半年
2023年も半年が経とうとしている。大人になると、無意識に行う習慣的行事が増えて時間の流れが早くなると、チコちゃんでやっていた。やっぱり、小学生の時には、長く長く感じられた夏休みの1ヶ月と、今過ごす1ヶ月じゃ、比べ物にならない。でも、それは悲しいことではないと思う。そういった、人生の長いレールの中で、移りゆく車窓の中で、磨かれた石のようなものだ。磨き方を変えたり、なぶれたり、アクシデントもある。それが、この世で生きることなのだと悟るだけでも、大人になるということだ。23年は、ここ数年の大小様々なイベントと比較すると、穏やかに過ごせているように感じる。味噌は、神様を嫉妬させないようにすること。んなような気がする。な訳ないか。
Take a Train from Hiroshima to Nagasaki This Summer
As I was born in Hiroshima and my grandfather experienced the Hiroshima bombing at the age of 5 on the outskirts of the city, the Hiroshima bombing has been a crucial and relevant historical event for me. I visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum every chance I get, since childhood, and I offer a minute of silence on August 6 at 8:15 AM watching the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony on TV every year. So, I’ve grown up reading and hearing Hiroshima literature and relating myself to this horrendous historical event. Last winter I visited the newly-renovated peace museum when I visited my grandparents for New Year’s. But as I walked out of the museum it made me wonder: Why isn’t there any contextualization of the bombing? There is no mention of the Pacific War or anything before August 6. If you look at the webpage of The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the museum’s mission says: To convey to the world the horrors and inhumane nature of nuclear weapons and spread the message of “No More Hiroshimas” -- through A-bomb artifacts and testimonies of the atomic bomb survivors. NO wonder. Since their mission is dedicated to telling the tragedy of Hiroshima, there is no need to tell a single story about how the war led to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Sheer curiosity took me to the webpage of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum because unfortunately I had never had a chance to pay a visit there and I wanted to know how Nagasaki does the same. But what I found was an interesting difference between the Hiroshima Peace Museum and the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum devotes one third of their exhibition to placing the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki not only in the context of Japanese history, but also of the history of nuclear weapons and their development. The war history exhibition, titled “The Road to the Atomic Bombing,” looks from the Manchurian Incident in 1931 to the Japan-China War, and follows up with the Pacific War to the defeat of Japan in 1945. They also have sections for the history of the atomic bomb development (especially the Manhattan Project), the nuclear arms race in the Cold War era, and the danger of testing the atomic bomb. It inlcudes the Daigo Fukuryumaru incident, where a Japanese fishing boat happened to encounter a hydrogen bomb test in Bikini Atoll in 1954, and the radiation damage to uranium miners in the US and the Soviet Union.
Reading through the websites of both museums about the atomic bombing, I came to realize that the two museums have different goals and approaches in their exhibitions. Hiroshima points out the tragedy of Hiroshima and is trying to create the discourse of “No More Hiroshimas”: Nuclear weapons are inhumane and must not be used again because they caused such atrocities in Hiroshima. Nagasaki, on the other hand, takes a comprehensive view. Nagasaki does tell what happened on August 9 as Hiroshima does: A-bomb artifacts, testimonies of Nagasaki survivors are there. But there are sections of exhibition dedicated to contextualizing the Nagasaki bombing in the context of Japanese military history or the history of nuclear power emphasize that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a part of the nuclear tragedy for human beings as a whole. It resonates with Kyoko Hayashi’s (Nagasaki survivor) remark in From Trinity to Trinity when she visits the Trinity Site in New Mexico: “As soon as I started walking through the small passage within the fenced area led by a guide, my always-present awareness of being a victim disappeared from my mind.” When Hayashi visits the Trinity Site, she comes to feel compassion for Trinity as a survivor of the atomic bomb, beyond the differences of nations, enemy-friends, time, and distance.
I regret that I haven’t ever visited Nagasaki. I thought that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki experiences were similar, and the museums would be similar too. But I was wrong. They do carry different missions and messages, and it is important to visit both places and museums (and the Trinity Site as well) if you want to understand the atomic bombings more completely. A sad thing is that my perspective – visiting only one site (mostly Hiroshima) – is not rare for a lot of visitors, especially foreign visitors. In fact, Hiroshima attracts more visitors than Nagasaki, and the proportion of foreign visitors is bigger for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum: Hiroshima has 1,522,453 visitors (434,838 foreign visitors) in 2018, but Nagasaki attracts 705,314 visitors (including 135,900 foreign visitors) in 2017. I understand that Hiroshima gains more attention because it was the first place that the atomic bomb was dropped on people. Nonetheless, it shouldn’t deprive Nagasaki of the opportunity to convey their message and understanding of the atomic bombings. So, I want to say, take a train from Hiroshima to Nagasaki with me! I’ve decided to visit Nagasaki this summer, as have been tempted to do since I now know what the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum offers us. It’s a 4-hour train trip from Hiroshima to Nagasaki, and I promise that your trip to Nagasaki, combined with a visit to Hiroshima, will give you more perspectives on the history and round out your understanding of the atomic bombings.
