Journal Entry#8 Letter to Hayashi

Dear Hayashi Kyoko san,

Nice to meet you. I am Hayate Murayama. I read several works of yours in class, and I am writing this letter to you. First of all, I’d like to tell you, “thank you” for writing books to tell your hibakusha experience to us in the future generation of human beings, who didn’t experience the atomic bombing, and in fact live far from the evils and terror that atomic bombs brought about. My generation was born after the Cold War ended, and there are still thousands of atomic bombs that existed on our earth. In my opinion, the awareness and sense of crisis in our generation against the atomic bombs are decreasing day by day, since it’s getting easier for us not to think about the atomic bombs existed in the world. In some sense, it means that the world is getting slightly better since we don’t witness the atomic bomb race or nuclear tests now. But I think it’s a serious problem that the young generation lives far from the awareness of the crisis we have in our world because it’s easier to look away from the evilness of atomic bombs and atomic radiation. (though many terrible incidents and tragedies by atomic radiation never go silent…)     So, I’d like to thank you for your courage to take a pen and start to write your reflection and experience as a hibakusha to the young generation like us, the generation that has the responsibility not to repeat the evil that tramples on human dignity and create the better world with fewer and no evils on the world.

            From Trinity to Trinity (translated by Eiko san) was the first work I read among your works. When I first read the book, I was encouraged by your courage to go to the United States and visit the museum and pay a visit to the Trinity Site and stand at ground zero and think about the moment of the day when the very first atomic bomb was dropped on the earth. From Trinity to Trinity inspired me to think deeper about my identity as being born in Hiroshima and my reflection on the place and people there, and encouraged me to write an Op-ed about my suggestion to take a trip to Nagasaki in addition to Hiroshima, seeing the difference of museums and same but different fates of only two cities that were bombed by the atomic bomb. And, this summer, I made a trip to Nagasaki, after I visited my grandparents in Hiroshima. It was not an easy trip, because of the pandemic we are in (you might see the chaos from the sky), but it was my promise to myself to visit Nagasaki. So, I carefully chose the time and went on a trip. When I told my grandparents in Hiroshima, they were not surprised. My grandmother was not born and my grandfather was five years old out of Hiroshima city when the bomb was dropped. So, they don’t talk about the war much but I know that they cherish peace and, before I know it, they tell me “senso wa yaccha ikan.” It was my first time to visit Nagasaki. Since I got there from Hiroshima, I was comparing the city with Hiroshima naturally like Nagasaki’s streetcars are smaller than Hiroshima or there is also a river streaming in Nagasaki. But, I still remember my nervousness when I was on the streetcar and stepped off at the Heiwa Koen (Peace Park) station. When I got to the park, I was not ready. But, the monument of the ground zero of the atomic bomb showed up in front of me. Since the monument at the ground zero in Hiroshima is a small stone marker and doesn’t draw much attention compared to the Atomic Dorm, I realized that I was not ready to stand in front of the 10-meters-tall tower that indicates the ground zero of Fat Man. I slowly walked to the tower and I stood at ground zero. I gazed at the sky and remembered the scene from From Trinity to Trinity when you stood at the ground zero in the Trinity Site. I gave my prayer from the ground I was standing on to people and all the lives under the bomb on that day and thoughts about you as well. In this way, I just wanted to tell you that thank you very much for sharing your experience with your trip to the Trinity Site, and as a hibakusha, otherwise, I would not be able to know them and I would be at loss. Your story encouraged me to take a trip to Nagasaki and connect me to the place and time, where dignity and emotions were trampled, which we cannot forget.

Hayate

Peter Jenning’s video: I think he took a lot of time to create this video by interviewing lots of historians on this field to give us the historical political decision on the atomic bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The content was something we learned in Professor Johnston’s class (we read Walker’s book as well), but I appreciate Peter Jenning’s efforts to create the video and provide the objective historical narratives on the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But, as I know it already, it’s still shocking and makes me sorrow to know the fact that there’s no clear decision-maker to drop a bomb but the bombs were dropped because they were ready and no reasons for the American military officers to stop them… and then they concealed what actually happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from its own citizens and decide them by making a story. It’s a very disturbing thing to know.

Class reflection:

We started the class with alphabet movement. It was surely different from our precious movements. We imitated the alphabet with our body and it was very playful. I did “WATER” since it was the first word coming to my mind. I like to do “water” movement as my core since it’s pleasant and calming. But when I did “WATER” as in the alphabet movement. It was totally different. I felt my body firm and straighten up to create a word and felt some artificialness to do so. But, at the same time, I was representing “water” with those artificial words I was creating with my body so it was also mysterious as well. The second time, I did the alphabet movement gently while imaging water’s flows and sound. I felt more natural this time but at the same time, I could manage to make alphabets. I felt more autonomy over my body.

The next movement we did was, touching with our not dominant hand. With eye closed, we traced our face and body without not the dominant hand, for me left hand. I realized that my left hand is more sensible to the sensation and impression that left on my body. Maybe, it’s because I have less control over my left hand so that my hand is more sensible to follow it. The movement time was, I’d say, philosophical. I felt more silent. I think I was concentrated and felt sharp in bodily sensation. I learned that my body is not even and within my body, there’s an unbalance. But I enjoyed its unbalance as my memories engraved in my body.

