The Foreign Service Journal, November 2009

F ollowing my early morning de- livery of classified material to Embassy Tokyo after an all- night flight from Consulate General Frankfurt, I set off on a circumnaviga- tion of the Imperial Palace. There I caught a glimpse of a huge torii (the tra- ditional Japanese gate at the entrance to a sacred space) among tall trees to the north. Intrigued, I set off through the Imperial Gardens and out the mas- sive doors of the palace’s northern gate. A Shinto shrine appeared to be at the end of the long ceremonial boule- vard, and halfway down it a historic fig- ure atop a pillar rose high above a crowd of onlookers. Reading the plaque at its base that described Omura Masujiro (1824-1869) as the father of the mod- ern Japanese Army, it dawned on me that I must be at the Yasukuni Shrine. Over the years this site has become infamous in theWesternmedia. When- ever Japanese primeministers make the obligatory visit to pay their respects to the spirits of Japan’s war dead, there is an outcry that they are honoring war criminals. (Never mind that Yasukuni is not run by the state, is not a cemetery and there are no bodies buried there: it is a place only for kamii — spirits). I strolled into the sacred grounds (haiden) shaded by cherry trees, the only Westerner there. I took off my baseball cap and sunglasses and ap- proached the shrine, standing with sev- eral elderly Japanese bowing in silence toward its simple beauty. To the right was a regal-looking building called Yushukan. Its courtyard held a variety of intriguing statuary: one of a confident kamikaze; one memori- alizing Japan’s war widows; one each of a horse, dog and homing pigeon, cele- brating the role the animals played in Japan’s war efforts. Cannon from the wars with China (1894-1895) and Rus- sia (1904-1905) completed the pictur- esque scene. Inside the museum, I was carried along by a crowd of Japanese high school students taking copious notes on controversial events. Beginning with the national upheaval caused by Com- modore Matthew Perry’s 1852 appear- ance insisting upon open trade, the exhibits continued through the destruc- tion of Hiroshima andNagasaki and the occupation at the end of World War II. From the Russo-Japanese war on, Japan’s military exploits were framed as an attempt to emancipate Asian nations from Western colonization. There was no propagandistic nationalism; victories and defeats, along with the desperate acts of kamikazes, were presented with equivalent candor. Therewas also no re- gret expressed in what they tried to achieve. The final exhibits matter-of-factly described the Thai-Burma railroad as being constructed to assist in the liber- ation of India and Burma from British occupation, and displayed the effort through a large map detailing its vast scope. This caught my eye. Having been twice posted to Em- bassy Bangkok, I had thoroughly ex- plored this territory in the jungles of Thailand, where the Japanese had used prisoners of war to build the “Death Railway” made famous in the movie “Bridge Over the River Kwai.” No- where here was there a mention of the 200,000 POW laborers or the fact that more than half of them died there. In the last hall, I was surprised to find a black behemoth dominating the space: it was the first steam locomotive to cross the bridge over the Kwai River. Purchased from the Thai government (where it had been put into service after the war), the C5631-type steam engine had been shipped home to Tokyo to memorialize Japan’s achievement. The serendipitous discovery in downtown Tokyo of this remnant of a tragic episode in South East Asian his- tory mademe think: If it is true that his- tory is written by the victors, what does that mean for the vanquished? ■ James B. Angell has served in Wash- ington, Seoul and Bangkok (twice). He is currently deputy regional diplomatic courier director in Frankfurt, his sec- ond tour there. I was carried along by a crowd of Japanese high school students taking copious notes on controversial events. 72 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 9 R EFLECTIONS Discovering Yasukuni B Y J AMES B. A NGELL