opportunity to really talk to him.

So, the party consisted of Hiroaki, Vince, and myself. We left the Kenshukan and departed for Mukougaoka-yuen station, about a fifteen minute walk from dorm. Now, every time I had went out on the town, or talked with Japanese students, I had been in one of two situations. Either I was with Paul or Ben, who's Japanese skills far surpass mine (they are practically fluent, to be honest), or I am with a Japanese student who's English is far better than my Japanese (which meant that to me, they were a living dictionary). However, with Hiroaki, his English is, perhaps, the same as my Japanese. And Vince, the Canadian, is in Japanese level 1. So, you can probably tell where this is going...

Today, for the first time, I experienced the feeling of being lost in translation, and it is frustrating. At first, Hiroaki and I could talk about basic stuff, but during the long train ride to Ichigaya Station in Chiyoda, I realized that there was no way for me to really communicate with him, and vice-versa. Even with the Denshi-Jisho that Akagi-Sensei let me borrow, I couldn't really understand a lot he was saying. And when he went out on a limb on his English, I found myself not being able to understand him, and he, too, would be at a lost for words.

On-wards, we arrived at the Yasukuni Shrine. It was surreal, to say the least, to finally be standing in the place that I had read about so many times. I don't really have any pictures because I didn't take any, nor did I want to; I wanted to concentrate on the moment and allow my senses to not be bothered (also, my battery died :p). Hiroaki gave us a tour, and there were moments that I could understand, maybe at best, 30% percent of what he was saying.

Yasukuni Shrine is in Chiyoda, which is a very big part of Tokyo. However, inside the shrine, there were moments that you could forget you were in the biggest city on Earth. In fact, much of it is more like a park than the actual shrine; there are footpaths that are encircled in trees, benches are everywhere if you want to sit and read the paper, and even a beautiful water garden filled with koi.

The coolest part was where the statues were. There was a statue and memorial for many different things, including a statue of a horse and dog to commemorate the many animals who died in battle. There was a statue of a woman holding a child, with more children at her legs, to commemorate the hardships women and children went through while their husbands were off fighting wars. There is also a statue that I know exists, but couldn't find, of a Kamekaze pilot to commemorate their sacrifices. There was a scaled version of the Japanese battleship Yamato (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Yamato), the largest and most powerful battleship ever constructed on the planet. Behind it was a plague with all the names of ships that were lost in war. Although Yasukuni Shrine is dedicated to all conflicts and wars fought during the empire's reign, it seems that many of the commemorations were constructed for what happened in WWII.

The most interesting thing I saw was a memorial for the Justice Radhabinod Pal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radha_Binod_Pal), who was the Indian member appointed as a judge to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East trials. He was the only judge who did not find any of the accused defendants guilty of war crimes. At his memorial plaque, you can get a sheet of paper that is both in English and Japanese, and this is where the surprise for me came in. Here are two passages:

"Dr. Pal detected that the tribunal, commonly known as the Tokyo Trial, was none other than formalized vengeance sought with arrogance by the victorious Allied Powers upon a defeated Japan."

"With, as the concluding part of his judgment foresaw, the Allies' craze for retaliation cooling down and the biased outlook on history being corrected, the insightful view presented by Dr. Pal has now gained recognition which it should deserve in the academic circle of international law."

It is hard putting into words my reaction to reading this. This is an example of the old saying, "Ask ten different churches and you'll get ten different answers." Surely, in America, we would remember the trials as great justice being served, while not mentioning much about the amount of civilian deaths we were responsible for in destructive carpet bombings and two horrific atomic bombings. Every country will create justifications and reasons for what happened to suit how they want their history to be remembered, and tonight, I had the uneasy experience of reading their account of what happened, not biased by American hindsight, but by Japanese hindsight.

Anyways, Vince, Hiroaki, and myself continued our walk through the shrine. After walking past the statue of Omura Masujiro, we decided to call it a night and returned to Ichigaya station. After tonight, I made many realizations. Most importantly, while I'm in Japan, I need to study ten times more than I am currently. I am in another country and I can barely speak their language, and especially cannot read it. How am I supposed to get around if I can't communicate with other people?  Before I came to Japan, I had this weird mind-set that even though I was going to another country, every person would speak English, and no matter where we go, there will always be a translator!

Nope. The truth is, you have to be your own translator. At UNL, there are many students that come from all parts of the world, yet the faculty at the foreign affairs office (such as office workers, clerks, etc) most likely only speak English. Every time I go to the foreign affairs office at Senshu, the office workers there only speak Japanese, and for some reason this was a shock for me. The feeling of realizing that the language you had been studying for the past three years in nothing compared to what it should be is nothing less than earth-shattering. However, I know that I am in the best place to get better. With that, I bid ya'll night!