We also talked about the last class but the main part was talking about our speech &Op-ed. It was our first time to have individual time for each other and talk about our own projects. I first teamed up with Will, and we shared our experience in creating our speech. It was a fun time to find the commonality in our speech, and we found that we both have a core word to deliver to the audience. For Will, it is gratitude, and for me it is courage. I also didn’t know that Will studies theater, so I asked him advice on speech and delivering through voice. I also got to talk with Alma but it was brief so I hope from the next time I got to talk more with other students individually by preparation for class.

Ground Zero - Nagasaki

Journal Entry#7 Expressing the Bombs

            We did two movements this week: preschool for the entire body and landscape. We did the preschool movement at the beginning of the class. I felt it was a little warming-up exercise for me since I felt my joint very loose and my body was lifted up by my armpits. I tried to move slowly but dynamically. It sounds contradictory but once I started to move, I found it more difficult to move fast and dynamic. When I move fast, the center of my body stays in the same place and just my arms and feet move around: it is not dynamic. The next movement we did was the landscape. I enjoyed this movement because it’s new and touches my new sense in my body. We try to explore the texture and shape of our faces by rotating on the floor. I found that my nose and face have space that never touches the floor. My ear has a hole! My forehead is big enough to support my head by itself. It made me think about why we see our face in the mirror not by touching or feeling it. I mean you can’t make up or set up your hair by this movement, but when we want to know about our body, we often forget to actually feel and explore by engaging it slowly.

            We also saw the pictures from Hayashi’s reading in class. It was great to see that, though we all read the same Hayashi’s stories, everyone's picture looks different: colors, shapes, materials, sentences, etc. It’s natural but I think it’s a miracle and why we take classes together. The picture that Juliette drew is still vivid in my head. Her drawing was part of bodies in different shapes and black and red colors. Her drawing pauses me and gives me a moment to think about bodies in Nagasaki that Hayashi wrote in her book. It’s a good feeling that everyone’s drawing also encourages me again to ponder about Hayashi’s stories.

Gen, Hiroshima no Pika, and Atomic Cafe:

            I’m hesitant to say this, but it was my first time to read the entire volume I of Barefoot Gen. I was a little scared to read it to be honest because Barefoot Gen is famous for its poignancy (also some schools think it’s harmful to students and took it away from the library.) But, when I get to read it eventually, I realize that it was not at all poignant. Barefoot Gen just portrays the usual life of Gen and his family in Hiroshima city in the war. Gen’s father’s way of living and wards are encouraging for me. The war started by the selfish rich Imperial military causes civilians to suffer and even lose lives. And it’s sad but true that Japanese citizens themselves are not against military and war, which inflict suffering in their lives but call those who are against the war as a traitor to the Emperor and country. So, I just can’t make a word for the last scene after the atomic bombing when Gen’s father and sister Eiko and a little brother Shinji died after they put up with all suffering and injustice imposed by the war.

            Hiroshima no Pika was a book that I met at an early age in elementary school. I remember I opened a book at the bookstore in the Fukuya department in front of Hiroshima station. Though I think I was 8 or 9-year-old, the pictures in the book were so poignant (also scary so I couldn’t finish it) that I remember it when I saw the book again with this assignment. Now that I read it, the pictures in this book are still difficult for me to look at for a long time. But from my eyes now, I notice how bodies and faces are drawn is not picture-like. It reminds me of the picture books of the Japanese old tales. Maybe it’s drawn in a Japanese style. Maybe it reminds me of the drawings of hell or the world after death… But I come to think the pictures in this book more accurately depict what people experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki: dark, blurry borders, less/no lines on faces… It also stuck in my mind when I saw a picture with a rainbow by black rain over a pile of dead charred bodies. It takes time to process in my head. (I also have not heard of the rainbow.) 

            I watched “Atomic Café” on Saturday night in my timezone. I first thought it came with a lot of images from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But it came out that it consists of clips of the propaganda videos from the American military services. It’s striking to see the video clips from the military turns into an anti-military movie. (and Hiroshima and Nagasaki show up a little.) I felt that when I watched the scene with a professor speaking up about the danger of atomic bombing and radiation was laughed at for atomic bomb mental illness: a paranoid of the atomic bombs and radiation. But this scene reminds me of the scenes of Barefoot Gen when Gen’s father was also mocked by neighbors and police when he spoke against the war and the Emperor.

