Hiroshima

View from cablecar; Mount Hiei
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By the time we actually departed on the Shinkansen from Kyoto to Hiroshima, I (Brock) had been thinking about the scheduled trip for quite a while. For some reason unbeknownst to me, I have had quasi-nightmares about atomic bombs and nuclear war since I have been about eight years old. As a 3^rd grader, we were required to put together a puppet show. I still remember how I made my miniature Gorbachev and Reagan dance spastically as my cardboard mushroom cloud cutouts danced outside the windows of my make believe Kremlin and White House. Then there were the Terminator movies, which did very little to put my mind at ease. Don’t even get me started on “The Day After.” And of course there is the whole thing about how I study war for a living.

A-bomb Dome, Hiroshima
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I should clarify that my dreams are not actually nightmares. They are more apt to be exhilarating that terrifying; more likely to involve a rush of energy as I dream about packing up my old Honda Accord with necessary survival supplies than they are to include visions of death. Regardless, I carry some serious atomic baggage and I wasn’t sure how I’d react to the trip.

The Thursday before our departure we took a short side trip to Mount Hiei. The other professor on the trip, Hyangsoon Yi, was leading her class on a field trip to the temples there. We took a cool cable car trip up into the mountains that we have been staring at from Seta, on our side of Lake Biwa. The view grew more spectacular as we ascended. Up the mountain there was more and more dense, primary forest and even the hint of an unrestrained mountain stream. By the time the cable car finished its climb, we were high enough so that the medium-sized office buildings that line the shore of Biwako had become small-sized office buildings to our eyes.

Hiroshima, Japan
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The temple complex itself was a nice collection that was mostly affiliated with the Tendai sect of Zen Buddhism in Japan. All monks that hope to be fully ordained in Tendai Zen must travel to Hiei and do so there. We walked into the Great Lecture Hall and were kept mesmerized for almost an hour looking at portraits of historical leaders of Tendai Zen. Most interesting was that the 50 or so (5 foot by 3 foot) portraits were not lined up in any chronological order. There were notable differences among the portraits when it came to posture, background, realism and even the angle taken by the painter. Kristin and I tried to figure out which ones belonged together, which ones were oldest, and which were new, but eventually we had to leave none the wiser.

Children's Memorial; Ground Zero, Hiroshima
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But I should get back to our trip to Hiroshima. We got there in what seemed like no time, thanks to the Shinkansen. We hit Osaka in about 15 minutes, Kobe in about 45 or 50, and were all the way to Hiroshima in about an hour and a half. What a great way to travel. Why doesn’t the Acela train from DC to New York generate the same response? I wonder if the problem lies in the system or the riders.

We took a short walk from the main Hiroshima station to our hotel along the banks of one of the many rivers that cut north-south through the city. Already I noticed one difference from Kyoto and Osaka – there were outdoor cafes along the river and placed to just sit in relax. The general pace of living seemed a notch below what we had seen previously as well. I guess southern cities are the same all around the world! It was mid-afternoon by the time we got out the door and set off on the city trolley toward the A-Bomb Dome. I looked at the city map and thought it was strange that the stadium for the Hiroshima Carp (a moderately successful Japanese baseball team) had been built right across the street from the Dome, but when we got there it became clear to me that one of the most striking things about the Dome is what has gone up around it. The hypo-center (spot on the ground directly below an airburst nuclear explosion) of the bomb was about 160 meters southeast of the Dome, and as I walked over to that area, I noticed all the construction that was going on in the area. I guess an outsider just thinks of the memorial and empty space, while residents think about the memorial in the context of life. This was made clear by the fact that plaques around the Dome carried just as much information about the role of the building prior to the bombing (eventually it was the Industrial Promotion Hall for Hiroshima) as there was about the bombing itself.

