Myths at Work: Taming Imperial Histories with Tea

This article analyzes a day-long tea service at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo to unpack how people can uncritically replicate myths that subdue recognition of imperialist aggression. Extending the work of Roland Barthes, it identifies how myths can operate through objects grouped as a set, deployed in space, and used in interaction. Meanings attributed to objects both in their singularity and as members of a collection – a dual layering of semiotic interactions – can collude to vivify a myth that, in this case, emphasizes the peaceful essence of Japanese culture and depoliticizes a history of imperial violence. In doing so, the myth rides on a translocal connection that links the nation and the former empire to Asia today. The analysis reveals the ways that the material arrangement and physical enactment of a tea performance at a particular point in time suppressed a violent history of Japanese imperialism fought under the banner “Asian universalism” and invoked in its place a narrative of spreading peace through a bowl of tea.