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.

Golden Week 2011

Considering I've not written in about six weeks, I figure its probably time for an update. It's nearly the end of May and if I don't write now I won't be reaching my goal of one blog a month!

The first week of May was Golden Week all across Japan, and as a result, I had 9 days of holi-holidays, woooo!!! Golden week is a week of public holidays strung together, so that the good Japanese citizens don't get only a long weekend but a whole week off! Originally April 29 was the Emperor's birthday (until that Emperor died in 1989, now the Emperor's birthday is December 23). But they decided to keep the holiday anyway (how nice of them) and it's now called Shōwa Day, to honour Emperor Shōwa. May 3 is Constitution Memorial Day and celebrates the promulgation of the 1947 Constitution of Japan, whatever that means. Since 2007, May 4 has been known as Greenery Day and is a day to 'commune with nature and be thankful for blessings'. The last day of Golden Week is May 5, known as Children's Day, or also Boy's Day (Girl's Day is in March I believe). Children's Day is a day set aside to 'respect children's personalities and to celebrate their happiness'. Thank you to Wikipedia for explaining it to me, for every Japanese person I ask the meaning for a festival or holiday I simply get a blank stare and 'I don't know'...I suppose it's the same as me explaining that since 2007, Saskatchewan has a holiday in February called 'Family Day', simply because the government felt we need a long weekend in every month of the year and February didn't have one. What a strong work ethic we have, needing a long weekend every month.

Right, back to Golden Week. Well, well, what to do on my first grown up holiday from work? Up to this point, my life has been one big holiday, and I must say, after having these nine days off doing what I do best (travelling, in case you didn't know) it was difficult to go back to the bump and grind in the monkey suit. That sounds much kinkier and like much more fun than it actually is.

April 29: Work day. Surprise, surprise considering I work at an Eikaiwa! We went into the mountains and made pizza with the kids, played hide and go seek with the little bastards, pushed them on swings, made baumkuchen around bamboo, and bamboo propeller crafts. Of course we couldn't get away with not doing any real work for the day so we had to go back to the classroom and teach one class each before officially being on holidays.

April 30: Captain K was meant to pick Igor and I up at 8:30am. ughghghghgh it's my first day of holidays, I'm not even up this early for work! The Captain was of course late and came at about 9am. Roadtrip time! I love roadtrips! We made our way down the road to the tollway while rocking out to Igor. We drove down towards Hofu, Shimonoseki, and left Honshu island for Kyushu. Soon we were in Fukuoka City where we stopped for lunch of egg salad sandwiches Icourtesy of moi and rice balls courtesy of Kazushige. Igor supplied nothing. We had lunch at a Shinto Shrine so that Captain K could do his annual praying so that things continue to go well. "Are they going well at Eiko School?" I ask him. "No, not really," he replies. "Then perhaps you should ask for a new job for both of us." We even had entertainment in the form of a performing pet monkey and a man doing traditional Japanese entertainment with fans, etc. Back on the road towards Nagasaki city. It should have taken about four hours to get there from Hikari but we got there about 530pm in torrential rain due to Kazu's slow driving in the pink beast. Oh well, more time for entertaining conversations about tabloids, love hotels, and for me to be asked why women say they love a man when they really don't. I don't know, why do men say it??? Oh Kazu, no wonder you're 39 and still single!!! I get to my hostel and decide to stay in for the night as it's still raining and getting dark. Meet a fellow who thinks everyone from New Zealand are child abusers and pedophiles. He is on his way to Seoul to find a girl he once took an English class with and fell in love with and wants to ask her to marry him. No word of a lie, not even a date, but marriage. Good luck buddy!

May 1: My only full day in Nagasaki so I must make the most of it and am up early. I head over to the epicentre of where the world's second atomic bomb named Fat Man was dropped August 9, 1945 at 11:03am. There's alot to see in the general area, including a Peace Park, Peace Hall, and Atomic Bomb Museum. The whole area is a very sobering reminder of what happened that day. After seeing the pictures of charred corpses and reading the stories of how people's flesh came off in strips and keloid scars developed, it is my personal opinion that anyone who thinks the A-bombs were justified is a complete monster. The area where the atomic bomb was dropped was said at the time to probably be void of vegetation for at least 75 years but the vegetation was lush and the rotadendrons in full bloom. Afterwards I hopped back on the tram to head to Glover Gardens which are the original gardens and home of Thomas Glover. Glover, the 'Scottish Samurai' was a merchant during the Bakumatsu and Meiji period and was from Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The gardens have a moving walkway up the hill which is something I thought I would only see in cheeseburger land (ie. America). There was a lovely view of the city and harbour, but definetely not worth 600 yen.