A quote is from From Trinity to Trinity by Kyoko Hayashi and Eiko Otake (Translator)
「平和記念資料館、外国人入館者が６年連続過去最多」朝日新聞 2019.4.16
「原爆関連施設の入場者数が増加 核廃絶へ 機運高まり要因か」長崎新聞 2018.5.18
形式と個人的な人間
個人的な人間－社会世俗とは一線を画し、孤独な人間－になりたい人は少ない。孤独であり、寂しい存在に進んでなろうとするものは多くはない。私も、かつては孤独を恐れ、社会の潮流に乗り、流行を「正しい」と認識していた。しかし、学問を身につけ、歴史を修めるものとして、いかに今私が流行ととらえ、人々の意識に共有されている、と思っているものでも、zeitgeist－時代精神—でしかないのか。ということを、しみじみ感じてきた。私たちが絶対と感じているもの、国、男女の差や結婚、人種、お金、、、その多くのものがある特定の時代の人間が信じ込んでいるもので、社会的構築物に他ならず、それは時代の潮流と共に変わりやすく、一定の姿を留めない。そのことに気づいた時、自分の孤独に気づいた。そして、その形式や社会常識を盾に、自分ではない相手を皆、判断し区切る。（西洋）社会が生み出した区分や形式美は、科学と共に、人口に膾炙してきた。そちらの方が楽なんだと言える。家のない、平原に放り込まれて、自由があるが、享楽はない。そのような人生を望む人は、この世には多くないことを悟る。社会という形式に飲まれない人間。それは、もう人間ではないのかも知れない。人知れず何処かにある。
Journal#12 Mounds
- Feedback/reflections on A Body in Fukushima part 3,4,5
Again, I hesitated to say this, but I first appreciated the distance that I have with the Daiichi. The pictures are disturbing and fearful, especially when I saw the gigantic sea shoreline protection with myriads of tetrapods, the Daiichi from Ukedo beach, and empty fields… I needed a break from time to time to process those images and accept them as a reality in Fukushima right now. When I saw the house in Yabure town had disappeared and the photo that Eiko was sitting next to the flower bushes, which is the only proof that there was that house, I could not contain my anger and sadness to what the Daiichi had brought about and the reality that people’s normal life would never go back because of radiation. It was disheartening to know that some farmers committed suicide and I immediately remembered the story of Hayashi’s Harvest and I hope the sweet potato farmer in the story is surviving… lastly when I saw the old mound in the community, which stands in the empty field of the irradiated land, abandoned and not taken care of after the earthquake hit. I was thinking of a Chinese character of the old mound, which is 古墳, and in my head, the character of 墳 turned into 憤, which means indignation. (the left side of墳 means soil and the left side of憤 means heart.) I felt indignation of people who were forced to leave their hometown, the dead buried here and abandoned, and indignation of myself toward the Daiichi incident that destroyed the community, where the old mound tells that there had been the long history and lives of the native people existed far before the Daiichi and nuclear plants came into this land.
Class reflection:
At the beginning of class, we talked about music and non-music. First, we listen to Angela Davis’s talk introducing Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit." Angela Davis introduced the social impact of "Strange Fruit" and how "Strange Fruit" rejuvenated the tradition of protest, a social movement of African Americans, and radical social consciousness. Eiko told us that she has not used music for her teaching materials and rarely for her works. But in the last classes, we made movements to music, starting from Nina Simone, Atomic Café’s music lists, and today for “Strange fruits.” “Strange Fruits” by Billie Holiday is not a song that you can “enjoy” listening to and making movements to. It is a painful but realistic song. This song carries a lot of anger and sadness. So, when I was doing movement with “Strange Fruits,” I felt my skin trembling with sadness and anger. Though it is about a song of segregation and violence in the South, “Strange Fruits” connects to the history and crimes of segregation and mass violence. And my blood and body contain the history and crimes of segregation and mass violence as a Japanese, such as the colonization of Korea and Taiwan or militaristic aggression to China, South Asia, and Pacific islands. It is tough and a little suffering to make movement with those thoughts but I also think that it is necessary and I am sure Billie Holiday’s song helped me that process through this movement of being and remembering “Strange Fruits.”
It was also a week of presentation for my final project as well. Though my project was not done yet (or it just started), I wanted to present my project’s process to promise to myself and classmates that I finish my project and share it with them. I was a little nervous though it is virtual and I was speaking to the screen in practice, and I felt the audience's eyes in the space of the classroom and I think that is why I felt nervous. I am glad that I had wonderful classmates as the audience. I could pour time and effort into my project as I recognize that my project can bring some aha (or whmm) to my classmates and their food for thoughts…! Also, everyone’s presentations and projects were educational and generous and learning opportunities for me. Juliette’s presentation started even before class and she sent out her mom’s obituary to class. Sam’s project is friendly and personal and yet Sam shared movement with us to connect everyone to a dark and difficult topic of addiction and dependence. Alma used the sounds in her childhood to create her final project and I think it was attractive to the audience to use media other than writing and speaking. Will and Annie’s collaboration work and their presentation were also great integration with sounds and their visual work. And Zita’s podcast presentation is also strong. Sharing her first work with her mom’s voice about death, Zita presented the intention of her work and the topic of authentication, which she has been grappling with in class and her podcast work.
