Yasuko-san

Last Sunday I went on a wee roadtrip with a co-worker to the city of Hiroshima. For over 60 years now, the name of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been synonymous with the world's first and hopefully only atomic bombs. Although I have lived in Hikari for almost six months, and Hiroshima is less than two hours away by train, this was the first time I had been. We took the highway and arrived in just over an hour. We headed first to the Peace Park where we were greeted by the A-bomb dome as soon as we got off the streetcar. Standing in the middle of such a vibrant, bustling city, this hollowed out building is a stark reminder of the tragedy that took place. The building was once Industrial Promotion Hall until the bomb was dropped nearly directly above it, the reason why the majority of the building has remained standing. In 1996, after much controversy as to whether it should remain standing or be torn down, it was declared an UNESCO World Heritage Site. We walked further along into the Peace Park, where there is something called the Flame of Peace, which will be extinguished when the last nuclear weapon earth is destroyed. We also took in the Atomic Bomb Museum. Every year on August 6 (August 9 in Nagasaki), demonstrations and memorials are held in the Peace Parks in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In May, I had the opportunity to also visit the Peace Park and museums in Nagasaki. The Peace Park is much more beautiful in Nagasaki, especially because the rotodendrons were in full bloom when I was there (even though at the time of the bombing it was predicted there would be no vegetation for at least 75 years). It had rained the day before and because Nagasaki is very hilly the Peace Park can see over the whole city, to where the mountains were covered in thick fog, giving the whole scene the sort of stereotypical feel we get from movies set in Japan. To me, Nagasaki has a different feel to it than Hiroshima. All over the city in random places are huge posters all listing the statistics of the outcome of what happened on that fateful day. While I think they should definietly not forget what happened, if I lived there and especially if I was a survivor, I would not want to look at these everyday. What stands out the most for me from visiting Nagasaki is watching an interview with the man who dropped Fat Boy on Nagasaki. Years later when he was asked if he regretted what he had done, his answer was a surprising no. I understand that if you are fighting for your country in a war, you do what you're told. But years later, to feel no guilt or regret over killing and injuring so many thousands of people is unimaginable. I think it's important for visitors of Japan to visit at least one of these two cities.

But what stands out more in my mind and will stand out in my mind for the rest of my life is a class I had a few weeks ago with my oldest student. Yasuko-san is 78 years old and has been my student for the past five months. The first time I met her she told me she had grown up in Hiroshima and I was interested in asking her if she had been there during the war, but obviously that is not a subject to bring up. She has been learning English at Eiko School since it opened 19 years ago but she's a very quiet, reserved woman. In a way, she remind me of a Japanese version of my grandmother, in the way she carries herself and speaks. Over the past few months as I've gotten to know her, I've learned bits of her life, such as how she has never driven a car and she's married to a man that she had only met twice before their wedding day. She's very active, and often goes to visit her remaining siblings in Hiroshima and goes to traditional Japanese dance classes and spa days with her friends in nearby Tokuyama. She is also a huge fan of Exile (a J-pop group very popular with teenagers) and dyes her hair a funky dark purple-auburn colour. She is, in every definition of the term, young at heart, and I can't help but wonder if it's because she feels she was spared and given a second chance at life on that day in August 66 years ago.

We were having our regular class and started it off with doing two pages in our Oxford Picture Dictionary. As I was rushed in preparation time, I hadn't had time to look the pages over, and if I had, I probably would have changed the lesson plan. The topic of the day was a timeline of American history. We read through it and were soon at the end of World War II. As we usually do, I would read it and she would repeat after me. There was no going back, I had to read it, I couldn't skip over it. "August 6, 1945, the world's first atomic bomb is dropped on the city of Hiroshima." The classroom was quiet for a moment and she looked up at me with tears in her eyes, "I know, I was there, I saw the mushroom cloud." I didn't know what to say...what do you reply to that? We talked about it for a few minutes and she told me she was 12 years old at the time and when I asked her if they knew what was happening, she replied with a simple, "Yes, we knew." Thankfully, she had stayed home from school on the day it happened to help tear down houses in order to clear the streets for people to run as they were expecting a fire bomb to be dropped. When it was dropped, there was a large gust of wind that knocked her down. She lost several classmates and a younger sister who were in the downtown area when it happened. The days following the bomb were surreal. The city centre was destroyed, apocalyptic, as though nothing had ever existed. What is now known as the A-bomb dome stood alone amidst a terrain of devastation. There were people lying everywhere, some unrecognizable from the burns. The victims who were alive did not last long, from far she saw someone running towards her in rags and when the woman came closer, she realized she was naked and her skin was hanging off her in strips. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of medical personnel in the city had also been in the downtown area and had not survived the blast. I did not ask her any questions as I did not want to pry, I just let her say what she wanted to say. She only talked a minute or two at the most but by the end I was in tears. She finished by telling me this is the reason she wanted to learn English.

That two minute conversation will be with me for the rest of my life. Nobody deserves to have to witness such atrocities. But I do know this: Yasuko-san is truly one of the most inspirational people I have ever met.