May 2: Time to figure out how I'm heading to Fukuoka today. Luckily the owner of the hostel is a lovely traveller himself and books a highway bus for me which is much cheaper than the Shinkansen I was planning on taking and only takes 30 minutes longer! He is even kind enough to walk me to the bus station. I have a few last hours to kill before leaving Nagasaki and take a wander around the shopping in the train station and then down to the harbour to have my bento for lunch. I arrive in Fukuoka city at about 3:30pm and make my way to the hostel. After checking in I wander back to the train/bus station. It is brand new and just opened in March, as well as the Hakata Hankyu Department Store attached to it, and all my adult students kept telling me I must check it out, so I spend the remainder of the day window shopping.

May 3: The first day of Hakata Dontaku, the whole reason I came to Fukuoka! Hakata Dontaku is a very famous Japanese festival and one of the biggest, attracting over 2 million people who are on Golden Week holidays around Japan. When my Japanese co-workers told me I should check it out I asked them what it represents/the origins, etc. No one again could answer me except to say that its very noisy as everyone is hitting wooden rice spoons together. Whaaaaaaat??!! It seems no Japanese person actually knows their reasons for a holiday or festival, it's just an excuse to party, much like the thinking of a teenager. Time to check out Wikipedia, who this time wasn't much help at all:

"Hakata Dontaku (博多どんたく) is held in Fukuoka City on May 3 and 4. Boasting over 800 years of history, Dontaku is attended by more than 2 million people, making it the Japanese festival with the highest attendance during Japan's Golden Week holidays. During the festival, stages are erected throughout downtown for traditional performances and a parade of floats is held. The full name is Hakata Dontaku Minato Matsuri.[17]

The festival was stopped for seven years during the Meiji era, and since it was restarted in the 12th year of the Meiji era it has been known as Hakata Dontaku."


Even my trusty Lonely Planet was no help either. So the morning of May 3 I rushed over to Tenjin in Fukuoka to check out the Apple Store seeing as my computer was still down at this point. Fell in love with the Macbook Airs and Ipod Touch and walked away feeling poor even though I spent no money. Took the subway and got to Meiji Dori just as the parade was beginning. It went on for over four hours and I eventually grew tired of it and wandered around looking at the various dancing and singing stages and sampled plenty of yakitori from food stalls, all the while hoping I wouldn't eat something fishy and die. Did some shopping and got some English books, Japanese text books, and pretty Sakura dessert bowls before heading back to the hostel.

May 4: Went out exploring Fukuoka today with a fellow English teacher I met in my hostel room who is here with JET, lucky bastard! He can also speak Japanese well, which makes me jealous and motivated me to start studying more. We first went to Tocho-ji, where there is the largest carved wooden Buddha in Japan. Very impressive, but unfortunately weren't allowed to take pictures. Then headed over to the ruins of Fukuoka castle, which were exactly that, ruins. Not ruins like Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness where there's something to climb on and into, but just little piles of stone. Did manage to get some great views of the city however. Headed back to Meiji Dori as the parade was meant to be on again and my new friend hadn't seen it yet. It never did begin, not sure why, but it was an excuse to have some more yakitori, yakisoba, and okinomiyaki, yum! Said friend then headed on his train to Hiroshima and I headed in the direction of Fukuoka Tower. Nearby the tower was a place called Robo Square which is a showcase of robots and was very cool. All of the staff spoke English, and one girl had even done a semester abroad at the University of Regina. :S




May 5: This morning I walked to Sumiyoshi Shrine and Rakusuien Gardens before heading back to the hostel as Captain K was supposed to pick me up to make the drive back to Shitari (my new name for Hikari). He ended up not coming until about 6pm, we stopped for dinner on the way and arrived back about 11pm. I was then informed I don't have to work until May 9. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE

All in all my Golden Week was great and I didn't want to come back. Travelling is what I do best, not holding down a steady job. Bets on who thinks I can last my one year contract?