Lights in Darkness

Journal Entry#6 Mikan

Class reflection:

This week’s class has started with “kindergarten” movement. It came across as one of the difficult movements I did in class to think about and dance to. In kindergarten movement, we focused on one arm and move from five fingers to armpit. Since I have never experienced focusing on one part of my body in movement, I felt a little uncomfortable and unstable at first. I felt a little strange and nervous to move my concentration on just my fingers and arm: my fingers and arm collected too much power and strength as my attention goes there. Therefore, it was hard to control five fingers moving around, as Eiko told us before we moved that fingers move like five lively kids because my fingers gained excessive power and attention compared to other parts of my body. But as I got used to the movement and the state of my body, where solely my fingers and arms movements and other pasts of my body sustained them, I came to feel more joy and curiosity in how my fingers and arms can move and make different movements. Although my fingers were just moving, when I looked at them or felt them, each finger move differently, corresponding to each other. At this moment, I felt a bit sorry about my fingers and appreciate them more. In daily life, I am dependent on them and asked them to be my tool to function in my daily life. But, when I was in this movement in class, I felt my fingers became independent from my body and duty as my “fingers.”They were dancing and enjoying their individuality. Come to think about it, fingers all look different by scale and shape, though they all are “fingers.” And when I looked at my arm, arm also looked happy and bouncy! As it were not my arm, I felt my arm being arm. But at the same time, they are part of my body. And, it does not change even during the movement. So, I was balancing between enjoying and appreciating their moves and individuality, at the same time controlling them not to fly so away and staying as my part of my body. It’s maybe similar to a relationship between body and soul.

            After the movement, we talked about and shared our experience with last week's assignment (reading aloud sentences, tree movement, and op-ed) When we shared the experience of tree movement in our group, we talked about roots of a tree. Since it is hidden in the ground and we cannot actually see it, we are often prone to underestimate it. But, roots are actually part of the tree that supports the whole tree to stand and suck energy from the ground and sustain its life. And, when we move with trees, we can’t help feeling how powerful and majestic tree roots are. Annie’s childhood story of an apple tree in her house also stuck in my mind. She told a story that she was trying to save the dead apple tree backyard of her house. And, I felt my heart warm for how her memories and the apple tree are connected and tree movement can reconnect her with the apple tree again.

Reading reflection and engaging with readings:

            I read Hayashi’s three pieces for the assignment in Japanese. I found Bhowmik’s guidance helpful to read and understand The Place of the Festival. I first read Hayashi’s work by myself and afterward, I read Bhowmik’s “Temporal Discontinuity in the Atomic Bomb Fiction of Hayashi Kyoko.” He gave us literal tools to understand more about Hayashi. Especially, I found helpful his writing about how Hayashi shifts between 1945 and 1975 when she wrote The Place of the Festival. I appreciate his words, “this thirty-year period is anything but void” and “the atomic bombing extends beyond its historical moment.” And, those words and his mentions about the malleability of time encourage me to take on to Hayashi’s irony and her wish and the reasons why she put “There is a beautiful line at the end of an American documentary film on the atomic bomb:… Thus, the destruction ended…” Bhowmik’s writing was also helpful to remind me of some scenes that struck me by, such as her mom washing black round spots on the clothes and thinking of the blood. I think that those scenes are poignant to me because they covey my emotions and thoughts that I could not imagine by myself: bottomless fear, sorrow, and dismay when her mom saw those stains. But, what we feel or think about Hayashi’s writings, of course, is not limited to Bhowmik’s thinking and writings. I think that we connected with our personal memories and experience to imagine what is told in Hayashi’s works. I shed tears when I read the scene when Wakako died at the end in Two Grave Markers. It was painful to think of Wakako and Tsune. It’s poignant to feel Wakako’s sufferings of her body and mind. Even at the sudden end of her life, she was suffering from survivor’s guilt, starting from when she left one person in the fire to Yoko in the mountain hollow. And, there’s no reason for Wakako to get through all of those physical pains and guilts and sufferings. This situation is really unfair and unjust to the point that makes me angry. It’s because of the war that the military started and the atomic bomb dropped on her city. So, I wrote 恨むなら、あの馬鹿でっかい火の玉を恨むがいい。“If she was to resent something, let it be the huge, monster ball of fire.”　（「恨む」という文字を書くときに、とても緊張しました。「恨む」という言葉は、resentとは違う、実際には、何も行動にして雪辱は晴らすことはできないけれども、自分の気持ちだけでも、せめて、自分の正しいと思うこと・気持ちを貫きたいという、このあまりにも苦しく道理の通らない世界をもたらした原子爆弾への言葉にならない感情、若子への思いを、ギリギリ心の中で保つための最後の方法・言葉だと感じました。）

            I drew two pictures. The first one is a picture of two grave markers of fresh wood in the mountain hollow, with branches of orange (mikan) hanging still hard and green fruit. This scene struck me because it comes right after Wakako’s death scene and it’s poignant and painful when I think about Tsune’s feelings when she takes care of two grave markers of her daughter and her childhood friend. And, I feel indignant against the atomic bomb dropped on them, the war, the Bockscar, the practice the pilots had done to escape Nagasaki at once after they drop the bomb, Truman’s announcement, …. I also drew a picture of the classroom with windows broken and chairs and desks scattered. In Hayashi’s writing, we read this week, there are a lot of scenes describing the situations of classrooms. One scene I struck by is a classroom of medical school, where all students and teachers at the front died with their bones. Connected with my emotions when I read Two Grave Markers, it makes me sad and indignant how the atomic bomb can take away so easily and disrespectfully the lives of numbers of citizens in one moment. And, Hayashi tells damage and sufferings by the atomic bombs are not just that moment. There is never to be an end of destruction by the atomic bombs: Wakako died 49 days after Yoko’s death and pieces of glass remain in bodies, and black rain survivors fight with the government, and there are still uncountable numbers of atomic bombs exist on the earth.

