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