Reflections on Reading journals:
First, I realize in my journals that I like describing my movement in class and for assignments. I think that writing and movement have been my favorite and comfortable way of participating in this class. Over the course, we have been focusing on a lot of tools that are necessary and important to be an artist, presenter, protester, an audience possibly. While reading my journal, I remembered and I was glad that I got a chance to hone my speaking skills in a week of the Op-Ed and speech week. So, I thought that the past journals made me realize my growth and also my fortes: it was definitely one of self-curation in this class. I was glad to see that we all have grown as a learning community! In everyone’s journal, everyone quotes and reflects their ideas and those ideas bounced back to other people. These amplified effects of collective learning are salient in the collective archive. I remembered that Gita was citing an excerpt from everyone’s journal. When I was looking at it, I remembered that my happiness and joy of sharing my emotions and thoughts in journals and class. And I think that Gita’s efforts brought a positive influence to the class in terms of collective learning. Ella also talked about my video and how my fish video came out in her dream. And I was glad that my learning process also gave learning opportunities and seeds for thought for Ella, but it also reminded me of how I learned in this class and class’s content influencing my life and way of living. When Sam shared with me that she was thinking about Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman” when she was doing no-no dance and introduced me to the song. I have been listening to Nina Simone’s songs and Nina Simone and her songs became one of our learning materials in class. I found that this way of learning from each other and sharing our history, feelings, and thoughts (from movements to readings, news, and politics) was a great way of cultivating myself and also (learning how-to of) growing as a learning community. And it was the biggest aha moments for me.
The whmmm moment for me was loneliness. Some of my journals expressed fear and sadness in facing the brutal and heinous history and reality of this world. It was a little difficult in time of isolation by corona and the virtual classroom to not feel lonely when I was dealing with class materials. As Gabrielle was addressing in her final project, it was a big challenge for us to find a way to connect in this virtual setting with physical distance and barrier in learning – and I believe that we all did great jobs…! Journals became our key and integral ways to communicate and we all strive to learn more so that we can make up for the unavoidable physical distance that we all have. But sometimes, partly because we grapple with violence and history in class, which indeed are the direst things to be remembered and be fixed in this world, I was feeling lonely when I was facing those writings and visuals like I guess it was close to the feelings that Hara was writing. But I also saw hope – when we watched together “Atomic Café” together as a class, it was a more encouraging and safer environment rather than if we watched it separately. And I believe there are more ways than we can feel connected and bonded beyond physical distance through this experience.
Journal#11 Make it Public
Class reflection:
This week’s class was a week that Biden was finally elected. And the class started with a peaceful and hopeful atmosphere. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was not in the United States when this time of the election as well as the last time. But I thought I would be feeling in the same way as what Ziye shared with us in the open Mic that we had at the beginning of the class: she took this election much more personally and saw the situations with a lot of anxieties, though it is not our country and we cannot vote. But I think that it would be indeed more unsettling and concerning to live in and get through the election that we do not have the right to participate. We did movement to Nina Simone’s songs: “Mississippi Goddam” and “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon.” Eiko said that she thinks that she has been separating music and movement, but this time we did movement to Nina Simone’s songs. Last week in a small group, after we did no-no dance, I was in the same group with Sam and Sam shared with us that when we did no-no dance Sam was thinking about Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman.” And inspired by that, I have been listening to “Sinnerman” for this week and learning about her life. But I have not thought of doing the movement to Nina Simone’s song. Doing the movement with Nina Simone’s songs was completely different from the way I dance to the music. I could not follow the rhythm of the songs and my body moves on my own terms and with my intention and body’s momentum. However, it does not mean that I was completely separated from the songs. I got to know Nina Simone’s frustration and irritation expressed in “Mississippi Goddam” that she felt against the US society and I was trying to approach those feelings and pains through this movement, listening to her singing voice and the lyrics. We also have the first final project presentation. We had Kai, Ella, Gabrielle, and Sarah’s performance. Kai’s presentation was energetic and filled with confidence and I felt her happiness and self-assurance that Kai is ready to share what she has learned from this course and connections to her life to think about lost imagination. I was also happy to be in her gallery! And come to think that it was random that we were assigned as a commentator to each other in Professor Johnston’s history class and read each other’s op-ed, I could not appreciate our luck that we came together in this class again and learned together more and more with Eiko. And, Ella’s work was a performance. Her performance was moving and also educational. It was the first time that Ella sings for her artistic expression and her performance was a learning opportunity for me to