1450 Diana and I at the Statue of Peace in the Nagasaki Peace Park.
1472 The US contribution to the World Peace Zone titled Constellation Earth.
1550 In the foreground is the surviving arch and wall of the Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki. On the left you can see the black monolith marking the spot over which the bomb exploded.
1553 Diana and the lady with the rose skirt and plaque with the date and time of the detonation.
Oct 17 – Nagasaki, Japan. This is the third time we’ve been docked in Nagasaki. We’ve always taken a tour out of town from here. This time we decided to stay in town and see this area.
Our first stop was at the Nagasaki Peace Park. Located near Ground Zero the park is dedicated to peace and there are various sculptures around the park from countries all over the world that express the sentiment that all humanity is one and should be able to get along. Sadly, a nice but impractical sentiment. The main statue here is the Statue of Peace. He’s seated on one leg with the other hanging down from the knee. His right arm points skyward almost to the point where the bomb exploded. His left arm is extended palm down as if to say stop. He was a major attraction for Japanese school kids on a field trip. They have bleacher type seats for them to stand on to take a picture of the group with the Statue of Peace. It was not exactly a surprise to find out that these kids knew all about the US dropping the bomb on Nagasaki but none of them had ever heard of Pearl Harbor. Apparently the Japanese educational system has revised history just like many of our schools in the USA. One either side of the Statue of Piece is an A-frame like structure with origami crane cascades hanging inside it. They appear to be 1,000 crane bundles that are supposed to give the creator some sort of good fortune for the perseverance it takes to fold 1,000 cranes.
Most of the sculptures in the “World Peace Zone” seem to be from Eastern Bloc countries several of which don’t exist anymore, East Germany (I always thought it was hilarious that East Germany was called the German Democratic Republic) and Czechoslovakia for example. The Russians had the only plaque that did not include at least some English. Fortunately we all saw CCCP on their Olympic uniforms the Cyrillic first letters of USSR.
The US statue was sponsored by St. Paul, MN a sister city of Nagasaki and is titled Constellation Earth. It has seven human figures arranged in roughly a sphere, each holding on to a foot or hand of at least two other people. It looks kind of like a skydiving formation but no parachutes because the figures are nude. I’m not sure about the olive-pea soup green color of the piece but the shape is pleasing. Each of the figures represents a continent and the contact each makes with some others is supposed to represent “global peace and solidarity” according to the quote on the plaque.
Next on the agenda was the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. I’ve hesitated to come here during our last two visits to this port because I was afraid it would be like the exhibit the Smithsonian had in Washington DC about the nuclear bombing of Japan. After a storm of protests from WWII veterans and other people with more of an accurate historical memory it was taken down. All the protesters wanted was that exhibit be changed to reflect reality, not the ideological point of view it expressed, and that the story be put in context, something very important to a real historian. The politically motivated knucklehead who created it said it ruined the integrity of his work, as if the original had any real integrity. What he meant was that his political message would be diluted. I figured if someone would try to pull that in the USA’s national museum, what chance did Nagasaki have of being honest and telling the whole story in context.
I’ll cut to the chase here and say that the displays were interesting and well-designed but limited in their contextual view and therefore not exactly to my taste. For example, there’s an area of the museum captioned “Events leading up to the Nagasaki Bombing”. You think at least some mention would be made of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or the fact that Hiroshima had been bombed as a demonstration of the power of the A-Bomb. I would think to know why it was done you’d have to discuss how bloody the battle for Okinawa had been and how many Allied and Japanese military personnel and civilians would have died in an invasion to take their home islands. Alas it was not to be. That area showed how the bomb, called Fat Man, was made and had a full size model of it. They did have a leaflet that was dropped days before the bomb was dropped warning the people to leave the city and for the troops to stop fighting. This is rarely mentioned by those who are offended by the bombing. These leaflets were dropped prior to the bombing of Hiroshima and widely distributed by US airmen risking being shot down to warn them of the impending attack. Seems to me they should have known what was coming and had every chance to avoid it. Not to mention the fact that they asked for it in spades with their unannounced attack on Pearl Harbor, their treatment of the Allied POWs and events like the Bataan Death March. Hard to generate much sympathy for them given all the facts.