Nagasaki

This week after I read Two Grave Markers, I thought about the mikan (orange) tree in my house. My parents bought the tree for me when I was 8 years old to feed a caterpillar. (back then, I was into breeding caterpillars of swallowtail. And, it’s still there after 14 years. And most of the year, the tree didn’t bear fruit, since it’s small and also put in a planter. But this year miraculously it is bearing four or five fruit. And I came to think that I dance to this mikan tree and its fruit. First, I touched the green fruit. It’s heavy. It’s been there for three or four months already now. But it’s still green and the skin is still hard. And, I imagined the mikan branches with fruit that Tsune placed in front of two grave markers. Those mikans were also green and firm and unripe: but they are heavy and drooping down from branches. And I felt that my head and body are similar to a mikan branch. I moved around my head slowly, thinking about its heaviness and different balance from other parts of my body. I touched my head and hair and ears nose. They have different texture and shapes. My head is not ripe yet. And my body tensed up thinking about two lives of 14-year-old girls, who had to get through all these pains and emotions and experience that Hayashi told us in the story. And I sat down on the ground, imagining there are two grave markers.

Journal Entry#5 Courage to stand on.

Class reflection:

I feel that I get more focus and grounded in class after a month and feel three hours are getting not enough to cover what we read and think. So, from next week, I will try to share more personal memories and share my deeper thoughts and read more journals of my classmates so that I can make more three hours fruitful for my learning. At the beginning of the last class, we heard about Eiko’s performance at the grave. We come up with many themes to talk about in relation to the grave such as the dead, death of someone close to us, dirt, and a tree at the grave. Eiko's image and reflection on the tree in the grave she danced by were thoughtful and impressive for me. Eiko grabbed dirt around the tree and did the movement of trees. She said that trees suck energy from the ground that the dead sleep in and the image of her and words explaining a relationship between a tree and dirt and the dead stood out to me and they were helpful when I did the tree movement for the assignment.

            After the reflection on Eiko’s performance last week, we moved on to the movement activities while watching the movement videos of our classmates. We focused on one object in the video, anything we like to do. It was a new experience for me since we have a strong visual image to follow and imitate. I tried a passive object in Juliette’s video since I wanted to try something new with this new activity. I tried a tree and the ground. There were a cat and Juliette herself filming the cat so I tried to move as passive objects that to be affected or exist but do not move in the video. When I moved as the ground or felt like to be the ground, I felt the cat’s slow steps on my shoulder and wiggle to support it. Next, Eiko invited us to be aware of knitting motions in the video such as tying shoelaces and making pasta. I tried to move to be aware of passiveness and activeness existed in the same object. Tied and tying. Eaten and eating. Suffered and suffering. By feeling two sides of my body – activeness in my body and passiveness in my body – I come to think that I actively move my body with my consciousness but also my body is moved by my brain’s signal. My brain thinks that my body does “my” motions but my motions I do actually derive from my past memories and learnings in my lifetime. The feelings of being active and passive were useful when we did the tree movement as well. Trees are planted and do not move fast so they are passive. But trees are active in the sense that they suck nutrients and water and power from its roots, they grow their leaves and branches, they memorize slashes and history on the bark. And after I finished the tree movement, the words from Hara’s The Land of Heart’s Desire, “live for the dead.” We live but live for the dead. We all have roots in our ancestors (passive) and inherit their history and past, but at the same time, we need to live and create our history and memories by remembering what our ancestors have left us.  These thoughts were connected to what I felt in the tree movement.

            Towards the end of class, we did the reciting activity. It was surely different and deeper than the last time we voiced together. We listened to each other’s recitation one by one, and we got to hear why we chose a specific part. I felt more silent than time in other parts of the class although we recited the sentences. I think it was not just a voice, which trembles the air, that was delivered in our space. We delivered our emotions, our imagination, our body in our space by reciting sentences from the books. I think that I felt silence in the sense of the actual sound, but the voice of our hearts was strong enough to hear through our space and I received my classmates’ voice surely. I recited: “I myself have long cherished a vision of an age when harmony would come to the earth when deep in men’s hearts would sound the quiet murmur of a spring, and there would be nothing to snuff out individual existences any more….” from Hara’s The Land of Heart’s Desire. I tried to carry hope and wish in my voice since I interpreted that it was the message that Hara wanted to leave for us in the future generation after he got through a cruel experience: hope and wish for a world where nothing snuffs out individual existences any more.

