| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 09 February 2005 |
|
 |
|
On the one hand, it says, 'In 1941, a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor hurtled Japan into the Pacific War (World War II).' This somewhat glosses over the fact that it was Japan who launched this attack, not some third party hurtling Japan into the war. And it claims there were three reasons that the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki: to avoid even heavier casualties from an invasion, to win the war before the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and hence would have some political power in the Pacific settlement (the Soviet Union had agreed to declare war on Japan within four months of Germany's surrender, and did in fact do so before the atomic bombs were dropped), and to test the effects of the atomic bomb as a weapon. (It also claims that the decision had been made very early to use the atomic bomb on Japan. Perhaps, but the developers believed it would be used against Germany, and it might have been had the European war not ended when it did.)
On the other hand, it does mention that Japan imported Korean and Chinese slave labor, does talk about the Rape of Nanjing (though it says estimates vary on the number of deaths), and says, 'But we must never forget that nuclear weapons are the fruits of war. Japan, too, with colonization policies and wars of aggression inflicted incalculable and irreversible harm on the peoples of many countries. We must reflect on war and the causes of war, not just nuclear weapons.'
But naturally much of the museum is about the horrors of atomic war, with photographs of radiation and blast victims (hibakusha), charred and twisted everyday objects found after the blast, and poems such as this one by Tamiki Hara:
'This is a human being?
Look how the atom bomb changed it.
Flesh swells fearfully.
All men and women take one shape.
The voice that trickles from swollen lips
On the festering, charred-black face
Whispers the thin words,
'Please help me.'
This, this is a human being.
This is the face of a human being.'
There was also a museum shop, but not full of junky tourist souvenirs: the books were all about the blast, atomic weapons, or radiation, and the T-shirts all had peace or disarmament messages. Strangely, they did not have a copy of the best-known (at least in the West) manga about Hiroshima, Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen (and its sequels Barefoot Gen: The Day After and Barefoot Gen: Life After The Bomb). (We saw these later in the English-language section of the Maruzen Bookstore in Kyoto.)
In the Peace Park there is also a statue to Sadako, a girl who was two years old in 1945, survived the blast, but developed leukemia ten years later. She attempted to fold a thousand origami cranes, since the legend is that if you fold a thousand cranes you will get your wish. Almost every book says she folded only 665 before she died, and that her classmates folded the other 335 afterwards, but the museum claims she folded 1440. In any case, her classmates had a statue erected to her of a girl holding a representation of a folded crane, and all the school groups bring cranes (a thousand, perhaps?) to lay at the foot of the statue. They also all sing what seems to be the same song as part of the presentation, though I have no idea what it was saying. There are piles of cranes strung on string at the statue, and the groups have to stand in line to do their presentations.
In the park, we met a young man from near Hiroshima who wanted to talk to us. But he didn't ask about the bomb (which I had heard is what people in Hiroshima ask Americans about). He wanted to know if America was really as dangerous as it seemed on television and in the movies. We tried to explain that some parts are but most are not, and that they have to make the shows exciting somehow. (I will note in passing that Japan seems to have an almost crime-free society with an emphasis on family values without having a need for school prayer or a call for a 'Christian nation.' It's not completely crime-free, though; people still lock their bicycles when they leave them on the street.) He also asked about whether everyone in America had to have insurance against lawyers. Well, maybe not against lawyers, but it is true that we seem to have a lot of insurance because of lawyers.
We walked toward Hiroshima-jo Castle. On the way we stopped in a computer store and looked at the books on the first (ground) floor. There were Japanese translations of all the O'Reilly Associate UNIX books; the one I looked at (on TCP/IP) was ¥4700, not that much more than in the United States. (This will be meaningless to all our non-computer friends and family who read this.)
Hiroshima-jo Castle is, naturally, a reconstruction, the original having been destroyed August 6, 1945. It is nice enough, I suppose, but does not have the multiple floors and hence graceful and beautiful look of a castle such as Matsumoto-jo Castle. The Lonely Planet guide said that there was an admission of ¥300, and inside a display about the construction of the castle using laser effects. Well, there was no admission but no display either; maybe it was moved to a museum. The inside was empty and afforded little of interest other than noticing that the cross-beams were already cracking.
By now it was about 15:30 and we decided to go to Miyajima, west of Hiroshima. There is supposedly a tram from the center of town, but it would take fifty minutes and we had no idea where to catch it. So we took a tram back to the train station (saving ourselves the problem of negotiating our way back there), and took the local JR train instead, which took twenty-five minutes. This actually stops at Miyajima-guchi, which is the departure point for ferries to Miyajima, an island just off the coast. Leaving the train station we immediately saw the JR ferry terminal two blocks in front of us. We walked down and used our JapanRail Passes for the ten-minute ferry ride to the island. (There were no actual rails that I could see.)