Peace Park, Hiroshima
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The Dome itself was pretty chilling, but I got a smile out of a fat, lazy cat that was lounging on a piece of rubble near the base of the dome. He was sprawled out in the sun, licking himself clean on some concrete and brick that was still charred black. And then there were the smiling and playful Japanese school children parading around. These kids are always guaranteed to cheer you up anyway because of their uniforms (bright colored hats, smocks and a big, boxy backpack), but it was a nice feeling to have them nearby given how I was feeling. But after I thought about it, I was more ambivalent about their blissful ignorance. What does it mean when Japanese school kids don’t really get why it is important for them to take the train 5 hours to visit a building and museum?

Sadako's cranes; Inside Hiroshima Memorial Museum
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We left the dome area and headed over to the memorial and museum, which are on an island that ends at the confluence of two rivers. There is a t-shaped bridge there, connecting the island promontory to each side of the river. This was the intended target of the bomb. From the t-shaped bridge, there is a long promenade to the museum. Along the way, we passed a reflecting pool with a flame in the middle. It is to stay lit until the day that the last nuclear weapon on earth is destroyed. I am not optimistic. Past the flame there is a memorial inscribed with the names of the A-bomb victims. It is protected by a giant concrete arch, and surrounded on three sides by the aforementioned pond. We walked up to the edge of the water and looked at the tadpoles.

Peace Park from Museum
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I didn’t know what to expect inside the museum. I knew that it was going to be intense, and I had warned the students as much. We had spent the day before discussing the likelihood and merits of a Japanese nuclear deterrent in today’s world. I wondered how shocking it would be to them (and me) when confronted with the reality of the weapons we had been considering in purely a theoretical sense. Like most Japanese sights (memorials, shrines, landmarks) there was a huge emphasis on the history of Hiroshima. The first half of the museum was really about the context of the bombing: background on the city, the story of the 5^th Army Division that was headquartered there, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War and then the start of the war with the United States and Great Britain. I wondered how much political wrangling went into the decision to use seemingly simple statements such as “The Pacific War started when the Japanese attacked the American military base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.”

A-bomb Dome from Aioi Bridge (intended target); Hiroshima, Japan
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There was a very interesting section on the American decision to drop the bomb. There were letters from Einstein to FDR, warning him about the potential destructiveness of an atomic bomb, and then a lot of documentation about how Hiroshima was finally chosen as a target. It turns out that certain cities (Hiroshima and Kyoto included) were purposefully spared from the extensive firebombing of early 1945 so that the destructive ability of the A-Bomb could be measured on an unspoiled target. As we moved on, things got more emotional. There were the letters from Hiroshima’s mayors protesting each and every nuclear test that had been conducted since the end of the Second World War; extensive exhibits on the mechanics of a nuclear bomb and the health effects of radiation; panoramas of the city before and after the bombing. It just didn’t stop.

Brock on ferry to Itsukushima Shrine
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But the most difficult part of the tour came when we entered room after room filled with personal stories. Most were from women and children, who suffered disproportionately because most men were away fighting abroad. There were pieces on display that were impossible to rank in terms of tragedy; burnt school clothes, charred tricycles, pictures of fingers so burnt that the nails grew back as tube-like veins that were always breaking and spurting blood, pictures of survivors with their skin literally dripping off their shoulders and arms. I won’t go into any more detail.

Famous torii of Itsukushima Shrine
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The most touching story was that of Sadako, who survived the bombing with little obvious injury. A few years later, however, she fell ill and was diagnosed with leukemia. Sadako was a track star and a bright student, and her family was very supportive. She fought hard and actually went into remission. Eventually though, she became ill again and had to be hospitalized. As it became apparent to her that she was very, very sick, she had an idea. Legend had it that if you folded 1,000 paper cranes, you would be granted a wish. Sadako set about folding cranes and having her wish for life granted. She worked day and night on her cranes (ask Kristin how hard it is to fold even one!) and drew close to her goal. Supplies were short though, so she had to conserve paper. Some of her cranes were so small that she had to use a needle to fold them. Finally, she met her goal of 1,000 cranes! I can’t imagine the joy she felt upon achieving this objective, and similarly can’t imagine her sadness when she realized that her wish was not to be granted. She died shortly thereafter. The museum has a number of her cranes on display.