learn about the tragedy of native Americans. I appreciate that Ella did a performance about the tragedy of native Americans in the land she grew up in because it connects me more to the land and incident through Ella’s experience and connection. Gabrielle’s performance was fun and engaging! Though she was worried about what if her performance was not something serious or deep, but her movement exercise with a mirror and mirroring of herself and in-class movement were engaging and encouraged me to think about what it means to live and connect in the time of corona and social distancing era. In Sarah’s presentation, we heard the first part of her podcast. It was Norden's bombsight that her great grandfather invented and her self-curation from the bombsight to Fukushima. After class, I got to listen to her entire podcast and I was moved by her sincerity in her research and self-curation and I felt a lot of gratitude for Sarah to create this podcast and share it with us. Right after hearing Sarah’s podcast, I felt the distance between me and Sarah had disappeared and I appreciated her work and efforts in her project. We also watched Eiko’s river performance, where young Eiko is dancing in the river and floating. Eiko told us that performance is also a practice to die by being passive with time. We also did the movement to be in the river. We laid down our body on the ground and experienced floating. I was mostly floating but sometimes streams pushed me down to the riverbed and I rolled around. I gave in to the flows of the river and felt less and fewer borders with the riverbed. I was merging into the ground as the flow pushed me down and rolled. Lastly, we did a paper dance. I teamed up with Kai. I think our paper movement was slow and soft, after seeing the paper movements of other classmates in the video Eiko shared later. But when I did the paper movement, I was feeling its firmness and inflexibility since we always use our body for movements. Reflecting back on it, I think that was one of the reasons why my paper movement was slow and gentle and I did not tear up the paper or did not do dynamic moves.
Allexis Moh – land acknowledgment:
Moh’s speech connects to Ella’s performance. Though society treats the land as property of individuals, in fact, we do not own land. It’s nature that owns that land and we cannot acclaim the land ever. But we are conceit and think that the land belongs to individuals and think that we can do whatever we want in our “land.” I believe that this arrogance created the tragedy like Dakoda 38 or Daiichi nuclear disaster. I also like how Moh’s performance is personal and captures the pictures in our daily lives, but it also made me realize that there are a lot of land aggressions to sustain our life.
CAROLINE ROSE GIULIANI:
I think it took a lot of courage to open up publicly to say that she is against the Trump administration and vote him out as a daughter of Rudy Giuliani, Trump's attorney. But indeed, in this article, she openly expresses her belief and promotes what she believes is a way to improve our society. And I believe that Caroline Giuliani showed us a way how the public figure should look like.
Setsuko Thurlow Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech:
Setsuko’s speech was strong. I felt from her speech that she has been elaborating on her thoughts and experience as a hibakusha at Hiroshima. I later knew that Setsuko started the anti-nuclear weapon campaigns publicly after hearing the news about the first American experiment of the hydrogen bomb. I think it is something that connects to her experience that she has been elaborating on throughout her life and stimulates her to collect her courage and publicly express her will and indignation against the nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons experience in this world.
Movement work:
I chose “Atom and Evil” for a song to do the movement with. Though the tune of this song carries somewhat jazzy and uplifting, the lyrics are clearly anti-atomic power. When I move with this song, I felt some kind of separation between body and soul. My body senses the joyful tune of “Atom and Evil” and makes me want to jump and hop. But my soul knows that it is not a song that I can feel happy about as I knew it is about the atomic bombs and nuclear power. I found that this complication is something useful for our expression in public. The tune captures the body. Movement captures other people’s bodies and attention. And movement connects the audience to the lyrics or the claims and expression we want to carry.
A Body in Fukushima I and II:
I watched the first two parts of Eiko’s work in Fukushima. As Eiko talks in the interview, it was the most painful moment for me to see those houses untouched and left as it is when the earthquake hit the region. The houses with broken furniture with lush bushes and the clock that stopped at 2:46 tell us so. And Eiko is a traveler to Fukushima and connects us to Fukushima. I felt her public speaking to protest what is happening in Fukushima and protest against people who should be responsible for all the tragedies she had witnessed in Fukushima. A Body in Fukushima is also not a one-time project but continues to next summer and beyond. And it creates more elaboration. Though it is the same town near the Daiichi, where the whole community was destroyed, she refreshed her memories and recollected the memories with the places in moments like when she entered the evacuation zone by a side path. I was also struck by how Eiko translated the names of the stations by Chinese characters. The Chinese characters signify the spirits of the towns and regions, and I am glad that she translated Chinese characters as well so that English speakers could understand that there was a community that people lived a long time with nature, but the Daiichi incidents and nuclear plants changed and destroyed those communities cruelly and inhumanely in one day. And I think that Eiko’s movements take up those points and tell us how dire and devastating the situations are and things are not “under control” as the Japanese government propagates.
