みたままつり

Hello everyone,

This week, I'm going to be posting twice!

Some of you probably know that my internship at 2HJ is part of my sociology curriculum, meaning that if I fulfill certain requirements while abroad, I can earn course credit toward my major! This blog is part of that "course"; in addition to writing a post each week, I am expe​cted to write midterm and final "essays" (basically just extended responses to questions posed by my professor), and to create a presentation about my experience in order to promote the Freeman Asia program experience to prospective interns back at IWU.

I'd like to share my midterm and final writings with you, and will be posting them to this blog as they are completed. I am planning to finish my midterm by Wednesday or Thursday.

Anyway, this "regular" post is actually just going to be a short collection of observations, pictures, and videos from an super cool experience I had last night at the みたままつり(mitama matsuri, or "Soul Festival").

I stumbled upon mitama matsuri because I had attended a morning glory festival with one of my 2HJ supervisors a week prior, and was interested in experiencing more of Japan's festival culture. So I did what any clueless American would do and Googled "summer festivals in Tokyo." Amazingly, one of the biggest festivals of the year was about to occur at Yasukuni Shrine in just a few days' time!

Mitama matsuri is an annual festival that started in the 1940s as a way to honor the dead (more specifically, those who served Japan in any sort of military capacity), and attracts thousands of visitors during its four-day operation. Thousands of painted paper lamps light the pathway to the shrine, where people line up in droves to pray and give offerings. The entrance is decorated with bamboo shoots covered in paper prayers, and giant streamers (for lack of a better term) hang from the rafters with strings of colorful origami cranes dangling just above festival-goers' heads.

I don't feel my descriptions can truly do it justice, though; please enjoy the pictures and videos I took (videos won't embed on this page, so please click the hyperlink for my Google album; the dances were so cool!):

The main prayer hall

Lamps paying homage to the souls

Thousands of origami cranes, a symbol of peace

Gorgeous streamers hanging from the entrance to the shrine

The shrine itself is actually steeped in controversy; because it exists to honor all who served Japan during wartime, it often faces criticism - especially from other countries - regarding the war crimes committed by about 1,000 (of the 2+ million) dead. When diplomats and other government officials visit, their appearances tend to cause media uproar, so many have distanced themselves (personally and politically) from the venue. I imagine another reason they feel the need to do this is because one of my co-workers said that the concept of "church"/state separation is taken far more seriously in Japan than it is in the United States (which is very interesting, because the US essentially wrote Japan's constitution after WWII).

As a foreigner, and as someone who had not heard of Yasukuni Shrine until a few days ago, I don't feel particularly qualified to comment on the sociopolitical implications of its existence. But as a proponent of church/state separation myself, I can understand why it would be objectionable for someone to visit the shrine in any official capacity. I can also see how visiting the shrine as a government representative (especially one who has military clout) would be cause for concern, as such a visit could be construed as revering the souls of particularly egregious historical actors.

In light of this context, I do think it is also important to consider the potential significance of the thousands of origami cranes lining the shrine's entrance during mitama matsuri. In Japanese culture, the crane is a symbol of peace; to place strings of them in front of a shrine that holds the names of over 2 million service members suggests to me that Yasukuni (or at least mitama matsuri) is not so much a celebration or glorification of war, as it is a testament to the sheer loss of life that can come of it, and the desire for the list of names not to grow.

At the very least, Yasukuni Shrine is a case study in the fact that history and culture are incredibly complicated; as with most things in life, the shrine does, indeed, exist in a sort of [morally, religiously, socially, politically] grey area. I attended mitama matsuri as an observer of what I knew would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and was not disappointed. I think contextualizing the event and its venue for myself made it all the more enriching, and I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about it as well!

Thank you for reading, and I'll "see" you in the next few days with my midterm post :) Oyasumi nasai (good night)!