Kimi ga Yo

Image by Hashimoto Masaru (橋本　勝)

As part of my final project, I had to give a presentation about a Japanese project in the Japanese language. My choice; Kimi ga Yo, the national anthem of Japan. The video is at YouTube, watch if you want. The language will not be perfect, but the project was still graded as an A, so I am happy.

About this song (君が代 in Japanese), I personally like it. I can sing it, I can type it into Japanese pretty easily and it is sitting on the iPod right now. When I walk around Japan this summer, I am going to have this song play into my ears or hear it at sporting events. Well, I know not all of Japan likes this song, and I know other folks do not like it either. Yes, it worships the emperor of Japan, and not many people like the institution of it. I know for an American, I find it hard to swear to just one person above everything else. When I take oaths for working in the elections or some other sort of government work, I always swear to the Constitution (and sometimes, on it), and not to a God or some other deity. (As a side note, when I notice the Russians and other Soviet states swear an oath of loyalty, it is to the Constitution and to the President.)

I do agree this song has been slammed into people's head recently. In the above image, a young boy with the Hinomaru in his skull, he is mouthing off the first line of Kimi ga Yo. The man who is facing the boy, and put the symbols into his head, is Shinzo Abe, the 90th (and former) Prime Minister of Japan. Out of my entire lifetime, I believe Abe was the most nationalist of all of the Japanese prime ministers. Sure, the Law Concerning the National Flag and Anthem was passed during the era of Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi (deceased), but Abe made comments that caused my Japanese professors to freak out. He was pretty much against the compensation for women who were used to "comfort" the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, visit the Yasukuni Shrine (which I will personally visit), and demanded patriotic education be taught in the public schools since 2006.

Yasuo Fukuda, the current Prime Minister of Japan, witnessed a change in the Education Guidelines in 2008 to include more patriotic education, including asking first through sixth graders to sing Kimi ga Yo. Nothing wrong with patriotic education (I had it up through Middle school), but with these loaded symbols, it should be up to the parents to say how much is too much. Sure, know about the flag, emperor, anthem and other symbols in the civics class, but Kimi ga Yo before many school functions may be a bit of an overkill.

Edit: Toned down language, removed bad examples. Found artist of the image, so an exact source is put on hold right now.