Journal#10 Letters
Class reflection:
We read Hayashi’s letter at the beginning of class. I was fortunate enough to read her whole letter and translate some parts in front of my classmates. Hayashi’s letter was her reply to a letter from Eiko’s student. So, I felt nervous and a little surprised that she first apologized to Juna, a person who wrote a letter to Hayashi, for the destruction and misbehavior that our country (Japan) has brought to her country. I was moved by her tender words and response to what she saw and felt at the Trinity Site and her caring message for the younger generation like us.
I tried translating her letter to Juna below.
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Thank you very much for your letter that Eiko has sent me. I was moved by your sophisticated Japanese sentences. Your efforts in the Japanese language to today are fantastic. Eiko, I am also moved by your efforts and sincerity to educate students like her as well. She is something from a Japanese woman's perspective too.
While I was reading your letter, a lot of things came up to my mind. First and foremost, I sincerely apologize for the suffering and pains that my country has caused to your country during World War II. When I was seeing the map, the sounds of the steps of that war echoed in my heart. “Nusantara” and “shima to kaikyō karana ko tokoro.” (island and straits and a kid like that?)[1] Those are beautiful words and expressions. From the bottom of my heart, I pray for peace. And, I am very glad to know that you read my works. Fourteen and fifteen-year-old girls, in the third grade in girl’s school, died without knowing what it is like to fall in love with someone. Of course, other people as well. But, atomic bombs never end on that day. That is horror, which continues to harm people bombed by atomic bombs or the land bombed. I went to Trinity and came to stand on the silent ground, and I was shivering and sobbing from the center of my body. That was the sorrow that I have not felt since my childhood when I was following my mother going to the market. I think I was shivering for the view that the silent ground, and if someone uses the word “God,” God indicates our insolence to us, humans. The sixth and ninth are not just a problem for the victims but also for young people like you, who will live longer, so please think about them beyond the national borders. I wrote long lines. Anyway, your country is beautiful, as far as I have learned from maps and dictionaries. Please take care.
From Hayashi Kyoko
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This week’s class happened to be one day before the US Presidential election. So, we initiated the conversation about it first. For me, it was the very first US election that I am immersed with. Last time when Trump was elected, I was a senior at high school in Japan. Though I paid great attention as all the people do in the world and I was astonished when Trump was elected, but I could not take it as my own thing: the US was far away from me and I only knew a good side of the US so I could not take horror and terror that Trump would bring to the society. However, this time was different. I came to see a lot of moments that the US has problems and Trump exacerbates day by day and also intimated my existence in the US as an international student. So, I sincerely wished that Biden was elected for the next President. And it came true! I realized again that it is important to support each other in hard times, like the presidential election or the pandemic. It has been a disturbing week to get through and many friends of mine were anxious about the results of the election. It was a stroke of luck that I had Eiko’s class one day before the election to feel connected to my classmates. And I was glad that we all got through by taking care of each other and gain the result that relives us.
Next, we did no-no dance. We watched Eiko’s performance on Wall Street. I was struck by Eiko actually saying “Yada!” (NO!) during her performance. I have never heard her voice while she was performing, so I felt the voice was something particular to the no-no dance to show the feeling in a different way of expression (and explicate the intention of a performer). When I did my no-no dance, I was thinking about the nuclear plants in Fukushima and what they brought about and the irresponsibility of TEPCO and government, as I have been reading about it in the past week and it came up to my mind. First, I felt it difficult to express my anger in a dancing form. I was banging the pole of the bunk bed since it was the most straightforward way to express no-no for me. Come to think about it, it was my first attempt to express my emotions in a movement form. We always held a core of something tangible and we danced to it, and that might be a reason why I felt a little of difficulty at the beginning. Next, I felt I was sorry for the bed for hitting many times, so I used my emotional energy to stand up and down dynamically, sometimes stamping on the ground and saying no and yada. I felt my face tensed up and I think my eyes were a little sharp (angry face). After the no-no dance, I felt a lot of exhaustion. I think it is not just because the movement was dynamic, but rather because it takes up emotional capacity to be angry and causes some kind of sadness and helplessness where I cannot do anything at the moment of movements. And I shared this feeling of exhaustion with Sarah and Sam in a small group discussion, and they felt in the same way. We also talked about what no-no means and different from yes or not taking a position. And, we reached the conclusion that not taking a position means tacitly “yes” oftentimes in the world of politics. Though it takes up a lot of energy, I think that no-no is integral to our life and no-no dance is a good way to present it and practice it, while having aid from the power of movement.
We also named the title of our final project. To be honest, I am having a hard time deciding what I can do for the final project so it took time to name my project during the class too. I’d like to do something related to memory. How could I and we remember to “not repeat” the history? I think the writings of Hayashi and Oē are helping a lot to think about it so I’d like to create my final project but I am still looking for something that can be the frame or foundation of my project. My ideas are around nuclear abolition, war, protest against the abuse of power. I’d like to decide on the topic this week.
During the break, we did the experimental movement of being naked and doing the movement. First, I felt cold and pains by being exposed to the air. The skin of my body felt the air around me and I felt sharper senses. I tried wallowing being naked but it turned out that I felt it a bit scary even though when I did alone. So I stopped it after I did a bit. But overall, being naked movement made me more nervous and sensitive to my body senses and not my visual senses. It was a fresh experience.