In the area titled ‘Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombing they stressed two items. The destruction of a Catholic church and a school, the former selected solely for their emotional impact on Westerners. The latter would affect anyone because if anyone was innocent in this it’s the children. Most of the exhibits in this area were selected from the same two groups, a schoolgirl’s lunchbox, melted Catholic rosaries for example. One display was of special interest to me. They had an old Regulator type school clock on display that was stopped at exactly 11:02, the time of the bombing. I hate to be cynical but what are the odds that the clock that survived the bomb would have exactly the right time when it was stopped? The minute hand was exactly lined up with the 2 minute mark. I suspect that it was fiddled with before being displayed. I think my years of investigative work may have made me a little jaded.
Don’t misunderstand, the exhibits were interesting and authentic, at least in the most part. I just think they were selected for emotional impact on Westerners in specific. As with all things Japanese, the space was well laid out and following the displays was very easy. The lighting was perfect, the colors pleasant and the spaces and displays interesting. The bottom line is from the content point of view is that it was not as overtly manipulated at the Smithsonian exhibit. With the true Japanese touch it was subtle and much of my perception of that may have resulted from my own biases. The Japanese can be rightly proud of that.
The most interesting room for me was the one containing displays reporting the world’s stockpiles of nuclear arms. They had a round North Pole projection world map with a small red ICBM to represent every 100 missiles. Not surprisingly all the nukes are in the Northern Hemisphere. Also not surprisingly the Russians have the most, estimated 8,800, more than the rest of the Nuclear Club has in total. The US has 7,700 but what they don’t tell you is that the total power output of the US stockpile is suspected to be greater than that of the Russians. Not that any of that matters. Both sides have more than enough to destroy the entire planet on their own. Those not killed in the conflict would likely die of disease or starvation from nuclear winter within a very short time. I’m afraid that New Zealand’s idea of being a Nuclear Free Zone will not get them anything bur additional time to make their peace with God. Hanging directly over this map, as though diving to destroy it, is a model of a cruise missile.
They also had a globe showing the amount of nuclear testing by mushroom cloud size in various parts of the world. The largest cloud was in the desert southwestern US but the USSR had 5 clouds in its territory that cumulatively were much larger. Some of the small clouds in the South Pacific were our doing as well as the French but even added to the cloud in the US the USSR’s was still larger.
Along one wall they had a display of the various nuclear delivery systems, missiles of all types and bombers displayed in the order they were developed. Below each system was a mushroom cloud symbol for the amount tests done on that weapon, blue for atmospheric tests, purple for underground tests. In the early all or most of the tests were atmospheric, some of the later systems were only tested underground. By the 1980s both the US (Pershing I) and the Soviet (SS-20) Theater Nuclear Weapons were only tested underground. These were scary systems because they were designed to fight a limited nuclear war in Europe. For the first time the threat of mutual annihilation was somewhat lessened and the concept of Limited Nuclear War was born. At least theoretically, this made nuclear war more likely than when it would have killed everyone because there was at least a chance some of your side would survive. That scared everyone and finally the possibility of arms limitations arose.
From the Atomic Bomb Museum it’s only about 150 yards down a large staircase and across a small field to the Atomic Bomb Hypocenter commonly called Ground Zero now. There are several monuments in the field, the one that marks the position exactly below the point where the bomb exploded is a black granite monolith somewhat reminiscent of the one in 2001: A Space Odyssey around which the apes were discovering how to use bones as weapons. This one is faced in squares of black granite and has a large, also black rectangular box at its base with large white Japanese characters carved into its face. In front of the large box is a smaller rectangular altar-like structure. Various groups were laying 1,000 crane bundles on this box and then standing at the foot of the little hill it’s on to meditate or pray before collecting the cranes and carrying them up to the museum. The bundles were for sale in the museum shop in several sizes, all with a 1,000 cranes so you could cheat and not even fold your own offering to peace.
Sharing the field with the Hypocenter Monument were several other interesting monuments. One large one was of a woman holding a baby. The folds of her floor length skirt were styled like the clouds of the atomic mushroom’s base and had several sizes of roses in full bloom in them. At the bottom 1945 8.9 11:02 was inscribed, the date and time of the explosion. They had on display a large stone lantern that had the blackened marks for the atomic blast. Parts of an archway and brick wall with a saint atop it that survived the blast from the Urikami Cathedral were in the corner of the field. From near this structure on a little elevated spot you could clearly see the concentric white circles radiating out from the Hypocenter monolith. My personal feelings notwithstanding, I have to admit it’s a sobering place. A chance to reflect on the brink on which we lived in the Cold War era.