Reading reflection & OP-ed/speech statement& reciting reflection :

            I read Kenzaburo Oē’s Hiroshima Notes when I was in high school. It was one of the memorable works I read in high school. The words that in Hiroshima Notes come back to me from time to time, especially from the chapter on human dignity. It was a great opportunity for me to read it again and I read it in Japanese this time as well as I found that translation changes the nuance of a good amount of portions in the texts and I felt like to. My word which attracts my attention in Hiroshima Notes is “courage” and “bravery.” It seems that Oē writes about “courage’ to go on living. I believe that Oē thinks it needs tremendous “courage” to live on after the tragic experience of Hiroshima and the wounds of the body and heart of victims. He understands how cruel to live after Hiroshima and he keenly listens to the life story of the survivors but he gains “courage” to continue his life as he sees people who got through Hiroshima sustain their dignity. And I do think in the way after I read Hiroshima Notes. Oē’s concept of “courage” – the most necessary courage for our life but atomic bombs were so malicious enough to snuff it out – resonates me from Hara’s words I chose to recite last week: his hope and wish for the world where nothing snuffs out individual existences anymore. So I come to think that I would like to talk about “courage” in my speech for the class project because this concept visits me many times in past weeks and as myself born in Hiroshima I’d like to explore this concept of “courage” to live and human dignity through my project. I am also thinking that I’d like to use my native language, Japanese, to navigate through my speech project. I think that I’d like to link it to the history and experience and literature that my native language contains. I’d like to start off my thoughts from a quote from Hiroshima Notes: “But the human tragedies I witnessed in Hiroshima even if seen only by a traveler's eye, and though I do not have the courage to turn hopeless tragedy into something of positive value at least made clear to me wherein lies the human dignity of the Japanese people.” I resonate with a word “a traveler’s eye” because I didn’t get through this experience. And it is true that no one has the courage to turn this hopeless tragedy into something of positive value. But the human tragedies I witnessed in Hiroshima made clear to me also wherein lies the human dignity of the Japanese people. I’d like to express this feeling to people in the US and hope to make my project to bridge the languages and establish the dignity of Hiroshima people in US history.

            I recited first, “it was a cruel and complete silence, worse than any other, like ‘a moan that cannot be voiced’ since I thought Oē captured perfectly the concept of silence in Hiroshima in this sentence and I feel attached to this sentence. But, when I recited it in front of others I had a hard time because it was abstract and I felt like I was not able to convey my emotions and feelings enough through I got to read this book to people who never read this book. So, I recited this part of the young woman's observation: “I'm blind! I tried to raise my hands, but my right hand was heavy and beyond my control. With the fingers of my left hand, I touched my face lightly; my eyebrows, my cheeks, and my mouth felt like a mixture of bean curd and gelatine. My face was swollen, like a big sponge; it was as if I had no nose. I shuddered as I suddenly remembered the spooky shapes at the foot of the concrete wall.' At this point, however, she had no choice but to join the circle of gloomy silence.” Since it is strong descriptive sentences that tell us about the tragedy of Hiroshima, I was scared to recite this at first. However, I came to think that I would like to grapple with these sentences because with this concrete description of her experience I would express more of my emotions and feelings that I gained by reading Hiroshima Notes. So, this experience to face the tragedy by reciting the sentences in front of others was,  I think, useful to think about my own project as well.

Hiroshima

            Move reflection:

I went to a park near my house and did my movement with the trees in the park in the evening. There were many kinds of trees there: a ginkgo tree, sakura tree, and a maple tree. (I got to know their kinds because they had a name tag for each.) and I chose a ginkgo tree because it grows straight and I felt stronger standing beside it. I first started my movement beside the trunk. I felt strength from its powerful and thick trunk. But as I danced around the ginkgo tree, I also came to see the history in the tree. I thought about the tree rings inside it – must be much older than me – and thought about the time that has pasted in front of it. It was overwhelming to think so my body shook, especially my hands were like its leaves brushed by a breeze. And then, I came back to the current time I live and I thought about the roots of the ginkgo tree, reflecting on how it takes in power and energy from the ground, which existed much before the time this ginkgo tree was planted, and how it grew about 10m high as it is now. There must be a lot of movement and I moved by thinking of how the roots suck time, energy, power, and space from the ground. My hands shook like a wave and I strongly came back to the trunk. I repeated these movements overtimes. And I am glad that I learned about the passiveness and activeness of a tree in class. If I didn’t learn of it, I might only focus on the passiveness of a tree to a breeze, bags, and humans because it’s easy to see it. But I saw a lot of activeness in a tree while I moved and I’m so happy to feel their courage to grow and stand and have roots in the ground.

Trees, Middletown CT

Journal Entry#4 原民喜ー中央線

I got interested in Tamiki Hara, an author of “Summer Flower” and “The Land of Heart’s Desire,” and ran a little search on his life on the Internet. And, I found out that he faced many deaths of his family at his young age, and he loved his wife very much but lost her at a relatively young age because of her illness. And, as the introduction of “Toward the Unknowable Future” by Ōe tells us, he experienced the Hiroshima bombing when he returned to his hometown there to return his beloved wife’s ashes in the tomb of his family. By getting known about his life story and personality, I felt that the sentences of “The Land of Heart’s Desire” seeped into me more. Many deaths appear in “The Land of Heart’s Desire” – ants, her mother and sister, and lark, and his wife. It is overwhelming to extend my imagination to think about Hiroshima for him. But I won’t escape. I wrote the sentence to say for my wishes. He composed it in beautiful prose.

“I myself have long cherished a vision of an age when harmony would come to the earth, when deep in men’s hearts would sound the quiet murmur of a spring, and there would be nothing to snuff out individual existences any more….”

