tako_koen (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} tako_koen) wrote,@ 2004-03-17 06:56:00 |
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A trip to Hiroshima...
Even almost sixty years after that quiet summer morning in 1945, there is something lingering in the air of Hiroshima. That horrible dark cloud has long since dispersed, but a different cloud hangs there in its place, invisible; a misty sadness, humble ghosts.
On the way through the city, you find yourself constantly searching the skyline for that black cloud. How high would it have been?
The first sight of that domed shell is a breathless moment - it all becomes too real. Your imagination takes over, and the terrible images of Hershey's Hiroshima and Ibuse's Black Rain become pathetic sights drawn in invisible ink on blank tracing paper and draped across everything. There is the bridge on which the American aboard the Enola Gay set his sights. This is the river that ran red with blood, where burned children swam with bodies of dead fish and dead neighbors. There is where the high-school students were working, were vaporized in an instant.
I just stood and stared, the weight of it all oppressive. The Peace Park is a popular place these days, couples taking romantic strolls, hand-in-hand by the A-bomb Dome. Friends having a picnic. College kids banging pop songs on acoustic guitars. But it all melted into the background, overshadowed by that dome looming somewhat accusingly oppressive.
"Shashin wo torimasshouka?" one of my fellow teachers asked, wanting us all to take a picture. But I couldn't. It just doesn't seem right. I think they understood. The group was silent after that.
I didn't cry until we were walking back to the car. Everything within a 2 km radius turned to ash. How far did we park from the dome? A kilometer? So everything we pass would've been destroyed. You find yourself counting off the steps, looking at everything around you. High-school girls buying ice-cream. A couple riding the same bicycle. Old ladies, backs bent, grasping shopping bags. They all would have been dead. Department stories and grilled-chicken-kabob stands and McDonalds and Cellphone shops. They would have been gone. A mother and a child, holding hands as they crossed the street, did it for me. Tears came, and I didn't try to stop them.
The English teacher told me not to be ashamed. Japan should be ashamed, he told me. The people of Hiroshima love Americans, he told me. I wanted to tell him I didn't feel ashamed as an American, I felt ashamed as a human being. But I couldn't. I just nodded and walked in tears and silence to the car.
Even almost sixty years after that quiet summer morning in 1945, there is something lingering in the air of Hiroshima. That horrible dark cloud has long since dispersed, but a different cloud hangs there in its place, invisible; a misty sadness, humble ghosts.
On the way through the city, you find yourself constantly searching the skyline for that black cloud. How high would it have been?
The first sight of that domed shell is a breathless moment - it all becomes too real. Your imagination takes over, and the terrible images of Hershey's Hiroshima and Ibuse's Black Rain become pathetic sights drawn in invisible ink on blank tracing paper and draped across everything. There is the bridge on which the American aboard the Enola Gay set his sights. This is the river that ran red with blood, where burned children swam with bodies of dead fish and dead neighbors. There is where the high-school students were working, were vaporized in an instant.
I just stood and stared, the weight of it all oppressive. The Peace Park is a popular place these days, couples taking romantic strolls, hand-in-hand by the A-bomb Dome. Friends having a picnic. College kids banging pop songs on acoustic guitars. But it all melted into the background, overshadowed by that dome looming somewhat accusingly oppressive.
"Shashin wo torimasshouka?" one of my fellow teachers asked, wanting us all to take a picture. But I couldn't. It just doesn't seem right. I think they understood. The group was silent after that.
I didn't cry until we were walking back to the car. Everything within a 2 km radius turned to ash. How far did we park from the dome? A kilometer? So everything we pass would've been destroyed. You find yourself counting off the steps, looking at everything around you. High-school girls buying ice-cream. A couple riding the same bicycle. Old ladies, backs bent, grasping shopping bags. They all would have been dead. Department stories and grilled-chicken-kabob stands and McDonalds and Cellphone shops. They would have been gone. A mother and a child, holding hands as they crossed the street, did it for me. Tears came, and I didn't try to stop them.
The English teacher told me not to be ashamed. Japan should be ashamed, he told me. The people of Hiroshima love Americans, he told me. I wanted to tell him I didn't feel ashamed as an American, I felt ashamed as a human being. But I couldn't. I just nodded and walked in tears and silence to the car.