Personal Note: I get a little grin on my face when I hear or read the phrase Cold War. Over 30 years after I left the Air Force, I was awarded the last of my medals, the Cold War Victory Medal. I forget the span of years it covers but anyone who served during that time span is authorized to display the medal. They were very low key in announcing the award and if you wanted yours, you had to make an application that included your DD214. It issued free of charge but I’d be willing to bet that less than 5% of those who earned it applied for one. Actually a rational decision of the part of the Defense Department, saved a lot of money and those who actually wanted one, got one.
Our next stop was at the Nagasaki Museum of History. The entryway floor was a huge map of the world with discovery routes to and from Japan from both Spain and Portugal. They used four colors to show the routes to and from Europe. From Spain they used blue for the westbound route to Japan and green for the westbound return trip. From Portugal the outbound going east is orange and the return trip heading west is red. Both routes are long but the green and blue are much shorter. They include a land portion to cross Central America (OK, I know the new term is Mesoamerica but frankly, I don’t care).
This is a nice little museum. Since Nagasaki was among the first ports to allow contact with non-Japanese it’s appropriate that the main theme of the exhibits is contact with the outside world. Actually trade was somewhat open starting in the 16th century as was Christian missionary activity. Christianity was very attractive to a great portion of the population and this was a concern for the feudal system as the samurai were used to being revered and respected if not worshiped. Everyone had to kneel and bow when a samurai just passed by much less during any direct contact with them. Christianity introduced the idea that other humans should not be worshiped, a serious concern for the structure of society. Consequently Christianity was banned and international trade restricted to just a few ports of which Nagasaki was one. According to the displays in the museum it was the only port open to the west. China and Korea were allowed to enter and leave from several other ports.
In an event memorialized in the book Shogun, warriors were asked to renounce Christianity and if they did not, they were killed. Here in Nagasaki at the end of the 16th century 26 Christians were publically crucified including 6 missionaries and 3 children. They had been arrested in Kyoto and Osaka they were brought together in that area and forced to march through the snow to Nagasaki before being killed. This was a public warning to the people to reject Christianity. Shortly thereafter it was completely banned.
The museum has an area dedicated to trade with Korea. The Chinese used this Korean connection to get their goods into Japan as well. Another area tells the story of the arrival of Chinese and Dutch ships in Nagasaki. Imports such as silk, sugar and medicines were distributed from Nagasaki to the rest of Japan. Exports like gold, silver, copper, marine products and pottery were exported to China, the rest of Asia and Europe. Dutch Delft ware is directly derived from Japanese imports.
Eventually the Chinese were allowed to settle in a restricted area in the city but this provided the Japanese with exposure to Chinese religion and culture. Even later the Dutch were allowed to settle here on a man-made island, Dejima. During the Edo period this was the only European contact in all of Japan. With the Treaty of 1858 Japan was opened to other countries and the flood of foreign goods and technologies started a period of rapid change in Japanese society. This coincided with the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate (the last of the shoguns) and the start of the Meiji (Imperial) Restoration and the subsequent Meiji Era.
The museum also had a great display of early Japanese pottery, furniture (including some absolutely beautiful folding screens), early imported rifles, models of the city and the areas opened to foreigners plus some dioramas showing daily life in the city. This was a very enjoyable and informative place, about all you can as of a museum.
Back at the ship I decided to head out to explore the port area while Diana got a little rest and went to the spa. The wharf area had a collection of restaurants and that’s about it. It was a nice walk. A side wheeler steam & sail ship was moored in the harbor. We are docked in Dejima Harbor just a short way from the former Dejima Island where the Dutch were required to live. I say former because with the additional area reclaimed from the sea Dejima Island is not just another area in the city. They have kept a short wall around it so you can see where it was.
They had free Wi-Fi in the port area and I sat on a short wall for an hour while my anti-virus files updated. I said it was free, I didn’t say it was fast.
Our entertainment for the evening was Graffiti Classics, a group that looks like a classical string quartet but is anything but. They are funny, good instrumentalists and dance while they play. There are two violins, a viola and a cello. Every time we’ve seen them before there was an older man playing the bass and there wasn’t a cello. There was also a blonde violinist; she has been replaced by a Chinese lady who is the best player in the group. The new man with the cello has a much easier time with the dance steps only carrying the cello. The bass weights at least 4 times what the cello does and is twice a long and wide. When the bassist wanted to retire I’m betting they couldn’t find another person who would attempt what he did with the bass so they changed to a cellist. The act hasn’t changed much and it’s still fun. They play all sorts of music and they play it well, maybe better than before. The new violinist is certainly a standout. For all I know all four members may have changed but two I’m sure of because of the change of instruments and the addition of a no European.
Tomorrow a day at sea and then China.
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