Just What The Doctor Ordered

After spending most of the day at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, I took the rest of the afternoon to go to Miyagima Island, just a short ferry ride from the city.  It was perfect!  It was such a beautiful, calm, and unique place that it was impossible not to feel at peace in that setting.

I stayed until dusk watching the birds and the deer, and the hermit crabs.  (I have a soft spot in my heart for hermit crabs. They are so darn cute in those tiny little shells!)

For more photos check out https://picasaweb.google.com/sarra.yamin/HiroshimaAndMiyagima

Hiroshima

It has taken me a long time to write this.  It is hard to know what to say about Hiroshima, partly because I left there with a lot of questions for myself, and partly because the words seem to fall short of what I’d hoped to convey.  I had not originally planned to visit Hiroshima while in Japan.  I debated it, and decided it wasn't a place I needed to visit in person.   I felt as though I understood the tragedy without having to actually be there, but in part I think I really just didn't want to have to see it up close.  It is so much easier, on a day-to-day basis, to push out of our minds the reality of the cruelty with which humans sometimes treat one another.  However, when I ended up having extra days on my rail pass, Miko encouraged me to go. 

Within 5 minutes of arriving at the Peace Memorial Park, as I was walking around the A-bomb Dome, taking photos and reading the placards, a man sitting on a folding chair beside the path called me over to him. He asked if I would be willing to give him thirty minutes of my time.  He introduced himself as Mito Kosei, one of the youngest living survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima.  He is a class 4 survivor, an individual exposed to residual radiation while in utero. 

For the next 30 minutes he told me the story of the bombing of Hiroshima generally (having previously worked in the Peace Memorial Museum) and also the story as it was felt by his family.  He told me about the details of the bombing, its effects on the city, the political climate before and after the bombing, Hiroshima’s attempts at healing, the painful death of his grandfather, and his own sickly childhood.  He also told me about his frustration with the way that the effects of residual radiation are downplayed by the museum and the Japanese government (ultimately the reason he left the museum).  He talked with me about the fact that, of those involved in the bombing, the head of the weather research team is the only one who ever apologized for his role.  He also told me that the central purpose of the Peace Memorial Park is to forgive and forget and that the Japanese people are happy to have American's visit, and they hold no ill feelings.  As he said that, the tears that I had been holding back for the last 25 minutes began to stream down my cheeks.  I couldn't help but feel guilty, complacent.  Maybe not for the bombing of Hiroshima, but for the knowledge that a million small wrongs are committed every day, while I paint my toenails and watch Project Runway.  

Walking around the park and the museum, I could see what he meant.  I felt like the treatment of the US and its actions was actually more generous than was even fair.  The criticisms were there, but they were subtle.  The museum, for example, talks about the fact that the bombing occurred at 8:15 in the morning, that the US gave no warning that they had an atomic bomb, let alone that they might use it, that Japan was on the brink of surrender anyway because they were almost entirely out of resources, that the bombing occurred just before the Russians were set to join the war, and that the US still maintains over 1,000 nuclear warheads.  But the viewer is left to take those facts and draw conclusions.  Some part of me wanted stronger accusations.  Without warning the US demolished a city during a time when civilians would be out and about traveling to work and school.  They did it, not because it was necessary to control the bomb’s actual target, but to send a message to Russia and to field test the powers of a previously unused weapon.  The fact that the Peace Memorial Park was not overtly critical or admonishing toward the US, made me feel as though it became the viewer’s responsibility (my responsibility) to be critical.

I began to think about carrying that feeling of responsibility forward to my daily life in a stronger way.  As I left the Peace Memorial Park I wrestled with an issue that has bothered me before, and that I still haven't solved.  I abhor war and its cruelty and all of the underlying fears or desires that seem to motivate it, but like many issues that I feel passionate about, I struggle with how to act against these things in a way that is effective and sincere and fits with the type of happy and balanced life I hope to live. There are so many issues that one can take up, so many causes to fight for, so many injustices in the world.  I don’t begin to think I can take them all on, nor do I really want to. I have a couple of key issues that I feel like I can speak to with knowledge and confidence, and that I have an idea of what effective change might look like, and I focus on those things.  Even if I think I would be fighting the good fight, I don’t want to spend all of my time and energy fighting.  I still want to paint my toe nails and watch Project Runway, and I think that is healthy.  However, at times like these, I feel as though I should be doing more.  I can’t imagine a justification for possessing the number of nuclear warheads that we do, and therefore what justification do I have for not actively speaking out against it?