Reading---
“Obama Unlikely to Vow No First Use of Nuclear Weapons”
I understand Obama is not such a villain, who doesn’t want to vow no first use of a nuclear weapon. He visited Hiroshima for the first time as the President, and he has been announcing the necessity to disarm more nuclear weapons or any other weapons. But, the article tells me that even the former President Obama, a person with clear views and determination on this issue, is struggling to attain his personal political goals for peace. There are problems of the opposition from the domestic politics that the next President can easily flip his achievements, the threats from other states such as China or Russia, and confusion to other allied states under the umbrella of nuclear weapons, notably Korea and Japan. Oē addresses this dilemma and hypocrisy of Japanese politics in “History Repeats” as well. As a person from Japan, I also can’t help the pains to realize the deadlock of the situation though I know I should not be defeated by political realism. But I believe there is something I can do as an individual.
“A Treaty Is Reached to Ban Nuclear Arms. Now Comes the Hard Part”
I want to pick up the quote of this article: “While the treaty itself will not immediately eliminate any nuclear weapons, the treaty can, over time, further delegitimize nuclear weapons and strengthen the legal and political against their use.” When I hear the argument over the nuclear ban treaty, some people say that it is useless because the countries with nuclear arsenals are not willing to and will not enter this treaty and even the countries allied with them are not going to. But, I believe that this treaty does have a significant meaning. The elimination of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy will never be achieved unless we continue to protest against nuclear weapons and nuclear energy and support this movement of abolition of nuclear weapons rigorously and persistently.
“Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons Passed Important Threshold”
And I believe the continuous movements and beliefs in nuclear abolition lead to the ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). It took 75 years since the first atomic bomb was used on Hiroshima to be ratified in the UN Congress but I believe it is the first step. As Beatrice Fihn, the executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, says about this treaty, “they know that even if it doesn’t bind them legally, it has an impact.” This summer, I signed up for the email subscription to the ICAN and started to follow their activities more attentively after I visited Nagasaki and the TPNW was making a big step to be ratified. My determination is a very small step and the ratification might be also a small step to the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. But for me, the following the ICAN movement and the ratification of the TPNW after 75 years from 1945 have a significant meaning and have given me a lot of courage.
Seeing the webpages of the ICAN and Fairwinds, I was encouraged that I am not alone: a lot of people in this world think about the abolition of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy seriously and engage in the actions to take steps toward it. There are many ways to contribute. They create a website to enlighten, publish articles, and start political activities to encourage governments to ratify the TPNW and criticize what they think is wrong and false.
Eiko’s interview on her Fukushima work:
First, I was relieved that I was “watching” this. Because of the distance I had, I could take a break and finish watching this. As Eiko says in this interview, as long as we do not go there and see the place, we can distract and take a moment. It is sometimes helpful if the incident is too overwhelming and devastating. But it also tells us that there are a lot of things you can escape or be oblivion to if you do not go there. In “A Body in Fukushima” project, Eiko and Professor Johnston collaborated and visited Fukushima in winter and summer of 2014. First, Eiko and Professor Johnston say that they come to know devastation and destruction happening there. I felt my heart singing and stopped the video when I heard the story about the trash: the pictures and albums of the evacuators… They also get to talk to the workers at the Daichi nuclear plant. And when I heard of a story of a man coming from Hiroshima. It was also overwhelming for me. And I thought about his parents and I felt indignant about this toxic system of nuclear energy that Fukushima fell for(tax aid first and cut out later). And, the GE and nuclear promotion campaign that the Japanese government pursued to install nuclear powerplants. And, I remember the truth is only people who were in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed by the atomic bombs. That’s why they could manage to install nuclear plants in Japan. Eiko also talks about her experience of dancing in Fukushima. She says it was the naked experience - nobody was there. She was shrouded in red cloth made from both of her grandmothers’. The vivid and lively red color of the cloth reminded me that there are living lives and winds in the evacuation area and there were lives of people that were destroyed by the nuclear plant incident. I also got emotional when Eiko talks about the story of showing the pictures of “A Body in Fukushima” Hayashi. When Eiko nervously showed the carefully-chosen fifteen picture of herself, Hayashi says that “I can see the picture of the scenery longer thank you.” And I was thinking about Eiko’s feelings: surprised, happy or honorable, memories… Also, Hayashi told Eiko that “oh, now you were exposed to the radiation, too.” I felt that it was gratitude from Hayashi to Eiko that Eiko has been a passionate follower of her and thinking about the atomic bombs and the sixth and ninth. And Eiko performed at the Philadelphia Amtrack Station. As Eiko says that she was thinking there was a hole to get to Fukushima from the station, she was performing with the red scarf and carrying flowers. Though Eiko said that people at the Philadelphia station were busy with their business, I thought that Eiko made people at the Station to see the scenes of Fukushima longer through her movement.