I was moved by Mitsuko’s strong heart. She experienced ill-treatment by others who “pitied” her, she believes others and helps people in trouble.

“I want to grow up fast and help people who’re having a hard time. I wish I could be thirty years old right now. I keep thinking about it.”

Reading aloud those sentences of future wishes is very important for me. In this world where nuclear bombs are still existed so many, it’s really scary and hopeless and dangerous. So, wishing words from Tamiki and Mitsuko who experienced Hiroshima are integral and savior for me. Reading them aloud helps and encourages me to live with hope and will and emotions. And I can live more strongly against things I am angry about.

Watching classmate’s video:

It was my delight to see other’s video. Not a single video is the same: what they see, how they capture, how they move, etc. And, all the videos I watched are stuck in my mind. They are short and simple, but surely moved my mind and made me think of their thinking and perception. I am also glad that these videos helped me get to know about my classmates from different lenses. I got to know more about their motions (as in class we focus on ourselves for the movement exercise) and their sense (what they perceive and what they think through this assignment) and I feel close to them. I felt this sense of knowing and learning when I read the journal collective archive. My aha moments for me were when other people think and feel differently when we read the same reading and do the same movement exercise. It keeps reminding me of my luck to get to my classmates’ feelings and memories through the same experience we do. It is a great learning opportunity.

Reflection on movement:

The main sense I encountered this week’s movement was “dreaminess.” It was a little scary experience to move my body in this sense of “dreaminess.” Eiko told us that it is “yawning of your body.” I had a hard time gripping myself in dreaminess but also tried to enjoy this new oddness that visited me during this movement. The dreamy movement was connected with last week's (3)’s movement for me. I think it was because we did it while lying down. This oddness in dreaminess was new to me and I moved slowly to taste the sense of this movement.

Kichijoji

Journal Entry#3 - Expression

In the course with Professor Johnston last semester, I learned the history of bombing and WWII, leading to the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The last assignment from his class was writing our own Op-eds about what we learned in class. I wrote my Op-ed about the museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both of which deal with atomic bombings that happened in each city. When I wrote my Op-ed, my attentive audience was foreigners who visit Japan and Hiroshima but don’t make a trip to Nagasaki. I wrote about my opinion about the Hiroshima Peace Museum that the museum doesn’t tell a single story about how the war led to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima but the museum is dedicated to telling the tragedy of Hiroshima while 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 the WWII history but also of the history of nuclear weapons and their development. However, the Hiroshima Peace Museum held twice more visitors than the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. So, I proposed in my Op-ed that we should visit both museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to learn more completely about the history of atomic bombings.

            After reflecting on my Op-ed in the last class, I became to think that I would like to make more opinionated and emotional “Op-ed” that I can carry my emotion. While I understand that Op-ed can be more influential and inspirational when I choose an attentive audience, readers, and listeners (and this Op-ed chooses foreigners visiting Japan as an attentive audience), but the other side of my brain tells that I would just like to be angry, sorrow, and runs tears about sufferings and pains of people under the atomic bombs and bring more attention to the ugliness of atomic bombs that exist many numbers, many years, and in many countries. But I think that my emotion that I’d like to carry and bring attention to is not limited to atomic bombings and bombs. One of the three things I wrote as "three things I am angry about" is the authoritative government that China has and oppresses people with other identities than Han and tries to exterminate the culture and language of minority groups in its nation. I might want to write about them or minorities in Japan, my home country, to let my readers or listeners think about awfulness of oppression that political authority or societal system could perform for its greed.

            One of my concerns, when I write an Op-ed, is how I should care about the emotion of people who read and listen to it. To think about my Op-ed about the Hiroshima Peace Museum, I was hesitant to talk about that my Op-ed that I wrote with my grandparents in Hiroshima because I was afraid that any of my descriptions in my Op-ed might hurt them in the sense that I wrote somewhat a critique to the way of an exhibition of the Hiroshima Peace Museum. So, I am still struggling with my own ways of expression for the contentious opinions and thinking when I think of actual readers and listeners of my Op-ed.

Class Reflection:

Whose artworks/ whose stories or artworks move your heart and body.

When Eiko asked this question, I was not able to come up with my answer promptly. The first thing I came up with was a sunset on the beach in Kamakura. But, I realized that it was something that nature creates and not someone’s creation, so I wouldn’t call it “work.” And, the next thing that came up in my mind was icons (paintings of Jesus Christ or another holy figure) that I saw in the churches in Russia. They moved me and stuck in my heart because of the history of them for existing from the 7^th century and their mysterious but fascinating detailed expression that religious people had created and respected for centuries. By listening to other classmates’ stories about artworks that moved their hearts, I came to realize that things that move their hearts are different from each other, and the contexts and their memories associated with it are integral for them to remember those artworks and make them special.

Movement: Sleeping and finding our space.