I can already appreciate the ways in which traveling solo has forced me to think more about things that I might not otherwise, and I think that much of what made Hiroshima difficult and valuable came from that.  However, even apart from that, Hiroshima was a really interesting and, in many ways, beautiful place to visit.  The Japanese government and people have turned a place of pain and destruction into a monument to international peace.  In the victims memorial they even acknowledge their own role at that time as a warning and colonizing nation, and the fact that they ended as many lives in this capacity as were taken by the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It is hard to imagine many nations taking that same attitude. The message on the Memorial Cenotaph reads “Rest in peace, for the error shall not be repeated.”

The message provides a sense of hope, as does the Children’s Peace Monument, where groups of children come to visit the park, donate paper cranes that they have folded, sing songs, and say prayers.  In the faces of those kids, the cruelty of war seems very foreign.  The Children’s Peace Monument, and similar efforts to blend the teaching of history with lessons of empathy, aim to create a generation that takes better care of human life than those that came before it.  

Full photo albums available at :https://picasaweb.google.com/sarra.yamin/HiroshimaAndMiyagima

In Love With Kyoto

Hello from Japan and welcome to my first official blog post! I have been in Japan for 1 week now and, on the whole, it's been wonderful!  The only problems I've had were mother nature made.  I left PDX on the 20th, scheduled to arrive in Tokyo in the afternoon on the 21st.  Unfortunately, Typhoon Roke beat me there.  Shortly before our scheduled landing the captain informed us that the plane woul not be able to land in Tokyo and that we were being diverted to Seoul.  Then, half way to Seoul, we found out that we were being diverted once again and would be landing in Osaka instead.  We landed in Osaka without incident, but since customs officials in Osaka weren't originally expecting us, they wouldn't allow us to deboard the plane.  About an hour after landing, an American passenger got really frustrated with the wait and started cursing and screaming from his seat.  Japanese airport police entered the plane and got him to settle down, then left the plane again, leaving that passenger and the rest of us to sit for another three hours.

By the time we actually got to put our feet on solid ground it was too late to make it into Osaka to get a hostel, so I ended up staying overnight in the airport.  The airport was full of passengers stranded overnight, so I had plenty of company.  The airport seats were quite comfortable and there were blankets that the airport loaned out to people who were staying overnight.  In the morning I was even pleasantly surprised to find a realy nice, clean shower inside the airport.

After a few hours of sleep and a hot shower I caught the first train from Osaka to Nara the next morning.   I spent Thursday in Nara with the deer, then traveled to Kyoto on Friday.  In Kyoto I met up with Miko (a friend of a friend), and have been staying with her since.  She is an English teacher with three teenaged children.  Her family has been amazingly kind and welcoming.   In addition to letting me stay at her home, Miko also invited me to visit her schools.  Miko teaches both at an elementary school in Kyoto and at a University in Osaka.  On Monday we were at the elementary school teaching second-graders, and then Tuesday we were at the university teaching freshmen.  Miko even designed her lesson plans so that I could help her teach.

The remainder of my time has been spent enjoying the sights of Kyoto and getting to know the city.  I've visited several of the shrines and temples that Kyoto is known for, and I've done a LOT of walking!  Kyoto is beautiful! It has an amazing balance of natural and man-made beauty. Its gorgeous red structures, stone statues and wood carvings are all situated among bright green trees that create lacy shadows. The air is fresh, especially when there is a slight breeze, and the crickets and frogs that live around all the gardens and ponds balance out the city sounds.  It has been a perfect place to start my trip.  Between the green tea and seaweed, the walking, and the shrines, temples and gardens, I feel really healthy, happy, and peaceful.  I'm also feeling really opimistic and excited about what the rest of my trip has in store.

Tomorrow I head to Hiroshima and then finally to Tokyo on Saturday.   I'll post again soon.

Until then,

Sarra

(Full photo albums at: https://picasaweb.google.com/sarra.yamin)