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
