Living with Hiroshima

School Visit and Civil Society

The first thing we did was to pay a courtesy call on the Mayor of Annapolis. In the center of the room we were shown into, we found a desk standing majestically, on which Washington, Jefferson and Franklin had made the draft of The Declaration of Independence. The city has a population of 35,000. Its assembly consists of nine councilors. I felt encouraged to learn four of them were women.

Then we visited an elementary school. Each of us was given only ten minutes individually to talk to children. Things couldn’t go as well as we had planned because we were a hastily-assembled visiting team. Both the college student with a good command of English and the A-bomb survivor with little English felt awkward with each other.

Children had learned about Sadako Sasaki, who was exposed to the A-bomb radiation and died of a radiation related disease, leukemia. When it came to their country’s dropping the bomb, however, they said in unison, “Remember Pearl Harbor!” They seemed to have learned that from their parents. What drew their interest was the thousand paper cranes. Asked to show them how to fold a paper crane, I was obliged to do so. Having been eager to talk to them more, my time ran out.

Elementary school children were too little for us to argue with over the difference of historical perspectives, so we bit our tongues. I felt a lump in my throat, frustrated and mortified. I am afraid that Americans and Japanese may not be able to reach any settlement to fill the gap of each other’s public sentiment.

We had chances to attend various meetings in the evenings, which started with a potluck. I came to learn that it was an American way to host guests.

The most interesting one for me was the one held by a group acting to heal Vietnam veterans. I heard there were many veterans who were still agonizing over what that war had been for. They had not been able to return to society yet, not having found any answers. A lot of citizens extended their helping hands to them, by singing together or having a chat with them in a casual manner, to encourage them to feel that they were not left alone. A friendly man came up to me saying, “Hi.” He was the mayor in casual clothes.

In spite of those devoted activists, the country has waged wars repeatedly since then. Annapolis is a thriving city hosting the U. S. Naval Academy, which became known in Japan from the movie, “An Officer and a Gentleman.” The trainees in the academy are respected as special elite students. But a certain suspicion crossed my mind that soldiers are professional murderers after all.

(In the City Hall: Courtesy call on the Mayor of Annapolis)