This is a continuation of my RTW diary from November 2003.Thursday saw me back on the Shinkansen. This time, because I was going between two major cities I got to go on the Nozomi Shinkansen super-express. On my trip to Kobe, the local Rapid Transit train had taken an hour. The Nozomi covered the same distance in 20 minutes!
I was in Hiroshima (a distance similar to London to Manchester or Paris) within an hour and three quarters. Hyper-efficient!
Hiroshima has the most picturesque setting of any of the Japanese cities I have been in so far. The city is situated in a natural amphitheatre ringed on it’s Northern, Western and Eastern sides by mountains and on the south side by mountainous islands which rise from the Inland Sea close to shore. For the first time since arriving in Japan, the weather was a lovely sunny day with blue skies to explore the wide avenues of this reborn city.
As you would expect, there is a commemoration of the A-bomb detonation over the city in August 1945. As the bomb detonated in the atmosphere, one building directly underneath the blast was left damaged, but standing. It now forms the focus of the Peace Park. This is a carefully planned public garden with a bell that you can ring if you want world peace (a shame they have made it’s ring sound like a harbinger of doom), an eternal flame and a childrens’ peace memorial where the children of Japan send origami cranes (Japans’ national bird) inscribed with messages of peace and hope.
Another key feature of the park that doesn’t feature in guide books is the number of children rampaging around the place ‘doing projects’. Like any good school project, the collection of primary data was involved. I got to feel for myself what is was like to be Hiroshima… ie the children saw me as a key target. I was premium questionnaire sample fodder being a) non-Japanese and b) once it was established that I could be asked their carefully prepared English questions.
“Excuse-u me. I am from Osaka Elementary School – can you tell me what you think about the Atom bomb being dropped on Hiroshima?” The cute bespectacled 10 year old face beams up at me. A Hello Kitty hairclip in place; neon yellow cagool zipped up against the elements; clipboard in hand. I look back, a 29 year old with a degree in International Politics inclusive of elements that focussed on the strategic implications of the US Atomic policy against Japan… How to judge my response.
“I don’t think Atom bombs are very nice” I reply.
The beaming continues and I realise she hasn’t understood me. Then she thrusts her booklet into one of my hands – her pencil into my other hand and gestures for me to write my responses under the English questions on her sheet.
I realise that the class teacher will be translating my answers and I guess they will weed out any responses such as “Hirohito would have flattened LA if Japan had developed the weapon first”. Instead I focus on the sort of comments we can all agree upon when it comes to inflicting nuclear holocaust on the children of the world...
When I got to the control section of the questionnaire, asking me where I came from, I thought the girl and her friends would pass out from shock and excitement when I wrote ‘England’ in Japanese script! I have been sending lots of postcards! Speaking of which, I understand some of the postcards sent from Fuji on Sunday had started to arrive by Thursday! Typically hyper-efficient!
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