Letter to Sam:
I read “Letter to Sam” on Sunday morning when I was riding a train and meeting my friend. I felt this letter format is similar to Hayashi’s “To Rui” since “Letter to Sam” is also reflective and more like a journal or diary. (it says a letter to a late friend as well.) When I was waiting for my friend at the station, I was reading aloud part of “Letter to Sam:” dying. It was a philosophical and personal and lonely part, talking about deaths. I read it aloud for myself. And I realized that Eiko is also performing for herself too: she has practiced dying in performing. Though “Letter to Sam” features Eiko’s experience about “A Body in Fukushima,” it goes back and forth between the past and the future, from her origins and future completion of the book manuscript. As I get to know her life story, the way I see it, and the things I notice in the pictures of “A Body in Fukushima” has changed. And before I notice, I feel a bit closer to Fukushima.
[1] I am probably misreading this part
Journal#9 Young and Old
We started the class with movement this week as well. Eiko began the class talking about two factors of silence and activeness in performance: the performers know their intention and feeling that create their movement but the audience only can tell what the performers are expressing by their performance. Eiko said this gap sometimes frustrates her, and then she suddenly started drinking water from a cup. As an audience of her movement of drinking water, I can only guess and feel what Eiko is trying to express through the movement, and I agree that it is always frustrating. But, at the same time, seeing Eiko’s water-drinking movement with that idea in mind, I felt that movements also have their fortes in strength in expression (visual) and capturing the audience’s hearts and encouraging the audience to actively imagine through the movements in context. And, I think that those elements are hard to achieve in a writing format, though words are an effective tool to address the exact idea in our minds.
After we reflected on movements, we tried expressing our actions through our bodies. I did swimming. First, I was standing and tried doing swimming, but it turned out that I could fully express swimming motion so I lay down on the floor and try different styles. I first did my favorite style, breaststroke, and then did the crawl and butterfly. I had more time left so I did a totally different movement next, baking. I was whipping cream and making dough or becoming dough. Come to think about it, swimming and baking are favorite things to do and enjoy doing those movements. But, I might have looked funny to the audience since I was crawling on the ground and swinging from right to left like dough being kneaded. So, I noticed that this dilemma of body movement and expression by realizing this notion and thinking of the audience. In the next movement, we did animals. We watched the video of seagulls flying and croaking. When I did the movement of seagulls, I realized how demanding the flying motion is. I had to move my arms from the armpits back and forth quickly. But I also thought about how liberating it will be if I could fly with my hands frantically. Putting myself in a different animal and thinking about how my human body would work with those animals pushed me to think about liberation and limitation of my full body as a human being, which I took for granted. Wallowing with the seal’s body gave me another perspective. When we watched young Eiko wallowing on the beach, survival was a concept coming up in the conversation. From our eyes, seals look lazy and sleeping all the time, even when they wallow. But after I did the seal’s movement, wallowing mattered with my survival. With the body with short arms and tails
, it was hard to even move and wallowing used all parts of my body muscles. So, I understand why seals often lie on the ground and through my body, and it was a pleasure learning process. Lastly, we did the maggot movement. After seeing a little disturbing image of many maggots scavenging food (though that’s how they live and grow), the maggot movement was an energy-taking movement. But it should consume a lot of energy since wiggling is about their survival. When thinking about my survival as a maggot, I was wiggling frantically to touch and eat everything around me.
After the movement study, we talked about the last week’s experience and movement in class in a breakout room. I was in the same group as Will and Gabrielle. We extensively talked about the movement of touching our faces with our hand imagining another person’s hand. And, Will shared his story with us about thinking about his hand from childhood. He described it as unique from other’s hands he tried different times. And yes, when I did it the other day, it was very “touching” and made me emotional. I touched my Adam’s apple on the neck as I’ve noticed that my hand from my childhood is curiously examining it And, I thought about how I changed from a child. I grew into an adult body and experienced a lot of events and accumulated memories and learned knowledge and thoughts. In that sense, I am a different person from myself in childhood. But at the same time, I am the very person who grew out of myself in childhood. So, the basis is the same, me… I was struck by thinking about my growth and time had passed in my body and overwhelmed by the memories pouring out as my childhood hand touched my face.
We also watched the video. The video simply visualizes all the atomic and hydrogen bombs used on earth in the past. The alarming sounds (a lot of classmates pointed out too) as the atomic and hydrogen bombs go off and obnoxiously scared me as if the end of the earth came to us. But I thought it should be the actual sense of threat that people at that time when the atomic and hydrogen bomb tests happened with this frequency. It also irritates me when I see the tests were intentionally conducted far from where the places of authority, such as France always testing the bombs in Africa… this ugly arrogance and rudeness pissed me off the most. And this arrogance always shows up when it comes to nuclear power: nuclear plants are always constructed in an isolated place. THEY KNOW THE DANGER OF RADIATION. But they continue to test for their vanity and selfishness, without knowing what would bring about to people and lives and nature under the bombs.
