Hiroshima mon amour?

Elle: They make advertisements for soap. Why not for peace?
(Hiroshima mon amour, 1959)

Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima...
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki)

It's two mornings ago I was safely in Korea, cleaning the mess.

And saying goodbye to some really nice folks, even if the blind granny laughed at me all the time - she was nice!

And yesterday morning again in Japan...

Call me masochist or whatever you want. I really do some choices where to go when in Japan: Nagasaki, Iwanuma, now Hiroshima. Of course I had to go to the Ground Zero, The Memorial Hall and the Peace Park! Even more because of what I read about on the web. That the Memorial hall is a monument to Japanese innocence. That in Nagasaki at least are mentioned the Korean slaves that died in the bombing. Now I would love to remember the web sites with these informations, hunt down the idiots who wrote them and smash their faces on the walls of the Memorial Hall.




No, I wouldn't really do that - not there, but in a dark narrow street of Hiroshima, yes, with pleasure.
Because the first thing I saw, entering the Hall, after a slow walk in the Park, was a sign saying - I write by memory - "At a certain point in the 20th century Japan stepped on the path of war..." Yes, it doesn't mention the Japanese war crimes, I agree, but it cleraly states who choose to start the war. And the third sign admits that this decision caused so many death and suffering. The second is about the victims: "The bomb killed indiscriminately, not only the citiziens of Hiroshima, but Korean conscripted workers, Chinese conscripted workers and American prisoners of war" (again, by memory).
I'm so sick. No, don't worry, nothing to do with my health. My brain is so sick. I started to have hallucionations today on my way back from the Hall. I was avoiding people that weren't there. I was walking and suddenly there was someone in front of me, I jumped aside not to bump into him and be a barbarian baka gaijin... but there was nobody.



Morning in Hiroshima. I quit writing to show a guy from Denmark what umeshu is - hell, he's in Japan almost a month and he didn't have a clue what I'm talking about. Some beers (Kirin), a few sips of pure Korean soju (Jinro) and a full glass of umeshu put him to bed.
Not me, I'm a stubborn SOB.
No, I'm an idiot. And I mean it. We - meaning me (of course in the first place), Morten - the Danish guy - and some Japanese, not to mention a Japanese student in pink underwear that is here to make some research how the survivors of the bomb managed to overturn their hatred to a quest for peace. Don't ask me about her underwear, just believe me, it's pink. It was fine, talking a lot, drinking and eating, why not, I had plenty of Korean seaweed, soju, orange chocolate from Jeju island and ramyon (or, how they call it here: delicious but not healthy seaweed,; shochu made from potatoes; chockoreto from an island we yet have to make our own; and ramen that Koreans think they invented just because they call it ramyon). I agree with the last, its true.



So it was a nice late evening for all the bunch, me in a .. mood. Morten just had to ask her (the pink panties, you know) how the Japanese really coped with the bomb, with being colonialists and warmongers and upon being beaten so hard to turn to peace making and so on. Two of them started talking about suffering and how hard it was to overcome all that... when The Idiot just couldnt manage to keep his filthy mouth shut and said "Ask Yukio Mishima about that" Of course I stressed the name wrong so it took almost five seconds to the Japanese to realize who I'm talking about. And even without the air conditioning the temperature fell for some 30 degrees. I clearly heard the eye contacts freezing and crushing, yes, it was like something fell on the floor and the next moment I wasn't there anymore. Nobody saw me. I was just another no-person for them. Morten didn't have a clue what it was about, he went on with his private research about the Japanese quest for peace and all the Japanese - shit, I have to admit it, they did it really well - just looked at my non-existing I and my non-existing I just bowed and left the kitchen. I didn't want to put Morten in a delicate postion, I preferred to drop it off.
If you think you know something about Mishiam - well, I suppose you don't know a shit about Mishima Yukio (三島 由紀夫). First, it was a pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡 公威) and he was nominated for the Nobel prize for literature for three times. Oh, you knew this already? Maybe you should follow his example! Don't just read The Golden Pavillion... live his life! The bimbo, I have no better word for him, died committing seppuku. As the leader of a paramilitary organsiation, sworn to protect the Emperor, he failed a coup d'état with the intent to restore the Emperor's power and when the soldiers who were adressed by him started to mock him, he decided that his bowels need some air. It could be just another sad story of a psychopath with literary gift, but what REALLY PISSES ME OFF ABOUT THIS MOTHERFUCKING COWARDLY SADIST is that "Mishima received a draft notice for the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. At the time of his medical check up, he had a cold and spontaneously lied to the army doctor about having symptoms of tuberculosis; he was thus declared unfit for service." (Wiki) Ah, sending others to die for your motherfucking emperor is something natural...if you stay at home and look them perish for YOUR cause.
Shortly - even nominated for Nobel, he was just a Japanese nazi. Hidden under the cloak of bushido. But he DID seppuku in the 20th century. So he's a sort of an icon for Japanese. Clearly the point of his avoiding military service when it was really dangerous is avoided all the time, it's the bravery he showed in peace time that's important.
I hope you can get how Mishima doesn't really fit in a research about Japanese peacemaking. Again, don't get me wrong - don't know why folks so many times wants and do overturn my words just to fit their daily point of view - Mishima has nothing to do with the people who dedicated their life to peace, especially those who did survive The Bomb. Or The BombS, for the nijū hibakusha (even if only one is officialy recognized to be it, Tsutomu Yamaguchi)
After all this time and all my rantings you may wonder about my position about the bomb or the Japanese.. just keep wondering, that's what I do all the time. I wrote that I'm an idiot, it wasn't just to make a joke. Long ago it passed the time when I was so proud of "being crazty, yes, but stupid, never". Life proved me wrong so many times.
There's gonna be an A performing here, dunno exactly when, the day just skipped me. And there's gonna be a K and a B with her, all 48 of them, if I understood the posters well.
No sleep, third night in row. No wonder I see ghosts on the street.