The Lonely Planet guide describes Miyajima as a tourist trap, and there were a lot of shops selling souvenirs and some special star-shaped cookies. You could watch the cookie assembly lines running, with a mechanical brush oiling the molds, then another machine pouring the batter in, then the molds being run through a heating area, and finally the cookies being mechanically removed. For the more nature-inclined, there were deer wandering around the town and the path to the shrine.
Oh, yes, the shrine. You've seen pictures of it; Itsukushima-jinja Shrine is one of Japan's most photographed attractions. Its most notable characteristic is that the giant orange torii gate sits in the middle of the water. Well, in the pictures it does. This is really true only at high tide, and at low tide the gate sits in the mud. (If you walk to the gate at low tide and throw a pebble up onto the top and it stays there, your prayer will be answered.) We arrived somewhere in between, so there was water around the gate, if not all the way to the shrine.
Even with all the souvenir shops, Miyajima was very peaceful. Of course, the fact that we arrived at the end of the day may have had something to do with this-the shrine closes at sunset and most people do not stay on the island. In fact, when we walked back to the pier from the island, most of the shops were already closed. But sunset may be the best time to see the 'floating torii' (at sunrise, the mountains on the island would put it in shadow). It's true we didn't have time to go into the shrine, but the scenic beauty of the area with the temple horns blowing in the background was worth the trip.
We took the ferry back to the mainland (which as Mark points out is just another island) and had a quick dinner of squid and yakitori. There were not a lot of places to choose from, and the place we picked had a ¥200 cover charge per person, which with the tax brought dinner to ¥1771 (meals over a certain price are taxed). This is the only place we found with a cover charge.
On the Shinkansen back from Hiroshima there were some loud Louisianans who were obviously here on business and trying to figure out if they could open their sake without a corkscrew. I offered them mine if they needed one, but sake comes in screw-top bottles. After a while they mellowed out and settled down; their Japanese host seemed to take it all in stride.
Random note: one really useful item to have on a trip is a compass. Even in the city it's invaluable for orienting yourself with the maps, especially on cloudy days (of which we have many).
October 18, 1996: Thanks to the Internet, we had a great day today.
We decided not to rush out first thing, so we didn't catch the train until 9:21. (Well, if the Japanese railways are that precise, I suppose I should be.) We stopped for pork buns on the way (to eat on the train) and this meant we had to rush to catch this train. Luckily we didn't get lost on the way to tracks, which is easy to do in Kyoto Station. They're remodeling it 'to serve you better,' though I doubt we'll ever see the benefit of it. (The airport in Guayaquil, Ecuador, had a similar sign in 1986, and they haven't served us any better since either.)
We talked to a couple of other tourists. Most people seem to spend more time in Kyoto, with only a day or two in Tokyo, but so far I have to say that Tokyo seems far more interesting than Kyoto. Admittedly, we haven't had much time here, so my opinion could change.
It clouded up as we rode and was cloudy when we arrived in Himeji, but luckily it didn't rain (except for a couple of drops). We walked along the main street, observing the statues erected there. It's not every town that has a statue of a nude saxophone player on its main street. In fact, I suspect this is the only one.
The main attraction in Himeji is Himeji-jo Castle (¥500). This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I am reminded of Mark's article about the (supposed) 'Seven Wonders of the World Committee' that determines what the current Seven Wonders are. Well, UNESCO seems to be something very like that, except they have no numerical limit. I had a list of UNESCO sites and checked it before we left, but nothing in Japan was on it. This is because the list was a couple of years old. Japan did not sign the Agreement of World Heritage until 1992, and it was after that that Himeji-jo Castle and Horyu-ji Temple were listed as World Heritage sites. (And the ancient sites of Kyoto as well, it turns out.)
Again, an English tour was available. An old man gave the tour, but there was also a young woman trainee who gave a couple of sections. I don't know if they are employed by the castle or just volunteers. I would have thought volunteers, but it seems strange to have a trainee volunteer. On the other hand, maybe this is how people practice their English. Although students spend many years learning English in school here, I understand there is more concentration on reading it, and the result is that most can't speak it even after all that. (I know, Americans are terrible at other languages. But they don't spend years learning them in school, nor do they have much contact with them outside of school. The exception would be Spanish, since at least in some areas one can get Spanish-language television and radio.)
Himeji-jo Castle was built at the beginning of the 17th century by Terumasa Ikeda, son-in-law to Ieyasu Tokugawa. (I will leave the historical details to Mark, since I'm sure he's covered them completely.)
We first saw the Long Corridor which was a long defensive building along the western edge of the castle grounds, but also contained a 'Cosmetic Tower' for Princess Sen, whose dowry helped build it. On one of the buildings after this the guide pointed out a cross on the end of one of the roof tiles, the only evidence that one of the earlier daimyos (lords) here had been a Christian. (Though the main castle was built in the early 17th century, other buildings were constructed earlier, and even though they may have been demolished, parts of them were re-used. |
|
| Copyright © - "Evelyn C. Leeper" |
|
 |
| Other travelogues by the same author: |
|
|
|