Reading reflections:
It was my sixth grade’s March when the earthquake hit the island. Even for a sixth-grade elementary student in Tokyo, the shocking image of the roofs of Fukushima Daichi nuclear plants exploded on TV gave me the sense of danger. But, now as I think of the elementary school students in Fukushima at that time, and it’s painful and almost made me angry. And, the story about a boy in Fukushima starting to bleed in To Rui, Once Again, I only can say “ah-ah…” And, as “In Japan, a Culture That Promotes Nuclear Dependency” and “Japan Extended Reactor’s Life, Despite Warning” reveal, I couldn’t open my mouth in the depth of despair and anger to face the toxic system that almost forces isolated places to accept more and more nuclear plants when no authority (TEPCO and government) doesn’t have a clear sense of the responsibility and no one holds an account of the security of nuclear plants and the TEPCO even finished the examination in three days… it shows Fukushima nuclear plant accident is definitely the first and foremost environmental disaster that humans caused on the earth.Connect to this, Oē’s Op-ed in the New Yorker painfully suggests Japan’s hypocrisy and deception with nuclear power. “The Japanese should not be thinking of nuclear energy in terms of industrial productivity; they should not draw from the tragedy of Hiroshima a ‘recipe’ for growth…the experience of Hiroshima should be etched into human memory” Japan introduced “defense” force, installed nuclear plants all over the archipelago, and is under the nuclear umbrella of the US. But Oē is still trying to find his courage and hope in the memories of the dead under the atomic bombs. And what they left us in the future generation would teach us to stay away from the danger of nuclear power. And I think that it’s our responsibility to imagine the courage to go through suffering by nuclear power and stay away from nuclear energy and, without saying, nuclear weaponry. I understand political realism like “Don’t Ban the Bomb” is enticing. Some people argue that the atomic bombs are necessary for prevention of wars. But we shouldn’t fall for it and should keep saying NO and protest to those ideas as we were in Yoyogi. Though Bret Stephens writes in “Don’t Ban the Bomb,” “Ukrainians can rue their 1994 decision to abandon their nuclear arsenal as the reason Vladimir Putin felt free to invade in 2014,” I argue that Ukrainian people know that nuclear power is malicious by their memories through the experience of Chernobyl. ICAN achieved 50 states ratification just recently. I think the memories and beliefs are crucial to beat “political realism,” which is hypocritical and ended up repeating a mistake. And, “Britain’s Nuclear Cover-up” demonstrates those hypocritical ideas entail someone in greed to flourish and let them escape when the mistake happens.
I felt Hayashi’s quiet and humble indignation in To Rui Once Again and Harvest. I felt that Hayashi writes To Rui Once Again personally and humbly as one hibakusha to the letter to Rui, us. And her modesty and honesty and kindness in To Rui Once Again encourage and accept us – not hibakusha – to express our will and anger against wrongdoings that caused hibaku. She frankly talked about “stupidity” of human kinds, her struggles as hibakusha to face Fukushima’s nuclear incident, and her experience with the Great East Japan Earthquake. But she puts her quiet and humble indignation as hibakusha in those stories and supports us to have courage to have the indignation. So, when I read the last part of To Rui Once Again, I wanted to go to a demonstration against nuclear power in Yoyogi Park.
Hayashi’s storytelling in To Rui Once Again has a lot of points I wanted to learn for my final project. After I did my speech and shared it with my classmates and friends, I am facing a difficult task to encourage people: not finishing presenting my opinion but encourage them. I presented my own feelings and personal story about Hiroshima, but my way of telling might be difficult to reach someone farther from Hiroshima or Nagasaki. As it was difficult to visit Nagasaki for me until I read Hayashi’s work. I should be more aware that it’s also difficult for a lot of people to visit Hiroshima. But I think Hayashi’s writing accepts us even we don’t have much knowledge or interest in Hiroshima or Nagasaki or nuclear energy but kindly encourages us to do so. Her way of telling a story made me feel like she sits next to me and talks to me with her genuine heart and honest feeling. And I came to believe that that’s the writing that moves people’s heart.
Lastly, I’ll talk about Harvest and my movement core being sweet potato in the field. In Harvest, the motif stroke me the most was sweet potato. The sweet potato that the farmer man grows. When the accident happens. The old man is quiet and does not openly protest. But I were the old man I would be angry and scared when the nuclear facilities took over the peace of the sweet potato field and finally took over their peace. So, I wanted to be being sweet potato in the field. The movement without movement. And I felt, if I could not move, the only thing I can do is strongly stand here and do what I can do. I think that the old man couldn’t move even though in his head he understood that he should move out. But he didn’t move, because the sweet potato field is everything for him. And, whatever the nuclear facility’s blast, he continues to work in his sweet potato field. The story of Harvest made me realize and imagine people like the old man around the nuclear power plant, having their lives there and suddenly destroyed by greed and irresponsibility of people outside.