The sleeping movement was new to me. I found it difficult when I let my body move on their own. My mind and intention interfered with my body and tried to control my body’s motions as I always do it in everyday life. And, when I was trying to let my body take over motions, my body suddenly felt stagnant and rejected to take an initiative to move. I think that my body is maybe scared to take on autonomy over movement since I (we) think and “use” our body in everyday life. So, my brain doesn’t know what my body does by letting it go and my body is also struggling to design its movement since it’s new and felt strange for my body to design its own movement. But I think stagnation did recede after many attempts of repetition of movement and get used to living on that movement, which was for me crawling on the floor in this exercise.

When I search around the space, it was difficult to manage myself not to be affected by the objects and space around us. Eiko told us in class to try motions that come only from our insides. But objects around me and the space I was in, of course, limited my emotions and thinking. Each of the things I see, touch and feel enticed me to distract and interfere with my own movement. I didn’t know that it was such a difficult process to manage myself to move solely based on my body and inner feelings and made me realize that I consciously and unconsciously let the outer environment to take over me and form my motion and even thinking. It also made me scared as well.

            When we talked about 9.11. The distance was a concept I had my reflection on. I felt a distance from 9.11 and had never felt close to the incident before I visited the Memorial park in NY. But after listening to classmates’ stories about their families traumatized by 9.11. and what they have been feeling about it to today, I am still surprised by my distance from 9.11. Even though I read Tuesday and After and Eiko’s personal reflection on 9.11. I can’t help feeling distance (or difference?) and having a hard time getting rid of distance from 9.11, whereas my classmates take it closer and personal and have their own struggle to find a place and stance to it. (since they were babies when it happened) I don’t have my clear answer yet to how I can shorten my distance to 9.11. Maybe thinking through my movement or reading Tuesday and After again from the beginning might help.., I will keep self-curation.

Dance:

            I should not repeat this word, scary, but it’s also natural I think to feel in this way because it’s new and a bit strange compared to other experiences I had before. I decided to move on to

the bank of the river never my house as I felt calmer and the space is more open. But there are people passing by and, at first, I felt scared and shy to show my movement in front of people whom I don’t know. But as I started to move on the ground, I got used to my space and objects around me, trees, grass on the bank, the river, sounds of the streaming river, bags, the noise of people walking and speaking, etc. As I got to known to place, my movement has got more dynamic. And scariness and shyness melt away and turned into courage and will to move. When I was moving, I was so concentrated on my body and movement that I could not afford to think about what people think of me or make a judgment about me moving on the bank of the river. It was pleasant feelings after I was done with my movement because I felt a bit more liberated and autonomy over myself. It was a positive experience for me.

            Hiroshima Diary by Michihiko Hachiya surprised me many times. It was my first time to read the everyday journal talking about his experience from August 6 and it left deep impressions to see how people were dismayed and trying to make sense of what had been happening in front of them (or some were denying) and the whole meanings of death and survival had changed from that day. The lines in the book: “When I thought of the injured lying in the sun begging for water, I felt as though I were committing a sin by being where I was. I no longer felt quite so sorry for those of our patients who were obliged to lie on the hard concrete floor in the toilets.” It was stinging to read these sentences for me to think about how Hachiya had to adapt to these horrendous situations in Hiroshima when he sees patients lying packed without treatment and dying from day to day or completely crushed Fukuya  department store and thinks that he was very lucky so that he had to live in to keep his mind and body sane. So he says: “People were dying so fast that I had begun to accept death as a matter of course and ceased to respect its awfulness.” If he started to feel guilt living in these situations, he might have had lost his hope to live. So, he had to accept these dreadful moments and space he lived in and survived. And it’s not just him. His wife went outside in the dark and stumbled on the dead’s foot in the corridor. I was terrified to picture these frightful moments of how a number and number of death and destruction dominated 10 days after Hiroshima A-bombing that I witnessed through his journal. But it also made me ponder when he talked about Ba-san’s death before the surrender was proclaimed to the citizens. He felt glad she died because he knew that it would be disheartening (he describes it as “lonely”) for Ba-san. And, I thought that, though he ceased to respect its awfulness of death, it was the opposite. He still managed to think that people are not numbers but individuals in this part.

            After reading Hiroshima Diary, when I was doing my own movement before I go to bed, I feel lucky that my body is moving and I sense every part of my body and inside. I’m a lucky human being that I can move every part of my body as it wants like merging my front and back. Coming to realize my fortunate, I became to feel my body to move more and more and appreciate my body and its movement. I swayed. I hopped. And I wiggled. It was my first time that I found happiness in the process of the movement exercise.

“Now we’re all the same age together. None of us is young this week, and, with death and calamity just down the street, few of us vicarious any longer.” (Roger Angell)

“Imagine the people who have already seen years like these turn into decades – imagine their brief lifetimes made up only of days like these we’ve just seen in New York.” (Denis Johnston)

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Journal Entry#2 - A week of 9.11 (Delicious Movement)

This is a weekly blog series for the class called "Delicious Movement." This is #2.

