Day 16 in Japan: Hiroshima



Some cities, such as Sydney, are known for iconic buildings; some, such as New York, for iconic neighbourhoods. Hiroshima is indelibly associated with an iconic moment in history. Today we made our pilgrimage to the Peace Park. This park is roughly triangular, bounded by two of the rivers that run through Hiroshima, and made possible by the explosion that happened in the air above it on 6 August 1945, killing 140 000 people and razing the homes and commercial buildings that covered the area at the time. The Peace Dome at the top end of the park was a Czech-designed exhibition hall, almost exactly 30 years old when Little Boy exploded. Because it was almost exactly beneath the explosion, its walls weren't blown down, though everyone in the building died instantly. Aerial photos taken soon after the explosion (by US Airforce photographers, for research purposes) show it as one of very few buildings left standing. The decision was made fairly early on to stabilise it as it was, and keep it as a memorial, so there it stands with bits of twisted copper piping still sticking out of the concrete like spilled intestines.

The walk through the park is a sobering experience. When I was in High School, one of our teachers, a Marist Brother, went on a trip to Israel, 'the Holy Land'. He wrote us a couple of long letters about his travels, and I remember the awe he communicated to us at walking on paving stones that may actually have been the same stones walked on by 'our Blessed Lord'. What I felt in the Peace Park is analogous: I was walking on ground that had been blasted by the first nuclear explosion used against human beings.

By 1952, seven years after the explosion, the Cenotaph in the middle of the Park had been built, housing a scroll with the Register of A-Bomb Deceased, which is added to each year on 6 August. A plaque says: LET ALL THE SOULS HERE REST IN PEACE, FOR WE SHALL NOT REPEAT THE EVIL.




I'm sorry to draw crude and invidious analogies, but seven years after the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, the Bush era USA has managed to be well on the way to building a new commercial tower symbolising US dominance; and where Japan had committed itself to peace, the US has lashed out, leading to the deaths of something like a hundred times as many people as were killed on 9/11.

But those considerations weren't in my mind on the day. If you were case-hardened enough, you might see the Park as a kind of Theme Park capitalising on the horror. But no one is making money here. Visitors are invited to ring the Peace Bell, and it tolls out constantly as one strolls the pathways.



There's a children's monument, where festoons of paper cranes referring to the story of Sadako Sazaki are on display in glass cabinets, not completely unlike the candles at Lourdes. The Phoenix Tree was blasted, and six months after the event confounded expectations by putting out new leaves -- it was transplanted here from its original position two kilometres from the explosion. You can still see the wound deep in the tree, but the bark is growing around it and the leaves are flourishing. It's clearly meant to carry a symbolic weight.



And at the bottom end of the triangle is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Here, if anywhere, there must have been a temptation to talk of the Japanese as innocent victims of wartime horrors. But in fact, while it pulls no punches, over and over showing just what horrendous damage was unleashed by the bomb, it also talks about the Japanese government's call for 'a million glorious deaths' rather than surrender, mentions the Rape of Nanking, and generally calls for the Japanese people to acknowledge the harm done to other nations by Japan as part of the move towards an enduring world peace. Did you know that every time there is a nuclear test anywhere in the world, the Mayor of Hiroshima writes a letter of protest on behalf of the people of the city?



By dinner time we had recovered our composure enough to be once again on the search for food. We'd seen a nice looking restaurant just a couple of blocks from the hotel, and decided to chance it. We walked in, took off our shoes, and were ushered to a low table. A waiter cam and knelt on the ground beside us to take out order. When she realised we spoke no Japanese she displayed the panic that had now become familiar to us, asked us to 'wait a few moments', and headed for the kitchen. A dashing young man with an authoritative air -- the owner, perhaps, or even the chef -- was soon kneeling beside us. We managed to communicate that we were willing to put ourselves in his hands, and were will ing to spend 2000 yen each. ''Two thousand yen for you, two thousand yen for you?' he asked with appropriate gestures and a little smile. we confirmed that he had understood us correctly and he left. Penny took his little smile to mean he thought we were asking a bit much to be fed for so little. I wasn't so sure -- perhaps he was just enjoying the novelty of dealing with such incompetents. Whatever, we had the best meal of the trip. I'm impressed by people who can remember meals in detail -- I am not one of those people. The smiling young man waited on us. There were several kinds of fish, tempura prawns, and what he told us was 'toef'. I'm suppose to be the linguistically attuned one, but it was Penny who realised he meant tofu. It was white liquid in a small ceramic dish with a tight lid. He closed the lid and lit a tea-lamp under the dish explaining in gestures and what vocabulary we had in common that we were not to lift the lid until the flame had burnt out. And when the flame died, the tofu had solidified, It was delicious. This was one occasion when I said, 'Gochisosama deshita!' and not only did I mean it, but our host didn't laugh at me for talking to him as if he was my mother.

I asked for a card, and was given this:



I asked the restaurant's name, and he wrote it down for me in romaji: Yuzuno Komichi. If you happen to be in Hiroshima looking for a very nice meal, see if you can find it -- on Jonandori Street, the same street as the Hotel Flex, two blocks away from the Kamiyanagi Bridge.

Posted: Tue - September 30, 2008 at 08:53 PM           |

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