Crash Course

The Japanese have a profound liking for self-introductions (自己紹介 in Japanese) and I have not, after giving more than 15 of these. At every gathering with people you haven’t met before it’s a standard procedure for Japanese that you shortly introduce yourself . Because I (and the rest of my class) just recently arrived in Japan we were required to hold many of them. Not only at all kinds of formal meetings but also at the beginning of our class every teacher asked us to hold this short speech about yourself. Most teachers just listened to what we had to say, occasionally ask a question and after having introduced themselves, they at last begin with their class.
However, one teacher followed a slightly different path. He apologized to the Chinese and Koreans in our class for the recent visit (October 17, 2005) of Premier Koizumi to the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo. Yasukuni shrine was founded in 1869 and was build in order to commemorate and worship those who have died in war for their country and sacrificed their lives.
Since October 17, 1978 quietly fourteen class A war criminals (of the second World War) have been enshrined at Yasukuni among 2.5 million people who had died in the various wars Japan had fought. When this was revealed in 1979, this started a controversy which rages to this day. The controversy is that the Japanese pay reverence to the war criminals enshrined at Yasukuni. The countries that have suffered from Japanese imperial embankments since the Meiji Restoration (1868) are angered because they feel that the Japanese by venerating these war criminals do not account for their deeds in the past. The stance of Yasukuni shrine is that in Shinto one believes that the souls (御霊 - mitama) of the deceased remain in this world to be celebrated by their descendants. It was believed that the souls of the deceased would watch over the good fortune of their descendants together with the ancestral Kami (神 usually translated with gods) and would cause pain or trouble if not. So for their celebrations it does not matter whether their deeds during lifetime are to regarded as good or as bad.
The controversial nature of the Yasukuni shrine comes to the foreground if a prime minister goes to visit the shrine.
Countries that suffered from Japanese imperialism see such action as the attempt to legitimise Japanese militarism and as a revival of right wing nationalism. And these visits have important consequences in the foreign relations Japan has with it’s neighbouring Asian countries.
And in domestic affairs there is a debate going on if the visits by the Prime Minister to Yasukuni shrine a violation of the constitutional principle of the separation of religion and government are.
The Japanese themselves are also very divided in their opinions with regard to the Yasukuni shrine and the visits by Koizumi. Their opinions differ from finding it offensive for the people in countries that suffered from Japan’s imperialism to people who see Prime Minister Koizumi visits as an affirmation of the strong politics he is pursuing by not giving in to the criticism of other countries.
I was pleasantly surprised that our teacher expressed so clearly his standpoint in a country where a teacher can loose his job if he refrains from singing the Japanese anthem (which has a connection with the Imperial Japan of before 1945)
So even an self introduction can result in a interesting begin of a class.