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Since we don’t do much of actions like “merging our front and back,” the “Front and Back” exercise gave me was refreshing and mysterious aftertastes. It was somewhat scary to lose directions of my body by merging the division between front and back and become to feel seamless. But this sense of scariness to lose the balance and direction of my body made me think that, in daily life, I entirely depend on the habits and directions that my body has internalized unconsciously over the years and feel comfortable to be obedient to them. However, with my intention to get away from the pre-sets of the front and back of my body in the exercise, I come to feel closer to my body and sensation. So, it was refreshing but also mysterious and scary. We also explore the space after the “Front and Back” exercise. It came out a little of a surprise for me. Though we just drifted around and searched the space we were in, and for me, it was my room where I grew up, the memories I had with the space hit me as I merged into space: mostly childhood memories. Since I usually do not look back on the memories (the life is always busy!), it was purely a surprise that I remembered my memories from my childhood. And I had pleasant feelings when I sulked in my memories and merged with the space I was in. Next, we lay down on the floor in our space and keep on becoming seamless. When I was lying on the ground, I felt more secure. I’m not sure yet why it was for me. Maybe, I felt supported when I’m lying on the ground. Or because the ground was the carpet and floor I grew up on. Anyway, as I felt more secure, my motions got more dynamic: my arms and feet were rolling and rolling. Lastly, we did the repetition exercise. The repetition exercise was difficult for me. I think it was because it requires a lot of patience to stick to the same motion for me, and I could not feel my repeating motions becoming mine. So, it was tough for me when Eiko proposed us to expand on to other motions. It came across as multitasking and I was a little confused with my body and my motions. The striking discussion in class for me was when we talked about anger. I thought that anger is a personal emotion. And it is, but when it was shared and expressed, it’s strong and can move and affect other person’s emotions. I felt also anger when I was reading the texts last week, especially about the pilots of the Bockscar. And when I came to know in class that Enola was named after the mother of the pilot, I thought it’s shaming and just infuriates me how people captured in the article and the writer himself could be ignorant of the sufferings and pains of people under the bombs.

National September 11 Memorial Museum

         I think this theme of ignorance or disregard perpetuates in the Op-Eds of Tuesday, and After.  Many of the Op-Eds featured in Tuesday, and After, speak to, before 9.11, how citizens in New York or in the United States had been ignorant to the sufferings and pains caused on others in name of justice of their nation. For example, Denis Johnston says that “[i]magine the people who have already seen years like these turn into decades— imagine their brief lifetimes made up only of days like these we’re just seen in New York,” or Susan Sontag questions, “[h]ow many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq?” And I see that the connection from Hiroshima in the sense that ignorance is comfortable but dangerous. I think that ignorance is comfortable but dangerous because it’s comfortable till people are under the illusion that the world is peaceful and there is no pains and suffering that they are owing to, but it’s dangerous and malicious because it’s too late to notice that it is (some people even do not notice it) and two giant buildings had perished and a toll of death (might be of their friends, family, etc.) is counted up in front of them. I think that Eiko’s own writings, Slow Turn and Where Did I Turn The Wrong Turn, resonate this point as well. “The remorse and regret shivered” Eiko when she thought of the victims of 9.11 and the very possibility of deaths of herself, and her family, and her colleagues and friends. But, she also comes to reflect that she was part of the system that brought about 9.11, as a New Yorker looking at the towers falling with flames or “a chosen artist” having worked on the 92^nd floor of North Tower or a person living in the society sustained by global trade…  

            The description of New York in Here is New York by E.B. White encourages me to think about the peculiarity of “New York” as a place 9.11 has happened. “New York is peculiarly constructed to absorb almost anything that comes along” and “Manhattan has been compelled to expand skyward because of the absence of any other direction in which to grow.” Those lines of description of New York by White resonate with my impressions of New York. When I came to Wesleyan for the first time, I spent three days in New York. And, I remembered vividly that I was overwhelmed by the skyscrapers surrounding me and their distance from me. The buildings grow out “the absence of any other direction” and in 9.11. the tallest buildings in Manhattan were targeted and destroyed. I come to think that the destruction of the twin towers, a member of the “no-direction” skyscrapers were originally destined. I believe there were pretension and ignorance of comfortable people who had disregarded the inhabitants on the ground in New York and the capitalistic system that created the twin towers that were destroyed. And it keeps reminding me of the article that featured the people on the Enola Gay, who completely lost their imagination and made a far distance and ignored the pains and sufferings of people under the bombs, described in what Mark Selden tells us. When I visited the memorial site of 9.11. during my stay in New York, I was first astonished by the empty space surrounded by the skyscrapers. But it did not look unnatural for me. I could not expand my strong personal connections to 9.11 since I was a three-year-old kid and knew it as a historical event. But, I tried to listen to the pains and groans of the dead when I was at the memorial and museum. I felt closer.

            In the Op-Ed writings, I felt distance when some of the writers mentioned other places like Kabul and Afghanistan, or Holocaust, or European bombed cities in the previous wars or Hiroshima. I’m not sure if we should treat 9.11 the same as bombings or attacks in those cities. Are they or we allowed to think 9.11 in the same box as “people who have already seen years like these turn into decade?” Does mentioning Pearl Harbor help us to understand 9.11 or what we should think from 9.11? I am thinking that it would be much more helpful to reflect on the loss and suffering of people harmed by 9.11 itself and what led to 9.11 and what 9.11 brought us. But I will keep on thinking about...