Will A Lesson In Humanity Learned At Ground Zero Endure?

It was raining heavily in Hiroshima, Japan, on June 24. I was there with nine Spokane area high school students, who are studying Japanese, and one parent.

Pouring rain steamed the windows of our streetcar, as if to hide the scene we were to visit. The rain somehow brought a serious tone to the setting, a place I have visited many times.

I teach Japanese language at Mead High School. Every other year, I take students to Japan to help them experience what they have learned in the classroom. I want to open their minds to what they can’t learn within the four walls of a classroom.

I also want to bring people of different nations together for world peace and harmony. Sometimes only sights, sounds and smells will anchor memories in young minds. I know they will always remember this trip.

In some cases, trips such as these entirely change students and give them focus in their lives. To leave their comfortable homes and travel across what once was only a map and live in a foreign country captures their attention and makes them think. It also makes them appreciate their own country, their homes and their families. Often, we have to leave something to appreciate it.

Even though I have visited Hiroshima several times, this time on the way in the Shinkansen - the bullet train - something made my heart restless. It was caused by the unique situation: I, a native Japanese teacher, was taking American students to visit the bombing site of Hiroshima, 51 years after the atomic explosion.

On that terrible day, I was a year-old baby living in Kyoto, several hundred miles from Hiroshima, with my mother and her sick parents. My father was in Shanghai, working at a bank for the government.

I have learned that Kyoto was the United States’ original target, before Eleanor Roosevelt and others persuaded President Harry S. Truman and military officials to leave the beautiful, artistic and historic city alone. So there was a possibility of me not even existing in this world today.

Somehow, by this visit to Hiroshima and this experience, I was trying to have the students realize the importance of world peace.

We entered the Hiroshima Memorial Museum, which has collected evidence of the bomb and has exhibits on what happened to buildings, people and the city. The displays also show the Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped the bomb.

I stopped and stared. I saw this same airplane last March in Washington, D.C., where efforts are being made to restore it.

It appeared to me at the Washington display that the purpose was to show America’s technical ability and how it had won the war. But the Hiroshima display showed the airplane as an instrument of death.

In this somber setting, I asked each student: “Do you know where your grandfather was at the time the bomb struck?” I was surprised by the casual manner of their answers.

“He was at the war.” “I have no idea.”

I pressed them. “Don’t you wonder about it after witnessing this part of history?”

I could tell I had their attention.

Out of nine students, four said their grandfathers were serving in the Navy, three said their grandfathers were in the Army and one said his grandfather was working at a Boeing factory. The parent on our tour said her grandfather was in a battle with the Japanese in the Pacific islands and lost his friends. He does not want to talk about the war because of his loss.

Inside the museum, I couldn’t hear the rain, but I could smell its wetness as we walked past the displays. I looked at the students standing in quiet clusters before the displays. I wondered if they were learning from this moment. Even now, more than 50 years later as a grown woman, I was there learning new things and having new thoughts about myself and the history of our two countries.

We walked on to the next room. I was very moved to see two students reading every panel, carefully taking their time. They even took notes.

Sometimes, teachers and parents see only snapshots of these children. If we would put all those brief moments together, perhaps we could see the whole child.

And so it is with history. The grandfather who couldn’t talk about his war experience, the Washington, D.C., display and this display we were looking at in Hiroshima - these are only snapshots, and somewhere the total true story lies.

Since I have visited the museum before, I had time to sit in a lobby to write about my feelings. As I sat there, I watched others visiting the museum. Their wet footprints, showing where they had entered, soon became fainter and fainter.

I hoped I was giving these children memories that would carry past a generation without drying up.

I noticed many elderly Japanese visiting the museum and wondered how each one felt. I am sure each had quite a story to tell.

Our group gathered in the lobby, getting ready to leave. The rain still was falling outside. I asked students how they felt. “I was shocked.” “I feel numb.” “Sad.” “Very tragic, but I need to remember.” “I feel sick to my stomach.” “I really felt the importance of world peace.”

We left the building, going back into the rain. As we turned our backs on the site, heading for the waiting taxis, I took a last, tearful look, wondering if we should have stayed longer. Off in the distance was the dome of the only building to have survived the blast and a statue covered with handmade colorful paper origami cranes, symbols of peace and happiness that are left at the Hiroshima Peace Park.

Back on the Shinkansen, I watched the students scrambling into their seats. I wondered: Will they remember this moment? I walked toward my seat, the water dripping from my shoes. Maybe they will, I hoped.

xxxx