Essay: Shock Treatment … I still remember Hiroshima (8/15/10)
I still remember Hiroshima after 65 years…
We couldn’t do the “Girls Gone Wild†thing during our summer breaks; instead, we had home schooling with tons of homework.
We were forced to keep a journal everyday. That’s how Japanese keep kids from going too out of control during the long break. Well, our breaks weren’t that long; they were only five weeks.
August 7 and 15 were special summer school days. Usually, I didn’t show up to these special days, but that particular morning, my mom needed to clean the house thoroughly, so she kicked me out. After hanging out with friends in the classroom, bragging about how tanned we all were, we were lined up and marched to the auditorium.
When the baldheaded principal showed up at the podium, we bowed to him as he bowed. He talked about how healthy we looked and said that we shouldn’t overeat. Then he told us about the meaning of this day.
In 1945, this day, around eight o’clock in the morning, eighty thousand people disappeared in a flash. He told us if it happened right now in this city, that we, our parents, friends, neighbors, the man at the fish shop, the newspaper deliverymen, would be all gone. He’s a good speaker – he knows how to “personalize†history for us.
When the auditorium was coldly quiet on that August morning, he brought out a special guest, a middle aged man in a grey suit. We gasped, but without sound, because we didn’t want to be rude to our “special†guest. He bowed, so we bowed. When our heads were back up, we stared at him again. The left side of his face was melted, with a grey purplish surface. His eyes were both open, but his left eye didn’t close when he smiled. His speech was clear, but there was a slurp-like sound at the end of his sentences.
Then the lights went black. We panicked, but again, without sound. We heard the grey suit man’s voice. “Here’s how Hiroshima looked like before.†A slide of a nice suburb with skinny kids is shown. “And this is the same place after the bombing.†A slide of petrified city looking liked it belonged inside a giant ashtray. And he keeps clicking, showing new slides. More than just black and white pictures, there was also artwork that was burned into our minds. Red clouds, black air, body parts and slumps of naked bodies piled on the ground.
“When the burns were bad, we had to take off clothes to ease the irritation. Sometimes the radiation took the clothes off. Sometimes the radiation took the skin off.â€
While showing the artwork, he told about how he was trying to find his home in the city with only one eye open. He saw a pair of legs standing with no body attached. He saw the imprinted images of people against building walls from when the bomb hit. He walked against the current of people heading towards the river for water, many of them dying on the street or in the shade while resting. It was a hot day, but he lost all sense of time because it was all dark.
We bowed him to say good-bye and went back to our homerooms. No one took home the book about the bomb that the teacher recommended.
Since that day, I’m now for the disarming of all military forces. Nothing can justify any humans being nuked and killed. War should be illegal.
When the United States cut off Japan’s oil supply, Japan got mad and attacked Pearl Harbor. The States joined the war. Even though, they had no resources, Japan believed that they were not inferior and so they did not give up easily. So after almost three years, the States says, “That’s it!†and drops the a-bomb for the first time in human history to see the damage it can cause.
Japan surrendered and went to bed with America the beautiful for next sixty-plus years. It was an easy switch because when the Emperor announced he was no longer a god, they didn’t have a religion. Buddhist is atheism. We don’t believe in god or anything beyond reality.
But now, we are dealing with people who believe in life beyond life. They will keep goin’ ‘till the end – because that’s where they want to go. The same old stories can be found in history books.
Oh, I forgot. Our kids are not really learning to read….
